He's standing in a beautiful squash field, in a body that isn't his anymore. 

...Telumë is so incredibly not ready for this to be the thing that's happening right now. Maybe the dream will let them both stay in their respective locations and not even interact with each other? The dream with Vanyel usually allowed that, he thinks. 

On the other hand, he kind of wants to see Tirion again, under the light of the Trees, just to see if it really is like the other, metaphorical Foresight city that he wanders so often in his dreams nowadays.

Maybe if he starts walking but tries to curve around and miss Maitimo... It would help if space in the dream worked normally, or if he actually had any idea where Maitimo is starting out. 

Eventually he hauls himself out to the gates of the city, but can't make himself leave it. He sits at the gates, looks back up the street to the palace, clings to the wall a little -

"Hey. Sorry, I wasn't trying to avoid you, I just - didn't want to leave the city -"

"I wanted to see the city again." And - right, it would have a new association for Maitimo, wouldn't it, Telumë isn't the only one of them banned from all of Valinor. Maitimo has lost even more. 

He hovers just outside the gates. "...You would be perfectly justified in preferring to avoid me, though, we do not need to speak now." A month ago he would have been desperate for even five minutes of conversation. Now - there's a dull ache, there, but it's fine. Bearable. Whether Maitimo wants to talk to him or storm off or any of a dozen other things, all of it is tolerable. 

"I can usually end up perfectly justified in whatever I want to do, I'm very convincing." He doesn't move. "I don't think it has much to do with anything. I - gods, I'm not mad at you - scared of you, but not mad at you -"

Telumë gives him a slightly dubious look. He might actually feel better about this if Maitimo was mad at him, the fact that he's claiming not to be feels like the ground sliding under his feet. "I am sorry you are scared of me. Can I - do anything - that would help...?" He really doesn't feel very scary, lately. 

"I don't think so? It's just, I spent a lot of time training the habit, so it's still there. I could probably let a Mindhealer at it but I ...don't want to, they're all yours -"

"I mean, not all of them in the world! There are apparently four others who have never even met me somewhere in Valdemar, and likely other countries would have them too. But it would make sense if you wanted nobody but yourself poking at your head." He mostly hasn't wanted Melody trying to fix any of the emotions he was having either. 

"I tried being mad at you and I ended up mad at you for not outmaneuvering me, which didn't seem like a helpful way to feel, considering that you would've absolutely outmaneuvered me if you hadn't had to spend so much time making sure I couldn't murder you."

"Maybe. It is not like I had ever really tested whether I could outmaneuver you, before." 

- this hadn't occurred to him; he looks slightly confused by it, or maybe by his own failure to think of it. 

He sends a thread of wantwantwant and then tries quite aggressively to quash it because that's a terrible idea - 

"Are you angry?"

It's such a terrible idea, and for once the parts of himself are enough aligned and in agreement that it's not even really tempting. 

"Not especially? Not with you. I was quite angry with myself. Now I am...mostly not. It seems unlikely to help at this point. I was very angry with Sauron but then I - ate him - while possessed by a god, it turns out this is a rather effective method for feeling one has gotten one's revenge, it does not seem as though there is any further point in still being angry." 

- grief -

"I guess that'd do it, yeah. 

I'm sorry I left without saying goodbye. I can, uh, guess that you're probably in really bad shape. But - I don't think I'm stable enough to help, right now."

...It probably is sort of tactless to talk about his revenge on Sauron while aware that Maitimo's mind is still at least partly twisted into loving him, but - no, actually, Telumë is absolutely not in a place where he can pretend to be anything other than happy and relieved and very satisfied about the time and place of Sauron's ceasing to exist. 

"You need not be sorry," he says, wearily. "It - would not have helped if you had. And I am doing somewhat better now." Humans can put themselves back together pretty quickly when they have to. It'll be a long time before he's actually fine but he feels mostly like there's something solid in the middle, again. Something other than a version of Maitimo that doesn't exist anymore and probably won't ever exist in the future either, even when (if) Maitimo is okay again he won't be the same. 

He looks down. "I know that you - pushed yourself into a very strange shape, to be around me for the last six months, and it was very unhealthy for you. While I do not actually have any right to complain, here, I think I did something similar, and - until we both find different ways to be, probably it is not very helpful for us to be near each other, it will just reinforce that pattern." 

"That was about what I figured, yeah. Probably longer for me, since - Quendi. And since - I mostly figured out what I want to do but I need to find people who can help me do it, and that feels like it might take a very long time."

"That makes sense." And it's exactly the shape of thing he can't help with. Probably it would still be even if none of the specific mess had happened, just because when you're trying to decide whether to stop loving Sauron, probably the people you want advice and support from aren't the people who killed him. 

Right now it's mostly a massive relief not to have Maitimo around, not to have him constantly being Telumë's responsibility, to keep alive and as safe and undamaged as possible until the end of the war. (He'd sort of hoped the end of the war would feel more triumphant.) He can believe it, that it'll take Maitimo a lot longer, and that he may or may not spend years, maybe decades, desperately missing him. 

- sad, maybe a bit hurt, lonely - "Can Foundation give you the ability to block the emotion-sharing? It's not about you, when I hurt myself."

"I know. And, probably. I can ask." He hasn't asked so far, because - well, honestly, the reason is that he feels like he super deserves it, even though he's pretty sure anyone he said this to out loud would yell at him about it. "I would not want you to avoid it on my behalf. My productivity is much less critical now." 

"I know, but - mmmm, I'm trying to learn something and the fact I'm hurting you too makes it much harder to figure out -"

Nod. "I will ask. If not I can go back to Vinyamar, the distance between worlds does not block it entirely but it is greatly attenuated."

He shakes his head. "I am sorry. I keep wanting to - shape the world to be better for you. It is very hard not to try to do that, actually. But I think I had better not do it, because - that gives you less space to steer it yourself. And I have done more than enough keeping you in cages. If at some point you wish to ask me to do things, though, the problem is not at all that I do not want to." 

"I want to do lots of things, together, once we're not hurting each other. I don't actually know that there's anything I want from you before that....

- you could acquire a country. Or build one from scratch, I guess that'd work fine too. I am very sad about not having a country and will cope much better if I at least married into one."

Leareth finds himself smiling. "The north is not at this point a country but it probably ought to be one, since it is the main home of a new god. I do not really want to take over any of the existing ones... I suppose there is the Haighlei Empire, it likely needs to be conquered at some point since it is kind of terrible, but its local gods are also terrible so that will need to wait on Foundation being ready for another set of negotiations." 

"I am very patient." The emotion bond is betraying this as an utter lie.

"I did fail to outmaneuver you enough to avoid the - things that happened - so even though I think anyone having to outmaneuver you is a very unfair challenge, I suppose I do at least owe you a country. It can be a very beautiful one." He glances across Tirion again. "That would not even be for you, particularly. I just - find myself wishing to build very beautiful things, right now." 

"To be clear I don't actually blame you for - not outmaneuvering me - I tried being mad at everyone, just for practice, to see whether anything surfaced that felt like it might be important - I tried being mad at Vanyel but it was hopeless, how can anyone stay mad at Vanyel."

"I know! Although I think Stef can pull it off somehow, it is just still kind of impossible to listen to them argue with a straight face."