Excerpts from the diaries of Urtho, the Mage of Silence; Translated by Karna shena Tale'sedrin, Kal’enedral and Scrollsworn to Kata’shin’a’in

Final entry, several days before the Cataclysm

I wish there were magics that might let one take back the past, and do it over. 

There is no such spell; this is my bed, I have made it and I must lie in it. 

I think now it was a mistake to let King Leodhan push for war. Perhaps it would have ended so all the same, and with Tantara in a weaker position as the unprepared defender – and yet, I sometimes think that if it had, it might have been over more quickly, mercifully, and with less bloodshed on either side. 

What is wrong with me? War has left me so weary, I catch myself wishing that my worst enemy might have won sooner. 

I never wished to call Ma’ar my enemy. 

Perhaps I made a wrong turn sooner, and in some other world I might have salvaged my young student, and guided him to a kinder and less destructive path. Perhaps in some other world, we work together now, as allies and friends. I long to step out of this world and into that, and of course I cannot. 

I am a sentimental old man, it seems, and unsuited to commanding an army. 

This is not how I wished it to end, and I am sure Ma’ar did not wish for it either. Even now, he sends letters, and tries to broker an alliance that I can no longer offer him. He has strayed too far. The atrocities of this war are unforgivable. 

No matter what comes, he must not take the Tower, and the powers that lie within my sanctum. I am glad beyond measure that I never spoke of this to him, though I revealed far more than I should have. I trusted him more than I should have. 

And so it will end as it ends, as we tear apart each other’s armies in fiery destruction, and perhaps history will remember a foolish old man who misjudged his greatest enemy. 

I wish it were otherwise. 

Leareth reads it through twice, even though he doesn't have to at this point. His vision blurs on the last words; he blinks away tears. They sing for Urtho every year in Kata'shin'a'in, Vanyel told him. It's not enough, but, well...

After a long time, he closes the book, sets it down. Slowly rises. It's been five years and he's not going to be any readier than this if he waits another five. 

:Maitimo?: he sends, stepping out into afternoon sunlight. :As soon as Vanyel is back from his visit home tonight, I am ready to have my magic back: 

Oh, good. I'll ask Melody when she's next free. If you immediately betray us all I'll be so sad, though.

Leareth chuckles. :I shall have to consider which of the payoffs for betrayal are worth that, then. Are you busy?: 

No. He rounds the corner and waves at him.

Leareth smiles and waves back, catching up. :I finished with Urtho's diaries, the translations Vanyel had. Anything new on your end today?: 

Not very much. When Van gets back I have quotes for him from the Dwaves for more permanent Gates. And Findaráto wants someone to go check if any of the new humans have Gifts.

:That is a good idea! I suppose I could help check, if Melody can successfully return my mage-gift. Assuming I am not horribly out of practice: Sigh. :I...am probably horribly out of practice. It has been ten subjective years now since I have actually used my magic: 

Yeah. I think the necklace helps with skills not getting rusty, but probably only ones you've ever used while wearing it.

:It should help somewhat that I have had mage-sight for most of the last five years. I hope: He hasn't been able to help Vanyel or Savil with any of the work they've done itself but he's checked it over for them sometimes. 

We can plan another couple months here practicing, if you'd want to feel sharper before we go out and get into trouble. Not that there's very much trouble to be gotten into. The Avari have agreed that letting people come pray at the lake will probably not lead to its imminent destruction.

:I think I will want a couple of days to assess it, and then decide? I would rather not rely on there being little trouble to be gotten into:

I figured. 

Leareth walks with him in silence for a bit. 

:...I hope I am making the correct decision and am in fact ready for this: He glances at Maitimo. :You probably are still thinking that I could have done it a year ago: It's been eighteen months since he's had any nightmares where he projected by accident, and they had already been very occasional then. 

- I really think that part of being you is doing things, and you aren't going to get all the way back to being you while unable to do things. 

:I have been doing things! But...many things were excluded, I suppose: It’s difficult even to advise Vanyel on magical work when he can’t demonstrate what he’s trying to explain. :I am looking forward to it now, though. I...suppose it took a long time before I could really look forward to having more things to do:

Yeah. And we didn't want to - put things on your agenda before there was anything you could do about them and before you wanted to be doing things.

Leareth gives him a narrow-eyed look. :So you have been keeping things off my agenda, have you: 

This is not exactly a surprise; he’s guessed for a while, years really, that Van and a Maitimo are doing some background troubleshooting on something, likely multiple somethings, and sheltering him from it. He’s appreciated that effort from them, generally.

Yes. Wondered when you'd ask.

Sigh. :I suppose we ought to discuss it when Vanyel is back: 

Hopefully he will return with a little more information, which will make the discussion more productive anyway.

Leareth can't tell whether Maitimo is actually enjoying being mysterious on purpose. He shakes his head. :Very good, then. I was headed to grab something to eat now - you?: 

Trying to hurry up the third linguistics guild - a fool's errand, of course, but I'd promised Findekáno I'd try. I could eat something on the way.

:What do they need hurrying at this time?: 

He wants approval for a Quenya word for the local humans. Everyone is calling them Aftercomers and that seems like entirely the wrong foot to start on.

:It really does: Leareth swings off the path toward the food-hall. 

'Second people' has the same problem though not as badly, 'followers' I think is even worse, 'those apt to die' is very poetic but both mean and hopefully soon-to-be-inaccurate...

Leareth nods. :In my world, peoples are sometimes named for their characteristics - for example, if they are very good with horses or something - or for their region of origin. Are there any options like that?: 

There's plains-people and fast-people. They're not really good with anything - I'm sure there will be, eventually, but they just started, we weren't good at anything when we just started either. If they turn out to have mage-potential they can be mage-people though maybe that'll introduce internal issues since not all of them will be mages even if some of them are.

Leareth quickly collects some food. :I could walk there with you if you wish. I have nothing else planned with myself until Van is back: 

I'd be delighted. Fast-people is neutral enough, maybe that's what we should be aiming for?

:That is the genre of name I would aim for, yes: 

Then they can go down to the third linguistics guild, which is having a heated argument in Quenya about the merits and demerits of the proposed word 'fírima', from the root for "expiring", poetically translated as "apt to die". Maitimo does not get up to give a speech but circulates hearing people out and occasionally gently raising objections.

Leareth sits down to wait nearby, wondering what he's about to learn when Vanyel gets back. 

Which is going to be a few hours later! Leareth can feel the Gate go up, and start heading in that direction while he alerts Maitimo. 

He will extract himself from the linguistics debate, which has not lost steam at all, and come on over.

Vanyel is just peeking through the Gate, finding both of them with Mindspeech. :I'm back! Melody around? She's going to want to meet someone: 

Hey Melody! Van's back! And he says you'll want to meet someone. I am guessing Jisa.

And a girl of about seventeen piles through the Gate after Vanyel, looking everywhere around her at once. 

It's a gorgeous little stone city glittering under an unfamiliar sun. There is a permanent Gate-terminal to Vinyamar in the town square, right over there; framing the permanent Gate there is a strikingly realistic stone statue of Vanyel and Leareth, arms outstretched, looking into each others' eyes, standing in a snowdrift. 

White boats in the shape of a swan are docked at the water's edge, and people are unloading fish, singing while they work. 

Jisa snickers. Looks back over her shoulder. "Stef, are you coming?" 

Stef piles through the Gate. "I'm coming!" Yfandes is right behind him. 

And then a very tall, handsome blond young man, who bows politely to the first person he sees. 

"This is Treven!" Jisa says delightedly. "He's Randi's heir! We're lifebonded!" 

"Welcome to Tol Eressëa, Herald Treven! Jisa! I'm Nelyafinwë; this is the home of those Quendi who need easy access to Valinor for the work that we do."

Vanyel makes his customary face at the statue, which is very well done and also he has to look at it every single time he uses the Gate-terminus and why. 

"Whose work is that statue?" Treven says, because clearly he has to make it even worse or something. "It's exquisitely done." 

Leareth stands back, unsure how to interact with the new Valdemarans. Apparently Jisa has been clamouring to visit on and off for the last five years; someone must have finally decided she was old enough. 

"My mother did it! She liked the part of the story where a prophecied war was averted because we had a prophecy here about horrible things happening to my family and that one seems thoroughly disproved too. Aren't they lovely?"

"Van said they were embarrassing but they're delightful!" 

This is the point at which Melody catches up and pulls Jisa into a very uncharacteristic-for-her hug. "Gods, girl, you've grown! I can't believe it. Graduated and everything?" 

"Finally! Terrill said he has to talk to you when you visit because this whole doing curriculum design by letters is not very efficient and–" she leans in closer and lowers her voice, "–honestly I did a lot of it anyway. But I promise I didn't make it too easy or anything, that'd be no fun." 

"We've kept you away for far too long, Melody -"

"You know I haven't minded. Honestly I may come back at some point. But I confess I am greatly looking forward to seeing home again." 

"I put together some things for you to remember us by." And he hands over a sheaf of letters and a package.

"How kind of you. ...I'd better not actually go yet, Jisa and I need to discuss." 

"Just let me know when you actually want to leave so I can activate the Gate back for you," Vanyel says, "we haven't gotten that one so a non-mage can use it although the one to Vinyamar can be controlled with osanwë." He glances at Leareth and Maitimo, then back at Stef. :Maitimo, shall we?: 

Jisa bounces along after Melody, who is looking fondly at her package without opening it. 

Yes. He actually asked, this afternoon. And he's ready for Melody to take the blocks off. 

:That's good timing. I suppose he knew when I planned to be back: 

Probably. He also got through Urtho's notes.

Vanyel nods, keeps walking. A few moments later he pulls Leareth into the Mindspeech link as well. :You're still doing the thing where you go all quiet anytime there are people you haven't met: 

:I prefer to have a moment to orient, is all: Leareth glances over with a quick reassuring smile. :I am not anxious about their arrival, if that is what you are concerned about. I am...a little nervous about Melody departing but I think it will be fine. As long as she gets around to my Gifts first: 

:It's not like she's going to just forget!:

And in the worst case, if an emergency happens we can go get Melody. We will have to bring her some fancy tea and lots of apologies but I have no doubt she'll help.

:Thank you for being the keeper of the contingency plans, as usual: 

There are several people preparing tonight in case you do something confusing and explody! He sounds utterly unworried. 

:Excellent, that is very reassuring: 

And they can step into Leareth's room and he can activate his amulet. Probably the mages are also doing privacy precautions but it's nice to have one that's under his own control.

Leareth's room is honestly pretty well shielded to begin with, it doesn't need it so badly now that he no longer has a tendency to project nightmares at anyone nearby but he prefers it that way, which is very understandable. Vanyel adds a sound-barrier anyway. 

Stef tucks his legs under him and waits, paying a lot of attention to Leareth without making it that apparent. He's so curious what his reaction is going to be. 

"During the war Vanyel Gated back to Velgarth to take the weapon from Urtho's Tower we'd determined we could safely and successfully use. When he did -" he looks to Van, he can bounce the sensory impression to Leareth if Van sends it to him.

Vanyel can - he could also share it directly but osanwë is kind of just better than Thoughtsensing in both directions, when it comes to neatly sharing just a sense-memory without needing to go far enough into rapport to leak a lot of other things. 

- something slithers along the Gate, maybe, not destructively, not interacting with it, just there - 

He bounces this to Leareth. "We don't know if anything got through, or - observed enough to do their own Gate later. We launched the attack the minute Vanyel got back."

"This most recent trip back, and several of the ones before it, were mainly to - try to scope out any effects of something that may have gotten through, then or later. I didn't find anything." He grimaces. "Yet. I don't think it's at all conclusive evidence of nothing being there." 

Leareth has gone very still, his face slipping into the controlled blank expression that means he's thinking hard and not sure what any of his conclusions are yet. (It's almost the same as his default neutral face from before, but not quite.) 

"We've tried following up on the Arda side too, but it's been very difficult. It appears that Maiar in Angband that were in a physical form that made physical sense when magic stopped working survived, and the rest didn't. But they vanished without a trace if they had no body at all, making it hard to tell whether any given one died or got out. - and we killed most of the orcs in Angband when we sacked it a few minutes later, and they're understandably not being very cooperative with efforts to figure out which Maiar were present and which was not."

Leareth carefully folds his hands in his lap. "I am guessing you have tried mindreading for this problem, since Vanyel can do it." 

"Not on the dead. Or maybe he could if Mandos would let us, which he has not. We've tried on the living."

Nod. "So...what are our next steps, if any? I am unsure that I will be able to help in any way that Vanyel has not already tried, but I can give it more thinking time." 

"There's not much obvious. We might have to just keep looking for signs of tampering in Velgarth. There is a Maia we captured alive. We tried reading her, obviously, but it doesn't work quite like reading a person and Thoughtsensing a non-disabled Maia doesn't work at all and we don't know how much she recalls from before the loss of magic so we're not taking those unproductive conversations as very much evidence. Figured we'd wait and eventually ask you, what to do with her." He sends an image. It's the one with wings like a bat.

"Oh, I remember her." Leareth is quiet for a moment, sifting through his memories that include her. "She seemed - less bad than many of the others. Has she tried to harm anyone while you have been keeping her captive?" 

"No. Not much chance to, though."

"Can she really harm anybody without having any of a Maia's powers?" Shrug. "I - do not particularly desire her dead, and it seems cruel to imprison her forever. Could she be freed but supervised in some way?" 

"We've been - reluctant to make the mistake we made paroling Melkor again. But yes, she can be."

"That makes sense. Do you think there is any way even in theory that she could regain her magic? If not, it seems a drastically less risky and more reversible decision than paroling Melkor." 

"It's hard to have a confident guess when we took her magic with a weapon we did not fully understand. But there haven't been any signs she's regaining it."

"It seems remotely possible someone else could give her back her magic," Vanyel admits. "If it stays coherent in the Void - which we're kind of hoping it does, that's the only way we'd have any hope of ever getting Olórin back - and if a Velgarth mage finds a way to access it and is on her side. Or if another Maia learns how to use Velgarth magic, possibly. I...don't think it should be possible for her magic to come back from the Void of its own accord and glom back onto the rest of her." 

"Right. Vanyel, what sorts of signs of tampering were you looking for in Velgarth, and how far did you venture?" 

"Reports of new kinds of magic mainly," Vanyel answers. "Or - weird geopolitical events, since Melkor seemed to like scheming that way. I've been as far south as Seejay. Your organization has the north covered. I can't get into Iftel but we do have a diplomat there, a civilian merchant, and his letters haven't mentioned anything odd. I haven't gotten west of the Pelagirs or into the Eastern Empire, and there's a lot to the southeast of Seejay. But if anything really big were happening, I think we'd hear something about it." 

"Maiar are generally pretty slow. Even if someone is there we might not expect to see anything for decades."

"That makes sense." Heavy sigh. "Well, now I know. It sounds as though Vanyel has already communicated with my organization on my behalf, so there is nothing I need to immediately act on there?" 

"Yes. Er, sorry for doing that behind your back; I've had a lot of back and forth with the various people you left in charge." 

"No, I appreciate it. Thank you." It's been very restful, having various necessary plans happen in the background without any input required from him. "It would probably be good if I were briefed fully on that at some point, but I do not think it particularly urgent." 

"I think that's all the geopolitics we were going out of our way not to mention. Should I call in Melody?"

Leareth takes a deep breath. "...I am ready for that, yes." 

Leareth's ready, he lets Melody know.

:Perfect! I can be there in ten minutes?: Pause. :Hmm, actually, is it all right if I bring Jisa? If there's any kind of problem after today, she'll be the one nearest at hand to help with it, so I'll feel better if she saw this:

He passes this on to Leareth.

"I wish to think about it for a moment." Leareth tries to do that even when it doesn't feel like a big deal; it seems important to get back into the habit of reasoning through decisions rather than let other people make them for him.

This one isn't that complicated, though. Melody has a good point about Jisa being her replacement, and vouches for Jisa, and Vanyel can vouch for Jisa as well at this point. (According to Van, she 'took a while to grow up but is definitely there now.') 

"Yes, that is fine with me," he says. 

That sounds good, he tells Melody.

Then Melody will show up about ten minutes later, Jisa accompanying her. "Honestly, you two are going to get along great," she says cheerfully.

"I'm very pleased to finally meet you properly," Jisa says politely. "Is it all right if I watch Melody do this? I can bounce my Sight to you - er, probably Melody and I shouldn't both do it at once, our Sight comes through kind of differently and it'd be really confusing." 

"Of course. Usually Maitimo will relay it to anyone who wants it since osanwë does sense-sharing more neatly and to non-Mindspeakers as well." 

Nod. "Is Stef going to stay?" 

"Honestly I don't feel like I'm particularly needed, and that concert is still happening, I might head back there." Stef swings his legs down from where he's propped them over the arm of his chair, kisses Vanyel's cheek before standing. "Good luck. Jisa, let's catch up properly later, yes?" 

And he can bounce impressions around to whoever wants them while Melody works.

Melody examines the tapestry.

It's drastically tidier than it was five years earlier! The central section has been almost entirely re-woven; the pattern is visibly not quite complete but the remaining loose ends are temporarily sort of knotted in place where they'll stay put.

The memory half isn't completely not-a-mess, but the difference since Leareth received the final version of Fëanáro's memory-enhancing artifact is pretty stark – the memories since then, and some of the older ones he's reviewed, are strung through with a single strand of what almost looks like silver wire instead of thread. The rest has been entirely repaired, though some places are noticeably patched-over rather than seamlessly rewoven. 

The under-layer of emotional associations still has quite a lot of threads trailing from the bundle of mostly-torture-memories that have been filtered out from what Leareth refers to as the 'actually interesting ones' and sort of shoved off to the side. The connections are a lot less bright and vivid than before, though. 

"And, here," Melody says, zooming her Sight in through the 'surface' of the tapestry to the irregular foggy part. She's had to renew it about once a year, since the fog doesn't stay put forever, but the last time was five months ago and it's still solidly opaque.  

He shares all this with whoever is interested.

"Jisa?" Melody says. "Let's just check where that shows up in yours, in case you need to put something back and don't have Van around for mage-sight borrowing." 

Nod. "All right, let's see... Usually my Sight shows up as a garden. Let's see what sort of garden you are!" 

...Leareth, as it turns out, is a very weird garden. One that looks like it's been dug up, paved with cobblestones over gravel, and then re-planted in pots and long planter trays on top of that; the plants in said containers, shrubs and grasses and flowers and small trees, are thickly grown together, the parts that show up as thread-connections in Melody's Sight appearing here as vines and stems, some clearly damaged and repaired. The cobblestones and the pots themselves have moss growing on them, which seems to correspond to the deeper layers of Melody's tapestry. 

The various altered memories are still pretty obvious, though in a different way; they show up as branches, bearing flowers and fruits, grafted onto places where they very obviously don't belong. Copious pruning and steering and re-grafting has evidently gone into sorting through the resulting mess.

In the middle of the weird garden is a shallow well, the stones making up the lip of it pieced back together with mortar. It looks like it once had a cover, but is currently open, with a number of trailing vines going into it. 

"...There it is," Jisa says finally, with satisfaction, diving inside one of the metaphorical shrubberies and locating Melody's fogged-over area. 

Mindhealing is so cool and he's very jealous and this is rather beside the point.

"Aaaand if we're ready, I'm taking it off now," Melody says cheerfully. "I'm so delighted to finally check this off my list." 

Jisa watches and keeps sharing her Sight as Melody melts away the opaque fuzz covering a patch of the shrubbery's trunk at the fork of several branches. 

"Should be done. I know you're pretty out of form, but try a mage-light? That's not too complicated and it won't explode if you fumble it a bit." 

Mage-light! 

Vanyel looks delighted. 

"Excellent! All right, Melody, I think that's everything we needed. Thank you so much."

"You're very welcome! Jisa, let's go finish the handover stuff." 

Jisa grins and waves and follows Melody out. 

He has magic again! Leareth makes his mage-light bounce around the room and change colours. He can't seem to stop smiling. 

"Awww."

Leareth swings around and hugs Maitimo, still beaming, which is not an expression he makes very often. 

Awww indeed. "Want to come practice in my Work Room?" Vanyel suggests. 

"Of course." Leareth glances back at Maitimo. "Is there anything else we needed to discuss today, or is it all right if I wear myself out and come back as a puddle?" 

"Go ahead. Enjoy yourself."

Leareth heads off with Vanyel, still smiling. 

He will leave them to it and get back to work. 

Vanyel tows Leareth back a number of hours later, exhausted as promised; the sun is mostly set at this point. :Maitimo, you around? You're better than me at getting him to eat when he's tired without making a big deal about it. Also I think he gave himself a mild backlash headache so I'm finding Stef to painblock until he's rested a bit. We had fun!: 

Oh good! Sure, I'll come over with dinner. He picks out some things Leareth likes and does this.

Leareth nods to him. He's still smiling, though it's a very tired smile at this point. 

Stef is sitting sideways across a chair with his feet dangling, teasing Vanyel by segueing perfectly innocent songs into one of the songs about his war victory and seeing how long it takes him to notice. 

He hands out dinner. "Everyone has to eat a reasonable amount of dinner and then go to bed. I am in charge here and that's an order."

"Well then." Leareth gets to work. 

"Since when have I ever needed orders to eat enough delicious food?" Vanyel says, smiling. 

"Since when are you in charge?" Stef says, stealing some of Vanyel's food off his plate in between songs. 

"While you were out I decided that my father probably won't notice if I take over all his duties one by one. It's been going swimmingly."

"He really wouldn't," Stef agrees cheerfully. 

"–Stef, if you keep eating my food then both of us are going to end up eating unreasonable amounts of dinner in opposite directions, which would be disobeying orders and that would be so rude." 

Leareth chuckles and then starts absently playing with a little illusion of a house, adding windows to it. It's less detailed and clean than Vanyel's illusions but recognizable. 

"Quit it," Vanyel says without looking up. "You're done for today." 

"You will still have magic in the morning."

He will!

"Just to update you on progress," Vanyel says once he's finished his food. "He's definitely rusty, mostly on finesse and a bit on endurance, it's not affecting raw power. He can Gate fine but has trouble with the weirder variants like the moving Gate - but honestly, I can't do the moving Gate at all despite practicing Gates for years. We should make some artifacts together, get the fine detail work covered. Not sure what else there is to practice..." 

"Well, compulsions."

"Do you think you'll... Hmm, it's probably good to have the option even if we hope not to need it. I'm kind of terrible at compulsions so I don't know if I can help you much at practicing, I guess you could do them on me?" 

"You seem like in a lot of respects the worst person for him to be practicing compulsion spells on? Not that I don't trust you," he says fondly to Leareth.

“You know, that’s fair. If I were good at them I could maybe give him pointers, but,” equally fond glance at Leareth, “we have some evidence that I’m really not.”

"What does being good at compulsions look like?"

Vanyel glances over at Leareth. "My understanding is that the skill I don't have involves making compulsions to do a way more specific complicated thing than 'don't move', and - making them not blatantly obvious." 

Leareth nods. "Carefully done compulsions are invisible from the outside, rather than causing sudden discontinuities in behaviour that can be noticed by observers. If the effect is subtle enough, they can also be unremarkable from the inside. This would not work for the kind Vanyel used on me, no matter how great his skill, because being unable to move is a very uncharacteristic and confusing way for a person to want to act. However, as an example, I tested a compulsion here by telling someone they did not want the rest of their snack. They were very deep in thought at the time and did not notice that this urge came from the outside." 

"Whereas I bet they would've notice if I'd tried the same trick, even if the thing itself wasn't that weird," Vanyel says. "Just because it'd be heavy-handed." 

"Are there a lot of ...defensible uses of that -"

"Probably not in peacetime by Quendi ethical standards," Leareth says quietly. "It can be useful for spying on an enemy in war, if you can capture soldiers and then stage an 'escape', especially since well-done compulsions are difficult even for a mage to notice unless they are looking very hard for it. That and the - unpleasant fact about my history - are the only cases where I have really used the involuntary and invisible kind. Nearly all compulsions used within my organization are voluntary." 

Nod. 

"We don't know what's out there, and it's better to have more resources. And I don't want to accomplish ...convincing you not to do things...by making sure you don't know how. I hope there's no need of that one. But you should probably practice it."

"He can't do it on me," Stef says instantly, before Vanyel can even look in his direction. 

Vanyel holds up his hands. "No one was proposing that, Stef." 

"He can practice with me," he says tiredly. "Tomorrow."

"If you are sure. It could probably wait if you preferred I practice once I can go back to Velgarth." 

"I think I have considerably less complicated feelings about you practicing with me compared to with your employees, on the whole." And that feels like it should have some clarification so he shares some thoughts  -

- he doesn't want Leareth to be thinking of this topic as a minefield forever and ever, that sounds unhealthy. He wants Angband to have taken nothing from Leareth, even things he on some level isn't sure he's glad Leareth has. But that feels like the kind of conclusion that's too easily reached, if you aren't at all personally inconvenienced by it, so he feels more sure of it noticing that he is fine with it if Leareth is practicing here, with him. Actually on some level he feels intensely curious about how to notice whether your thoughts are your own, it sounds fascinating. And - and a lot of his memories of his early interactions with Leareth are colored by the knowledge that Leareth could do whatever he wanted, and - and it seems good to have that back, again. It's not a good friendship when you want the other person to be weaker.

Leareth nods. He's feeling some relief and quiet gratitude, which he shares back. "...Tomorrow. I need to get some sleep." 

"Yes. Van, Stef, you should leave or he will instead stay up staring fondly at you."

Stef snickers, but gets up, tugging Vanyel by the hand. "'Night." 

"Night." And to Leareth - "want a song?"

"If you wish to sing one, then yes, I would." Leareth waits until Vanyel and Stef are out the door before quickly changing and crawling into bed. He doesn't need to be sung to sleep anymore, these days, but - it's nice. 

He'll sing. He won't stay, though - that's a lot of day to give up, now that Leareth has fewer nightmares. "Let me know when you're ready, tomorrow."

"I will." Leareth gives him a warm look and then curls up to sleep. (He doesn't think he had a tendency to sleep all curled-up before? It's one relic of Angband that's stuck around.) 

He goes out. Makes sure Treven is getting a good tour and has been introduced to all the right people, circles back over to the linguistics guild to quietly lobby for his preferred names for humans, writes Findekáno a long letter, checks in on the other Angband survivors to make sure they're handling Melody's planned departure all right.

Melody, who's still up talking to Jisa, relays that she's willing to stick around one more day and meet with anyone if they want to be introduced to Jisa while she's still in town. 

Some people would like that! He can get a list together for her.

Perfect! She'll turn in for the night, then, and get started tomorrow. 

Leareth wakes up in the morning, and lights his room with a mage-light before getting up to open the curtains, just because he can. He bathes and dresses and wanders out to get some breakfast. :Maitimo?: 

Mmmhmm?

:Ready for practicing in a few minutes, though it could also be later: 

This is a good time. Are we borrowing Van's Work Room again?

:I will check if he needs it today, just a moment: Pause while he does so. :Yes, he says that would be fine: 

So he'll head over there. 

Leareth grabs a pastry so that he can eat it and walk, and meets him there. "Thank you again for offering to help with this." 

"Well, no conquering the Noldor and making me regret it.

It's good, having you back."

"Fortunately, since I am friends with you, I know that actually being in charge of the Noldor is far too much work to appeal to me. I am very lazy, actually." Leareth closes the door firmly and sits down. "...All right. I have a few ideas for harmless and trivial compulsions to test, but you can also suggest some." 

"I don't expect I'm very picky but do remember the Quendi thing about imprisonment, anything that restricts movement can trigger it."

"Right. I will be careful to avoid that. For starting out, I am not going to be able to do them subtly enough to be unnoticeable anyway, so I will tell you in advance. Does a compulsion to bring me that stool over there seem safe and inoffensive?" The Work Room has very minimal, simple furnishings, since Vanyel expects to occasionally break them if he's practicing explodey magic, but of course they're Quendi furnishings so they're exquisitely beautiful anyway. 

"Yes."

Leareth takes a deep breath, gathers just a tiny bit of power, and lays a compulsion telling Maitimo to go retrieve the stool. 

He goes and gets the stool, trying to poke the thought - does it feel like it obviously came from someone else? Is he able to think about doing things like smashing the stool that'd get in the way of doing it? 

It's not obviously alien enough that he would definitely have noticed it if he were already moving about doing errands while thinking about other things, but when poked, it does feel different from his other thoughts, in a hard-to-describe way. 

He can think about smashing the stool but this doesn't seem to be linked to the thought-thread in control of his actions. 

Huh. But presumably you can't check whether your actions are compulsion-based by just - interrupting them - how much can he dawdle about giving it to Leareth -

He can take slower or smaller steps but not stop, apparently. 

- so if you're ever in doubt, try stopping. That seems good to know. He gives Leareth the stool. 

"Thank you. I am taking it off." Leareth sets the stool down. "That was a compulsion on the level of action. They can also be done at more indirectly at the layer of goals. It takes more skill and I am not sure I can manage it yet, but in theory it should be harder to notice because it will interact more smoothly with other thoughts and goal-threads." 

"- yeah, that seems like it'd be harder to notice. What happens if you try it and don't have enough skill for it yet -"

"I think either it fails entirely - possibly in a way noticeable to you - or it ends up just being the action-kind anyway. Should I try?" 

"Sure - I don't know what's the most helpful line of practice here, me learning interesting things about compulsions is surely a secondary priority -"

"I am not exactly sure either. Very complicated conditional actions are also a higher-skill compulsion - for example, the accidental failed murder attempt on Vanyel that happened because my system for cancelling it apparently had an error, was a conditional compulsion based on Vanyel being present and not in a state to defend himself, which would be very rare for him and is a subjective judgement, and also it did not specify a weapon. That is a violent example, but some kind of careful conditional would also be required for nonviolently infiltrating a spy in wartime and managing to obtain reports from them." 

"That makes sense. As long as nothing's going to break anything in my head if it fails, and as long as you can remove it afterwards, I'm fine with trying things that you don't expect to have down yet."

"It may be uncomfortable or startling if it fails, but it should not cause any damage, it is really a minimal amount of power. Hmm. Can you do a handstand?" 

"Yes."

Leareth focuses hard, and tries to set down a compulsion telling Maitimo that he wants to show off a handstand. 

He wants to show off a handstand!

- does he? Or is Leareth trying to make him. Can he instead want to stand still just to check whether he in fact wants to show off a handstand.

The wanting to do a handstand is momentarily in tension with the wanting to check whether he wants to do a handstand, and then it sort of snaps, which gives him a brainzappy feeling that isn't quite painful but is very surprising and makes him lose his train of thought entirely. 

"Sorry!" Leareth says. "I did not do it very well. Are you all right?" 

- he shakes his head for a second and then bounces his impression of what happened to Leareth. 

"I did it badly," Leareth says apologetically, rising from his stool and going to him. "Maitimo, are you hurt?" 

"I don't think so! Just distracted - you warned me that might happen -"

"I think that I did not do it very skillfully, and it was holding by itself, but then you noticed it and put strain on it? If it had been better done it would have lasted through that. And been less noticeable in the first place, probably." 

"I was trying to check my theory that you can test whether a desire is a compulsion by trying to stop making progress on it for a few seconds."

"I see. I think that would definitely work for an immediate action-type compulsion - you could do the action in a different way but not cease it to do a different action instead. I think that if I had done the desire-affecting type more effectively, it would not be as obvious, but it might still behave differently than your own native desires when you try to delay them." He shakes his head. "Making compulsions invisible to someone who actively expects and is looking for them is a much harder problem." 

"Yes, sorry. ...I could forget that this is what we're doing, though I worry that might lead to very confusing conversations or something."

"What, you can cause yourself to forget this deliberately?" Leareth frowns. "I had been thinking that it could be easier if we are engaging in some other activity and I try to slip a subtle one in without interrupting or telling you what it is. If I can get to the point that it is difficult for you to recognize them and recognizing them does not break them, I will feel much more comfortable that I have the skill to make them subtle enough for, say, enemy soldiers who are not expecting it." 

"You can use oaths to forget things. I considered doing that strategically when we had just met but it's a dangerous thing to be doing in a genuinely adversarial context. It's probably smarter to just talk about other things and you can try to slip them in without interrupting."

"That is...very disturbing, actually. I wonder if it would show up to a Mindhealer - and whether the memory would be retrievable to them. I am glad you did not do it when we had just met!" He frowns. "I wish to practice a few more just to get the stability side of it down, before I worry about the subtlety." 

"Yeah, oaths are scary. Part of why I didn't was not wanting to draw much of your attention to what oaths can do." He sits down. "Trying some more sounds good."

Then Leareth will try getting Maitimo to hop on one foot and spin in circles and sing a particular song and count down from ten backwards and various other silly antics. He tries both with the direct action version until he can do that very solidly, then tries with the one-step-upstream version that should act on wanting instead, and once he's more sure of that he asks Maitimo to try the thing that broke it before. 

He wants to pause before he claps his hands to check whether that's a compulsion.

The desire to handclap doesn't helpfully stop and inform him that it's a compulsion, but it does just sit there, not changing or shifting at all, in a way that feels a bit jarring. 

- he claps his hands. "Okay, I'm pretty sure noticing it doesn't break it."

"Good! Maybe now we can do something else and I will try to slip one in - hmm, what is a good diversion..." There isn't exactly a lot to do in the Work Room.

"I could sing something? Or we could go somewhere else - it's important to me that people aren't around but not how thoroughly shielded the place is -"

"I suppose we can go back to my room and maybe you can help me put some of my records away neatly, the library is still kind of a mess." 

"Sure." He pauses, makes a face, does nothing for a few seconds. "- yeah, sure."

"Are you going to be stopping and checking in every single interaction we have now whether something is a compulsion?" Leareth says, smiling. "I am not intending to use them on you without asking after this practice session." 

"I might see if I can trim it down to a not-externally-obvious form that still lets me notice? Not because of you, I trust you, but - it's a big universe, apparently, right -"

"That makes sense. It would seem like an important skill, being able to check." Leareth gets up and pushes his stool against the wall. 

"And I have a lot of attention, it is probably the wrong tradeoff with a human amount of attention."

"I have mental habits set up that would catch many external compulsions," Leareth points out. "In fact, that is how I eventually noticed Melkor's memory alterations, and would have remarked on it much sooner if I had been in any position to do my usual record-keeping and checking."  

"That's good." He hesitates, and then hugs him. "Very impressive, really. What mental habits -"

"Thank you."

Leareth hugs him back, then bounces him an impression of what it feels like as they walk. It's kind of an artifact of how he has to relearn multiple lifetimes worth of knowledge and memory at each new beginning, cramming it all into a year or two of reading through his records, using mnemonics, categorizing them in a way where he can find them again without the usual memory context cues like 'where he was when it happened'. And then he keeps using that structure for day-to-day events, because he has to make a new set of records as he goes for the next time, and ideally keep it sorted and do regular summaries because it's not like he gets a neat five years' warning before he's going to die again.

And that means that if he's remembering things that don't fit that system, it eventually stands out. Melkor's repeated alterations were pretty subtle, actually, but they affected the structure of how he had stored the last 'day' worth of memory enough that it was obvious as soon as he actually thought to check. It's too bad that took an entire two years. 

Shiver. 

You figured it out in time, in the most important sense.

...Honestly it seems sometimes like Maitimo is more disturbed when the topic of Melkor comes up than Leareth is, at this point.

They reach his room. :All right, I need these ones to go into a pile here, in order...: 

Little pause and then he'll help Leareth reorganize.

Leareth lays out the boxes that various sets of records came from in a row, and puts one of them awkwardly far for Maitimo to reach, and then while Maitimo is midway through combining a stack, floats out a very gentle compulsion that he wants the box to be a bit nearer at hand and could pull it closer when he next has his hands free. 

This works fine; he pulls it closer without thinking about it at all.

Leareth lets it pass without saying anything. A minute or so later, he tries for a compulsion that might be a bit more jarring. Maitimo wants to swipe a book from the top of Leareth's current pile and put it in the box he's currently loading. 

He should grab that book - why should he grab that book - he should ask Leareth whether he should grab that book instead of just moving it - these thoughts fail to displace the conviction that he should grab the book -

Leareth watches this for a few moments longer. :Did you notice that?: he sends finally, releasing the compulsion. 

I think so? Not in a very productive fashion but I did poke it and find the poking kind of dissatisfying.

:I was able to do one earlier that I think you did not remark on, though mostly because it was something you might have done on your own anyway: He describes the box-moving. 

Huh. Yes, I didn't notice that one.

Nod. :It appears I can do compulsions carefully enough that you will notice the magic in itself, which is good, but I cannot get anything past you if it is at all uncharacteristic. I am not sure how much this is because you were prepared for it and are unusually good at observing your thoughts: 

I bet it's mostly that I'm paying particular attention. 

:I mostly feel comfortable with this amount of practice, actually? I suppose I might try giving you a more complicated conditional one that does not involve a well-specified action with objects I can see in front of me. It can be entirely in my rooms: 

All right. As long as other people aren't affected and don't notice you can do what you'd like.

Leareth gives it some thought. 

Then he smiles, and puts in a more complicated compulsion. He wants Maitimo to make a little art installation that celebrates him getting his magic back and is made entirely from objects findable in his room. (Quendi make art just by existing, this shouldn't actually be hard for him.) Also, everything needs to be colour-themed based on the first item Maitimo finds. He adds in a couple more silly specifications based on which objects he finds or picks up in what order and then lets it go with a little push. 

Maitimo putters around Leareth's room picking things up and looking at them and setting them on the desk. Occasionally he pauses and frowns to himself. He hums while he works. 

"Did you want these somewhere in particular," he asks while he is assembling them into a little mobile sculpture and fashioning a peg from which to hang it above the desk.

:I had not selected a particular place for it, no: 

"All right."  Having finished this he starts straightening up the books on the bookshelf. "Probably we should also dust but I don't actually know how to dust, I have never done it."

"I think one uses a duster, usually it is a lot of feathers on a stick? Is that necessary for it to be pretty or are you doing it just because now, I cannot tell from here." 

"As far as I know I am just occupying myself while you figure out what you want to do with me; if you have already figured it out then congratulations, you successfully slipped it past me."

"Oh. I thought it would be much more obvious than that." He explains. "Would you normally walk around turning my possessions into sculptures if I were boring you?" 

"Probably not that in particular? But I was checking at the wrong level, I kept checking whether I could stop what I was doing with specific things. I think you've got it."

Leareth nods. :Well, I have removed it now and I will not do any more unless you expressly give your permission again. Thank you for allowing me to practice, I appreciate it greatly:

Of course. He has, and sends, a vague sense that Leareth is now feeling more obligation to be meticulously ethical about compulsions than Maitimo actually needs to feel comfortable, and, well, they're not a good tool to use, probably it's just fine, but still, Leareth's not on thin ice, that'd better be clear -

Leareth nods, slowly. This feels like it's related to one of the things he's been slowly trying to shift, where he - hasn't trusted himself anymore, for most of the last five years, to actually use his judgement on which actions are justified. He has tended to fall back more on what Maitimo and Vanyel and Melody think, or his best understanding of it anyway. It's really only in the past year that he's been pushing himself harder on going with his own sense and reasoning.  

Being as conscientious as Leareth is being is probably correct for someone who reacted to their last conversation in, well, the way that Maitimo did. It's really very reasonable. But Maitimo's not afraid of him. He's glad he's back, overwhelmingly so, and proud, and not-sending-that-thought. And he thinks Leareth can trust himself.

Well, for now Leareth is going to trust himself that using compulsions on Maitimo without his permission seems like a really useless thing to do and rude. 

"All right. I'll see you later?"

"See you." Leareth will go see if Vanyel's around for more of the slinging-lightning-bolts style of magic practice. 

It's really really good to have him back. 

He goes through to Vinyamar; he should figure out who Treven should meet there, and he should stop hanging around having a crush on Leareth, that is an objectively ridiculous thing to be doing with his afternoon.

Jisa goes down the list of Melody's patients who want to meet her! She does not mention her age. 

And then Melody can finish packing up her room and say her slightly wistful goodbyes before Vanyel Gates her back to the Haven terminus in Velgarth. She'll still be around at sunset if Maitimo gets back before then. 

He will, yeah, to say goodbye. "We'll be thankful forever. I hope you have a very long and very restful vacation."

"Knowing me, I'll take a real vacation for about three weeks and I'll get bored. But, I hope so too." She hugs Vanyel and then steps across the Gate. 

And Jisa runs off back to her new room, joining paths with Stef halfway there. 

"So?" he says expectantly once they're inside. 

"You're completely right. They would be very cute together. And they are never ever going to notice this." 

Stef looks smugly satisfied. "Intervention time?" 

"I don't have the slightest idea how Quendi having relationships works. Melody did not onboard me on that aspect." 

"I don't either. Literally the only thing I know is that if a man and a woman sleep together then now they're married. But not if it's two men or two women because their entire species is unfair. People gave Van and I the weirdest looks for years." 

"Perfect, they're literally all Vanyel's father." Jisa rolls her eyes. "Do you know what sorts of things they find romantic? Going to concerts, walking around flower gardens...?" 

"I have no idea because they do both of those all the time anyway, I can't pick out whether some of it is meant to be specially romantic." 

"We should ask. We should just go out in the town square and I'll say I'm trying to learn more about their world and I'll ask how people court each other and what sorts of things are romantic and all that." 

Grin. "Sure, let's do it." 

The town square is full of Quendi cleaning and singing and talking to each other.

Jisa smiles and waves brightly at one of them. 

"Hello! Can I help you find something?"

"No, I got shown around a bit. I'm just trying to get more of a cultural explanation? I'm taking over from Melody but we only had today and last night to talk and this is my first time visiting, so I don't know a lot of things about your people and I don't want to make any silly blunders. So, for example - how do people end up married to each other? If someone decides they fancy someone else, how do they show that?" 

" - gosh. Well, if you like somebody a great deal and you think you might want to marry them someday, you pine for them."

"Huh? Pine for them how? Is...this something where they're supposed to notice how hard you're pining and find it very romantic?" 

Stef is trying so valiantly hard not to snicker. 

"I mean, it's a little complicated? You want them to have some notice so they have time to think about whether they want you back but you don't want it to be firmly common knowledge because then you might get ahead of yourselves and skip the pining step. But you become friends with them, and spend lots of time around them, and think all the time about how wonderful they are, and maybe tell third parties that you are in love but not with who, and write poems that are ambiguous, and compose songs with them and spend lots of your time singing them, and get them expensive presents. And you should have in mind when you're going to stop pining and say something, like maybe 'in a hundred years' or maybe 'once they're declared a master of silversmithing' or 'once the war is over', if you were lucky enough to start pining for someone right when the war started, pining for the length of a war is respectable even though it didn't turn out to be a long war at all."

Stef exchanges a Look with Jisa. 

Jisa is thinking that it does sound kind of romantic, actually, though also it sounds very very inconvenient. "So the idea is that they sort of know you're pining for them, but you haven't talked about it or anything so it's plausibly deniable, and then once you've done enough pining you go talk to them about it? Is there a usual sort of romantic gesture for when you do that, like making a special present or, I don't know, reciting them a poem that's not ambiguous?" 

"Then you confess your love! Writing a poem that's not ambiguous would work."

"Aww." 

"Is there anything in particular the person being pined for is supposed to do to show that they're interested, before the proper confession time? Or do they just pretend not to notice?" 

"Well if you don't like them you should communicate that, by saying you never plan to marry or confessing that you're looking at someone else or something. But otherwise you should pretend not to notice."

They look at each other again. 

"Do people often announce that they're planning to never marry?" Jisa asks. "Do they actually never marry then? 'Never' is a really long time." For Quendi, anyway.

(Jisa is very jealous about the part where Quendi don't die and she hasn't announced this to anyone yet but if the Quendi aid to Velgarth doesn't result in a solution for humans not dying by the time she's thirty or so, she's going to start solving it herself.) 

"Not very often but sometimes. I think if you declare that and then change your mind centuries later that's all right but you should require a lot of time to change your mind, so as not to be rude."

"Right, that makes sense, it'd be hurtful if it was obviously just an excuse to not marry them." 

"Yeah, exactly. But people understand that maybe centuries later you change your mind about things."

Nod. "Well, thank you for explaining all of that! It sounds very sweet. Is there anything else important to know about, er, this topic?" 

"...I know humans are different," she says, pointedly not looking at Stef, "but for Quendi, women only fall in love with men and men only fall in love with women. It's how we were designed."

"Right, Melody did explain that, but thank you." 

"Then I don't think there are any other differences."

Jisa bobs her head and smiles. "Thank you so much for explaining all that! It's really helpful. Er, we'll let you go on with your day now." 

"All right! Have a lovely day!"

They head back to Jisa's new room. 

"Pining for a hundred years!" Jisa says with a dramatic sigh. "That sounds agonizing." 

"Well, Quendi don't think a hundred years is even very long." 

"Hmm. Where do you think it's at now?" 

Shrug. "Pretty sure Maitimo's been pining for him. Probably the entire time? I think Leareth would've noticed if he were Quendi, but he's not and also he was really messed up and all. Which, apparently," he rolls his eyes a bit, "would've made it 'unethical' or something for Maitimo to try to start something with him."  

Jisa lowers her voice, even though her room is helpfully equipped with shields courtesy of Vanyel. "Didn't you think Maitimo was already with someone?" 

"Yes, and also he's clearly interested in Leareth too." 

"I thought Quendi didn't really do, er, being with two different people at once?" 

"They think it's really bad! But also they think two men or two women being together is really bad. And anyway I think it's being married to two people at once that they think Eru is against. Which wouldn't come up here." 

"...Huh. I'm kind of confused about that? You'd think if they were actually made that way then it wouldn't be possible for them to be interested in people of the same sex. And that'd it, I don't know, be more obviously a thing in how their minds are. Melody says the difference where they can make oaths is visible in how their minds are laid out." 

Shrug. "I don't know either. Anyway. You've actually met Leareth for a bit now. Do you think he'd be interested back if he had any idea how Maitimo feels?" 

"Hmm. Can't tell for sure, his mind is weird, but - honestly I think he loves Maitimo already? It just hasn't occurred to him that it being romantic love is even on the table. I'm not sure how he'd react if he figured that out but I agree it'd be really good for him." 

"...Is it even ethical to scheme behind your patients' backs about who they should be with?" 

Jisa makes a face. "Stef, you are the last person in the world who's allowed to have commentary on what's ethical. Anyway he's only sort of my patient, he got better pretty fast compared to the Quendi and the plan is I'll only see him if some new problem comes up." 

Stef sticks out his tongue at her. 

"...How can we get him to find out? Er, if you're sure it wouldn't end up being bad for him to know." 

"I think it might've been bad a few years ago but not now. He got his magic back and everything. Honestly I think pining 'until Leareth gets his magic back' is a perfectly respectable milestone, it could've taken way longer. Anyway. Reckon Maitimo's other boyfriend knows that he fancies Leareth?" 

"He's got eyes," Stef scoffs. "He's got to know." 

"Hmm. And I bet he doesn't have a Thoughtsensing shield. Leareth has to have been in the same room as him before but maybe he was being polite and not trying to read all his thoughts on purpose, or just thought it was boring. But if we can get them to be in the same room at some point and then, I don't know, somehow get him to think it really obviously - maybe if you sang a really over the top romantic ballad, or got the conversation onto asking Leareth whether he's been married in his past lives, or, hmm, I'm sure we can think of something..." 

Leareth walks back to his room with Vanyel late that afternoon, tired again but pleasantly so. "Maybe I should arrange to work on artifacts tomorrow. I am not sure what the current priorities there are." 

"Well, the Dwarves want to buy some permanent Gates from us. I bet they'd buy more things if we gave them options – you know all sorts of artifact magic I don't. We could ask Maitimo, I guess." :Maitimo, you free at all tonight to talk about what kinds of magic artifacts we could offer to sell the Dwarves or make for your people? Leareth wants to get some practice in on that next: 

Sure! I can stop by in about half an hour.

:Perfect, we'll get dinner and then meet you in Leareth's room?: 

Sounds good!

Half an hour later Vanyel is in Leareth's library with him, going down one of his own lists of upcoming artifact work. 

He has some letters from Vinyamar with some ideas about things Dwarves might buy, and things Vinyamar could use.

Stef catches up a few minutes later, a half-eaten pastry in his hand. He looks around for a free chair and then shrugs and sits sideways across Vanyel's lap. 

"Hey, careful," Vanyel says halfheartedly, grabbing his notes out of the way. 

"What's on the agenda tonight?" Stef says cheerfully, ignoring his protests. 

"We're figuring out magic things we can sell so Leareth can practice making them. And also have some spending money."

"Ooh. There's the Dwarves, I assume you thought of that... What about that new city Nolofinwë wants to found? You should ask him what he needs. Or probably ask Findekáno, actually - he's easier to get ahold of, right?" 

"He is somewhat easier to get a hold of. They'll need a Gate threshold and probably emergency protections for the walls, just in case."

"Makes sense. We should go through the magics you know that I don't, Leareth. I was eventually able to replicate your weather-barrier from an artifact focus but it took me forever. What else is there?" 

Leareth thinks. "There are some designs that I was not very able to deploy in Velgarth because apparently the gods disliked them. Some kinds of simple weather magic can be made a set-spell in that way - to make rain come, for example. I had a prototype once for a sort of artifact that would harvest crops, which would be of much greater value here since it could be linked to an Arda artifact rather than requiring a mage to re-power it every day. There are the various kinds of preservation that can be done to make buildings last longer..." 

"That will be popular everywhere we don't have the Silmarils."

Leareth nods and makes some notes. "If you have the materials for it I can work on the permanent Gate components tomorrow." He's impatient to start but also realistically too tired to do any more magic today. "Vanyel ought to be there to check my work the first few times, I think." 

"Sure, of course, I can do that. And make sure you don't overdo it and give yourself backlash again." 

"I need to re-calibrate on how much magic is feasible in a day," Leareth agrees. "Also I think that my endurance is much less than it was because I am so out of form. I am sure it will come back with practice but - it is like physical exercise, right? I need to push it somewhat to regain my fitness." 

"Yes, but there's 'somewhat' and then there's 'you have a headache and can't sleep' and it seems preferable to avoid the second thing." 

"The artifact engineers are still working on giving mages more endurance, though it's lower priority than the memory stuff and some stabs at human immortality, right now."

Leareth's eyes widen. "How far along is the immortality research? ...If I have the option of not - needing to use my existing method for another iteration - I would very much like that." 

"Early stages. I think probably we'll have it inside a century, and we have that long, right, but - early stages. Not all projects at that stage even pan out at all. Relocating to Vinyamar should also buy you some time, if you want to do that, the Silmarils have been set to imitate Valinor including in delaying the aging process."

"Oh." Leareth lets out his breath. "I ought to consider doing that, probably. I should have had another century in this body, with my usual life-extension magics, but I was not doing them during the last ten subjective years and I am unsure how much of a difference that will make. But - six months or a year to decide will not make a massive difference, I do not think." 

"I wouldn't expect so."

Leareth nods, looks thoughtful, and then continues listing potential artifacts with Vanyel until the sun is properly down and it’s a reasonable time for bed. 

“I’d like my Vanyel back now,” Stef says cheerfully, tugging him into standing up. “You’ll have tomorrow and also the entire next decade to talk about neat magic.”

"I can ask Nolofinwë about what it is that they need, if you run out of project ideas." He stands up too. "Good night."

"Thank you." Leareth hugs him and then heads off to get ready for bed, smiling to himself. Maybe he's not quite ready to run a large-scale organization yet, but it feels very, very good to be orienting to the current priorities and accomplishing useful work again. 

He goes through to Vinyamar. 

Do you have thoughts on what your city will need -

Lots of them, starting with a location - can you be more specific? 

Leareth's looking for magic projects.

That's got to be a good sign. Uh, refrigeration, heating - can you make one object that does both in different directions, seems like something you ought to be able to do - mechanical looms?

Oooh, that's an idea. I'll pass it along. 

It might be good for the permanent Gate to the new city to be out of Tol Eressëa, not out of Vinyamar. Since I could imagine access to Vinyamar becoming - contested - and I don't expect that for Tol Eressëa. 

This has crossed my mind. I'll see what I can do.

It'd also be easier to see each other without it being a notable amount of travel.

This, too, has crossed my mind.

In the morning he passes along the mechanical loom idea and the suggestion that the base Gate be in Tol Eressëa.

:Oh - is Vanyel's permanent Gate setup one where they are linked directly in pairs? I can set it up so it is possible to go between any two Gates in the network, if the user has the right keys. Though if you prefer it not to be possible to go directly between two given locations without an intermediate step, which I suppose you might for the Dwarves or others we sell Gates to, then I can arrange that as well: 

Oh! I like the idea in principle of it being possible to go between any Gates but - is that leaving us vulnerable to the thing that happened in your world -

Leareth blinks, confused. :Which thing?:

Bad magic event at one Gate, propagated everywhere through the network -

:Oh. Perhaps. Though that risk would also be there if they were merely linked in a linear way - for example, if our Gate-threshold here went both to Vinyamar and the new city. We would have to build a second terminus here and have each of them be linked to only one place in order to avoid the connectedness risk, which I suppose we could do but does duplicate effort a great deal. Though I do think it would be worth considering to avoid connecting the entire network - for example, two networks of ten Gates instead of a single network of twenty would halve the total damage that could be caused by a catastrophic magical event at one of them: 

How much duplicated effort are we talking about - it's peacetime, we can afford lots of duplicated effort for resiliency we might need later -

:That is true. I am not sure how long it takes Vanyel to build a single terminus but I could do it in a week of focused work once I am back in shape and using Fëanáro's artifact for it, now that the design exists. I suppose a week now is actually rather cheap. For the best protection against the network effect, we would want the thresholds to be shielded from each other, but that would be less than a week per, perhaps two or three days: 

Okay. I think that sounds worth it to me. It's less elegant but I think we should expect there are more potential problems out there somewhere.

:That makes sense. I had already been thinking that the Velgarth inter-world Gate ought not link to anything else within Arda; it is much easier to guard a single point of contact, there: 

He frowns, thoughtful. :It is possible I can build in precautions where the Gate will shut down in response to a local overload of magic, rather than propagating it across. It would be harder to do this in Velgarth given how the power sources need to work, but it is definitely worth research effort on whether it can be done here - there is a much cleaner interface between the Gate set-spell itself and the Arda-type artifact that feeds it, which ought to make it easier to disconnect quickly in an emergency: 

Oooh. That sounds useful.

:I will see what I can do: 

Leareth heads off to find Vanyel, and they spend the morning in Vanyel's workshop where he does artifacts, looking over the various raw materials and discussing what modifications need to be made up-front in order to set it up, and to what extent the current Gates would need to be dismantled and rebuilt. 

Jisa has a very busy morning, but she and Stef convene in her room over her lunch break. "So?" she says hopefully. 

Sigh. "I tried to drop the bait but I think Maitimo just went to Vinyamar by himself and talked to Findekáno and brought back some suggestions. I'll keep looking for when I can make helpful suggestions about it, though." 

"Leareth probably has to go over at some point just to look at the existing artifact work in Vinyamar, no? Maybe you could suggest he and Van go survey it so Leareth can make suggestions for what to do differently in setting up the new city." 

"Hmm. The trouble is I don't know how much that's actually necessary and I'm not sure it'd make sense for Maitimo to go along, but I'll try to plot something like that." 

Maitimo spends about half his time in Vinyamar, these days; it is the primary city of the kingdom he is supposed to be running, after all. He mostly times this for when Leareth is sleeping or working. There is a lot to do; there's planning the new city, and integrating the populations from a bunch of separate Beleriand communities destroyed by orcs during the war, and figuring out what to do about remaining orcs, and figuring out what to do about the new humans. 

"Did you still want to go check them for Gifts at some point?"

"Right, I was going to do that. I ought to check with Vanyel whether it makes sense to plan some artifact setup on the same trip. Where are the humans located relative to Vinyamar?"