Jisa and Vanyel talk over the artifact, then discuss it with Treven and Dara. They agree that, as demands made by the Valar go, this is not actually unreasonable, and hopefully it'll be hard for Maitimo to cause trouble literally in front of all the gods. Jisa can Gate them there, she isn't going herself unless the Valar decide to demand it - and Vanyel will push back if so - but she's seen the region. That way Vanyel won't be tired going in, and he can escort the King and his wife back if a return Gate isn't permitted.

Stef won't go either. Rolan is still there and is the most important witness anyway; he saw everything the humans did, and also everything Maitimo and a number of other nearby people did. Are the Valar going to let him testify in secret? (If so they can hopefully let Maitimo assume that it's Stef and Jisa doing so and that Vanyel wants him absent for safety rather than information security reasons.) 

When Jisa has free time, she gets out her scrying-talisman and moves her mental eye a mile up in the air and searches the coastline of Valinor for large islands suitable for stashing a Maitimo who's been kicked out of Valinor. 

The Valar do in fact want Jisa there to testify that she didn't do it and she doesn't think the magic she did do made it worse and caused more people to die of it.

...Fine, that is also a fairly reasonable demand. She'll attend. Stef isn't coming, though, he doesn't have mage-gift and couldn't have done anything related to it. 

The Valar are fine with that. 

Maitimo feels restless, the night before his trial for murder, which is silly because it's out of his hands now; he has pulled all the levers in his reach and none remain to him. If he is not executed he's not sure there will be anything better to do than torture himself all the time to distract Telumë, and he doesn't expect them to let him get away with that for more than a few days before they break their agreement with him and compulsion or Mindheal him to stop. 

He asks someone to sing him to sleep. 

He wakes up in Tirion, as it looked in the time of the Two Trees. It's the Mingling, the light white to the human eye and star-purple to the Quendi eye. The streets are full of people and the stores are full of jewelry and clothing and books and food and artwork and magic. 

He knows somehow that he should walk out of the city, away from the Trees, past its white walls, to the base of the hill it was built on. There are farms out here, stretching off into the distance; beyond them, forest; beyond that, mountains. The city casts a striking shadow; lots of people gave the shadow's intricacies lots of thought, of course. 

And Telumë finds himself standing in an unnaturally beautiful squash field, under a sky too bright to look at, surrounded by statues of children with outstretched hands. 

...Huh. With odd dream-certainty, he knows that he’s waiting for someone.

He keeps walking. This would be a long walk, but it doesn't feel like one; it feels like it passes in just a few dreamy minutes, and the Trees have not changed at all, in the sky. 

He sees him there and stops short because it hurts. The first thing he wants to say is " - does this mean it's not too late" - but they're not on the same side - which means it is too late, no matter what year it is - there's no point in all the past and all the future where they're not enemies -

He walks closer, without saying anything, because he wants to see his face - wants to hold him -

...He gasps, softly. Looks down at his hands - adult hands, Leareth's hands, snatched back to a moment before Telumë existed. 

He wises he could pretend it were real. He doesn't say anything either, just stands still with his arms loose at his sides. Waiting. It hurts so much. 

- he hugs him. Leareth - remembers, so this won't last long, but he's going to take every second he can get of it - he needs it so badly - he can tell that at least one of them is sobbing but it takes a lot of concentration to determine that it's him -

Leareth hugs him back. He needs it so badly too - he can feel how much Maitimo is hurting, it's like they're really this close to each other - it's not really real, it's a dream, but it's sort of real, because he's pretty sure they're both here - the gods really do have a deeply ironic sense of humour...

He can't bring himself to be angry, not even knowing exactly what Maitimo's been up to recently. Knowing that it's stupid to be touching him, even in a dream. 

Eventually he pulls himself together. Doesn't let go. Leareth is here, Leareth is here, he's holding him and he's here and the world is holding still, at least for a little bit. "Shared dreams are one of the more common marriage blessings actually," he says a bit wonderingly, when he can make himself talk. "I just - didn't think of it - not sure why not until now but I guess -" weak giggle - "neither of us have been sleeping very well -"

"You know," Leareth said dryly - his voice is a bit choked, he's not outright weeping but his eyes are suspiciously wet - "you could decide to stop torturing me via yourself anytime you wanted and then we would both sleep more." 

"If it were you - if I were free and working on a plan to destroy you all, and you were a prisoner and had no other ways to slow me down -"

Leareth shakes his head, silently. He probably would, actually. 

"I missed you," he says eventually, shakily. "That much is not a state secret, at least." 

"I missed you. Kept wishing I was back there, even though it was - destroying both of us - even though I couldn't keep it -"

"I know." Leareth pulls back a little. Looks around for a place to sit. "Well, I cannot really speak of anything I have been up to, so - how about you?" He knows, of course, he was there when Vanyel shouted at Fëanáro about the dam. But he finds that he wants to hear it from Maitimo anyway. Wants to see his pride, even though that's actually kind of awful, really. 

They can walk up to the house, sit on a bench on the porch. Maitimo leans on him. "I founded some research institutes. Studying animal suffering and chronic pain. Hedging my bets, right, it'll be useful either way, after the war. - I think probably quite a few animals can suffer a lot. I had never given it much thought before."

Leareth puts his arm around Maitimo's shoulders. It's nice being adult-sized again. He's worried Telumë is just going to be short even when his body is fully grown.

"I have," he says softly. "One priority among a great many. Likely you already know more than I do." 

"And I'm sure you have already heard that I tried to have Stef and Jisa assassinated. Trial's tomorrow. I don't know how it failed, though I kind of expected it to because my experience of mages is that you always have something new up your sleeve I haven't thought of. Except the ones who work for me, who are all idiots and have fewer things up their sleeve than I put there."

Squeeze. It shouldn't be amusing but it is. "You must have found that very tiresome. And, yes, I did hear. Vanyel was furious." 

"He was going to kill me," he says, a bit wistfully. "If I succeeded. Hopefully on the spot without any proof and two hundred people around, I think I could've been having the right thoughts for it. I don't want to die, at all, even expecting that after the trial I'll have nothing to do but torture myself even more often, but it would have been - the closest thing we Quendi can have to going out in a fiery explosion and taking half the enemy with us."

"I apologize for Eru's failure to provide your species with suicide fireballs," Leareth says wryly. "I am not sorry that you failed, though." 

"Of course not. It would've been - it would only have changed the odds a little bit but it would've been the end of the possibility that - when this is over - we can mend our wounds and mourn our dead and build something beautiful and grow up into people who are ready to face the next one. Vanyel wouldn't've outlived the war. I - I don't really like the moves like that, that help my goals just the smallest little step by ripping apart everyone I love and every hope I have that things might someday be all right again.

My father thought that was the way out from being like this, you know, lean into that, be perfectly selfish, care nothing for the world and whether it's full of joy or suffering but do whatever I'd like with my friends - and what I'd like is for all of you to be safe, and strong - 

- but it doesn't work. I don't think my father has values in the same place I have values so I don't think he could see why it wouldn't work but it's obvious to you, probably."

"Yes, of course. It is - why I could fall in love with you, probably. I have a great deal of fondness for your father but I could not love him the same way."