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Treble Cir lands on a very suspicious Maitimo
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The strangers have six casters, in their group, that Qiri can count. Qiri's group has four counting him, and they got split up awhile ago when the strangers started that earthquake. Qiri is stuck with Master Huo. Master Huo is dying, but since Qiri is chained up he can't use that to escape, or attack Master Huo. The master's magic is uninjured, and he can reach Qiri's from where he lies, and Qiri is sitting there, goosepimpled, enduring it. He wonders if Master Huo might be in enough pain to distract him, if Qiri tried to wrench his magic away, but he doesn't think so. He can squirm around a fair bit under Master Yu and Master Zao if only one of them is using him for a spell - and if he wants to earn himself a beating - but not Huo.

He doesn't get nauseous anymore, like he did when he was a kid. So there's that.

Huo's casting a healing spell, moving Qiri's magic around this way and that to set it up. Qiri assumes it's going to target Master Huo, but spells don't know who anyone is. Qiri can't distract himself, not with his spine tingling and all his magic cringing under the slide of Huo's. Instead he tries to concentrate on something less directly sensory: how's the spell targeting? How is Huo going to make sure it heals him, and not Qiri's irritated skin under where the chains sit, the injuries to his fingers from the last time he irritated Master Yu, the probably broken toe sustained in the earthquake?

He figures it out when the spell is probably almost over: it's going to target the most injured person, and Qiri is a little banged up but Master Huo's got an arrow to the gut and a slice through his thigh that's probably going to bleed him out before the abdominal wound can kill him. It's objectively pretty impressive that he can concentrate enough to make his magic force Qiri's through the motions he wants.

Then, dimly around the cloying sensation of Huo's magic over his, Qiri notices a group of the stranger mages approaching, standing close together, back to back to back, doing something -

And he and Huo are banished somewhere else.

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How bewildering and terrifying!!!!

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The Elves aren't sure what to do in that case. They retreat outside, and this time shut the door.

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Qiri does not know what to do. He puts down the bottle the doctor gave him - it's some weird material and he doesn't care for the texture - and, since he'd rather not waste any effort on being defiant right this minute when he doesn't have a clue what's going on, kneels by the side of the bed and waits.

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Maedhros is back. 

 

He's been back for a while, but this is different. He was back on a computer, back as a voice giving humorless orders, back as an extra set of attention on any problem that involved talking to people. This is Maedhros, in person, hair hastily and clumsily braided. It is the first time he's actually felt like Maedhros is alive. He suspects he's entirely wrong to feel that way.

"Hello."

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"Thank you for coming." He watches himself anxiously through Curufin's eyes to see if he got the smile right.

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He didn't, at all. He lets him try again until he has it. "Is this an improvement -"

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"You're here to learn a language."

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"Ah huh, but you've got to practice faces on somebody, and I may as well ask questions while you do."

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"This is not an improvement."

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"Are you going to keep it? You could say it didn't last -"

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" - it almost isn't lasting -"

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"What, it's injured or something?"

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"It's really hard not to kill." And it has a sense which I am reasonably confident my original body did not have, which senses limbs on some people which they don't have, which is constantly aware of the little human upstairs -

- he doesn't say that, because he can guess what is going on and sees no reason to make Sauron's job easier. 

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"Where's the language?"

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"Guest room." He sends the location.

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He goes upstairs and finds the door with the guards and goes in.

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Qiri looks over his shoulder, shaking just a little.

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He pulls up a chair for Qiri and sits down.

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He can take a hint. He sits in the chair. But now he really doesn't know what's going on.

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"Curufin." He points at himself. He points at Qiri.

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"- Zhi Qiri."

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He nods. He smiles, a little. He gives the words for all of the things in the room.

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Qiri is never going to remember any of these. By the fifth vocabulary word he has forgotten Curufin's name. He nods along anyway.

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- okay, but can he get Qiri to say anything.

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It's not in his first five guesses about what his host might want, no.

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