"Honestly I think you're taking it really well. I appreciate that you're helping me think of options, it'd be very understandable to want to hang up and forget all about it. I think it'll mean a lot to her even if we can't think of a good solution in the end."

"It wasn't supposed to be a whole thing, I just hit on her and..."

"Yeah, I know. She's pretty but could be you can't stand each other. And normally I'd suggest some dates so you can find out,  but you have a family, you're not looking for another sub."

"Right. Johnny's not jealous if it's casual but this suddenly got so not casual -"

"It's probably not impossible to keep it casual - for Elves something can go on a while before it's anything more than a fling - but it'd definitely be a lot harder, yeah. It sounds like it might help a bit if I told Johnny how Elves work?"

"Maybe, yeah."

"Okay. How about you give me a call when it seems like a good time for that."

"I just texted him, he answered so that means he's not actively skiing right now."

"So should we go ahead and talk to him now then?"

"Yeah. Text first." Phone number.

Text. "Hey Johnny, this is Maitimë. I'm one of the Valinor ambassadors. Can I talk with you? It's not urgent and everybody's OK."

Delay delay Okay?

"Can I give you a call?"

Yeah go ahead

Call. "Hello?"

"Hello? George said you were going to give me some context on an international incident? He seemed kind of freaked out."

"There was a mistake he was involved in, but it wasn't his fault. When Elves have penetrative sex between a man and a woman we form a permanent soul bond. No one knew that could happen with humans, and what things exactly risked causing it were not communicated clearly, and it turns out that if an Elf does that with a human they get a one-way soul bond. So George is fine but there's an Elf who accidentally bonded to him, and they're both pretty freaked out."

"...oh, hell. What's a. What's a soul bond do."

"Uh, it varies a little by person. Normally you can sense if the person is in danger and feel like you're squeezing their hand from afar, things like that.  Elves usually only do it when they get married, but she understands that's not how humans do it and she will definitely support George in putting your family first."

"...okay. So now there's an Elf who has - George-is-in-danger-sense or something."

"And can't have sex with anyone else, and is married under Elf law, but wants to minimize the degree to which this hurts anyone."

"- married under Elf law. Elf law doesn't require preexisting spouses to sign off on that sort of thing, or is it only subs who don't get a say like this is Iran or something - what do you mean she can't?"

"Under Elf law soul bonds just are marriage, and a party already being married had never come up because you can't form another soul bond, so it wouldn't come up. I do not know what would happen if she tried to marry someone else but there's a risk she'd just die."

"If she tried to marry some- you're still conflating sex and marriage."

"Under elf law there isn't a distinction. That is a significant part of the problem here. I agree with you that it is a problem and I would like to change it but I don't expect it to change on the timeframe relevant to our dilemma."