" - I remember the time we spent together and you don't so I should send it all over in as much detail as I can so you know what happened. You can -" shrug - "whatever it is you'll want to do to my head so you trust I'm not subtly sabotaging them -"

- if he hasn't offered yet then he hasn't forgotten very much. Maybe just the interrogation. Maybe a sensible approach, so that whatever Leareth had to do to him, he can now pretend he didn't - not that Maitimo's angry, obviously -

"I would appreciate that. Later, I think, I need to consider what precautions are sensible." Maybe wait until after they've fixed the oaths, or at least have a sense of whether that's going to be possible, Jisa is hopeful but Melody warns him she's like that about everything and it doesn't mean she's right. "I remember a surprising amount. I usually keep perhaps three dozen distinct memories, the rest is blurred, and - of those memories, ten or so are of you. Though they are not particularly in order and some were not in my records that survived at all so I have no idea when they happened. I remember watching the stars with you?"

His breath catches a little. "I usually take a new name, when I have a new body, it helps keep track. I called myself Telumë. From your language. For the sky." 

- nod. "- I understand why you're keeping me this way but it's very distracting, I keep thinking of questions and then having to consider whether they'd be in the first ten things I'd ask and not asking, if so, I don't want to be boring -"

He almost laughs, bites it back to a bittersweet chuckle. "Boring is the last thing I am worried about. I suppose if I am bored I will tell you, but - I would not mind answering all of the same questions again." It lets Maitimo hear his voice. Better than leaving him alone in here, which will very predictably make him miserable, Telumë will have to do it soon because he has work to do but not yet. 

"Is Vanyel all right? I know he's alive."

"He is. He is not here, but he knows you are." 

"Am I permitted other visitors?"

"If you wish. It seems very bad for you to be completely alone so we are hoping to avoid that for long periods. Is there anyone in particular you would like to see? I cannot promise they would come but I can note it down." 

"Probably it should be Quendi, there are more who aren't working on anything important. I can give you a list of names if you'd like."

"That will need your father's approval as well, not just mine, but I will take names down." And it'll take a while, but he doesn't intend to give Maitimo that information on their resources and logistics, it's not like he'll notice if it's a day or a month. 

So he gives him two dozen names. "My father won't miss them, I'm not going to be difficult and ask for anyone who might know anything or be working on anything."

"I know." Squeeze. "Is seeing strangers still better than being alone?" 

"Yes." He is startled that that's even a question.

"I assumed it would be but it seems polite to ask the actual you instead of the you in my head, since I have the actual you right here." Finally. "Other questions?"

"Once you have everything you need can I die, if I decide I'd rather."

"...I need to think about that." The actual answer is 'not before they've found a way to break the oaths' but he doesn't want to give Maitimo the information that they're even considering that, if he hasn't already guessed it from some subtlety of Telumë's body language. 

"Mmm," he says noncommittally.

Telumë waits without saying anything - he should've come up with a signal to ask Jisa what Maitimo's thinking, even though that's sort of unfair of him, and if it was anything concerning then she'd be letting him know - the fact that she has Mindhealing Sight as well and can match thoughts to goal-structures is helpful there, for knowing what's concerning and what isn't, it's been surprisingly non-concerning for the last bit. He's committed to leaving as soon as Jisa warns him that any of Maitimo's conscious thoughts are about manipulating him, and he expected to have to leave after about three minutes. 

(Maitimo is thinking that while he does not wish to die or strongly expect to anytime soon the question is a good litmus test for whether he matters, in an important sense - not as scaffolding for the normal Maitimo who they are hoping to get back eventually but as someone with some ownership of the body which he is after all currently and probably irretrievably piloting. And the answer is not very surprising. This comes with a lurch of worry about what will happen once Telumë properly internalizes that he's not going to get his boyfriend back but - no point in spending these little fragments of consciousness on worries that will long outlive them -)

"What Gifts do you have this time around?"

Telumë takes a moment to answer because Jisa just passed on those thoughts to him and he is now trying very hard not to cry - this would be enough, some part of him wants to say, there's enough Maitimo here that just seeing him like this for an hour a day would be - it's not the thing he wants, it's not what they were trying to be together, before, in an important sense it's deeply and maybe irretrievably broken, and, and–

–he cuts off that line of thought before he can find out where it's going. "Mage-gift and Healing." 

He whistles. "- then why aren't there compulsions so you can read my mind, do you have someone else - obviously you do -" - that means Telumë is not planning to have sex with him which he is sad about. 

A room away, Jisa giggles and then bites it back and decides she is kind of a horrible person for finding that funny and she's not going to pass it on to Telumë right now because her face is already warm. 

"I have someone else, yes." A lineup of someones so they can ever sleep. "Not having Thoughtsensing is very inconvenient but I cannot roll that dice right every time." 

"I only figured you had it because I expected otherwise I'd have to send them." Sigh. "Should've figured you didn't because otherwise we wouldn't even have gotten close."

"...I would have come here to talk to you anyway. Even if I did not have to, to - learn relevant strategic information. I love you."