:Leareth, Telumë and some other people from I'm-calling-it-813 are here: And she goes out and hops on Amshalan to trot over.

Leareth heads out at a jog. 

He slows as he approaches them. "Vanyel."

Vanyel looks up, and freezes. "I, um.. What? Did we - somehow go back in time... This is Arda, right?" 

Belrun hops off Amshalan. "There seem to be two each Velgarths and Ardas. At least. Or we're all elaborate Foresight simulations and it turns out those are conscious, that was my first guess. Hi, you presumably don't know me but I know, uh, alternate universe versions of some of you from several years back. I'm Belrun."

:She's Amshalan's Chosen: Yfandes explains helpfully, including everyone. 

"Also my lifebonded," Leareth says. "I am not the same Leareth you know, although I do know a Vanyel in my world and I am curious what the divergences are. Our Velgarth did not have any contact with Arda until just over a week ago, when Belrun was eaten by some strange manner of magical snake and I traced her here." 

Telumë is meeting a copy of himself and there's no possible way that he's going to make a good impression, given that he's in a significant amount of pain despite Stef singing right beside him, it's a lot worse on this side of the Gate. 

(He can't imagine what it must be like for Maitimo; it's loud enough that he can actually sort of feel a direction on it, and he wants to sprint toward whatever's wrong and fix it, but that's a terrible idea so he doesn't.) 

"What year," he says, between gritted teeth. 

"Eight-oh-three, by the Valdemaran reckoning." 

"Gods. Does your Vanyel, er, know about the–" he stops. :Leareth, does Belrun know about the god plan. You hadn't told me yet, that year: 

"Belrun knows my plan, yes." Leareth gives the - other him - a sideways look. He looks kind of concerning, actually. :Vanyel, what is wrong with Telumë: 

Vanyel includes Belrun and Amshalan in his answer. :Currently being tortured by his evil husband, sorry, long story - have you seen him...?: He flashes a mental image of Maitimo. 

"His evil husband?"

All right, sure, they're having this conversation out loud. "He's, er, not permanently evil – he was captured by Sauron, who snuck across into our Velgarth when I was busy fighting Melkor in our Arda – anyway, Sauron captured him when Vkandis attacked Haven, and got a mage to compulsion him into an oath to serve him, so he's evil until we manage to win this war and kill Sauron at which point we're hoping to get the person he was before back." 

Belrun facepalms. "Yeah. I met him."

"Where is he now?" 

"Well, he... described the situation differently and said he did not want to be around when Telumë showed up and Elrond gave him an escort to another city and he left."

"Honestly I - cannot blame him - for that - but we need to find him - does this Arda have Sauron too? He would - look for him - first." He's going to be so much more capable of productively participating in a conversation when he's not in only moderately attenuated horrible pain. 

"Where in Arda are we, actually?" Vanyel glances around. "This looks like Valinor but I don't specifically recognize it." 

Leareth is mostly hanging back and trying to absorb all the sudden swerves in the conversation. 

"This place is Imladris, it's in Middle Earth. We're on bad terms with the Valar; Beleriand no longer exists; Sauron does exist, though we don't know where exactly and he commands no substantial forces to our knowledge. He cannot reach Imladris, not without the Ring, not with capabilities native to our world. - did you marry your husband while he was under a mind-altering oath to serve Sauron in every way or was he lying about that part."

"It wasn't one of his better decisions," Vanyel says. "Oath, and also lots of mind-control from our side to prevent him from murdering everyone." He gives Melody a sour look. "They were, er, already together before the second war started, though, we're not sure why the married part didn't happen at that point." 

"I would be extremely worried about what he's up to in your Arda given how much damage he caused in ours," Melody says, "except that he's been tortured continuously for a couple of days now. Er, he used to torture himself when he was in Valinor, it hits Telumë too through the marriage bond, but never all the time. I have a suspicion he's not doing it to himself, which makes me worry that he found this Arda's Sauron, who - decided to have some fun."

"Sauron can't keep prisoners alive against their will."

"Huh. Pretty sure our Sauron can, or he couldn't have gotten Maitimo in the first place. ...I guess he's oathed to love and serve Sauron now, so maybe it's not unwilling? It's a pretty stupid use of him but I can't actually get upset about it, hopefully it means he hasn't gotten up to too much in the time it took us to catch up."