He wasn't betting on you believing him. He was betting on you being willing to play along, if the alternative was death. And I think I might have, if he hadn't been lying about that part, if it wasn't my world in the first place.

"...I suppose I might not have been sure what I would do in that situation, before it happened." Leareth twists to look at him. "Was he lying about that part?" 

He wasn't going to kill you. I don't know if he was lying about whether he could have. Maybe when they're straightened out I can watch and take a better guess, if you want? But he's a Vala and I've never met him and it's all secondhand, you don't notice all the same things, so I'm not sure. I'm sorry. 

"I think that I doubted he would actually kill me. I must have been greatly valuable to him." Shrug. "And empirically, even when I was not valuable to him, he preferred not to kill me." 

Shiver. 

I keep wishing we could kill him again. 

"I know. It would not help, but...I know." Leareth closes his eyes and wraps his arms around himself - damn it, why does just thinking of it make him feel so fundamentally in danger, even now that it's over, in a way that has nothing to do with whether he has his Gifts or his freedom or anything else like that. 

People...form habits? For good reasons, it makes you more efficient at things you do a lot, makes you faster to identify situations. And trauma is a kind of habit, I think.

Leareth is aware that this makes a lot of sense based on how people work, it's just, it would be nice if the habits were any amount less screamingly loud – even his accumulated centuries worth of combat reflexes are easier to override. Maybe that'll get less extreme with time, he reminds himself; it hasn't been that long, less than a month, after five years. Even if five years isn't a lot to weigh up alongside the two thousand before that, it's still a pretty long time to get used to things being a certain way. 

And it is probably a lot of input of the type people are designed to be highly motivated to learn from.

This also makes perfect sense, it's just very irritating because Leareth doubts that the torture parts contain any useful lessons at all for the kinds of situations and plans the future is likely to contain, so it's very inconvenient that his mind both finds the memories screamingly salient and seems to have formed a ton of associations that aren't even conscious enough for him to argue with them. 

(Leareth is aware that his mind is set up differently from most people, or was before at least - that many people never had the kind of control of their thoughts and emotions that he's been able to take for granted, at least for the last millennium or so, maybe he was less - mature - before that.) 

Age affects it a lot among Quendi, though so does personality. He has never personally focused very much attention on feeling the right things (why does that matter, when you can just make sure to present the right things?) but it's probably still gotten better over time, very gradually.  There's almost no Quendi who have control over their emotions at the age that all humans are before they die.

Maitimo is such a very different person from him, Leareth thinks, and yet - there's a core of similarity there, Vanyel has it too. It's the reason he was apparently willing to risk not existing anymore, in that memory, because once you've stuck Maitimo and Vanyel in a room together, that's enough, right, it's - still worse than being there to do it alongside them, but also a lot better than helping Melkor conquer some of those worlds.

–he's so incredibly tired. Probably this is not the most helpful time to think about the weight of the future and all the other worlds out there that need saving.

"I think I want to go back to the island," he says tonelessly. I want to go home. But Leareth isn't sure that anywhere has ever felt like home to him, not the way his mind seems to be hunting for right now. Maybe Urtho's Tower did, once. He wouldn't remember. 

"Sounds good. Should Vanyel travel with us?"

"I would like that, if he is ready to return. I am not sure if King Randale wished to stay in the garden longer." 

"He told Vanyel he could take some time off. I think it'll be good for him."

Nod. "Can you ask him if he would want to leave today, then?" 

"Sure."

Can he reach Vanyel from here?

Yep! :Maitimo, is everything all right? I expected you'd stay in the garden longer: 

Leareth got the memories and is finding them a lot to process and wants to go back to Tol Eressëa to do so. He'd like you to travel with us for that, though, if you're up for it.

:Right. He probably didn't like the part where he was in close proximity to a god, I bet. I should let Randi and Shavri know - do you think Leareth has a preference one way or another if they wanted to travel with us? I'm not sure they will, Randi was talking about maybe going to Tirion and then to wherever that other place is where the Vanyar live: 

I'll ask. 

"Vanyel wants to know whether he should invite King Randele and Shavri with us. He's not sure they'll want to come anyway."

aaaaaaa having preferences about things, Leareth has no idea – he kind of just met them, well, not even really, he didn't actually greet King Randale or get properly introduced – it shouldn't feel scary to travel with them, but it does feel like he would have to put extra effort into maintaining his composure, even more than he would with just Vanyel, and that sounds exhausting.

On the other hand Vanyel is a Herald and Randale is his King and he probably has some sort of duty there. 

"I think I would somewhat prefer not, but if there are practical reasons for them to travel with us then I can manage," he says tightly.

I think it'd work better if they go on to Tirion - I can arrange them an escort if that's helpful. Leareth thinks he can manage if they want to come with us but I suspect it'd be at least a little bad for him. 

:Right. Give me a few minutes and I'll check with them?: 

Of course.