Further snuggle.

"I love you too. And let me see, now, it would've been the two months of soul-touching after that, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah."

His memories of that entire time are still exquisitely clear. He shows her the first moment, the feeling of complete surrender, and then he goes on through the highlights of all the rest - his amusement when he managed to feel relieved about having only one imaginary stranger holding his soul, his guess regarding on what occasions Maitimo was letting up on the torture -

Sometimes he hated it. Sometimes he loved it. Sometimes he only barely hung on to love and surrender; sometimes he happily drowned in them. There's a state he'd get into once in a while, when his soul was surrounded by imaginary strangers and he was struggling to feel Maitimo's presence among them... he had almost no sense of time to begin with, but he'd start to feel it stretching away from him, every instant of agony dragging on and on and on, intolerable, inescapable, and then Maitimo would add another stranger and it'd get worse and he'd feel like this was it, like he couldn't handle any more, couldn't even handle what he was going through already, and then it would get worse again, and again, and there he'd be, still somehow enduring it, and all the pain and terror and violation would abruptly turn into fuel for a glorious blaze of pride.

That part at the end, when Maitimo took him up to two hundred and ten... that was not one of those proud moments. That was pure horror. But after, when he looked back on it, when he remembered it and acknowledged it and recognized that he'd made it through that... then he was proud.

And Maitimo took notes! Maitimo took detailed notes for the whole two months on his observations about Taliar's mind and then read them to him because he couldn't see well enough to read them himself! Maitimo is the best!

Oh, right, and - those first few hours afterward when he couldn't move - Maitimo is so utterly adorable when Taliar surprises him by wanting some new delightfully strange thing. And that was a really delightful one. So delightful. So incredibly delightful.

"And I think maybe that's it?"

"Goodness, you've been busy, haven't you," she says. "Well. That was enlightening."

Taliar giggles and hugs her.

Hugs.

"I suppose you haven't gotten around to trying identity songs again, then? I remember you mentioned last time that you wanted to."

"No, not yet. I don't think I even made the suggestion, although I guess I don't have to, he pretty clearly heard me tell you about it... oh, speaking of horrifying things I want to try, after my two months of soul-touching we were cuddling and I was getting used to the memory of two hundred and ten strangers holding my soul and I realized I kind of want him to do that again, just for a minute, and then - while I'm coming out of it - so the first thing I feel is - it would be so bad, but so good?"

It could in fact get very bad. He has so far managed never to have full immersive flashbacks to the night Maitimo raped him, and if anything was going to give him one, it would probably be this. But he wants to try it anyway, because he wants to see what it does to him, wants to see how he reacts under that kind of pressure. And because he can tell that one of the possible reactions is a new and particularly intense flavour of that transcendent glory he feels when Maitimo does something really really terrifying to him and he really really likes it.

He sends her that. He's not sure he could articulate it out loud if he tried.

"...You are a marvel, Dawn-shining Taliar."

He finds somewhere quiet and tries this soul-manifesting thing. You need to be thinking about one attribute it will have and one attribute of yourself and reach for it in the right place, Taliar had said. 

His is going to have the Silmaril light to it, the intelligent light that comes alive around people and chooses its own colors and angles and intensity to make them unimaginably beautiful. An attribute of him - well, he wants to be able to choose things, he hates being coerced, he wants people in the place where they belong, the place they will thrive -

He starts trying it.

Right in front of him. Right in front of him is the answer. A brilliant beautiful light blooms in his mind, and he can see it there, a vague outline in Silmaril white - the exact shape isn't clear yet, and neither is the other colour that fills in the outline, but it's there, he found it, it's there, it's him.

The next step is to try to refine his mental image and think in more detail about his personality and bring the soul toward him, out of its imaginary location and into physical reality. If he gets something wrong, about either himself or the image of his soul, he'll have to start over, but it'll be easier to get back to the point where he left off.

He doesn't know what the soul should look like, but he doesn't think he'll get anything wrong about who he is. He needs to be accountable only to himself, and to people who will not be judging him. He needs to not be powerless. He needs to believe the people around him are better off for his role in their lives.

It moves, slowly, when he thinks about himself; jumps back to the start when he adds a wrong detail to his mental image of it; moves faster when he imagines it correctly.

The shape turns out to be an oval pointed at both ends. The colour turns out to be copper. As soon as his image of it is complete, it falls out of the air into his hands, smooth and perfect, glowing brilliantly from its Silmaril-white edge.

He was right that it would prevent him from harming Findekano. There are other powers in there too, lining themselves up neatly for his inspection. It protects itself against being touched. It expands the range of his osanwe to cover the entire world, although only one world at a time, whichever he happens to be in. It improves his memory. And it protects him against mental tampering. His mind is his and no one can ever do anything to it without his consent.

That seems like an acceptable place to start, for a soul that is probably not at its - peak soul potential, whatever that is - 

- he holds it and wonders what people could tell just by looking -

His soul has nothing to say about that.

(And elsewhere, Taliar is cuddling Kelora, having no idea what Maitimo is up to.)

He should fashion some sort of setting for it. He instead waits for Taliar to be done.

They seem to have concluded their gossip session. He's thinking back over some of the things he told her, smiling contentedly while she pets his hair. After a few minutes, he wonders idly what Maitimo is doing, but decides not to ask in case the answer is 'something that shouldn't be interrupted'.

I found my soul! No need to interrupt your time with your friend, though.

Oh, congratulations! What's it look like? Is it as lovely as I thought? Do you know what you're going to choose as a soulname?

He sends it. No, hadn't thought about that yet.

Awwww, it's beautiful. You're beautiful.

He looks up at Kelora, who is raising her eyebrows at him, and says, "Maitimo manifested his soul and it's gorgeous!"

"Congratulations to Maitimo."

What can you tell by looking at it? I wasn't sure what it is that it says about me.

I think I'd have to see it in person, I'm not getting anything over osanwe. You could come show me and Kelora. A soul's first impressions are a good source of soulnames sometimes, if the visual theme doesn't give rise to anything obvious. Powers are another one, like Da, 'high-flying'...

So he comes and finds them.

The first thing Taliar sees in Maitimo's soul is that he is someone who wants people to be better off for his presence in their lives. Further impressions are less easily articulated than that - he's not seeing individual characteristics so much as having a synaesthetic sense that he is looking directly at everything he loves Maitimo for. It's pretty great.