"Oh, yeah, almost certainly. There aren't any plans and maybe without him atoms in Arda would fail to adhere into molecules or something. But - if it left the world safe and the same except with no one steering it - if you offered Sauron the opportunity to Final Strike and take out Eru, somehow, he'd do it."

"Huh." For a moment Telumë actually feels sort of wistful. "Unfortunately I doubt that is enough common ground to actually form an alliance on, especially given the lack of any concrete options to accomplish that. But if I ever accidentally stumble on a way that Sauron could Final Strike and destroy Eru and leave the world otherwise intact, I might have to tell him of it."

"I don't think it is or I'd have tried to negotiate with you sooner - I expected I could reach you by osanwë, from Iftel - thought sometimes about what I'd say -"

Telumë had wondered. "What are the things you considered saying?" 

"- it isn't obvious to me whether it'd be better to have both Melkor and your god in the world or neither. If both is better, we could've negotiated an agreement rather than end up with neither. But I wasn't at all sure which you'd prefer, and it'd have to be pretty decisively better to have both for the deal to look good, and otherwise the information about Melkor would be too useful, so there wasn't really any way to start even if there was actually an improvement to be had. 

It does seem, though, like probably gods can find a lot of common ground, just by virtue of - having so many dimensions to them - I do sort of expect that if Melkor and your god both existed and neither was confident they could defeat the other they'd arrive at some kind of agreement that was a lot better for both of them than 'half and half'. But, you know, if I could win instead I'd do that, if you could win instead you'd do that, anything built off enough uncertainty about who'd win is so fragile when the process of negotiating it is nearly certain to clarify that uncertainty one way or the other."

“That is never a good starting point, no. I know the dilemma well.” Maitimo is thinking of it so - recognizably - the bits and pieces of Leareth he’s learned to contain shine through, and Telume can’t help but lean in and kiss his forehead. Gently. Probably being gentle won’t stop it from scaring Maitimo a little but it might at least help.

He goes still for a second, figuring out his head. Kisses him back.

Telumë will let him take the lead, mostly, it seems like the best way to navigate the awful tightrope of respecting what the person Maitimo is right now wants - the person he still loves, apparently, even if this is sort of insane because they’re enemies and they both know he’s going to destroy this Maitimo to bring back a different one as soon as he can, but - enough of him is the same, right, he can recognize those pieces even in the current configuration. And also this entire situation is terrible and is probably doing Maitimo-right-now a lot of harm anyway even if Telumë is trying very hard not to be as bad as Sauron...

(It’s very confusing but it’s not like it’s ever not been confusing.)

It's less confusing if you're trying to be a bad person. He's not sure if that's why he finally figured out what feels very obvious in retrospect, which is that the thing he's wanted his whole life isn't disallowed so much as convenient for Eru to discourage, that if the gods aren't trying to give you a good life then obviously the way they shaped marriage has nothing to do with giving you a good life, that obviously the thing relationships are without meddling is the thing they actually are.

He really should've thought of it the first time he learned that other gods had different rules. But he'd been thinking of it as - he'd been thinking of how he had to spin it to the Quendi public, which he'd known even at the time wasn't the same thing as what was true, but which had felt far more important - 

-  he takes Telumë to bed like the first time all those months ago and he is vaguely aware they're both playing a silly game where they assure themselves this is for the other person - but they both want it, so who cares - and for a little while nothing hurts, and he feels safe, and happy, and like the things that are most important are still within reach if he just notices that he's willing to reach for them.

And then he lurches backwards across the bed and blasts Telumë with TERRORTERRORTERROR he is pretty sure he's going to die right now and it's not fair -

Telumë has no idea what just happened! He yelps and backs off and tries to - shield - but shielding is not really helping. "Maitimo, I - what - did I hurt you...?" He is really hoping that someone is going to head over, Melody would be preferable but if it's Jisa that's still better than trying to fix this by himself when he can't even figure out what's happening–

"I didn't mean to - I swear I didn't mean to -" but he can't swear to things so the sentence doesn't even quite come together - "please check please check I didn't mean to -"

"Didn't mean to what?" Telumë says blankly. "Project at me - I'm all right - I didn't know you could do that but–"  

Jisa runs in about three seconds later and closes her eyes and projects at both of them, calm and reassurance, hard, it's going to be very obviously outside mind control and parse as hostile to Maitimo, understandably, which is inconvenient, but she can't follow what's happening and if he's this panicked she isn't going to be able to ask him.

Telumë's fine, she thinks, just shaken and as baffled as she is - she was watching Maitimo's thoughts and it was not zero alarming but everything about this situation has been alarming and concerning so she's sort of desensitized to it, and honestly on the whole she was happy, it seemed like a good realization for him to have...

She peers closer at his mind. Did they just lifebond? That makes no sense, and - no, it's not quite that - it's not as deep and it's differently-shaped and it's somehow originating on Maitimo's end and mostly there even if it's very clearly pointed at Telumë, and - ohhhhhhh. It should have been obvious sooner but she's only ever seen them going both ways and also this is not supposed to be possible. 

"Um, what, I thought Quendi marriage didn't work that way...?" 

"I also thought that," he says, very miserably. "I don't know what happened, I didn't do it, I didn't plan it, I promise -"

"Hey. I'm not going to hurt you." Jisa grabs the nearest chair and drags it over and sits. "I can tell you didn't mean for that to happen, but - Dara's going to come over here and Truth Spell you and if you say it again under Truth Spell then we'll just believe you, all right?" 

Dara arrives breathless thirty seconds later, looking very worried. "What–"

"First-level Truth Spell, please." Jisa waits for it to be up. "Maitimo, did you realize that was going to happen?" 

"No."

"Would you on any level have planned for it to happen, if you guessed it was possible?" 

"No! You're going to kill me!"

"Why do you think we're going to kill you?" 

"Only important thing - don't inconvenience him - I don't even know what I've got but it's - probably inconvenient -"

Jisa leans forward, looks into his eyes. "That is not the only important thing. You're still a person who matters even though you're opposed to all our goals right now. Honestly, most of us still like you, even. This certainly is inconvenient and we're going to have to figure out what marriage blessings you got and what to do about it but there is almost certainly something to be done about it that doesn't involve killing you." 

Skeptical, exhausted, scared. It's not her decision, it's Telumë's, and Maitimo's not looking at him but he's going to be so upset. "Right. Sorry. Just startled."