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Permalink Mark Unread

Adjacency is annoying. Edda is next to Elentári (formerly Flat Arda) and to Space Arda which yet lacks an improved name; Space Arda is next to all three daeva worlds and Hex, but not to Limbo; all the daeva worlds are next to Limbo and Revelation, which are also next to each other - it takes four hops to get between Elentári and Revelation.

There might be shortcuts, but since their current greatest ability to address problems - especially Enemy-scale problems - in other worlds is the Tesseract, it seems efficient to go places that are adjacent to Edda and therefore within its jurisdiction. It is still grouchy and won't help with anything Loki can't do her own fact-finding work on, so it's worldleapers. Cam goes alone first - it's unlikely that he will land in a star, but not genuinely impossible, and he can then find somewhere comfortable to land and go fetch Loki and whoever else is coming along.

For a while, the worlds they find are more or less equivalent to finding new civilizations within Edda. They have to be discovered differently but they're just places, with people, no alts, no Ardas. They are investigated and put on file for their resources or needs; if there's anything really pressing (planet about to collide with its moon, that sort of thing) Loki fixes it before moving on. Maybe eventually someone from one of these worlds will turn out to be really interesting and they'll be delighted to discover alts of them too but they'll have to distinguish themselves some way in some world first.

Then there's another Arda.

"Another one?" Loki asks.

"Complete with mutually intelligible Quenya," Cam says.

"Enemy an ongoing problem?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Yeah, this time I will have a conversation before I destroy him, wouldn't want another close call. Let's go meet the local Noldor."

Where are you, local Noldor? Loki and Cam are there now too.

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He blinks at them.

He's sitting on his throne looking relaxed and perhaps bored and in reality conducting thirty conversations at once. He concludes them while slowly blinking at the new arrivals. 

"...hello," he says. "Teleportation or really excellent invisibility?" And he waves the guards back.

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"Both! Teleportation in this case. We interrupting anything?"

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"A war, I hope! Do you happen to also have magic up your sleeves that would let me efficiently convince you my side ought to be the winning one?"

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"You are, like, Maitimo number nine of our acquaintance," she says, "although five of those sort of don't count. The only reason I didn't kill the Enemy first and visit second is last time there was a deadman switch setup and figuring out if there's anything like that here requires nonzero locality-specific information."

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"I don't know what information you'd require; if you've met nine of me you probably have more information about whether there's a deadman switch setup than I do. I also cannot help you, we're currently sworn to a ceasefire, though you said that like you don't expect to need much help."

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"...you're sworn to a ceasefire? That's new."

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"The war escalated to the exchange of extremely destructive weapons and we had something cobbled together from the Silmarils that would have killed him but would have taken half the planet's population with, and so we negotiated. He's not allowed to hurt anyone." 

 

He elides Elspeth, because this woman looks like Elspeth's mother and Elspeth's mother was purportedly likely to want him dead. Though if this woman got along with nine other Maitimos then probably she doesn't have the same reservations - or the other Maitimos had more discretion - 

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"Anyone anyone, or like, non-orcs, or what."

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"Anyone I call a citizen, a privilege I've been abusing."

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"Well, that's not going to do in the long run. Well. If you can't help I may have to have another entire conversation with Sauron, I hate having conversations with Saurons..."

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"Could try the Valar."

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"Guess they might know."

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"Did some of my counterparts know? What information should I be asking around for? Not that I expect the Valar'll kill you on sight but I also don't expect very strongly that they won't do that."

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"The Valar will not successfully kill us on sight, anyway," says Loki. "Not that it couldn't be very irritating if they tried, but Valar are often sort of irritating even when they aren't doing that. Your counterparts did not know about the deadman switch as such, we found out about it by lucky accident, but we'll have an easier time knowing where to look with more precision than 'well, the Valar might know' if we know what's weird about this Arda compared to the others."

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"And the ceasefire's weird? The Silmarils being weaponizable to destroy the Enemy: is that weird?"

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"Yeah, actually, both cases I got there first. What's your angle on that?"

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"They can effectively stop time within a radius, that works fine on Valar. They can tweak what they do to the stuff in that timestopped radius, and one thing is 'have every atom decay at a different rate' and we didn't get a chance to try it but given how quickly he agreed to generous ceasefire terms I'm pretty sure it would have worked."

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"Timestop thing saw use in the other flat Arda, but it was defense, not offense."

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"Getting it to work as offense took us years! Though my father's dead and could probably have done it in a couple of months. I suppose it all depends on when you got your Silmarils back relative to when your hand was forced."

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"Dead Fëanor is also new. How'd he die?"

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"He was assassinated by his half-brother when the Noldor had a civil war, three hundred fifty-some years ago."

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"Eugh. Okay. Didn't escalate that far in the others and you're farther ahead timelinewise."

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"I should congratulate my counterparts on defusing it better. I managed, but it took too long and cost too much."

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"Not actually sure to what extent they'll take credit for that. Could be a difference farther upstream."

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"Melkor pardoned in 1400? My father makes the Silmarils in 1450 and then starts working on various other necessities for an independent Noldorin kingdom? Gets provoked into pulling a sword on Nolofinwe in 1490, gets exiled by decree of the Valar, Melkor extinguishes the Trees and assassinates Finwe in 1495?"

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"Matches except Space Arda it wasn't swords. Or trees. ...We're working on a better name for Space Arda."

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"I am extremely curious about the differences between worlds, here. There are other dimensions that have the same history up to a single point of divergence? Is that it?"

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"Not exactly - you might match Elentári that closely but Space Arda's different, higher tech level and entire planets standing in for continents in Eru's charmingly repetitive narrative. Also there's human alts of your entire family in a world that is not an Arda at all!"

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"And the two of you are the same person from different worlds?"

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"Caught that quick, you don't even have one of us here and he hasn't been saying much."

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"I could say more but I'm not as well acquainted with any Maitimos."

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"And she has more of a diplomatic background," he says, nodding, "and more personal animosity for the Enemy - longer war? It's - I form a model of a person in my head after a few minutes of paying them my full attention, and yours was like hers, so much so I was trying to figure out if I was missing something or if you were an illusion of hers or if she'd done something like what Melian did - if that's a feature of any of your universes..."

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"I did not stare at her for centuries. And yes, she had a longer war and he made it more personal with her over the course of it. The diplomatic background is because she's a princess."

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"- forgot to introduce ourselves! Sorry. I'm Loki, this is Cam."

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"It is a pleasure to meet you!!! If I have not just extradimensional visitors but extradimensional princesses I should put on the diplomat hat myself - I know I have it around here somewhere - but I can't seem to muster the mood while the Enemy still lives. Arda's honored to become acquainted with whereveryou'refrom and looks forward to a long and lovely relationship. Care to go check whatever you need to check to see him safely ended?""

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"Yeah, sure, if you don't have a better idea I'll just ask the Valar."

She touches the Tesseract and is slightly at Taniquetil. "Hello," she says there. "My name is Loki and I'm from another world and I can help you with your Melkor problem."

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Cam watches her crackling blue and wags his tail.

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Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you. I am Manwe but you probably already know that if you know we have a Melkor problem. 

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Yeah, Ardas turn out to be variations on a theme, so to speak. The last time I killed a Melkor, well, nothing happened, but the corresponding Sauron had a deadman switch which was a mess to clean up. Do you happen to know if this set has anything like that?

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He had at one point invested himself in the continent thoroughly enough that destroying him would cause it to crumble. He has since changed his priorities, I think, and might be differently vested.

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I can hold the continent together. I can also round the planet! Anything other than that which you know of? It might help if they haven't been expecting godslayers to turn up, last time they had warning that that sort of thing might be coming.

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I think Elspeth observed to him that godslayers were bound to show up eventually, but his hope was interdimensional travel or possibly negotiating with them, not a means of taking Arda with him.

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Is he particularly negotiable-with? I did hear about a ceasefire. Not sure what I'd want a live Melkor for regardless... Should I know who Elspeth is?

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Elspeth was an interdimensional visitor to this plane! he sends an image. Her magic was that she could explain things and she explained incarnates to us and explained Melkor into the ceasefire. It was very useful, but she desired to return to her home plane so we sent her back.

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...that, uh, explains why you are so personable for a Manwë.

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I can explain incarnates to other versions of me who don't understand them! It aids us in making Valinor blissful tremendously! The Elves gave us a lot of credit for trying, before, but we were pretty bad at it.

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Loki giggles. I can pass the offer along. Well, if Melkor is expecting to negotiate with godslayers maybe I should just go see if he has anything tempting to say, although considering the history of parole violation it'd have to be really good.

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We concur.

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I will be back presently to discuss dead people and stuff like that.

And she depresences from Taniquetil and presences - just a little bit - where Melkor is.

"Heard you were expecting godslayers."

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"It was made apparent that there are much bigger players than the Valar in the multiverse."

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"There are! Apparently this got you as far as a ceasefire with the Noldor."

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"I was demonstrating my capacity to be a good neighbor. Also they were going to destroy half the planet with that thing and that would just have been a shame. King would have done it, too. He has a ruthless streak."

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"You sort of bring that out in people. So. Why do I want you as a neighbor, besides your ability to hold ceasefires? You mostly behaved on parole, too, a ceasefire doesn't prove much."

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"Oh," he says, "I don't think you do, I think someone will. I've been poking at the paths between dimensions and found one that has a plane for torturing bad people when they die! And I thought 'that sounds perfect' and submitted my qualifications. Good-bye."

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What -

She's already touching the Tesseract, come on die -

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Tesseract can't find him.

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...Sauron?

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No Sauron.

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Loki's Allspeak proceeds to struggle with a marvelous string of invective.

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"What, what happened -"

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"They fucking ran away to another world out of network -"

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"...how?"

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"I don't know! The Valar said somebody named Elspeth 'explained him into' the ceasefire telling him he might want to be a good neighbor to the sort of person who can kill gods and I thought I'd see what he said, it'd be the right time to mention a deadman switch by his own lights, and I didn't - react - fast enough - and he's gone, Tesseract can't find him anymore and I don't know enough about where he went to follow him by teleport -"

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"...fuck. Okay. Well. We can still patch this place up, we can chase him when we've got some kind of - scrying or something, or we can do worldleapers from here, once we have another Melkor-killing solution which stretches better."

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He buries his head in his hands. "Aaargh."

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"Definitely need another Melkor-killing solution," mutters Loki. "We can put all the Fëanors and all the Silmarils in a room and see what they cook up or something. Ugh."

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"Did you mention doing something about the dead? We really did have Melkor-killing sorted, albeit with unsatisfactory collateral damage, and I'm sure my father could have done it faster."

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"Yeah," sighs Loki, "these seem like more reasonable than usual Valar, even, shouldn't be a big deal."

Back to Taniquetil. The good news is he's gone. The bad news is he escaped before I realized he had a way to do that and he's in a world where my artifact doesn't work.

Permalink Mark Unread

That is very grave news indeed. I doubt his oaths not to harm people stretch into that world, or that this would suffice if he did, but just in case, the King of the Noldor could claim all neighboring dimensions as Noldorin and their citizens as his. I am not sure to what degree the absurdity of the claim would be a problem.

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That would only even theoretically help if Melkor heard about it, right?

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Yes. 

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Is that likely? Do you have a way to communicate with him? Or can you identify where he went, so he can be more easily followed when I have a more portable way to kill him?

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We would need some information to go off. Not much, but some. Someone who'd been to the world in question, or knew someone who had. I suspect he's scrying on Arda if he can because this resolution will entertain him.

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I'll suggest absurd citizenship declarations to Maitimo, then. All I know about where he went is that it is not adjacent to my own world and he claimed it had a plane for torturing bad people when they die.

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That's not enough for us to work from. I am sorry.

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Sigh. So lacking near-term solutions for that fiasco... about the dead people...

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Elspeth explained that having unworthiness to return to life as a criteria was going to make people very sad! We still had to keep the orcs dead because of their oaths, but maybe if Melkor has skipped the dimension there's a way to do it...

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I can fix oaths. My solution for oaths is unfortunately broad-spectrum free-will dispensing that doesn't recognize a salient difference between orcs and Elves, although I might be able to hack something together if I teleported all the orcs to another world and de-oathed them there, some of the Elves were upset about the free will in the last Arda.

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That would solve that problem. There might still be too many resentment for Elves and orcs to live peaceably together.

 

And you want Elves to keep their oaths; for example, the Noldorin King is sworn to stop being evil and if you gave him free will he'd probably return to being evil.

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Huh? Maitimo? Is sworn? To stop being evil?

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That was Elspeth's condition for helping him defeat the Enemy, as we understand it.

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In the other Ardas there is something of a Noldorin public relations problem over most principally Alqualondë and immediately surrounding events but if there is concern he will "go back to" being evil that seems likely not to be the problem.

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I think she was principally but not solely concerned about his conduct towards his cousin. Who he took as a consort.

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...evilly?

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Very much so. He chained him to a wall and kept him under mind-affecting oaths.

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I see. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

And she collapses back into Maitimo's throne room and turns her Allspeak off and addresses Cam and then disappears to find the Elentári Macalaurë.

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...Cam gives Maitimo a dubious look.

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"Has something else gone disastrously wrong?"

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"Possibly. She's figuring it out."

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"Does she have a timeline on that? I should probably notify people that the war's over, begin demobilization -"

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"Oh, wouldn't expect her to be gone longer than half an hour and if something holds her up she'll let me know."

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"Thank you. I will get back to work, then - anything I can get you in the meantime?"

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"No, I can make arbitrary matter and teleport, I'm all set. If you've been rationing or something I can be a food supply?"

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"That'd be extremely useful, actually - the fallout clouds destroyed a lot of land - I can name some things right now and will have Findekáno draw up something more comprehensive, he's been handling logistics..."

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"Sure, I just need to know where you want it."

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He sends a location, lists the inventory for the typical shipment to the mortal settlements - "can you do railway lines too? An enduring postwar ambition of mine has been to put in railway lines..."

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"Those are harder because they have to stick into the ground to be stable and if I do that naively without knowing the terrain something's going to be not so stable. I could maybe do something suspended above the ground but Loki's probably going to round the planet so it should wait for that."

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"She mentioned that. Uh, why is she going to do that?"

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"Flat planets irritate her. They're kind of stupid and she wound up developing a lot of irritation at the 'stupid flat planet' while she was stuck on one," says Cam, "they need magic to hold together and do gravity and so on. Won't even annoy the Valar, because Eru told them off for making it flat."

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"Fair enough. Oh, Findekáno!" He'd told him the truth. There are alternate universes, with alternate versions of me. I very much want to work with you to make sure they all have setups that are - okay - but I have no idea how destabilizing it'd be for it to come out that the kings of many many different empires spanning four dimensions are keeping a secret like you. 

I promise I was not going to go rushing into the arms of the first interdimensional visitor.

I know you weren't. Thank you.

Promise me you won't share me?

Assuming my alts give me the choice, I get the sense they're much more powerful. 

Resignedly. They'll help you get me secured, not try to poach.

Depending on how precisely they're me, but yeah, probably. I love you. When you are secured things will be the same except I'll worry less.

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"Your grace! Cam!"

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"Most valuable things we can be doing with the ability to create arbitrary matter?"

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"Public health for humans," he says instantly to Cam. "I'd ask about specific medications or malarial nets and so forth but I'm guessing somewhere in the multiverse has better..."

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"Long term malaria eradication strategy is just killing off the relevant mosquitoes. Well, on my homeworld it was. I suppose here Valar might object to that?"

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"I have no idea. It's possibly worth the risk, human child mortality rates are horrifying no matter what we throw at the problem and we have thrown a lot at it - the problem is that magic's not very suited -" he looks at Maitimo - "did you already ask about transit -"

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"Not doable just yet. Asked for and received food."

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"If the Valar are going to be annoying about wanting all the mosquitoes right where they are, Loki could eradicate the malarial parasite by Tesseract, and we can tell the Valar to fuck off if they complain about that. Not efficient to have her do that for every single infectious disease, especially if any of these humans ever want to travel and might need their immune systems, but she can do it for the big ones."

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"Malaria, smallpox, are the flus too different to catch like that? Do you have anything for the general problem where mortals up and die even if there's nothing wrong with them?"

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"Flus are too different to catch like that, they can be vaccinated against but you have to redo it based on predictive models every year. I can at least get you malaria and smallpox vaccines, bare minimum. And we currently have two excellent aging solutions one of which doesn't scale and one of which isn't portable, and imperfect ones that do and are."

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"Well, that's something. Thank you." He looks back at Maitimo. Give me a free hand on that and I won't even try to complicate being resecured.

Only because you know it wouldn't make a difference.

He rolls his eyes and leans in so Maitimo can ruffle his hair. 

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"There's also a lot of radioactive fallout everywhere, is that something you can do things about?"

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...hair-ruffling. In front of somebody. Weird. "Uh, not me personally, but some people from Space Arda can probably be called in to handle that."

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"We would be grateful. Uh, it'd be generically good to ship the Dwarves a few carts of something valuable and earmark it for public works or charity, they have very high standards for charity. Nothing else comes to mind immediately. Thank you very much for the food."

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"You're welcome!"

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And Loki comes back, makes eye contact with Cam, finds whatever information is thus transmitted satisfactory, and looks at Maitimo. There's a faint noise in the air.

"So the Valar say you've been keeping your Findekáno under mind-affecting oaths until Elspeth got you to swear to stop. Care to confirm or deny?"

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If you talk and it's other than to be helpful I'm going to have to do a lot more permanent resecuring, later, he says to Findekáno.

"Contest the phrasing, really. A large fraction of our host including both of us very occasionally swore to mind-affecting things. They were never ordered to, and we always take appropriate precautions, most importantly making it time-limited and swearing not to swear other things while so influenced. You can use oaths to concentrate on a task - like, 'I swear not to be distracted from this for the duration of my shift' and under sufficiently extreme circumstances it can be worth it to do so."

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"That's an interestingly evasive answer."

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"If you want to phrase things in the most horrifying-sounding manner possible and then ask me for a yes-or-no answer I'm not sure what you expect."

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"I could just go get my instance of you and let him figure it out."

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"Great idea."

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She vanishes to go find Maedhros.

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He's in his office talking with a few people. Hi, what's up?

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Found a new Arda. Shit's weird. Manwë is a pleasant conversationalist, it's bizarre. Something is up with the you and even with a version of the lie detection song that works on members of your family I'm not sure how to figure out what it is.

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'Something is up'?

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She relays Valarin accusation and subsequent evasive answer.

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I can borrow a Space instance or something if you don't want to deal with this.

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I want to deal with this. Where to -

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She osanwës him the place.

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And he courteously extricates himself and then pop.

 

 

The local Noldorin KIng is sitting there, quite relaxed. When his alt arrives he says to Findekáno, whatever we say aloud, don't believe it until you hear it from one of us privately, okay? I love you.

Findekáno nods.

"Hi," Maedhros says. "You scared Loki quite badly, and we're already out in my world, and she'll be happy to help avoid problems for versions of us who aren't yet. So can you just reassure her tremendously by swearing that whatever arrangement you had was wholly consensual with a reason for a creepy cover story? Then we can get to actual explanations -"

"I swear that our relationship is wholly consensual and that there's a reason for the creepy cover story." You might need to give me better openings, if she's not allowed to know.

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Loki lands close to Cam. His tail is lashing slowly.

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Better openings?

After the war he wouldn't have forgiven me. So I kept him. If your friends are going to panic -

 

And Maedhros teleports the nearest heavy object to a few feet above the King's head and lets it crash down. You're right, he says to Loki, something's wrong, and then he collapses trembling.

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"- Cam -"

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"Yeah." Cam whisks Maedhros off and goes looking for his corresponding Findekáno.

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"We have," Loki tells Maitimo, "a problem."

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"What do you want?"

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"...we have such a fundamental problem that you are trying to bribe your way out of it. Wow."

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"You really aren't giving me very much to work with, here. You're really angry about Findekáno. Understood. Not angry enough to talk to him about it, but angry enough to menace me about it. You are already aware that I've sworn never to do anything like it again, and can trivially verify how deeply I regret it and hate myself for it, so what do you want? A blow-by-blow? I am not giving you that without Findekáno's permission."

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"...What do you want?" Loki inquires of Findekáno.

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"Uh, Cam said the Tesseract could do something about malaria?"

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Loki collects all of the malarial parasites and flings them into a star. "Done. Anything else?"

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"Smallpox."

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"Done, but I think Cam will have already given you the spiel about how I probably shouldn't cleanse the entire microbiosphere, and your priorities are admirable but this is not exactly what I was getting at."

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I know him. I know how to cope with him. If you want to give me to a different one instead I'll cooperate but - I know how to keep him happy and get what I want, he knows how badly he can hurt me if he wants me walking the next day, I don't really want to learn the ropes all over again...

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This. Is not. How. It usually. Goes. I can put this one on an uninhabited planet and if you really need a Maitimo skillset for something to hold things together here there are plenty of them to go around from Space Arda and that is not going to be part of the arrangement, it is not usually like that.

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He'd do really badly on an uninhabited planet.

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Maybe I should just go get this Elspeth character, I hear she's so good at explaining things she can make Valar pleasant to talk to.

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She's lovely. What would you be getting her for?

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To explain things, I imagine, because there is some disconnect here I do not know how to bridge and the guy I usually go to for people stuff is currently very, very upset.

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Cam reappears.

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Yeah, I noticed that. Is he the one you want to give me to.

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You are not a fucking door prize, besides he already has one I went to their wedding party it was adorable and not horrifying in any way - (Cam squeezes her hand and she squeezes back.) They're not usually like that.

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I expected they all already had one,  that's why I'm confused about what you want - if you want concessions from him you can get him to swear to them, he'll say anything if he thinks you're taking me away - what's the point of putting him on an uninhabited planet if you don't want anything to do with me -

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I do not know how to explain this. Do you happen to know where Elspeth is.

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Her home dimension. It has vampires and werewolves and witches, does that help? She blasted lots of people with memories from it, maybe you could ask Mandos for one of those and then get a look at the memories - was Mandos able to fix those people, incidentally?

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Didn't come up that there were such people in the first place. An image of the place would be best.

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That he can supply; Elspeth broadcasted everything, no private thoughts at all.

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Thanks.

She murmurs to Cam in Asgardian again and then disappears.

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"I have been asked not to leave you unsupervised lest evil things happen."

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"Can we hug or is that evil?"

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"...sort of depends on why you hug, considering."

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"...your girlfriend seems sort of inclined to take him away and torture him forever? And I find this upsetting and want to hug him?"

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"What the fuck, no, torturing him even for short periods of time is not on the table. Even the uninhabited planet would be like 'go be out of the way while we figure out something more long term sustainable'."

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"Okay she did not communicate that she was leaving him on an uninhabited planet for a short time. That's okay."

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"Sorry for the unclarity."

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He hugs Maitimo.

 

The cost/benefit is pretty obvious: if the most powerful Maitimo relevant here happens to be evil, this way there's no trouble. If it turns out all other Maitimos are appalled and he's entirely free he can always be pointlessly cruel to his Maitimo about it later, if on reflection he wants to be.

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He reads all this off his face, of course, and has an expression halfway between adoration and agony. Thank you, he murmurs. They think I broke you. I didn't, did I?

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Don't flatter yourself, you're not that good.

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It's not what I was aiming for!

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I seem to recall you recently threatening to change my head very permanently if I said anything you did not like.

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They're going to take you away.

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Yep, probably.

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Is there anything at all that I can do-

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I was kind of thinking I could fix you, in enough time. But I am not promising.

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And they hug until Loki comes back.

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Loki comes back, with Elspeth. "Hey Cam, in that universe our alt is the empress of a vampire shadow government. Her name's Bella. Elspeth is her daughter."

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"Nobody here mentioned that?"

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"I actually did notice the resemblance but it wasn't immediately striking - and I just learned there were such a thing as alts."

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"You said your mother might remove me from power so I was disinclined to suggest fetching her." He's still clutching Findekano.

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Wow, he kind of has not learned the lesson he might have taken from the thing where he tried to avoid letting Elspeth find out.

Anyway, Elspeth's mama matches her alts all three of them as described by Loki perfectly well without any evil-Maitimo-like discrepancies. Watching them figure that out was kind of fun. Mama shielded Loki from mindreading and they had the most high-context conversation Elspeth has ever seen between people who have never met. So, Elspeth doesn't really know Loki or Cam but she knows her mama and she knows they match and she is here to be explanatory that the other Maitimos are in fact not evil (Loki knows hers really well, the space one back when there was only one space one was in fact actually broken up with his Findekáno and did not do anything about that until Loki's ones intervened, Iobel's ones were broken up for a while too and Iobel is pretty sure she would know if there were anything sketchy going on). Evil Maitimo is just weird. It is disappointing. You suck, Evil Maitimo. The Bells do not want anything from Findekáno and especially do not want to dispense him to any Maitimos, they want him to not feel like he has to be dispensed to Maitimos. Including this one. Mostly this one.

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"...okay. Thanks. So what are you trying to accomplish here?"

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"Here, like, what is our complete found-an-Arda checklist, or, here, like, what's the endgame with the Evil Maitimo?"

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"Both, I guess."

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"This is only the third Arda we've found and it's not exactly like either of the others so we don't have anything particularly standardized besides 'kill the Enemy', which already failed to go as planned, and 'retrieve dead people', which I am hesitating to go full speed ahead on because we don't know why this Maitimo is evil and if this is just Land of the Evil Alts or something - I mean this as the highest possible compliment to Fëanor but I really don't want to meet an evil version of him. Elspeth vouches for you in particular but did say that you seemed unusual. With respect to your personal situation, like she - magicked - we would like you not to feel in any way, including by way of requiring him as a resource for anything you would like done, like you need to go around belonging to any number of Maitimos greater than zero if that does not happen to suit you moment to moment. And you sort of keep saying things that indicate that we have not successfully convinced you of that."

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"If you still need me you should get Jake, he'll be worried even with the note I left."

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"Don't know if we'll need you or not, one sec -" She blinks out and back and deposits a dozing fellow in flannel pajamas on the floor.

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"Someone still needs to run this country and I don't think I can do it alone. And if you're not bringing back any of the dead you should probably find a way to kill them off for real, I wouldn't wish an eternity alone in Mandos on the Enemy himself."

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"...yeah, I know, I am not a terrible person, thanks, I'm just going to be slightly more circumspect than popping over to the planet my set of Noldor live on and asking them if they'd like the local set dropped on them or should I find somewhere else, bam, done in an hour, I want to know what happened here. What do you need to run the country? If you need a Maitimo in particular there are extras from Space Arda. They can teleport if they want to commute. I am quite confident none of them want to have abusive relationships."

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He frowns. "I am not sure how Maitimo's brothers, who are the relevant quantity here, are going to do on not starting a war if their brother's deposed and taken off planet in favor of an alternate universe version of him. And while I trust your judgment on other Maitimos not wanting to control me, this one's sworn not to."

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"...are they evil too. Who all is evil here."

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"Most people. The Dwarves are fine."

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"Dwarves: Still Great In The Bizarro Universe."

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"...would Maitimo not have been able to get away with it? In your worlds? That's a rather significant difference."

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"I'm not sure I want to so confidently bound what he could have gotten away with if he set his mind to it because there are borderline supernatural amounts of charisma going on but they would not have tried, even if they could have pulled it off."

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"Yes, you've clarified that, what I'm curious about is whether you've got a population who'd disobey an order to drag someone to his bedroom generally."

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"I do think it would have required considerable application of the supernatural charisma to get that accepted, yes, albeit only partially for decent reasons."

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"I'm trying to evaluate how much of the difference is attributable to different upbringings and surrounding cultural assumptions."

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"...he ruffled your hair in front of me. Space Maitimo's ears went pink when I told him that a shampoo commercial was banned on Valinor and showed him what I was talking about."

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"I mean, that's not generally acceptable here, either - neither's short hair - that's just the King being above the law."

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"Probably inappropriate or something but things I can make include hair attached to existing hair. If you don't actually like it short."

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"The other Elf Maitimos are not kings and the one who's a king isn't above the law and the Elf Kings are not above the law although they had fairly extreme wartime powers."

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"So, there's one potential origin in cultural differences.

 

If you would like me with long hair that sounds nice. It's been a while."

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"I am not interacting with your hair until you can produce a request without reference to what somebody other than you wants done with it."

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He gives Cam a quizzical look and does not express a hair preference.

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"Seriously. It's disturbing."

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"Anyway. What are we going to do with you," Loki says to Maitimo.

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"I stopped, and I swore to searingly and intensely regret having ever done it, and I cannot do it again."

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"Also he has to hate himself as much as I hate him."

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"You... sort of stopped. There is some sort of barter arrangement," vague gesture, "I don't think he feels free to pass up. Didn't think you could coast on your good looks and charm, I guess."

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"I had trouble getting out of bed or in fact doing anything except sobbing. I told him that I expected I'd figure out how to function through it after a few days and that I'd arranged for the country not to suffer from my incapacitation before I swore something I knew would leave me unable to do anything except cry."

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"True as far as it goes. I don't have a lot of details on developments after that."

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"He came back to me."

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"Congratulations, that is actually the most impressive emotional blackmail I've ever heard of."

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"The country needed me, and the other option was running away and - I couldn't think what I'd do, with myself, if I ran away, but I'd often thought about what I'd do if I had a way to rein him in. Figured I'd stay until I'd fixed everything in my power. He's very careful with me now, he knows otherwise I could leave."

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Loki shudders. "Maybe what this situation needs is actually more Findekános and not replacement Maitimos." She dashes off a letter to the correspondence demon in Space Arda, attn: whichever Findekáno: found a new Arda your alt is not doing so hot write back when you're free to be fetched.

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"Elspeth can you explain why Loki's upset."

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"I think she doesn't think very much of your standard of 'careful'." Pause. "Or the existence of this inferential distance in the first place, actually."

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"I'm happy to talk with alternates if they aren't going to attack Maitimo like his alternate did."

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"I can stash him somewhere, if you're concerned. I was not expecting Maedhros to react by dropping something on his head."

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He hasn't let go of Maitimo, and at that his grip tightens. "Neither was I, I was expecting him to get my Maitimo's oaths erased so he could go back to keeping me. What were you expecting him to do?"

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"I brought him in to help me discern what the fuck was wrong with this one. It was clearly too optimistic to expect that a lie detection song would do the trick."

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"I'm sworn to protect Maitimo with my life so I really don't want people brought in who are liable to assault him."

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"I can give you free will. It's good stuff. Want?"

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"...yes. I think. Can it be taken away later if - well, if that comes up, they probably would have a way -"

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"Currently the only method we have available for affecting free will in either direction is me using an artifact that is like the Tesseract but less friendly. I can put your lack of free will back if you decide you prefer that but it won't reinstate your existing oaths, just let you make new ones."

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"It's not that I want my existing oaths back, they were all coerced from me the morning he murdered my parents. It's that I'm thinking ahead to if you run across a universe with another Maitimo like mine but a magic system that plays to his strengths, and outside the range of your Tesseract, and - if I'm going to be a prisoner I'd much rather be one who can swear to stay within ten miles of Himring than one who can't. But that kind of Maitimo'd have developed a way of doing it."

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"I'm not planning to hand you over to Evil Maitimo The Second, but noted. You don't have to keep your free will if it's inconveniencing you." Sigh. "Okay, I need to find someplace to put the orcs, I only want to pick this thing up once -" She disappears.

(Cam checks his mail.)

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"...has she actually met any of me or are the other ones different?"

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"Maybe I got the most virtuous one because I needed it most."

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(Cam has a letter that says 'sure' and a location.)

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"Elspeth, can you make sure no evil is perpetrated in the next coupla minutes, thanks -" Pop pop. "Long story short: evil Maitimo."

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"Huh, really? I'm surprised Arda's still standing."

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"Evil, not careless. This time instead of one of me showing up it was my alt's daughter, she finessed some stuff, he is currently sworn to be markedly less evil, but, like I said, the you is not in great shape. Oh, and please don't drop a heavy object on his head, Maedhros did that and I don't think it helped anything."

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"Will I be tempted to?"

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"It is an understandable temptation. At least put it off until Loki's given your alt free will."

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"Okay. Let's go."

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Here they are.

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"You didn't miss anything evil. Hi, I'm Elspeth."

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"Hi. It wasn't actually clarified why I'm here -" he looks at his alt, hovering protectively in front of Maitimo - "just that you're - in bad shape - and I shouldn't react violently?"

 

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"...does your kind of Elf not read minds, mindreading is so convenient -" She fills him in. Evil Maitimo is evil.

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"We can read each others' minds, but not arbitrary peoples'.

 

 

 

Wow, okay. 

 

 

You know, mine did something he knew I'd never, ever forgive him for, and he knew he'd be alone until the demon-delayed heat death of the universe, and he managed to restrain himself to 'wishing he could have a version of me who didn't hate him, not asking for this because it'd be fucked-up'."

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"It's really nice that not all the Maitimos are evil! I had to punch this one in the face once."

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"Really? Why?"

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"He started a sentence with 'if you tell them anything, I swear'."

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"I wanted to punch mine in the face when he lied to me so he could kidnap me so I wouldn't stop him from committing genocide, but that's a fair bit different."

 

"...yours is going to be alone forever?" says the local Findekano.

 

"Maybe not? The thing I couldn't forgive got fixed, and we're trying to see where we stand. But maybe, and if he is, that's sad for both of us, it's not a premise for kidnapping."

"You just said he kidnapped you."

"He didn't touch me. I don't think he was even tempted, and I'd have told him to fuck off, and then he definitely would have."

"Sounds nice."

"I'm not saying you need to dump yours but you obviously need to dump yours."

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Sounds like a plan to Elspeth!

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"Everyone has yet to come up with a proposal for there not being a civil war, and I'm happy to trade someone if anyone thinks they'd be better at this than I am but I don't actually want to leave my Maitimo a shattered wreck and I think I'm doing pretty well."

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"In the most absolutely degenerate case if a civil war threatens we can put the sides on separate planets."

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"I think you're imagining a much neater kind of civil war than'd actually happen. Also that'd leave both of them without the relevant infrastructure to support their human populations - Elves can mostly live off the land, but the Men really can't -"

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"Oh no I might have to terraform planets it's my least favorite thing wait no it isn't."

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"I don't actually want the country that successfully united all the free peoples of the world and ended the war with Morgoth to be disassembled into eight or ten lawless subparts stuck on different planets and sustained by technology they cannot reproduce. I guarantee you that no matter how clever you think you are a lot of people would die and a lot of families would be shattered and all of it would be entirely needless."

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"Sorry, you ended the what now?"

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"You're the reason it happened without destroying most of Doriath in the bargain, but it would have ended that day either way."

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"Well, that puts the remark about wondering how Arda was still standing in perspective."

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"It sounds like this Maitimo has a lot to be brought to account for," says the space Findekano, "but if you criticize him for being willing to destroy a large swath of a country in order to kill Morgoth I am going to have a hard time keeping a straight face."

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"It's not that, this is a flat Arda, I wasn't expecting that sort of firepower flying around."

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"Nukes didn't work."

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"Yeah, Loki tried those first too."

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"We can stop time within a broad radius, and then let every subatomic particle within it decay at a different rate. We don't know if it would have worked, but he suddenly decided a peace treaty on absurdly generous terms sounded like a great idea. 

 

 

We'd be happy to share how it's done lest you need to kill another one who the Tesseract can't reach. 

 

Findekano will be more helpful to you on the question of what to do if you explain why you're interfering at all. If it's our relationship that's objectionable, take him off to one of the lonely versions, I'll be fine. If you're concerned about the governance of the empire, what specifically about it? If you're willing to start a civil war to remove me from power we'll think more highly of you if you have a vision of what good outcome results there, beyond that in some cosmic sense balance is restored because I get what I deserve."

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"Take him off to one of the lonely versions - do you hear what you're saying. Elves are supposed to have really good ears, right. We do not have an outcome in mind because we are not at that stage yet because we still cannot have a conversation on the same wavelength about the nature of the problem! Observe how we have done nothing about it yet but talk to the two of you and introduce you to people! Loki and I were not even in favor of dropping the paperweight or whatever that thing was on you!"

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"We are capable of having a conversation on the same wavelength. Findekano, stop being delightful and do the thing they want from you,"

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"What I want is to take advantage of the peace to make this empire thrive, and correspond with all of our counterparts to try to figure out why this world has so much more casual violence, and I would like my hair back, and I'd like people to stop debating Maitimo's fate and just settle on something for him to swear so you're happy."

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"I settled for the oaths he's got. I think all the remaining low-hanging fruit has to do with giving Findekáno better options."

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"Maybe. Ugh." Correspondence - "Free will incoming."

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"Do we need to do anything for that?"

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"Nah, just expect it in the next minute."

There it is.

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He shudders. He blinks. "Cool."

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"You wanna match what he's got or what?" Cam asks, aiming a thumb at Space Findekáno. "Which one even are you, Loki says you now have nicknames that are not letters of the alphabet?"

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"I liked the letters of the alphabet fine but Maitimo says I'm now named Delight."

 

The local Findekáno nods. "Match what he's got?"

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"You said you wanted your hair back."

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"Yes. What he has is fine."

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Bam. Complete with the braiding setup.

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He smiles.

 

Maitimo raises an eyebrow and he walks back over so Maitimo can unbraid the ends and feel it.

 

"I am super confused at this point about why you let him," Delight says.

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"It was a long time. Wouldn't occur to him not to, not seriously, I don't think."

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FIndekáno leans into Maitimo. "You know that moment in philosophy tutorials where someone says 'we have absolute freedom! I could punch you in the face right now!' and it's just a bit silly, because you could, but in the long run at a cost to your agency - being unpredictable to yourself makes you less capable -"

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Loki reappears. She's missing a sleeve and her arm is streaked with blood. She waves her arm at Cam; he replaces the sleeve.

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"Thank you," Findekáno says. "I think I like having free will." Maitimo's still petting his hair.

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"...you're welcome. Speaking as someone who has ever fucked an Elf and doesn't have to rely on anecdotes about shampoo commercials: can you not."

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He stops. "We'd be happy to get a room only I was under the impression that was being disallowed."

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"Why are you so terrible. What is wrong with the place. It has friendly Valar."

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"Oh, uh, that was me, it's recent."

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"Oh. Might want you to repeat the trick. Were they worse than usual Valar before that?"

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"Maybe, I don't know the usual ones."

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"They were pretty awful. Mandatory reassessment by Mandos for antisocial tendencies every yeni, did your lot have that?"

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Wow, how'd he get past that?

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"...not as far as I heard, no."

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"I time-limited-oathed myself into a saint - a heterosexual saint - and then took drugs to make myself forget I'd done so. It was less comprehensive than what he does with the dead, he'd catch that with the dead..."

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Well, that explains that. Sort of no great options there, honestly, Elspeth doesn't hold that subterfuge particularly against him. Although he does in general suck.

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"Well, at least he handed over all the orcs."

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"I think Elspeth made him more reasonable, she does that. Though if you'd come before her you wouldn't have noticed I was doing anything wrong." He sounds regretful.

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"Would've taken me longer, at least."

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"Findekáno was under an oath to take all my goals as his own. You could have questioned us both all day and night, and we'd both have truthfully told you everything was totally consensual and exactly what we wanted.

 

I suppose I might have eventually mentioned to another Maitimo something that made it apparent."

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"Yes - did you just think they were all like you, you didn't object to one visiting - and I might have noticed if you became alarmed if I mentioned it was easier to give everybody free will than to move all the orcs first -"

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"He'd talk you out of it. Shares my goals. It's hard to describe how lovely that is. Though I never made it permanent, that would have been unjust to him..."

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"Clearly an operative concern," she mutters.

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"I draw the line a different place than you but I do care about it. It is possible part of the reasons my counterparts are panicking is thinking all the things they could do with no scruples and then assuming I'd do all those. Instead of being a very good King with one vice I never took too far."

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"This strikes me as a really unproductive conversation topic," Cam remarks. He looks at Space Findekáno. "Opinions on how to nonhorrifyingly resolve this ideally sans civil war?"

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"If he's operating in good faith there's no way it takes him more than a decade to pull off rearranging his state so it survives in his absence. He can do that, show he is operating in good faith. I want to take Findekáno with me. For minimum of a century. If after that he wants to come back that's his lookout, but." He turns to Findekáno. "Or you could go to Vanda Nosseo, they have a lot of very important projects in progress and can't fork like we do and are accordingly more pressed for capable people."

 

"And the local Maitimos, for each of those options -"

"No Maitimos! Either way! I think you shouldn't date any of them, even if you find a really nice one who lost his, for at least a century, and I'm going to tell them all I think so."

"I am a perfectly capable adult in my right mind and -"

"I think we'll all be more mercifully inclined towards yours if you bounce back, okay?"

 

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Nod, nod.

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They are still clinging to each other. Delight sighs and then pops out, taking Findekáno with him. Maitimo stands very still, looking deeply unhappy.

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"For all your non-evil good-faith-operation goals anything you need?"

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"Can you make me forget him."

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"...not readily. Iobel could maybe dig something up..."

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"I don't know any amnestics that'd do it even if you were a human and Elf biology is really uncooperative stuff... Maybe if Elspeth talks to Valar enough one of them will do it?"

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He nods. "Then no. Just leave."

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"...Go visit Elspeth's mom some more?" Cam asks Loki.

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Loki nods.

She and Cam and Elspeth and the still-dozing Jake disappear.