Snuggle. 

"I didn't know you in my zeroth life. Ares did that on purpose, so - I wouldn't mourn you. And then you were Sauron, and - "

"I kept you in that role every single loop until - you were you." Pause.

"I know now you aren't - the same person as her."

"You want to bring her back."

Quiet pause.

"I do."

"I - miss her."

Snugs.

"You should. When we win."

Lean.

"You don't - mind?"

"Can't be jealous of myself, can I?"

She smiles a little and kisses her wife. "You're wonderful."

"She's - the only one I really want back. - There was my husband my zeroth life, but... I've never felt the need to - remake his memories as they were, even in the early years of my first loop, and I don't miss him anymore."

"Any me absolutely deserves to have you."

Another kiss! "Introducing us might be the only thing I'll ever thank Ares for..."

"Mm, I don't know that he needs that satisfaction."

"I won't tell him, then."

Smirk.

That expression is absolutely irresistible. (She communicates this in a burst of emotion over osanwe and also in thoroughly kissing her wife's very lovely smirk.)

Luthien likes that very much.

That's rather the point. 

Life slides on. They pass the point where Feanor makes the Silmarils - far later than normal, Mygwainor keeps distracting him with future patents - and no one starts scheming against each other or forging swords. The Ainur relax around Mygwainor, gradually coming to trust she's reformed (even if some of them, like Orome, would word that as 'reformed into a pest'). Mygwainor makes friends, more than she does in... Any loops, really. 

She writes poetry, the first fiction novels. She 'invents' speculative fiction. Her books get rather popular. 

She never knows what to feel about that.

The timeline here is loose, forgiving. The clock only really grows accurate at the first sunrise, and that's not until the Darkening. They have longer than the hundred years of the Trees that Mygwainor had feared.

They don't have long enough. 

Unrest stirs in the south of Aman. Dark things. Hungry things. The various subtle factions of the Noldor discover reasons to distrust each other, escalating slowly but unerringly past their old pettiness. Slights are never really forgiven, even as Mygwainor turns some attention to manipulating peace instead of war. 

This Age will end, with or without Melkor's help. 

They need to decide what to do next loop.

"Should I come to fetch you again?"

She sighs. 

" - I don't know. Or... It'll depend."

"I want to try having my simulacrum imprisoned instead of me. That way, I can lurk in Middle Earth until you're born, and come join you immediately. It might not work - in which case the timeline will probably collapse before you're born, and you won't notice anything different."

"But I'd like more time with you, for one, and... Having you stay in Beleriand is easier for keeping the timeline on track to give us more wiggle room. I'll program my simulacrum carefully, and pop over into its slot when needed - I want to befriend Finrod again, for one, and I need to do that as myself."

"But I still think the best time to force tension but not breakage on the timeline is the Quest for the Silmaril. So we'll need to set that up, as closely as possible to the standard course - we might need to not diverge so much during the actual Quest, too..."

"So I can't be known to be married before Beren would show up?"

"One implication of that, yes."

"Mm. If that's what it takes."

Small kiss.

"The hardest part. Though being in Beleriand we can simply wander off into the shadows a lot."

"True..."

Lean. "Though we should consider what we want to do about other hard parts."

"Sauron first, I suppose."

"It - ties into everything. The whole timeline."

She pauses, clearly thinking. 

"The timeline has slack in different places. Too many changes, too quickly, will make a loop collapse. Changes that can only happen with my foreknowledge seem to collapse the timeline faster. Ones that seem internally consistent collapse it slower. Small changes also stress it less, but the timeline is constantly correcting itself..."

"There's a lot of points the timeline is very picky about around the Quest, so my hope had been creating a very subtly different timeline - that then, in an internally consistent way, forces the timeline to contradict its usual self. I - don't know that that'll break the loops, but it should give good information if nothing else..."

"But that means the more we change, the less slack we have elsewhere."

"The essential points are the Battle of Sudden Flame, then the Quest for the Silmaril, then the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, then the destruction of Nargothrond, then the death of Thingol and the Sacking of Doriath - leading into the Second and Third Kinslayings. The Third Kinslaying leads to the Silmaril coming to Aman and the host of the Valar marching to war - the destruction of Beleriand after that, then me being thrust from the world."

"There's... Other points within that, which put pressure on the timeline if they happen when they shouldn't or don't happen, but that can be steered around. The Quest usually includes the capture of Beren and Finrod by Sauron, the death of Finrod, then the defeat of Sauron and the destruction of his tower by Luthien. The death of Finrod is more optional, but it's hard to prevent. The capture of Beren and the defeat of Sauron by Luthien tends to overstress the timeline if it doesn't happen."

"Luthien becoming mortal is a set point, too, and usually she and Beren die but are then resurrected at the end of the Quest, then dying permanently around the Sack of Doriath - they never survive to the Second Kinslaying."

"The Battle of Unnumbered Tears is fairly strongly fixed, as well. It's always a slaughter for the Free Peoples, no matter how thoroughly I try to throw the fight. The level of slaughter can be reduced, but - I once resolved that peacefully and then the elven army got hit by a large meteor. The loop collapsed very soon after."

"We might be able to path around the end of the Quest - the first deaths of Luthien and Beren, and then the outcome of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears... I've never been able to get fine control over the elven armies, and it's possible that if 'Melkor' pushes as hard as the timeline expects but my opponents win anyways that'll be enough to alter that part..."