"Of course."

"I - I'm pretty sure I won't dwell forever, I'm not that kind of person, or I try not to be. But. Well, it hurt. I think this helped, though."

"That's good. I don't think there's anything wrong with you."

She laughs, a little. "Thanks. I - I think I believe you. I guess by process of elimination that means something is wrong with the world."

"I suppose so."

"Thanks for being understanding. I know it really would have been easier to go, 'Well that's sure a problem you have, good luck with that.'"

"I can't say I actually find being callous and horrible at people easy."

"Well, it's a good quality in you."

Hug?

Yeah.

Ugh. Festival incoming. He does not want to deal with that many people. Nope.

I hear there are dinosaurs in the south. I am going to go learn how to turn into them.

You are adorable. What kind of dinosaur will you be? Do you see yourself as a carnivore?

If I don't know how to turn into every kind of dinosaur, I'll consider it a personal failing. I will sometimes be a carnivore, but not always, and I could never be one of the bigger and more stupid herbivores. I'm too pretty.

And not quite stupid enough. He rakes a claw affectionately down his back.

Shiver. Ah! You wound me, with your ambiguous compliments! How can I ever meet your impossibly high standards? But I must try, to win your heart. My love, for you, I will be more than 'not quite stupid enough.' I aspire to one day achieve 'nowhere near as stupid enough,' though it makes me a madman.

Ah, and there your vision touches closer than you dream, for I like madmen. Go become a dinosaur, my Sánedel. Go become a dinosaur and then witness what we're doing to the world.

Yeah not thinking about that at all.

Kiss.

I will endeavor to be the best dinosaur, he agrees, and then off he goes.

It's not particularly hard to locate them, once he's in the area. Tracking them down is interesting, as is figuring out how they work and how to change into them. Maybe an incarnate would find this slightly dangerous, what with carnivorous dinosaurs existing, but he's a deity. They could perhaps catch him off guard, maybe, and get a few bites in, but this won't permanently harm him unless they get very, very clever. Which they won't. They're dinosaurs. Besides, he can be observant when he wants to be, and also soon enough can also be a raptor when he wants to be. So this potential problem is pretty neatly solved.

Other problems are... less able to be neatly solved.

He doesn't sit and ruminate, doesn't think about all of it at once. He learns about dinosaur biology and starts adding minor and entirely novel decorations to the local flora. Eventually, he learns how to shapeshift into all of the available dinosaurs and goes exploring elsewhere, always away from Ainur and Eldar whenever the option's available to him, and occasionally almost forgets that he's in fucking Valinor. Even more occasionally, he will let himself think of a fraction of the overall problem. And then he will put it back away and go back to looking at dinosaurs, because if he unpacked it all at once he'd completely freak out and Sauron would notice something was wrong. Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine, if he takes this one tiny step at a time. He does not want to worry his beloved with his thoughts.

He's taken time to read the transcripts of Melkor's trial, while he was in Tirion. The Valar know of all of his crimes; he saw them listed, and they have a very complete list. There's no extra information that could be brought to them to try and change their minds; Melkor's been in solitary imprisonment. What could he (hypothetically) do? Say, 'Hey I have a feeling that Melkor needs to stay right where he is forever and ever, I know, because I'm dating his most loyal conspirator'? If the Valar are stupid enough to let Melkor out, why would they ever listen to him?

And if he did, there's no way that the Valar wouldn't say why they changed their minds. Or - even if they didn't say 'Sánedel recommended we put Melkor back in his prison forever,' they'd be utterly inept enough to - to -

He doesn't want to be under their protection. The thought of it makes his skin crawl. Not only because he has seen them work, and they are fucking idiots, but because he'd never, ever be free to do whatever he liked while being under their protection. They'd take issue with how he sleeps with men or how he despises Eru with a burning passion or how he thinks that Mandos is a prick and that the Elves need just about anyone else to be in charge of their dead. Maybe they wouldn't say 'Change your ways or lose our protection,' but they would look at him with pity and contempt and think he would 'grow out of it.' And they would say that he's free to do whatever he likes, but if he does these things they don't approve of, they won't protect him while he does them. Forget Endórë, he'd have to stay in Valinor forever. And. No. That sounds awful.

Besides, it probably wouldn't even work, the Valar are, as stated earlier before, fucking idiots and Sauron is not, and -

And he can't keep thinking about that, nope, he'd have himself a panic attack. He has seen Sauron angry, has occasionally been on the wrong end of some of the milder examples of it, and no. He'll tempt playful anger, it's even fun, but actual rage? From Sauron? He knows what happens when Sauron is playfully upset with him, and he does not at all want that to stop resembling playful foreplay. There's a layer of real terror that he keeps not acknowledging and he's not going to acknowledge it now, nope. Everything is fine, he's fine, he's very happy with Sauron. The relationship is sincerely nice, he just needs to not upset him. This is pretty easy to do, he's very good at it, and Sauron's pretty obvious about what he doesn't like. It's fine. Sauron definitely has incentive to keep Melkor from being as egregiously bad this time, that's what got him caught in the first place. He'll be patient and it will be less - it will be less what it was the first time. It will be okay.

That's as far as he can bring himself to think (in pieces, always in pieces) before the impossible happens.

The Trees go out.

He is far enough from the epicenter that the magical unlight does not reach him; it is dark but it is not impossibly dark, it robs the senses but does not blanket them with something else entirely. He is too far to hear screaming. 

What.

For a few seconds, he stands, stunned and disbelieving. He makes a slightly strangled sound.

Then he turns into the fastest hawk he has a form for and flies off to find Sauron because what.

The Trees are dead; he can pass over their mangled ruins and see the path of destruction turn north from there. And now he's in the magic darkness.

And now he's a bat so the fact that it's magically dark is no longer his problem; he has echolocation.

He goes north.

Path of magical destruction continues straight out of Valinor and over the ice.

If he were thinking clearly maybe he'd remain in Valinor and try to get a better idea of what precisely happened, but he's not really thinking clearly. Mostly what's on his mind is What did Sauron do, and then some wordless screaming.

He keeps flying. If the magical darkness fades he'll switch to a form that's faster, and better equipped to handle the cold. Owl, maybe.

It does fade. Over the Ice it's quiet.

So very quiet. He can almost pretend everything is fine, except no, everything is terrible.

He turns into a snowy owl for the speed and warmth and continues flying.