Annie is not sure how that could help.

"It sounds like you literally can't talk to each other because you both self-destruct if you're hurting the other person?"

"...it's not quite that bad but that's the gist, yes. It's not going to help to get information about that secondhand though."

"I'll trust you on that. ...could've been a bit more of a relationship-facilitating flavor of true love..."

"...it might actually work really well if it weren't for the trauma? I'm not sure."

"Fair enough."

Sigh.

"You okay?"

"When you asked if I wanted her to be magically in love with me I was kind of not imagining it being this hard for her."

"I should probably have thought of it - her being non-magically in love was hard - I think it'll get better. I don't think she's less happy than she was before."

"That's good then."

"When she was ...okay... it was important to her to do right by people who were hers, I think that's what you're running into."

"She's trying really hard."

"And we're a very stubborn family. She'll get there. Just - don't die."

"Doing my best."

"We should try to find my niece."

"You have a niece?"

"She disowned us. I don't know if she still feels that way, with the oath gone. But she's brilliant and likes Dwarves and might be able to help them out on the immortality."

"That'd be great - where is she?"

"I'm not sure. Balar, maybe - it's an island off Beleriand."

"...so how would we find her?"

"How much money do we have, if some Dwarves went there I think she'd listen."

"Uh -" Annie goes and tots up what she's got minus outgo.

"We could ask, with that much. Dwarves in general hate boats, but..."

"Maybe there's someone looking for an excuse to try putting a motor on a boat or something."