Mmhmm. I think by the time you're ready we'll know enough about that that it won't be a problem, though.

How long do you think it'll take me to be ready?

Decades, pretty easily? Just the stuff I know about I'd expect to take years at kobold pace with healers to help and a supportive tribe and nothing else to worry about, and that's not the situation here. You do seem to be doing pretty well on your own, though, I'm not worried that you won't be able to do it, I just expect it to take longer.

Yes, I was sort of expecting it to be centuries.

Yeah, she sighs, that wouldn't surprise me either.

I'll be functional much sooner.

Mmhmm.

I wish we weren't in a situation where you feel you have to be.

Oh, even if we were back in Valinor and nothing else bad had ever happened I think I'd prefer to be functional sooner, I'm not really my whole self without people I'm working with on things.

She grins; he probably can't see it, but it comes through in her tone, too. I'll worry less, then.

Yeah, don't worry about that.

Mmhmm, she sits back up. I wasn't very worried about that, anyway. It's more that I want you to have enough freedom to figure out - what you need, what you want, how you want to live now. It's going to be different from before, that's completely normal; trying to make things go back to exactly how they were... it's a normal phase, for some people, but it doesn't usually work very well. Trying to be what the current situation demands is a little better, but it can still mess you up if you pay too much attention to that and not enough to what you need, even if there are good reasons to pay attention to it. So, yeah, I'm not really happy about the situation here, for lots of reasons but that's one of them.

What are the others?

She sighs, and the sigh has an edge to it. Well, Angband, obviously. I'm, still - I'm being careful not to let that make me forget about the things that are important to me, we're going to fix it and I want to be okay after, but, that. And the situation with your siblings; I know I don't know all the details there, but they're not okay for themselves, pretty obviously, and I'm sure this isn't fair to them, but I feel like when you go back they should be helping and supporting you, not the other way around like you've been saying - even if you don't really want that it upsets me that it's not something that'd be there if you needed it. And whatever things caused that, too, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't always like that.

My father and my brother dying. And my capture, probably.

Yeah, sigh, probably. Like I said, not really fair to them. But still upsetting.

I wish I had my memories of what they used to be like.

Yeah.

I think then the pieces'd fit together and I'd know what I needed and what they could help with.

Mmm.

I'll be able to pick up on that a little bit, as I get to know them better? I bet you'll be faster, but we might not notice all the same things.

We don't, no. But they're different now, I don't know what I'd be trying to help them get back to.

Tyelkormo might have some useful thoughts on that. And I can ask without bringing you into it.

How would you do that?

Ask if there's anything especially useful I could do for them, like the spells I cast this morning for them and Huan, and see if I can get them talking about it more generally.

Thank you.

No problem.