- he's pretty confident by this point that the answer to this question will be literally that Telumë can't but - "could I have a goodbye hug? It's going to be - such a long time with everyone making a point of not touching me - we're chaperoned -"

"No. I am sorry." It was the right thing to pre-commit to, he's still pretty sure of that, and it hurts so much. Telumë takes a moment to compose his face before standing up, turning to meet Maitimo's eyes. "I will see you on the other side of the war. Goodbye." 

- he nods. He does not watch him walk away.

Vanyel is outside, nearby. "I'm about to Gate and get Fëanáro and Nerdanel. Are you–"

Telumë drags his sleeve across his eyes. "I will be in meeting room number three. I will speak with them, of course, but - it will be easier if this happens after Fëanáro sees his son, so, I hope he prefers it in that order." 

"All right." 

Vanyel passes a quick message using the communications artifact, which isn't tiring, and then goes to the Gate-room and draws on the node accessible from here for that purpose and raises an inter-world Gate. This part is tiring and he's not sure how much good he'll be for a couple of hours afterward, but he'll do his best. 

And Fëanáro and Nerdanel are there, and head through. "Thank you, Vanyel."

"You're welcome." He drops the Gate, grips the doorway to hold himself steady. "...Sorry. Tired." :I passed your message: he adds in private Mindspeech to both of them. :Asked him in private the - question you wanted to know. He said he would be upset if everything thought this was cause to have a huge party and treat it like an alliance marriage between your peoples, which, you know, reasonable, it really is not that. But he's got his osanwë unblocked and all the other restrictions lifted so you can talk to him yourself like you normally would. Telumë just said goodbye to him and is - having some emotions about that - but he will of course meet with you whenever you wish. I shouted at him a lot. I doubt it would hurt if both of you took a turn as well. Can warn you that he'll probably cry: 

"We should talk to Nelyafinwë," he says. "And - I guess figure out what we have to say to Telumë after that."

"Makes sense." Vanyel leads them from the Gate-terminus to the room where Maitimo is. Points them in. "I'm staying out here but if you need me for some reason - if you want to have him repeat anything to you under a first-level Truth Spell, for example - I'll be nearby." 

Maitimo, when they walk in, is pacing. He stops. "Thank you for coming."

" - I didn't realize the space was this small, I'd have come ahead without your mother."

"It's all right. It helped knowing it was just for two days and I could ask Vanyel to leave with me sooner if I absolutely had to. It's going to be nice to have the ability to go for hikes and rides and swims, though. I miss - feeling like where I am is one of the things I have a choice about. How are you both doing -"

"Glad to see you."

"Can I go home with you or is that too close to Tirion - they don't want me near anything important but understandably haven't told me where anything important is -"

"I think probably it's too close to Tirion but I can come with you to whatever they do work out as the best place."

"Thank you." He solicits and receives a hug.

"Do you suppose you are evil in a way someone could talk you out of?"

"That's a good question. So I am able to update on evidence, right? Like there are lots of things where I'm currently unsure how I value them. For example, do I care if animals suffer as they die? I'm not sure! I bet I'm persuadable, in basically the same way as anyone else is, by analogy to things I'm more sure about and by getting Tyelcormo to describe their internal processes in more detail and stuff like that. It wouldn't make any sense to have made me unable to change my mind about anything related to my values because there's a whole universe out there and it probably presents lots of ethical dilemmas Sauron hasn't thought about at all and if you make my thing too brittle then I'm just indifferent to anything other than using Arda magic to hurt Quendi, which I'm unshakably in favor of. And that's not what he did, it's more subtle. But - you would be really hard to convince that actually you should be on Sauron's side, and I think probably I'm similarly hard to convince that I should be on yours. Plus even if you do it Vanyel and Telumë are going to straight-up refuse to believe that you did, because they're very paranoid."

"Hmmm. - possibly this can wait. Should we be angry with your husband? Vanyel seemed to think so."

"If you mean, did he abuse his position, I answered that in the letter. If you mean, did he make my life lots harder and scarier and lonelier, yes, he did. I - guess I don't really know what I want. I want someone to make him stop running the war and come away with me on a honeymoon so we can talk things out, but no one has the power to do that and the fact I want it to happen counts, for Telumë, as pretty much proof he shouldn't do it. I want to - test whether I'm right about how marriage works, so I feel like I have more of a handle on why that happened to me.

I - wouldn't like it if you were angry with him for taking something he had no right to, because then it'd be - more like that's what happened. And that's not what happened."

"It seems a little like - even if you had your motives and goals it should've been difficult for him to know that wasn't what he was doing."

"Well, no, because he had people constantly reading my mind and reporting to him."

"Ah."

"For what it's worth if there hadn't been a war and I had otherwise discovered this I would have brought him back home to you very pleased with myself. I like him. And I was already planning to raise children with him once we've saved the world."