"I'm reluctant to mage anyone new until there's more of a well-understood consensus about when and how to use magic in light of its world-eating properties, except maybe Huan since he'd have such a scouting advantage."

Nod. "Is a consensus shaping up? What would a good one look like?"

"I haven't been closely corresponding with the colony. It'll probably be like, 'definitely no cooking, some healing spells in case of life- or lifelong-ability-threatening illness that Elf magic can't fix instead, killing gods is okay if it comes up, keep de-oathing to a minimum and find a way to disincentivize swearing stupid shit in order to get de-oathed and have some reliable record of who has been de-oathed'."

"Makes sense."

"So getting them access to magic songs that do healing is probably a priority."

"We can send some representatives who know all ours."

"And who've picked up Gatetalk, ideally."

"Or can pick it up quickly, yeah."

"Shouldn't be a problem for Elves, although I can't promise the refugees are building very pretty places."

"Maybe I will send a blind Elf."

"Are there those? I suppose it would be odd if there weren't."

"There are! Rarer than in humans but in wartime not as rare as we'd like. Osanwë helps a lot, you can often borrow someone else's eyes for things."

"Ooh, useful. If that's as amenable to practice as I expect."

"It is! Some humans do it just for the benefits to vision."

"Now I'm curious."

He frowns in concentration and this is what can be seen through Maitimo's eyes right now.

"Wow. I have pores."

"More fun outdoors. From the tower I could count the bricks on Angband's walls. When Angband existed."

"Why'd you build that close?"

"It's a hundred miles. Farther and it'd be hard to direct operations without relays and I dislike relays, stuff gets lost along the way."

Nod.

"Might have been good for our mental health to be farther, though." Sigh. "All over now, everyone's safe."

"Mm-hm."

"May I kiss you?"

"...yeah."