Leareth is lying in a stone room, and nothing in particular is happening right now, and he is mostly succeeding at not having any thoughts. It's a fine moment. He is not, literally this second, being tortured. This is not useful at all for predicting what the next moment is going to be like, of course, or for whether 'quiet stone room' has any particular resemblance to reality, but Leareth has gotten pretty good at not being curious.
"I asked my friends to make extra sure that Melkor is in custody like they expect. It might be Maiar can't do the thing."
:Mmm:
Sayshen is quiet for a bit.
:...People really get better from that?: she says finally. :He seemed, er. Pretty damaged. It must be so disconcerting for the other Leareth:
"Not all of them get better. Mandos still has a lot of them. But sometimes. After years and years."
A while later, Leareth - the local one - taps at her shields. :Bella, do you have a moment?:
:It actually seems rather high priority to know what happened, and in particular how he - how I, I suppose - ended up a prisoner there against my will. I am not sure I wish to wait a week. However, I sort of doubt he will answer my questions about it. I could go read him with Thoughtsensing - I was doing that a little, already, I am endorsedly comfortable with past or future versions of me reading my own thoughts. I expect that in the present he would find it very stressful, though, so I am not sure what to do:
A pause. :I thought you might have advice, and possibly more context on Arda that could help me answer some of my great many questions:
Melkor can read minds. I guess I don't know if he can do it through shields but if he's aware of whether or not he is shielded he'll already have to be coping with the expectation that his thoughts are up for grabs. I can give you Arda context though.
:...If Melkor knows everything I know, that is in itself extremely worrying! He is currently shielded; I can cheat because it seems it still counts as 'my' shields, though it is definitely noticeable to him when I do so. He may not have been shielded before, since I would assume Melkor had a way of blocking his Gifts, or else he would not have remained a prisoner for very long:
Leareth absorbs that quietly for a while.
:That makes sense. Whatever the explanation, Arda sounds like a dangerous place to be currently, especially for a Velgarth mage and for me in particular. I will have to leave it to your friends to figure out what precautions to take there. However, it occurs to me that if Melkor or his Maiar can block the magic of Velgarth, they may be able to replicate it. In which case it is not impossible they would show up in pursuit. I do not know a way of tracking your teleport spell but that does not mean it is impossible:
My friends are going to warn the other Valar, but it can take time to get an audience when you want one.
:Noted. This reinforces my impression that I had better try to read the other me to learn as much as we can about the context here. Do you have any advice for making it less stressful? For example, I am having difficulty predicting whether it would be better to explain why I am doing it, or better not to say anything since that indicates things happening:
It might depend on what he was in the middle of when I got there, but it didn't look like there was much. If he'll be able to tell, you might want to, like, acknowledge that it's happening even if he's unlikely to appreciate a detailed explanation? If he can't tell maybe skip it.
:He will be able to tell because I need to go through his shields to do it. Also I will likely have to do some probing to get specific topics rather than the surface thoughts he happens to have. I will inform him I am doing it. If it causes him to panic enough that I cannot actually get the information, I might want you to calm him down then - if it is for clear strategic reasons, I think that is something any version of me would endorse on reflection:
:Thank you: And Leareth heads back over to the infirmary to, in a sense, read his own mind.
He gently taps the other Leareth's shields. :I am going to read you: And slips through the shields, which aren't exactly under his control the way his own are, but it's sort of like external room-shielding that he's personally keyed to; there's some resistance but it lets him past without having to actually break anything.
Leareth can tell someone is reading him, and it feels like - well, it's not like he has any previous experience having his read mind by himself but it sure does feel that way.
If drawing inferences from observations were safe, then he would be very confused, and scared, because of what it indicates about Melkor's capabilities that he can fake this, either he has Vanyel, in which case the war is lost, or he's figured out how to replicate Velgarth Gifts, in which case the war is still lost–
–and he manages not to follow that trail any further, reminding himself that his reasoning and the evidence of his senses are both compromised and he has no way of usefully interpreting what's happening.
The scared sticks around, though, escalating toward full panic when he senses a mental probe tugging his thoughts in a particular direction - toward Vanyel, right now, the other person is curious about that.
That enables Leareth to go back to skimming thoughts which are not mostly internal screaming. He tries to be efficient about it, because it turns out to actually be moderately distressing.
:...All right, I think I have the highlights, and we ought to talk about it. It is very strange:
Leareth feels the change; he's so confused, this doesn't feel like Projective Empathy or Mindhealing. (Honestly it works better while being less obtrusive than either.) Melkor is making some baffling artistic choices here, he thinks distantly, and then stops being curious about that and just curls up in a ball, he's kind of shaking but it's not like that's an action he decided on, so whatever.