For some reason this seems to make him even sadder but - "thank you. Should you sleep -"

"Probably." Leareth is wishing he could do more to be - comforting, helpful, to pay back how Maitimo has been gracious and reassuring every time he's been sad. But he doesn't know many ways to do this aside from helping somebody solve their problem, and...he's not in a very good position to solve problems, right now. 

Leareth is making very fast progress on the most important problem in front of him, actually. Maitimo should've solved this thousands of years ago but he was selfish, and didn't want to take the first step, which would've been going to Lórien so no one could say he had a conflict of interest.

Which is making Leareth feel several things, layered together messily, and all of it is nearly impossible to put into words. It feels wrong, jarringly so, that Maitimo should have been required to do that. Even if there's a very valid strategic argument for it. Even if - Leareth has made that same trade, arguably, and he's not even sure which selfish needs he traded away, because so much of it was such a very, very long time ago. 

...Maybe it's the framing around 'selfishness' that bothers him. He can tell that Maitimo thinks he - doesn't deserve this thing that's so precious to him, thinks he's making a morally wrong choice by wanting it, and – no, just no, that bounces off every part of how Leareth things about existing in a broken world and charting a set of actions that will someday make it less broken. It feels like it twists things, makes it impossible to coolly look at the tactical tradeoffs, if - being a human being who needs certain things to be happy is called 'selfishness' and selfishness is labelled bad.

Leareth wants a world to exist someday where everyone has room to be selfish, to seize and drink in all of the things that they, personally, want and need to flourish - he wants that the same way he wants food when he's hungry, it's not a different thing. People seeing morality as a different thing has always bothered him. 

Sometimes a person might have only enough coin to buy a fine garment or pay admission for a theatre production, not both, and have to choose what they want more. Or - maybe a better example is scrimping and saving their coin in the here-and-now, not buying any fine clothes or seeing any plays at all, to afford to give their children a better future. And Leareth makes that tradeoff all the time, the future is a bigger number and so it so often wins, and – sure, he's made a lot of sacrifices, but it's not because he doesn't deserve the things he sacrificed, that's - fake, backward, it's the wrong framing. And some things he wasn't willing to give up, because they would have - hollowed him out, left him without enough of himself to keep going, and it would have been a bad trade. 

Leareth doesn't know if it's actually a bad trade that Maitimo's been making. All he knows is that he has strong feelings on the matter, apparently. 

He should maybe think about a lot of that but the thing he's actually thinking is that he hadn't actually noticed things Leareth was unwilling to give up. Maybe just because one of the things Leareth most evidently was willing to give up was the one thing Maitimo absolutely never could, the being surrounded by people who love you - 

It calls to mind, quite strongly, the thing he said to Findekáno but he doesn't want to think about that where Leareth can hear him right now. Maybe in fifty years or something.

Leareth shifts over and hugs Maitimo. Only realizing a few seconds later that this might be the first time he's initiated that, that his mind has jumped to 'hug' as something he can offer when Maitimo is sad, rather than just problem-solving it. 

It's nice. He goes very still. 

He wants Leareth to someday get to stop saving for the future. It feels important.

It is important. Unfortunately the world is very inconvenient sometimes.

...Leareth remembers how tired he felt, several lifetimes five years ago subjectively, though it's less than a year for Maitimo. When he realized there were others worlds, and - the weight of that, how it should have been good news but at the same time he flinched away from the reality where he won't be done even when Velgarth is fixed. 

Maybe he should have realized then that the conditions had changed, and his strategy was no longer appropriate. 

"I do need to sleep," Leareth says finally, letting go of Maitimo with some reluctance. "I think I will be all right tonight, if you wish to - go do other things." He's vaguely recalling that Findekáno is in Vinyamar and probably Maitimo would ever like to spend some time with him. 

I will take you up on that. But call me if you need anything, all right? 

"Of course." Leareth gets into bed, pulls the blankets over himself. He can't put wards up but - it's all right. Vinyamar is safe. 

It had better be. 

If no more emergencies crop up he'll spend the night at Findekáno's.

There are no emergencies!

How generous of the universe. 

In the morning he can get started on convincing people that a journey to Cuivienen where they will be out of his hair and maybe cause less trouble with their sex lives is a good idea. People who don't want to participate in this can attend the concert - it's still going - or watch the dedication of a new completed building that will be the School of Small Biology.

Dara agrees that a trip to Cuivienen sounds very reasonable. 

Stef is slightly sulky about this but takes it in stride and doesn't argue. 

Seems reasonable!

Savil is just going to go with the flow. She and Vanyel can set up the permanent Gate terminus in Vinyamar on their way back through. 

Great! This is a very culturally significant site for the Quendi, their birthplace as a people, and there'll be lots to do and see there, and also he can stop being quite so worried about what Stef will get up to, since he can pick who gets to go along. 

Do you want to go? he asks Leareth.

Sure, Leareth can come along. Probably he's going to need an annoying amount of help to sleep if they keep going to new strange places, but he's curious to see Cuivienen and it's probably good practice, getting used to travelling, maybe it'll stop being so hard at some point. 

That makes sense. 

So when it's convenient for Vanyel - he can use the Silmarils here, which ought to help - they can head out across the continent again. Maitimo can pass along a sense-memory of Cuivienen but it's four thousand years old. We don't even know if it still looks like that.

Well, Vanyel can take the sense-memory plus a vague sense of the distance and bearing, and aim at it to see if the Gate works. 

It does; that there is a big starlit lake, different in shape but not so different there's no Gate to be had.

Stef goes through and stands around conspicuously not talking to or looking at Vanyel, who's hovering close to his aunt. 

Leareth follows him through and looks around. 

It's dark. It's quiet, and pretty. 

And then a flurry of arrows fly out of the darkness at them.