The children have beards. That's interesting. Loki inclines her head politely to the nine enthroned people. "Hello. I am called Loki Odinsdottir."

One of them leans forward. "Hello. I am Móðsognir. Welcome to Tumunzahar. I hope it has struck you as inspiring, capably-done, and secure?"

"Yes, and neatly laid out too."

"Thank you. How much has been explained to you about the role of the council in Tumunzahar?"

"Not very much detail, but apparently you're the people to go to for information intended to be generally disseminated."

"We're here to solve problems that are difficult to solve through trade - like the defense of our people against enemies, investment in avenues of research that benefit no one presently alive, or, yes, the sharing of information that needs to be publicly known. Travel between realms might be our domain, or someone might think of a clever way to fix that with trade, in which case it'd be off our plates." He smiles.

"Sounds like a good idea to have people designated for those sorts of things. Well, I don't know if the accident that sent me here can be reliably replicated, but I'm planning to figure out how to go to and fro with passengers at will in the next fifty to two hundred years with sorcery."

They nod. "Can you give a brief account of your realms, the others known to you, the things that distinguish this one, the ways of traveling between them that are known..."

"Sure. Any objections if I use illusory visual aids?"

"Please go ahead."

So she starts with the galaxy. "According to Melian, the stars in your sky are actually fake because the Valar had trouble putting real stars together correctly by their deadline, but beyond that there are real stars of the same sort known to my realm, which are enormous spheres of burning material, so vast that they can continue to burn for billions of years. Most planets are spherical, and orbit suns at distances many times greater than the diameter of the planet. This particular planet is a cylinder, again because the Valar took too long to figure out something. This is a galaxy; most stars are in one because matter tends to cluster together on scales like this. My realm is here." She zooms way in, cheating on most of the intermediate detail, until she's got a scale model of the Asgardian solar system, then zooms in on the planet, which she can show in substantially fine grain. "It has a lot of knowledge of other realms and high technology, but for aesthetic and social reasons mostly pretends not to have the tech and not to have met the other realms; we're in regular contact with only a few. To get between them we use a magical artifice called the Bifrost," she zooms in and shows that, "which can send or bring a small party from other planets. I was going to travel to a place called Midgard," she dismisses the Bifrost, shows Midgard from space, "for a period of a few years, with a companion; instead, I landed on the ice -" She pulls out her map, highlights that, "with some Elves, who were crossing into this continent from Valinor." Are they following her so far?

"They didn't have any very palatable options, but, yes, the journey was not pleasant. Other ways of traveling between realms are in ships that can traverse the space between planets and stars; there's a wide range of those, ranging from ones that take a while just to get to a planet's own moon," she presents Midgard's moon, which is particularly striking, "to those which can cross significant fractions of the galaxy in hours or days. With sufficient magic, technology, or both, outright teleportation is possible; that's what I'm planning to do. There are techniques that work a little like the Bifrost without being anchored to a specific item, opening a path that circumvents conventional space to allow easy transit between chosen points A and B. There may be other classes of transit method I haven't heard of or am forgetting. Some of these methods might not behave well if implemented on a cylindrical planet which came to exist before its sun did and is under false stars, but the teleportation spell I'm working on should be fine."

Everyone nods seriously. "Is there much transit between realms?"

"Depends on the realm. The most common sort of realm is one that hasn't been developed enough for anyone to bother inviting it to the broader stage. Midgard is one of those; occasionally things relevant to other realms happen there - a species my planet is at perpetual low-key war with built a base there, we went and drove them out, I could take a vacation there as long as I didn't disturb anything overmuch. There are realms like Asgard, which know about the galactic state of affairs but mostly reserve active contact for a handful of relatively like-minded or similarly-advanced realms - with exceptions for a few scholars or occasional diplomats. And there are various circles of outright galactic influence, which have all kinds of policies and habits as regards other realms, various interstellar squabbles, etcetera. It is not common to travel to other galaxies; my spell will be able to do it - it has to get to another reality - but it's hard to scale up and hard to see much about where you're going before you get there to know where might be a good place to land, so no significant contact is in place that I'm aware of."

They nod. "And we are, you think, a realm not developed enough to attract galactic interest?"

"The regular people wouldn't make the cut for a typical galactic-scaled realm in search of new friends, probably. The Valar and Maiar, however, would - they'd get people wanting to talk to them and trade favors with them as soon as anyone noticed they could do things like construct cylindrical planets. The thing is interdimensional transit is not a solved problem, and Melian made it sound like this whole dimension was completely empty before Eru started making things; so nobody but me from my reality has had a chance to notice you."

There are looks exchanged around the room. Awkward coughing. Then "..the Elves say that their gods exist and made the world. Various groups of Men say that too, about different gods. Are you quite sure that the Valar exist at all? Or have the powers ascribed to them?"

"I've met several people who've met them and do not tell suspiciously inconsistent or suspiciously consistent stories about their properties," Loki says. "And met one Maia in person myself, which seems like broadly the same sort of thing and would serve to make my point about the appeal of this planet to onlookers even if that were it. Ulmo in particular apparently replies to questions, albeit not in a timely fashion, and someone is going to ask him something for me. That's the extent of my evidence, though, I haven't even confirmed the world's a cylinder myself because I don't see well enough to detect that by looking. I haven't met any Men yet, let alone interrogated them about religion, but it's on my to-do list."

"Hmm. In that case - I'm not at all sure that our interests would be served by trading between the Elf-gods and anyone who would desire to trade favors with them. It sounds like, unless someone stumbles across this world in the manner you did, that is unlikely until you solve cross-dimensional travel?"

"Not necessarily; it is unlikely that anyone from my dimension will show up thus - though that's one possible origin for Ungoliant, she could also be a Maia - but reportedly there are real stars which may have further inhabited planets of their own in this reality, and maybe somebody up there has invented space travel very, very fast and is already on their way for who knows what."

"Ah. So we may become players on a much larger stage than we anticipated, much sooner than we anticipated, and we do not have much to offer them."

"Maybe. I'm not planning to personally import anyone I don't think I can manage and if necessary evict, but I can't do much about spaceships from your this-reality neighbors and may or may not succeed in controlling the information itself once I'm back in my reality."

"Getting home requires the knowledge that you called 'not a solved problem'. You expect that you can be the first in your dimension - or in any dimension that's made contact with yours - to develop reliable cross-dimensional transit?"

"It may have been developed; it is not scaled up or systematically exploited. I wouldn't know about it if someone across the galaxy from me had invented a spell just like the one I'm working on and vacationed in thirty different dimensions at whim. I do know that there are no imports or immigrants advertised as such in the way that there are things from many planets. Anyway, I do have what is likely a genuinely unique advantage in spellcrafting."

"When can we expect you to be capable of traveling between dimensions at will?"

"Low end fifty years, high end two hundred, if it takes me longer than that I may have a sufficiently fundamental problem that I have to stop actual spellcraft and instead spend a few decades doing physics experiments to compensate for the fact that here I can't just look things up in a sufficiently advanced library but I currently don't anticipate that unless Melian was lying to me."

"Well. We appreciate that we're getting a bit of warning, at least, but that doesn't seem nearly enough time to be useful to anything in an apparently vast and disinterested galaxy."

"It depends a lot on who finds you, but if you get benign trading-inclined people in the first place - which seems to be the scenario you're most interested in preparing for and is probably the scenario you are best able to prepare for - the things that you'll be able to distribute that they'll want, without running yourselves out of natural resources they could get elsewhere, are intellectual property type things. Fiction, history, even recipes, it might be a workable scenario if a bunch of anthropologists got very protective of you and wouldn't let anybody else bother you because they wanted to study your culture in its untouched state - which might be patronizing but is otherwise pretty harmless."

"We have no interest in being the subject of outside study in that way."

"Then I will try not to tell any anthropologists you exist. I'm really not planning to deliberately open floodgates to unfiltered visitation, but I don't want to stay cut off from my original galaxy forever and also find it likely that the most efficient way to stop the Enemy is to import something to throw at him."

"The Elves' enemy?"

"I didn't have the impression he was nice to anybody at all, even his own orcs, but yes."

"We haven't really interacted with him at all or seen anything for which he is particularly responsible, save a few battles with the Elves in which both sides were disinclined to discuss terms. And we take Elf stories with some skepticism. But we would be interested in hearing the events that led you to also regard him as an enemy."

"Well, he kidnaps and tortures and mind-controls and forcibly breeds Elves to generate his orc troops, all of whom are in constant pain until I heal them and are forced as children to take unbreakable oaths - do Dwarves have those? - to serve him. I consider this behavior pretty inexcusable."

"The Elves should really have opened with that instead of telling us how he defies Eru," the questioner agrees gravely. "We do not have unbreakable oaths; we have contract law. It works better."

"The newcomer elves are much more about the inexcusable behavior than the defiance," Loki says. "Contract law definitely seems to have superior downside potential; I am leery of the oath concept but it affects Elves and orcs both."

"The newcomer Elves sound in every respect superior to the ones we've been acquainted with. Is there no judicial procedure for adjudicating oaths, or declaring them void?"

"The way it was described to me is that the species who can do oaths 'do not have free will' and are therefore just sort of... fating themselves to do what they swear to do. I haven't actually asked if death releases them; they supposedly have an afterlife, although a Vala-administered one of very dubious quality, from which they can return to life if the Vala in question lets them. Other than that they seem to be genuinely irrevocable and trying to break them causes extreme, devastating depression which can only be alleviated by taking up the sworn task again. And they work when little children speak them. It's... it's a serious flaw in the species design, the oaths thing. The saving grace for the orcs is that if they're caught alive and in a cooperative mood - healing helps with that - they can be convinced of redefinitions of a few words and from there reuse their coerced wording to mean something less inherently antagonistic."

Nods. "There are many serious flaws in the species design. I'd take them up with the designers, but until this moment I assumed that the gods of Elves were as real as the gods of Men."

"I'd take them up with the designers but I'm assured that if I flew to Valinor and yelled the result would not be chastened Valar."

"If there are weapons that'd change the result there," someone says mildly, "we'd be happy to develop them."

"Ha. I'm not sure what it'd take to kill a Vala but I'm planning to find out with Morgoth. Possibly from there the next step will be threatening his peers into behaving themselves, if they're even capable of responding to threats."

"That seems reasonable."

"I pride myself on being reasonable." Gosh, Loki likes Dwarves. These are good Dwarves.

They seem reasonably fond of her as well. "So, aside from encouragement to take a more active role in the Elves' war, and a hundred years' advance notice that we may be acquiring very powerful neighbors, what concerns of yours seem likely to be concerns of this council?"

"I rescued someone from Morgoth who needs a place to stay for a few years and would like to bring him here. And while I was not anticipating the nature of this trip, I have a general education in the advances of my culture, much of which is new to you and may be useful even in piecemeal form."

"Elves have traditionally been ill at ease in our company. We have divergent perspectives on topics such as timeliness, religion, and occasions where singing is appropriate."

"Well, this one is one of the newcomer's crowd, which may help with the religion item; he's been good about keeping appointments with me of a kind where I tell him what day I'll be there and he's exactly where I expect him whenever during that day I happen to arrive; and I have never heard him sing and suspect he will not be in the mood."

"In that case by all means. I'm sure there are ways Elves can make themselves useful," though he sounds rather dubious. "We'd be honored to host any guests who are friends of yours, whatever our assessment of whether they'll appreciate the favor."

"Thank you. And I have notes prepared on a couple of subjects, including metallurgy which interested the Menegroth Dwarves; and I can come up with similar exposition on other topics as may interest you. But I can't stay long this visit - maybe the lectures I have plus one more of comparable size. I'm due back across the continent soon. I should have longer when I come back with Maitimo."

"You have the means to travel across the continent quickly?"

"I can turn into a bird of a species that can fly about a hundred miles an hour. It's nothing on the teleportation, but it's what I have prepped."

"That's very useful. We have shipping routes stretching several thousand miles in the eastern direction, but it takes a long time for news to reach us from there."

"I'd expect it to. I can't carry significant cargo as a bird, but I have found myself relaying a lot of messages. Would you be willing to fill in my map?" She pulls out her map. "People have been tracing in the air on it for me."

"The locations of the other Dwarven kingdoms is not our information to disclose. The Men don't seem to regard their location as a secret but I'm not sure that's because they're fine with it being shared, rather than because they don't understand what we're asking."

"Any other landmarks you could share? Mountains, bits of coastline?"

"There might be surveyors interested in selling it."

"Fair enough." She puts the map away.

"Do the newcomers have weapons for the war? Are they interested in trading for some?"

"They have swords and bows. It'd be a long trade route, although it sounds like you're accustomed to those; and they haven't asked about it but may not have known it was an option."

"We'd be delighted if you'd make it known to them that that's an option. We can offer something in exchange, since sending an emissary would be a substantial expense on our part obviated by your agreeing to take the message."

"Can I take an IOU?"

"Certainly. We'll have confirmation notorized that you conveyed a message across the continent for us and are owed a favor of comparable expense."

"We'd be delighted to see that the lecture hall is booked for any time you care to speak; we will need to expend no effort to see to it that it's full."

"In brief, fiat currency is a system where it is customary to trade arbitrary things for various quantities of IOUs - usually not of favors; most places get this system off the ground by backing the currency in something concrete and scarce, but once it's underway it can actually be backed by nothing at all but the sheer momentum of the system and some anti-counterfeit measures."

A considering silence. "That seems to run a serious risk of sudden losses in faith in the system, perhaps resulting from certain kinds of tampering, that would make lots of unrelated trades fail."

"That's why you need anti-counterfeiting, and to be very careful with the sorts of institutions that may spring up to do arbitrage and lending and storage. The advantage of the system is that if one person has something another wants but the first person doesn't want anything the second has, the fiat currency is universally desirable and there's no need to run a series of errands trying to find something agreeable and comparable in value. They can just settle on a number."

"We have gold for that, does this have any advantages over gold?"

"Gold's a fine thing to back it with starting out; fiat can be made much easier to transport and allows you to eventually inflate to accommodate greater total wealth in the system even if you don't happen to find gold ore at a convenient rate."

Serious nods. "We'll schedule a public debate on the topic beginning after your lecture," someone says, "and suggest to some specific small market that they try it and report results to everyone else."

"Good idea. Any other questions before I go dump science and econ on an amphitheater full of Dwarves?"

"None come to mind. It's a worthy use of time to have met you, Loki Odinsdottir."

Even if she hadn't, thousands of people are filing in that direction so she could just follow them.

She has an eager and attentive audience, and there's practically a shoving match to ask questions afterwards.

She attempts to call on people and answer their questions fast enough to prevent an outbreak of violence.

They've in any event apparently settled who gets to ask questions by bidding on it.

These are such adorable economist dwarves. She will happily give precedence to the highest bidder once she figures out how that works.

"I'm sorry," the person who ended up organizing the bidding says to her when at last everyone has to disperse because it's both the middle of the night and the amphitheater is booked for something else, "that's the obvious way to do it but the problem had never arisen before so I didn't think about it. We didn't have a chance to settle in advance on how much of a fee I could take for organizing the bidding - does three percent strike you as fair?"

"I have no objections," she says.

So now Loki has a lot of gold.

"Is there by any chance something along the lines of a bank here where I can store this gold so I don't have to carry it around?"

There are three! They have interest rates and varying levels of security and one of them lets you get your gold from banks in three other Dwarven kingdoms, if she's interested in an extra fee.

"I don't know where the other Dwarven kingdoms are," she points out when this is pitched to her. She's probably just going to give Maitimo the gold anyway for spending money - it seems like one might want to have spending money for an extended stay among Dwarves - so she isn't terribly picky beyond not needing the foreign withdrawal option.

"Ours is closest, will match their interest rates, and will be happy to dispense spending money for your Elf-friend and explain to him how it works if he can't grasp the concept," someone says, and steers her in the direction of his bank.

"I'm sold."

They are delighted to add her account to the bank. They have contracts inscribed in stone and only need to modify a few lines before it is presented to her, along with chisel, for her signature.

Read read read... "...I have not actually learned to chisel stone neatly," she says. "Will this do? Nobody else can duplicate it." And she applies an illusion to the stone.

This causes a little bit of consternation but no one thinks it's exactly impermissible.

"I am in theory capable of dismissing the illusion at any time, so if that's a problem I can try my best to chisel in my name."

"...if you did that you'd just be giving us your money," they say, confused. "But messiness isn't a problem, if that's your only hesitation."

"It seems like it might mean that if I'm ever going to sign more contracts here I'd better learn to wield a chisel, since not every disappearing signature is such a benign possibility." And she gamely attempts to scratch in "Loki". (Not going to include the matronym.)

They all applaud the effort and assure her that it's quite good for an Elf.

"I'm not an Elf."

"Tall and pink and beardless, though."

"It's true that I physically resemble them more. However, I have free will, inferior senses, greater physical strength, round ears, and none of that fancy the-body-does-as-the-soul-commands stuff. And most of them are taller than me. My species is called 'Asgardians'."

"We were erroneously assuming Asgardians were in essence like Elves, but you seem very, very different. Entirely in good directions."

"I don't know, I kind of envy their eyesight."

"We don't mind lighting things for you. We have to do it for Men and they're always so awed it's entirely worth the expense."

"They've got better acuity too, and colors I can't see."

Everyone nods, though very slowly, as if reluctant to acknowledge any advantages to Elves.

So Loki doesn't push it by mentioning the "can't have children by accident" thing. It's not like Asgardians don't have that now, albeit not by nature. "Anyway, I will head back west now, but I'll be back in a few days with Maitimo."

"He'll be welcome," the proprietor of the bank says. "And has leave to spend your money, unless he doesn't seem to understand how it works in which case we should dole it out to him in sustainable increments and help him use it for food and things?"

"I will do my best to explain money to him, but if he strikes you as dreadfully ignorant turning it into an allowance may be reasonable; we can all three talk it over then. How long will this much stretch for necessities, anyway?"

"Who knows what Elves need? I could live on it for several months."

And he doesn't, like, eat. So. "Thank you."

"Time well-spent."

She wakes up somewhere over eastern Beleriand again. There are a few orcs wandering aimlessly below.

He's higher in the sky, in wide slow circles. When he sees her he descends.

Hi! Dwarves will harbor you. I like them a lot; you may or may not. Also, there is drama between your family and the cousins again!

I think I could use healing from starvation. Did you add that to the way this world functions only after I told you I wasn't eating? Because if so, I am very annoyed with you.

She lands and holds out her hand. In exactly what scenario do you expect me to respond to such questions usefully? Anyway, I'm not going to fly all the way to the Dwarves once a week to get you back to 'merely very hungry' so maybe you need to work on eating things.

He lands on her hand. I expect flying is far more draining than being an Elf; as an Elf I should be fine for months, and the consequences of impairment are less serious since I cannot fall out of the sky and become trapped. How are the Dwarves?

When he lands in her hand she heals him and puts him elf-shaped in one motion. "The Dwarves are very keen on the concept of trade! Once I figured it out it was pleasantly straightforward. I accidentally acquired some gold, which I have no particular use for so you can draw it out of the bank where I left it as spending money. It'll probably last a long time if you don't spend it on food except every few months, maybe not the full four years, you'll need to find some other way to earn gold if you run out and need to buy things. They do not think much of Quendi but think that the newcomers sound pleasanter on the whole than the locals. You may wish to make a good impression on behalf of your batch, they're considering opening trade lines."

"Did my father agree to move east?"

"No, he was occupied with the drama. It was not conciliation-inspiring drama, but they didn't seem tense enough that I had to postpone the Dwarf visit. I did however teach Tyelcormo to fly, which development means Nolofinwë supposes you may as well overfly their camp but please don't get shot for obvious reasons." She pulls out drama-related transcripts.

He reads silently. "I wish I'd been there. Though it looks like it could have been much worse."

"Yeah. I'm planning on going to the trial."

"It will be conducted fairly. Nolofinwë is good at his job."

Nod. "But if someone doesn't like it I might be a useful mediating influence. Anyway, I don't have a schedule plotted out for after that. No more orcs to heal twice weekly; I'll want to check on the colonists as they go south but they can get a little farther before I do that, might wind up ferrying palantirs around but that can wait, etcetera. When do you want to go to the Dwarves?"

He considers this for a second. "Immediately."

"Hm, I did kind of imply I'd stay longer than I did last time when they next saw me - would this put me at risk of missing the trial, I don't know quite how long it'll take them to get there - and didn't you want to fly over your cousins? You can do that now and they're in the opposite direction."

"You can just show me where Tumunzahar is, presumably? I was interested in flying over Nolofinwë's host out of concern for their wellbeing and out of curiosity about whether you can simulate large numbers of people convincingly and to high resolution. Tumunzahar will satisfy the latter curiosity and give me a better avenue to pursue the former."

"I can just show you where it is but if I don't go with you you'll show up and be a bird," she points out. "The tunnels are pretty roomy considering how short everyone there is, but I wouldn't choose to maneuver there as a bird. Plus you said it seems to make you hungry faster."

"Right. Hmm. After the trial, then, if that's convenient for you and it doesn't end with anyone menacing anyone." He sighs. "I'd have told Father to try her here, sentence her to death, pardon her as the King of the Noldor, and send her home so Nolofinwë isn't even sure whether he should feel relieved or insulted and everyone in their host thinks of the incident as a embarrassment rather than a martyrdom."

"...Well, that's an interesting approach. Do you have a guess how long the trial will take, or do you just want to hang out here being elf-shaped until I come back this way...?"

"I'll be Elf-shaped and try to work on the aversion to eating or drinking, but I won't stay right here and would appreciate knowing when I should be here to expect you."

"You'd know better than I would how long Quendi trials might last. I'd expect it over with in a few hours, maybe a couple days if the evidence turns out to be really complicated, were this Asgard; it isn't."

"We've never had a trial on a charge this serious. Perhaps a week?"

"...I might not stay there for a whole week unless they all look about to go for each other's throats the minute I'm not looking judgmentally at them. Well, I guess I could get spellcrafting done. I will plan to be here in a week; it shouldn't matter for your purposes if I get bored and detour to visit the traveling orcs in the middle or something."

"You have a very low threshold for boredom. I've sat through infrastructure negotiations that lasted three Valian Years. I will be here in a week and remain here for a week afterwards in case it lasts longer than you expected."

"I'm just glad I don't get bored flying - well, yet, it's still newish - or I'd have an awful time. I'd leave you some reading material just because thinking about you sitting here doing nothing for a week gives me sympathy boredom but I haven't got any you haven't seen. Maybe you can taxonomize the prairie grasses and make baskets out of them." She shakes her head. "Anything else to pass on?"

"Tell my father that he owes me five birthday presents and they can all be moving to eastern Beleriand."

...She snorts. "Your evidence is that it's been at least five years or I'm really from an advanced planet which puts caster wheels on its library carts," she points out.

"Yes, but if that's true then he really exists and has more pressing worries than indulging me in testing how many complicated political schemes I can play out solely through distrusted third-party messenger while he thinks I'm disloyal and Findekáno thinks I'm dishonest, and I really would get bored if I couldn't play that game."

"Well, I'll pass on the request. I don't actually remember how long ago you did get captured, maybe you do have a birthday backlog."

"We don't actually celebrate peoples' four-hundred-twelfth through four-hundred-seventeeth, I just need a lighthearted way to remind him so when I escalate to pleading it won't come out of nowhere."

"...Huh, I hadn't actually formed concrete beliefs about how old anyone was chronologically. Or how long it takes Quendi to grow up. You'd be yea high if you were four hundred seventeen and Asgardian." She holds her hand four and a bit feet off the ground.

"Valian years are ten times as long as the locals say Outer Lands years are, and I don't know how Asgardian years compare."

"Days seem similar lengths - maybe Asgardian ones are a little longer - and an Asgardian year is three hundred ninety days and change."

"Then you're roughly the same as the Outer Lands ones, which they measured by the stars until all the recent alterations."

"Okay, so you're four thousand, which is older than I am."

"How old are you?"

"Might be home in time for my millennium."

"You're child-sized at five hundred but fully-grown at eight?"

"I worked it out against Midgardians once, we're... fifty times slower than them, about, but we slow down dramatically past about eight hundred and loiter there for several thousand years before noticeably aging again. I don't know how Quendi age to compare."

"Much faster than that, oddly. Fifty years to young adulthood in the Outer Lands, and fifty Valian years to it in Valinor - Valinor has time-dilation, too, they don't exactly pass ten times as slowly. We're considered fully grown at a hundred, and then like this forever."

"That sounds like a better deal, really. I don't have very clear memories of my first three hundred years. After that I started keeping a diary."

"We have very precise memories, usually. You tampered with mine and I now have a couple centuries-long blank stretches, though I've been mostly able to piece things together."

"...Look, even in the scenario where I'm working for the Enemy I did think you'd concluded I was not literally the same individual you'd been dealing with previously, I had, what, different strengths from Thauron or something like that? I don't want to mess with whatever psychological grounding you're doing by periodically inserting this opinion but does it really have to be in the second person when you are referring to events that happened before I, be it in or out of the sole province of your mind, got ahold of you?"

"Does it bother you?"

"I know why you're doing it, I don't consider it unreasonable, I'll drop it if you prefer to go on saying 'you', but, yes, it does."

"I'll stop. Why does it bother you?"

"How would you like it? You go rescue somebody from horrific atrocities and you're having a civil conversation and maybe not everything's all better but at least they're not dangling from a cliff anymore and suddenly mid-chat they're talking about the time you did this or that horrific atrocity? I've got a good grip on reality, thankfully, I'm not going to lie awake at night going 'but what if he's right', but it gets old."

"If I rescued anyone from Angband they would ask me to kill them and I would, and it would not bother me at all that they probably thought I was the Enemy as I did it."

"You didn't actually ask me to kill you. I just objected when you announced plans to commit suicide. Rodyn didn't talk to me at all, he just ran. Anyway, imagine some other horrific atrocity if it's necessary to your empathy here."

"My life isn't mine, in the unlikely scenario I'm somehow actually living it. If it were I wouldn't have announced my plans or been dissuaded from them. I think I am bothered less than you by being accused of crimes I didn't technically commit, because being a son of Fëanor rather inures one to that."

"I don't view my non-commission of horrific atrocities as a technicality. ...what do you mean, your life isn't yours?"

"There are a lot of people who put themselves in this danger at my request and because they trusted me and were sworn to me, and I have obligations to them and to my King."

Sigh. "Anyway, thank you."

"You are welcome. Do you find my obligations somehow objectionable?"

"I find the concept of them rendering your life not your own objectionable, but since your life is not mine either I can hardly attempt to rearrange its ownership for you to accord with my aesthetics."

"I believe that people in general have the right to end their life if they so desire, but that people who have accepted commitments that put the safety and wellbeing of others in their hands do not if it can be avoided and an avenue to fulfill those commitments still exists. Is that a less objectionable phrasing? No talk of ownership."

"Yes, that is less objectionable."

"And so here I am, seeing you in a week. May the trial be nonlethal for all parties and all hopes of their future cooperation."

"Hear, hear. Do you want me to bring some food in case you progress on that in this time?"

"I doubt I'll have difficulty finding any, there are lights in the sky here."

Eight people she doesn't recognize are bringing the would-be assassin to trial, all of them armed but not armored and moving anxiously through the mountains. Tyelcormo is flying overhead.

She falls into wingbeat near him. Having fun with flying?

It's delightful, though I think I'd like it about a hundred times more if I had the power to turn back. Father added undoing your magic to his long list of priorities, but I'm not even sure if that's the sort of thing one can treat as an engineering problem.

Sorcery and technology can interact but my sorcery's weird. Do you want a break?

Not at all, it's not getting bored of it so much as feeling like if I did there's nothing I could do about it. How're Dwarves?

Dwarves are great! I really like them! They don't think much of Quendi but seemed to agree that your lot sounded better than the ones they've met out east.

Give it a year, Maitimo'll have them enamored of us.

As I told the Dwarves, I'm not sure he's in an ideal diplomatic condition, but perhaps.

That's why it'll take a year.

Ha. They're also potentially interested in opening trade.

Unless they like Noldorin jewelry or some stones that are common in Valinor and rare here, we're five years out from producing anything valuable enough by volume to be worth shipping. Is that why Maitimo wants us to pack up and head east?

I suppose he could have predicted it but I don't think so. They might like the stones, though, they seem very big on stones.

Then we're in, especially if they can get their forges to better temperatures than are manageable with our resources here and will either sell us weapons or workspace. I mean, I'm not qualified to negotiate anything in any detail at all, but I'm sure what the answer will be.

I bet they'll sell you weapons. I can almost imagine them selling you workspace just because it seems like they'd find it a novelty to watch Quendi hard at work.

Well, I'm about as useful in a forge in normal form as bird form, but I can't imagine Dwarves are so gifted they won't be impressed to watch my father at work.

You in the general sense. And while I've never actually watched him build a thing I imagine you are right.

You're watching him build a country, but admittedly that's very much not his preferred medium.

Countries often happen more or less on their own. I'll be impressed if he builds an unusually good one.

Well, we're more aiming for unusually-enemy-besieging. But fair.

I will also be impressed if he manages that but more with his army than with his country.

Rather takes countries to muster and supply and arm armies.

Sure. But I judge them on different criteria. He could have a perfectly functional army and the home front could languish indefinitely without indoor plumbing. ...I should explain indoor plumbing.

You mean water and waste disposal systems that aren't from the Valar? You should ask Nelyo to explain them to you, he spent three Years getting all of the necessary permissions and land rights and interest for them.

Oh, is that the interminable-sounding meeting he was talking about or were there several of that duration? Then yes, he likely remembers more about the functioning details than I do.

It took forever because you needed practically everyone in the city in agreement, since it had been built and planned without one and no one was willing to have an unsightly one. He worked on it rather tirelessly, and insisted it was boring but I think was having the time of his life.

Aww. Did Valinor eventually get plumbed?

Yes. And we built it into the foundations, here. Nothing's actually working because there were more urgent priorities but we won't have to rebuild anything to get it working.

Cool.

We were going to build a generator for your Asgardian lights, down by the river, but then we had to avoid outdoor projects for a bit.

Hopefully that'll be cleared up soon.

Well, we have better sentries now, they're back out building it. I don't expect they'll figure out who ordered this, why would she tell?

Dramatic confessions at trial aren't unheard of, although I suppose I wouldn't much expect it in this case. Plea bargaining, maybe.

That gives her an incentive to name someone truly or falsely. I realize that's a horrible thing to accuse someone of, but -

Then if she names someone falsely they can produce an alibi. It's imperfect, entirely so, but it's not guaranteed to produce all the wrong incentives.

If I tried to have someone assassinated and were dishonorable enough to let someone else do the shooting and take the blame, I'd definitely acquire an alibi.

Then maybe Sarpalarë will turn on them for leaving her in the lurch; stranger things have happened. But I can't pull a judicial procedure with guaranteed results every time out of my pocket.

Wasn't saying you could, was just saying I don't expect much to come of it. It won't happen again, but because we'll be more careful.

That's why you get to learn to fly. All the deterrent in the world can't stop everyone.

Kind of can. Note the lack of Morgoth assassination attempts, and it's not that there are people unwilling to die trying.

I did not actually know for sure that no one had, she says.

We looked into it when we were exploring avenues to rescue Maitimo. It does not seem likely that it'd be possible to kill him in one blow.

Not with a sword, anyway.

We do have other weapons. Not with anything we have or could swiftly invent.

Yeah. I consider one likely outcome that I just invent a teleportation spell, go purchase some extremely high-yield bomb from a disreputable galactic weapons shop, and wipe Angband off the map, see if that does it.

At the very least it'd take him Ages to build another physical form after it was destroyed by violence.

After which I suppose he'd learn to take cover among non-expendable people, but I can have anybody who wants to get off this cylindrical fucking rock evacuated by then.

If we get the Silmarils.

Or find an alternate means to go on. You're not on a very tight deadline by galactic standards.

We aren't, no. Anyway, the Silmarils can be expected to survive dropping bombs on them.

That's good, otherwise I imagine obliterating the fortress and everything in it would meet with some objections.

It'd be a tough tradeoff. On the one hand, Angband needs to be ended as soon as possible. On the other, without those we stop being part of the world or we go back to Valinor. Neither appeals.

I am optimistic that my galaxy holds solutions for this problem, I just didn't do my homework for this test I wasn't planning to take.

He does the osanwë equivalent of snorting. Tell me about it.

I would have gone and got one of those data storage things that can hold a hundred worlds' works in a box smaller than your head if only I'd known!

Soberly, We'd have built some boats.

Well. Those look like some Nolofinweans on the horizon, which means I and most of my friends here will be turning back. We thought we'd send two.

How were they chosen?

Family of apprentices of Father's, so he trusts them, who seemed of the right temperament and didn't happen to actually set a ship afire, though they also wouldn't have been good candidates if they'd ignored the order.

Good, good. See you later.

Likewise.

And Loki swoops down to walk with the group now that there is nobody to keep her company in the air.

They nod at her. "Hello. We weren't sure if you'd make it."

"I wasn't either, but I made good time to and from the Dwarves. Dwarves are great, by the way."

"Aulë's very good for a Vala."

"I'm mostly charmed by their culture over their design specifications, although I've heard some good things about those too."

"What're they like?"

"They're very into trade. They use gold as a basis now but I delivered a lecture on fiat currency, which may or may not take off - they're going to do a small scale experiment! Their ruling council is designed to handle only those problems particularly intractable to trade. The place is beautiful and they light it up for visitors, which is very thoughtful."

"Perhaps if we manage to get through this trial without anyone resenting anyone we can ask about visiting Dwarves," one of them says ruefully. "That sounds lovely."

"Well, they are very far away, although they do have thousand-mile trade routes and are interested in establishing one with the newcomers - I didn't explain all the newcomer-related drama, though."

"Well, yes, everyone will hate us forever if they hear about that, even the Nolofinweans communicated that they wouldn't share it."

"I'm actually finding it much easier to imagine the Dwarves snorting and going, 'Elves. Hope they've learned their lesson,' and not bringing it up again, but admittedly I am basing this on less than one extremely charming day of exposure. I will have to ask them if they mind saying 'Quendi' next time I'm there."

"That's very reassuring, I hope they do. Might not be worth the chance, though. Aren't you sending Lord Nelyafinwë there? He'll figure it out."

"I am, yes, and he's likely to be a better source of Quendi-relevant information on Dwarves than I am."

"Thank you for rescuing him."

"You're welcome. I only hope one day he manages to be completely rescued instead of merely physically rescued."

"No one gets out of Angband, that's a saying of ours that's older than history. This is what he'd want, given how things were."

"I hope so."

"Well, this and a hug. We can't get everything we want in life."

"He has not asked me for a hug, but presumably I'm not the person he'd want it from."

"No."

They arrive about two hours later, Nolofinwë has people in uniform, armed, and looking anxious.

Loki waves.

"Well, we're off to a great start," mutters Loki under her breath.

That, Loki has no snarky remarks about.

Nolofinwë finds her once his guests and his prisoner have been escorted to equally-guarded buildings in the valley. "Here as an observer?"

"Yes."

"We are technically out of guest rooms, by which I mean out of ones where I can really be completely certain that even if half the people in this camp wanted trouble none would occur. I assume you don't need that. What do you need?"

"I'm perfectly comfortable sleeping in the air and I can fetch my own food from far enough afield not to interfere with your hunters and gatherers. I might come and go if the trial's proceeding slowly to see how the orcs are getting along. No need to worry about me."

"Very well. Is there anything you'd have us know before we begin? It'll be tomorrow morning - I want to give anyone with something to say a little more time to come forward."

"Did you find out anything relevant since I left last?"

"We found her scout group. They all insist that she fell and sprained her wrist while they were barely out of sight of camp, decided to head back, and told them an hour later that she was back safely."

"And they didn't verify that her wrist was sprained?"

"They did not. It was agreed it hadn't been a serious fall but sometimes one just lands badly. We've revised our reporting protocols so that specific trick won't work again, of course."

"So either her entire scouting group, or no one in the scouting group - more likely, especially if they don't self-assemble - is her accomplice; someone else was helping."

"They were assigned. Someone else must have met her outside camp with the bow - which we were able to track the very apologetic maker of, he found the perfect wood for it and asked my nephew Aikanáro if it was worth it and Aikanáro said the guard platforms here could use it, and after making it he left it in the armory."

"Does access to the armory at least narrow it down?"

A regretful shake of the head "We're changing that now, too."

"So - of people who had a chance to sneak off long enough to slip her the bow - what kind of suspect pool does that leave you with?"

"Forty thousand. People were leaving to get wood, to get water, to go hunt. Someone should have seen the bow but no one has come forward."

"Eugh."

"I'm going to speak with her privately. I don't expect to get anywhere, but I think it's worth trying."

"Be careful; there's still the possibility that she has it in for you too."

"Nothing would delight me more than if she attacked me while we spoke; that'd clear up the whole mess marvelously."

"Sure, but don't let her kill you, I can't fix that."

"Could most Asgardians do that unarmed in a few seconds?"

"We are substantially stronger than you, but no, it'd be hard. If she's really unarmed she'd have to be very lucky to do more than put out an eye. I just wouldn't assume she's definitely unarmed."

"You know, if Fëanor managed to sneak a prisoner he was purporting to have under guard for attacking him a weapon she then immediately used to kill me I think I'd actually just be impressed when we met up in Mandos." He shakes his head. "I will take that under advisement, though."

"I'm pretty sure nothing that convoluted was going on; they just might have missed something small when they took her eight foot tall bow."

He nods. "...care to make someone invisible so they can be present in the room without her knowledge, and able to intervene if something like that's the case?"

"Sure."

And he starts walking towards the building where she's being held.

Loki follows, presuming he will collect someone for her to turn invisible en route.

He collects Findekáno, presumably communicating privately the reason why. "Thank you, Loki."

"You're welcome." And now Findekáno is invisible.

"I would also appreciate if you could make it impossible to hear inside the building. That's part of why standard Eldarin construction uses so much stone, but it hasn't yet been feasible."

"Done."

He nods, opens the door, and closes it behind him. There are a lot of eyes on them, but everyone looks away after a second.

Loki hangs out near the outside of the building so Findekáno won't have to be prolongedly invisible past necessity and does spellwork. She's beginning to question the utility of attaching her notes to a physical notebook at all; it has finite pages which aren't exactly perfect onionskin thinness and it's not like she couldn't turn pages in a completely illusory notebook, she just wouldn't use her hands...

It's an hour before the door opens and they come out.

She has in that time made herself a completely illusory copy of all her notes and resumed spellwork with it floating before her. She turns Findekáno visible again. "How'd it go?"

"It was interesting," Nolofinwë says. "No attempts were made on my life. She got the bow outside of camp herself, earlier." No, she didn't. I'm going to see if anyone gets less cautious.

Smart. "I suppose if forty thousand people could have got in and out without being noticed it's not so much of a stretch if she managed it alone. Do you want the sound baffle to stay?"

"Yes, thank you. When we've settled people may actually ask for soundproofed homes in general. In Valinor it was considered a luxury. Would you care to join us for dinner?"

"Sure, thank you."

He turns to enter another building. "That will also give me the chance to formally introduce you to the rest of the family," he says. "My sister, Irimë; my sons Turukáno and Arakáno, and my granddaughter Itarillë." Can you also soundproof this building?

Done. "Hello, all."

He sits down. "Blessed-be-Yavanna-the-maker-Oromë-the-hunter-Vána-who-makes-things-ripen-Ulmo-who-makes-them-grow," he says, swiftly and not entirely happily, like it's a habit he'd abandon if no one present minded, and then "I'm very sure Sarpalarë thought she was acting with the approval of someone who commanded her. I can't tell if she's right about that."

"It wasn't you. Who else might she have answered to?"

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," he murmurs. "We had a flexible structure on the Ice, but almost every member of the house of Finwë could ask any favor of any of our people and expect it to be taken seriously. Maybe not something like this, but maybe. Certainly a favor like 'hide a bow outside camp', complicating the accomplice question. I also had a list drawn up of the people she travelled with, but -" He passes it around the table. Ten names, none known to Loki.

Loki passes it on without comment.

"Would she have been likely to believe a secondhand report? 'The King says you should do this'."

"From people who'd be in a position to claim that convincingly, yes. Or - not even 'the King says you should do this', 'the King wants this done and can't ask anyone to do it'."

"Oh, that's so much worse. Do not have black ops. Do not enable the idea that you might endorse black ops. You are too small a political unit to have black ops."

"Obviously I wouldn't do something like that. I am content to go shout in the square 'anything the King wants done, the King will acknowledge wanting done!' It did not occur to me that this was a failure mode of sufficiently angry people. I didn't even know there was a word for it! There's precedent?"

"Normally people don't just make it up on their own. I'm calling it black ops because if this is what happened that's what it would have looked like to Sarpalarë. Black ops is - 'the rulers must appear to abide by certain principles, and keep their hands clean, and act like they are through and through noble and honorable and would never endorse thus and such, and they must be able to so act because they don't have to think about what the black ops people are doing with negligible oversight if whoever runs the organization thinks dirty work needs to be done; join us and you may never speak directly to the king, he won't know you exist, but you'll know, you'll be serving -'. Assassinations are frequently relegated to black ops like that."

"What a horrifying and obvious failure mode. In hindsight. Anyhow, I believe that's what happened, which makes the urgent question who is telling that lie."

"And how well they're telling it. Because of course the king has to say that he's never heard of such a thing, would never endorse it, insists that it disband immediately..."

"How on earth could this possibly serve my interests? I don't want my brother dead! I don't want a war! I wouldn't mind if people went around autonomously doing what they thought I desired of them, if their concept of that were remotely sane."

"I believe you! But if someone is actually putting together a fake black ops brigade - which we are by no means sure of, it just came to mind - and they're doing it competently, then they will have said that admitting to wanting your brother dead or a war or whatever is exactly the sort of thing they're preventing you from having to openly do."

"Lovely."

"...I'm glad this didn't occur to me while I was talking to the Fëanorians lest I think out loud, that would be a mess."

"You think they'd have leapt to this conclusion? Or adopted the tactic themselves? It's more or less how they operate anyway, though usually the underlings are trying to do good their father won't admit to endorsing."

"I think they'd have found the idea very concerning as something you might be doing and you'd never be able to convince them it wasn't happening. But your concerns have merit too."

"What would it mean for me to be doing it? I thought the general idea was that I couldn't know about it and couldn't be taken seriously when saying it didn't serve my interests?"

"You can't directly oversee it or acknowledge it in anyway. Traditionally you'd pick someone to work on it for you and then avoid discussing it unless something unprecedented happened and they needed guidance on how to work with whatever you were doing publicly."

He hesitates. "I can swear that I have not authorized anyone to organize trouble with anyone but the Enemy, that I would not do such a thing, and that anyone who thinks they're serving me but cannot tell me about it has been deceived. I would need at least several days to talk over the wording with enough people and think of all the ways it can go wrong, but that is an avenue available to us."

"I'm not sure it's likely enough that you've got a rogue black ops team that this is worth it, but it's your risk to take. Also, if there is one, it is not run by someone you authorized; they might be able to find like-minded people who don't need to think they're serving you."

"I have one assassin who sincerely believes herself to be serving the interests of this family, either because someone in it told her she was or because someone not in it but close enough to one of us that she'd find it plausible told her that she was."

"Yes. But you don't know how Sarpalarë was picked. She didn't have to be filtered for willingness to defy you, because the lie was plausible to her. If the lie becomes implausible you have inconvenienced whoever told her; but perhaps not prohibitively."

"So absent a way to catch that person, how do I deter them?"

"As you said earlier it may be a sufficient deterrent that the Fëanorians benefited from the process. I'm not sure you should be less than conservative about this unless something happens a second time and forms a pattern from which to draw more detailed conclusions than my wild guessing."

"If I wanted my brother dead," Nolofinwë says, "and I didn't care at all for playing honorably, I can think of three different ways to do it. I'm not sure I can be less than conservative, but I am also not sure I'll have much latitude after a second try."

"Well, you could consider an oath, if common knowledge of surety is more appealing than not swearing oaths," says Loki, "which like I said is your risk to take."

"I do not recommend that."

"I at one point considered it," Nolofinwë says. "If I challenged him I think he might accept. His message with the prisoners today was almost phrased to imply that. But it's unwise, we might need him and he seems to have gotten less reckless with one son's death, another's capture, and his own injuries."

...Loki didn't even know one of them was dead. Lot of sons, Fëanor must have really insistent Y-chromosomes.

"Also, we don't have Maitimo," Nolofinwë's sister says. "It's really better that he stay alive."

"Well, Maitimo is around but not in much condition to replace his father at this time."

"And that was always the consideration that made stopping Fëanor most appealing. Less so now that Maitimo's declared himself anyway."

Everyone at the table is appalled at the idea. Murdering Fëanor is only appealing in a fair duel, they assure her.

"My culture shares this distinction but it's always been a bit lost on me."

"In one case people are disrupted in their lives by the fear they'll be murdered; in the other they can entirely avoid the possibility by declining to participate in duels.The advantages seem fairly obvious."

"If they can realistically decline to participate, sure."

"Even if they can't it cuts down the window in which you need to be fearing for your life. And at least here, proposing it for any grievance short of mass murder would be horrifically inappropriate."

"All right, perhaps duels-as-locally-practiced are a substantial improvement."

"We're not having one, though," Nolofinwë says. "We're having a trial in which I assume that Sarpalarë is going to lie to us and claim to have hidden the bow in advance and then either we pretend to believe her and sentence her or reveal that we don't and then sentence her. I am dissatisfied, and want everyone to keep their eyes open, but don't see a better solution."

Nod.

This concludes the family dinner.

"Soundproofing to stay up here too?"

"Yes," he says, "if it's no effort for you."

"Not a bit. You will need me if you want to get rid of it without substantially dismantling the building, though."

"Doesn't seem likely. We can pretend it's good stonework. Thank you, Loki. Have a good evening." He pauses. "Please let me know if you'd like to speak to the prisoner before you do so; you can of course speak to anyone else."

"I don't really have anything to say to her - wouldn't be worth it to go in just to say 'you idiot' - but I'll let you know if something comes to mind."

He nods. "Then rest well."

A few Elves watch her curiously, but most hurry anxiously by. The trial seems to be a source of stress. People also seem to be having long conversations about the contemptible nature of Feanorians within earshot of the Feanorians.

Well, that's repulsive, but she doesn't think she can profitably intervene. If nobody wants to ask her questions or get her to soundproof anything or say hi, she will just work and then sleep in the sky at the lowest speed she can maintain without active attention.

When the sun's up she wakes and gets her bearings and zooms down into the camp again.

Loki sits and watches.

They establish first that Sarpalarë left the camp on a scouting mission, that she feigned an injury in order to leave her group, that a large bow was built and at some point vanished, and with Fëanorian testimony that she showed up far inside their territory at an angle from which one could attack their camp with such a weapon. Everyone looks unhappy, except Sarpalarë who looks very serene.

The fuck is she thinking. ...someone would definitely have mentioned it by now if the Enemy had got her and let her go.

Her history comes up around midday; she was unmarried, had a parent and a sibling die on the ice, nothing unusual. She has not been captured or released by the Enemy, that would definitely have been mentioned.

...Loki tucks images of the twins complete with facial expression into her illusion notebook. Might be nothing, but it's weird.

If anybody looks like they want Loki to confirm that she saw the shot made from the very location Sarpalarë herself said she was caught, she will.

Sure, that looks useful. Can she confirm it's possible to make a shot from that location?

Loki stands up. "I spoke to Sarpalarë when she was in Fëanorian custody and asked her to show me where she had been when caught. Tyelcormo later showed me to that same location, and hit a one-inch target I left for him on a door inside the camp from there with the same bow."