Back to our operations base for this last year, on an island where he has never been. Quendi can't live in these conditions for very long - he gestures at the tent walls - and it's probably good for humans, too, having beautiful surroundings.

:Does seem better: Melody's hand darts up to her collarbone. :...You must've rescued other people from there, too, not just him. How many?: 

Uh, eighty-three, but twenty of them had standing orders to kill them if - this happened. Sixty-three here.

:Would you like me to see some of them as well? Honestly I have no idea if my Gift works on Quendi and I might want to test on someone who hasn't just been tortured for years first, but...I'm here anyway, not especially planning to leave: 

I can see if I can find anyone whose husband or wife thinks it's a good idea. Just a minute -

It is a minute exactly. 

- there are six people who are interested on their husband or wife's behalf. Would you want to see them now?

Melody nods. :I could use half an hour to get more situated – oh, and I missed lunch, if there's food around I'd appreciate that. Then I don't mind seeing them right away. I was in the middle of my workday back home anyway: 

I'll have someone bring us lunch. And I could give you a bit more background on the war, and on the differences between Quendi and your species that I've noticed? Though I've only met Leareth and Vanyel and I may be generalizing about humans poorly from them.

Melody makes a 'pfft' sound that isn't quite a laugh. :Gods, yes, if you start with Vanyel and Leareth and generalize to most humans from there, you're really not getting an unbiased picture of our species overall. Sounds like a good plan to me, though:

So he can explain the history of the Quendi, and the Valar, and the first war and what he knows about the survivors of it, and then he can explain what happened in this war. Quendi need less sleep than humans, and they don't die constantly which affects what their societies are like, and they love song and music and can die of being trapped, of their surroundings being unbearable. How Quendi marry also seems like the sort of thing that might be relevant to treating survivors of Angband, actually, so he explains it. How the local magic works. What Lórien will be able to do, once they return to Valinor.

In another corner of his mind he can listen for Leareth. 

Melody listens very attentively. 

Leareth is pretty quiet at first, and then spends a while shifting around kind of restlessly in his bed, maybe just because he can. About an hour into their conversation, he floats up a public surface thought that he's hungry. 

Larya will bring him a meal, about thirty seconds after that. She sets it down on his little table and then heads back outside to stand at the front door.

Leareth thinks he remembers her but feels very uncertain whether it's a real or a false memory. He eats and then stretches out again. 

(He isn't tracking time that well but it's been a while and he's still not being tortured and this is getting pretty surprising and unusual. A lot of the individual moments have been kind of unpleasant, but in boring ways. Leareth doesn't know what to do with any of that, so he curls up under the blankets and tries to sleep.)

And he can go introduce Melody to people who are hoping she can help their tortured spouses out.

Melody will gamely go introduce herself and talk to them even though she has never tried to do Mindhealing with Quendi before in her life!

Quendi minds are very strange! The way they process senses and attention is different. Their tapestries are sort of three-dimensional in a way human minds aren't, and there are a lot more...loop-like patterns, places they can stay in the moment without getting bored the way a human would. Other differences harder to name in words. The marriage bonds are very obvious, not quite like a lifebond or a Companion-bond but definitely in the same family of thing.

Melody isn't sure how much she can help on her first go, she hasn't oriented to where all the mind-parts are and what they mean, but she does know how to block off the panic-response to specific reminders of their torture, she can do that for the things that are bothering them most and if it helps she can try adapting more things she's done with humans before. She leaves the snipped-and-patched mazes of memory alone, it sounds like Lórien can help with that a lot more neatly than she can. 

It is appreciated. Maitimo is aware that he's probably encountering some of the most notable humans - Leareth, and then the person Leareth knew he could count on in a war on another world, and then the person Vanyel knew he could count on for this - but still, he's developing a very high opinion of the species. 

When Vanyel is ready he can Gate them back to Tol Eressëa. 

Leareth's room has skylights through which he can see the stars, and a library, and beautiful artwork on the walls. It opens into a courtyard. There are guards. They are not obtrusive, but they get him things, when he thinks of them.

The day after the Gate, when he's rested, Vanyel uses the communication spell again to contact Velgarth. Savil doesn't have anything burningly urgent for him, just a dry aside of 'it's been a rather entertaining few days', so – does Maitimo want to check in with his father first? 

That is probably a good idea. 

Neither of them has magic, but this is the design of artifact that only needs a mage at one end, so either Vanyel can relay with Maitimo or they can get Savil to do it on the other end. 

Vanyel can relay, Maitimo knows him and since he's here there's more opportunity to do damage control if his father is being thickheaded.

Fair enough! 

<Fëanáro, are you getting this? I'm here with Nelyafinwë, I can convey messages back and forth with him for you. How's everything over on your end?> 

Everything is going very well! We're making arrangements for scientific exchange and better healing and the crop songs might turn out to be very helpful!

That's good. Is there anything we've terribly misunderstood about them?

Their hair can grow long in their own world! They don't have too poor nutrition for that or anything.

I see. All right.