Were you expecting him to just - keep you for the rest of the war -

Yeah. Lean. He's not used to working with other people and he had so many precautions, obviously nowhere else was going to take anywhere near as many, I thought he wouldn't be willing to release me to people who he thought would make mistakes. And sometimes I didn't know how long it'd been.

He said you negotiated for the right to tell us.

I could've gone home and made it blow up into an enormous disaster so no one wanted to help Velgarth anymore. And he couldn't let me do that so he could've tried to cover it up. In his place I would've just lifted the suicide block, left me alone a long time, told everyone - sorry - if I didn't go for it he had Healing, he could've helped - I don't think he considered very carefully whether to do that but I felt very aware that it was acutely in his interests to cover it up -

- anyway we talked about it and decided to not go down that road, in exchange for me having more freedom in Valinor than he'd ever otherwise have agreed to. 

I realize it sounds awful. But not a kind of awful where you'll wreck the alliance over it, is what I figured, when we were hashing all this out. I think. I don't remember the negotiations.

He - hisses, under his breath. 

Your father should have insisted on a Noldorin observer present at all times for cultural sensitivity reasons, and so they could bounce you the memories someday when it's safe.

Maybe. I think it would have constrained Telumë a lot, more than is in the interests of your side. I don't remember any of the interrogations but I suspect there are very few people who could've watched.

What version would you have told me if you'd been trying to blow up the alliance over it.

He closes his eyes for a second. Would've said - I don't know how many times it happened but I remember waking up with my hair loose and not being surprised. The time I remember, he came in with Jisa. To tell me that they were done with the interrogation, but he still wanted to see me, if I was cooperative enough to make it work. And that they couldn't get any part of my head loose of the oath without just crushing it, and they preferred not to do that. And I - didn't want to be alone, very badly, but I was also scared that they'd break me if they did anything more to my head, so I begged them not to, and promised I wasn't being manipulative, wasn't working against them, had given up on steering. And he was pleased with that. And we flirted, and he kissed me and - sometimes I tried refusing food if I wasn't hungry. It never worked, they'd use Mindhealing to force me. I didn't try anything, when he kissed me. Tried to be happy, and not manipulative, and not complicated.

I noticed before they did and I thought through the strategic implications before they did and I figured they'd kill me. I think that was smart, to think that, because they'd have been likelier to do it if they'd been thinking of it as their idea rather than mine. I was panicking and they used magic to calm me down and I begged them to let me prove with a truth spell that I hadn't planned it and to let me keep the memory of how it happened. They did. I don't remember anything after that, though.

He holds him and does not say anything for a long time. I'm sorry. It shouldn't have happened. We should have done something to make sure it couldn't.

You would have if anyone had been telling you anything.

Shrug. 

Is that true? The - thing you said you would have said.

Yes. So's the letter, though. I don't know how people steer by the truth, it's everywhere, in all directions, all the time.

I mean, what else is there to steer by?

I don't suppose I can talk you into trying 'the rock-solid conviction that Sauron and Melkor are right about everything and that pain is the only kind of experience that actually matters.'

I would like to suppose you can't talk me into that. 

Lean. I think I couldn't. I think I could talk my father into it but not you, I think he'd keep listening and at some point you'd - stop listening. - that's a compliment.

Of course it is, he wants to say, but a very carefully chosen one, and the reassurance equally carefully chosen and - it's terrifying to be here, actually, but he cannot possibly walk away.

And Telumë is sitting several rooms away with his head in his hands - they added osanwë shielding to Maitimo's room earlier today, on the assumption that of course his visitors were going to want that restriction lifted, but it seems better to be safe than sorry, here.

He doesn't look up when Vanyel steps in. 

"What were you thinking." 

"...I was not thinking." No, that isn't entirely true, but... "I was - trying to do the right thing - in each specific moment - and I was being very stupid - in a way I did not realize because - because–" He can sort of flail at why, now, but he still doesn't have his head wrapped around it and he can tell that anything he can possibly say here is going to sound like an excuse. 

"I am going to cast a Truth Spell and you are going to tell me what happened." Vanyel does so. He leans against the wall, folds his arms. 

And Telumë goes through the last several weeks, slowly, hesitantly. Sometimes wishing Vanyel had osanwë so he could just bounce the memories to him directly - it's a lot harder to do that neatly with Thoughtsensing especially when you yourself are not a Thoughtsenser. He manages to say everything without crying again, somehow. 

"I see." 

Vanyel unfolds himself from the wall. Grabs a chair, sits down. Tries to think of what he can even say, here. 

"It's a very you-shaped mistake, right?" he says finally. "Because - I mean, I don't think I would do that, in any possible world, but - it's correlated to the the ways you can get things right that I can't." 

"Hmm?" Telumë isn't sure that he follows. 

"You try to - figure things out from first principles. Chart out the path that'll have the best results, not - following all the standard expectations or trying to be virtuous. And, I think that can get things right that people who think about ethics the more usual way won't get right? But, it relies really heavily on being able to think clearly. Knowing all the factors and considerations at play, being able to accurately predict the actual results of a decision, including unlikely ways it could go wrong - including giant gaping unknown-unknown factors like 'Quendi marriage doesn't work the way we think it does'." 

Vanyel drags a hand over his face. He's been thinking about this a lot but the words still come out slowly, fragmented. "And - you were trying to do an impossible thing. You were trying really really hard and I - don't blame you for wanting to succeed at it - but I wouldn't've even tried. I know it would mess up my head too much, trying to interact with someone who's that important to me," he's imagining Stef right now, oaths don't exist for humans but what if Sauron had somehow gotten to Stef in that way anyway, "and treat them both as a terrifyingly competent adversary and also as a lover and - also as someone who's extremely traumatized and in a lot of pain. I think it's just impossible to hold all those pieces in your head at once, actually, not to mention some of the pieces external to you and Maitimo in particular, like the way the Noldor would obviously react if they ever found out. You weren't modeling that, were you? You were just looking at him, and you, in that one moment, and he was sad and lonely and scared, and you correctly predicted he would be a bit happier in the moment if you slept with him, but that was not the only thing that mattered. It's not like you to neglect to notice longer-term possible externalities like that. But I'm not really surprised, because it would make me crazy too, trying to balance on that tightrope."