Her wings, stretched out behind her, go from smoke to muscle and sinew. She scratches her back.

"To the point, dear, I am mostly occupied." She's a Maia, 'mostly occupied' could mean a dozen hallucinations or discussions or projects in progress without any difference the orf would be able to see.

"Yes milady. I want to go out and I'll do anything to get it and I have a plan but I need help."

She laughs. "That's a very bad idea, dear."

"Yeah I know."

"They'll kill you, they'll kill her, and if here's no place for a child to grow up at least it is a place where a child grows up, in Mandos she'd just - be. Forever. You wouldn't even be able to find her. And that's if you make it out."

"She's not pretty, she'll have it easier."

"If I don't get out now there will be more of her and more and more and more and she's mine and I want her and this is when there's only one she's mine I want her -"

A wing reaches out to pat her back. "Hey, hey, if you want to fruitlessly die I'm not saying no."

There's the smile again! It's important to always have one on hand! "Thank you milady!"

Sigh. "What do you need?"

"I need a part, with a baby, in his lordship's boyfriend's hallucination, and at least an hour when his lordship's not looking, and a boost to the song I have that makes me look like an orc."

She laughs. "This sounds like it will be tremendous fun. They won't give you yours -"

"I have somebody helping me with that and I know what she looks like."

" - how do you know what she looks like?"

"Managed to be alone when I had her. Bit her. I know where the marks are."

"His lordship's boyfriend is perceptive. They've been going through mediocre actors pretty fast."

"I'm very good, milady."

"It's still a bad idea."

"I want her."

"I hope they kill you quickly." And now the orf is over here, and a wing holding her there. "But I'll do it, if you're sure."

"I'm sure milady. Thank you milady."

She laughs, again, and then leans in and kisses her and runs wingtips through her hair.

It's unusually gentle, almost affectionate. She'll still probably have a bit of a hard time standing up when they're done. 

Wobble. "Thank you milady."

Pat. "Do try to at least make it to the enemy before you die, his lordship would be so annoyed with me."

"I'll try!"

She sings her the improvement to the magic song.

The orf learns it by heart.

She goes allllllll the way back down. She pays an installment on the baby-switching help she needs. He's still not planning to betray her, what a nice boy.

She finds an out of the way Elf prisoner. She sings. Yep, unremarkable orc, that.

Good.

She pays careful attention to available parts.

There's one. Miscellaneous Elf of the newly-arrived host, has a baby, is crying in the background because her husband died.

She can do that!

The illusion will cover the bitten notch of the baby's ear but her mama can feel it. She can sob over this baby about her missing husband so very, very convincingly. She is so sad.

The prisoner actually does look at her - looks at everybody, all the time, and is visibly concerned if they're out-of-sorts with less excuse than a dead husband. She can see why it'd be hard to get things past him and why they've had to keep starting over. 

She's very convincingly miserable. If she fucks this up she will not have improved things for her baby. She's got enough practice to skew that into dead husband - what if she'd had a husband, she'd miss him so much, the baby would miss him growing up. She does not demand his lordship's boyfriend's attention.

He settles in to singing the funeral songs with everyone else. They last a week. She's supposed to hang out in the background. (She won't get hungry, and the baby won't get hungry; it'll only be a few hours of real time.)

His lordship is distracted, Thuringwethil informs her.

She switches songs - generic orc generic orc generic orc - grabs his lordship's boyfriend and slings him onto her back and barrels through another background character, swatting her aside - and tears down the hall. Stuffs the baby down her shirt, already tied at the waist to keep her from falling out, and resettles the Elf on her person and sings and sings and sings.

The Elf is confused but unresisting and in any event too injured to put up much resistance. There's an outcry. People are told to stop her and the outcry turns into a general fairly bloody melee everywhere within hearing distance.

So generic so very generic no way to pick her out from the crowd and she's that little bit faster than the real orcs -

Up the stairs up more stairs out the big doors she has to kill four people to get to them she recognized that one never mind her baby is squirming around in her shirt and the Elf is heavy on her back and she runs and sings and gasps and runs more and sings more -

Generic orc generic orc definitely allowed to be out here on patrol on a mission something just some orc no specific orc -

Macalaurë'd know how to do something for speed and exhaustion without some nasty interaction with what she's got. He isn't sure - yet - he listens -

...persons responsible for the prisoners are unsure if this is another rescue scenario which no one was informed about so they'd act sufficiently surprised, or if someone actually randomly grabbed a prisoner and ran away stabbing people.

They don't really want to ask Sauron. 

After a bit they get up the nerve to go ask Sauron anyway.

He starts quietly singing along with her.

Thanks.

All orcs are ordered to cease moving immediately.

There are no actual orcs here. Well, one, but she can't talk yet so she squirms on. The orf runs.

" - you're not -"

People talk about 'breeding monsters' like that doesn't imply any steps but here I am.

All parties aware of the location of the prisoner are ordered to inform me immediately without moving.

- she runs.

- he was prepared to have to do something, at that one. 

Everything for ten miles around goes utterly impenetrably black.

She steps higher. She trips a little, recovers, resettles the Elf on her back, it was clear for a ways ahead from here. She leaves off singing to catch her breath since nobody's looking anyhow and any real orc would definitely not be running.

The jostling is extraordinarily painful even with a new reference point for that. He keeps singing. Energy and balance and swift movement, that seems like the thing. He checks prospects for being able to walk.

He is definitely not going to be able to walk.

Well, she's got a pretty secure hold on him. The song helps. She switches to that song after she's got a bit more air in her.

Maitimo.

D'you want me to call you that instead of Prince Nelyafinwë?

I have no idea which titles I should currently possess. Who are you?

I'm an orf.

A pleasure. What's your name?

People in Angband don't just get names. Gotta earn them.

He makes about as much of a face as he made the first time she jostled him and a bunch of bone shards crunched into one another. Where are you going?

For now, away. After that you tell me, I brought you so your family wouldn't shoot us.

It's a long way from here on foot, I expect the Enemy'd catch up.

We can get close enough for you to osanwë somebody.

We're probably close enough, I just don't wish to be used to lead them into a trap. Why didn't you stop when ordered?

If I did that they'd catch me.

I'm in a great deal of pain, here, I'm sure I'd be charmed some other time.

I space way the fuck out when tortured into swearing shit.

- so you don't know what you've said?

Yeah.

...it seems like it wouldn't be hard to infer that you'd said things that would oblige you to obey shouted emergency orders but he's not stupid enough to point this out. He nods, closes his eyes - Tyelcormo?

It's probably a trap, don't get too excited. But maybe Huan can check - we're running from Angband, on foot - don't you dare get yourself captured -

Won't -

A few minutes after that a very large dog bounds up to the fleeing orf at a speed that would knock her off her feet if he hadn't also batted her into the air and onto his back.

- eep. She drops the Elf's hands, clutches the baby still tucked against her chest.

He clings. Not super effectually. It's okay, he tells her, he's ours -

You coulda warned me. She helps him balance, one handed, pressing the baby close with the other.

He doesn't respond; he seems to be biting his upper arm very hard. 

And then they're out of the illusion darkness and on into starlight; there are plains, and grass, and mountains looming up ahead of them.

- oh.

Mm?

It's pretty.

She hauls the baby partially out of her shirt, props her arms and head up on the neckline so she's perched there and can see.

He slumps against Huan's side and clings and tries to persuade various internal damage not to get worse.

They bound through the mountain pass and there's a little stone city on the edge of that lake. 

That's pretty too.

It's so pretty. 

Huan slows as they approach it, stops entirely just outside the gates. There are a lot of people shouting. They have a gurney waiting for Maitimo. ...one for her, too, if she were injured, but she doesn't look it. They seem surprised by the baby.

It feels like a dream, but he can move as if it's real, easily enough. Maitimo could certainly persuade him that he's uncompromised and belongs back in power whether it's true or not, and he can't bear to fix that by avoiding Maitimo - I want you to make the evaluation of what it's safe to leave in his hands, and I want you to make it without meeting him -

 - yes.

And he heads outside to watch them arrive. 

(Huan, having deposited them on the ground, pants for a few seconds and then puts an insistent paw on the orf's back.)

"Hey! Let me get the baby out of my shirt you'll suffocate her!"

He makes a noise that sounds very much like 'offended' but lets her do that.

She removes the baby and sets her down near her face and lets Huan pin her. She kisses the baby's chubby cheek and waits.

The guards clear the way. 

"Welcome back," he says to his brother, lightly. "Wasn't the same without you."

What happened -

"You spruced it up." 

I am really not sure. And he sends it.

"Had to keep ourselves busy somehow." He steps back. "He needs medical attention and company, in the shifts posted outside my office; you do not have leave to share sensory or substantive information with him over osanwë, and he should not ask it of you."

"I won't. I shouldn't - I don't even know if I'm safe, you should be careful -"

"Yeah." And he kneels beside him in the mud - love you, missed you -  and starts singing something for healing, and watches while they take him inside. 

Then he turns to the orf. "Welcome to Lake Mithrim. Are you better-positioned than my brother to explain how this happened?"

"Probably. What're you going to do with me and my baby -"

"I haven't decided but certainly nothing that'd invite regrets over rescuing my brother, if that's what happened. She can hold the child -"

Huan permits this.

She snuggles her baby and looks at the pretty place and the pretty people.

"They wouldn't let me have her. So I took her. And I brought him so I'd have somewhere to go that wouldn't kill us. She's mine." Such a snuggled baby.

" - how'd you do it -"

"One of the Maiar helped. And one of the orcs got me the baby. I've got a song that lets me pass for a generic orc, easy to overlook -"

"Can you be non-torturously confined - can the baby -"

"She can't even walk yet - I want her to stay with me -"

"I wasn't thinking separately -"

"I don't think anybody was doing anything special to keep me from dying in Angband so I can probably be confined non-torturously if you let me keep her she's mine -"

"If there's a problem tell the guards, I don't know what we'll do but we won't hurt you or her." Clear out the third storage room, bring a bed and cloths for a baby there - "All right. You can get up. Don't lunge at anyone, please."

She gets up. She props the baby on her shoulder and sings to her softly.

She is escorted to a spacious room where some people are in the process of assembling a bed. It's well-guarded. 

"I'd like a more specific description of how you got out, and how you got Maitimo."

"They run the prisoners through hallucinations, comprehensive illusions - the Maiar do most of it but sometimes other people play bit parts. Once I had a way to get a bit part where I could be holding my own baby milady Thuringwethil distracted his lordship Sauron long enough for me to grab Maitimo in the middle of one of his and run off with him singing my being a generic orc song well enough to cover him too. I killed a few people on the way out. I didn't have to stop when his lordship started freezing everybody in range - first 'cause I'm not an orc second 'cause I space out when they torture me enough that I don't remember what I said. Then I just ran till he called the dog Maia."

"All right. How many Maiar are there in Angband -"

"I dunno exactly, the Balrogs all look the same. Not more than a couple dozen."

"And how many orcs -"

"More all the time, hundred thousand maybe, Angband can hold ten times that. You all did a number when you came but that was a while ago from inside, time's different."

"Can you describe the layout for me, including surveillance, magical protections -" he waves over someone who has parchment and a pen -

"I haven't been all over it. I know bits." She knows these bits.

He has more strategic questions. He has someone bring them food.

Mmm food.

"All right," he says after a while. "That's all I have for now. Please do not attempt to leave or to make or acquire a weapon; please don't sing anything mind-affecting or which generates illusions. Do you need anything?"

"Decided what you're gonna do with me yet?"

"We're not going to hurt you."

"But that still leaves so many options!"

"Have a recommendation?"

"I'll let you know."

She's been getting prettier over the course of the conversation. Less gray, mostly. The baby is still uglycute as ever.

It's a little bit disconcerting but he can't blame someone for being part an orc. He leaves and goes to Maitimo's side.

He's mostly lucid, knitting his bones back together, and can confirm that 'was in a hallucination, it got interrupted' matched his experiences - "though I suppose then this could still be a hallucination -"

"Well, hallucinate getting better."

He smiles weakly and closes his eyes.

The orf settles in. She paces with her baby and sings, and sings, and sings; she's as good as an Elf except when she starts crying instead and that tendency peters out over the first little while. None of her songs are mind-affecting or illusory.

The guards seem to be very stressed about guarding someone, but reassured when she seems happy. 

The King comes by again to check on her.

"Hi! Did you miss me?"

- he looks a little confused. 

"Hi. I wanted to make sure you were doing all right."

"Nobody has tortured me yet but I bet you're that nice to all the girls."

" - nobody's going to torture you. Were you expecting that? Nobody's going to hurt either of you unless you don't leave us any choices, and even then we wouldn't torture you -"

"I have maybe a skewed view of the world."

Sigh. "I can imagine. Okay." He sits down. "We are at war with Melkor because he tortures people and we object to that behavior. We do not engage in it ourselves. You're safe here, she's safe here - I don't even know what else I should assure you isn't going to happen -"

"What were you gonna do if I were like an Elf on the being locked up thing?"

"Have Tyelcormo ride south with you both, get you well out of range of sudden orders from Angband, keep an eye on you while we thought of something better."

"It's okay in here. Maybe kinda boring. I'm running out of things to rhyme with 'baby'. Are you gonna visit me again, I feel all special."

"I'd be delighted. Once things have settled a bit I can give the guards permission to take you out for walks."

"That'd be awesome, it's so pretty outside. Do they have to put me on a leash or is that not your kink?"

"I don't know how Angband works," he says slowly, "but Elves don't marry in wartime and, ah, don't make decisions on the handling of prisoners for personal enjoyment."

"I'm pretty sure I can't get married. It's not like nobody tried. I mean, this is my own literal actual baby."

"I'm very sorry -"

"So I wasn't implying anybody would be marrying me. No personal enjoyment? Wow, tough racket."

"It wasn't my first career choice."

"What was?"

"Music. It's very strange to meet someone who doesn't know that."

"I've got dribs and drabs but only that, most of the parts I played were for the benefit of people who never met you and I guess my most recent background character wasn't expected to need to cough up the information midscene. Are you good?"

Snort. "Not good enough yet. I wouldn't expect they'd want to teach their slaves magic, or are you an unusually rebellious one?"

"I've never met another orf, but I am more rebellious than an orc who swears to serve Melkor when they're two. I picked up bits 'cause you have to know how to sing to play an Elf. Went from there."

But she almost certainly swore to serve Melkor when she was two, he doesn't point out. Maybe 'the oaths for orfs might be different' is enough uncertainty. 

He starts singing.

Ooh.

He smiles at her and goes back to singing.

She bounces her baby and sings along.

Now that he's more used to it the thing where she looks more like an Elf when she's happy is kind of endearing. He sings for a while, then gets back to work.

She stays put. She looks after her little one. She attempts to engage the guards in conversation.

They'll talk to her! A bit nervously - they clearly find something about this situation upsetting - but they're not exactly unfriendly. 

They're not nearly as good at singing as Maglor is. Oh well. Are they allowed to take her for a walk yet?

Sure! She can have nervous escorts around the lake. People stare a bit.

The orf has terrible osanwë etiquette. The lake is so pretty!

...I'm glad. Is there an emergency -

No it's just so pretty. Thank you for letting them walk me.

You are very welcome.

I got the guards to sing but you're better.

I'm the best. There are eighty-nine thousand people in the Noldorin host.

Wow!

So, if all of them contacted me directly and personally over things that happen more often than once every three months, I'd be fielding a thousand random inquiries a day. That's not a very good way to run things. Is it how Melkor runs things?

Why would anybody want his attention?

- fair enough. 

I was the only person in Angband besides the prisoners and the Ainur with real osanwë, anyway.

Okay. In societies where everybody has it you only use it like this in the case of emergencies.

What counts?

Anything where, if everybody was using that threshold to decide when to contact me, I would still be able to work uninterrupted most of the time.

That seems complicated.

Your guards are mysteriously gone, someone is attacking you, you just got urgent information about the war from your handler in Angband, things like that.

Okay, I guess. Beat. Does that mean I have to stop talking to you now? The guards are boring.

I'm sorry you find them boring. I could try to assign you more exciting guards.

Or just visit me!

I am sure I am not the most interesting person in this camp to anyone except perhaps the Enemy.

You sing prettiest. Maybe you sing all day long but I don't hear as good as an Elf so I wouldn't know unless you visited.

I used to. Anyway, I'm not singing now. Or does the singing imbue all of my mundane actions with more gravity?

Yes. Yes it does.

Okay. I still have to run the country.

And no personal enjoyment, you poor thing.

I'm not disallowed from singing.

Not what I meant.

It's not specifically kings who are not allowed to take advantage of their prisoners, everyone eise is also not allowed to do that. Or do you think rulers should, for incentive reasons?

But I'm not anybody else's prisoner, I'm all yours.

We're not like the Enemy.

If you want confirmation that he has never personally helped himself to me...

- no, that's not it at all - it's - people who are not evil don't help themselves to other people who they have power over. They just don't. It's not even tempting.

It's not? Am I not pretty enough? I even have art on me!

We are talking at cross purposes here. You're very pretty. 

Thank you!

He gets back to work.

Beat. You haven't seen the art! Next time you visit me remind you to show you my art.

Sigh. I certainly will.

And after that she leaves him be.

He spends most of his time running things or singing to Maitimo, who is for the moment declining to be told sensitive information, but he does find time the next day to drop by with some little chewable rods for the baby.

"Aw thank you!" The orf gives her baby a little chewable rod. The baby orc has teeth; she chews and goes gnam-gnam-gnam around it. "How are all eighty-nine thousand people?"

"Still alive. How old are you?"

"Thirtysomething, subjective. Grew halfway between Elf an' orc speeds."

Nod. "Do you know how to read, I could have people come by and teach you."

"I know how! Useful job skill! Why, are there things I should read?"

"Not really, but you said you were bored, and if we're going to be holding you prisoner we could at least endeavor to offer an education less haphazard than occasional 'only evil people do that'."

"What else do only evil people do?"

"It sounds like just about everything about Angband, honestly."

"Do only evil people do tattoos? I like my tattoos." She taps the one on her face, starts to shrug off her shirt.

"Some people do that by shading their skin, I don't think I've ever seen it done like that - how is that done -"

"The colors're done with ink and needles! The circles one is branded on, it's all textured." Pants come off to show the leg sleeve and the flowers on her ankle and the scrollwork on her hip.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

"Lots of things hurt, this one also looks neat."

"They do look neat. Did you design them?"

"Yeah!" She twirls.

"They're very nice."

"Thanks! It was hard to talk the tattoo guy into the flowers, they're not very Angbandy."

"I am surprised you even knew of flowers, or was that from the hallucinations."

"Those were actually my mom."

"Oh. - do you want to talk about -"

"I'm kinda surprised you haven't asked, aren't the origins of orcs shrouded in mystery or something?"

"Yes, I wasn't expecting you knew."

"I know. Or at least I assume I'm the new edition of the same thing that went on way back when."

"How -"

"She was an Elf. I think my mom was already pregnant when she got captured 'cause she was married and it's more trouble than it's usually worth to use married ones for breeding. But they could keep her from being lucid enough to kill me. I had orc foster parents - they were real nice except for having to torture me a lot the whole time I was growing up but that wasn't their fault - but I saw my mom sometimes probably just to upset her. It did that, all right, but she'd osanwë me sometimes."

He flinches. "....why'd they have to torture you the whole time you were growing up -"

"So I wouldn't be an Elf. It's the body-soul thing - can't do it all in one generation but I think even if the baby's daddy was another orf she'd be an orc anyhow."

"Did they tell you it was - better not to be an Elf, or something -"

"Orcs hate Elves, they swear to."

"Do you know the wording -"

"Yeah but it's in orcish, you want me to translate?"

"Yeah. If exact words matter I'll have someone pick orcish up later."

She translates it with careful, almost pronounced quote marks around each clause.

Even though she probably said it anyway. "Is that it or do they also swear to other things later in life -"

"That's it by default. Some of 'em might have other bits."

"Among people who aren't evil coercing children into swearing oaths does not happen."

She pets her baby. "Good."

"Will she - not be an orc - because she won't be tortured growing up -"

"She's already an orc but she hasn't sworn anything and she's mine. - They, they self-torture, they hurt all the time - but they can think around it, she can still be happy and have fun -"

Snuggle.

"But I didn't really want there to be two or ten or a hundred like her - they took her - so - ran off -"

'You can't - choose to not have kids, the way Elves do -"

"No."

Shiver.

"I got pretty good at hanging out preferentially around people who wouldn't wind up knocking me up regardless but -" shrug. "Not perfect."

More shiver.

"As I understand it Elves can still do the thing even if whoever they are with is not an Elf though!"

" - have I not been clear or is it just your experience that disinterested people don't really mean it?"

"Sometimes they do, that just means it's recreational flirting. I don't really see what me being a prisoner has to do with it though. If I'm scary you could tie me up!"

He makes a face. "That... does the opposite of solving problems arising from you being a prisoner?"

"I'm a prisoner 'cause I might suddenly freak out and attack people, right, so, if I were unable to do that..."

"Because you might get ordered to, I don't think you'd do it voluntarily. I - that's not the reason."

"Then I don't get it. You're not even all, 'oh, no, I simply do not happen to like you personally for some reason' -"

"You rescued my brother, of course I like you! - unless this is a ploy of some kind but setting that aside - look, if I tell you 'this woman rescued someone from torture, fled with him and her newborn daughter, and found their way to his camp, where they imprisoned her and then tied her up to have sex with', you don't think 'wow, those people are assholes'?"

"...I grew up in Angband."

"Is there variance in how terrible random orcs in Angband are."

"Yeah. ...Is being tied up one of those things that hurts Elves, I don't mind it really -"

"Yes. So is being forced to have sex, is that not true for orfs."

"Depends on the sex."

"I see. Even without that, isn't abusing someone who did you a favor a thing that an orc on the more horrible edge of the relevant spectrum might do?"

"...is it not obvious that I expect that if you tied me up and had your way with me I would have a lovely time?"

" - no, it's not. I don't - does that somehow improve on just going out and finding consenting partners -"

"'Going out' he says."

"Hypothetically."

"I dunno, I bet you're the best singer of the lot."

"I'm not sure to what extent this is a species difference and to what extent it is a very low expectations difference but Elves find it upsetting to be forced to have sex all of the time, singing ability doesn't really affect it any, and in fact we find the whole idea disgusting and upsetting. Is that a more useful explanation?"

"...nope still confused. I would hold nice and still, you wouldn't have to fight me over it! - that's a lie I squirm like crazy. But the not fighting me over it part is true!"

"In that case resolving your confusion may be beyond my limited abilities in this area. No one is going to force you to have sex. The things you think you'd be - purchasing - with that are yours anyway, we're really honestly not going to hurt you. We are grateful to you. We are working hard to figure out how to keep everybody safe without holding you prisoner."

"Geez, I did not realize not being evil meant a life of celibacy."

"I am sure there will be lots of people excited about the 'doesn't get married' thing. They just won't find it additionally exciting that you are a prisoner and can't leave -"

"It would also be okay if you just think I'm pretty!"

"You're a lovely young woman and I wish you and your daughter a very happy life."

Sigh.

He has more questions about Angband!

She will answer the questions about Angband.

She hasn't gotten dressed after showing off the tattoos. "Do you need a change of clothes?"

"It'd be useful, baby orcs don't cry but they do drool."

"I'll see to it. Anything else you need?"

"Not gonna make a difference asking for the twelfth time, is it?"

"I can't help but feel you'd be disappointed. I haven't the slightest idea how to make being forced to have sex a pleasantly thrilling experience."

"You use your tongue."

He leaves.

Oh well. She sings to her baby.

He goes and sits with his brother. His brother makes a vaguely inquisitive face at him. "The prisoner," he says after deciding that it can't really be the sort of strategically relevant information they're trying to keep from him.

"Mmmm?"

"Keeps trying to talk me into bed."

"Is'the crown," he mumbles sleepily. "Girls like that. Should've warned you."

"You were King for one week."

"Maybe I spent it all gracefully handling solicitations, you wouldn't've noticed because gracefully." He closes his eyes again. 

"Nelyo -"

" - sorry. I just haven't much in the way of serious advice. Don't have sex with the mysterious prisoner from Angband."

"I love you."

"Thought I'd never -"

"Yeah."

"Don't know how we win."

Sigh.

He visits her again, sees that she's been brought several changes of clothes.

"All the stuff here is so nice," she says, running fabric between her fingers. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome. You doing all right? Learning things?"

"The guards are still boring but they will teach me songs."

"Were people in Angband less boring? How so?"

"A lot of those were boring too. Not the tattoo guy! I liked my tattoo guy. And milady Thuringwethil was fun when she had a moment. And the blacksmith was nice in a good mood. And I had sixteen foster siblings. Plus once I was as tall as I was going to get my parents could stop torturing me because other people could do it less carefully at that point, and that really did a lot for our relationship."

"- I can imagine. Sixteen - they know that they're all going to die, right -"

"And be tortured by the Elf gods forever, yep."

" - uh, no."

"Milady Thuringwethil described it as a sort of low-key thing but it didn't sound nice, and my foster siblings buy the standard line, which is 'get tortured by the Elf gods forever when you die'."

"And yet they still have kids?"

"Orcs can't do the thing - and they love babies - and they're told to, which is all you really need, considering -"

"We're going to kill him."

"What're you going to do with everybody else?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

She squeezes her baby.

"Everybody who hasn't sworn anything'll be fine."

"Not gonna help my tattoo guy."

"No, it won't. You must be very impressed with our ethics, won't do things that don't bother you but will murder ever single member of your foster-species over the age of two."

"Maybe I wouldn't've run off if they let me keep my baby."

"Maybe you can come up with a better idea for us."

"Probably not. You don't think the Elf gods'll hurt 'em?"

"They won't. They won't reembody them and being dead is not very fun but they won't hurt them. And if necessary - we'll already have killed a Vala -"

"Heh."

"Mandos has my father and one of my brothers. I'd be patient but I wouldn't wait forever."

"And then one day my tattoo guy can set up shop and art on people happily forever, huh?"

"There're still the oaths. But we wouldn't object - it's Melkor we hate -"

"Maybe I have a future as an Elf/orc diplomat. Since they hate you."

"That'd be something. Do they hate us for reasons or is it just that they swear to -"

"You do also keep slaughtering their families, that's kinda in there too."

Sigh. "And yet you decided we'd take you in if you brought us a present -"

"He's a real good present, a prince and everything! Plus if I'm not singing the orc song I don't look totally like an orc and the baby's a baby."

"He's a spectacularly good present. It just - seems a little implausible, from our end, you know?"

"Do you wanna learn the orc song - no, never mind, I am not sure you would not stab me if I were suddenly advertising that I was a super generic orc -"

"I know how to handle mind controlling music and wouldn't stab you. Unless you do it without permission - please don't do that -"

"I won't! I do not like being stabbed! It's not as fun as it looks!"

"It does not look fun! Though we seem to have different understandings of fun!"

"Some stuff does not look fun and can be kinda fun! Stabbing is not one of those things. For me anyway."

"We will not suddenly decide to stab you."

"Oh good. Will you suddenly decide to do anything else with me?"

"Yes, you've figured it out, the thing that gets Elves really excited is the thirty-fifth time they are asked, and no matter how horrified they were the first thirty-four, on the thirty fifth they will, uh, call...for rope?"

"Can't blame me for trying. Well, I guess you could."

"I don't blame you for trying. Either you're under orders or you just grew up in an environment where it was by far safer to be sleeping with your captors than not, and it would be terribly unfair to blame you for either of those things. But I can't."

"Sauron super did not want me to run off with his boyfriend, promise."

"What?"

"He was really mad. It went dark everywhere, he was trying to catch us -"

"'run off with his boyfriend' -"

"...yyyyyes?"

"Don't say things like that."

"What things are like that?"

"You are talking about my brother, who was tortured."

"I... I don't know what's - I didn't mean to upset you -"

"Just don't say it again."

"...I'll try..."

"Is it going to be difficult."

"I'll just shut up I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

He sighs.

He turns away and starts singing.

She snuggles her baby and listens.

After a while he leaves.

Hey Maitimo do you have the thing where a ton of people might osanwë you so nobody is supposed to.

- I'm not supposed to have conversations my family can't monitor. You might not relevantly count, since convincing you to put me in power doesn't do me any good - what's wrong -

Macalaurë's mad at me and I don't know why it was really sudden.

What happened?

He said I could be some kind of plot and I said Sauron super did not want me to run off with you and he said not to say things like that and I said what things are like that and he said I was talking about his brother? I knew that - am I not supposed to talk about you -

- what specifically did you say -

Um, 'Sauron super did not want me to run off with his boyfriend, promise?'

Osanwë-sigh.

Are you not going to explain either?!

He hadn't extrapolated from what I assume you told him about your life to me, because I'm not a girl, it might not have occurred to him that anyone could and it probably wouldn't have occurred to him that even the Enemy would. Everyone else would be similarly distressed. They might decide I can't be King, because the sort of person who should be King wouldn't have things like that happen to them. I was planning not to tell them.

...okay, that at least sort of makes sense... is your Elf boyfriend also secret...

I don't have a boyfriend. The Enemy picked a rumor that would start a war if it caught on.

It was in the script.

Yes, I'm sure it was. That doesn't make it true.

...it was like definitely in the script the way true things are in scripts, I can tell the difference.

I guess you got it wrong.

...she leaves him alone.