Well.

That's at least an interestingly bad idea. Did she explain herself?

I think the main point was to have Fëanáro be not doing it. Why interestingly bad? 

Apart from seizures, that is.

Maitimo is a much more strategic thinker than his father. He wouldn't have lit the ships on fire, for instance, if he wanted us dead he'd have loaded them up and sabotaged them a hundred miles from shore. And then rescued a few people, heroically, who he thought would be useful once the people they followed had drowned.

Oh.

And are your deaths the kind of thing he's likely to want, relative to whatever his father is doing?

I used to think I had a good sense of his goals but then I realized at high cost that 'get Findekáno to trust me and share things with me that I can relay to my father' had been among them, and that therefore I couldn't rely on much of what he'd told me about the others.

Was that because of the boats, or yet another round of betraying?

Boats and events and conversations immediately surrounding boats. And Alqualondë though at the time I thought that was just a communication failure.

Is Maitimo less bad than his father, at least? Or if not is there anyone who would be; Artanis just mentioned his name as the obvious person to replace Fëanáro.

Yes, I think he is. I think he'd be much likelier to win us the war, at least. I could not call him my King.

Apparently him being in charge—of their army, not their kingship, though maybe that always goes together here—would also give you a seizure. I assume it's the metaphorical kind.

The ring was a gift from him. A promise to not do the thing that he ended up doing.

At some level of abstraction, since nobody expected the specific thing enough to make promises about it?

Supposedly there's some reason you'd want him not in charge that I should ask about if it might actually happen even though asking would be extremely offensive. If he broke promises personally as well as politically that doesn't sound like why. Do you know what Artanis was referencing, and if so should I just stop talking.

I don't want him in charge but I don't like any of the outcomes available to me. It might be worth it. He might be easier to work with. He also might play us all very gracefully and then twitch a finger and we all die of something that he couldn't possibly be blamed for. There's no strategically relevant information you don't have but Artanis will probably aggressively keep dropping hints until you figure it out, the likelihood of which I can't assess without knowing more about your society.

I don't want to say any guesses because "is THIS the horribly offensive thing Findekáno did? How about THAT one, that seems plausible?" sounds really likely to blow up in somebody's face. If it's not relevant to anything important I can just act like there's too much cultural difference for the hints to mean anything even after I end up with more than guesses.

Where I'm from there isn't a very long list of things more offensive than stacking up the heads of your enemies to make a point. If someone outright said what the allegation is, I doubt I'd care much in comparison to whatever strategic crisis is going on at the time.

I will have a talk with Artanis. There are no barriers to this approach beyond all the obvious ones.

Good. It all just seems so...trivial, what with there being literally a war on.

Well, the question at issue is whether we can conduct a war together.

Well, you've said it doesn't affect the war and I guess most people don't know how much you have riding on not being wrong.

Yeah.

Irissë is done headhunting.

In the uncomfortably literal sense. A good thing to be done with. 

In that case more flight, and they never did specify a frequency of heads per unit length; maybe with orc vision it'll need fewer of them to count as marking the border.

She's honestly enjoying this. What did she want to ask you about?

How I'll cope if we decide to settle the succession dispute by bending knee to Maitimo. Artanis apparently predicted I'd react badly, and stopped just shy of explaining exactly why.

How will you cope?

There's a war on. I'll win it.

Depending on exactly how much of the edge Irissë claimed, a single batch might not be enough. But they've got time and it's not as if the orcs pose much threat. Finishing goes by quickly.

And they fly back to their host with good news. She pats her brother's shoulder a little reassuringly.

"I haven't given much thought to a cover story, since succeeding would be great regardless. If you just say the good news and ask people not to ask why, is anyone going to be too curious?"

"Rabidly, but I don't think they'll hit on the truth."