"I can't imagine a circumstance that would lead me to do such a thing, but it still seems like relevant information to have."

For example, if the relevant clause of the Doom actually is a straightforward and narrowly applicable decree that any Oath-bound person's effort to retrieve said treasures must inevitably lead to them moving farther out of reach, it might be very useful for them to have a fateless Man around who is personally offended by the whole situation and would be delighted to retrieve their prizes for them on his own initiative as many times as necessary.

"I'm not going to speak the words out loud. I'll write them down for you later, if you like, after I've asked someone if that's safe. The Oath commits them to retrieve the Silmarils from anyone who withholds them."

"A very reasonable precaution. I also don't know precisely which people are thereby bound, though, which seems like it would be safe to communicate."

...He probably shouldn't add 'find a way to safely destroy fate' to his long-term list. Being personally offended by the uses to which it has been put is not a good enough excuse. He's tempted, though. The Doom is just so... fundamentally unacceptable.

"Fëanor and his sons. There are others who might have done it, if asked, but oaths are a weighty thing and that one in particular is both powerful and dangerous and it would have been wrong to ask. Though at the time he was in so much pain, and so directionless..."

So tempted to destroy fate. So very, very tempted.

"Thank you for explaining," he says instead. "It's very helpful. So, after the Valar made what appears to be the worst decision out of a large pile of varyingly bad decisions, what happened next?"

"Fëanáro learned both that the other host contained people who were only continuing on the journey in order to sabotage him, and that his brother was now unofficially titled Finwë Nolofinwë the true king etcetera etcetera, and he got our people on the boats, sailed off, and did not send the boats back."

"That's... yeah, I can see the tactics in that. Unfortunately." He makes a mental note to spend nonzero time on preparing to tell the story of Kyril Island to Maitimo so that it will make sense as presented without him forgetting to mention something important until the last second.

"I don't think he ever dreamed they'd cross the Ice. He thought they'd go back home to Tirion, or build their own boats, because one of the final arguments he had with his half-brother was over whether boats could have been built in time if we hadn't tried to steal them. Obviously you're still responsible for the predictable consequences of a choice like that, and they're here and they did cross the ice and it's our fault, but it matters, I think, that it certainly wasn't done with the intent that they would die, just the intent that they wouldn't be here with members who just want to sabotage us."

"Yes, I see that."

What a painful situation.

"I'm assuming you already got the other side from them, but if you didn't, it's obviously that they fought for us at Alqualondë, got doomed for it, still stuck with us, and were left to die."

"That's about the size of it, yes."

"Merry mess, isn't it? Everyone's doing their best, but I just don't see a way out. Lord Nelyafinwë probably does, but doesn't sound like he has all his moves in order yet."

"I admit to feeling a certain degree of responsibility to fix it so Maitimo doesn't have to," says Miles. "Even apart from my considerable interest in solving the problem for its own sake. It just seems... incomplete, to rescue him and then dump a thorny political situation in his lap while he's still mostly convinced that the reality he perceives is an elaborate deception. Not at all the sort of high-quality rescue I aim to deliver."

"Lord Nelyafinwë's really good at thorny political situations, though. You're rather leaving him in his element."

"At least there's that."

"If you'd just been dragged out of Angband and had a claim to the Kingship of this mess, how would you dig your way out?"

His mind fills with hypotheses and calculations both political and personal, but after half a second he shakes his head, dismissing the whole dizzying structure. "I'd know everybody a lot better than I do, and they'd know me. I don't think the range of options Maitimo has available is the same as the range of options I'd have in his place, and I don't think either is the same as the range of options I can think of on the spot."

"Yeah, fair. The frustrating thing is that everyone intended all along that Lord Fëanáro'd give up the crown in his son's favor, he's clearly the best suited to it, and now I don't see how that'll be an acceptable solution to anyone."

"Hmm? Not to anyone, really?"

"I mean, we'd be happy. Somehow we need something that makes them happy, because divided we're going to lose."

"Yeah, it's a tough problem."

She shrugs. "Can we do more Barrayaran languages?"

"Sure. Would you like another dialect of English to compare? I know two and a half. And alphabets! Everyone on Barrayar grows up bi-literate, the local and foreign dialects of local languages are mutually intelligible but the local alphabet is unified and differs from its various galactic counterparts."

She looks enchanted. "Yes."

So Miles brings up a pair of similar-looking texts side by side on his reader.

"Here's a book written in Betan English in the Latin alphabet, and the same thing transliterated into the Barrayaran alphabet. That title says Betan Astronomical Survey Reference Handbook, Tenth Edition. In Quenya that's 'Betan Astronomical Survey Reference Handbook, Tenth Edition', and in Barrayaran English, which is what I was speaking with you before, it's Betan Astronomical Survey Reference Handbook, Tenth Edition. Betan and Barrayaran English pronounce most things very differently, but nearly all the grammar and vocabulary is the same, although the idioms and colloquialisms diverge."