It's kind of alarming, but in an abstract way that's easier to cope with. And, yes, it definitely does look like whatever happened to the central section, he did it himself. "I have no idea how I unraveled it that thoroughly," he admits.

"Neither do I! It might not've happened all at once - if you just damaged it enough to realize something was wrong every time you woke up from having your memory wiped, it could've been cumulative. Anyway. This is showing up as a bit less bright than it was a week ago, and all the linkages underneath are quieter, that should mean it's less overwhelming to poke at and try to sort out this mess. We still won't want to do much at a time. Anyway. Is there a particular place you want to start?" 

"I would like to find all the attempts Melkor made to manipulate me into doing magic against the Noldor," Leareth says. "Ideally put them in order although I understand that might be hard. I wish to understand the mistakes I made there. Also I would prefer to do this without constantly ending up in the torture parts by accident because they are way less interesting than my emotions think they are."

Melody bursts out laughing. Then looks mortified. "I am so sorry! I promise I'm not laughing at you, just - that sure is a way to put it. It's hard for me to tell what's what just by looking now, but if I get a few examples I can maybe start to distinguish. Any examples of the kind of memory you do want to look at, that you've found so far?"

Leareth can bring to mind the one where Melkor is giving an inspiring lying-liar speech about Eru. 

THE CREATOR OF THIS WORLD IS CALLED ERU ILUVATAR BY THE ELVES. THE VALAR AND MAIAR ARE THE AGENTS TO WHOM HE DELEGATED ITS CREATION. THE ELVES BELIEVE THAT ERU'S VISION FOR THE WORLD WAS THAT IT WAS PERFECT LIKE THEIR PARADISE, WITHOUT HARDSHIP OR LOSS OR TRAGEDY. 

THIS IS NOT WHAT ERU ENVISIONED. ERU ENVISIONED A GRAND WAR OF GOOD AGAINST EVIL, IN EVERY STEP OF WHICH GOOD WOULD LOSE FOR AS LONG AS IT WAS POSSIBLE. HE ENVISIONED HEROES GROUND DOWN BY ENDLESS DEFEATS THAT MAGNIFIED THEIR FLAWS AND DESTROYED THEIR GOOD QUALITIES, UNTIL AT LAST THEY WOULD CHOOSE THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION RATHER THAN CONTINUE. NO ELVES SURVIVE OUTSIDE VALINOR, IN ERU'S PLAN. NO ORCS SURVIVE AT ALL. ERU LIKES BEAUTIFUL STORIES, AND ERU THINKS THAT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STORIES ARE THE STORIES OF HOW PEOPLE ARE UTTERLY DESTROYED BY WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THEIR GREATEST STRENGTHS.

I AM NOT THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLES OF ARDA EXCEPT INCIDENTALLY. I AM THE ENEMY OF THEIR GOD. 

The emotions linked to this memory are not the worst ones to be found in the giant mass of retrieved memories, but he was very tense and scared and - and at the end, walking up to Melkor, admitting defeat, expecting to die–

–he is not going to panic about it, that will not help with anything, but it would really help in that aim if Maitimo could come stand near him and maybe hug him (he makes that part public). 

Yes of course. Hug. He was very brave and it makes sense that he was scared and he was right, he got it right.

"Leareth, hey, it's all right - you're here, you're safe, right? You don't need to go through the rest of it, I found which one it was – I can have a look for similar ones?" :Maitimo, when did hugs start happening? I do not recall having the sense that he was a cuddly person: 

If she notices that he is weirdly defensive about this that would be very bad. He's good at body language and presumably the amulet covers everything she's getting off her gifts?

We never made non-incidental physical contact before he was captured. Now it seems to help. I'm confused too, I was advised to be very careful not to touch them. But it seems to help. 

:Huh. It really does seem to help, he calmed right down. I'm not sure either. It might be you-specific:

(Melody is a receptive Empath, which the amulet does not block, and she can tell Maitimo is kind of upset about something even if he is shockingly good at hiding any other sign of it, but she doesn't need to know and has no intention of prodding, he isn't her patient.) 

Well, he can hold onto Leareth for the process of finding similar memories. He relaxes somewhat once she doesn't ask questions.

There are a lot of similar memories, actually. Melkor tried a speech to Leareth four hundred sixteen times.

Melody isn't even going to try going into them individually yet, then. She tries to line them up in very rough order of similarity based on the pattern she can see from the outside, and very loosely links them together like that.

Just doing around a hundred of them takes several hours, though. "I think that's enough for today," she says when she finally finishes. "I'm going to do a much lighter version of the block from before - not on these ones that we sorted at all, but on the rest - and if you can't get any sleep from nightmares, someone should come get me and I'll do it stronger again." 

That part only takes another five minutes. "All right?" 

"Mmm." Having his memories sorted through is exhausting and emotions are exhausting and Leareth can barely keep his eyes open. "Thank you."

"Thank you. I'll get you if we need anything."

"You're welcome." :And thank you for looking out for him. You're doing a lot more work than me, honestly: She leaves. 

Leareth should probably...say something...but actually he is most of the way to falling asleep. 

There are a couple conversations they should have stacking up at this point but he's going to wait until a better time for them, such as when Leareth is lucid and has preferences. 

"Good night."

Sleep. 

His dreams are not pleasant but he only has one nightmare that wakes him fully, and the familiar surroundings with the skylight and stars make it easier to settle back down.

Leareth sleeps for a full eight hours in total, but he went to sleep a lot earlier than Vanyel and is now offset from him, it's the middle of their usual 'night'. Probably he shouldn't make a habit of doing that. He gets up and puts on clothes and pads out to see if anyone's around. 

Maitimo, who sleeps every other time Vanyel does and for half as long, is up in the adjacent building with his door open, working on duty rotations and writing some letters.

Leareth goes in. "Are you busy?" 

"There is a lot of me and not all of it is busy. How're you doing -"

He sits down. "Better, I think?" He does not expect it to last, something is inevitably going to catch him off guard and make him panic or cry or both at once, but for the moment, this is the closest to fine he's felt so far. "It was restful to be less emotional for a while but I am glad that I can think better now." 

"It's good to - see you doing things again."

"I am glad." Leareth glances around. "...I am somewhat restless and I am not sure what to do, now that it seems I can do things at all. I thought about going through more of the memories but, on reflection, I think I can swallow a limited amount of that per day and will probably be too upset to do anything afterward, so should time it accordingly."

This is frustrating, it's going to take forever to get through four hundred and sixteen speeches if he can only do one a day, but...not an emergency, he reminds himself. He leaves that thought public to Maitimo out of habit, even though he seems much more able to say actual words with his actual mouth today.