I don't know, but we're not going to.

OK.

Well. I'm sad again. What is there to do around here when you're sad.

Work? Sing? - those are pretty much the primary activities here, I'm really very sorry.

S'not your fault. What kind of work?

Farming, construction, weaving, weaponmaking, carpentry? 

Dunno how to do any of those things but I could maybe learn.

You're as strong as us and you have the ridiculous endurance and you don't have centuries of art lessons, probably most useful to put you on farming or construction. Which sounds better?

Either. Construction, I guess.

He takes her out into the enormous courtyard of the fortress, which is being turned into buildings. They have wood and stone and plaster. I guess how to build a house is a nice thing to know anyway.

Yeah. If we ever - yeah.

And they do construction things.

Someone comes to get Ryan. They speak English slowly but without an accent. "Prince Nelyafinwë would like to see you."

       "Mmmm."

He follows, though.

"Ryan. Hello. I take it we've probably met, in the future."

"Beckworth. Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army," he says, even though this is totally pointless because they can read his mind - fuck this - 

"That's actually what I wanted to go over. Our telepathy is possible to block with practice, and I'd like you to learn because otherwise Melkor or his osanwë-capable servants, should he come within range, could learn of our options for you and would presumably immediately go hunt down all the humans. The core idea is to partition thoughts you intend to broadcast and ones you intend to keep quiet; most people need some kind of visual or spatial metaphor to do this, especially when they're new to it, so they imagine floating some thoughts on the surface of their minds while others are underwater, or thinking under a blanket or in a tent. It takes a couple months of practice. I expect you to disbelieve me; I expect you to do it anyway, since if I'm not lying to you it's actually very important. I'll tell you when you've got it."

"Mmm."

"And ask Karen how oaths work and why she believes that."

"Mmm." He feels like an idiot. Carter sometimes made one feel like an idiot but not usually in a demoralizing kind of way. Carter was missing a lot less flesh and skin and didn't look nearly as close to death and had, one assumed, a lot more practice. 

"But the real question," he murmurs, "is, did the men all call him a madman when they thought he was out of earshot?"

Get out of my head. 

Make me. 

I'm not going to tell you about inventions from the future but I might make an exception. They invent diplomacy. It's great, works really well.

That was the problem, right? We grew up in paradise. Nothing bad ever happened. When it started, we didn't have the slightest idea how far it could go. The first battle of this war - we call it the Kinslaying - we were refused passage out of Valinor and my father thought, oh, we'll just take their boats, and they thought, oh, we'll just shove them when they try to take our boats, and ten thousand people were dead before anyone realized that - that that was a thing that could happen when angry armed people meet in the middle of the night. The same with the civil war - the King was murdered and people started picking banners and they had no idea what happens if the public did not uniformly agree on the succession, it never having come up. 

You people really don't seem qualified to do this. 

We're really not. We're trying harder than you think. We won't kill the orcs once we have another choice. But we're not. Matt could, maybe. That's why I wondered -

People say he's mad but they say things like that about all their officers.