She has no idea what's happening anymore. 

It was supposed to be about forty-eight hours from the point where their process was interrupted, even following the most rushed version of the plan, and instead it's been, oh, eighteen or so. All the mages Gated away from the staging-area just over an hour ago and they're completely out of contact, and–

–and it's starting to feel like maybe they've lost. But she'll sit here anyway, with Maitimo who is currently unconscious, sit here and watch him and wait. 

She's tempted to kill him if she gets conclusive evidence they've lost, even though Telumë definitely didn't give her permission for that and it's not like it'll make much difference in the end, even if Mandos somehow escapes. But she's not sure she could actually bring herself to do it. She's never killed anyone before. 

She watches the oath in his mind; it shows up to her Sight as a hideous metal ladder-like thing that's been inserted right through the tapestry, so that nearly every thread is knotted to it. With the scaffolding she's added, it was a lot of work, carefully knotting all those same threads in exactly the same places to the metaphorical 'framing' underneath, trying to tie everything where it'll mostly-sort-of hold together even if the oath breaks. Which does mean he'll still be evil (if they win, she can hope...), but - substantially less broken, which hopefully would mean substantially more fixable. 

...

She's bored and so she's been adding a bit to the scaffolding, she might as well, and she's watching very closely and sees the exact moment that it breaks. It's messier than her best-case scenario but not as messy as she'd feared it might be; it sort of snaps, splinters, and then disintegrates, all inside of thirty seconds.

She lets out her breath. Allows herself a small, tight, satisfied smile. Good work, Telumë. She doesn't know where or how, but somehow they pulled it off. 

Then she gets to work trying to tidy up the torn and damaged bits of tapestry, while it's still fresh in her mind what they looked like before. 

- he wakes up. 

So it must be over. And - 

- and Telumë won, and Telumë is alive, and it's sort of odd to have that much evidence about geopolitical events accessible from the inside of your own head - and the thing Jisa proposed, to keep his head intact, seems to have worked, because his head is intact - 

- but that means they still can't trust him and that means he should probably stop thinking about what he believes and values and wants, until Telumë comes in here to clarify whether that's what he wants, because it's not any less dangerous than it was before. (It is probably a little less dangerous than it was before. The amount of harm he can do is probably much more bounded. But it's not safe.)

He thought about this some, in the not-death place where the mathematicians were working on Telumë's god. He has a little bit of a dilemma. He thinks that he needs to be able to think - fully, unbounded by magic or by the knowledge that people are listening to his thoughts and that the wrong ones will make him too dangerous to keep alive - in order to figure out who he is. He suspects when he imagines the situation as an outside observer that at the end of this process he will not be particularly motivated to try to torture everyone in the universe, because almost no one ends up that way. But he's dangerous until he's at the end of that - and he doesn't see how to even start on it from here, where he keeps all his thoughts carefully centered around what Telumë needs - 

- no, wait, maybe he can work with that. Telumë needs to be able to believe that he did the right thing, here, and Maitimo has no idea if he did the right thing here, but he's glad to be alive, and that's a fact about the world which will help Telumë believe that he did the right thing, and Telumë won, and that's a fact about the world which will help Telumë believe that he did the right thing, and - 

- and if Maitimo were recovered quickly, quickly even as hurried hurried humans count time, then that would be a fact about the world that would help Telumë believe the right thing - 

- except that's stressful, because he's worried that he will skip a lot of steps if he tries to jump to 'recovered' from here, he'd have holes he could cover for if Telumë couldn't read his emotions and Telumë's people couldn't read his mind, and probably if you are evil and decide to just act like you are, instead, a good person you remember who existed a year ago, some of those holes are important, some of those holes will get in the way of people actually trusting him and believing he's recovered - he keeps bumping into the walls of what it feels safe to think here, he's increasingly suspecting he was right the first time that he can't make progress here - 

- there's a new god, presumably -

People pray to the Valar sometimes. If you call their names in the right spirit they will hear you. People pray to Eru sometimes. It's said that he always hears you. Maitimo does not feel remotely reassured by this. In Valmar songs of the Valar are popular. People talk about - the conviction that someone is on your side, that you are loved unconditionally, that you are in the hands of those who will use you for good. Maitimo has never particularly tried to enter this mental state about any gods because the Valar and Eru are not on his side. Right now no one is on his side, actually, because his side is objectively the horrible one - 

He has tried to enter this mental state about Telumë, sometimes, because it hurts much much less than being entirely at the mercy of someone you don't consider entitled to do whatever they want with that - 

Hey, god? I don't know if this works and I think it's probably lower priority than - man, what else could possibly be on the god's agenda - making really sure Melkor can't get out of the Void and anything that can't be done at all if it's not done in a week - but I think it might be important? For Telumë, and for the Noldor, and for - there's kind of a lot of stuff I could do, really, if I could trust myself to do it - 

There's nothing at first, and then there's a brush of - something... 

- the distant sense of light, of a shining city - vaguely reminiscent of Tirion under the Trees - open windows, open doors, paths stretching into the distance - 

I am not exactly sure how to do this yet, a voice that isn't quite a voice but is a little like osanwë whispers . 

- I think the thing you are doing is working. The Valar are louder but I don't know that that's an improvement. He doesn't even have osanwë anymore but it's the most natural way to think of what he's doing here. 

I am afraid I did not really understand your question.

Maybe I should try to break it down into more concrete questions. 

Uh. If I think about it for a long time, what will I end up wanting the world to look like? Or would it depend a lot on how I thought about it?

Is killing Eru the kind of thing someone could do, if they worked really hard on it for a really long time.

Is Telumë okay and what does he need right now.

The first question is difficult and the answer is not conveyable in words. I could show you more directly but it may not translate very clearly.

I would like that. 

And the strange sense of being in a glowing, blazing imaginary city vaguely like Tirion draws nearer. 

- there is a road ahead - forks to several roads that become twisting paths - doors that are closed but might someday open - doors that are locked but might someday have keys - windows that show dimly what lies ahead - 

- and some of the paths are far longer than others - some wind into the shadows - dead ends - ladders and stairways that hint at tempting shortcuts over the rooftops - but without an obvious path forward and so many ways to fall - 

- and off in the distance the ends of many paths converge - a place that is hazy but blazingly bright - not the same as the point where he started, if he were to look back - 

- not the same as where he started, that's - good, that's important - he feels relieved about it, it'd be easier obviously if he were just aiming for where he started but it'd also feel fake - 

Okay, shortest path there, what do I do.

Why do you wish so strongly to take the shortest path?

I am a prisoner and when I am trustworthy I will be free. 

I think that...

Pause.

It is not words but I will show you again.

And the god points closer at the strange city-map of his possible futures, it's more of a vague gesturing than an explanation, but the gist seems to be that what he just said, the patterns in him that underly that, is not obviously pointing at one of the shortest paths, though also the metaphorical cityscape is kind of blurred and the god can't see it perfectly either. 

I do not think I can direct you any more clearly, at least not at this time. I am sorry.

That makes sense but it's frustrating. 

The end place, if I get there - would a person in that place be allowed to live in your world? Would they be satisfactory?

Yes. Of course. This world, as we will build it, shall be big enough for many people in many places someday. It is not someday yet. But that place, if you reach it, would be perfectly acceptable even now, I think.

Not big enough for - the way I am now. Or was an hour ago, now I am mostly trying not to poke anything hard enough to tell if it's still there.

Not Velgarth, no. I think even our wider future could not hold who you were an hour ago and also give you the freedom that you desire and that all people have a right to.

The god feels sort of sorrowful about it, apologetic even. 

It hurts even though he knew it was true, even though he wasn't even asking. It feels like there's - something, there, that he can get a hold of - oh - 

He wants to make the world wider, so it can have more awful sorts of people in it. (The more palatable frame, which he can reach for readily, is that those people already exist, or have existed,  and he wants the world to be a place so robust that they can be free without hurting anyone else.) It's the clearest thing he's wanted since he woke up. He doesn't want it from the same place as he wants to torture everybody in the universe (that's tucked away behind shame and exhaustion and desperation to hide it, it's in the place where he used to keep the fact he wanted to have sex with men), he's actually pretty sure that the person-he-used-to-be would agree with him about it - the person-he-used-to-be said once that it hadn't been a mistake to want to parole Melkor, just to do it before they were ready - 

- it'd be an interesting challenge, right, to build a world that wasn't exploitable, and a necessary one because there are other worlds, and could be other visitors, and - there were a lot of good things about Valinor but the ease with which Leareth could have torn through it, if he'd wanted to - the ease with which Melkor had - and Velgarth was similarly fragile to Sauron, in a different way - but you could probably build something that wasn't.

- he feels like this might be surer footing for the shortest path and he knows that thinking about that won't help but he's doing it anyway. 

I think that is a very reasonable thing to want, and perhaps a useful direction.

- a view through a window of a door standing ajar - not yet in reach but in sight - and light blazing through the crack - 

I am not sure Velgarth will ever be that wider world, but some world, somewhere, will have to be, even if it is not mine. If we are to win fully. Is that what you were thinking?

Yes. There are a lot of worlds. Velgarth has a complicated balance of power among a lot of gods and it has people who don't fully come back when they die and other kinds of damage you can't reverse and far too many people have suicide fireballs and you could make it wider, but not wide enough for Sauron. But he can sort of vaguely imagine that you could make a place, someday, that was wide enough for Sauron, without coming at the expense of anyone else. It'd still be a cage, maybe, but it'd be such a very big cage.

Can I leave? I don't mean to do anything horrible - he can do better than that, he can form a very firm intention not to, he'll let himself think whatever he wants but he won't do anything that he doesn't want the god to see in Foresight - but I think I need to leave. I think it'll be better for Telumë, too. I'll come back. If you would like I can tell people about you, wherever I go. 

I think perhaps distance would help, yes. Where would you go? Do you have a way to get there?

I can't formulate plans around leaving, it's one of the precautions. But if it's all right with you then I bet they'll let me think about it.

I will speak to them. It seems quite clear that your being able to think about it, at least, is better than the alternative.

A pause.

You had other questions. On the matter of killing Eru. That is not something where I have the information to judge, yet, since the Foresight of Velgarth does not apply in other worlds. It is not obviously impossible. Why do you wish to kill Eru?

I hate him and I think most of this was his fault.

That makes sense. For your third question, Telumë is still in Velvar, very far south. It was a difficult fight, at the end, and he is not conscious yet.

- a flicker of the city again - the perspective a little blurred but the path straight and wide -

It appears he will be back here with Vanyel in two or three days. As to what he needs, that is less clear.