THAT MAKES SENSE. WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO TRY IT?

:Try magic?: 

SO I CAN OBSERVE AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS WRONG.

:Of course: Vanyel will demonstrate some basic spells, gradually increasing in complexity. He can do a barrier-shield, demonstrate that his hand bumps into it. He can't do a privacy-barrier. He can do very simple wards but not more sophisticated ones. He can lift a rock from the ground. He can't do an illusion at all; those are fiddly and delicate and it falls apart almost the second he begins. 

(This is kind of humiliating but he tries his best to ignore the feeling and do it anyway.) 

The god watches intently and then sends Vanyel the thing his senses let him notice. IT IS NOT ENTIRELY UNLIKE AN INJURY FROM HITTING YOUR HEAD VERY HARD. I THINK THAT I COULD HEAL IT SIMILARLY.

:That seems right, I think. Er, how does healing it work? How long will it take?: He's actually pretty nervous about letting a god go into his head. Not scared enough to back out, though. Even if he didn't want to personally explode Melkor and rebuild this world, he would still want to ever be capable of going home. 

NOT MORE THAN A FEW DAYS. I WOULD NOT BE CONFIDENT OF DOING NO HARM IF I WENT FASTER.

It would take a lot longer any other way. :All right: He bows. It's unclear if that's the appropriate gesture to a god but hopefully it won't be offensive at least. :I really, truly appreciate your help: 

Leareth wakes up on a stone floor in a room with a Vala.

He lies still, tries to Gate (it doesn't work), feels around with his mage-sight and Thoughtsensing (they do seem to work), tests a minor invisible bit of magic and then a dozen more (also don't work), then tries to spend a moment orienting before he opens his eyes.

This is very not good. He remembers getting the Gate up, being unable to reach it - at least he didn't hesitate, he closed it fast enough, the others got out although who knows if they made it safely out of the very publicly known camp - and then his power failing, and then nothing until now. 

( - reflexive confusion - something off-centre - feeling-of-wrongness - )

No goddamned wonder he feels disoriented and uneasy. He made a mistake (somewhere, he isn't sure where exactly he failed to be paranoid enough but evidently he did). 

Nothing to do but move forward from where he is. Leareth sits up. "Hello?" 

Leareth, says the Vala. I apologize for kidnapping you. In my defense, I think it's what you would have done. 

I think you're on the wrong side of this war. I understand you will have every reason to disbelieve me about this; I wouldn't expect any less of you. But your friends are safely on their way from Nolofinwë's camp to the Dwarf city, unimpeded; I tried to permit you the magic I was sure enough was sensory; and all I'm asking, right now, is that you hear me out.

All of Leareth's paranoia rises to the surface – it's such a convenient opening, it's the speech Melkor would have every reason to give no matter his true reasoning – but, that doesn't actually mean it's false.

"Then I will listen," he hears himself say. 

I want to apologize for not having this conversation six months ago when you first arrived. I noticed you; I noticed you'd come from another world; I decided the second thing was easily a hundred times more important and went off to check out all the worlds that I could find. I didn't return to Valinor until I saw the gate and realized you were leaving it. There are easily ten thousand people dead who wouldn't be if I'd spoken with you first, and perhaps more importantly I think it's going to be far more difficult for us to trust each other.  But - A shrug, or something like it. I have to try. 

This world has a creator; the Elves call him Eru. The Valar and Maiar are the agents to whom he delegated its creation. The Elves believe that Eru's vision for the world was that it was perfect like their paradise, without hardship or loss or tragedy. 

This is not what Eru envisioned. Eru envisioned a grand war of good against evil, in every step of which good would lose for as long as it was possible. He envisioned heroes ground down by endless defeats that magnified their flaws and destroyed their good qualities, until at last they would choose their own destruction rather than continue. No elves survive outside Valinor, in eru's plan. No orcs survive at all. Eru likes beautiful stories, and Eru thinks that the most beautiful stories are the stories of how people are utterly destroyed by what should have been their greatest strengths.

I am not the enemy of the peoples of Arda except incidentally. I am the enemy of their god.

And I - I'm skipping ahead here, but this is important - I want you to help me kill the other gods, of my world and of yours. You are not of any use to me without all of your magic, and without the ability to go wherever you please and talk to anyone you like. You will not have to act on any of this until you have the freedom to verify all of it. I'm telling you more than I can prove, right now, but once we can trust each other we will figure out how I can prove it.

Leareth's first thought is that if Melkor has access to multiple other worlds – of course he would have gone searching, whether or not he shares Leareth's values he is clearly a being who wants to actually do things – well, then probably they've already lost. 

His second thought, again, is that it's awfully convenient. And he ought to expect a god to be supernaturally convincing.

( - a tripping feeling - momentary disorientation - )

Leareth's third thought is that Melkor is openly acknowledging this. He's not demanding anything. He sounds, if Leareth is honest with himself, incredibly reasonable. 

(He's...not trying to act very much like a god at all? He doesn't feel like the other Valar did. Odd.)

It's a long time before Leareth answers; he chooses his words carefully. 

"Thank you for sharing that proposal. You are right that, if you are telling the truth, perhaps we ought be closer to allies than enemies; I have no illusions that you share all of what I care about, but then again, often this is not necessary if there is a common cause. You are also right that, currently, I cannot verify anything. And the road to trust would be a long one, from this point." 

(He knows it. He's tried to walk it, before. Thinking about Vanyel is obscurely painful and Leareth isn't sure why; if Melkor is telling the truth then maybe he can still resolve this without Vanyel getting hurt. And if he's not, then it's unclear whether what Leareth does next will matter very much to Vanyel at all. In fact, if he's lying then Vanyel and Maitimo and everyone he knows in this world might already be dead.)  

"I am not sure how to do so," he says. "Since, in the case where you are lying, you presumably have enough power here to show me whatever you wish. I would want some kind of gesture of good faith from you, first. Since you have clearly been preparing for this conversation, I assume you have one to propose." 

Are you familiar with the oaths that creatures of Arda can swear?

"I am, yes. Are you claiming that this type of oath can bind you as well?" (Leareth...feels like he half-remembers asking about this, but maybe it's just something he should have done and didn't, another mistake to add to the list.) 

Yes. If you can sense them with your world's osanwë you might be able to verify this now; if not, you can get confirmation later.

"...I can, yes," Leareth says warily after a moment's thought on whether revealing this fact actually helps him. 

I am willing to swear not to harm, or arrange for any of my subordinates to harm, your friends. I understand that even if you are persuaded, here, there are people who trust you. Inconveniently they're also the people best equipped to destroy us, but - shrug - I said I wouldn't ask more than I was conceding. 

That is an extremely surprising thing for Melkor to say, which makes Leareth automatically suspicious, because it's also exactly the shape of thing he's generally looking for. 

He nods. "That - would indeed be a costly sign of good faith. I will not be immediately convinced to join you fully, if you do it, so I hope you are not expecting that. This would be a process of many steps. However, it would carry enough weight that I might be willing to...take a step of my own. I will want it to be more precise than 'my friends', though, and include names of exactly who you are promising to leave alone. I am sure you know them." 

Vanyel. His magical - horse? Yfandes. The Noldorin Prince Nelyafinwe.

"Fëanáro as well," Leareth says coolly. "He is also my friend." Or at least that's one way of putting it, but Leareth likes the man, and absolutely does not want to see any harm come to him. 

The man is famously close only with his father and the more impressive half of his children.

"I noticed that." Leareth smiles slightly. "He found me very impressive, I think. And I did a great deal for him in a short period of time." He still remembers Fëanáro jumping up and down with glee about the Gate. Teaching him the fundamentals of eleven languages in an afternoon. And his terse 'go away, we're both busy', endearing in a completely different way. 

He is also the King of a people with whom I am at war. I'm not - categorically opposed, but - I am curious what you were contemplating as a reciprocal - gesture of interest in building trust.