"I guess? It seems kind of massively out of character for him even apart from the fact that I don't think he's that much of a dick but I have not in fact met all of his brothers."

"I'm not offended, and wouldn't be if he said it publicly. If anything it'd probably make other people stop saying milder versions of the same thing, since they wouldn't want to sound like the Feanorians."

She giggles. "Well, it'd offend my sensibilities enough if he meant it that we'd stop being friends and I am not sure how convincingly I can fake not being friends with someone which is why it's probably not going to happen. Though as much for the dig at my maturity as at the implied insult to you."

"Easiest way to avoid rumors - and usually I'd also say 'and avoid being coerced', but you can fly, that changes a lot of things - is to not be alone with them."

"Maybe I shouldn't have been so dismissive when Maedhros asked if I needed chaperones. In my defense the look on his face when he found out what chaperones were for was legitimately hilarious."

"Elves. I - don't know if you do need to be careful. It depends who you want to take you seriously and why."

"It would probably make my life more difficult if anyone thought I was sleeping with a Feanorian considering how much most people dislike them."

"I'm terribly sorry about literally all Elves. Nothing to be done for them. Men wouldn't care."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, at least.

"Complicating the issue further is that Celegorm is actually the Elf I have a crush on, which made the bit of that conversation about how it was completely ridiculous that we might be flirting sort of hilariously ironic."

"A Feanorian?

Your life is your business, I am interested in offering advice only when it's solicited."

"If I were going to have logical crushes I wouldn't be crushing on an elf in the first place and he's actually been really great to me. If you have advice I'm interested in hearing it."

"Crushing on Elves is very logical, they are really hot and utterly devoted to the war in a very ageless weary way and it is entirely reasonable to find those traits attractive.

Most of the House of Finwë hasn't married. The explanation I got was that their first obligation is to their people and their second to their King and their third to their family and it is not many who want to be fourth in a lover's life. For the Feanorians add the Silmarils."

"He is stupidly hot," she agrees. "I really shouldn't be arguing in favor of doing something about this but both my previous relationships failed when I got it through my boyfriends' heads that they were never going to supplant my sister in my priorities."

"It'd probably work better if it were at least mutual."

"When I confronted him on the subject of whether or not he considered me a child he basically said that he didn't consider me the equivalent of a twenty-one-year-old elf, he considered me the equivalent of a fifty-year-old-elf, which is basically newly come of age, which is pretty much accurate all things considered--and still too young to date someone in his age group, which came up when he specifically mentioned that he wasn't going to suggest setting my sister up with lesbian elves because of the age differences. I'm too young and there's a war on, which means that I specifically am too busy attempting to achieve ultimate cosmic power for a love life, came up when we were discussing hypothetical rumor deflection. Neither of those things are going to be true forever. I don't know if I'm still going to be interested when those things are no longer true or if I'm going to try anything if I am but I'm really not succeeding at talking myself out of it, am I."

"I am probably not the person to talk you out of it. Though one other consideration is that they - 

Aegnor's supposedly going to pine for me forever. I don't want him to pine for me forever. I am not going to pine for him forever. But it's an Elf thing; they fall once, and hard, and forever."

"I won't do anything if I'm not willing to deal with that level of commitment."

"In that case I think your priorities are very sensible."

"If I still want him after decades-at-least of not doing anything with it when I'm not too young anymore I'm probably not going to balk at Elf Hypermonogamy, though."

"Do you expect that you will still want him in decades?"

"How should I know? I'm only twenty-one. Maybe I will, and maybe I won't, and maybe if I do and I decide to try he'll turn me down, and however it turns out I expect to enjoy and value his friendship."

"You're the one who knows him, but he'd be very foolish, politically speaking to turn you down. That's another consideration."

"If I don't think I can try anything without incidentally pressuring him then I definitely won't."

"I believe you. And being a really advantageous partner isn't inherently pressure-y, or something. Just can be, during the war."

"Add that to the list of reasons to wait until the war's over, I guess."