"Fingon is my cousin. Fëanor is my father."

"Your dead father. Um. My sister is alive and well and apparently your cousin found her, and apparently you're likely to ask me to bring your father back to life if I can and doing so could be politically fraught."

He laughs, again. "That's in the Doom of the Valar, too, you know, hopes rising up and then being snatched away. I'm glad your sister's safe."

"If I can do it at all it sounded like it would be perfectly fine to do after the Enemy was dead. And I can try with anyone else."

"How about Fingon's sister - the cousin and friend I mentioned? There's a show of goodwill, if he's panicked enough that he'd persuade your sister to forbid you from trying with my father, and I can't think of any political situation she'd worsen."

"Forbid is probably the wrong word. She said 'don't do it without talking to me and seriously considering the consequences, because they exist,' not 'don't do it, period.' Anyway that sounds fine. You probably don't have the body...you're blood relatives, right, I don't know what this culture's stance on adoption is but shared blood could be nontrivial."

"We're technically half-first-cousins. If my brother would be a better first attempt we can start with him."

"Might be. It's not the only factor. Which one were you closer to?"

"I was close to both but my brother has been dead three hundred fifty years longer. He has a twin who was of course much closer to him, if talking to him would benefit you?"

"Oh, a twin. Yes, I should start with him."

"Unless you can share the flight thing, he's a day's travel south of here."

"I can carry you, if that's what you mean."

"That will certainly get us there faster." He shakes his head. "All right, why not?"

"Eenh, I did promise the spiders I'd be back soon, one way or another. Have we established that a glass dome with a walking path is the best option we've got for now? I can do something else later."

"Sure. How long will that take you?"

"Ugh, I probably won't be back until a bit after sunset." Her stomach growls and she winces.

"Lunch? We can do lunch. Amrod's not okay but he's been alone for centuries, he can wait a few more days."

"Yeah, I should eat," she sighs. "And then I'll deal with the spiders and be back as quickly as I can without doing a shoddy job."

He heads down the stairs of the fortress. It's well-lit within with some kind of glowing rocks in every alcove. The walls have slits for archers. "Someone's bringing you food," he says after a moment. "Anything else while you're here? Armor? I gather you can just do magic, but..."

"My pride says no but my sense says yes, so let's go with yes."

"I always end up taking the other side of that one. We have stuff that should fit you, I'll ask someone to fetch it." His eyelids flicker. "What makes it likelier you can raise someone from the dead?"

"I'm not sure. Nothing like this has ever been done before. But--blood connection, to help reconstruct the body, and emotional closeness, to help recall the soul--those seem like obvious connections. If my first try doesn't work I'll do something else."

"Well, you'll have a quite identical body to work from. HIs name was Telufinwë Ambarto. He died in a fire."

"If they're identical twins, so much the better. Fraternal twins are more common, where I'm from."

"Twins in general are not common among the Eldar. And they're not entirely - I could tell them apart - but they're more alike than any other siblings would be."