Might do both, he says, and heads off to Security.

It contains Nechar. "Hey," he says.

"Hi! I look like someone you've met but you haven't met me, has all that been explained? I'm a different kind of Elf and we make oaths differently and I'm wondering if your magic works on us too."

Yeah, something about an evil version of somebody yada yada. "Yeah, it's come up. I don't know if it'll work on your kind till I try it."

"I can swear something safe so it won't be too much bother if it doesn't work. Until I say 'test' I swear not to say 'elephant'. Do I need to do anything, or can you check whether you can clear it?"

"You don't have to do anything." Sorcerous entitlement annnnnd... "Did that do it?"

"...elephant - oh, excellent. Oaths are a kind of stupid racial feature, bit dangerous, can you - just make it so we have free will, do you know?"

What part of 'don't know till I try it' is unclear "Maybe? Anybody's guess."

"Would you be willing to give it a try?"

"I guess? What'm I aiming at exactly?"

"So, Elves don't have free will. There's, like, a destined course of history, and we're stuck doing it, and this is related to how we can make oaths and be bound by them. I'd want to be like humans, or whatever other species don't have oaths, you could say 'I swear I'll hate him forever' and it wouldn't actually mind-control you into doing that..."

"...did you just swear to hate somebody forever?"

"Use/mention distinction. That was safe. But, like, as you can tell, stupid and dangerous. Everyone else seems to manage fine without oaths."

"No kidding. Okay..." Fix that stupid thing c'mon.

"I swear not to say elephant until I say 'testing'?" He swallows a few times. "...nope, doesn't seem like it worked. No worries. Thanks for your time!"

And very quietly, once he's left the room, "elephant".

 Shame he doesn't yet have enough of a read on his alt to decide if he should tell him the good news.

I asked if this is how he likes him, he said no but it's more manageable in difficult circumstances than a hostile prisoner. I suggested, he writes Cam, he clear up the oaths that fucked him up but only those ones, figure out how to have him secured but in one piece. ...I told him he could read Nechar's mind if he didn't trust me on Nechar's capabilities.

...I don't think Nechar knows he can do that.

Probably not. I doubt I gave him the idea, and Nechar might have his own magic protecting him or something, but yeah.

My understanding is that Nechar would have to have at least a loose idea that he'd need to worry about it to ward it off. I'm going to go warn him.

Okay. 

So Cam goes around to the security office, looks as blandly as possible at Evil Maitimo as he passes him and adds bugs to the new clothes, and ducks in. He's out a minute later and plops down by his Maitimo, pensive.

All okay? 

Maybe.