Maitimo is jealous. Maitimo has some very detail-oriented people do a thorough trip through Hresk, acquires the information he needs, tells a lot of lies, spends two months engineering contractors around each other so that none of them know what the other ones are doing or who in Tirion, exactly, wants them doing it.

Maitimo asks Kib if he'll go through to Hresk with him, there's an inventory problem he wants to take a look at with a human to help explain human customs.

"I am a human!" Kib says. "Clearly my most important qualification for any task."

Maitimo has commissioned a boat.

To be entirely honest he'd been working on doing that anyway, they are going to need one to go to the Outer Lands eventually and with the knowledge and magic of Kib's world crossing oceans is safe enough. The shipbuilders aren't used to Elven standards of pretty, but he has lots of money and designs borrowed from Alqualonde. 

And so now he has a satisfactorily (stunningly) pretty boat in the style of Alqualonde's swanships, docked in a harbor in Hresk. It is called Ambition - might have made it home, somehow, if he'd called it Akibel - and it's very smoothly rowed by automata but he got a ring for seasickness just in case Kib happened to be susceptible.

"Is your inventory problem that this boat's cargo hold did not have your boyfriend in it?" Kib inquires suspiciously.

"...might have been. About a mile out across the water there are stunning sunsets, come with me?"

"Twist my arm," laughs Kib. "Of course."

About a mile out there is a very small island. He terraformed the island, not because there was anything particularly wrong with it but because there's this delightful springy grass in western Valinor that's like lying down on a cloud, so why would he have anything but that? He has foods Kib likes. 

He has a project of Curufinwe's, lenses that gave human wearers Elf-like vision. They're going to start selling them soon but the reveal isn't for a month. 

They can watch a sunset.

"Oh colors," breathes Kib when he puts the goggles on, snuggling up on the springy grass.

"I don't know why the Valar didn't try a sun, it's stunning."

"Suns are great. This is exquisite." Nuzzle. "I love you."

"I love you. Both our worlds are fortunate you found ours."

"Thank the snake monster."

"Why would I do that, when you're right here?"

"Well, I suppose that while the snake monster is to thank for the finding I am to thank for the fortunateness."

"And if I have a choice of who to thank I think I'll go for the one I can thank by kissing him." He does. "No one else who got snaked is back?"

Kiss! "Nope, just me so far. Been a while, too."

"We knew most worlds might not have a form of interdimensional transit."

"Also possible most people didn't land someplace as safe as Valinor."

"At a guess, probably not; rather few places are as safe as Valinor. Though we'll get there! Anyone folded on slavery?"

"Not as such, although a stork brought me a letter explaining why the storks should supply the human trafficking industry please."

"Oh? And why is that? Slavery's lovely, really?"

"That particular city-state doesn't enslave any of the people who come up in its own creches, don't I see, just foreigners."

"And obviously our objection was that those babies specifically might be slaves, we aren't bothered by the thought babies we're depositing elsewhere might be slaves."

"I haven't decided yet whether to write back that we declined to supply demand for the human trafficking industry either. Like, on the one hand, what an excellent rhetorical point, yay me, but on the other hand I don't want to be corresponding extensively via stork."

"Think it's likely someone'd find you? Or be able to try something even if they did?"

"It's not very likely on either count, but I seriously considered not even explaining to the slaver states why they were being excluded and letting them figure it out by induction, I'm uneasy of making it too salient that the storks are directed."

"Well, in time either they will come around or they will stop existing, and I'm content either way. Unless Father gets a general solution to mortality and he says it's in the works but a Year or two out..."

"That will complicate trying to use storks to get people to behave. A couple Valian years is enough for them to start feeling a pinch from an aging population, though."

"I have reservations about not handing out immortality to slave states."

"Yeah. Me too. I guess depending on distribution method we could decline to hand it out to slave owners. Manumit everybody in your possession first then step right up."

He nods thoughtfully. 

"...I actually did not terraform you an island so we could talk politics exactly like we're back in Tirion."

"You didn't? Gosh."

He puts his arms around him. "...I admittedly mostly terraformed you an island because I was jealous. But - I love you. I am deliriously happy you fell into our laps. I am really looking forward to fixing everything in both universes, and the fact we have to keep this secret is on the list somewhere, although, you know, slavery - I wonder if I'm in fact capable of not talking politics..."

Snuggles! "The island is lovely and you being jealous is cute and I love you too and it's not like politics isn't interesting but you are handily telepathic and could simultaneously kiss me."

He kisses him. I get jealous over you all the time, it's ridiculous. When you first mentioned you'd had a conversation with Findekano I was so embarrassingly confusingly upset - and I did not in fact know he'd decided he liked you - and then you were married - I am very good at sharing if I am allowed to occasionally be melodramatic about it...

Well, I like how you do melodrama. Mmmmkisses. With pretty boats and this fantastic grass, I want to carpet my house in this grass.

Isn't it lovely? Like lying on a cloud - or what I imagined lying on a cloud would be like, before Manwe told me that they're just water vapor...

Yes, exactly. Like lying on a cloud in a dream.

I should like to give you the world but islands are an acceptable interim present. 

It is the best island and I love you.

I know you do. 

More kisses, less clothing?

Capital idea.

When it gets very late he brought blankets too. They can stargaze - the worlds have, of course, different stars - and fall asleep in each others' arms. 

There aren't even any pox dreams to interfere with the coziness.

It's a week after they get back to Tirion that someone brings to Maitimo's attention a discrepency in visitor records in the last half-Year of mortal tourism in Valinor. He thinks about telling Kib he has another inventory problem, but this is a little too serious. 

Kib is busily explaining to tourist humans that they should have read the infosheet.

"It specifically says not to hit on the Elves. It explains why not to hit on the Elves. After last month there is a footnote about how loitering in the bathhouse staring at the Elves in the nude merely amuses them and does not constitute hitting on the Elves and that if they giggle at you this is because they find your interest in nudity inherently hilarious, not because they're flirting with you. Did you read it?"

"I - I looked it over, but she -"

"- was reacting the way you'd react if Elves blushed at you for combing your hair in public, because she thought you were being a silly foreigner and jailbait at that, not flirting."

"Well, I didn't know that!"

"This is because you didn't read the infosheet! And therefore not her fault!"

Hey, can you stop by here when you get a chance?

Yeah, sure. "So you're going to read the entire infosheet, I did not put any words on there for my health. You are going to tell her that you are very sorry and should have known better and you apologize for being so inappropriately moved when you were overwhelmed by her beauty -"

"- that's not flirting?"

"This is why you're going to read the infosheet first, you can look at them naked and tell them they're pretty you just can't touch their hair or kiss them, there is a reason I hand these things out."

"Oh."

"And then you are not going to bother her again and you're going to go home for at least six weeks. Got it?"

"...okay."

And when this gentleman has been sent on his way Kib meets up with Maitimo. What is it?

We've got more humans going in than out. Consistently. For the last half of a Year. The ones who come in and don't go out aren't vetted and I was trying to sort out how that happened and then I realized - they're babies, the portals consider them cargo. Someone's smuggling babies into Valinor after all.

- what, and putting them where?

Excellent question.

Would require adult human assistance, most likely...

Yep. Lots of people have made return trips. I can assign someone to the portal to watch everyone going in with a baby and make sure they leave with them...stop anyone who doesn't so we can talk to them, you think?

Yeah, ask them where they put the kid and why... Probably shouldn't publish an infosheet update with "do not leave babies in Valinor", tips whoever off that we've noticed.

Should I expect trouble if a baby-smuggling human is stopped?

I'd be a little surprised if they don't have some cover story set up, so that's probably not an instant problem. Although you might want to get somebody else to ask 'didn't you have a baby' instead of doing it directly.

Yes, definitely. 

Alright. I'll let you know more as soon as I know more.

We could if necessary have some storks on this side of the portal, since looking for babies is what they're for, but that's if we can't find them with detective work.

How do they find babies, are they going to bother everyone in Tirion who has one?

By default they only look outdoors, and they mostly listen for crying. I could tell them to do something else here, and it might be that they can tell the difference between human and Elf crying and then I just have to have them ignore your sister.

I'll get back to you on that if detective work doesn't get us there.

Thanks for letting me know.

Sure thing. Thanks for playing cultural mediator.

My pleasure.

They find someone two weeks later. Comes in with a baby, leaves without one, says his husband took the baby back, what's the problem. Maitimo's watching through his guards' eyes and the guards are pretty sure there was no husband who took the baby back. Several of the guards also have things to say about men marrying men, which Maitimo doesn't reprimand them for because what would he even say. 

Kib, want to come talk to this guy?

Yeah, sure.

Kib shows up. "Hey, sorry the Elves are harassing you about having a husband, they get like that."

"It was on the infosheets," he says grudgingly. "We didn't kiss or anything, they just assumed we'd kidnapped and/or abandoned a child. Lunatics. Pretty ones, but still."

"How come you even brought a baby along?"

"My husband works at a creche. Kid had a nasty persistent cough and someone mentioned Valinor's supposed to have gardens of healing or some such, so we thought - we'd been planning to make a trip of it anyway -"

"Oh, did that work? Should I update the sheet?"

"Give us a couple days to get back to you on that; kid seemed fine but the cough comes and goes anyway."

"Has your area got medical golems, I have an in with the medical golems guy."

"Not yet, that'd be tremendously helpful."

Notebook. "What's your name, where are you and your creche?"

He lists a place halfway across the continent. 

"Wow, you hauled a long way to get the kid to the garden and you're not even staying long enough to make sure it worked?"

"The everyone finding our existence deeply offensive wears on you, it happens."

"Yeah, I hear you. Bothered your husband more than you?"

"Yep. And he didn't have the private thoughts thing down so he was mentally spitting insults at everyone and figured it was better to just leave."

"And lemme guess, you're as bewildered as I am by babies so he took the kid back instead of leaving 'em with you."

"They're just - until they can talk I haven't the faintest idea what you do with them..."

"Bit of an inscrutable appeal. Well, I hope you at least liked the gardens, I hear they're stunning."

"Very pretty. The whole place is pretty, just -" he shrugs. "They're aliens, I guess I don't know what I was expecting."

"Well, I'm sure we can sort out the records discrepancy; when'd your husband go home, what's his name?"

"A week ago, Herzal, and I think the baby's Arenet? Something like that. They call him Ari."

"Mkay..." Rummage rummage, is there a Herzal in here?

There is! He left a week ago.

And the babies are cargo. All right... did Herzal and this guy arrive together?

Yep.

"Okay, you should expect a medical golem fleet in like a week, I'll have them find Ari and check on him specifically."

"That's thoughtful. It's not that urgent, I'm sure babies get coughs everywhere."

"Sure, but I consider myself responsible for Valinor-humanity relations and you came all this way for the kid's cough only to be driven off by Elf homophobia, it'd make me feel better if I knew that the garden had worked or at least he was getting top quality care if it didn't."

"We'll make sure you can meet him, then."

"Well, the golems will, I can't justify the travel time."

"Of course. Have a nice day."

"You too!"

He leaves.

Anything of interest? Maitimo says an hour later.

Cover story holds up to conversation but he did flinch when I proposed contextually reasonable things that would check on it. I'm gonna slip a courier in with the medical golems and ask for the record of the creche he named but they can just name any random kid Arenet. Sneaking suspicion that whoever's orchestrating this is deliberately recruiting gay couples to cause Elves to be stupid around them.

Well, then we're playing our role perfectly. I could ask my father to tell off people who make homophobic comments, I attract attention if I do it but he's firstly married and secondly known to be rude to people he thinks are stupid.

Well, I doubt that will help with people being stupid around baby-smugglers directly but it might be desirable for other reasons.

All right. We'll keep an eye out for any others.

Maybe start insisting on writing down names for all the babies as they come through.

Good idea. I'll do that.

And Kib puts the town the fellow named next on the medical golems list, and sends a courier golem in with the quarantine-keepers and the nurse-assistants and the vaccine-preppers. It asks for the records of that creche.

Creche is happy to provide records. No Herzel works there. No babies named Arenet, and none who died or went missing recently.

Which information Kib relays to Maitimo - So they're keeping pretty deep cover.

Toward what end? If someone in Valinor wanted to adopt some kids they could, my father certainly got away with it...

What's particularly odd is that the creche itself existed. It wasn't made up, someone looked up a creche that was a little too remote to be convenient and had the guy claim his husband worked there. And I'm not sure. Obvious use for humans besides "adoptee" is "servantmaker", maybe someone thinks that importing adults who know the trade would - obviate the usefulness? Either because they want the servantmakers for human-unpalatable purposes or because they want to fly under the Valar's attention...

I don't like either of those possibilities. I don't want to raise the second one with the Valar lest they close the portals entirely.

Agreed. Is there some plausible or merely-exaggerated story you could put out about some kid having nearly had some mishap here such that parties with children under, call it eight, cannot wander off without their Elf escorts? Because Elves are so very concerned about the welfare of children, you see?

I'm sure I can manufacture something. If we put it in the brochures they'll know we're onto them, though.

Yeah, I'm not sure what steps we can take without making that clear, though...

Discreetly follow everyone who comes in with a small child? It cannot be that common, your people don't usually have small children around...

I guess you could be pretty discreet, you see so much better.

I'll have to explain to some people what's going on but I can pick ones I trust. 

Could also do it with pet birds but they'd be less able to report back on the details.

They could follow whoever the babies are handed off to, though. It'd be harder for an Elf to discreetly follow other Elves.

Elves with bird pets told to obey them that they can send after the babies.

Sounds like a plan.

Can Tyelcormo catch me some nondescript birds without wondering too hard what they're for? All I've got is a magpie from my past life and the colorful one I petted shortly after I showed up.

Definitely. He thinks you're fantastic.

Does he?

Are you surprised?

I didn't think he disliked me or anything but I wasn't aware it was 'fantastic' levels of not-dislike.

Tyelcormo's favorite thing is telling everyone in Tirion to go fuck themselves and he's been delighted with how you managed to get yourself acknowledgedly married and then proceed to shove it in everyone's faces.

Ha. Okay, should I ask him for birds directly or through you?

Either way is fine with me.

So Kib goes looking for Tyelcormo, Aly's magpie on his shoulder.

People can point Kib to him; he's flopped in a field full of horses, and stands up readily enough to come say hello.

"Hi! How're you?"

"Lovely, you?"

"Pretty good. I've been thinking about acquiring more birds. I am sort of retroactively used to having this one around, Aly got him, but he's coming up on the end of his lifespan unless Valinor messes with it, and the data's not in on that yet. Thing is I can't actually catch them."

"I can get you some birds, sure. Magpies specifically?"

"Nah, doesn't have to be magpies, just, not, like, cassowaries."

"You know what I should also do is get you a baby dinosaur."

"Dinosaurs being those things I shouldn't approach because I would be more inconvenienced than an Elf if I died and even if I wouldn't Aydanci would probably have flashbacks regardless?"

"They range from, like, vicious dog-sized to perfectly benign but house-sized - " he sends mental images - "and yeah, I've nearly died fucking around down south once or twice, and at least I knew I was just chancing a little tweaking by Mandos into a better citizen. But if I get you a baby then you can do your thing with it and it'll grow up and you'll have a dinosaur."

"Cool. I will defer to your judgment on what kind of dinosaur I ought to have. Ideally something that will be able to find its own food around here."

"Yeah, and something that's happy as a loner or among Elves because I don't know if their needs go away when you do your thing to them."

"I don't actually know, I'm a golem specialist - you're welcome to ask Thief, that being the magpie, if you like, but I think he's still mad that I had to tell him to stop eating people's hair, it was the one bad habit Aly let him keep but it wouldn't go over well here."

So he tries reaching out to Thief with emotions that should be usefully communicative - dislike of a crowded noisy environment, is that familiar? Is that a language we have in common?

Sure, familiar. 

And he does the stitching-together of thoughts in a familiar language to ask - what do you want? What makes you happy?

Aly! Food! A nice place to live! Aly is a nice place to live. Nibbling on hair is nice, can't do that, that's terrible. Aly's hair is short now, too.

Uh, seems to modify them to make you a thing they're happy about, so they might be okay without the stuff they normally need, but I don't want to bet on it, I'll just get you a dinosaur who's not a pack type. And it doesn't make them want whatever you want or anything, it's still basically a magpie that wants magpie stuff. And it is sour about the hair.

Thought so. Poor Thief, so inconvenienced by Elf social taboos. Kib strokes magpie feathers.

Aren't we all. I hope he doesn't age here but either way I will get you some birds and a dinosaur. 

Thanks! Also I don't mind petting stuff for other people, I can get them to do what other people say too. If multiple people want dinosaurs.

So, uh, there's nothing in Tirion except Huan who could stop a dinosaur under intelligent direction on a murder spree, so maybe make them follow non-murderous directions from other people, unless they're all people you trust?

Yeah, I can hand 'em out with safeties.

And I wonder if I can get ones big enough to fly on.

Ooh! That's probably safer than riding flying puppets or golems, those have an awful accident rate... my husband would probably panic anyway, but somebody ought to have fun with it.

I will be sure to have all of the fun for you.

Enjoy!

He whistles to Huan and bounds off.

Kib reports to Maitimo that birds and one or more baby dinosaurs are on their way.

Oh, dinosaurs! That's a very Tyelcormo idea, I hope it works out.

Me too. Also apparently my magpie really does love me after all!

I never understood how he does it but I'm sure he's right.

It's pretty weird that there is this clearly magic, entirely one-off thing that is him talking to animals.

Very weird. I can't think of other things like it, and I expect I'd know of them.

Yeah, I'd expect that too. Weird.

The dinos will probably take a few months, they're all the way down south. Birds hopefully by the next time someone tries to bring a young child through.

Hopefully. I didn't want to make it sound urgent.

My brothers are trustworthy. Not that caution isn't reasonable.

Yes, but I assumed if they ought to be told outright you would have mentioned that, and while I had a sort of tenuous explanation for wanting some birds I didn't have anything resembling a reason to be in a tearing hurry to have them.

I haven't yet decided who ought to be told outright. Possibly my parents, in case anyone bothers Lári, possibly the King if I am very very sure of his reaction. Findekáno of course.

Yeah. It seems unlikely that someone would go to this much trouble to collect babies and then go after one as likely to be missed as Lári. Cargo-age babies are too young to be specific babies as opposed to just an assortment.

They did work very very hard on subtlety, didn't they. It makes me almost more nervous than the actual missing children.

Yeah. You don't do that unless you think someone who won't like what you're doing will find out otherwise, and it simply isn't the case that my planet needs and wants literally all of its babies and wouldn't donate some without batting an eye - to a good cause.

Or even something easily glossed as one.

Optimistically, whoever it is is hiding from the Valar alone and fears only some Stupid Valar Tricks. Like, maybe they want to raise a bunch of humans here because they heard Lári ages slowly and think this is a humanitarian mission and they're not far wrong and they expect the Valar to be unamused. That is the most charitable possible thing I can come up with.

And the evillest possible thing you can come up with -

Evilest with respect to the fate of the kids or the fate of everybody else?

Everyone else, I've got no shortage of bad things that could happen to kids.

Wants 'em for servantmaking. I mentioned to Tyelcormo that I could tell dinosaurs to do what other people said, too, and he warned me to hand 'em out with safeties because only Huan could handle a rampaging dinosaur... That's not even the upper limit. Are the programming books and all their copies accounted for?

Think so. But anyone who's bribing people to smuggle babies could also just buy them at a bookstore in your world, yes?

Yeah. I'd hope they'd miss something but they could probably get someone to tell them what they'd need to the point where they could carve a few corners out of a mountain and have it stomping across the landscape.

Has that happened in your world? How is it countered?

Hasn't happened but there is not an upper size limit on golems, they don't need to have moving parts for puppet testing if you're confident enough in your articulation programming, and even if we aren't dealing with Melkor here I am imagining there exist Elves patient enough to carve a mountain a bit.

Yep. I have a harder time imagining Elves ruthless enough to force a child to awaken it, but I can't say it's impossible - given, you know, averted future in which I do all kinds of things I would have confidently asserted Elves don't do...

This is not necessarily a horror scenario for the kids themselves. You teach the kids to wake golems, you bring them to the mountain, you go, 'okay, kiddo, wake up the mountain!', I'm not seeing high return on the 'mountain golem' scenario for a child abuser.

Fantastic.

Okay, so we've got probably three Years to find these kids?

Less than that if they are not in Valinor. Some of them might be servantmaking already if they did not grow up slowed down.

Fuck.

We shouldn't have let that man leave - Macalaure has a lie-detection song -

He has a what? That would have been nice!

I mean, it is not subtle, he has to come and personally sing for ten minutes and then things a person says which they don't believe ring weirdly false - didn't think it was worth the production. I'm sorry. Next people, we follow the kid and we don't let the smuggler leave. I will need to tell the King something if I'm detaining people.

What'll he do if you tell him some kids are unaccounted for?

Panic, because in the environment he grew up and rose to power in that'd mean the Enemy'd kidnapped them to breed for orcs. Probably want to go to the Valar. I'm not sure we shouldn't go to the Valar, but - it's very irrevocable. 

Well, at least human kids would be very difficult to breed for orcs.

There are already hundreds of thousands of orcs, not much need anymore. Not that that's anywhere near the worst thing the Enemy did to prisoners.

If we wind up having to go to the Valar do we need an excuse for not having done so first thing?

If we do it within a couple months that'll seem immediate, to them. If we wait longer I'll probably have to do the wide-eyed 'I grew up in paradise and cannot conceive of evil' thing, but I'm very good at that.

And you pretend you didn't mention it to me, since I didn't grow up in paradise?

And can't claim that you can't conceive of evil, you're married to a man. I wish the Valar were just a tiny increment less fucking dangerously stupid -

They'd be so great to have around if only.

They can probably just find the children! They can definitely do things like make servant-making temporarily not work to be safe while we sort things out! They can re-arrest Melkor! And it is also possible they'll just make Arda fatal to humans or something.

I have been assured they don't kill people!

They haven't killed people! They strike me as likelier than me to end up killing people en masse, and we both know I apparently will!

You, says Kib, are going to do something that is not that, thank you. If this is a realistic concern I could take Aydanci back to my world while you drop the news, come up with an excuse to bring Lári, wait for the all-clear?

I think they're likelier to seal Valinor than go homicidal within it, so - depends on your priorities? They are by far likeliest to react reasonably, they just don't have very person-like priorities or values so I am not completely sure.

How much mileage can you get out of picking and choosing which you tell?

Probably a fair bit. That is an argument for telling them right away, I suppose, I can control how they get the word and who gets it - 

And it could be a while before another baby comes through, and it could just actually be one of those humans who likes babies and eases up creche population pressures and fully intends to take the baby home...

Alright. I'll go to Aule. I am very sure that the worst he'll do is close the portals. Which - which side do you want to be on -

He sounds very pained.

I need to talk to Aydanci, I am only ninety percent sure I know what he'll say -

Yeah. Let me know once you do.

Later:

We need time to leave some people instructions on how to make storks and a few other things, but I can do that by courier golem right now.

Thank you. You have as much time as you need.

And this might be for nothing, I don't know that they'll close the portals.

Yeah, instructions are in 'open if you don't hear from me within two months' format.

I love you. Get those written, I'm going to figure out how best to say this.

Love you.

And later:

Letters en route.

He goes to speak with Aule. 

Aule is alarmed. 

He explains what could be going on.

Aule is more alarmed.

Aule calls a council on Taniquetil for all parties who played any role deliberate or inadvertent in the smuggling of human children, witnessed it, or have information of interest to the Valar on it. Aule claps his hands together and says the portals are people-on-a-preapproved-list-only now.

And the Valar go to Melkor's house in Tirion to speak with him, but Melkor is gone.

...well, Kib has two birds and they're on Melkor finding duty now.

Are they going to fly the ocean? Because the Valar think Melkor's on the other side of the ocean.

(Maitimo has his boat brought through the portal).

The hearing is only marginally helpful. Forty-six children, starting half a Year ago, never brought in under the same names.

No, the birds aren't going to fly the ocean. But in case the Valar are wrong.

No signs of Melkor. 

No signs of Melkor for several months.

Tyelcormo comes back with a whole flock of swifts and starlings and seagulls merrily keeping him company, and a baby pterosaur - 'wingspan of eleven meters when he's grown, with a good wind song I'll totally be able to fly him' and four baby Tricerotops - 'they're herd animals, they wouldn't have been happy alone' - for Kib to pet.

Kib pets them - some of them Aydanci does to speed things up - they may as well. There are no babies to track but there's a Melkor to keep an eye out for.

Everyone's nervous. The Valar extend an invitation to the whole of Tirion to come up to Taniquetil for a festival to improve morale.

Bit clumsy of them, Maitimo says wearily, but I suppose they're trying.

That is clumsier than me with my ring off on a tightrope, what the hell.

You coming?

Should I? Aydanci would take some convincing to travel all the fucking way to Taniquetil to have a badly timed party on several counts...

I'd stay home if I could get away with it, honestly. Tell Aydanci you are glad you have him as an excuse to miss the badly timed party.

I will. Love you.

See you in three weeks. Enjoy how quiet Tirion'll be. 

Will do.

And Kib stays home with his Aydanci and the, what, dozen people besides them who didn't go to the festival?

Probably more than a dozen, but less than a hundred. If the Valar say you are invited you're really supposed to attend. It's a peaceful first week. The dinosaurs love the palace gardens.

Baby dinosaurs really are very cute.

In the middle of the second week one of the birds sees something on the southern horizon, and comes racing for Kib.

Aydanci's still asleep and Kib's out to let himself into an unattended tea shop, they're running low - and, shit, everybody's gone, what does he do -

The Trees go out. 

It's not, in fact, just dark - though it's pitch black, no stars in the sky here. It's also humid, the air is sticky, and the air pressure goes up, way way up, and the static electricity on skin effect is in full force, everywhere, so moving feels like crawling through a thick choking field of sparks.

Kib pulls the shades from his eyes and it doesn't help and he doesn't have any shines on hand -

He tries to catch his breath - determines it's futile - tries to trace his steps back to his house -

People can be heard, screaming.

Aydanci can be heard, screaming.

Kib has trained himself not to break into a run, and this habit has been eroding around the edges but in the dark it makes sense for other reasons.

He runs anyway. Caromes into the corner of a building - feels out the carvings on it, knows where he is, re-orients, races for home. "AYDANCI!"

When he reaches the house he runs into rubble.

"Aydanci? Honey? Honey where are you can you hear me -"

They don't have any shines - no, there's some on a clock. Kib cannibalizes the clock for light, seizes the shines off and pilots them around, looking, they're too small but they're all he's got.

There he is.

Kib collapses to his knees beside his husband, pans the shines over him - "Aydanci can you hear me -"

Wheezing. The shines are colored but Kib thinks that's blood.

"HELP," Kib hollers into the darkness, and osanwë for good measure, HELP, MY HUSBAND IS DYING, I NEED A SINGER OR A MAIA, ANYONE, SOMEONE -

The Maiar are all at the festival. 

There are a few dozen people left in the city and this darkness makes the world look heatless, too, they are not any faster than Kib at navigating the streets of Tirion.

Somebody osanwë me a healing song I can try to sing it myself - "Honey - honey stay with me. Breathe."

"Trying," gasps Aydanci.

"Good. Good, breathe, okay -"

Someone sends him a healing song. 

Kib tries to sing it.

"Not working," Aydanci gasps out, after a minute. "Sorry."

Kib sings on, in case he's wrong, going into shock or something and not fully aware of what's happening, he should know better he's a professional come on -

"Not working," Aydanci repeats. "Promise me you'll - happy -"

"Oh don't you dare," hisses Kib, "don't you dare assume it won't make a difference to me if you die in my arms, were you happy -"

"Please -"

"If you want me happy you'll have to come back and check on me," Kib sobs. "If you can't stay you have to come back, okay, come back to me, I'll wait, come back -"

"How -"

"I don't even know do it anyway -" Gasping, getting fainter. Kib tries to kiss air into him, he remembered CPR the other week, come on, come on - he comes up with a mouthful of blood, spits it away, "Honey."

Silence.

"Aydanci. Aydanci love please hang on somebody'll find us somebody who can really sing please."

He's not even gasping anymore.

"Come back come back I love you. Come back and find me."

They don't find him for another hour. By then the absolute darkness is lifting, you can see the stars. 

Kib hasn't moved.

Neither, of course, has Aydanci.

For - for an Elf we'd start singing, do you want that?

Yes please.

So they sing. It is a wretchingly sad song. Other people, when they hear it, take it up. There are not many people left in the city but soon all of them are singing. Someone has been lost; remember him.

Can you see well enough to take me to the portals? I need - I need storks.

Yes. Things look their normal temperatures now.

I need storks. He gently lets Aydanci's body settle to the ground, gets to his feet.

You mentioned. Come on. We'll walk you there.

Kib follows them, walking woodenly but with long steps.

There's always a few storks around the portals, waiting to take batches of money to the creches as it comes in.

He can override that.

He can tell the storks to find Aydanci.

They flap off. The Elves wait at the portal with him.

Someone should go to Taniquetil - tell the Valar - tell the King -

Courier'll be faster than a rider. Should've had shine code set up...

Nods. 

We should probably tell people on the other side something, too...

Yeah. Damned if Kib knows what, though. He pans his clock shines around until he finds a courier and calls it over and looks for paper. What are we telling Taniquetil.

Melkor attacked, destroyed the palace, Fëanáro's house, killed your husband...you've sent off to find his reincarnation - we're not clear on who's supposed to have the command here, please send orders...

Kib writes it out, shine moving to follow his pen.

His reincarnation if he has one. If a stork to whom the instruction has propagated finds him before one that doesn't know to look does it.

Do you need anything?

If a stork finds him and brings him here he'll need to be fed.

Okay. We'll go find food. How long might it take -

Liquid food. Milk, juice. Could be a couple days. If it's too long they've got instructions to stop at a creche and get him fed there and it's possible the creche won't give him back.

Well, if they tell you that we can go and get him, probably?

Storks can understand people, they can't talk. I have no way to tell the difference between him being at a creche that won't let the stork take him away again and him not having reincarnated after all.

...I'm sure when everyone comes back they'll think of something.

Yeah.

And hey, maybe he'll come back as a girl!

Kib turns slowly to the speculator.

I'm sorry, he says, I must be mad with grief or something, I could have sworn I just heard you escalate to a status of significant enough to say the possibility that my murdered spouse could reincarnate in a way that you'd find more personally palatable without regard to how either he or I would feel about it, but that can't be, can it.

...you'd rather a boy again?

I want him alive. If he's alive he's currently a baby and whether I'd find him sexually appealing is the last thing on my mind.

Sorry.

Sure you are.

Kib doesn't say anything. Clock shines swirl around on the desk in front of him.

People bring him food. His clocks still track time. They keep singing.

And eventually a stork comes.

The stork reaches its beak into itself. The baby's swaddled, it must have stopped somewhere but managed to take him away again.

The stork places the baby in Kib's arms.

Kib calls over his magpie, tells the magpie to find Aydanci. Thief lands on the swaddled bundle, looks at him as if to say 'he's right there, dolt'.

Everyone looks very slightly relieved.

I never learned how to handle babies. And I should not be trying to bring up someone who's going to inherit Aydanci's memories in a decade and a half. Help.

So someone who had several children of her own takes this one, starts rocking back and forth patiently until the baby is sleeping contentedly. We should probably wait on orders from the King to figure out a long-term solution...I'm sure he'll know what to do....

Maybe.

It takes eight days for the courier to reach Taniquetil and the Noldor to return from there, on exhausted horses. Maitimo and Findekáno are both in the vanguard.

Did you find him?

Storks found him and had to stop at a creche to get him fed on the way but got him back again - no idea what the creche is going to think - yes.

Alright. We're going to war. He must have taken the babies, he must have them in Endorë, Endorë's populated...we're sending an expedition south to get more dinosaurs, planning to send some people into your world to pick up whatever weaponry your people use to fight, so we can learn from it, and building or importing boats to get across the ocean. 

I don't know what to do with him. If I put him in a creche he won't be able to find me. If I leave him with someone in Valinor - I don't know if the dreams come by developmental or chronological age and Lári's aged so slow I can't have a toddler remembering getting eviscerated by an evil god or watching me die of the pox or - but I can't bring him into a warzone, can I? -

I mean, in addition to going off to war we are also emigrating from Valinor, we're about fucking done with their interference. Once it was in exchange for light and protection, but now there's no light and there was apparently never really any protection. We'll build cities. They'll be - there'll always be more people between him and the Enemy than there were this time....if you bring him to the Outer Lands I bet he'll age faster, too, Elves do. 

Part of me wants to put him in a creche nice and safe and assume he'll be fine without me but - and no creche is going to believe me if I tell them they definitely have to make sure this kid gets this letter when he can read - and I can't assume he'll be fine without me, he wasn't, I'd be taking a gamble on how well-adjusted the new childhood would let him be and how long it'd take before he got hit with Aydanci remembering sitting around in an empty house grieving -

We could also leave him in the south of Valinor with the means to follow us but that doesn't help much if he's developmentally two when he gets all the memories...

Yeah. Which, he might not be, but if he was, fuck -

I'm guessing from the fact Melkor didn't attack until Tirion was empty that he cannot, in fact, murder his way through our host at will. We can build a very safe city - we'll be keeping you very very heavily protected too, for that matter, you're quite the strategic asset - we can probably keep him as safe as he'd be anywhere, and at least you'd know he was safe...

Yeah. Whereas I suppose otherwise I'd be constantly paranoid that Melkor went wherever I'd left him...

Your choice. Either way we want you to go south and acquire us more dinosaur cavalry, ones more specifically chosen to be dangerous, and your advice on what weapons to buy in your world. 

Yeah. Okay. When do we leave for dinosaur territory.

Plan was two days, but if you need more time than that that's okay, and if you want to head back to the human world first and get a lot of very very bright shines we're going to be trying to figure out how to grow food with them.

I don't think it'll work naively because they only go on surfaces but maybe there's a way to refract them or something. I'll go get shines and ask around about weapons stuff. Is there going to be any time in here for me to cry on you or Findekáno.

Yeah. As much as you need, really, in wartime 'leave and don't ask questions' is a perfectly reasonable order we can give at need... I hear that Tirion no longer has a palace, but we can find somewhere or accompany you over to the other world...

And he can give Kib a hug right now, no one will dare read anything into that.

Hug. I love you.

I love you. I'm so sorry. He will grow up loved and happy and you two will have each other again and the Enemy will never, ever be able to hurt people again.

I yelled at him while he was dying he wanted me to promise him I'd be happy and I said he'd better come check up on me -

And he did. When he has that memory is he going to feel yelled-at or loved?

Probably depends on how happy I manage to be in the interim.

Hugs.

Melkor, it transpired, burned down Tirion's library. Even against the background of everything else that provokes a lot of startled cries of pain.

Is the scribe still there or did the fire burn hot enough to melt it?

Scribe's still there. Bit dented, does that mean it won't work?

Only if the dent mangled any of the lettering or makes it immobile in a way they can't fix without denting the lettering.

"Looks like no. So that's something. What should we be buying in the human world, assuming we're willing to spend everything we have in reserves...."

Human world has some war servant designs - hard to come by on the open market, not hard to find pictures and descriptions of to reverse-engineer. Ballistae, various melee weapons - Elf bows are better than human ones, at least if you have an Elf's draw strength. Armor's a thing, doesn't come in Elf sizes but it's not hard to buy.

"We're going to be doing magic weapons and armors, but it might be worth buying yours to work off. War servants we'll try to get as much information as we can - we should probably buy food, it might take a while to figure out how to grow it in the dark like this - do you think we can convince any other servantmakers to come along or is it just going to be you and Lári and Aydanci..."

"I can ask some of my co-prentices if they want to come - Aydanci's social circle is holding down the fort on storks, can't ask them - I don't think 'hey want to leave the world to go fight an evil god' is really appealing and I don't know how to present it more appealingly."

"I realize. And grabbing non-Aydanci babies is pretty indefensible. We can offer generous pay, maybe, if we don't all die... if anyone wants to ride a flying dinosaur, this will be their chance...I suppose with the three of you we won't be in desperate straits, anyway."

"I'll ask my co-prentices but I'm not optimistic."

He asks. They don't want to come.

Understandably. Two hundred thousand enchanted melee weapons for the whole Noldorin host is going to take half a Year, but they're leaning towards doing it anyway on the grounds it is better to arrive prepared and useful. Boats are being assembled meanwhile. They're training with non-enchanted melee weapons while the magic ones are developed and produced. By the time they depart they will be very good at sparring.

War servants will be reverse-engineered.

Maitimo can't be spared to go down south and pet more dinosaurs but Findekáno can. 

It's good to have company. Even if they have to be fucking discreet about how nice the particular company is.

Well, the Noldorin royal family now has effectively absolute latitude and he's fairly willing to abuse this when it's for his boyfriend whose husband just died in his arms. Kib is a valuable strategic asset and so Kib stays in his tent with a dozen guards on him whenever he leaves it. And the tent's woven soundproofed because he needs to be able to have classified conversations about the war, doesn't he.  They do make sure to have two separate bedspreads in the tent, and to leave them both looking slept in.

It's a month's travel in good conditions, and it's dark, might take us twice that. You want some projects for along the way?

Like what?

I don't know. The war servant reconstruction, communication shine relays, what else are you in the middle of?

Nothing else I can do on the road. Those I can do though.

They head out. Kib can keep up on a horse fine, if he's petted it. He will probably be pretty sore by the time they stop, though.

Yeah, kinda. He doesn't complain about it much.

Well, if he would like a massage he can totally have one.

He would like one. "Love you," he sighs.

Love you too. I am so sorry that we were not there.

Should've dragged him to the stupid festival.

Should've never paroled him in the first place - the Valar are all still consulting on Taniquetil, they haven't moved. Except to cry. Over the Trees.

Yes, of course, the Trees. Poor Trees.

I was sensitive to their grief over the ecological disaster before I learned that, in fact, people'd died. How they can't see...

Who else, I don't think I got a list.

Total of ten - palace, library, people who got in his way. Aydanci's the only one who seems to have been targeted, his other targets were things - Fëanáro's home and workshop, the books, various hard-to-replace tools and artwork - I think he was trying to anger us into going off to war, but I'm not sure that makes it the wrong decision....

...might depend on why he wants us to do it.

Presumably he thinks he will win. Maitimo thinks so too, honestly, but there are so many people in the Outer Lands and if it turns out all we can do is evacuate them....and I don't think he's realized the full potential of servantmaking, and those prophecies are from a thousand years from now where there are still civilian kingdoms in Middle-earth, so if we lost last time, we didn't lose very fast...

Nod.

I tentatively expect the Valar will fritter away twenty or thirty Years considering and then stop him themselves. I think we can hold on that long.

I hope Melkor actually slowed down my aging and didn't just say he did.

Fuck.

Is there a way to check -

Too soon to distinguish between 'he actually did it' and 'Valinor, itself, slows me down like it does Lári'. I don't look like I'm pushing thirty, definitely.

Fëanáro was making progress on it but he's stoppped now for magic weapons and armor design, and he's needed there, too...

If it is realistic that this war will go on for three hundred years and that I and Lári and Aydanci are all going to age human-normal rates outside Valinor and servantmaking is as important as I think it is, I'm not sure he can afford to put that off.

I will point it out to him. He was thinking he'd have it inside a Year anyway.

Yeah, that's fast enough, I won't be that much impaired by being physically twenty-eight compared to eighteen.

And we weren't heading out of Valinor just yet. How are you impaired by aging?

Lower energy, misbehaving joints, Aydanci - twitch, had back pain a lot, hearts give out or brains hemorrhage or livers fail, generally everything starts to work worse until something one can't live without goes on strike.

In a couple of Years. Ugh. I really hope once Fëanáro does have it sorted there's still some way to export it to the human world. 

Be nice, yeah.

...if the Enemy doesn't have it he has a very narrow window in which to take advantage of his servantmakers. Unless Melkor can fix it and just didn't for you because he's evil....

Oh, I don't have any trouble believing that he can keep all his kidnapped kids young as long as he needs them.

Think we should be trying to get to Endorë faster?

I think it's worth taking advantage of our prep time. He'll be slowed down by the fact that he doesn't know what it feels like to make any servant other than shines, which are a communication advantage but not a physical threat. So he'll have to wait for the kids to learn it the long way, he can't osanwë them.

And how long will that take, how old will they need to be...

If he got a prodigy and took all the books and translated them perfectly or raised the kids speaking the common, six, seven years old, could even have one doing it already, but he got random babies, he wasn't combing through creches for smart children...

And I doubt Utumno or whatever has replaced it is an ideal educational environment. We've probably got our half-Year. 

You don't think he could compromise his torture-fortress aesthetic to get servantmakers faster? I guess "faster" is not a known Vala priority.

Compromise, maybe, build a nurturing environment, I wouldn't expect it - though he was much much subtler than we gave him credit for, I guess - what do you think his goal with handing out all those prophecies was....

I don't know and it makes me nervous.

I'm hoping it was just something like 'get us all to not trust Maitimo' or 'get him to step down and move to Valimar' but I don't think that's safe to assume...

Yeah.

It's probably not the most relaxing massage ever even if he's very very good at massages. He sighs. There are more people in Endorë than Valinor. And there are supposed to be more, new species awakening...

Lovely timing Eru we were just thinking it seemed lonely around here...

Yeah.

We should sleep, it's another long ride tomorrow. And the day after that. 

Yeah.

Love you.

Love you.

Kib starts screaming a few hours in, but that's nothing to worry about.

Which doesn't stop him. He doesn't wake Kib, though - Kib's said there's no point - and eventually the screaming stops.

And in the morning on they ride.

Well, 'morning'. The shine clock says so. It's as dark as it was all night. When they stop in the evening their escort practices sparring with swords.

It'd be utterly stupid for you to waste time learning this, I think, but you can if you'd like.

I'm disadvantaged in every respect and risking me in a training accident seems idiotic. If I had a humanoid puppet I might try practicing through it but I don't.

Precisely. But if you were going to feel sad being the only person around who couldn't murder things with pointy sticks we could probably make a weapon that worked for you.

Nah. I'll murder things with dinosaurs.

It takes a month and a half to reach the dinosaurs and another month to find, calm and get-sufficiently-close-to-Kib all the ones they want. A few dozen of the pterodactyls with the best wingspan, a fairly exhaustive Triceratops cavalry, a few baby predators which he promises will grow up to be terrifying.

Kib pets dinosaurs and gives them all safety orders and secondary masters.

The safety orders can no longer be 'don't kill people', but yeah. And they start the long ride back.

It can be 'don't kill these people', for now.

"I should have introduced automaton railcarts," Kib mutters.