Wince. "No. I think he was - very convincing. That is the thing he is good at. The way you - we - are shaped to fight the gods of Velgarth, he is shaped to understand and work with people. We made a good team, I think, during the first war." He looks very wistful. 

"Elrond seems to have been fond of the local instance."

Nod. "What happened to him? The local one, I mean." 

"He's been dead a long time. The notebook with all that in it is in our room, I can go get it if you want it from me instead of Elrond?"

He probably should want to hear it himself, directly, so he can catch everything, but - it sounds awful, and also Elrond dislikes him for understandable reasons. "I would appreciate that, although I do not think it is more urgent than this conversation." 

Leareth nods. "I am still trying to understand the sequence here. So you were in a relationship with him before the second war, in Velgarth, and then you died, and he was captured and oathed to hold Sauron's values," speaking of which: aaaaaaaaaa, just in case it's not clear enough: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, "and tried to kill you repeatedly, and then I am confused about the exact sequence of events, and - reasoning behind decisions." 

Telumë flinches. "He was rescued, or perhaps 'recaptured by our side' is more accurate. I was not even aware of this until I received word they were transporting him north so that I could question him; it was Stef and Jisa's plan, made separately from my operations, they correctly feared that Maitimo could predict my actions too well. They had devised extensive precautions, which I implemented. I questioned him. We learned that Sauron was trying to bring back Melkor from the Void." 

He stops.

"And?" 

Telumë curls up a little tighter in the chair. "...You are going to be angry with me." 

"I - what - all right, pause there a moment." :Belrun, I have no idea what is going on here or what to do - why is he reacting this way, I mean, it is not impossible I will be angry if he did something very stupid, but...it is not me-shaped at all to respond to it in the way he is...: 

:I'm not really a people person myself! What would you be doing instead?:

:...Just discussing the events and facts themselves, I think? He has so many emotions! I know I normally have somewhat more unendorsed emotions in the first weeks to months with a new body, but not that many: 

:He's been tortured a lot, that might make people emotional. Uh, you could say you will try not to be angry, I guess?:

Leareth nods. "Telumë, it is not going to help with anything for me to be angry now, long after the events in question, so I will try not to be." 

Nod. "I was - I had missed him so much, I knew that he had missed me very much - he still loved me, Sauron had not changed that, it was - it felt like the only good thing left in the world... He was so miserable and he kept asking me to hold him and it felt as though I had only that one lever to make it better. And in hindsight I think he was trying to convince me to sleep with him, which I ought to have been suspicious of because he was evil, but - in the moment - I suppose it felt like claiming back the one thing that Sauron could not take away from us... Anyway, we had sex. Which I am aware was extremely ill-advised. Also, very confusingly, nothing odd happened the first time." 

"You did it twice?" 

...Don't be angry it won't help...

"I am not angry," he clarifies quickly. 

"Did he know the Elf marriage thing would happen, or could -"

"No! Everyone thought it was impossible between two men. Everyone was shocked and we still do not quite understand it." 

"So why was he probably-evilly trying to convince you to sleep with him exactly, do you know?"

"The Noldor - his people - would be very upset about it, well, they were very upset about it. Since he was my mind-controlled prisoner. I suppose in theory, without the marriage they would have been unlikely to learn of it, but - I was not even tracking that at all, I - think I had no plans beyond that week. I think it is generally not wise to do things that would greatly upset people you are trying to ally with, and have your main plan be to keep them from finding out. And he would have known that." 

He shakes his head. "I am not sure it was in fact a plan he had, at the time. It is - hard to tell - I think he genuinely was very sad and lonely, and had missed me... My main eventual conclusion was that trying to mind-control and interrogate an extremely clever person who is entirely opposed to one's goals and also one's lover is...a situation that makes a person insane." 

"It does sound pretty crazymaking, yes."

"...I was about to ask if you had considered having somebody else do it for exactly that reason, however, I can imagine why it might have seemed that it had to be you. We are very - suspicious, and careful, and paranoid. Also I imagine that you knew him better than most people." 

"...Yes, and - I think in particular, others struggled to model and predict his - evilness - I hate to use that word, I think it is usually a fake concept, but given that he shares Sauron's values which are 'maximize torture', it seems apt. The Noldor especially, but Vanyel to an extent as well." A slight, bitter smile. "In hindsight, Stef is perhaps one of the only others I would have trusted with it, however, even our world's Stef is still very young."

Sigh. "Though I suppose it is debatable to what extent I was meaningfully 2000 years old at the time, versus...mostly just fifteen." 

"I don't know Stef at all, what would his advantage have been?"

The older Stef winked at the younger one, and paused in his singing for a moment. "Because I'm a tiny bit evil. ...More seriously, I know how achieving goals by knowing everyone and manipulating people works, Bardic is like that all the time."