:Did either of you want to speak with Telumë first? And, er, how did it - go...?: 

It went all right? He's - obviously going to need some time but I think he's about as all right as a person can be under the circumstances. I don't think we want to talk to Telumë. Maitimo isn't sure of this and will be more sure in a couple of weeks but he suspects he is eventually going to want us to, uh, get to know him as a son-in-law and he doesn't want a horrible fight that gets in the way of ever pursuing that route but also he's not quite ready for us to walk down it just yet. So - you can pass on to Telumë that we came and got him and remain committed to the alliance and will probably talk more about this at some future point when Maitimo's ready.

:All right: Telumë will be very relieved, he thinks. :I'll Gate you back but I think I'd better stay and - try to give Telumë sensible advice. Stef and Katha will go with you, they've both done a lot of thinking about security precautions: And so he and Stef will be apart, again. Yet another cost of the war. At least Jisa and Treven are together. 

Sounds good. We are accompanying Maitimo for - a while. I'll think about exactly how long, I know I'm needed for the war as well.

:I understand. Give me ten minutes and I'll do the Gate: Vanyel lets Katha and Karis know to be ready to leave - they're planning to drop Karis off with Dara, pending their government knowing where they're staying - and then confers briefly with Stef. 

"They're not being careful enough," Stef says, sounding worried. 

"I know. They really, really aren't. It's understandable - they're his parents, hellfires, I would probably do the same if it were–" if it were Jisa, but he can't even make himself say it, "but - could you try to talk to them? Delicately. I don't want it to backfire." 

"I'll try. And if I think it risks backfiring then I won't. But - I got to know Nerdanel pretty well, we stayed with her while you were out of commission." Stef likes her a lot. She's also a fairly straightforward person, if not in quite the same was as Fëanáro. He can see why they're a good couple. And also why they are particularly un-equipped to protect against Maitimo's current state. 

"Thank you." 

Vanyel smoothes over his worried frown, drops the privacy-barrier he was using, and rejoins the others by the Gate-room. Hugs Stef. Nods very neutrally to Maitimo. Raises a Gate to another world, and stays on the Velgarth side of it until all of them are through. 

Maitimo makes a soft delighted sound at the sight of Arda. Leans against his mother. 

(Listens to absolutely everything and everyone in sight).

Stef peels off with Herald Katha and Karis, as though they aren't part of the same party at all and just happened to be catching a lift. Probably Maitimo is not fooled. He's not fooled that Maitimo is going to be taking advantage of every second in Tol Eréssea before they get onto a boat - it's so irritating that they couldn't Gate him straight to small-town-whatever - but he's already had a couple of days to plan this, and contact with Findekáno, so none of the conversations happening in Tol Eréssea right now should be sensitive ones. There are guards on the Gate-terminus.

...He's already tired, and it feels very unfair that he has to try to outsmart Maitimo of all people, because he's going to fail, but the idea is to make the gap of their failure as narrow as possible and hope it's enough. 

Maitimo can reach Alqualondë from here, at least the people there who he knows best, and he hops between their eyes while they walk through Tol Eressëa, while they get on a boat. He sings to himself, quietly. The boat crosses the sea. 

Stef is going to catch up with them soon, but he'll pop through the Gate to Vinyamar first and check in Findekáno, to find out how everything is going on the Nolofinwë side while Fëanáro is conveniently elsewhere, and to ask some advice. 

"I told my father everything," he says. "He's angry with Fëanáro -" that's an understatement - "but willing to work out procedures so we'd feel good about people volunteering. He wonders about prospects of getting Fëanáro to name a different heir. We're fine with Macalaurë."

"I think he should be open to it but I was planning that conversation for a slightly less fraught time than right when he Gated to Velgarth. I'm going to catch up with them in Valinor after this and talk about that and - precautions. They're not taking it seriously yet how terrifying Maitimo is - in general, honestly, but a lot more starkly given his current goals are opposed to ours." 

"Fëanáro doesn't really do or appreciate subtlety. Nerdanel does but - I don't know, maybe she could've kept up with Maitimo before he met Leareth. He borrowed a lot from Leareth."

"I could see that. ...Jisa could literally see it, you know. The way her Gift works, it shows people as - gardens, sort of metaphorically - and Maitimo's is so much made out of pieces of other people, and there was a lot of Leareth there." 

"I think Maitimo had gone and gotten himself a pretty good concept of his people and what we could do, and it wasn't enough to push back against - everything that was happening, the stuff we later found out was Melkor, and he knew there was something missing that would let him handle it, we talked about it - and then Leareth showed up."

"Mmm. That makes sense. They - were a really good team. When they could be a team." The almost-offensive ugliness of the fact that they can't, anymore, grates at him again. 

"Well. Maybe someday."

Nod. "Anyway, my plan is to catch them for a private conversation - maybe two, separately, if that works better logistically - and start with bringing up several dozen examples of the kind of mess people with Maitimo's skillset and who're willing to be ruthless can cause, even when their resources are limited, even when there are precautions against it. Katha had an entire treatise on it, when she was teaching me spycraft. I think they just don't have a lot of sense of that? Because Valinor - isn't like that. And one thing Velgarth has, which for once is sort of a useful resource here, is a lot of history of humans sometimes being really evil." 

"That sounds useful to me. Do you have guesses about what Maitimo's aiming for at this point -"

"Only in a very general sense. He - I think he finessed it a lot for Telumë - and Vanyel - letting it slide that he'd get sent to Valinor without any mental restrictions. So I'd wager he sees a way of sabotaging or at least messing with the war effort even from a small town in Valinor with all the barriers we can put up. And it'll have something to do with his strength, which is people. I just don't know what. So far my plan is to set it up so I hear all the local gossip, and try to guess if he's up to something that way. ...Oh, and figure out how to make it very hard to murder me, because he has a lot of incentive to do that. By the way, don't, er, say anything about Katha's involvement. I'm going to ask her advice a lot but right now I don't think Maitimo knows much about what her role was in Valdemar, they barely interacted, and - I need her not to be a target. In case anything does happen to me." 

"Okay. I'm - not planning to interact with him. It's awful, he'll be devastated, but I do know something of what he's like at full power because I was, uh, trying to date him for twenty years while our fathers got ready to have a civil war."

"Good to know. I'll plan on coming to you if I'm suspicious but don't understand him well enough to put things together, then."