"When we can afford it we'll just make it universal. We're keeping the infrastructure and the medical and energency response protocols and we're keeping the research budget and that's about all. Making the palace into a library." Swoops.

"And he will just go quietly pull strings?"

"How long does he have?"

"I don't know exactly. It's narrow enough to be too deep to dig out casually on what it started with, but I'm not sure anyone's ever made a disappearance point and then not used it for anything. Making them on people isn't unheard of in like, stories, but it's for - remote killswitch reasons - eventually they get used -"

"He'll pull strings for a while."

"Could be thousands of years. And he could probably abandon the body, once there's a way to replace it. I feel bad about it being over a - miscommunication - it just seemed so in character -"

"Well, he deserved it even without that last and he should absolutely have made it crystal-clear to everyone that you were free."

"I didn't want to kill him if I could avoid it." Sigh.

"Why not?"

"I'm not a fan of killing people?"

" - I mean, me neither but you can feel pretty strongly that it's a horrible tragedy in general without thinking Maitimo in particular is an instance of such a tragedy."

"I probably wouldn't be terribly bothered about it if someone else had assassinated him."

Nod. "Apparently his brothers were going to have a soft coup if it got worse but I am not spectacularly impressed with their judgment about how bad would warrant that."

"I'm still - annoyed that it turned out Curufinwë wasn't a particularly good friend."

"They're all very - before everything fell apart, I mean, likeable but utterly ruthless, and loyal to each other above everything - when my sister was forcibly married Tyelcormo was fanatical about seeing it avenged but he'd never dream of, uh, extending the principle -"

"...if she wants that fixed, after we're done evacuating and see how much empty planet we've got left, I can figure something out."

"She'd appreciate it." Sigh. 

Nod.

"How's Ranary?"

"She's okay. She's in our homeworld doing evac."

"I told her I'd look out for you. I - sorry."

"You tried."

"They exiled the girl. For disobeying orders and insubordination. She went to Círdan's."

"At least they didn't kill her."

"The kingdom has never executed people, on the grounds that no one deserves Mandos." He seems maybe slightly pleased with himself.