He looks around the room a little warily. "'s complicated."

"We are unpopular in some quarters for conquering a planet."

"More complicated than that."

"Well, we have to call you something and if you don't pick it I'm assigning you 'pointy-ears'."

"The Andalites also have pointy ears."

"The Andalites also have names - which, let me tell you, makes no sense - so Caranth can have a name and this one can be pointy-ears."

Kimli opens his mouth, then closes it, brow furrowed.

"Sure."

"Um."

"..........Nip...sy?"

Nipsy appears.

"I wasn't sure that would work. Uh. I think that guy might... be... uh... dan...gerous."

"Nipsy will be keeping an eye on him, sir!"

"Um. Thank you."

"...what'd he do?"

"...remember when Isun said sometimes braids commit horrific mass slaughter -"

Merenre's security stiffens.

He sits down. He looks very tired. "I have no idea what the history books in fourteen hundred years say."

"I don't either, Kimli's the reader - who is he, Kimli -"

"It's the name? The Andalite's 'Caranth'. And one of the Fëanorians was 'Caranthir'."

"Wow. Okay. That's sure a person for the universe to drop on us."

"The who?"

"My father's name is Fe-Anar."

"Well, in Arda the lot of you do a bunch of mass slaughter. Not all of it, there was plenty to go around back then, but a bunch of it."

"...why?"

"They had something we needed for the war against Melkor."

" - seems like a bad plan."

"It certainly went very badly."