"Thanks."

"I can't quite feel surprised that the Valar didn't think of that, but -"

"Actually, what this makes me wonder is why people don't use it as a long-distance petitioning method in lieu of going to the beach and yelling, or vaguely wondering why they don't get off their asses, but maybe it's not common knowledge."

"And swearing to things is incredibly dangerous, people mostly don't even consider it an option."

"Trying to fight a Melkor while the Valar hang out at home is very cushy by comparison."

"At least it leaves you in command of your own head. And we did petition them, before we left. They said they would do something when the time was right, which might not be for an Age."

"Fair enough."

"Did you guys -"

"Ours were pretty occupied getting the celestial bodies ready. Which, you know, did ultimately kill Melkor, I would've mopped her up if it hadn't but it did the trick."

"That's outright responsible of them."

"Yeah. They dropped the ball hard on not telling me instantly when Mandos died and Melkor got out, but apart from neglecting to mention a couple entire species already being awakened they mostly handled themselves acceptably."

"I really wonder what Eru gets out of all the species - eventually there are hobbits, too, have you met any of those -"

"No, are they interesting?"

"Not especially, to be honest."

"Are they," air quotes, "beautiful?"

"Not that either, actually. They're very - you might like their cooking, actually - they live in elaborate cushy burrows underground and have teatime five times a day and gossip about their neighbors."

"That sounds like a reasonable number of times a day to have teatime!"

"It's a shame they're not a neighbor of yours!"

"Maybe they'll show up in Ithil eventually and invite me over."

"I think they're around a thousand years out, but eventually, sure."

"No rush, there's a multiverse's worth of food and I'm not even tired of macaroni and cheese yet. Is there anything else I should know about Maitimë besides - I guess everything discussed so far boils down to 'tell her to ask for hugs now and then' -"

" - and try to figure out a way to get her to believe in it, but you know that, and tell her what you need or when she's hurting you, because she wants you to be okay and doesn't know how to make that happen and even if it's complicated and interdependent there are probably some things -"

"It is very complicated and interdependent but I guess I can just produce ceteris-paribus preferences as though I was confident they applied."

"You're not going to harm her by being frustrated or being upset or having needs, if that's enough confidence to be going off."

"I am sort of running on the ego-syntonicity of being very patient."