The local Leareth doesn't have much to report. Angband Leareth is still not doing anything except eating per the compulsion to do so. Leareth was considering whether to remove it in a few days, but it seems like anything changing stresses out his alt a lot, so maybe he'll let it be until Bella comes back in a week. 

It will take Fëanáro more than a week to make an earcuff because translating things into his pretty swoopy notation takes a long time but not that much longer. When the week is up she goes north to visit Angband Leareth.

Local Leareth goes with her to his room. :I do not have much to report. He was sleeping a high proportion of the time at first, when we left him alone, and maybe less now. He is still not doing anything: 

Angband Leareth, when they arrive, is awake and not doing anything. 

What's your priority here, exactly? she asks the local.

:...I am not sure. I want to help him, obviously, and... Hmm. This is a little hard to explain, but - Nayoki saw his mind, and she compared it to mine, and noticed damage that she thinks is self-inflicted. He...did something to destroy his core memories, that is where he– where both of us keep our sense of self and values. Neither of us is sure why, but I think that is a significant part of why he is unwilling to do anything. And I could help him rebuild it, I think, if he were willing to let me: 

He probably believes he's still in Angband, he might just self-inflict the same damage again.

:I was afraid of that. How do people usually come to believe that they are not in Angband anymore?:

Time. Lots of it.

All right what are they doing, he knows they're there, why are they just sitting there silently now - he hasn't noticed anyone fiddling in his mind again... 

Leareth's main difficulty for the last day or two, at least, is that he's bored. Having nothing happen was kind of restful for a while, though he tried not to include it at all in his anticipations of the future; there were a lot of moments in a row that were each, individually, perfectly fine moments, and he tried to leave it at that.

But now he's bored, and so he keeps ending up having thoughts, and not catching himself before he notices that he's very confused, and then - wanting to be less confused, wondering if his "rescuers" are ever going to tell him what's supposed to be going on before one of them inevitably turns out to be Sauron, again. If there's a plot here, he doesn't have the faintest idea what it is, or why it involves an apparent duplicate of himself reading his mind, and he keeps sort of wanting to know. 

...

They're still there. 

"If you are planning to read my mind again you can just do it," he says. Speaking feels odd. He doesn't think that he's deliberately done it in a long time. 

"We're, uh, discussing what we should be planning to do. It was thoughtless of me not to have insisted on discussing that before visiting, I'm sorry."

:I feel as though I ought to be able to offer considerable counterevidence to him being in Angband, but last time he was trying to avoid doing literally any causal inference so I am not hopeful this would help right now. It is very odd to watch a me trying not to think. I suspect I am not very good at not thinking: 

If he isn't doing causal inference he'll be very hard to convince! If he is I think - if nothing else I can do a range of weird brain tricks which if Melkor had access to them would kind of mean the side of good was hosed, but also having you around would be convincing...

Having zero beliefs about the state of the world turns out to not be sustainable for that long if he's left completely to his own devices. Which is probably the point, Melkor trying something new to get him to do things, but - well, guessing at what's going to happen isn't taking an action, yet, there's no way for Melkor to use that against him - it might make the torture part happen sooner but at least that would self-correct the part where he's bored enough to have thoughts.

He had been vaguely thinking that the copy-of-himself was the obvious candidate to turn into Sauron at some point, but the maybe-Herald is weirder. 

 "Are you supposed to be Valdemaran?" he says. "Your accent is wrong."

It's something Melkor could have gotten right if he wanted, Leareth has lots of memories of speaking to Vanyel. It also doesn't feel right for a deliberate slip, though, not that he ought to trust his own judgement of that, or assume that his conclusions have any particular relationship to reality. As long as he's going to be involuntarily thinking anyway, though, he might as well give his thoughts some inputs. 

She blinks in momentary surprise. "I'm originally from another universe entirely which is neither an Arda nor a Velgarth, but I lived in a Valinor earlier than your own for nearly twenty years and speak Quenya too, and in Valdemar for some months more recently, where I learned the language there," she says levelly. "My native language is called Pax."

...That is a baffling and overwhelming quantity of information, none of which makes sense. Leareth doesn't answer. After a few seconds he rolls over to face the other way. It seems like probably they want him to ask more questions, but he isn't going to. 

Well, that's promising for the "bore him into interacting with us" angle.

:He must be very bored. I cannot imagine spending a week doing nothing - I am not sure if I am bored more easily than most humans, but it is a very unnatural state for me to not be working on something or thinking about something: 

If you weren't in a hurry I'd suggest giving him stuff to do that couldn't possibly be useful to Melkor, but if you are in a hurry letting him be bored is probably faster.

:I am not that much in a hurry? I would be inclined to give him one more week, though, and if he is willing to have a conversation with more than one back-and-forth, I will find him something to do. Being bored is unpleasant, but: a slight smile, :in general I do all of my best intellectual work when I am bored. I set aside a month or two for it sometimes: 

Well, maybe he'll have some great ideas while boring himself.

:I suppose you can come back in a week, then - or I could see if he wishes to interact with me then, and let you know, so you need not come all this way without good reason?: 

“We are leaving now,” he tells the other Leareth, and gets up to go.

No comment.

Yeah, sounds good. She follows him out.

The next time she checks in with other-Arda-Vanyel, he has actual news to report. :Fëanáro got contacted by the tiny Fëanáro! They've been talking for at least ten hours now: