"You didn't mention how I was one of the people getting unimaginably tortured."

"Should I have?"

"Changes absolutely nothing about whether it was the right decision, will definitely help Nerdanel and possibly a lot of other people when they learn it."

"If you say so."

"'I experienced loss in order to protect a person I know and care about' is - way easier to cope with than 'there was a war somewhere and then everyone was dead' -"

"I could probably get a complete roster if that would be useful but most of the captured people were from Endorë originally, I think. Though he got your grandfather's alt before the war proper was even underway."

"Might be useful. I shouldn't try to cover for my alt, he has more information. ...though he's probably unwilling to exert any influence on the popularity of the decision if he helped you do it.

Miranda asked what exactly 'help' entailed."

"Oath-finessing. Findekáno-wrangling."

"I blurted something out I shouldn't have in front of Findekáno, he might have told someone, the Maiar on Endorë could have told the Valar with their magic communication powers."

"Ah. 

Mine - wouldn't do that. He might appreciate it if I didn't give him the option but he wouldn't do it. - I guess he is in fact fifteen and thinks better of me than I warrant and the Elves are all grown up -"

"And you didn't have a dramatic breakup and then snipe at each other constantly."

"We're not dating. He's a kid. - and also not that, though, wow. Michael would make fun of me if anything about the mess were less horrible."

"I didn't say you were. They were, though. It was actually so obvious from a perspective of expecting the possibility that I didn't realize it was supposed to be a secret until I accidentally delivered a dire insult."

"- how'd you manage that -"

"I don't remember my exact words but I told Findekáno something like 'can you be less dramatic about your ex-boyfriend all the time' - which is of course even to 2179 insulting, just not direly - this was in front of your dad's alt, he took a few seconds to work backwards from my bewilderment about what Elf thing I had stepped on to figure out that I had not intended to be quite that rude, I went and caught up with Findekáno and apologized. Findekáno at some point then developed the apprehension that Maitimo and I were an item and that was likewise bewildering because he didn't say so, Maitimo had to explain it, that's when the 'his type' thing came up."

"You arrived after the war had already started, right?"

"Ish. I showed up in time to make them enough ships to get to Endorë all in one trip but not soon enough to obviate stealing the initial batch of ships."

"No, I just meant - it's kind of the difference between 'I am not very impressed with my alt' and 'what the actual fuck' - and then trying to backtrace whether that's in fact a thing I might do under sufficient pressure - alternate universe versions of people are weird as a concept -"

"A bit, yes. What in particular are you unimpressed by?"

"- everything you described? Michael burns all his bridges and lets drama simmer for months afterwards but he does it on purpose when it doesn't matter and it still drives me nuts. 

 - I haven't dated anyone and was planning to find a likeminded girl for public image reasons and not even think about it until the world was fixed, that looks like a lot more of a good idea if I am just not capable of handling a breakup competently but that's a weird thing for me to be terrible at -"

"It could be an Elf thing but I don't know, I didn't meet other Elves known to me to be broken up."

"The Elf versions of my parents were on different planets - I guess there's probably a non-awkward way to ask Nerdanel 'are Elves as a species really dreadful at handling breakups' - oh, lord, I don't even want to know what Macalaurë's would've looked like if it's a species thing -"

"I mean, whatever it was it didn't make him look conspicuously awful in the first ninety seconds of my acquaintance with him. My information about Macalaurë is 'very good at singing'."

"Whereas the me did look conspicuously awful in the first ninety seconds of your acquaintance? Oh no."