He's thinking about it pretty intensely! He is upset about the evilness of Evil Maitimo. He does not plan on doing it in at least the next ten years though.

"Please have him come and talk to me." Though he doesn't have any idea how to talk Maitimo down from murder without - maybe the new Maitimo just means that he prefers to initiate - 

Well, he certainly didn't intimate that via Elspeth, who thinks he probably is eliding over a list of hangups a mile long that even alts of his husband are not going to be equipped to navigate. She goes and bounces the content of this interaction to Elentári Maitimo.

"Thank you."

And he pops out. "Delight, can you give us a minute -"

"No."

"Okay," he says, "fair enough." Findekáno?

Yes?

I asked Elspeth to bounce me all her memories of you so I could figure out what's going on, and I think I've got it, and I want to run my understanding by you. So, you have gotten ridiculously good at the skill of 'effecting your goals in the world through Maitimo'. And not much else. And so even though it'd be deeply unhealthy for you to date any of us, it's also probably not particularly helpful for you to hear 'we won't give you any avenue to do things that anyone else couldn't do just as well'. And even though that was the opposite of anybody's intent it probably leaves you feeling powerless. Is that pretty much the picture?

Yes, he says warily. Why do you think it would be unhealthy for us to date?

...um, me particularly because it took my husband and I a decade to get to the point where we could and going through that with someone who didn't love me sounds terrible. Versions of me in general because if you didn't feel like it one night would you say no.

I asked Maitimo to leave me be, sometimes.

Maitimo does not flinch at all. And if they wanted your hair short -

- I'd try to figure out how badly they wanted that and how to get something I wanted.

What sort of things did you usually want?

More compassionate policy, better laws, more personal freedoms - 

Maitimo nods slowly. So here, where we mostly agree with you about policy and will not refuse you any personal freedoms -

He wouldn't have leverage to get me to cut my hair. Unless it occurred to him to become eviller for more bargaining power with me, is that what you're worried about?

No. None of us would do that. I just am having trouble envisioning a relationship where you and your boyfriend had the same power and same goals in the first place.

You're right. I'm specialized for my Maitimo and should just go back to him.

If that happens everyone is going to decide that he can't be permitted to live without hurting other people and then we'll kill him.

Well, Findekáno says, in that case I know what I want to use my leverage for. 

You want to win over one of us to the cause of keeping your rapist happy? By trading us sexual favors? You do realize that trading us sexual favors will not make us more charitably inclined toward your rapist?

I'm not you, can't find the best angle on people the minute I meet them, but I bet I could figure it out.

The way my Findekáno helps me is by bailing me out when I'm occasionally stupid and loving me unconditionally and not being seduceable into mistakes by his love for me.

I don't think I'm seduceable into mistakes and I will definitely rescue you from being stupid and I would need to have oaths back but -

-that is very much not an acceptable outcome, no.

What is an acceptable outcome.

You stay here and I use you for projects, since that's what you're used to, and introduce you to non-me pretty boys if you're sexually frustrated, and you know that I'll protect you just as fiercely as my evil alt would have, and you avoid distressing anyone by speaking the way he apparently likes you to speak -

-you don't like it?

If it were a voluntary kink thing in the right context - my husband, for my birthday, biting his lip to refrain from bursting into laughter the whole time - I would be fantastically aroused. From you it is disturbing. 

So it's not that you're different, it's that -

We are definitely different!

Sorry, he says softly, cowed.

It's completely different! I want you to see the difference!

Look, sometimes Maitimo tied me down and I told him he was a monster and he fucked me anyway. But sometimes he brought me presents and we talked policy until I realized I could get ahead by talking him into bed, and those aren't the same thing, and it wasn't clear to me if you'd enjoy the second kind just because you're all upset by the first kind.

Yes. Someone would very much enjoy playing inappropriate power games with you. But when you played them, you didn't have the option of refusing him, that matters a lot.

To you.

Doesn't matter to you?

Knowing I could leave is the main thing that matters. Now that there are lots of Maitimos I could more meaningfully leave.

Maitimo buries his face in his hands. The Space ones spent several decades apart and were just fine! I am sure there's a 'verse that has one but not the other of us and I bet we're fine there, too!

Yes. But as you observed, the thing I am really good at is you. When Maitimo shows no signs of doing anything other than having his face in his hands, your plan sounds good. But I'd be just as happy with it if you said you might want me in bed sometimes. 

Okay. I won't.

He tries not to feel hurt. It wouldn't escape Maitimo.

I do want you to be around my husband and I a fair bit, to see what a functional relationship between us looks like.

Okay.

I am not going to be comfortable in your presence until I've told you I want things and you've said no a few times.

You should want less reasonable things, then.

Come over here.

Findekáno springs gratefully to his feet and walks over.

Oh, for fuck's sake, Maitimo says miserably.

That wasn't unreasonable!

Stand on your head.

He grins. No.

Okay. I think I'm going to call that a day's work and go cry into my husband's shoulder. See you later.

He looks unhappy. Maitimo'll figure out why.

Oh, get competent with computers, get an Allspeak installation, and sit through all of Loki's spells. Please.

Thank you, he says, relieved. 

That would have been another good candidate for a 'no' -

- but it was reasonable...

Maitimo pops out.

Elspeth goes and talks to the Elentári Valar. Do they want to know more or less the same things as the Evil Arda ones did?

They do! Less 'why did the civil war' more 'why did the Noldor depart', but the same general idea.

She is happy to help when she has the story to the point where she can interpret it.

And then she goes to Space Arda and visits their Valar! Same deal?

Plus, you know, Cam fed Valinor to a black hole, how could that have been averted. Because it was awful and traumatizing.

It sounds it! He wasn't happy about it either. The thing he got for it was very important. The Enemy should not have had that thing to bargain with, that is probably the best way they could have improved on the situation.

If they'd gotten into a fight for Endore the whole planet would have been destroyed.

Well, yes. It was, in fact, planet-destroying levels of important. Ideally they could have gotten it out of the way before the Dwarves and Men showed up. Were they under the impression the Enemy was going to stop of his own accord or something.

in five hundred years everyone'd be pretty much dead anyway and then they'd have intervened.

Is this the part where Elspeth explains that torture hurts.

They knew the Enemy was doing that and that it was really bad but it wasn't really clear what could be done about it without killing hundreds of millions of people and they categorically can't do things that'll kill hundreds of millions of people. If they were the sort of thing that could do that while also being Valar there wouldn't be any people in this dimension.

Really? Why not?

Valar are the set of things they're capable of doing.

...okay, but at what point would they have exercised the capability to wipe out all life in the dimension?

If killing hundreds of millions of people were the thing they were, then of course they would have done that, that is what it would mean to be capable of it.

...well, presumably at some times they take novel actions, right?

No? They only take actions that are inherent to the kind of thing they are. 

But, like, they are reacting to Elspeth. They are capable of reacting to Elspeth. That was probably not written in. She is from three hops away.