"I'll figure something out," sighs Miles. "The food and the rescued cousin will be on their way to your shore soon enough."

He turns around and walks back into the lake, closing his faceplate on the way. When he reaches the shuttle, he climbs the side of it. He waits until the water has mostly run off his armour, and then he opens the hatch and extends the ramp so he can stand on it.

"Hello again."

"Told you it was a bad idea to land on this side of the lake," Celegorm says. He's sitting next to Maedhros' grav stretcher, a stunner held loosely in one hand, the other anxiously knotting his hair.

"You're all permitted to return to your camp in whatever way best pleases you, although Findekáno and Irissë would be personally delighted if you swam. It has been suggested, and I agreed with the logic as presented, that he," he gestures to the stretcher, "should stay here because he'd be better cared for. They also said something about him possibly being king. I'm going to give them a crate of my travel rations in case it helps with their starvation problem. Since no one has any boats, we might have to be very clever to get a grav stretcher with your brother on it to the shore if we wanted to do that. Do we want to do that? What do you think?"

"We want to get him home. They want him because then they have leverage; they won't hurt him, but I don't think it's in anyone's interest but theirs. If he stays here, we need a way for his family to get out here to see him. I really think we want to get him out. And he is the King, though I'm surprised they'd acknowledge it. It's currently not really relevant."

"What I am concerned with at this moment is his interest. I am prepared to solve political problems by reminding everyone that I levelled the fortress of Angband until they listen to me; the health and safety of your brother cannot be solved in this way, as far as I know. Findekáno says their camp has healers who are good at dealing with extended starvation. And better houses. Are those considerations less important than he made them seem?"

"He'll have the same roof over his head in our camp; the fact most of us are still sleeping under the stars isn't relevant to what kind of care Maitimo can get. No one on either side of the lake has any sense of what to do for him. It's not just starvation. I don't even think it's primarily starvation. Anyway, he'd want to be with us, we're his brothers."

"Well, then, you can present those arguments when we get him to shore. The grav stretcher will float over water, and it will be nearly impossible to overbalance, but since none of the rest of us can float over water, it will be difficult to move it along and we should get it to solid ground quickly rather than trying to haul it directly across the lake."

"And how am I supposed to win an argument with eighty thousand armed people who hate me? No, we get him to the other shore. Then, if they want to share healing expertise, they can send healers over."

"...You win an argument with eighty thousand armed people who hate you by having me be the one to argue it while you walk off with your brother, probably. It might honestly not be possible to get him to the other shore. It depends completely on how easily you can drag the grav stretcher around once it's in the water, and I don't know how to estimate that in advance. Try it and I'll tell you the likelihood that it'll run out of power and sink before you get there. Alternately, leave him in the shuttle, but it'll be even harder to visit him in that case, I imagine. If you'd like time to think about it, I can haul that crate of ration bars to the shore."

"Oh, good idea." He looks torn. "I'd offer to help but I don't really want to leave him -"

"I can handle it. I will look silly, but I'll handle it."

He picks up the crate - no float pallet, so it doesn't float. He hops into the lake again. It does make a bit of a ridiculous spectacle, the tiny armoured figure dragging a cube of metal and plastic nearly as tall as he is out of the water.

The movement has stopped. The pain is as present as ever. not-really-Tyelcormo is holding on to him too tightly and it feels like his skin is being stripped off him again. It's a nice touch. The real Tyelcormo might do that. There's a diplomatic problem. Is that how they're going to get him to buy into this illusion? Maitimo, you've been rescued and they're arguing over you. It must be real. And then he starts to hope for it, starts to believe in it, and sits up only for the strange walls here to dissolve into the familiar ones of Angband. He knows that is what will happen but still he is thinking about the diplomatic problem and how to solve it. The premise is that Tyelcormo and Findekáno are fighting over him, which is ridiculous, because why would Findekáno try? The solution...

...no point, he tells himself. At least make them improve their game, first. A realistic rescue, a realistic diplomatic incident, and you'll play along and let yourself hope it's real.

Miles sets down the crate and looks around for someone to whom he can explain ration bars.

"This is the food?"

"Yes. This is the food."

He opens the crate, extracts a ration bar, and tears the wrapper.

"And this is how you get at the food. Any other questions?"

"That looks like the most straightforward of your magical items. Let me get moving on distribution."

"I'll leave you to it."

And back to the shuttle he goes.

"What's the main complication here? I can't push the grav-stretcher while in the water?"

"It's... likely to be awkward. It doesn't float on the water; it floats above it. And if you end up hanging your weight off the side so you can push it, that'll run down the power much faster because of the unbalanced load."

"How far above the water?"

"Variable, but not much less than this," he gestures a height of three feet from the floor.

"I should be able to design some kind of harness so I can tow it while swimming. Do you have rope?"

"I think so."

He checks the place where he thinks he saw something rope-like. Here is a roll of cord.

He ties eight knots at seemingly arbitrary places, then slips it over his shoulders. "We'll be fine. Tell Irissë I thought she'd get twice as much amusement."

"Sure. I will have to go the long way around, myself, since I would rather not walk on the bottom of the lake all the way across. Also, given the current location of my shuttle, I might end up teaching them how to make electricity, since the recharging of the shuttle will need to happen here where they are."