"Nobody's happy about it, but..."

"It's probably for the best. There are things that could change that but they don't really - seem to apply -"

"Apparently 'before this one comes out of Mandos' is a good window for me to try sitting one of them down for therapy if I'm going to do that but we have to assume this one would be a harder case."

"There's only so much therapy can do for having committed hundreds of thousands of murders. Different problem than Angband."

"Yeah. On that front - we haven't tried putting Elspeth with anybody who still thinks they're in Angband - her communication magic thing makes her very difficult but not impossible to disbelieve, we think it'd maybe have weird results - but if this one's almost certainly going to want to die anyway thought we might as well try it -"

"Makes sense.

I don't suppose there's a way to just - erase the last eight thousand years -"

"...could do. Can ask him if that's preferable."

"It won't be preferable unless there's a thoroughly irrevocable way for him to be safe."

"The others are settling for indelible eidetic memory and Loki's teleport spell."

"There's got to be a lot of stuff out there in the multiverse-"

"Tons. You mean to make that not so irrevocable or to improve on it?"

"He'll be concerned with the former."

"The alt of me who's been through Angband worries about it but I haven't actually heard that the Maitimos do. Maybe I just don't hear that sort of thing."

"Do you know them well?"

"No. My Arda doesn't have one - the Fëanáro from it is twelve - there is a Space fork living in Warp now but we're all very busy people -"

"I'm pretty sure he'll worry about it."

"Seems reasonable."

"It can probably wait a few years anyway. Until everything's stable here. Maybe once Mandos has a better understanding of incarnates he can be persuaded to let him, uh, the dead equivalent of sleep."

"I'll mention it to Elspeth and she can cover it in her - Remedial Incarnates magic lecture."

"I've never met the Valar. What are they like?"

"I am not the right person to go for a fair and balanced description."

"Well, neither were my parents."

"Yes, but I arrived in Valinor with a homeworld-instilled generalized terror of deities and was assured that it was locally unnecessary only for the Valar to insist over my begged objections on bended knee on kicking me back to my own world where I was convinced I would instantly die." Pause. "They apologized after Elspeth talked to them."

"I'm sorry. Elspeth must be very impressive."