“Did you enjoy it?” Leareth is pretty confident he did but wants to hear it said out loud. “A satisfying surprise?”

"Yes." Kiss. "Delightful. Also very confusing. Since you may not know, most people have less confusing sex lives than this, we are well into nontraditional amounts of confusing."

Chuckle. "Well, I am a very nontraditional and confusing sort of person, so that fits." 

"Maybe once they all live forever all the humans will be like you."

...Leareth makes a small pained noise. 

"In some ways, perhaps?" he says, keeping his voice light, giving Maitimo an apologetic squeeze. "But - I do not think I am the shape of person who...really ought to come to exist, in the world I wish to build. I - hope that humans will be more like Quendi. Shaped for art and music, not...winning wars. Once the wars are all won..."

He's not sure exactly how to describe the thing that he's pointing at, here, but it feels real. 

"Mmmm. Once the wars are all done, all the people who fought in all the wars will have all their lives ahead of them. And even if there shouldn't be - more like them - or can't be more like them - the world's for them, too, and I guess I feel - good about the fact it'll have them in it, even if it shouldn't have more of them. Because - I like the kind of person you are."

"Mmm." Leareth is - glad, and grateful, that Maitimo likes the kind of person he is, and...thinks that there's going to be space for that shape of person, someday, when things are better. He's never completely reasoned through what he thought would happen, but it's felt like it was sort of on him, to figure out how to reshape himself into someone who isn't actively bad for paradise.

In Velgarth, he remembers noting that he hoped the future children of the world, once he'd addressed its problems, would think that what he'd done to get there was monstrous. Because he wants the world to be such that all of his more ruthless methods can be taken off the table entirely. 

That makes sense. But - probably this is faintly condescending but he's not sure right now how to shape it better - everyone was so young. Even now, him and Leareth, much older than everyone on Velgarth, are so young, compared to the people they'll grow up to be. And it's fine to look back at their path and think the things they did were monstrous. But not the people. And certainly not the people they'll grow up to be.

...It's a pretty long time since Leareth has cried, especially relative to the frequency a few years ago, but he's crying now. 

Hug.

Leareth curls up against him. :I love you: 

I love you too.

Snuggle. :...We should probably sleep. Well, I should anyway: It's late and humans need more sleep and apparently there is work to do even on their vacation. 

Mmhmm. Good night.

Leareth is sort of fighting actually falling asleep, because cuddling Maitimo is so nice, but he's not successful at it for very long. 

He wakes up earlier. Heads out to think and sing and explore the city a little in the pre-dawn light. Comes back around sunrise. 

Leareth is fast asleep, with his hair out of its braid still and sort of everywhere. 

Awwww. He should let him sleep but maybe he could pet his hair just a little bit.

Presumably Quendi would not sleep through this at all, but Leareth is human and therefore disabled in the hair sensitivity department, so he does for a while. The morning sunlight on his face wakes him eventually; he stirs and makes a face at it and then wakes up properly. "Mmm, morning...you been up a while...?" 

"Yeah." Petpet. "It was a pretty sunrise."

"I am a little sorry to have missed it. There will be more, though." Leareth stretches, yawns, and sits up to hug Maitimo properly. 

"There will! They happen all the time! If you'd had the Quendi vote I think we'd have voted for less frequent sunrises so they don't get too routine, but here we are."

Leareth laughs. "I know it makes perfect sense in context, but the concept of putting something like sunrise frequency to a vote is still very amusing to me." 

They can snuggle for a bit longer before getting ready for the day; Leareth has commitments in the morning but can join Maitimo after lunch for whoever he's meeting. It turns out this is various members of the Council.

Dara accompanies them to the meeting, and warns them to expect 'larger cultural differences' here, but that she'll prompt them by Mindspeech if she's worried about misunderstandings.

He is delighted to meet the Council and will try not to have many opinions that will push unpleasantly on cultural differences. He is of the opinion that their city and country are lovely and the Quendi are grateful for their assistance in the Quendi war and would like to repay it if they can.