Leareth looks around to check that Nolofinwë is actually following them. Then, Gate, right back to the spot they left. :We are back: he informs Nelyafinwë as he unweaves the Gate. :It did not go disastrously: 

–And then he slams up a privacy-barrier around the others. :Can the three of you. Please. Have a conversation. That results in somewhat less tension at the end of it. I am aware that, whatever the goad, whoever's scheme you were pawns in, words were said and actions were taken that cannot be undone. You cannot undo the past but you can, perhaps, choose the future. Fëanàro, have you actually apologized to your half-brother about the incident? Because I think that you ought, to his face, now. I think it would give us a better future: 

He might be slightly less snappish about it if he had less of a headache and hadn't just spent the last however long trying to conceal all of his emotions in front of fourteen gods. Maybe. 

I'm not really sorry, Fëanáro says. 

          I will obey the King of the Noldor, Nolofinwë says. 

Finwë looks helplessly between the two of them. 

Leareth sighs and sits down on his bed.

:There are shades of meaning to the word 'sorry': he says slowly. :At least in my language. Whether you think you acted regrettably given the information you had at the time is one, and perhaps you do not especially think that, Fëanàro. However, I am coming in as an outsider, and from my perspective, perhaps everyone acted toward what they saw as the good of the future, and yet - the course of the last many years seems regrettable to me, taken as a whole. In your place, if I had the choice to go back and live it over without Melkor's influence, without the arguments and angry words and threats ever arising: 

He sits back. :You need not claim personal fault or wrongdoing, simply that - an event happened, that caused hurt, and if you could rerun the course of history, you would prefer it not need have happened. Would you prefer that?: 

(And he listens to all of their surface thoughts.) 

This seems like some kind of elaborate circumlocution to get a concession out of him and he doesn't like it. 

I wish that I had never had cause to believe that my half-brother would betray me and his people, he says, after a while. 

Nolofinwë is thinking that Fëanáro never apologizes, never backs down, sometimes refrains from further mistakes and that's the best you can expect of him. From the moment that he raised the sword to Nolofinwë's throat the best possible outcome was that Nolofinwë forgive him, and promise him the obedience he deserves less with every passing day, and that that's good enough. There is just absolutely no point in setting ones' aspirations any higher than that.  

Someday Fëanáro will get tired of Kinging and set it aside - as soon as Nelyafinwë raises some children, though gods know when that'll be, now - and then Nolofinwë will be very competently managed into being reminded very infrequently that he would have been a better King.

Finwë is thinking that he's so tired of this and everything he tries makes both of them worse and he doesn't know how to repair things with his wife and it's his fault that Fëanáro is like this, he never had a childhood so no wonder he never grew out of one...

Leareth closes his eyes for a moment, breathes in and out.

:Thank you: he sends to Fëanàro – that was, after all, some effort. Then he ducks his head just past the barrier. :Nelyafinwë, could you please come here? It is not an emergency, but I am trying to make a tense conversation happen in the open and you would be better at it:

And back in, hopefully before any of them notice.

:I come: he sends, slowly, :from a world where people die. Forever. Where the kinds of pain and mistrust that lie between you happen, and - cannot be resolved, as often as not, because the participants run out of time. Sometimes because they kill one another. And I come to your world, which has some serious problems - including the Valar, who may or may not be managing it responsibly, and no, it is not 'responsible' automatically because it is their choice, ethics does not work like that. However, you have one fewer problem. You have time: 

He shrugs. :I can help you fix some of your problems with magic. Not this one. But I think it would at least be easier to move on with this, to not let Melkor's past work continue to ruin your future, if the problem has at least been spoken of: 

I hate him, Fëanáro says. I wish he'd never existed. My father's obsession with getting him came at the expense of everything I have ever wanted from the world and he simply isn't worth it. If he were intelligent, if he were capable of something, if he were imaginative, I could imagine that maybe with enough time it'd at least be a tragic trade, one important thing for another important thing. But it wasn't. It was a trade of an important thing for a worthless thing and I will never see him and think about anything other than the fact I wish he didn't exist.

Nelyafinwë rounds the corner, sees the three of them, visibly flinches.

Leareth pulls him inside the barrier as well. :I am sorry: he sends privately, and sends a quick summary of the conversation so far, including Fëanàro's most recent words.

Then back to the group. :Thank you. I - can see some of why you feel this way, I think. You...have not, in fact, lived in paradise all this time. Even when those around you did. You had already lost something of incalculable value: 

- he looks startled by this.

            She didn't want to come back, Finwë says hollowly, staring at the ground. I wanted her to - I would've waited, if there was a chance -

(I, too, wish you didn't exist, Nolofinwë completes his father's point in his own head, very tiredly. The thing about how Fëanáro never backs down is that once he's said something then it's an immutable feature of the world. Everything he just said has been true for three thousand years but he never said it so the possibility remained that maybe, somehow, someday, it wouldn't be true.)

:I am sorry for your loss: Maybe he can fix it, someday, somehow, but he can't fix the past three thousand years. :Sometimes the world is broken. Even here, it seems, no matter what the Valar claim to have made. And sometimes the jagged broken pieces of it sit there, and with each moment they wear at the remainder, and cause more damage. And I cannot undo any of that: He turns to Fëanàro. :I wish I had the power to bring her back. Currently I do not. All I can say is, this is a tragedy. A wrong thing happened. It is still wrong no matter how necessary or immutable it may have seemed: 

:Also, it does not mean that your brother does not deserve to exist. Regardless of how useful he is. He did not ask to be born, and people deserve to exist because they are people, not only because of their worth to others. You do not need to like him. It is understandable that you do not, in fact. But – I come here as an outsider, and I wish for nobody else to die. That includes you. And Nolofinwë. And all of the others. No matter what Melkor wants to try next: 

I don't especially want him to die, he says. If we lived on different continents and I never heard anything about him that'd be fine. And I've been working on exactly that for sixty Years now. 

:Well, hopefully that will happen very soon, and we can make the best of this broken world until we are strong enough to fix all of it:  Until he finds a way to bring back the dead. Hopefully if something does go terribly wrong on the other continent then they can manage to coordinate civilly. At least he understands the problem better, sort of, maybe that's something. Possibly trying to make a group of people thousands of years older than him discuss ancient hurts while he's exhausted and has a headache was an ill-timed plan. 

If that's everything, says Nolofinwë stiffly. 

Leareth drops the barrier. If there was a non-disastrous way to give Nolofinwë his condolences, he might try that, but there's nothing he hasn't already said clearly out loud. He probably owes Nelyafinwë an apology for something in this vicinity even if he isn't sure what yet. 

"I've got a lot of work to do," says Fëanáro, and leaves too, walking faster, so he passes Nolofinwë in the hallway.

" - you look exhausted," Maitimo says to Leareth, and takes his arm and tugs him away.

Leareth is exhausted so that's not surprising. :I apologize for losing my temper with your very frustrating family – while it was informative, I am not sure it ended up being productive at all: 

I should've given you more context. And maybe it was good for my father to get it off his chest. Privately he doubts this very much; when you'll never back down from anything it's generally better to discourage you from committing to too many of your opinions in front of an audience. But of course Leareth is frustrated with the whole mess; it's immensely frustrating. 

He should've had a primer on everything the minute Leareth arrived but of course he was - trying not to think -

Worked out better than my median scenario going in, he says instead cheerfully, letting go of Leareth's arm as soon as there's no audience.

:I should have asked you for context, but everything has been very rushed: Leareth closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. :Usually I am somewhat more politically savvy than this – then again, usually I have any context. I wish there were a world anywhere that did not have some pointless bottomless-pit problem that even the gods cannot or will not fix: 

It's a small thing, really, compared to the weight of suffering in Velgarth. Just one mother's death, a grieving husband and son, thousands of years of that pain played out. He's angry anyway, but it's not worth dwelling on now, there's nothing new to find there. 

:Did you hear any report on our conversation with the Valar?: he asks. :Did anything happen here while I was gone?: 

Uneventful. Though I was ready to tell everyone there was a bonfire lit in the amphitheater of the second linguistics guild, if that conversation went too poorly.

:Really. How bad was your worst-case scenario? Clearly I was not being paranoid enough: 

It occurs to me that maybe your people don't have - 

I would like you to be careful about saying anything aloud until I've clarified this. I'm sorry, I should have sooner, but - 

- can you swear to things?

He can easily not say anything aloud, he hasn't been dedicating any time to gaining Quenya vocabulary lately. :...I mean, yes? It is common for people to swear oaths on their honour, or their kingdom, or other things. They - are really only worth what a person's integrity is – there are some methods to make something magically binding, but this is very rarely attempted. From the way you speak of it, yours are different?: 

I made an oath, once, on the stars. It really won't add anything to speak of it now.