- he's not going to die. - well, at least, Quendi can't die of having a panic attack and if humans can (which would be terrible design, but so are many other things about humans) then Maitimo will knock him out before that happens and fetch two world's worth of magical healing and he will not die. And if he does then they'll go find baby Leareth somewhere and catch him up. And if something completely ridiculous happens they will find a world that can fix it.

This doesn't exactly help Leareth calm down, not right away, but it does help him remember that feeling an emotion doesn't mean it's reality (especially doesn't mean that for him, right now, maybe ever again.) 

Though he does want Maitimo to know that his immortality setup is probably possible to sabotage, it'd be hard and he doesn't think any version of him would've cooperatively told Melkor about it, but he thinks he remembers Melkor, or someone, threatening that he would permanently die if he died in Angband. (Not that they were going to let that happen, while he was there, he's pretty sure he understands Melkor well enough to know that that would be way less fun for him.)

...Thinking that through does not help with the panic but it gives him something concrete to anchor on, and now Maitimo knows about it and he trusts Maitimo and he can just lie here having a pointless emotion for a while until it stops.

What would possibly be helpful - he's not any good at this - he should've gotten good at this, he should've spent more time around the survivors of Utumno, he didn't like to because they didn't really want him there but it turns out, what do you know, there are things more important than universal popularity and he should've gotten good at this - understood what the parole meant - and then none of this would have ever happened - and if it had he could do this part right -

Leareth also has no idea what would help, he's not used to inexplicable-panic-attacks either. It helps that Maitimo is there at all. It helps being able to see his thoughts, it's so - so recognizably Maitimo-shaped, that reasoning process, and - faint wistful flicker that he would prefer Maitimo felt guilty about fewer things, it's definitely a mental motion he does more than is helpful. 

...Leareth decides to actually try to calm down, that's a purely internal action so it's safe, and he focuses on his breathing, and over the next couple of minutes the scaredscaredscared recedes. He still feels very, very helpless but that's...probably all right. He shouldn't be the one trying to do things. 

He doesn't usually feel guilty about things where people can see them - it's such a self-centered emotion, it's almost never the best thing for another person to interact with (he is thinking of this as agreeing with Leareth, not paying very much attention to the distinction between 'does more than is helpful' and 'is there to be interacted with more than is helpful', because that'd be an in-depth conversation that should wait)

- but pulling any emotions away from where Leareth can see them feels like it might break the trust, here. 

It does not seem all right that Leareth feels helpless but there are not a lot of ways around it while it remains objectively stupid to give him all his magic back, which it does. Sometimes prisoners seem all right for a while and then kill everyone around them and he doesn't have a working model of when and why enough to guess whether they're past the point where that might happen or not - and if the risk were actually literally just characterized as 'Leareth might kill everyone around him' then that'd be fine, really, at least while Vanyel's not around, a good trade for Leareth feeling less helpless, but probably he should not conclude that that's the only possible bad thing. 

Still, he could try to do some problem-solving about Leareth feeling helpless. He could...give him a knife, in principle, that follows from being fine with Leareth killing everyone around him but not with anything more complicated, except it would clearly be an injustice to Leareth to let him kill himself right now, not that he seems inclined to, but better to be safe - once Vanyel's back they can get the Mindhealer to unblock some Gifts, at least the ones Leareth uses to read people and shield himself - 

Leareth appreciates the problem-solving. He...does not currently feel at all inclined to kill himself and thinks it would be really surprising if he did in the future, but he also doesn't trust anything about his mind anymore, so. Having his purely receptive Thoughtsensing and mage-sight back would help. He's not sure if the way Melody does the block can easily make that distinction but he would let her experiment.

...Can he have a shield-amulet, if they have any working ones available? He mostly feels helpless about defending himself, since he can't use his own magic to shield an attack if they happen to be attacked for some reason - that also means he can't check if the amulet is working but he would trust Maitimo on that part. 

- yeah, easily. He'll call for one. (He doesn't want to give up his because it has been very important for having assurance Vanyel wasn't reading his mind.)

Which makes perfect sense and if Maitimo had tried to hand his over, Leareth would have been, one, suspicious, and two, angry at him for being stupid.

It's probably been really good for Vanyel that Maitimo was around for the last - however long it's been, Leareth realizes he has no idea how long the war took. 

Six months. Vanyel is very decent and very competent and doesn't require all that much, you just have to feed him and teach him sleep songs and remind him of plans that aren't 'leave a crater'. Maitimo is actually accustomed to all his allies requiring far more support - management - well, honestly, far more manipulation - than Leareth or Vanyel have at any point.

Leareth is grateful to Maitimo for not letting Vanyel go straight for 'leave a crater', and...speaking of sleep songs, he's really tired now, it seems like he's out of practice with both thinking and having emotions and so doing both at once is exhausting. He wants to sleep but he would feel better about it once he knows he's shielded. 

Someone comes in with a shield amulet a minute later. Maitimo gestures for them to leave it on the table near Leareth. 

Leareth reaches for it - hesitates - picks it up - hesitates again - it's stupid, he knows he's safe or at least he's already made the decision to act as though he is, as far as he can tell he doesn't have any fake memories of Melkor specifically using fake shield-amulets to trick him into thinking he was safe and then hurt him, but...taking any kind of deliberate action in self-defence is still terrifying. 

We're safe here, he wants to say, but Rúmil recommended against that - concrete things, facts about the world, neutrally presented -

It's a good idea. I should've done it sooner. Tol Eressëa is ours and I am confident in all the people here; the other prisoners we rescued aren't here. Vanyel set up a lot of precautions when we were working on the war effort.

That fits as a thing Vanyel would do, yes. 

Leareth grits his teeth and puts the shield-amulet on - is it working? He wants it at the emergency level of shielding right now even though that's kind of ridiculous overkill, can Maitimo use osanwë to make sure it is – also that's something he can check, by banging his arm against the table and noticing how the shield deflects and absorbs the blow. 

...It feels safer to sleep now, but he's still tense and shaky enough that he doesn't think he can fall asleep, can Maitimo sing a sleep song to help. 

Of course.

Leareth instinctively resists the song's effects. Tries to get himself to stop. Falls asleep within a few minutes.  

- that seems like the best that could've gone, really. He has someone relay to Vanyel that Leareth is doing better. Tucks his thoughts back away where they belong and contemplates for how much longer to actively hide from Leareth that there's still a problem of some kind somewhere in Velgarth.

Probably tomorrow if today's progress lasts he should ask Leareth about Lórien. And anything that wants action for him can wait on that.

Leareth wakes up panicked and disoriented from a nightmare in the middle of the 'night' - five-second process of orienting - remembers where he is - leaves a public thought of Maitimo where are you - scared -

On my way - this is unfamiliar territory and it feels very strange -

He steps into the room and stands at the far corner. Do you need anything -

Leareth isn't sure. 

...Can he check his memories from yesterday against what Maitimo remembers? It'll help a lot to try to get information on how much his mind is currently failing him. He's - so disoriented - everything is quicksand and he can't orient to it - maybe it'll help if Maitimo helps him take some notes on it? 

- yeah. Yesterday Leareth thought that he wondered where possibly-fake Maitimo was. So he came in to talk to him. He explained where Vanyel had gone. Leareth wondered how they'd supposedly defeated Melkor. He explained about the things Vanyel had discovered in Urtho's Tower.

They'd talked a little bit about what would constitute enough evidence for Leareth to conclude he was most likely not in Angband. Maitimo had argued that the Enemy couldn't do compulsions and wouldn't do things like this if he'd already won. Leareth said that the Enemy didn't do convincing Maitimo thoughts. Maitimo tried sharing his thoughts, which were mostly about being upset that this had happened and unsure how to help and sure that they would figure something out eventually.

Leareth had decided to conclude he was out. He'd tried having emotions, found them overwhelming. Been scared. Maitimo hadn't been much help, but he'd figured it out on his own. They'd talked about how Leareth could be less helpless. They'd gotten him the shield amulet.

All of that seems to line up with what Leareth remembers, in the right order. He asks for paper. Takes notes on it, with as much detail as he has the energy for. Thanks Maitimo. Goes back to sleep. 

He goes to sit just outside the door, this time. He can work from there as easily as from anywhere else.

Leareth will be okay. If anyone can be okay after this it's Leareth. Melkor had a lot of disadvantages, compared to his usual - he couldn't emulate lots of Leareth's magic, he knew rather little about lots of Leareth's life before Arda and some of his closest relationships - he remembers what the tapestry looked like. That isn't going to be fixed for a long time. But it's got to look better today.

Leareth sleeps for another six hours. Wakes up - orient - check his shield-amulet is working by hitting his hand on the table again - he remembers his notes first, this time, retrieves them. Reads them over. Remembers to add a note that he woke up in the middle of the night. It's kind of wastefully time-consuming to write down every single mundane occurrence like this but it's not like it's taking time away from anything useful.

"Maitimo?" he says, out loud this time, when he's made sure that the written record and his actual memory match up. 

He comes in. "Yes?"