"I mean, given that you are, obviously!"

"I am also here to answer questions, if anyone has any."

"So how upset were their respective dads when Maitimo and Findekano got married?"

"It took them a couple thousand years to come around."

"I am less sorry about missing that part than most of the rest of it."

"Were you expecting there to have been a wedding party you'd missed?"

"No, I didn't say I'm surprised."

"Dad's issue was not with Nelyo marrying a man."

"Somehow I can't say that shocks me."

"I take it everything else is adequately in the history books?"

"Not really? I have no idea how the war went after--everyone got to the other side."

"Wow, really? That's - a long one, but I suppose we have time now."

"That we do."

"When we arrived we learned you two weren't the only interdimensional visitors. It was - a good moment for it. Pityo died in the boats, you two - hadn't been on the boats, but we still thought you were safe until Tyelcormo woke up - the Enemy sent everything he had at us the minute we arrived, and there was a few weeks of horrible senseless slaughter in which we had the upper hand but it helped morale less than you'd think. And when every orc that had been ordered to run at us was dead - and there were so many orcs - we charged Angband, and then he broke out the real terrors in his arsenal. We drove them off. But Father was dying.

And then someone pops up having witnessed - I don't know how much she saw - we thought she was a Maia, right approximate power level, but it was eventually explained she was from another world. Had something to heal Father. Had - you know, we always thought 'well, the Valar tried fighting Morgoth last time and it was a long and terrible war, perhaps they can't do better than that'. And they can't. Because they suck, not because their powers don't permit it. I think Alcallah's weaker than Yavanna, if faster-"

"Oh, so that's where she comes from. She might be more creative, too, I went to one of her lectures once."

"The Trees could be faulted in many respects but they weren't really very unoriginal. Anyway, shortly after that, Melkor offers us a parley, which it'd be stupid to go to but which is tempting because he swears we'll come to no harm and he's offering a Silmaril and a year to evacuate the continent, says his grievance is with the Valar."

"Oh dear."

"We were debating what to do. She goes 'I could make you biological bodies you can puppet remotely, send those?'"

"How much awful did that avert?"

"Depends whether you're comparing it to 'we go in person' or 'we stay home', but we'd all have died, if we'd gone in person. It was an ambush. Enemy's good with illusions, if he makes an oath can't trust he's actually speaking it."

"I'm glad that didn't happen."

"Yep. So from there we shore up our positions and make contact with the locals and heal everyone we could - from the other host, too, when we found out they'd marched across the Ice - and then started thinking how to kill the Enemy. 

You know those fungi that can grow in ants' brains, affect their behavior?"

"...Yes?"

"Started experimenting to see if she could do it with orcs. I, um, know, on the ethics, but -"

"But Morgoth, yes."