...Thank you. I can take you to him.

Thank you. 

She keeps walking in the general direction of the Feanorians and particular direction of the Feanorian.

And she reaches the wall of their settlement. He's standing there. Red hair. 

"Oaths," he says, "have to be spoken aloud. What are you?"

"Oh. You probably can't trust that as an oath then, can you. Still true."

I'm human.

Which they probably already knew, and yet here's Maitimo acting as if they didn't.

"So you can say it again," he says, "and spare me a headache. Someone might think you were trying to trick us or something."

She repeats it, audibly this time.

"Come on in. I'm Maitimo, but you know that, you asked for me. You are -?"

"I'm Amber. I met your father recently, carrying a message, but this time it's mostly from me."

"I was present for that. Come inside, we have at least some enchantments on the walls and unless you're the type to be lulled into a false sense of security they are better than nothing." He gestures at a building.

She comes in with him, looking at the walls on the way in.

The building is lit, with glowing rocks, and has an astoundingly pretty tapestry on the facing wall. Maitimo pulls out two chairs. "Can I get you anything? Food, drink, rings of various minor forms of protection -"

"No, but thank you for offering." Asking about what kinds of protection exist is tempting but too close to exchanging information on capabilities. She takes one of the chairs and is suitably distracted by the artwork.

"Pretty, isn't it? My grandmother made them; she died when my father was very young. The Enemy torched most of them when he sacked our home. I think he was aiming deliberately; for an assassination of a King it seemed rather carefully designed for the attention of the King's son."

"He's been playing you all along? Your faction, I mean, not you personally. Or did he target other people similar ways?"

"He was playing everybody. He told my father that his half-brother was planning to usurp the throne and have us exiled, he told my uncle that my father was unstable and paranoid. At the time neither thing was true, but a decade later both were."

"That's why I'm here, kind of. I think he still is."

"Obviously. At this point it's harder to do anything about it, though. I've mostly given up on a unified Noldorin command and am hoping for an arrangement by which both sides at least trust that giving the other strategically relevant information will not make them worse off. Do you want to help with that?"

"I can't commit to that in full generality, but would definitely want to help expand how much information both sides feel they can share safely.

Especially if you know a reason why" parleying with Melkor—is that secret, by the way? "isn't a suicidally bad idea."

"I think you are not evaluating 'large chance of suicide mission', 'small chance we can navigate this in a way that buys us a year and a hundred thousand lives' correctly. And no, it's not a secret, we try to give everyone full information before we send them off to take absurd risks."

"He could just send overwhelming force to kill everyone without giving the time or the lives. If he doesn't, it's because there's something more complicated that he considers better. If all you know is that whatever betrayal he has planned is at least that bad, what positive outcome are you hoping for?"

"He sends overwhelming force and we get a better sense of his capabilities which we desperately need to stand a chance in this war. He sends overwhelming force but does the pretense of a negotiation first and I get the ten minutes I'd require to understand whoever he has working for him and on what incentives and towards what ends that aren't his own. He sends overwhelming force and we turn out to be hard to overwhelm. He plays along a little longer because some purpose of his is served by a year's treaty, and we get everyone off the continent who we can. None of them likely, many of them worth dying for."

"If he knows who he's up against well enough to destroy the tapestries, he should know better than to give you ten minutes. Surviving an ambush and finding out what he's got would be useful but you can start a fight on your own terms any time.

The last one is the case where all we'd know about his unknown purpose is that it's more effective than giving up nothing and killing you."

"Why hasn't he just come here and killed us? How likely do you think it is that his abilities are in the band where he can't just storm this camp and slaughter us but can take us in a fight we're expecting?"

"Where is the meeting and who picked it? I'd think it's pretty likely he can win this fight."

Hundred miles north of here, and we named the location. I also think it pretty likely, depending how you're using the term. I don't think they're at more of an advantage there than if they attacked here.