"Oh, I assumed you meant best case for you. Best case for me is that it fractures the alliance and all of you squabble among each other until darkness reigns over both worlds. Which is worst case from your perspective."

Telumë laughs again. He can't help it. "...Indeed. The gods certainly do hate us very much and one assumes they are laughing at us right now. How likely do you think it is that it would actually fracture the alliance entirely - is that a realistic worst case or a hypothetical one, what would you judge the odds of it to be?" 

"It seems spectacularly unlikely, you'd have to hit him just wrong, but the marriage thing happening was spectacularly unlikely too -

- you're building the god, right, that's the thing you'd want to use Quendi for rather than anyone else, and you're building a god you designed based on your ethics and if it fractures the alliance that looks like my father deciding that actually he's not sure that ought to exist."

...Which would not actually be unreasonable of him, Telumë thinks dully. He's only barely gotten used to it not being the case that just about anyone in the world with any decency thinks he's a monster. He doesn't know whether or not it's true that he is, or - whether it would matter - or what any of it means, he can't think about it right now because the core of him is built on seeing the stars through Maitimo's eyes - on Maitimo having showed him the path to rebuilding himself after his worst nightmare - and now this is happening and, well, actually, this seems like a rather effective way for the gods to destroy him if that's what they're trying to do. 

He can think about all of that later. Not now. "What are the levers controllable on our end for having it hit him better rather than worse?" he asks. He doesn't mention the god inference; he could ask what pieces of information Maitimo needs, to re-derive it later, but actually in the case they're thinking about it seems hard to have him not guess those aspects and then guess the rest... 

Headshake. "I love you. I want to help you with this. But I told you my conditions, I want my head back. I am not going to willingly help you without that."

Telumë lets out his breath. "...I am not actually sure if this is enough information to determine if it is worth risking your help. In any case we will have to talk about it." Hopefully Melody got slightly more from his thoughts. "In any case, you remembering this specific conversation is not on the table. You can sleep while we go off and talk, in which case I would brief you on my decision when you wake up not remembering, or you can wait, either is fine." 

"I'll wait."

"Do you want a random human to keep you company in the meantime?" 

"Always."

They can send in Kalira again, then. He won't remember her, but she remembers him and likes him. 

And he can make conversation with Kalira while rehearsing this conversation in his head so he hasn't forgotten it by the time Telumë comes back anyway.

And they go off and discuss. 

Melody currently thinks that it seems like Maitimo really wants to help Telumë, actually. The oath to Sauron doesn't touch that part at all. It does mean that Maitimo feels tied in whether he can justify helping Telumë, given that most possible versions of that do the opposite of help his strategic aims, and that isn't allowed. But - he genuinely wants it. And while it's not precisely true that he's negotiating in good faith, here, he is negotiating from a place of honesty about what he wants. 

Telumë thinks. He gets out paper and thinks in writing and out loud to Melody and Jisa. He paces. 

A couple of hours later he goes back. "Maitimo. After some consideration, I think perhaps we can negotiate an agreement that is beneficial to both of our interests, here." 

-happylovenervous -

"I'd really like that."

"...This is also not a very good honeymoon but honestly it is rather in character with the rest of my life." Feeling happy emotions from Maitimo is - really really good, actually, he hasn't had a chance to realize until now that it would be. 

Maitimo loves him and - should probably focus on hashing this out, now. 

So Maitimo's default move if he gets sent back to Arda is to convince everyone that Telumë is too evil and reckless to trust with the war effort. ("Incidentally, I think that's clearly untrue; if I believed it I'd be all in favor of helping you build your god!") He thinks he could succeed at this; it is the kind of thing he's good at and he knows the people he'd have to convince exceptionally well. Telumë knows this and can't let him, so he can either send Maitimo back under some kind of oath not to do that or he can try to keep this a secret and not send Maitimo back at all. There's sort of an argument that Maitimo ought to push in one of those directions and hope that they blow up in the alliance's face at some point but -

- he doesn't want to. He doesn't really want to be making important strategic decisions with half his head missing at all, really, and he sees a route to getting his head back and he's willing to trade this particular avenue for affecting the world for having his head back. And - and he's watched what it is doing to Telumë to have the path to his goals run so sharply through destroying the person he loves and it does not seem like it's been very good for Telumë's ability to accomplish his goals so he prefers not to put himself in that position. 

So he will agree to work with Telumë, cooperatively, under whatever kind of magic verification Telumë wants, for the duration of the negotiations about his release to Noldorin custody, on making sure that this doesn't blow up the alliance. As part of that he thinks they should call in his father, and call in Findekáno, and talk through the question of whether Telumë's judgment is too poor to be running the war effort, without Maitimo deliberately trying to steer that conversation towards 'yes' - "I guess you can decide whether you'd like me to steer it to 'no' or just not steer it, though I kind of think that if you want to add some new checks on your judgment and character you should probably not look for them among important Noldorin political figures most likely to be furious about this, so you should have me steer them to 'no' and then, I dunno, talk with Vanyel? Talk to me, maybe, while I'm modeling the person you fell in love with - anyway, once I have presented the situation to them in a reasonable way and they've decided how mad they are with you, and we've explained why I'd try to use this to break the alliance and they've decided whether they endorse being manipulated into that, that stops being a good avenue for me to interfere with the war effort once I return to Valinor, and I will have to occupy myself some other way."

And in exchange he wants his head back, entirely, insofar as that's a meaningful concept when they both know that his head is almost entirely sculpted around Sauron. 

Telumë can work with that. He's reasoned through a lot of that on his own, he agrees with Maitimo on pretty much all the major points. And - well, there's the purely strategic considerations, but also he wants to give Maitimo his head back, to the extent that he can justify. They both have some considerations here that aren't purely about their external goals. He agrees about steering the Noldor toward 'no' on the overall-dubious-judgement question – honestly, he thinks his judgement is clearly not great, but mostly in a way that is about one Maitimo-specific blind spot that he doesn't expect to apply to fighting a war or making a god, though he does kind of want Vanyel's opinion on that. 

(He absolutely is not looking forward to talking to Fëanáro or Findekáno about this, but he feels he has sort of given up the right to not get to do things because they're going to be very unpleasant and stressful and agonizing, not to mention embarrassing which is an emotion he's very unused to having.)

It's not that reasonable to expect Fëanáro to come to Velgarth without any specification of why, but also it seems best for Maitimo to be the one explaining it, so...maybe Maitimo should write a letter? Alternately they have an artifact that works with osanwë and only needs a mage on one end, and that could be Vanyel on the Arda side. Telumë isn't sure which of those is likely to go over better and/or is easier for Maitimo. 

Maitimo can write a letter. - Maitimo wants to write himself a letter outlining the terms of their agreement, and also every time he wakes up he's going to want Telumë and Melody to tell him in person that it was actually agreed-upon. And then he can write his father a letter. 

That makes sense. They'll happily tell him under first-level Truth Spell, even. The plan will be to remove the memory block along with everything else once Fëanáro and Findekáno are actually here, although this does mean Maitimo won't be able to have substantive conversations with Telumë after that point. Having a conversation with his husband at all that he gets to remember seems acceptable, if he wants that. 

–How are they going to handle inviting Findekáno when there is not really any reason for it that can be explained to the public? Secretly? Are they asking Fëanáro to handle this? It's possible Vanyel would be a better person for that, if Fëanáro is going to be mad about the part where Findekáno is Nolofinwë's son, although - really, this seems like a very minor sidenote given all the rest. 

It will not seem that way to Feanáro and it seems very cruel to Findekáno to have the news come from Fëanáro who hates him and is moderately likely to say something like "I'm a little annoyed that he didn't have a choice about it but at least it wasn't you". Also there's the off chance that Findekáno will break his nose and then there'll be two major diplomatic incidents in progress.  Maybe Vanyel can convey a letter from Maitimo for that one, too, and arrange for a secret visit.

Maitimo would like one conversation with Telumë that he can remember before he leaves. 

Oh no that would be, in fact, deeply unfair to Findekáno. Telumë can have Vanyel do that part, sure. Possibly the way to do this with the least annoying logistics is to have Jisa Gate to Tol Eréssea and inform Vanyel he has mail to distribute, since otherwise Vanyel has to travel out to where he can Gate, and also Jisa really ought to be in the same world as her lifebonded. 

Sure. The conversation with Findekáno will be a lot harder to finesse than the one with Fëanáro but - "I trust him. I - expect him to want the same things we do, here."

He hopes so. 

"...On reflection, probably it is better if Vanyel knows the contents of the letters he is conveying," Telumë says, more thinking out loud than anything else. He's surprised how - something - it is, conducting a negotiation with Maitimo when they're mostly adversaries, none of 'comfortable' and 'easy' and 'relaxing' are the right words to use for it but - he's glad they can do it this way. "We could have Jisa explain, or you could write a letter to him as well. I - do not expect him to need as much finessing, it helps that he is used to thinking of me as a not particularly ethical person, but he will be very concerned and probably angry and it would be helpful if he were not having that reaction in real time in front of your father." 

- nod. " - how many times did we have sex. Findekáno will ask and it will go over really badly if my answer is "I have no idea"."

“Twice.” It could be more than that nope he is going to step on that impulse very hard. “Once before the marriage happened. I have no idea what changed the second time.”