"No. Off-balance, I think. He is accustomed to thinking of you as arbitrarily perfect and powerful."

"Oh." Leareth knows even less what to do with that than he would with anger. 

"What made you decide to try to convince him in particular?"

Huh. Leareth isn't sure he remembers exactly what he was thinking, at the start. "It was a freely available action, speaking with him? We were in the dream together and it was not at all clear why, but it was neutral ground where there was not really anything to do except talk. And then - I suppose he listened much more thoroughly than I had expected was possible, for a Herald. He...is very curious. He wishes to know and understand things, he questions what he believes..."

A light in the world that burns brighter than most - and Leareth stumbles on that thought because he can't remember where it's coming from. 

He leaves that and the stumble public because maybe Maitimo knows? 

I think you should ask Vanyel, actually, I think you - shared more of it with him. I could tell you what I put together but I'd be doing a lot of guessing. 

Leareth nods. He had a lot more time with Vanyel. With Maitimo it was...it must have been less than six months, he can't really remember now, and all of it was during an ongoing emergency - had they really even had any serious, unpresssured conversations about long term goals? 

Not really. I kept expecting you to tell us what you wanted, at first, and - you mostly didn't. You told me eventually what you'd been planning in Velgarth before you came here.

"I...think I tell very few people what I want," Leareth says, haltingly. "I suspect the - life, lives, that I had in Velgarth - did not reward it." He hates being so unsure of everything that he remembers or feels. 

- nod. We talked about the implications of other worlds. You were - tired, you'd hoped that once you succeeded in Velgarth you might be able to stop.

Leareth isn't clear whether he remembers saying that - he thinks he remembers feeling it, but it's hard to tell if it's really that or just his current feeling of exhaustion leaking into everything.

"I suspect I would have felt less need to - try to convince you?" he guesses. "You seemed to be most of the way there already. ...Did you say in real life that you could imagine yourself carrying out a plan like the one I described? Or was that a hallucination?" 

I said that.

"...Do you - still think that?" Leareth isn't sure why he expects it to have changed, except, if it had anything to do with Maitimo trusting him, before, Maitimo should probably trust him a lot less now. 

- the war has if anything only increased my confidence both that I would kill a lot of people if it was necessary and that I ought to be able to imagine circumstances where it'd be necessary.

Nod. That makes sense. Wars have a way of making that obvious and this was the first war Maitimo experienced personally.

Hopefully the last, he wants to say, but Melody thought that sort of naive and Leareth probably even moreso. 

They can cross paths with Vanyel and Randi by that night.

Randi is delighted and honoured to meet Maitimo (Vanyel has been telling him lots of things about Maitimo's competency and how he's a good person and Vanyel absolutely could not have gotten through the last few months of the war without him.) He wants to know how everything is going outside Valinor – is there a lot of cleanup still to do on the other continent? What kinds of political ramifications is the contact with Velgarth having? He's picked up that there are several Quendi factions other than the Noldor and wonders what they're up to right now. 

There is a lot of cleanup still to do on the other continent - many parts of it are still overrun by orcs and orcs reproduce quickly so it will take a while to get all of it safe. Now that Melkor's dead a solution for the orcs looks possible too, though it's not entirely clear what it'd look like. Some people have proposed the gods make them their own continent and slow it down even more than Valinor to handle the population problem. Soon there is expected to be a sun - made from the surviving fruits of the dead Trees - and that should substantially simplify cleanup and reconstruction in Beleriand. 

It seems likely that not many Quendi will want to emigrate to Velgarth but lots will want to visit temporarily for research and cultural exchange and so on, and humans are of course welcome in Arda for all of the same things. 

There's the Vanyar, who live around Taniquetil and plan to keep doing that. The Teleri, who live around Alqualondë, have tentatively embraced the possibility of crossing the ocean to see the peoples of Beleriand, mostly of their own kin who stayed behind when the final ferry to Valinor departed four thousand Velgarth-years ago. And they're still meeting all the peoples of Beleriand and Endorë beyond Beleriand, but the Dwarves have been an enormous asset in the war and will probably want trade relations with Velgarth countries too.

That makes sense. Probably Randi should arrange to meet reprensentatives from the Vanyar and the Telari as well? Also he's not sure if it's diplomatically correct for him to go meet the other Valar. He likes Lórien.

Shavri doesn't say anything about this fact but it'll be clear to Maitimo from her expression that she is not at all sure she likes Lórien. Shavri is pretty uncomfortable about gods in general. 

He absolutely should meet Ingwë of the Vanyar and Olwë of the Teleri. Maitimo can suggest where to go and what they'll likely want to talk about. He can meet the other gods if he'd like but it's not expected. Quendi Kings are traditionally crowned at Taniquetil but that tradition is falling by the wayside what with his father planning to never return to Valinor.

Makes sense. Why doesn't Fëanáro want to return to Valinor? 

He has some disagreements with the gods about a long list of topics, from the degree of rightful authority they have over the Quendi to whether it's good that they exist to whether other people ought to aspire to become more powerful than them.

Right. Randi nods but seems - not that curious about this. 

(Shavri is intrigued though. Plans to talk to Fëanáro about this if she gets a chance to talk to him period at any point.)

Vanyel has been pretty quiet during the introductions and chatting, but as they're wrapping up, he Mindspeaks Maitimo privately. :You got someone to fix Leareth's hair! I'm really glad, it was...making me sad before, it didn't seem like the top priority to do anything about it though: 

- I think it was a pretty high priority, but - I wasn't going to without his agreement. He asked for it, though, once he was feeling a little better.