"You disagree?"

"I wasn't aware that was how you prioritized diplomatic attention."

"We have two priority lists - one for need, one for resources - and Shadow is kind of neither."

"No list for threats? No list for 'they exist, and we would like not to be caught off guard'?"

"Do you think he's a threat?"

"I don't think he's a wall sconce. Are you really just ignoring him?"

"Pretty much...the rest of our template is for historical reasons very badly equipped to deal with him, and he certainly has not tried very hard to make friends -"

Ristrell sighs. "Well. Is anyone going to be annoyed if I, caring no more about his personal life than I do about the rise to power of the current President of Botswana, make some attempt to have a formal Tide/Shadow relationship established the way I would with any other political unit whether it had things I wanted or not?"

"We are not actually overbearing enough to think we get opinions about who our allies want to have formal relationships with and in this particular case will be very relieved if you succeed in that attempt."

"Lovely."

And he organizes his people in the command structure the Yeerks are accustomed to and there are eleven who are curious about having a Yeerk and they write up summaries of their personalities so interested Yeerks can decide if they'd like to work with them and then he hands everybody over to Ristrell for Yeerk-rehabilitation-and-processing and heads back home to try to handle all the patching that'll be needed to do to keep everything else running with so many people deployed elsewhere.

There are enough Yeerks prepared to vacate their current hosts or whose current hosts are away for other reasons to occupy all eleven interested parties and do osanwë coordination. A list is provided.

The Yeerks need lots of sorting. They need a census with intrusive personal questions. Name and number and parent cluster and place of origin. Age (anyone under three months will get moved into a poolful of good role models), skills (affects what sort of voluntary non-basement-dweller host may be available), history with past hosts (especially if they were one of those who got ahold of a human before the system was discovered by Andalites and the Empire locked it down and they stopped shipping humans away from Earth), can they provide a reference from someone who is known to someone who is (...) a preexisting member of the Resistance as known to Ristrell, are they willing to be mindread to get expedited processing and then be able to help with the sorting process and relieve the Space Elves some.

They can start with whoever's most willing to answer these questions and not run out of relatively cooperative Yeerks for quite a while.

After Midnight leaves he pulls up his crystal ball and does his neglected reading.

He waits a few weeks, and then he goes to Shadow and requests an audience with its king.

Who grants it.

"Hi," he says. "I did my reading and I understand why you had trouble saying it. But. I want to hear you say it."

"...right now?"

"Do you need prep time? I don't have obligations back at home."

Pop. Here is a mountain range with a stunning view. 

He turns and looks at him expectantly. 

"I raped him and I toyed with his head  and I held him prisoner for four hundred years and would have done it forever if I could have."

Nod. "Couldn't say it because you're ashamed of it, or because you wanted a hug and thought I'd be less inclined to give one, or -"

"I don't think I'm ashamed of it but I don't really like thinking about it."

"I'm glad you visited."

"I was planning to spend a few centuries wallowing in grief and here I am, motivated to do things that are not that.

I gather you don't want to be a good person. Do you want to be the sort of person people can trust? The sort of person people can make themselves vulnerable to?"