"Indeed. Anyway, Finwë thinks exiling Fëanáro is a really bad idea, and he solves it by going into exile with him and appointing Nolofinwë the regent in Tirion. About a third of the Noldor follow Fëanáro and Finwë as an act of protest, the rest stay. I stayed, Nolofinwë needed some support to take over gracefully and Fëanáro still hadn't apologized -"

"Apologies seem to be fairly complicated for him."

"Yes. The whole thing was complicated. In hindsight I would have gone with them, though I think by then it was too late to make a difference. While they are in exile Melkor sacks the city, steals the Silmarils, burns down the library, kills Finwë. The Valar'd summoned Fëanáro to a festival of reconciliation. He learned of what had happened only when the Suns went out."

Nod.

"He has something of a breakdown, which his children help him through - swears to get the Silmarils back - it wasn't until after the war that anyone was told why that was important, of course -"

"I mean, I can appreciate the logic of keeping that a bit quiet..."

"Yes, absolutely, but it divided the Noldor further. The people who knew Fëanáro and his children well enough mostly said 'there is a good reason for doing it and a good reason for not telling us', the people who didn't mostly said 'that's insane, irresponsible, and unforgivable, let's make someone else the ruler of the Noldor -"

Nod.

"I said to Maitimo 'you realize the Enemy could give one to anyone and you'd be bound to -' and he said 'I hope the Enemy does do that, it's better than him having all three'. I, um, would say it's not acceptable to play games with stakes like 'get the Enemy to manipulate you into massacring civilians because his instrument of such manipulation will otherwise be put to even worse uses', but considering how things turned out that game looks outright harmless."

"Mm."

"Sorry, should I not bring that up?"

"It's fine, I just don't have anything to add."

"In a bizarre way I find it sort of reassuring to learn that there is such a thing as a compelling reason to obliterate an inhabited planet."

"Reassuring?"

"My home planet was destroyed too. I wasn't on it, but my father was. The official story makes it sound like an act of random disproportionate terrorism."

"My condolences. ...and you're wondering whether that's true?"

"It's hard to substantiate. I haven't devoted a lot of resources to solving the mystery."

"Cam could - or, um, if that'd be upsetting on some level, any other demon could - pretty trivially get the information you'd be interested in..."

"Only if it was committed to unencrypted recorded format, which is unlikely. Subspace transmissions in particular don't count."

"I don't know about subspace transmissions, but even if it was encrypted, if people weren't expecting to protect against demons they've usually failed to."

"I could ask Cam to try things, but it seems unlikely to be fruitful and unlikelier to be constructive."

"Fair enough. I'm very sorry. I'm sure you've been told Loki's working on resurrection -"

"Of course."

"The good news is that civilizations are very resilient to their planet being annihilated and a new one made for them. They will all eventually be alive and some time after that they will be okay."

"It's good to know that."