"...hm."

"Who is it, Sauron?"

"I dunno if it matches but yours was dating someone, but secretly, so maybe you should ask him - he answers his mail pretty regularly despite the time dilations always being against him, I imagine he has a vaguely annoyed demon."

"Oh the poor - is ours the only one anywhere who gets to - Bar, do they ever otherwise -"

I am restricted to publications, Bar reminds her.

"...and there aren't any publications you can verify as belonging to someone who's from a world with presumable-alts of Nóquellë or Aratarya or subsequent siblings -"

I can't find any.

"You seem to be one of very few that averts the war and they both die in the war and the me doesn't ever come back -"

"I see."

"And in the other one we found that didn't have a war I don't think they met, and also they wouldn't have been dating, that one executes people for homosexuality, see."

" - oh. Oh. What the fuck. - that does not in fact answer my question - any of my questions -"

I am so very horrified and so proportionately smug at the same time, Mirelótë tells Rúmil.

Squeeze. Yeah, pretty much - the poor - Maitimo would not cope at all well with that, you know him -

Couldn't even tell his family -

You did so much good.

I hope they're contagious.

Yeah. We don't have enough of you to go around.

He finishes composing a letter to his brother, sighs, sits down. "What's the planned allocation of the door at this point -"

"The non-terrible Valar want to go into little me's Arda and see if they can get their alts up to speed. I wonder if having a live summoning circle syncs the worlds even if the daeva ignores it, so we can nudge Revelation along..."

"I think it must, they've taken varying amounts of time to answer consistent with the standard range. Having a specific summon open for a long time is annoying enough that I'd sooner ask for a volunteer, leaving it live is sort of like trying not to pick at a thread in your outfit. Oh, I should call Miranda down, she'll want to meet Mirelótë -" Computer message.

"That's good to know - have any friends who might do us a favor that is on the surface kind of inexplicable - how are the nonterrible Valar handling summoning, by the way, Mirelóte -"

"Having the Dwarves all do it once, then shutting it down pending safety review."

"I guess that's reasonable given how you don't have scarcity."

"And pending a check on whether you can bring a live chip back to Hell with you."

"Oh, I can have Minor check that."

"Yeah, he should be dismissed before the staff have a shift change anyway."

Hey, will you ask Minor if he minds coming down here for another experiment?

Okay!

Timothy wants to know if you mind coming down here for another experiment. I don't know where here is but I guess you probably do!