...I approve. You are unlikely to make any friends.

I don't need that many. You think your father won't want to hang out with me anymore?

...he'll think you used me.

...Well, regardless of whether you mean that in the being sideways about things sense or the emotional sense we could just correct him?

Yes. I'm not in fact sure how far his openmindedness stretches but it's worth a try.

I can revise the 'flagrantly married' plan if that's preferable, I just thought it satisfied several desiderata at once. "Let's go to Melkor's and get you slowed down or if possible rolled back to being twenty so Elves will stare at you less," Kib says to Aydanci.

"That would be nice," says Aydanci, feeling very - surrounded by large amounts of people that keep looking at him. It is not a pleasant feeling.

Oh, I like the 'be flagrantly married' plan. My father and I are constantly at odds and I will give him that he never ever sabotages me even in small ways, even by ceasing to work as hard on things for me, when annoyed with me. He won't you either.

Melkor does not do facial expressions properly but he seems to be aiming for vaguely pleased to see Kib.

"Hi. Melkor, Aydanci; Aydanci, Melkor. Brought you another human to age-adjust. If you can actually roll him back outright that would be great but I'm guessing that's more like stopping than like slowing down?"

I cannot think how I'd undo the damage done to a body by aging. Maybe the bits of it that are just manifest as physical injury in general? I can certainly slow the process like I did for you.

"Slowdown would be good, as would fixing up accumulated injury. Right, Aydanci?"

"Right. That will do fine for me, I'll just - get used to the staring, I suppose."

Kib translates in osanwë for Melkor. "Sorry about that," he sighs. "The Elves will get used to humans who look like they may have aged a day past twenty-five eventually."

Melkor extends his hand.

"Shake hands," Kib prompts Aydanci.

Aydanci clasps the outstretched hand.

He can fix most of the skin damage, that's easy. He could do things about the heart, but he doesn't. He can slow aging by a factor of a thousand. There you are.

"Thank you!"

My pleasure. Do you want to stay and talk? I've been interesting in your progress on what we previously discussed.

"The prophecy stuff? I collected a bunch of things, it turns out Fëanáro already had Silmarils in the works and is revising the design to make them less contentious. Other puzzles remain puzzling."

Do you want more on the internal politics? I can give you a great deal on the internal politics, if you think you can handle it well.

"I'll certainly do my best."

And you trust your friend?