Yes. What do you want me to say - if I'd have the power would I have made sure you didn't grieve your parents, so it did not get in my way -

I don't care if you would have done it. I am glad you couldn't, and I hope you can see what that means, what it does...

I am glad I didn't do it.

Thank you.

Her side weaponized love too. Differently. They needed a more overwhelming witchcraft advantage. Stole Pera away with her deliberately-sought one-true-love-if-you-don't-count-Brady. She doesn't think Pera's upset about that.

Not being upset about it isn't really the proof it's okay. But.

Well, Pera originally wanted to live in Mexico and be a human and not have people bothering her but what Pera wanted was derailed, repeatedly, when Addy caught her and Brady stole her away to Jake's pack and the pack got caught and she got turned.

I am really glad this whole mess now has some good people running it.

And Elspeth gets to write informative pamphlets. She likes writing informative pamphlets.

When the war's over we can try to figure out how to send you home. Though the King's going to drag his feet on that if your honest assessment is that your Queen won't want him in power.

Elspeth is hardly going to produce a dishonest assessment. It'd probably depend on various practical factors - if it's really hard to get between worlds she won't be able to just add this one to the Golden Empire, they're bottlenecked on a lot of key witchcraft and she won't want to overextend herself. Also on whether Maitimo can stop being so damn evil by the time Mama is trying to assess his likely future evil.

I will suggest to him that he work on that.

Maitimo -

 - if you were to swear to be mine forever I can't think of anything else I am obligate evil about, and that'll then be past evil, and I'm even happy to then regret it.

Wow. That's fucked up.

He sighs.

Have we picked our ten engineers?

Or worked out with Doriath what the engineers will have to say before they're allowed in? Like swearing not to assassinate the king personally or by proxy, that's probably a good start.

So they get to work on negotiating that.

And Elspeth settles in to Menegroth. Do they want to know any things that Elspeth knows?

They are kind of still maybe anticipating a war with the Noldor and would love to know what the Noldor know, yep.

Nukes she would not care to distribute further without comparable guarantees on the limits of their use. She will explain planes and stuff though.

And after a few months Melian has a blood-berry bush for her! It's tiny, but if sung to every day it'll get tall and healthy.

Elspeth can sing to it!

It's a tweaked version of the generic healthy-crops song, because the blood-berry bush is magical and responds a little differently to the standard one. But as long as it's sung to it'll do just fine.

And when there are blood-berries they are really yummy! Elspeth thanks Melian very appreciatively.

My pleasure, dear! It was an interesting challenge!