You still have a number of his staff, right? I think you should assign a rotation and have someone whose job it is to discreetly keep an eye on him all the time, including when all of you are asleep, so you'd notice if he were working on making or stealing a weapon. It's - probably overkill, given Fëanáro's amulets, but we want that, right. History is full of examples of people who thought they were being paranoid enough and were wrong.  

Pause. You know Leareth had a lot of experience with wars, right, in our world? It's how he was able to help with the war here. And Maitimo learns from other people very well, it's the main thing he's good at. He learned a lot from Leareth. Leareth died and had to come back and start almost from scratch, memorize all his records again, but Maitimo didn't. However scary you think Leareth was, before, you should assume Maitimo is about that dangerous now. 

Honestly I didn't interact with him much, but I'll keep that in mind.

Maitimo is good at not showing his feelings but- lying very comprehensively about everything he plans to do for months sounds much harder than that.

I mean. It is harder. But - can you just trust me that he could do that? Or at least that there's a high enough chance of it that we have to plan based on that, because being under-cautious would be worse than being over-cautious, here. I'm sorry. I know it's hard to think this way when he's your son and he loves you. But I think we have to. 

I trust you. We'll take your advice on precautions. It's just - hard.

I understand. He hopes he does. It's not like he really had parents, ever, and he certainly doesn't have children. Imagining if it were Vanyel is the closest he can come, and that's enough of a screaming pit of horror that it doesn't actually make it easier to reason about. I just - I think Velgarth has seen a lot of evil, and Valinor hasn't, and I wanted to make sure you - knew what we could be up against, that's why I wanted to talk as soon as possible. 

He hesitates. How well do you think you can explain what I've been saying to Fëanáro? I - don't think I communicate with him as well as you do, though I do need to speak with him at some point. 

He likes lines of logic about how things might be very improbable but if they're very bad we should do things about them anyway. She doesn't sound like she thinks this is entirely a strength. I'll talk to him.

Thank you. I'm going to check in with - other people, Nerdanel shouldn't actually know who. The corners I'm worried Fëanáro will miss, because of who he is as a person, are - well, I think he's likely to bang his head on trying to convince Maitimo with factual arguments that he should change his values, I think factual arguments rarely work for that even when values aren't oathed in place. And - that he won't have a good sense of how much he knows, which pieces of it are critical to the war effort, and how much of that Maitimo can put together from fragments even if Fëanáro is trying to avoid talking in specifics at all. Do you know what I mean? 

Yes. Are there particular things we really don't want Maitimo to learn, he said a while ago that he already knew the broad outlines of our plan to build a god - and wouldn't sabotage it because it going wrong wouldn't serve his goals either -

There's a lot more detail there. Logistics, mostly, and politics, Fëanáro should assume he knows relevant pieces even if that's not his main area, just because it interweaves with the parts that are. Fëanáro doesn't actually know anything from their recent strategy-meetings yet, he muses privately, and clearly shouldn't until he's decided he's done catching up with Maitimo and is rejoining their work. Maybe not even then. He is kind of congenitally incapable of keeping secrets and that is a very unfortunate trait in a King. 

–He needs to name a new heir, he remembers. Even if it's mostly a formality because we're hoping to get Maitimo fully back and for nothing to happen to Fëanáro in the meantime. He should do that immediately. 

Yep, that makes sense. I can ask him about doing that now, before we head south.

Thank you. I deeply appreciate your taking this seriously; I know it's going to take a lot of used to and it's an awful situation to be in as a parent. Is there anything else you want to ask me now? 

I don't think so. Thank you.

Stef has been staying back near the limits of Nerdanel's osanwë range with him and also out of sight of any other people as much as possible. Maitimo probably still knows he's here, but hopefully it'll make him harder to murder. He also has several protective talismans, but still. 

He needs to think more about precautions against being murdered. And talk to more people. Set up his thousand-mile chain of trustworthy spies so he can hear all the gossip in a random small town in Valinor. Also sleep, probably, at some point sooner rather than later, before he gets stupid. 

Sigh. He misses Vanyel so much. 

Vanyel also misses Stef so much. And feels very bad about what he's about to do.

Stef doesn't have his own communications-artifact - there's no point, since he's not a mage and has neither Mindspeech nor osanwë on his own - but he can use osanwë with Quendi, which he knows a lot of, and it's a very simple message he needs to pass back to Tol Eréssea, just that he's finished his work for the day and Vanyel should know he's all right. 

–He's more afraid of doing this than he'd expected. It was easier to die before Stef was around. 

But it's going to be fine. He sets up in the infirmary at Telumë's facility. There are multiple powerful and skilled Healers on hand. Yfandes is there with him (a door having been modified just for this purpose; she's not delighted about her life in an underground bunker in the far north, but unlike for Quendi it just makes her unhappy and restless, not literally in danger of dying.)

He lies down on the cot, and she rests her muzzle on the sheets next to him, where she's minimally in the way but he can still rest his hand on her mane. 

:You can do this, Chosen: A mental snort. :For once, ever, I'm pretty sure this extremely crazy-sounding plan is actually safe and also the right thing to do. I love you: 

:I love you too: 

He hasn't actually ever tested whether this works on himself, but it's safer than drugs or trying to suffocate himself or any of the other options he considered. He reaches out with a tendril of Healing - he barely has the Gift but it doesn't take a lot of Healing-energy, to do this - and, push, and he stops his own heart–

A place of endless white and no pain. 

"Herald Vanyel?" A slight questioning upturn in the steady voice. "What are you doing here?" 

"We have a serious problem here and we need to talk." 

–Stef wakes up with a gasp. He's in a beautiful room, on a bed, with one of Maitimo's staff singing a Healing song to him. He - doesn't even remember whatever it is that just happened, if there was pain he's forgotten it - and he can feel the bond with Vanyel now, strained across the barrier between worlds, a constant throbbing ache, but it means Vanyel is there and alive. 

I think it worked, he tells them. 

And less than a candlemark later, Telumë passes a message to Jisa in Vinyamar. A pretty short and simple message, just in case Sauron has discovered a way to listen in on the inter-world communication spell - really they need to set up some more secure codes...

<Vanyel has news. We should meet and talk> 

And the obvious thing here is to immediately go to the most responsible adult she knows and trusts here, so Jisa Mindspeaks Findekáno. :Vanyel did what he was planning. It sounds like he learned something useful, Telumë wants to call a strategy meeting. Probably we should do it here?: 

That sounds right to me.

<Telumë, can you and Vanyel come to Vinyamar for this?>

Telumë has very mixed feelings about going to Vinyamar right now, but it's in fact pretty cowardly not to, and Findekáno has been rather good about not glaring at him distractingly during an important meeting. (He appreciates Findekáno a lot right now, actually.) 

<Give us a couple of hours. Vanyel is sort of recovering from a self-induced medical emergency. Probably he ought not Gate even in a couple of hours, can you?>

<Of course> 

:Findekáno, two hours from now? And we should do it somewhere Van can be comfortable, he's kind of shocky due to killing himself on purpose just now: