It took you about five minutes. 

I think you are probably also well-placed to be sympathetic to our dilemma, here, with using the resources your world has to offer in our war. We are not so confident that Melkor could not imitate or listen in on your communications, and that you're not working for him, as to want to say anything about whether we expect to win the war without help, on what timeframe we expect to do that, how much or what kind of help we think we'd benefit from, and how badly we want it. Those are conditions under which I'd find it pretty annoying to be dedicating a lot of effort to those things we have asked about.

The thing Leareth is thinking is that he can absolutely see why his alt got along well with this person - enough that Maitimo was one of only two people he specified by name ought to receive updates, even though they hadn't known each other long at all. 

:I understand perfectly and I would not wish you to be sharing any more than you have been. Also, Vanyel has said enough, in his requests, that I can make some guesses. You have a plan for which Vanyel's magic alone would suffice, and would be safer in a sense than asking our aid, which requires you to gamble on our trustworthiness. I would be very reluctant to take such a gamble, in your place! That being said, you also know that Melkor is aware of Velgarth magic, and can both detect and cancel it, and this downside would not be present with Bella's arcane magic. But you are, quite appropriately, still not willing to share any information that Melkor could use to win, if he had it, even if us having that information would allow us to help more, in the scenario where we were indeed on your side: 

Yes. But if there are additional resources and effort that might usefully be pointed at the demonstration of your capabilities we asked for, I think they'd be well spent.

:I agree. It is unclear if resources that I command directly can be usefully pointed at that, but I will see what I can do: 

He's silent for a moment. 

:I see why you were so memorable to my alt: he sends finally. :We - think alike, in some ways: 

He had some useful styles of thinking to learn from.

He's not sure what to say. :You cannot have had very long to learn?: 

I was terribly motivated, though. 

:I can see that, if your people had been on the brink of civil war and then Leareth walked in and within five minutes pointed out what was happening: Sigh. :It is irritating that this entire situation is so - low-probability. My alt was highly suspicious of it and I cannot blame him at all. But hopefully we can provide the demonstration of capabilities for you: 

We'd be very grateful. We are already, really, the work our Leareth did in the early stages of the war made an enormous difference and the Noldor are eager to repay that debt -- though don't tell him that, I think it'd frighten him right now, to have anything at his fingertips that he would've wanted to use -

:Yes. I will not tell him now. Maybe someday you will be able to tell him yourself, at a better time: 

(Leareth is thinking that he's kind of baffled by which things do and don't frighten Angband Leareth right now, but he leaves that alone.) 

:Do you have any further questions?: 

How is he?

:It sounds as though he is recovering much faster than would be expected for your people, though it seems slow enough to me. He did some quite sophisticated reasoning to conclude he was not in Angband anymore, mostly from the fact that if Melkor had or could imitate Bella's mind-powers, he would have better things to do with it and the entire course of the war would have looked different: Sigh. :It took him weeks, because he is easily overwhelmed and very tired, but - that thought process is one I can recognize as my own, and gives me more hope that he will be all right eventually: 

I'm very glad. And  - taking this at face value - he is definitely not taking this at face value and is not very apologetic about letting that leak into the words a little - he couldn't possibly be in better hands. 

Leareth would be pretty unimpressed with Maitimo if he were taking it at face value, so, fair enough. :Anything else?: 

No. Good skill.

:Thank you: And he can go find Bella to return the earcuff, apologizing for taking a while. 

She has been visiting Angband Leareth to assess the core memory damage.

The damage is actually kind of complicated. A lot of the core memory structure is still there, but - smeared, or distorted, with the associated emotions shifted. This looks like it might be cumulative over time, actually, as though he had done the initial damage but then repeatedly disrupted it even more, mostly on occasions that Melkor tried erasing all of his other Arda memories in an attempt to undo whatever he'd done. 

He thanks her for coming back, but mostly doesn't interact while she's looking. 

Local Leareth pauses outside the room. :I am finished. Was the plan still to do the copying today?: 

I can start it, at least. I don't think I'll get it done in one sitting.

:It does seem quite involved: He'll come in, in that case, and make himself comfortable. 

Angband Leareth takes a few slow deep breaths, and tells Bella that he's ready. 

"This won't feel like anything. You might want to read a book or something, that won't make it any harder on my end. It's pretty important not to startle me; if you need to interrupt, the best way is to raise your hand."

"Thank you for warning me." He gets out a book and starts reading. 

Local Leareth goes with practicing illusions.