Maybe give him five minutes? He just found out that he did some things for the Enemy during the war.

:Yes, of course - I'll wait. Food around here anywhere?: 

Leareth, once he's managed to free up more mental space to think, can admit that this is fairly predictable, considering from the outside what's happened to him, it just - doesn't actually make it less confusing to experience. 

Melody's here, he'll tell him once he's had a bit of time. 

Melody can have some lunch.

Leareth is realistically not going to become much more presentable in the next couple of minutes, and it's not like it really matters anyway, but he gets up to splash water on his face and see if there are any less-gross clothes he can change into. 

There are beautiful Quendi clothes for him.

They'll do; probably it would be a good idea to bathe at some point as well but that sounds like several steps more effort than is feasible right now. He considers finding a chair to sit in, seems more dignified than meeting with her in bed, but it seems possible his ability to do things will unpredictably run out at any moment and he'd prefer to be a minimum number of steps away from lying down when that happens. 

"She can come in," he tells Maitimo. 

He passes this along.

She comes in, sits down. "Hey. You seem to be doing a lot better than last time we spoke. Do you know what's changed?"

Leareth glances at Maitimo. "I suppose I was bored enough to think. I - mostly tried to avoid thinking, before. And then I asked Maitimo some questions and he...explained what happened with the war, how they won. He showed me his thoughts. I decided that everything was adding up to an implausible number of things for Melkor to fake and concluded that this is real and Melkor is actually dead. That - changes what it makes sense to do."

It's Melody's turn to look over at Maitimo, eyebrows raised. "Er, can I just say, that's really, really impressive?" 

"Yes, it takes most people decades. I think Melkor might be better at - knowing how to get to Quendi. But also Leareth's very - careful." Fondly.

"I can see that." Melody smiles. "Anyway. The last time, when I was doing your Gifts, I had a look at your mind using my Sight – er, usually I would ask permission for that kind of thing, but you were pretty out of it and Maitimo didn't think you'd be able to give a meaningful answer, and also that he thought you in your right mind would want me to help. I did want to check how you feel about it now." 

Leareth gives her a blank look. "That seems fine?" There are contexts where it might bother him but here it wouldn't have helped with anything. 

"Good, then. I think I want to start with looking again, to see what's changed in terms of what I can perceive, and describing it to you. There's - a lot of damage, I'm sure that's no surprise to you. It's also pretty unusual. I think we can get it back - not to exactly the way things were before, probably, but to something workable - but it's going to need a lot from you."

She looks at Maitimo again. "Anything else you've noticed in the last while, that might be useful context for this?" 

"He doesn't remember doing - the thing you told me was self-inflicted."

"Right. Hmm. That's probably going to be pretty important to know, at some point? Leareth, we can guess at the broad strokes of why you did it – honestly, it was smart, you knew you could do a lot of damage if you were compromised and so you blocked that possibility – but I think the details of your reasoning will help, when it comes to trying to undo it. I can't help there but I believe there's a god on this world who can? Anyway, though, that's getting ahead of ourselves." Pause. "Is it all right if I share my sense-impressions of it with Maitimo again?" 

"Yes, of course." 

Nod. "All right, let's have a look." 

Tapestry comes up again. The cut-and-stitched half is just as much of a mess as before, no changes at all. The unraveled portion is still mostly unraveled – but a small number of threads have been twisted back together, crossing the gap, in a way that somehow looks both jury-rigged and careful at the same time.

It's enough to have a pretty significant effect on the formerly dark-and-folded parts; about a third of that is unfolded and lit-up again. Enough to show that there's damage there as well, which wasn't as visible before – threads stretched out of shape, frayed, some holes, bits stuck to other bits, and a general sense that all of it is under strain. 

- nod. "Is that stuff you can do anything about -"

"Probably! I just need to figure out what means what - this type of Sight gives me a general sense but it'll be hard to interpret details until I know Leareth a lot better. And - I think some of this is linked to the memory alteration, in a way where I can patch it before that's addressed but probably not deal with it fully. Leareth, I think the thing that's happening is that there are a few different ways memory works, and some of them are 'deeper' than others." 

Her viewpoint dives in toward the tapestry, somehow through it to show a layer underneath. "There's a way that you can form instinctive responses to things, and that's separate from explicitly remembering them. And I think whatever Melkor was doing, doesn't cut that out as neatly. So your explicit memory is a mess, and also there are a bunch of emotional associations under there, half of which are linked up to memories you can't access at all. I imagine it's very confusing."

"I know how memory works," Leareth says dryly. "I was - using that, I think? It was helpful for guessing when something was a scenario he had played through many times to try to get it convincing enough." 

"Clever! Anyway. Like I said, it's going to be hard to properly address it now, but - I ought to be able to do a block that makes all of the reactions a bit quieter, if you want that? You'll still feel them, but if something right now makes you panic, with this it'll still be scary but less so. The downside is that you're likely to be more foggy-headed. Normally I'd warn that it hits motivation pretty hard, makes it difficult to tell what's important to you, but I honestly cannot imagine it making that aspect worse than it already is. Do you think that would make things easier, right now?" 

Leareth looks helplessly at Maitimo. "I am not sure?" It makes sense but it's also an alteration to his mind that he doesn't fully understand. 

"...try it and if you don't feel like it's net helpful get her to take it off?"