You're too kind. I find my job very rewarding in itself.

And he picks up the plates and heads back upstairs.

And Cam watches to see if a transcription from his bug is incoming.

"Lunch and dinner! I swear that I don't have any discontinuities in my memory and haven't sworn anything since we last spoke."

"Why not ask for a month's worth, your majesty? I swear that I don't have any discontinuities in my memory and haven't sworn anything since we last spoke."

"Because if we stay in the room all the time we will go insane and as long as I'm coming down regularly for meals there's no spur for them to act on assassinating me, no sense of 'if I don't act now, when?'. If I ask for a book-thing for your computer with all the textbooks we need, and a year's supply of food, I'm not sure I come back at all."

[sound of kissing].

"Chemistry textbook, my lord?"

"Seemed like a place to start. If you want to go down and get a computer book-thing and a year's supply of food, I am not sure you'll make it back but I am pretty sure they've explored and exhausted their means of actually hurting you for your own good."

"Save convincing you."

"Not sure if they've come around to trying that, yet. The me should at least have thought of it."

"But you still think I might not make it back."

"I am at this point confident they wouldn't hurt you, confident they wouldn't leave the me alone with you if you don't want that, fairly confident that if you just keep repeating 'I swear I am not under any oaths that have altered what I want or would prevent me from representing it to you accurately, and this isn't what I want, please let me go' then they'll give in within a subjective day or so -"

"Charming."

"Better than even odds you come back here without problems, but if there are problems, they won't survive the collapse of the pretense that they're your saviors."

"If the you wants me rescued - we should come up with nicknames -"

"I have considered it and decided that I am Midnight and you are Forever and the other me is Iscariot."

"...do I get to actually call you this, your grace."

"...you may use it when referring to me."

"My lord is generous."

"I still feel tremendously guilty over letting this happen to you, you could probably push that a fair bit farther."

"Why would I want to do that?"

[sound of kissing]

[indistinct conversation over food]

"Not enjoying it?"

"It's very good."

"Findekáno."

"...speak freely?"

"Yes."

"I hate it when you leave, hate wondering if you're going to come back or if I'm eventually going to get too hungry to hide up here any longer or if that'll come too late when I already can't manage the stairs, and I hate wondering if I'm going to open the door to one of them, having followed you or figured it out with their magic, or if it'll be you but not at all, and a whole new set of rules to learn, but also I keep hoping it'll be who I thought they were, uncomplicated good people who don't even know how to play these games - he was so horrified, Maitimo, so horrified, he'd just met me and didn't particularly care for the other mes and it didn't matter, all he wanted was to make sure I was safe -"

"And if he'd been real, and you opened the door to him -"

"I'd trust he hadn't killed you, and I'd explain that he couldn't, but that now that the oaths were sorted he could walk you out that door without me in pieces trying to figure out what you'd want me to be doing, and then he'd probably have a solution in mind already but if not we'd. Talk about one. And he'd still be horrified after I'd explained every justification you'd ever given me - and I'd explain them all, just to make sure he knew what he was interfering in - and then I could. Exist a while. Without performing for anybody. Figure out what to do. You probably wouldn't like it when I came back to you, I'd be happier but I'd be a lot more effort and I know you can't spare the effort - I wish I'd held out longer on going to fetch you, maybe this Maitimo'd have summoned the nerve or whatever he lacked that made him hesitate to stop me - I think he was trying to impress his boyfriend, and locking me up would not have impressed him - I am so glad I'm out from under that oath but I don't want you here, I'd started thinking of here as a place without you and now it feels so much smaller - was thinking I could take breaks as long as I needed and then come back to you - I know it wasn't realistic - I promise I didn't even consider cheating, it wasn't - I want a place where you can't touch me, and the one I have is 'standing in the middle of the Bar and loudly declaring I don't want you should do it temporarily' and that's - that's worse - I don't want you to miss me - the time stop seemed like a solution, and the war'd be over, and I would need to be at my best for the post -war...and you feel guilty - why over this, you've hurt me worse than this -"

"You have leave to stop speaking freely."

"Thank you, my lord."

"I don't feel guilty over hurting you on purpose, I feel horribly guilty if I do it by accident."

"Thank you, my lord."

"If you're hungry enough to even be vaguely worried you can't manage the stairs, go get food, and if you're hungry enough you can't do that, osanwë someone and ask for help and give them whatever information they need."

"Thank you, my lord."

"I'm not angry."

Laughter. "I try not to have thoughts that inspire you to anger."

"You're not doing very well but I'm still not angry. What a mess. Of course you jumped to everyone being like you and everything being perfect."

"Yes, my lord."

"I'm not being fair?"

A demurring sort of sound.

"Am I not?"

"I cannot think of a response to that which does you appropriate honor."

Laughter. "I missed you," he says breathlessly. "Even if time was stopped and logically I can't have been."

"Perhaps souls don't move with local time."

And then a long silence, interrupted intermittently by laughter. 

He holds it so they can see.

"I can't parse from text the degree to which his prisoner is being agreeable because it'll be easier that way and the degree to which he's being agreeable because he doesn't have enough information to disagree..."

"I've got the audio." He plays it.

"Helps, but not perfectly, - it is, after all, an act tailored to a me -"

"I knew I was flinging my ability to claim I was an uncomplicatedly good person into a black hole but I didn't know I was going to need it for anything, it never really came up before."

"He'd just have found a different angle, he's evil."

"Maybe, yeah. - We need a workaround for impersonation, ideally less cumbersome than 'write something, conjure latest written work of non-evil Maitimo'."

"Yeah. Ideas?"

"Nothing I'm sure would work if he charms Nechar into copying it..."

"I wish I knew if we come across the same over osanwë - not that that'd help you -"

"Yeah. Well, write-and-conjure works as long as you aren't trying to identify yourself to someone without a demon around. Maybe Bar will distinguish you on request? Bar?"

I will be happy to confirm the world of origin of anyone who asks.

"Do you have names for the different worlds built in somehow? What's the world of origin of the evil me called?"

I do not have names for them.

"Has someone warned all the engineering teams - someone should warn all the engineering teams -"

"He'd have to know where they were but yeah -" Don't currently have a better way to distinguish between Maitimos than demons or Bar and his alt is evil, exercise corresponding caution. Ping me for remote checks if needed.

He makes a strangled noise and buries his head in his hands. "The Findekáno's right, I could have prevented all of this -"

"Were you actually trying to impress me, I would have understood, oaths are fucked up -"

"Not - impress you, but definitely not react the way I'd react if I were a rapist and trying to cover for it, and 'don't let him speak, don't let him move' felt -"

"Not letting him speak holds up better when he's generically telepathic but yeah..."

"...didn't think about that at all, that would have made me feel better about it..."