"Oh, right, and having Curufin actually mention people living in simulations created by the Enemy, that's what convinced me that you're not trying. In case you're an actual person or a construct with no awareness that this is all fake: I have enemies who can probably do the simulation thing too and I think I'm in one. I'm not going to do any spell development beyond recreating things that already exist in the real world, by the way, that's one of my theories for why I'm here."

"...oh. Uh, okay? 

...sorry, Beren's probably going to be the same way - I should probably get practice at it - what am I supposed to say -"

"If I tell you what to say and you say it that doesn't really do anything to convince me this is real. If I tell you the things I definitely won't do because I believe this to be fake, will this make it easier for hypothetically-real Lúthien?"

"...uh, I don't mean 'things that would convince you', I won't try to convince you, I see why that wouldn't work, I mean - I want Beren to be happy -"

"Well I don't know exactly what his preferences will be like, that probably depends on exactly what's being done to him. It might help to ask him what things he is willing to tell you upset him - it probably won't be everything, if he thinks you're Gorthaur he won't tell you anything that could hurt him that he thinks you might not already know - but at least you'll know some things to avoid. I am pretty sure I was tortured this way once before but I don't remember it at all and I didn't immediately afterward so I don't know what would have been the right way to deal with me in the aftermath of that, let alone someone else entirely. This is going to sound really callous but I am not going to share any coping mechanisms I think of with him."

"But you'll still help me rescue him?"

"Yeah, sure. Worst thing that happens is we get captured and I commit suicide, which I've been contemplating anyways just in case this is Nerikross' doing, but have held out on so far because this simulation has been much more pleasant than I would have expected from either of them. I mean, all that's really happened so far is I've somewhat successfully recognized an obvious stand-in for my sister from an obvious stand-in for Nerikross - Curufin is slightly nicer than Nerikross, are you trying to make me more sympathetic to him? Not that I expect you'll answer, but it turns out it's actually somewhat comforting to ask those questions and not have my memory reset to the start of all this. - and also done it without killing anybody, which is nice. And I'm pretty sure inolfactability is already present in my world and accessible to both Nerikross and Alfirin, so I'm fine reinventing it."

"...okay. If it's a simulation, could you commit suicide -"

"Yeah, self-targeted magic is really hard to spoof or block. If Nerikross has me, I can kill myself as long as my body's not in an antimagic field, and if it were then his lackey wouldn't be able to affect my mind and create all this. Alfirin could spoof it and probably block it but if she has me I'm most likely already dead so it wouldn't work anyways. Maybe your Morgoth or Gorthaur could also spoof and block it, but they don't exist. I'll be sure to pull the trigger as soon as I'm captured just in case."

"Incidentally, if this is Nerikross' doing, I think I've just arranged so that we won't be captured by Gorthaur, he probably doesn't want me offing myself and winding up with Alfirin."

"...I'm pretty sure I'm not a figment of your imagination, I have six hundred years of detailed memories and that seems like a lot of trouble to go to."

"That's exactly what a figment of my imagination who was bizarrely trying to convince me that she was real despite this entire world being obviously fake would say, regardless of how many memories she actually had. Sorry. I appreciate the effort."

"I'm not trying to convince you, I'm trying to figure it out for myself."

"Oh, if you have internal experiences you're not a figment of my imagination, I don't think my imagination is quite that good. And I don't think even Alfirin would go to the trouble of creating 660 years of memories for you.  Maybe one in a hundred?  So if you have memories and internal experiences, you're about eight times more likely to be real than not, by my calculations."

"Only eight?"

"Seventy-five in a hundred that Alfirin is running this simulation, one in a hundred conditional on that that she bothered to give you memories and consciousness makes three in four hundred that you're a simulation Alfirin gave consciousness to.  One in twenty chance that you're real is equivalent to twenty in four hundred... Sorry, I was wrong, seven times more likely. I was just eyeballing it before."

"...who's Alfirin? Or do you not want to talk about it?"

"Alfirin is my mother and at this point I've concluded that if you're her she already knows all this and if you're Nerikross' lackey then you probably hate her so at worst you will use any information I give you to try to kill her, which will probably just get you killed. I don't particularly mind lackeys-of-Nerikross dying, nor do I mind Alfirin dying if you somehow pull that off, so I'll tell you things if you want to know them. The short version is that she is a body-stealing soul-stealing entity that has been around for a very long time but I don't know exactly how long because she likes destroying records of her and I think she might predate writing which is somewhat more impressive there than it is here. If you kill her, she comes back. If you kill her really thoroughly, then she possesses an unborn human child somewhere and comes back sixteen years later. I don't know if driving humanity to extinction would stop her but I'm guessing not, and I can say quite confidently that not even Nerikross is going to do that."

"I'm sorry."

Hug?

"You know, it is actually nice to be able to say that to someone, even if they're not real. I have half-siblings, I'm not telling you any more about them than I've let slip already because Nerikross might torture them to get at her - I think he thinks she cares about us as more than useful tools - and they don't deserve that. The half-dragon was named Syrilth and she took me in after I left home and Alfirin had her murdered."

Hug.

"Do you want to know more about my shitty childhood or shall we talk about something less depressing?"

"I mean, that the things happened is a lot less depressing than that nothing will ever convince you they aren't still happening? I'm mostly thinking about Beren. Sorry. He had a shitty life but when he met me he knew it was real -"

"Some day I might figure out a way to test it and thoroughly convince myself. I'll keep trying things, maybe I'll keep getting results that up the probability that this is real. How did you and Beren meet?" Think about happy things, like adorable fictional couples with an age gap that is only slightly creepy given species differences.

Her eyes light up. "He'd been fighting a one man guerilla war in Dorthonion and the Enemy was really really sick of losing anything he deployed to Dorthonion but Beren knew the land like his own body - better, even, mortals can't control their bodies - and the trees and animals and all living things reported to him and helped keep him safe and eventually there weren't any living things left and he fled through the Valley of Dreadful Death and the trees of Doriath let him in, too - they're not supposed to do that, Doriath keeps everything out, Mum thinks Eru meddled - and he was wandering alone and he saw me. And I was kind of confused that I hadn't heard him coming and that he was a mortal in Doriath and he was such a mess - it'd been five years since he'd spoken to a person, he'd been so alone, and he was a mess - so I ran off and he kind of chased me, but - harmlessly? Like someone in a cave following a mote of light, I could read his mind, it wasn't predatory - and eventually I let him find me and he remembered some of the Elven language and he tried to explain himself and - I didn't know what to do, I just held him and listened -"

Awwww. They've always been a sucker for love across species with age variations - in other people, of course - but this story seems especially cute. They put out of their mind for the moment all the terrible background context of the Enemy. None of Malak's smiles look forced but this one actually isn't.

"Go on"