Beka bounces what he meant. Actually she can just open up her osanwë sense to Serik in general.

Serik snuggles her and nods. (It is super fucking weird how much like him this guy is.)

Sovarith is starting to be a little unsettled too, and he doesn't even have the advantage of telepathy! There's just - something weirdly familiar about the way this stranger moves, looks, acts.

"Well, you can have her back, then," he says, a little warily. (If this stranger is really as much like him as it seems, and really as powerful as it seems, then he's probably going to conquer Shadow Mountain and there's not much Sovarith can do to stop him.)

"I don't think this place is very nice," contributes Beka, "it's kind of Angbandy."

"I could conquer it, I suppose." Snuggle. "I'm not much of a conqueror, but there's something to be said for not leaving great big horrible torture mountains lying around where somebody might fall into them."

—despite himself, he laughs. He has a very Serik laugh.

Beka nuzzles Serik.

"What I really want to know," he says, "is why you are exactly like me right down to the giggles except for being a completely different species."

"We can't be all that alike if you call yourself 'not much of a conqueror'," he says uneasily.

"Oh, I used to be more the conquering type. Then I grew up."

"That's not something you just grow out of!" he says, offended.

"Sure it is. And I'm much better off this way. I would've missed out on so much if my orf had shown up on my mountain and I'd tortured her instead of giving her flowers."

He is suspicious of this assertion!

"So much of what?"

Beka, dear, could you please send him— and he remembers what it felt like the first time he saw her smile.

Bounce.

"oh," he says in a small, stunned voice.

She snuggles Serik.

Snuggles. He has the best orf. With the best smile. So much the best.

That - if - if this is really some all-powerful otherworldly human version of Sovarith, then maybe being human explains how he let go of his sense of right and wrong so easily, and that explains why he'd want to - and Sovarith still has his sense of right and wrong, he shouldn't regret hurting her, he knows he shouldn't, but he does, he knows it's wrong wrong wrong but he wishes he'd been merciful—

...that's weird. Beka doesn't quite know what to make of it.

That... is pretty much exactly what Serik's moral compass looked like back when he paid any attention to it. He has since stopped doing that, because his moral compass was very stupid and did him no good at all. It's kind of unnerving watching this otherworldly not-Serik have a crisis over it. But it is good that not-Serik now has the correct attitude toward having hurt Beka.

I'll be okay. I've been tortured before, just not that bad.

Snuggle. Good. I love you.

He doesn't know what he'd do if his Beka got vanished off somewhere and when he caught up to her he found that she was not going to be okay. Well, probably he'd murder everyone responsible and then cry. But it would be just about the worst thing. His Beka is so important.

Snuggle snuggle snuggle.

Meanwhile, Sovarith isn't entirely sure he wouldn't rather have just stayed on fire. Is he really willing to throw over his entire way of life just because he tortured someone who turns out to have a nice smile?? (Yes.) What does that say about him?? (Nothing good, probably.) Aaaagh.