The Valar announce that they've done as much as they can in Singularity (they can't bring back peoples' babies in that critical period either, but they can get them earlier versions) and are setting up portals between there and Sanity as soon as they are confident they've cleaned up the plague. A bunch of Elf architects have this wild idea for a fivedimensional city where alternating intersections are interdimensional portals between various Valinors and they get eagerly to setting it up.
"I'll write them."
Cir, he writes, please come by here, with Ruviri if possible, Clerus is concerned about you.
Cir and Ruviri and Ava and a fairy bodyguard are there an hour and a bit later and Cir promptly tucks himself under Maitimo's arm.
"Hello," says Clerus. "I met your family."
"I saw them a week ago. They're not worried about me, why are you?"
"I make it my business to worry about princes with arm candy they shelled out cash for."
Cir squeezes Maitimo's hand. "He shelled out so I wouldn't have to have thirty clients, or to the extent I'm property would you rather I be communal property than personal?"
"If I knew what I'd rather I'd already be underway on it, trust me."
"I know what I'd rather and I got it honest as blue. Stop upsetting Maitimo."
Clerus glances at Ruviri.
"I don't have to account for where I go or how I use my magic to you," she says. "I'm not yours."
He seems satisfied enough at that.
"There are people who would intervene if they weren't happy, in their world and in mine. There aren't actually people who would stop me for - merely being irresponsible about consent - but I've yet to figure out a way of achieving that in general which isn't - invasive. Are people - did I make the political situation worse somehow -"
"I'm sorry. I should have thought of that and conducted everything differently. I would, if I could do it again. Is there anything that'd help now -"
"The folks I took from her house might like an apology, the people like their mistress might benefit from a clarifying statement..."
"Nice to meet you," he says to Cir and Ruviri.
"Sure," says Ruviri.
Cir does not appear to like Clerus at all.
Well. "I'm tremendously grateful to him," Maitimo tells Cir quietly. "A lot of people would still be suffering if Alatess hadn't found him. ...not being infallible I sometimes do things I absolutely should feel badly about, please don't get annoyed with the people who bring that to my attention, I don't want there to be fewer of them -"
"I don't think I'm likely to be annoyed at him to the point where he ceases to exist," Cir whispers back.
Giggle. "If I were a bad person you'd be glad he was prepared to pick a fight for you. I could've been."
Kiss. "And you Know that, no one else gets such an advantage. I could have acted a great deal less like a bad person."
"Well, I do Know it and he ought to know I do and I wouldn't hurt my family by protecting you if you were awful to me, they'd be miserable over it."
"I could be a person who shouldn't be trusted to have the amount of power I have without being awful to you. And the thing with you is evidence of that kind of problem too."
"Thanks for coming out here," he tells both of them, and then there are more settling-people-in logistics and the Noldor can make a formal statement that they consider slavery in all its forms unacceptable and appreciate the cooperation of every government on Godspring in abolishing it as quickly as possible. And he can apologize to anyone who Clerus thinks would want to hear it. Cir can stick with him if he pleases.
"To be clear," he says when they have a moment in private, "the thing I am regretting is not dating you, it is failing to have set up a trust with your universal income and the money to pay for Ruviri in your name and had some lawyers not under my authority come over to explain it to you, and having somebody meet with you to explain how you could pursue a complaint against me through our legal system should you have one, and formally getting you citizenship three places that would be willing to pick a fight with me over it. It's - you know me, so telling you was enough, but if that weren't true I would have failed to do enough work ensuring that you believed me nothing at all was contingent. And people can't verify externally that I did that work, and they have the right to expect that evidence."