Yeah, exactly.

I'd want to tell Alex.

That makes sense. I think my father'll guess.

And react how?

Worst-case pretend he didn't guess, best-case - be all right, I think. Possibly worry about me.

I have a very poor sense of how human romantic conventions parse to Elves, really...

It'd actually be kind of a blend of - human romantic conventions and this Cuivienen-era assumption that non-marriage sexual relationships are - transactional and at least somewhat hostile.

...non-marriage as in not married or as in not potentially married -

Not potentially married, not-yet-married means you can't have taken it that far -

I'm still unclear on how in the world that part works but I suppose that's a tangent.

You mean what acts get straight couples married? I don't actually know, people are usually too embarrassed to say and the vast majority of people get married deliberately and it's obvious -

Even if it's on purpose the finer details seem mysterious.

I could probably go around and ask, it'd only be a little weird.

It's not important. ...It'd bother me if your dad was worrying about you but maybe there's nothing to do about that?

Yeah, that - seems like a hard one to fix. 

...actually, it would also bother me if your dad worried about you, actually thought something fucked-up was going on, and did not attempt to do anything about it.

When someone is in a relationship that's not good for them I don't try to stop their abuser or make them leave, because usually if you try that they'll just cut you out and then they're more isolated when they're ready to leave. There's - stuff you can't fix, except by continuing to be present in someone's life.

I didn't mean to be that specific about 'do anything', but fair enough.

He might talk to me? He probably wouldn't do more than that, and I'm - not sure that'd be the wrong call, under the relevant assumptions - some of my sisters would but they're also unlikely to guess and I'd see it coming if they did.

Nod. So - practicalities of hiding - collar stays in a box in my mom's garage where all the stuff I didn't move here is - it is pretty though - heavy on the telepathy and the pretending to work, maybe hazard looking like 'cuddly friends'...

Until some mage figures out how to do portals you don't need to be a mage for, and then we don't need the Valar for anything and can be as open as we like.

They won't get more active than withholding help?

Nah. Definitely not if we're based outside Valinor at that point, they basically regard that as outside their jurisdiction. 

Are we going to need anything from anyone else with similar opinions?

The entire Elven population? Yes, but I was planning to eventually change their minds on the topic anyway, there are other people it hurts.

Timeline on that? We're only guessing that mages can do portals anyway, they could be naturally occurring or made by some third type of eclipsed if the Earth used to have another moon and sapient dinosaurs or something...