It would!

And then probably they should eat something and then hmm maybe they can go to the library and he can sit in one of the comfy chairs with Beka in his lap and Kat in a cozy nest nearby and he can read her his favourite poem.

Awwwwwww. Snuggle.

It's an Ansati epic about a mythical warrior queen going on adventures and slaughtering her enemies! It's really good poetry!

The gory bits are his favourite.

The gory bits are plenty fun!

When he is done would he like to hear some orc stories? They have slaughtering Elves in there.

Ooh sure.

Orc stories! Slaughter! Capture! Torture!

Those are some good stories.

Serik's daughter shows up partway through a story.

She looks at her father, and the pretty girl in his lap who looks very happy to be there, and the exceptionally ugly baby in the cozy nest next to the chair.

This seems like... probably a positive development? Although she's a little worried about the baby. The baby may require some explanation.

Hi! I'm an orf and that's my baby. She's supposed to look like that. I ran away from an evil god and your father's been terrifically lovely to me and it's nice to meet you.

- it's not that she doesn't believe that her father has been terrifically lovely to the orf, exactly, she is seeing it demonstrated right in front of her, this is obviously her father interacting with someone he does not intend to harm. It's more that she's confused about how that happened. - also slightly concerned about the orf reading her mind. She would rather her mind not be readable like that.

Serik looks up.

"...Hi, Iri."

"Hello," she says; and to the orf, "My name is Irikaino. It's good to meet you."

You can fix it so I can't read your mind but then I couldn't understand you unless you did more complicated stuff.

"How complicated?"

I guess not all that complicated. You have to think of your thoughts differently depending on if you want them readable or not, or readable to some people but not anybody who has osanwë.

"Hmm. All right."

She considers ways to make that kind of division. She is not in any particular rush about it.

"I want to fight a god," says Serik. "And I want a better swan spell and a self-sustaining foundation. - Pretty sure I'm in love. No complaints so far."

She blinks.

...she smiles.

What he means by that half-coherent mess is that he's found a long-term pastime he strongly prefers over torture, and that's possibly the best news she has heard in her life. Although - "Why do you want to fight a god."

"'Cause he's a worse person than I am?" But this is not his actual motivation; his actual motivation is, "He hurt my orf."

(He hugs his orf.)

His orf hugs him back. Melkor is a way worse person than, uh, literally anybody! Except maybe his lordship!

Hugs. "You probably don't want to know," he says to Iri, referring to the general subject of Melkor and associates. "Anyway. If he shows up I'm gonna kill him but we're pretty sure he won't show up. I might go kill him anyway but if I do I'm putting some thought into it first. You'll help, right?"

"Yes," she says. "I will help you figure out how to fight a god."

I'm still not sure he's theoretically possible to kill.

"Well, then it might take us a while to figure out what to do to him instead."

The Valar had him locked up for a while. But then he tricked them into paroling him. And he's not easy to put back. Also some continents broke the first time.