"I cannot take actions that might harm anyone. I'm - reluctant to swear things on top of that, especially if I'm missing memory -"

" - that's fair. But I need to - talk to some people. It is a lot to ask of them, having you here."

" - okay. Take as long as you need."

 - sorry, he says to Belrun. I need to discuss with my people whether we are able and willing to take him in. Do you want to stay here with him or come back to the city with us? We will leave him company, if you'd rather return with us.

:Uh, I'll come in with you: She stands up and walks over, picking her way carefully along the forest floor, at one point slipping and Fetching herself back up to a standing position.

He tells some people to stay with Maedhros. 

He turns his back on him, with some apparent effort, and heads back up the beautiful river valley.

Welcome to Imladris, he says. I'm sorry the circumstances of your arrival were so confusing.

:As far as I know that wasn't your fault. Do you know him? He wasn't sure exactly where we'd landed so we didn't know whether to expect him to be recognized:

About five thousand years ago, an army he was leading sacked the refugee camp where I and my twin brother lived. We were six. They were after a powerful magical object of theirs, which my parents had stolen and which might have turned the course - though by then it might have been too late anyway - of their war against an evil god.

They killed a lot of people. They didn't kill us. They took us back with them. They, uh, raised us. And when the war with the evil god was over he committed suicide. 

Our god of the dead usually returns those we lose in accidents or violence, once they're ready. He had been - damaged very profoundly by the war - enough so that I can actually imagine that the best way to send him back was with no recollection of any of it, which is what he says he has. I am - very confused - by dropping him in the world without telling him what happened, though, because he is the most notorious mass murderer and war criminal in our history and it would be - atrocious, to send him back with no knowledge of what - 

- are you familiar with the differences between humans and Elves -

:I'd never met an Elf before just now. Uh, it may be relevant that he and I both know of my world, Velgarth, but we know different versions of it - we remember some of the same people but it's different years and different historical events have taken place. My current best guess is that we are somehow from a simulation a god is running to see what will happen in the future and that in reality it's an earlier year still, but I don't know where you come in there:

Do the gods where you're from do that kind of thing? Our evil god was capable of it but he's dead and the good ones wouldn't.

:Uh, they do a lot of Foresight. I did not previously think this involved simulating people but Russandol and I are apparently from very different versions of the same world. I think mine is nicer:

He nods.

One of the differences between Elves and humans is that Elves can swear magically binding oaths about our future behavior. Maedhros - did, about the magic jewelry, in about the time period that is the last thing he remembers. I think that maybe Mandos made him forget, and that while he's forgotten the oath cannot affect him. That makes me reluctant to explain to him what he did, in case that - reactivates it, somehow. But he's very smart and it's hard to keep things from him. I don't really know what to do, there. 

I have never heard of other worlds and don't have a guess about how that fits in to everything.

:Wow. I wonder why he's under compulsions at all instead of one of those - maybe specifically because of the thing where they don't work if you forget, I guess -:

I don't know what a compulsion is.

:Magic thing from my world. People can have Gifts - most people have none, some people have one or a few, and one in particular is called mage-gift, and it can do magical compulsions to do... whatever. I don't have mage-gift so I don't know a lot of details but I think it works even if forgotten. He also mentioned he'd been modified by a Mindhealer - they're called that, but can actually do an extremely wide variety of mental modification that doesn't have to be geared toward a constructive purpose at all:

There aren't any Silmarils anywhere anyone knows about and he was - wherever he could, wherever the oath let him be - a good man. But - I don't know that that's unnecessary. I'd need to understand a lot more about what is going on.

:I definitely do not understand a lot about what's going on, but I can corroborate about features of my world if not the last few years of history insofar as that's useful to you getting information from him:

Sure. We can at least try to reconstruct everybody's timelines and identify divergences and so on. 

- do you happen to know who he is married to. 

:I didn't recognize the name he gave me:

- uh, sure, but I might.

aaaah she doesn't know if Elf names are gendered :Telumë:

Huh. Maedhros never married. Does he know where she is -

:North of Valdemar, he said - Valdemar is the country I was born in, and was in earlier today, but I have actually lived elsewhere most of my life:

I do not think we have the resources here to go hopping between worlds but there are some people I can ask.

:My lifebonded might find me eventually. Uh, I don't know if you have lifebonds, Russandol said Elf marriage bonds are different, lifebonds are a thing we have where you meet somebody and are reasonlessly drawn to them and if you accumulate enough total exposure to them it's irreversible and being far apart hurts and they're very appealing in general and stuff, gods do them for god reasons: