It would also mess with the plan about avoiding them, regardless of who gets sent.

I am trying to think how Findekáno will react if I tell him I let Maitimo die.

It's Maitimo instead of Fëanáro; there's much less of a dilemma about leaving him to possibly die. We're coming back.

I mean, I'm not at all sure Findekáno'd react by being sad. But yeah.

This definitely deserves cutting short the rest of the trip. Maybe Findekáno'll end up being there in three days.

If the Enemy's betrayal is scheduled early Maitimo's going to need all the help he can get.

Let's head home.

Have they mentioned where the parley is yet? If not we should hold out for that.

They have but not in terms of directions from here, I think they're already working from maps of the area. We're going to have to follow them.

And that'll be doable even if they leave early and we miss it. All right.

Flight back to the Ice.

"You said the Eldar wouldn't send you as an ambassador because they're sexist. Is that the extent of it, or should I be expecting other possible plans to have extra obstacles for no reason?"

"Doesn't come up much except in formal political office."

"And the person who makes contact with the Feanorians would have to be official, since we already know they're there, but at least there shouldn't be the same objection to us pulling off a rescue if we go with that plan instead."

"Yeah. No one will object to us intervening in a fight, it's just that if I claimed my father sent me their reaction would be 'all three of your brothers are dead? and even then, really?"

"It's a stupid constraint to have. But probably most human societies have had something analogous, so I can't blame this one on Eldar."

"I know it's stupid. Fëanor knows it's stupid, he just decided to work around it by having seven boys."

"Decided?"

"He could have, like, fought the nonsense instead of buying into it."

"No, I mean, decided to have sons? Humans can't normally do that."

"Oh. We can. My parents had two boys, a girl, another boy. My aunt and uncle had three boys and then a girl. Get some heirs, then indulge the King with a granddaughter."

"Sexism plus ability to pick sexes sounds vulnerable to, well, what Feanor did. Do large gender imbalances come with problems? They do among Men, but some of the reasons might interact weirdly with immortality."

"People can't get married, I guess, but it's only really the royal family that has an incentive to skew for sons and actually I think once it became obvious Fëanor was going to do it this way everyone else skewed towards daughters. What sort of problems?"

"If royalty has sons and commoners have daughters that's also a problem, it's nice and self-perpetuating with important people usually being men. We'll have to at least make sure practitioners reject it, or it might catch on.

Not being able to get married is more of an issue for mortals. In places with a lot more men than women, there are a lot of men who think they'll never find partners ever, and large numbers of unhappy people is apparently one way to get crime. I don't remember the details.
Most humans are only interested in the opposite gender, and that's in about the same proportion across both. So not all the unfortunate majority members can just look for other unfortunate majority members."

"All Elves are only interested in the opposite gender. But people know it might take Ages to find the right person."

"All Elves? That's not weirder than the superpowers, but still surprising."

" I mean, some people do better at it than others. My cousin Tyelcormo was really bad at it but he's a Feanorian."

"You all make yourselves only be attracted to the opposite gender? If it were Men saying it that would inevitably mean much worse things. Is there anyone who can't?

And why would being Feanorian make people worse at trying, that too."