It's hours later when Loki and Cam bring Bella, Elspeth, and Jake to Vanda Nossëo and make it known to whom it may concern that they're here, news is available about the newest Arda and its adjacent world-with-a-Bell-in-it, and someone needs to relay Elspeth the spell symbols because Golden can't let mind-affecting powers including osanwë through her shield unless she trusts whoever is using them. And Elspeth wants to know if the non-evil Maitimo who was so upset is okay now.
"Probably healthy for him to interact with her, yeah. I'm not sure it's unhealthy for him to interact with me or I wouldn't be doing it. It might be that he's perfectly happy and I'm the only one being emotionally damaged by the mess."
"I can mention it to her, then. - Should you be taking point on this, would a Space one or Mitros hold up better...?"
"They'd probably be less inclined to tantrums about it but there's significantly less in common and Marlatia's really not pretty enough and I'm a little worried Findekáno'd combust around six of me. Several of whom don't have boyfriends, not that I'm even remotely worried they'd make a move, but to the extent I've gotten anywhere with him it's been by 'I have my husband, you are useful because I can send you on errands I'd otherwise send my husband on and trust you'll do them as well as he would'."
Sigh. "Right. Ugh. Alts everywhere and somehow the best one for the job is also the most freaked out about it."
"Once upon a time, if it were, you know, consensual and not a survival thing -" he shakes his head.
"If I asked him to do anything he considered actually wrong - or, well, actually a wrong to a person other than him - he'd refuse. It's a way of buying himself latitude to steer me away from being evil, and that's upsetting on so many levels..."
"And if I tell him to cut it out he just hears 'no, you do not have any angle to influence me, better hope I'm a saint keeping in mind that you wouldn't know otherwise until I wanted you to'. So he does that, and I'm flustered, and he feels safe, and then I go cry on my husband's shoulder."
"...that sounds exasperating in addition to distressing. And it sounds slightly implausible that he doesn't know it - could be a roundabout way of provoking you to see if you are not in fact a saint -"
"Very possibly. Though he can't lie to me, I can read all Finno's alts like an open book, so even if he were trying to conceal his expectation that I'm going to randomly abuse him I'd still notice it. So maybe more like - he's sure I can eventually be provoked into it, and he'd rather do it on his terms for whatever reason."
"Yup! I don't even think he's happier than he was before we intervened! It's delightful.
If you have ideas I'd be appreciative, I keep - defaulting to imagining what I'd do, if someone handed me to an alt of Thauron who was perfectly-behaved..."
"...leave? He can do that, right? If he wanted to just move to a random planet, two hops away so I couldn't find him..."
"Until very recently he did not have the teleport because we were trying to figure out how to quarantine his home world, which contains his sister and brothers and will once they're reembodied contain his parents. Maybe he's just being compliant until he can sneak them all two hops away, that hadn't occurred to me. It is plausibly what I'd do."
"Any idea whether his immediate family is immune to the aura of the place - Elspeth likes the Irissë there but doesn't seem to be operating off comprehensive information -"
"That world's Nolofinwe had my father assassinated but that doesn't necessarily make him evil, ours came fairly close and they were only dealing with a standard-issue Fëanor. None of his immediate family members strike me as the kind of person who would be hard to imagine as evil."
"Well. We're only quarantining the world, not the planet, if he wants to smuggle his family outside your alt's sphere... cylinder... of influence, Cam'll be happy to make them a planetoid or something. But that's still within a hop of Edda, so if he thinks I'll be your accomplice in nefarious deeds..."
"More importantly it's findable, I could show up there if I liked. I don't know if that's what he's thinking. I can ask him, I suppose." He sighs. "Not that he'd be truthful but I'd know if he was lying."
"Is it just me or does this entire approach not feel as much like a celebration of his freedom and agency and whatnot as it ought to?"
"I'm vaguely inclined to let him run, if that's what he does, his family if evil is probably not more evil than your average human in a feudal society and they're not particularly likely to take over any planets. But, bad precedent, and what if they want their families -"