"Our Valar didn't edit living people. That sounds - awful - is that what's wrong with you -"

"I wouldn't have guessed it was what was wrong with me but meeting all of you is making me consider attributing more to them than I previously was."

"What would have been your guess?"

"The wars. Wars are bad for people. It's more obvious with humans, because the Elves don't stop being at war but our humans do. Soldiers come back and they hit their wives, they beat their children. There's some stuff you can do to help them manage it but it took us a while to hit on it."

"Why don't you stop being at war?"

"Well, if we had stopped being at war before Cor killed Melkor then we would all have been tortured forever."

"What about now that he did that?"

"Oh, we are stopping, now. Waiting on - news about Sauron."

"Will that make there not be something wrong with you any more?"

“I would be pretty surprised. It doesn’t usually work that way.”

"Oh." She looks at Cor. "Sorry, he's broken forever."

"I figured."

"Seems like jumping to conclusions a little," he mutters too quietly for anyone but Rirosseth and Mirelótë to hear him.

"This must all be real interesting for the people who know what's going on."

"Sorry, there's kind of a lot of it and it's all complicated and in half a dozen languages. - was that allowed, since she's not one of the pharaoh's wives -"

“Yeah, it’s only the people seated separately.”

"Do they... like eavesdropping? This just seems very awkward."

“Do people in your world like watching the theatre with their friends and then speculating about everything later?”

"Sure. But that's, like, scripted. Most days can't reasonably be this interesting."

“Oh, we don’t all eat together with people they can’t talk to most days.”

"Fair enough."

"I've met people who do that to their husbands, won't let them talk to people."

"It's not my decision, it's a custom. The best I can do is advertise it in advance so we get applicants who don't mind it, or think it's an advantage. Some people don't really like talking to most people anyway." He says this like it is a very mysterious preference.

"Applicants, is that how it works?"

"Yeah. They present themselves for an interview and if they might do they get extensively harassed by security for a while and then I can meet them. - in ancient Osirion that was not how it worked, but it is now."