"I'm going to have lunch and head back out to deal with more orcs."

"Certainly. Have fun."

"Have as much fun as you can, under the circumstances."

And then she goes out and kills orcs for a while. It's...worse. When you're not in a fit of rage and you have to remember that the people dying under your mind are people and as much victims of your real enemy as your friends are. But she's going to overthrow Mandos someday, and in the meantime this is the best she can do.

He feeds Curufin more tidbits to break up the workload of running a kingdom in wartime. 

She not only decided within a week to fight the Valar, she decided not to tell us about it lest Mandos find out from our minds.

That, Curufin responds, is something like what I'd expect if someone gave Maitimo Father's ambitions and a Vala's powers and this war at age 21.

When you say it like that it sounds like a disaster.

And Odette comes back in at a perfectly reasonable time for dinner. "I keep forgetting to do something about the food," she says in annoyance. "Killing orcs isn't a bad default but I keep doing it when there are other things I meant to do."

"I can give you a task list in the mornings." Dinner is soup, duck, a dozen different desserts.

"That would probably help."

And she checks in with her sister.

Hey, Illia.

Heeey. So how have you been doing, my day was not great, killing orcs is actually super boring.

I keep forgetting to do things other than that, so.

At least anything you do has the added value of 'continue to spiral you towards a power level that will raise the dead and kill Morgoth' on top of its immediate value.

Poor dear, she responds, not unsympathetically. You know I can fly you someplace with more humans so you can teach people magic, right?

Might well take you up on that soon. Um. Possibly not Dor Lómin, though.

...Why not that place in particular?

Illia sends her the relevant portion of the conversation she had with Lady Hareth.

Odette chokes slightly on a piece of duck and then dissolves into exasperated laughter.

"Your sister all right?"

"Someone who had been present when the gay thing came up and turned super awkward suggested that she get a girlfriend, insist on bringing her to dinners and kiss her at every course to make your cousin uncomfortable. She's nnnnot going to do it. But it was a funny mental image."

"It genuinely does not serve any of our interests to try to make Fingon specifically declare himself for sexual progressivism."

"She's really not going to do it, don't worry."

That's kind of hilarious.

He should probably warn someone that family politics have apparently, driven by the newcomers, taken the predictable turn for the operatic. Or he could sleep with someone stupid and divert attention, that'd be a responsible way of managing the situation. Instead he just rolls his eyes.

I know. Oh, trust me, I know. I like Hareth, she's so completely not afraid to speak her mind, but she doesn't entirely have the same priorities we do.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure the person who suggested it didn't get why it would be a bad idea, even, it was one of your cousin's human...vassals or allies, I'm not sure which," she says when he rolls his eyes.

The two of them exchange further updates on various things, none sufficiently jarring as to produce conspicuous external reaction.

"All well on the home front?"

"Pretty much. I'll probably end up doing more food-increasing than I would have if it weren't for the ash clouds."

"Not a bad idea."