Kib attempts to get his breathing under control in some form that's not "sighing constantly".

"You have work to do."

"Yeah."

"Thank you for your time."

"You're welcome."

Enchanting armor probably isn't harmless enough; he could make them do something different, if he'd been taught how in Angband. He can cut and polish gemstones. He can copy books, but not as fast as a scriber. He is miserable, but he doesn't let it spill over to affect people whose time is valuable, not again.

Kib can pretty trivially start doing his notes in parallel, diary stuff on one page and anything sensitive on another. Maitimo can have the first half of each batch if he wants.

He could make automaton chassis? Golems it's theoretically possible he could hide an instruction set somewhere but if something's going to be awakened as an automaton it will only pay attention to the instructions Kib connects it to, not random graffiti...

Sure, thanks, he can do that.

And Kib tells Findekáno everything.

Findekáno hugs him. And shakes, a little.

Squeeze.

Do you suppose it'd help to let him borrow senses while we're together. He could stop listening if it was too much, right?

....that's interesting. Probably - at least worth offering?

I'm still trying to think why the Enemy'd fuck with that specifically - of all the things to aim for if you could arbitrarily toy with someone's head -

Well, maybe it's not genuinely arbitrary, or he had a plan like Maitimo was worried about where he'd get psychologically dependent on me or us through some carefully sculpted series of traumas and then that somehow ruins everything, or the Enemy gets off on it, I don't know -

If you were crafting Maitimo to eventually get released and fuck up the war effort as much as possible even if we were being careful, what would you aim for?

...is there some purpose to my answering that, or...?

You're better at thinking of that kind of thing than me, if we had a better sense of the goal we'd have a better sense of how to counteract it, there has to be an explanation that makes sense and I want to have it to work from... I am not deliberately hurting us both for no reason, if that's what you mean.

I genuinely can't think of a purpose for this unless we assume the Enemy was interrupted while working on some really complicated mental state. If the point is to drain our time he could do that better by having Maitimo more able to benefit from it, we'd lose hours just lying there holding him if he wanted that. If the point is to distract our attention - I might be underestimating Maitimo but I'd think with years to work in a competent Enemy could get him to 'shadow of his former self' much more effectively than this. With, perhaps, nothing but the memory-removal power alone and the opportunity to try a few variations. If the point is spying or sabotage and he can get Maitimo in a spying- or sabotage-capable state we ought to have gotten him traumatized and flinching at odd things that we could then remove from his environment and have him recover believably in a month or three and then all hail the King! Him thinking we're hallucinations and capable of telling us so does not seem to serve any purposes except upsetting us and not even in a way that's really impairing our effectiveness - you work longer hours upset, I think it actually makes me more imaginative in a certain way, and the Enemy knows how to impersonate the both of us so this shouldn't come as a shock to him -

He nods. So, interrupted. At a minimum before getting him to the point of not being able to tell us that we're hallucinations, possibly other stuff - he might not actually have anything more wrong with him than we know about - 

- if Maitimo wanted us to spend hours lying there holding him I don't think he'd say so -

Probably. I could dictate programming to somebody by osanwë, but somehow I do not think that this wouldn't occur to him, so I assume whatever complications lead to him not saying are more internal than not wanting to waste time.

I actually think most of his psychological state is explainable by there being an Enemy who he can't help fight, and people all around him whose trust he shouldn't be trying to earn, and no reason to expect that will change...

Yeah.

Hugs. Thank you. For sharing the notes.

Sigh. I hope they helped in the long run.

I really don't think they could've hurt. He should - have all his memories. No way that benefits the Enemy.

Yeah.

I do not feel like getting up for at least twenty minutes. Could propose the sense-borrowing thing, see if he wants vicarious snuggles.