"And then move it away afterwards. Ulmo'll grumble about the strange things the tides are doing but Ulmo grumbles about that all the time."

"Poor Ulmo."

"He wanted one sun," he tells Minor, who is reading a medical textbook in the corner. "One sun would hardly affect the tides. But everyone else wanted two and he was outvoted. He also wanted to leave us in Endorë."

"Well, it sounds like if the Valar had been normal levels of incompetent that'd have been a good call."

"Or if Elves had been normal levels of troublemaking. But coming to Valinor worked out well on the whole for our set."

"What is a normal level of troublemaking?"

"The level everyone other than Elves display, I mean. The Valar really wouldn't have handled it well, not at first - they'll be okay now - you read about Númenor, right -"

"Yes."

"No idea how to intervene on that one but I bet there are worlds coming up on it -"

"It seems like it would be most efficiently headed off early, it's so terribly messy afterwards and then Eru involves himself..."

"Yeah. ...summoning might fix it. Since mortality is the complaint. Unless the local Valar disable it, then people'd really have a grievance..."

"Which of course they'd do until they were talked sensible."

"Don't know how much attention they paid Númenor, maybe you could teach it without it coming to their attention, buy some time..."

"You'd have to get Thauron out of the way."

"Yeah." Sigh. 

"Maybe the curse will work."

"I left them a note suggesting they try it."

"Going to find them a suicidal Maia or recommend they go with a live fire test?"

"I'll look into suicidal Maiar but absent any I think we should still try it, it's by far the cleanest way if it works."

"True enough."

" - so," he says to Cam idly a while later, "do you want to learn some unforgivables?"

"Plural?"

"One usually doesn't pick up the Killing Curse first because it's the most intricate but you might have a really rough time on the mindset bits of the other ones, maybe you should just go straight for it."

"I don't think I could do the Imperius on anybody I liked. At all. Which would complicate the consent part. Does that one work on animals?"

"Yeah."