Leareth does the due diligence of thirty seconds thinking about it. 

:Honestly, he would know literally everything that I did before your arrival, since he is from further in the future. We already explained you. Even on the very remote chance that this will end up mattering, I do not actually know much about the war in Arda. I think that seems fine, if he wants it: 

"He says it seems fine."

Nod. 

Local Leareth might as well head over, while he's thinking thoughts to be bounced.

He's sympathetic to Angband Leareth's confusion, and presumed frustration about it. Things not making sense is terrible. He's thinking that a number of things about his alt's situation would be driving him up the wall, despite the fact that he hasn't experienced Angband. Being stuck somewhere without control of his environment, not having magic, not having - goals or plans - or even knowing what reality is. It's hard to imagine how awful he would find that.

Probably his alt has found some way of dealing with it, though, Leareth wouldn't let himself go on being any more miserable than the adaptive level of misery, if he could avoid it, and it seems like the other Leareth has found a stance toward himself and his own mind that - reduces the tension, or pressure, or something.

That's probably hard to shift back from. And it's probably terrifying in both directions, actually.

He wishes he could help more with the war effort in Arda, but the people over there are being understandably cagey, so he can't. It sounds like adult Vanyel is really quite competent, though. 

He absorbs the thoughts, so familiar yet alien. There are no notes of off-ness at all, and he doesn't have any memories of Melkor getting thoughts convincingly for even a second, generally the rescue hallucinations just involved him not having access to Thoughtsensing.

...If he could read Maitimo's thoughts, that would actually be pretty convincing, given that he spent a while doing that all the time, he has that baseline. Also Melkor can't get just Maitimo's exterior perfectly even when it sure looks like he's trying to rather than leave deliberate discrepancies. That does not seem logistically feasible though. 

"If Maitimo wants to let me I can do the same thing with him, after some amount of rigmarole to be able to specify him to the earcuff anyway. I don't know how likely he is to want to let me, since we've never met."

(Vague memories of Maitimo starting out with nowhere near the level of paranoia appropriate for a war with a god, and then - getting there. He almost certainly won't agree to something like that and if he does Leareth ought to be suspicious on principle.) 

Leareth is feeling kind of overwhelmed again, in a way that pushes away from curiosity. Although, while he's thinking of things, he does sort of want paper to write on, he's not sure how much he'll trust himself to use it but he could at least count days. He has no idea how long it's been. 

She has some on her. She tears out a few pages and puts them down on the nearest appropriate surface. "You've been here about a month."

Leareth mumbles out a thank you, and then abruptly runs out of impetus for any kind of interaction, and curls up under his blankets facing away from them. 

...well does he want her to keep relaying from his alt or not.

That's a decision he is all out of decisions now but he's in fact mostly not paying attention to his alt's thoughts, at this point, his head has enough noise in it with just him. 

She stops relaying and lets herself out.

"Was that surprising?" local Leareth asks her, once they're far enough from the room not to be disturbing Angband Leareth. "I was surprised." 

"Was what, being - suddenly done? I didn't expect it right at that moment but it's not surprising it would happen sometimes."

"I mean, that, but also the extent to which he seemed to be - having plans and preferences about things." 

"I've never seen a human come out of a torturefortress before! It's faster than Quendi."

"I feel bad about the compulsions, even though I think it is very justified and as far as I can tell he agrees. I would be finding it so obnoxious." 

"It does seem very obnoxious. You could ask him if he'd eat on his own now, he's making a lot of progress."

"I will do that. Also, Nayoki said you had some other kind of block? She was not sure if it would be less obtrusive than our usual compulsions; she did say it took you all day, which I suppose is a significant cost. Nayoki would also be delighted to hear from her older self about research progress." 

"I can do action blocks. They're time consuming and not risk-free but I do know how."

"What are the risks?" 

"When I do anything complicated, I might misstep and do something else. Usually I'd be able to undo it right away, or undo it after whoever I was working on noticed if I didn't catch myself at the time, but that's not guaranteed. Also, it's harder to do something that's intended to be temporary but isn't intended to be allowed to wear off within a few days. Usually I can either do something gently enough it'll knock loose soon after I stop actively pushing on it, or hard enough it'll stay forever. Side effects are generally going to be at least loosely related to whatever I was trying to do - if I stop him from doing magic he might wind up generally catatonic or unable to think effectively about magic or something in that vein but would not wind up compulsively, uh, singing or anything like that. I have never actually made a mistake like this and going slowly makes it less likely. I don't know how likely it is a Mindhealer could fix an error I couldn't."

"That makes sense. Nayoki thinks that anything done by a Mindhealer, with the exception of literally burning out areas of a mind - which is impossible to do by accident - is straightforwardly reversible by another Mindhealer, if they have good enough control. She is not sure that she does, yet, she is very young and has not been here that long. Mindhealers cannot easily undo mage-compulsions, however, though they can reliably find them." Frown. "It is probably not worth risking potentially irreversible mistakes, at this point?"

"Probably not. In principle we could just present the question to him but I don't think we should be asking him to make important decisions right now."

Nod. "You think that you can contact the other Nayoki?"