Nod. "Anyway. 813. The Noldor started recruiting mages in Velgarth for our wars in Arda. There was some discussion of operations in Velgarth, too, down the line - we were allied with Leareth, he had his plans to build an empire and a god, we had an army that was very much in his debt for the war with Melkor - initially the Noldor were welcome, when we started doing diplomacy in Velgarth. But then the local gods told the local governments not to trust us. My father figured - well, fuck the local gods, and if they'll listen to the local gods then we'll have to go right through the local governments - and suddenly the Noldor were at war with Valdemar, and Karse, and Iftel. I left. I don't - like the local gods either, but - suddenly it felt like we were either just bringing a lot of armies into a bad equilibrium and hoping that a better one emerged, when it looked much likelier to just leave ashes in our wake, or we were just trying to kill ten million people and it didn't feel like we'd tried at all to not do that. And - and maybe if we'd just said up front 'we are starting these wars with the intent to kill ten million people and build Leareth's god' maybe I could have worked on that, but it felt instead like we got there sideways, like we started killing people and then noticed that it wouldn't be quite as awful if in retrospect we'd been doing it for a reason -"

"I find Valdemar's local god situation pretty opaque and quiet to, uh, foreign policy interests, how did that manifest -"

"Companions got some divine revelations, the Web stopped working, Leareth got suddenly and implausibly set upon by a truly astonishing number of gryphons."

"Wow, that is a major style shift, that's more - 'Vkandis took over Valdemar' than 'Valdemar's god got spooked' -"

"It is possible that's what happened. Or the Star-Eyed, it's a Heartstone that powers the Web. Or both of them working together. I don't know how we'd ask. I guess Vanyel could have a near-death experience, except right now he's the only mage in Arda and also no longer suicidal about the dead lifebonded so I expect he's reluctant to take chances with his life."

"...a near death experience?"

"Vanyel used to be able to talk to Valdemar's god by  - well, by dying. Valdemar's god would send him back to the world of the living to complete his appointed task. I guess maybe all the instances of that happened later than 803, or at least Vanyel hadn't told Leareth by then. It's the reason Leareth's assassination attempts failed. The worry is that - the reason the god was sending Vanyel back was for the war with Leareth, who knows whether they'll send him back now that that's ....obviated, after a fashion. Maybe it's not. I am unclear on what Vanyel is up to lately, I haven't seen him since my capture and he was in Arda when war broke out on Velgarth."

"Vanyel could have mentioned that when I was flailing around for a way to talk to Valdemar's god - is Valdemar's god just the Shadow-Lover, given the death thing -"

"Not just the Shadow-Lover, I think? I think the Shadow-Lover is an element of the god or an entity created by the god or something in that genre but doesn't have access to all of the god's motives or reasoning. Vanyel might not know yet, I don't know when the first time it happened was. 803...the war with Karse had been over for a couple of years...I'm sure one of Leareth's assassination attempts had happened by then, but maybe Vanyel hasn't put all the pieces together."

"Maybe." She scans her notes. "Well, this sure looks awful, and much though it annoyed me to be surprise lifebonded I think if our respective timelines are just tests for what happens with and without that, or something, we should try to make my version look more appealing to the operative gods than yours, except it's not remotely clear how we'd do that from here."

"Yeah, I'm not sure what being here adds at all - 

- oh." Scowl. 

"Vanyel thought that the Velgarth gods don't have very much access to the kinds of concepts we use to reason about the world. They can see a path works but not why. Maybe if you - stick a couple of paths together then their residents will just explain to you what the operative differences seem to have been.

This makes me want to be uncooperative, I don't know about you."

"I mean, the main quandary is what do they think constitutes 'it works' versus 'bad plan', it's not as clear as I'd like especially since we don't know who'd be simulating us. Also they're bad at receiving verbal explanations, try though I might! How do you want to go about being uncooperative?"

"I dunno. Get the compulsions off, if there's some way to do that. Go spend a couple of decades taking in the scenery."

"I don't really want to spend decades looking at scenery."

"That is very understandable. I guess you can try to get the gods' attention and communicate that we both like your world better, and I can be called away from scenery if anyone thinks of a way I can help with that."

"Okay."

"This assumes we have a way to fix you."

"I have been sort of - contemplating only the worlds in which you have a way to fix me because otherwise I think Telumë will derive how to find me faster than Belrun's Leareth and then he will kill me and then it will be irrelevant."

"I am in fact going to tell your husband to go away, if he shows up."

"If you promise him that you were unable to do anything about the compulsions and I don't have osanwë and can't move and can't formulate plans for escape then maybe he will go away if you tell him to."

"He can't have any reasonable objection to you looking at scenery and you can do the oath thing about that being your plan."

"Sure. I swear -" and then he scowls. "Well, I could, if I weren't additionally compulsioned against making oaths. I guess that's a reasonable precaution when you're messing with someone's memory, having made contradictory oaths you don't remember is incredibly dangerous."

"Oh dear. ...he'd probably be very tempted by the prospect of allying with mine?"

"He probably would. Yours, uh, allies with people he knows to be doing much worse than Telumë has ever done, even if he's himself more restrained these days."

"Yeah. So to keep that option open he has to not have me dead set against it nor tampered with in any way mine'll notice."