"- I don't understand."

"Hmm. Imagine someone was madly in love with you, but it was because they'd dreamed their whole life about someone with your face shape and hair color? It feels - about that arbitrary."

Nod.

"I don't know if there's anything I can do about it but it's - yeah."

"- it was sweet how she taught the kids hand signs when they wouldn't talk."

Squeeze. "Thanks. Uh. I feel unfair even saying this but I think you being in love with her would hurt her less if it were for actual reasons."

"I can try but could you have phrased that in literally any other way."

"Sorry, what's the problem part -"

"It is just about impossible to think clearly around the possibility of hurting her, you could have said she would rather it or it would have startled her less or it would've been a mitigating factor or - or something - unless the idea is that I should make things up because right now the artifact really wants me to make things up -"

"Fuck, I'm so sorry. Okay. So, tell the artifact you can't lie to her, lying to her solutions will just fail to work because she'll notice. I'm sorry, I'll be more careful -"

Shiver. "Okay."

"She's okay. She's going to be okay. She is better off for having you in her life, there will be ups and downs but this is so much better than just numbly waiting for the end."

"Okay."

"And she is a wreck and it is honestly insane to be in love with her and it's fine if it's just a magic thing that definitely would not otherwise be a thing, that's okay, we'll figure it out."

"You can tell me about what she was like before if that would help -"

"It might." Sigh. "It's probably worth trying."

"...I might just wind up crying but possibly productively, so."

"Crying because that person is dead and totally irretrievable, or -"

"Yeah - grieving? I guess? It might depend on how much I'm anchored on her-now and not her-over-her-lifetime -"

Nod. "I - did a lot of grieving. The worst part was when she was still in there and we couldn't rescue her -"

"My cousin found out. Forty five years in - it's complicated, they hadn't arrived until just then. And she said 'what have you done to rescue her' and I said 'there is absolutely nothing that wouldn't just have been throwing away more lives' and we had the worst fight and she - went off and rescued her, I - I don't know if I could have but maybe it would have been better to die trying - sorry, this isn't what you asked about -"

"It sounds maybe important anyway."

"They'd chained her to the face of a cliff and used magic to keep her alive while she just - hung there. She begged my cousin to kill her and then the Valar decided to be helpful and send a means of rescue instead- it's when she lost the hand - and she came back and she put herself together so convincingly you could almost buy it and she - actually, I think I need to back up -"

The departure from Valinor, the succcession dispute, the ships, the first battle for Beleriand, the no-longer-eliding-the-politics rescue, Rirosseth surrendering the crown she'd wanted her whole life and uniting her people behind that horribly painful choice and taking them all east -

Annie wrings her hands and intermittently sniffles and listens.