"I'm going to try chiplocked versus not chiplocked but this will not work for any of you if you don't want brain surgery."

"Would you like me to just kill your Sudoku square when he shows up," he asks Cor.

"If I'd wanted to finish assassinating him I could've done that myself."

"I was assuming it might've caused you some problems with his loyalists."

"I could have done it from far away."

- nod.

"Also, like, he's an Elf, so what would in fact happen is he would either get scooped up by your totally indefensible system of afterlives, or he'd go to his Mandos who mind controls people all the fucking time and would not confine himself to 'maybe this guy should be less evil', like, he also doesn't like it if people are gay."

"Not being able to kill or imprison him does leave us with a frustrating lack of options, though, should he appear."

"Putting him to sleep should be fine, actually."

"Lasts ten minutes. And doesn't work on Elves of the local sort though maybe it'll work fine on yours since they're an entirely different species."

"Do you have a way to stop him from mindreading random people who don't have private thoughts down - a portable way -"

"No."

"You could make him swear not to."

"Crosses a line but I suppose there aren't very many options that don't. There's no longer-duration sleep option?"

"There's causing him brain damage."

"Well. If he shows up and everyone present is very annoyed with him and have seriously considered murdering him on the spot and the way not to do that whether quickly or slowly involves him swearing not to read anybody's minds he will probably figure that out."

Nod.

"He'll probably look just like mine or Cam's at a glance, of course."

"But ping evil. I guess Cam's might too, if he was complicit in the planet destruction."

"Helped with the oath text. And with not letting Findekáno warn the Valar when I let something slip."

Khemet and his husband seem to find this amusing; they look at each other.

"We won't hurt anyone when they show up."

"Thank you."

"- he won't look just like yours. He will have the, uh, evidence of his slight assassination on his forehead, or maybe cover it up somehow."

"Is the Elf imprisonment thing triggered by, like, a spell that reduced his ability to operate his limbs until he had to sort of flop around on the floor, but we didn't stop him from flopping anywhere he wanted?"