"Just a moment." Vanyel slips outside the shields, Mindspeaks Jisa, comes back. "There is a random human teenager talking to him about birds right now. Apparently it's the fifth time they've had exactly the same conversation because he doesn't remember it and she is somehow fine with this, but - well, it'd be better if it were someone he knew. If we can pick some people in Arda now to assign to him, I could Gate them in right away, I'm not too tired or anything because Jisa did the Gate here." 

" - let me think. Probably we want to actually bring half of Maitimo's staff in the loop, if we have Maitimo-shaped holes in planning, and then the other half can look after him and hopefully notice if he's up to a lot of evil. Ask Larya who should be in which group."

"That's a good idea, I think. Was sort of the shape of thing I'd been thinking about - once we've decided which half are looking after him, I can - talk to them about how humans do this kind of intrigue, what they should watch out for." Shrug. "The thing I didn't say before is that I've trained as a spy. I'm not as good as Maitimo because I'm twenty-two years old, but - I think I have any of the skillset he has, particularly the side of it that's about trying to stop other people who also have those skills and are scheming against you." 

"I can use the communication artifact to contact Larya, and a Gate once they're ready?" Vanyel says, standing up. "Probably I should do that now?" 

"Yeah, sounds good to me." Sigh.

Vanyel leaves the room. 

Stef massages his face with both hands. "I hate this. I hate how we're already damaging the things we care about - you getting to be with Maitimo, that was - I really wanted there to be a way for him to have that. I'm sorry we aren't good enough to fill all the holes without you. If I were - older..." He yanks irritably at his hair, he's frustrated enough to momentarily forget why this is likely to be VERY DISTRACTING. "Why couldn't we have gotten the version of the world where there wasn't an evil god breaking everything." 

He looks determinedly back down at his hands. "If we want to help Maitimo - I actually think the most important thing isn't keeping him company right now. It's - if we win - what's going to happen, when the oaths break - some of the orcs took it much better than others, maybe Jisa can go conduct lots of interviews and figure out what the difference was -"

"...Jisa was pretty scared about that. She was thinking about it a lot - she had an idea, maybe, but it was sort of a horrifying idea, I don't know... I guess in the spirit of proposing horrifying ideas anyway – she thought it might actually help if she sort of - scaffolded it. So that when the oath broke there wouldn't just be nothing holding his mind up, there'd be scaffolding. The problem with that is it's sort of Mindhealing him into staying evil even after the oath breaks. Jisa thinks it wouldn't be immutable the same way, it'd be - I mean, people do change their minds about things, in the normal course of things. But still." 

"Huh. 

I think - I guess I would expect Maitimo's worldview to not last very long if he weren't oathed to it, it kind of pulls against...every other instinct he has. And it sounds like she could reverse it, if actually it were not helping?"

"Definitely. Her or another Mindhealer, they can undo each other's work, if - we didn't end up having Jisa for some reason, I can't think what could specifically go wrong but she's lifebonded to the King of Valdemar so I bet she's a target." Stef isn't sure why he's even bringing that up. Maybe just because it isn't that long since nearly everybody he knew and cared about died. 

" - so we've been planning all these subtle things but could Maitimo just- straight up murder someone with his bare hands if he really wanted to? - I'd expect him to go after you, not Jisa, if so, but -"

"He couldn't right now, we've all got shield-amulets. I'm not going far from Van. And Jisa's a mage. I think probably he couldn't get either of us period, even in Arda - and Fëanáro wanted to have Huan with him to prevent him from murdering any Quendi. I'm... I don't even know what I think could go wrong. Maybe it turning out that Sauron can get into Arda and grab Jisa himself. Or something else I didn't think to imagine, because - I didn't see it coming when Haven got attacked by gryphons either." 

"We didn't see the attack that captured Leareth coming, either, during the first war. And the Enemy didn't anticipate the way you guys got Maitimo.  I think everyone's - mostly only gaining ground when they manage to deploy capabilities no one even knew they had. And we know what Sauron has, or what he had three weeks ago, because we asked Maitimo."

Nod. "I hope so. ...Not that related, but Jisa thinks Maitimo will be a lot more - okay - in the short run at least, once he's back in Arda. It's - I don't want to imply - she doesn't think at all that he's faking any of his distress, this obviously has been genuinely awful for him. But - also she thinks it was sort of in his interest to be more miserable rather than less, because being scared and traumatized was the only lever he had, it was strategic even if it was also just true. And that won't be true once he's back in Arda with his head back and the freedom to try to do evil things even if it's just in one town. Sort of like the difference between the letter he wrote you and the other version he could've wrote, I guess. Jisa thinks he'll - probably cope all right, after this, until we win and the oath breaks. I know that doesn't...really help, but." 

"I think being back in Arda will help a lot. There's that dynamic, and there's also just that - 

- I think osanwë is most of how Maitimo interacts with the world? I used to tease him about it, you know, Eru gave you a body, not just a soul - because nine-tenths of his attention, most of the time, was looking through other peoples' eyes, dictating letters, sending his servants shopping, advising his friends on what to say in a difficult situation, reminding the King of things - he mentioned that it was really hard after Leareth had his room shielded because of nightmares, before they came up with a solution that let Maitimo use osanwë, because he'd have to just lie there with Leareth and he couldn't see anywhere else or be anywhere else. He loved him. But he had no idea how to exist in one place."

"He's certainly an interesting shape of person." Stef rubs his chin. "I - really miss him. I know it's dumb for me to say that when you..." He trails off. 

Vanyel reenters the room. "Talked to Larya. She'll have some people ready in an hour when I do a Gate to Vinyamar and I can grab them. And, er, I told Telumë that you're giving us advice. He was very grateful. He said he - should obviously be present if we're going to have a strategy meeting and want him there, but he understands if you don't, and judging by the look on his face he isn't really up for that right now." 

"Isn't up for a strategy meeting at all so maybe we shouldn't hold one until later, or is up for one if I can manage not to glare across the table at all, because I can manage that, the number of people who ought to die because it was important to me to glare at him is 'zero'."

"I - hmm - I'm not sure? I think the main thing eating at him isn't the you-glaring part, it's - that he built his goddamned core memories on Maitimo and he doesn't have any structures to handle the kind of problem he has as a result, lots of horrible things have happened to him in lots of his lives but not this kind. He did say that talking to you earlier made him feel much better, afterward, glaring and all, which isn't what I expected." 

"I guess things will probably work if two core members of this alliance don't want to be in a room with me but it does seem like they'd work better if we solved that."

"No, I think he's very willing to be in a room with you - he might start crying at random but he did that with me multiple times anyway when you weren't there. Should I get him now?" 

"Sure."

Vanyel comes back a few minutes later with Telumë, who still seems tired but less than before. His expressions is unguarded - he looks apologetic and a little hopeful and mostly just quietly, resignedly sad. 

"Vanyel and I were talking about better communications with the gods who are not definitely our enemy. I don't know if the Valar can be convinced to act outside Arda, but I think they can definitely do more to defend it; this will probably come at the cost of the freedom to kill lots of Quendi or orcs without permission, but I think that's a good trade." Sigh. "They're reasonably likely to intervene to stop you anyway, if you try it, and you'll lose Lórien which I think we've actually needed repeatedly."