"- that's not a question I have a standard answer for. If there are things you want to know about I can make a guess at whether it'd work out."

"I said before that what I'd ask for if I had any leverage was power, that I could perhaps be bargained down to something less than Loki's spells but it would have to be the same kind of thing, and you flatly denied me. In the time since then I have been offered magic with military applications. Which is to say that I'm afraid I don't know how to ask in such a way that I'll get an accurate answer, possibly unless I do something like list every spell ever invented and read the list out to you. Which won't work for anything that isn't in a category I know to make a list for."

"- sorry, who offered you magic with military applications?"

"I give you my solemn oath that I believe it will not improve outcomes here on any metric you care about for you to investigate that question, and believe I would know if it would, and have no reason to suspect this belief of having been magically influenced. And I am including metrics like you eventually understanding what's going on. That being said I don't actually think the specifics would surprise you much, I think it's much more likely that you have some - narrower mental category that you imagine I mean, instead of what I actually mean."

"I mean, I do know that you can buy healing recordings and computers in the shops and those aren't useless for warfare... I guess I just don't understand what it is you want when you say you want power."

"...Imagine our positions are reversed. Vanda Nossëo is small and weak, full of poor people who work all their lives only to wear out and die, but at least you know that with all your strength you promote universal flourishing as best you can. Then along comes Sesat to tell you that you may have some extra bread, and come live on other planets in beautiful cities, but you must let us overhaul your justice system because it isn't cruel enough - I doubt we'd actually do it that way, by the way, but just suppose we did for a moment - I expect there are a lot of things you'd think about that, that it hasn't occurred to you that we might think."

"The societies making up Vanda Nossëo mostly didn't promote universal flourishing, like that. It takes a lot of slack and wealth to be able to break out of cruel systems like that. If I imagine a powerful multiversal Sesat coming along to some kind of primitive Elf village - Elves being the species closest to what you describe - they'd just refuse. If you forced the issue they might all die, though I guess I don't know how that would change if they couldn't rely on Mandos to bring them back to life later. I really hope it doesn't turn out that the citizens of Sesat value cruelty more than their own lives."

"And if this powerful multiversal Sesat was so powerful that instead the Elves could be forced to stay alive, or brought back over and over any time they tried to kill themselves, and so had to beg Sesat for permission even to die, and their deaths couldn't even accomplish anything - never mind, improving the analogy isn't accomplishing anything either. If one of those Elves had no avenues available to them but to beg me for mercy, what do you think they'd beg for?"

"Permission to take immigrants and look after them amongst themselves, I imagine."

"That sounds very useful for people who have something to entice immigrants with."

"Yes. I don't think that's - unrelated - to the asymmetry you're noticing."

"I don't either but I wouldn't say the fact that your values are themselves a weapon means anything other than that good analogies are hard to come by. - I suppose actually I could ask to take your criminals, I bet some of them would want to avoid prison, but I don't see why I'd bother when you'll've stripped them of any power they ever had."

"You're allowed to invite the criminals, if you want them. Some of them have magical powers of one sort or another but not threatening ones."

He sighs. "Yes, no powers that would ever let us stand against you. I do understand. Maybe someone else will be fool enough not to notice that, if we can import people with fantastical powers who hate you..." Or maybe there will be a genuine oversight somewhere, if they're clever enough to notice it, though - wait - "Wait, none have threatening powers? How many sources of threatening powers are there?"

"- a lot? It's generally possible one way or another to suppress them if the person with them is irresponsible."

Feris scowls silently for a while, kind of a long while, and then makes a face like he isn't at all sure he wants to know the answer to his next question. "How?"

"Some of them don't work outside their neighborhood, some have a requirement that people can be cut off from, some respond to antimagic effects, I think if a shorefolk went rogue they might have to keep them in a silent prison?, in some cases there's probably nothing more elegant than having a psion or a subtle artist go in and make it impossible to use the power."

"...I see." He breathes like someone who is trying not to be sick.

"Do you need - a cup of water or something -"

"No. Is there, perhaps, a way to die in such a way that you can't be resurrected - can you have a shorefolk sing away everything there is to know about you, or wish for it?"

"...no, you're - reductionist, it wouldn't - I mean, maybe the right obscure combination of magic would do it but I don't know it to have a method and even if it did it might become obsolete when Loki finishes her improved resurrection spell."

There's a moment where he just stares, open-mouthed in horror, and then he takes a breath, yanks hard enough on his own earlobe to make himself wince, and finally goes very calm.

"I see. I wasn't expecting to be stunned by how merciless you were, I suppose I overcorrected."

"- we don't resurrect people who don't consent to it, it's just not impossible."

"Yes, so if someone would prefer a clean execution, and says so, you consign them to the custody of any who come after you who don't care. Or perhaps Vanda Nossëo and Loki's reign truly will be eternal, though they aren't yet and forever is very long."

"I'm not sure what you want us to do instead. The powers that allow resurrection existed before Vanda Nossëo was even conceived."