...giggle.

He closes his eyes. 

"I don't think he actually needs that much sleep, he just does that when he wants a way to dramatically exit a conversation."

He doesn't open his eyes but he smiles.

"- so am I swearing a thing or am I waiting to think of more stuff that might be relevant first or what -"

"If all of the reasons you might not be sure I want to know strategically relevant things don't apply to Maitimo then that solves the concern there."

"Yeah just I don't know a whole ton about how oaths work in edge cases if I just didn't guess right about whether something was relevant or if it didn't occur to me."

"If you mean what you say you won't find yourself in trouble over that."

"I believe I have told you or Maitimo everything that I expect Maitimo would want me to say, I so swear."

"Okay. And then the - if you get orders from Angband, if you get communications from Angband, if you learn of oaths you swore in Angband -"

"Remind me how you want that worded -"

He has it written down. It's not that long - doesn't do much if she doesn't remember it - but it's very carefully worded.

She reads it over. "Until and unless I surrender to you and ask no longer to be bound by these terms, if I receive orders from Melkor or his agents or allies I will inform you or your salient agents or allies as quickly as is safe, refrain from acting on those orders, and not respond to or initiate communication with them without express authorization from you or your designated agents or allies, and I will not act against you or your people by -" She reads out the list. "- I so swear."

Nod. "Thank you. Do you and your daughter want to live with other people -"

"...I don't want to go be a woods hermit? What do you mean?"

"As opposed to staying in your current accommodations."

"The room is fine, where else would you put me -?"

"Everybody's got - well, they're sort of just tents, but very pretty ones - along the water, until we figure out how to make wood not rot, you could have one and live there if you'd rather."

"Do any of them have kids, she'll be old enough to be interested in other kids soon."

"Some people, yeah."

"That might be nice. If you think they'll like me and not be weird about everything."

"You saved Maitimo. People might be nervous but they'll cope."

"That's not really what I meant. It would be nice to have more friends but that is different from people who put up with me because I brought them a present-slash-insurance-against-being-shot."

"We're working eighteen-hour shifts with six hours off, I can't predict how much people will be making friends."

"Will they let me watch their kids while they work, that's almost as good. Am I going to be working? Since I can go around doing things? What are people working on?"