"Do you have any sense of what'd go over better? At a guess, if he heard it from me and Treven, as the government-in-exile of Valdemar coordinating with the Noldor government, at least he doesn't have personal enmity with us? Unless he decides he has personal enmity with me over, er, my being involved in the thing." 

Telumë winces. 

"If we're trying to finesse him on this then maybe we should talk to Nerdanel," Jisa offers quietly. "She speaks Fëanáro-language and she also, um, has common sense." 

"So the big thing is that formally Nolofinwë has no role in the government of the Noldor. He just started doing everything Maitimo was responsible for when Maitimo left, and Maitimo was - doing most of the King's job in the first place. And ideally Fëanáro would be persuaded to just - let that state of affairs continue, it's working fine. If he instead gets mad and throws us out -" Shrug. "If we're not relying on the Noldor for the god plan then it probably doesn't matter nearly as much."

"What's our backup plan if he does kick you out? We should have someone who will end up in charge with a non-disastrous transition. Although I think our best bet here is to - hmm. One of the skills Fëanáro does have is - thinking in numbers, I guess? And if we present this as a boring resource-constraints problem, and can manage to set it up so the ruthlessly correct tradeoff is 'just let your brother who you hate run the city already', maybe he'll be willing to use that mode of reasoning for his decision." 

"...maybe. Sounds like how I would expect Maitimo to finesse it if he were trying to make it work instead of trying to make it not. I think probably if he kicks us out he'll give it to Macalaurë, who will not do catastrophically or anything."

"All right. And if that happens then I can talk to you and so can Treven and Macalaurë should be willing to talk to us, or if not us then Stef, they're good friends. And we could at least try to make sure your perspective and interests are heard, because I think that's really important. Er, would that be a scenario where your father storms out and founds his own city after all?" 

"Only if it's a good idea, I think. - it's a good idea if the alternative is a lot of people feeling like they can't live under a government they have any confidence in, it's a bad idea if it just divides us when things are still mendable."

Nod. "Well, I really hope we can get it to go better than that and not need to make that call, but if we do need to then I trust you and your father to judge it correctly. ...Sorry, Vanyel, this is kind of a digression from the Shadow-Lover report part." 

"Oh, right." Vanyel is looking kind of disoriented again. "...Give me a minute, I lost where I was in here." He starts sifting through his notes. 

"Is the government of Karse in exile relocating to Vinyamar as well?" he asks Karis. 

"If by 'the government of Karse in exile' you mean myself," Karis says, "I - go where Treven does. Unsure if they have made a decision." 

"Basically we've decided on Vinyamar," Dara says absently. "It's convenient, the only downside is less protection from the Valar. But right now I think having more barriers between us and Maitimo is looming larger than the Sauron problem." 

"That makes sense to me."

Vanyel shuffles through his notes a bit more. Holds up three fingers. "Er, things - Vkandis, Groveborn, Foresight, can someone make sure I...? Sorry I'm being so incoherent." 

“Sure. What did he have to say about Vkandis?”

"I asked about the wisdom of, er, informing him of Sauron's intended betrayal, and also practicalities. He - was very cagey about it. I think maybe due to the Foresight being all blurry and that being the only way the gods know how to reason about things. But he suggested the Star-Eyed would have clearer predictions there, due to being more - similar? - to Vkandis in overall god-shaped-ness, and also having previously been allied with Vkandis before Sauron shifted the, er, godly equivalent of the geopolitical landscape in Velgarth. And if the Star-Eyed does think it's a good idea then probably Karis can get His attention, but - would have to be in a temple to Him. Which is obviously very fraught. Makes me wonder if we can just built a temple to Vkandis somewhere random and have that work..." 

"It must be consecrated properly," Karis says, "but I know how and - it is my right to. I think." 

“Not here, but - far from the rest of our operations, sure.” This sounds incredibly dangerous for Karis but presumably she knows that very well.

"Wouldn't work in Arda anyway. The Shadow-Lover was able to confirm that Velgarth gods don't have that kind of - mobility, I guess. And don't currently have the reach even to communicate here although that could change. Anyway. Groveborn. I asked because I wanted ways to pass a message to the Shadowgod without, you know, having to stop my own heart, because if the message was 'Sauron is about to murder the population of Rethwellan to get Melkor' I really don't want to be in a hospital bed for the rest of the day. And that won't work, because the Web infrastructure is gone. Meaning Rolan is - missing a lot of his him, I guess. Dara, has he been, er, doing all right...?" 

"Ohhhhh." Dara looks incredibly relieved, actually. "Is that what it is? He was having a bad time, yes. Especially right after the attack on Haven - he sort of kept it together while we were fleeing, which is really good because I was a disaster at the time. For the last few months he's just been very, well, passive. Anytime I go to him for advice the answer is usually 'I don't know'. I guess if he was relying on Foresight for having answers, and the Web going down took out his connection to that entirely..." 

"Not entirely, I think. But a lot of it. Anyway, he - told me some things I could pass on that might help Rolan, er, acclimatize better to existing this way, be more functional as something closer to a normal person." 

"Oof. I'm glad to have an explanation, he couldn't really tell me what was wrong. Oh and I guess I'll have to apologize for shouting at him about being useless." 

“The last thing you said you wanted to tell us was about Foresight, was that it -“

"I'm not sure?" Shuffle shuffle with his notes. "...No, that wasn't all of it. I was asking about concrete help. Whether he could do miracles for us, things like that. It - the problem is that gods don't have very much direct influence in the material world, right? And usually they can get leverage by - nudging things upstream of an event they want to happen. Spirit avatars and prophetic dreams or premonitions are both 'cheaper' than possessing someone, which can only happen under some circumstances, and a lot cheaper than directly taking actions with magic themselves - Vkandis strikes people with lightning sometimes to make a point, but it's way less efficient to do that, and the Shadowgod is very resource-constrained in Valdemar right now. And unfortunately They also can't really use nudges, because Sauron keeps walking around smashing things and blurring the Foresight too much."

Vanyel rubs his eyes; he's starting to look very tired. "The Shadow-Lover did say that if we had an idea for a specific nudge or minor miracle, and a way of communicating it, that could give efficiency gains - the trouble is that the Shadowgod doesn't really have levers to possess people directly, or a spirit avatar who can meet and get information from a human agent who isn't on death's door. The Star-Eyed does, so if we get Her help, we could use the Tayledras here."