"Hard mode," repeats Bella. "...It's promising he eventually realized there was something to make up for?"

"...yes, but the way he went about it didn't do much good -

After the Enemy'd been pulling everyone's strings for a few dozen Years, my father's half-brother found the King in secret before a public council and told the King he still had two loyal sons - the two by his second wife - and my father overheard and drew a sword on him. And got exiled from Tirion for twelve Years. And the King decided to protest the sentence by going into exile with him. He wanted Fëanáro to feel supported. Which was lovely, only hard on the victim of the whole mess."

"...what string-pulling was this?"

"Ah, persuaded my father's half-brother that my father was unstable and paranoid, persuaded my father that his half-brother was plotting to usurp him, invented evidence of both things until they were eventually both true."

"My Arda hasn't let him out of his wherever-they-keep-him yet. I wonder if it would do any good to tell them it's been tried and doesn't go well."

"They had, as Valar motivations go, an exceptionally good reason. But yes, it's probably worth warning them it's not worth it."

"What was their reason?"

"He made orcs. There are a lot of orcs. All of them are in constant pain. He promised that if restored to the world he'd undo it. And he did. And then with the goodwill this bought him managed to destroy Valinor, and turned the pain right back on."

"He used it as leverage with Loki, too. Or tried."

"Maitimo described her as not vulnerable to that sort of thing."

"I think she was much more tempted than she expected any offer of the Enemy's to be. She came to my father and he said 'well, let's go kill him' and we did that and it worked rather narrowly but it did work. And then she studied like a maniac and killed him more thoroughly."

"Good."

"Maitimo said he told you what happened, did he just exclude everything traumatic for him?"

"Left the personal trauma part out as not general audiences, I think, Fëanáro was there."

"The Enemy offered to make all orcs stop hurting for ten years if Loki'd bring the Enemy Maitimo."

"Oh dear."

"She - well, you can probably guess - asked him if he'd volunteer."

"...that would have taken me more than a couple minutes to conclude from scratch but I am not surprised."

"Maitimo didn't object except on strategic grounds but he wouldn't have, he's - it was exacerbated by Angband but was already a tendency of his - he can't think about questions that involve weighing himself against other people. Obviously other people are more."

"Generously it's because he can put himself in their heads so easily."

"I'm reconsidering if I should decline to see him in a professional capacity, I think my new universe contains therapists, I could probably eventually find one who I could recommend. Or pull one out of Materia. The personal entanglement thing however by-proxy it may be can be a big deal."

"I didn't realize you were considering it. I - if you can think of anyone who isn't an instance of you who's up to the task, I'll trust your judgment, but - most people just couldn't even cope with hearing it."

"It's kind of what therapists are for, hearing horrible things, and I didn't specialize heavily in trauma or anything, and if I look exactly like someone who proposed handing him back to his captors this could affect things. If he'll have me and nobody else I'll do it, but it's considered to-be-avoided for a reason."