"That wouldn't make it less likely."

"I guess not in the long run."

"Is there a reason Melkor grabbed her particularly -"

"I didn't ask Melkor and Rúmil didn't want to talk to me."

"She sort of had a point, it's possible I should've left Maitimë alone too - she did tell me she didn't want the option to start conversations herself -"

"It was probably good for Maitimë but it does seem like it hurt you -"

"I think I'd say 'distracted'. Leaving her alone might've been pleasanter but it would've been less... the thing that we do instead of being hedonists?"

"Yes, but not having the option -"

"I wouldn't have opted to not have the option."

"I'm glad she'll be okay."

"Me too. Will Boots need her awake for any of it, do you know -"

"Probably. Someone standard-timeline she might be able to just assume has all the exact same associations as us but yours isn't standard-timeline at all and there are thousands of them -"

"And to fix panic attacks she has to induce one and sort of follow it home."

"First part I might be able to route around by precognition so she doesn't have to actually wake up, if Boots will make a housecall, if she just needs to know what they are and doesn't need weird subtle artist sense impressions of them..."

"Might need subtle artist sense impressions."

"Boots can keep her calm about being woken up, too - she'll be freaked out by that later but it won't lastingly upset her like it would one of you -"

"- so it's better than not doing it?"

"Might be - what's she like when she wakes up-"

"Complains about how the fact that it happened demonstrates the superiority of the 'just kill her' option, if I leave her awake long enough she gets on the Internet and starts passive-aggressively pricing psions who aren't me who can do it."

"Yeah, have Boots calm her down, it'll be a lot faster than explaining and not really more terrifying."

"Okay."

"And I expect Boots'll be happy to do one of these that doesn't end with the Maitimo dead."

"That one sounded traumatizing for everyone involved, yes."

"We're really hoping to catch most Ardas sooner."