Vanyel nods jerkily. "I'll put a bit more thought into other risks, and - well, I'll know soon enough, I'm headed to Valinor. My current plan is to place an osanwë barrier at a certain perimeter around the village, at least while we're investigating this and the Valar are deciding what to do - I'm aware we can't imprison him like that for long, but, damage control." He slams his fist down into the palm of his hand. "We should've blocked his osanwë. It's completely predictable he could do something like this." 

Telumë does not say anything. 

"Do you remember the language," he says to Telumë, "we could switch to a different one. You taught me eleven of them."

"Hmm?" Telumë makes a visible effort to pay attention. "No, I remember Quenya. I - can we wait four more minutes, I am - going to be distracted until then." 

Vanyel winces. "Maitimo," he explains helpfully, "has found a way to cause himself horrible pain and does it five minutes of every hour, presumably with the idea that it'll hit Telumë too. We can't easily stop him so we haven't really tried." 

"That's - wow. What a fascinating implied tradeoff - I guess he also currently believes that pain is good in and of itself so it might not be quite as stark an implied tradeoff - have we at least asked him to stop?"

"I am sort of concerned he would end up thinking of something worse," Telumë admits. "This is - mostly tolerable, if I am in Velgarth." He needs more total hours of sleep because it inevitably gets disrupted a little even when it doesn't wake him fully, which costs him time, but overall he's still managing to get enough rest. "...I am very grateful for the memory loss right now, actually, if I had all of the memories of Angband this would be a great deal harder to bear." 

"He's very normal when you talk to him, and then with his spare energy he's off doing - all of this -" Sigh. "We will understand if it's necessary to put stricter measures back into place, even if they make him unhappy."

"Thank you," Vanyel says, distantly. "It's for his sake as much as as ours, right? Also all the innocent bystanders he can hurt trying to get at us, but."

He looks past Fëanáro. "I would have killed him. If either my husband or daughter had died - they wouldn't come back - he knows that - he has to know what I'd do, and - that'd serve his purposes somehow too, probably by making an even bigger diplomatic disaster, but..." He lifts his hands, palms open, lets them fall. "I hope you understand that that wouldn't stop me. So we should really make sure he doesn't have a chance to hurt anyone else." 

"If you know something serves Sauron's purposes you shouldn't do it," he says. "Even if you really wanted to. I haven't said anything to Telumë - but yes, we really should make sure he can't hurt more people, whatever that takes."

Shrug. "Telumë wouldn't do it, right? If it were the wrong strategic move. But I'm - I'm not the shape of person who can only ever pick the action with the best consequences, that's not how I work...it's not how almost anybody works... Anyway. I'm keeping Jisa and Stef off the goddamned continent from now on, if we need mages over there they can be Tayledras or Telumë's people. You probably shouldn't visit him again either. I'm pretty worried he had more than one impossible scheme like this and that we haven't figured out the others yet." 

"That does seem possible. I want to hear what he has to say about this, but it can be secondhand."

Vanyel ducks his head. "We'll keep you in the loop. Anyway, I'd better head out, it's going to take me ages to get there even at Companion-speed and I'd rather arrive before the Valar do something very stupid in response to this." 

"That makes sense. Safe travels."

Vanyel nods to him and heads out. 

Telumë lingers a moment, waiting to see if Fëanáro will say anything to him - if not he'll nod to him as well and slip out before it gets awkward. 

He'd like to, actually, but he's not any good at words and that makes it sort of frightening, to use them when things might explode. 

"Was - the version of my son that didn't work for Sauron - was he like this, too - and I just never noticed -"

"I assume you mean overall competence and skill, not goals, in which case, yes. Perhaps a little less before he met me; I think that, and the war, taught him some things. But - he was always someone who could pull off feats that ought to be impossible, merely by understanding people very well and talking to them." 

"Huh. 

- he didn't want us to talk - which makes me think maybe we should - but I don't actually have very much to say - I didn't know you were like this, now, I was fitting everything onto Leareth -"

"...Like what? I am still trying to - reconcile the differences, become more myself, so if you have noticed a divergence it would be valuable to hear it." 

"This is not really my core area of expertise! But - hmmm. He felt like someone you could only move from one direction. If you knew something he didn't, that would move him. Nothing else would. 

I could imagine him - hurting Nelyafinwë, if it seemed like a good idea. I could imagine him doing that and being wrong about whether it was a good idea, even, given something as unexpected as what happened. But in order for it to fit there'd have had to be a lot I didn't know. And maybe there is a lot I didn't know. Apparently I didn't know Nelyafinwë very well."

"...I have thought about it a great deal. I– do you wish to hear my analysis of...why I made the mistakes I did? I think it could be important context, if you are still thinking of me as exactly how Leareth was, because - I am not. Not yet. And that does have - consequences - in terms of how you ought to work with me on the war. That being said, it will probably sound to you as though I am making excuses." 

"I have already decided to excuse this. Because we need to win the war, and because my son wants me to. I would like to hear whatever you think might be relevant."

Telumë doesn't have the right words to acknowledge that or express his gratitude for it, so he just nods. 

"...For background, Maitimo was very important to me even before I died," he starts. "I...took apart a large chunk of my sense of self, in Angband, it was the only way I was able to avoid doing more magic for Melkor. Maitimo helped to rebuild it. I was - most of the way there, I think - but certainly not fully recovered. We - began a relationship perhaps a month before my death and his capture." Gods, it wasn't for very long at all. Telumë didn't know that until he got through his notes; multiple core memories are crammed into that one precious, beautiful month. 

"When I come back," he goes on, "I lose most of myself. I bring a few dozen memories and that is all, and I need to rebuild my core sense of self, what I am fighting for here, immediately, without being able to refer to my records until I find them again. I...built it mostly on Maitimo, this time, because that was so much of what I remembered. I did not know then that he was evil, I assumed he had either escaped or killed himself, but even if I had known, I am not sure I would have had much choice. And then I spent the first four months of the war traveling alone through the wilderness, trying to reach my people - Maitimo found my records caches, staked them out, nearly killed me a few times and did prevent me from accessing anything I could use to remember my past self. Obviously I guessed he was working for Sauron then, but - his existence was still the only thing I could hold myself together on."

He shakes his head, absently. "And then it was not very long at all in the north, and it was a very busy period where I needed to spend most of my time directing logistics rather than becoming more me. And then I was informed he was on his way to me for interrogation, when the rescue had already happened, Jisa and Stef had not told me for security reasons. In hindsight it is not at all surprising that - these were not circumstances where I would be capable of tracking the larger picture. That I would not be able to navigate his being both my enemy and the person who is most important to me in the entire multiverse. We loved each other - we had missed each other even as enemies at a distance - we were together again - I think I lost sight of everything except that. And then did something very insane as a result. I should have realized and asked for Quendi witnesses, or - or something at least, some kind of check on my judgement. I did not and I am deeply sorry for that, but - the past is what it is and we can only move forward now." 

"- the thing I am tempted to say is this is why if you have lots and lots of uncommon sense and never saw any use for the common kind, you have got to marry someone with lots of it, so at all times at least one of you is possessed of it, but it is too late for that solution, I guess. Nerdanel says Nelyafinwë doesn't actually have more common sense than me, just more acting ability." Shrug. "I'm sorry for both of you that it played out like this, but - it should shape up all right in the long run, I think, if we get him back to himself."