That sounds good.

...if we tell him what Nahira's flower was, is your alt going to want to use it...

I'm honestly not sure. Probably better to tell him, unless you think that'll hurt your alt too much for him to want to keep going with this -

If we tell him what Nahira's flower was and your alt decides to torture him with them, he'll get very me about it and it'll actually be easier for him to handle overall than if your alt just ignores him for weeks. It'll be awful but - it'll give him something to push against. Have I mentioned I am very hopelessly myself?

You have. All right, let's tell him.

Although that does bring up a question of... how your alt is going to react to various levels of knowledge my alt could have about the ways you've tortured me. If I tell him nearly everything and my alt goes in convinced he's emotionally invincible, is yours going to try to prove him wrong - if I tell him hardly anything and he goes in knowing I've been through some shit but not what it was, is your alt going to end up giving him a nasty surprise - I think it was ultimately good for me that you undershot my first bad day, and if your alt isn't going to undershoot, I want mine to be prepared for that, but I don't want him to go in neatly wrapped up and labeled 'bet you can't break him', you know?

I don't think my alt has the investment to make a particular attempt to break him at this point.

Not right now, but I'm assuming there's going to be torture at some point or why are we even bothering...

He pauses. He reviews what he just said.

...I mean - not that the torture is the point, but the degree of investment that leads to it - if he never cares that much, the gift will have failed.

Agreed. And by the time he cares that much he'll prefer not to break him. 

Well, all right then. Okay. So I can tell him what Nahira's flower was and, hmm, I could see him going either way on how much he wants to know about all the torture, I can ask him about that...

He tries to build a mental list of all the things he's going to need to tell his alt. He should tell his alt about the identity song so his alt's soul will let Maitimo's alt inflict imaginary strangers on it and they won't ever have to use actual strangers. He should tell his alt that trust songs get him high because the context that got Taliar willing to try that at all was really specific and they might not stumble on it by themselves particularly not if Maitimo's alt is being really distant with him at first. He should tell his alt what Maitimo said about what he wanted, that first day, because it'll help put his alt in the right mental place to decide to hand the other Maitimo his soul.

Can you think of anything I could tell him that seems like it'd particularly help your alt figure out what the appeal of having a Taliar is...?

Maybe that - there's nothing as healing as being trusted and loved by someone who knows the absolute worst about you? 

...awwwwwwww.

Taliar hugs him.

You can tell my alt that, then, I think it'll be better coming from you. Also, I love you so much.

I love you too. Let's make another you.

Let's!

They should definitely do this in Nuime, for immediate and tangible proof that Taliar's fork is not waking up in the same situation he went to sleep in. Taliar internally debates whether to use his childhood home or his family's rooms at the palace, and finally decides that the house in the mountains runs too high a risk of encountering his grandfather. The palace suite will do. He can tell his father they shouldn't be disturbed and his father will arrange for them not to be.

So he sits on the edge of his bed in the palace, and closes his eyes, and remembers...

...and the light of his soul collects and solidifies into another Taliar, curled up sleeping right next to him. He is close enough to hug and he looks like he could use one.

As tends to happen with people embodied by the power of Taliar's soul, he isn't wearing any clothes. He was created with nothing but his body and his... soul...

...which is surely around here somewhere...

Taliar opens his eyes and blinks and - it occurs to him that as of this moment in the past, his soul was hanging around Maitimo's neck -

And still is. Or, briefly; it doesn't have a necklace, and it falls to the floor. He's careful not to touch it. Well.

...I should've thought of that, says Taliar.

He looks at his sleeping alt. He fills the room with his healing aura.

"Hey. Me," he says. "Wake up."

He wakes up.

And - this is his bed in his room in the imperial palace in Nuime.

And that's - him? That's his healing aura, that's his soul, blazing like a tiny sun -

"What the fuck is going on?"

"The war is over, everything is fine, I killed Melkor and married Maitimo and it all turned out better than you can possibly imagine," he says. "But don't get excited just yet, because I'm about to convince you to do something nobody in their right mind would willingly do."

"Okay so you're definitely me," says the fork.

(He loves his husband. He sends his husband this.)

(His husband loves him too. So much.)

"I definitely am," he says. And he's about to go on, but -

- his fork takes one look at the smile on his face and says, "Where's Maitimo?"

And hardly a moment after that, "Relatedly, where's my soul? That one's clearly yours."

"He's in the sitting room and your soul showed up with him because I wasn't paying attention and it - went where it would've been."