And your world is horrible so we cannot open trade relations with it. He shivers. Thank you. I think you can go now. I will be all right. 

I might start evacuating people from it at some point but don't have a timeline on it. She backs off on the calm and lets herself out.

Leareth sits up. Maitimo, can you– He stops, tries to figure out what he actually wants. Which isn't to interrupt Vanyel in the middle of his work or sleep just because he's now on the same planet. When Vanyel is free, he corrects, I would like if he came here and looked at the wards and you helped share his mage-sight again. I know they are there, just... It would help. 

I will let him know. Is Vanyel free right now?

Vanyel went to bed after Leareth, and is still asleep; there isn't a day-night cycle here for them to both pin down to. 

He's sleeping. But I'll invite him over when he wakes.

Thank you. 

Leareth isn't sure what he's supposed to do next (which is still a far easier question than what he wants to do next). He had something of a routine back in his alt's compound, even if it was a stupid routine that mostly held a lot of sleeping and reading books unrelated to anything important. 

...Oh, right, there is the request he made, which Maitimo specified he was willing to fulfil now that the war is over. Though maybe he's changed his mind, since, and also it's not clear how it would work since Leareth doesn't even have Thoughtsensing right now.

Asking is absurdly harder than waiting for him to offer, but Leareth can't be sure if he's going to offer at any point, so - make the leap, do what gets him the most information - check that it's not an action that could destroy anything if he were completely wrong about his current context even though he's very, very sure he's not in Angband - no, if he were still in Angband then Melkor wouldn't be able to fake Maitimo's thoughts, he never could in the few attempts he made, probably the offer wouldn't be happening at all then...

He takes a deep breath. You - offered - that I could - read your thoughts now - is that still...? 

Yes, if you would still like that.

I would still like that. Although I am not sure how, since my Gifts are blocked - does osanwë allow that? 

I can make things public so you can read them. It creates a bit more distance than with your magic - I won't hide anything, but you wouldn't be able to tell. Or we can ask Bella, if you'd prefer that. 

Sharing with osanwë is fine. He trusts Maitimo.

...Or, well, in the world where all of this is real - which he's pretty sure is where he is - then he trusts Maitimo to be an ally in saving all of the worlds, and it's not clear whether that means Maitimo would always tell him the truth, but - it's almost better, right, if it means that Maitimo would do whatever he thought was best for the mission, that means he can afford to stop tracking it for a bit... He doesn't think Maitimo would lie, and - if he did, and shared incompletely, Leareth believes it would be for a good reason, one he would endorse if he were - less broken - and knew all the relevant information. 

After a moment's consideration, he makes that tangle of thought available to Maitimo too, because - it seems important, somehow, that Maitimo knows how he's thinking and feeling about it right now. That's part of what it means, to really and truly have allies, that you share your decision process with them. 

I will not always tell you all of the truth but I think I can, here and now. I talked with Vanyel last night, about whether there were things I should try to make sure you didn't see. He thought you were - easy to scare but not very permanently scared. Based on which I'd rather just let you know things. If there were, say, any escaped Maiar or any pressing problems we still needed to solve I would keep that from you, so I guess there's the argument I should keep the symmetric information that there's not from you too, but that's making things awfully complicated and I assume whatever it is you're hoping you'll get out of this, you'll get more of it if things are more straightforward. 

Leareth thinks (privately) that he isn't actually sure what he wants from this, except for a baseline sense that more information is always worth having. And...hmm, and it feels like it'll help, to know more specifically about Maitimo's current stance towards him. He feels like he doesn't quite know where he stands, with Maitimo or with Vanyel, and that means he can't predict what they're likely to do. The world under him would feel more solid if he did know.  

Externally, he just nods. 

He sits down. He tries - letting Leareth in to see his thoughts. 

Maitimo's model of Leareth wouldn't blame them for letting him get captured. The other, non-tortured Leareth, who usually accords pretty well with Maitimo's model of Leareth and when he diverges tend to diverge in the direction of having fewer criticisms of Maitimo, doesn't blame them for letting him get captured. And yet - they did. They could have been carefuller and cleverer and prevented it and Leareth was tortured for years as a result and - he hasn't apologized, but he regrets it very intensely, he wishes he'd been better, he tried to get better afterwards, he will set it right eventually no matter how long it takes. 

He doesn't know how to help. It's painful, not knowing people stuff is always painful, and especially not knowing how to help someone you love who is suffering right in front of you because you failed them. It's painful sometimes accidentally making things worse, and not knowing why that happened either - he's not sure why Leareth came here, he's glad of it but he would've expected Leareth to want to be in some place he had happier memories of - and maybe there isn't any such place, maybe what Maitimo thinks of as the worst six months of his life were better for Leareth than an average six months in his own world, among his own people, but with all the forces of the universe arrayed against him and a nightmarish task ahead -

- the other Leareth is so baffled about Maitimo wanting to help him with the plan to build a god and Maitimo doesn't know how to explain it, he's said the obvious things and it feels like something just hasn't quite clicked, the thing he was tempted to do was take the Thoughtsensing amulet off but he thinks that'll actually make things worse because it's a more baffling thing to do - and it would be embarrassing if the other Leareth thought he wasn't paranoid enough - also there's all kinds of politics now around the fact Leareth used to mindread people so casually, and it's obviously different if it's consensual but Maitimo still doesn't particularly want to deal with it right now.  

And now Leareth is crying again. 

You are not making it worse, he tells Maitimo, quickly, he doesn't want him to be stuck thinking that. He's not upset, really, just - overwhelmed, and confused - but noting Maitimo's confusion about his alt actually clarifies it, because he thinks it's the same shape or at least the same direction of error in his world-model. A Leareth doesn't find it easy to trust people. Not after thousands of years of the Velgarth gods using every handle they could against him. And - he thinks there might be something important that happened, during his six months in Arda, and his alt doesn't have that. It's...not quite about the appropriate level of paranoia? He and his alt are fully aligned on the appropriate caution to have around Melkor, he thinks, but - well, it matters, that the best thing he could do for the war effort, for all of his goals and values, once he was in Angband, was to give up and stop doing things, and he could only make that mental move because he trusted Maitimo and Vanyel to carry his mission, their mission, onward. 

His alt certainly wouldn't let Maitimo read his thoughts, like Leareth is doing right now. Leareth was surprised enough that he let Bella look at his core memories, and that was desperately necessary, as a prerequisite to Bella helping him put the fragments of himself back together.

He had really hoped that would help more; on some level, maybe he'd hoped it would just fix everything, get him back to normal. It did help, a lot, that he can trust the centre of his self and motivations more, but it still feels like his core memories are - not wrong, but incomplete, missing something critical that he never recognized until it was gone. And, of course, he's still terrified of nearly everything, which is exhausting and eats most of his mental resources. 

You went from having a mission that you'd be able to do alone to having a mission that - no one could do alone - all the worlds -

That is true. His alt must be trying to make that transition as well, he knew about the other worlds before, but it's clearly different for him in some way. 

And Maitimo's guess is right; there isn't an obvious place back in Velgarth that he has happier memories of. He would prefer not to go back to the caves ever, but the new city, as it takes shape, is going to be more like Tirion than like said caves. 

He misses Tirion under the light of the Trees. 

He does, too. They'll build something better, of course, but they cannot build anything quite as innocently, wastefully, generously, uncomplicatedly good, now. They are different people now, all of them, after a year of war, and their safe places will have walls that aren't just for show, and spare resources will be diverted to preventing mass deaths in other worlds where people are mortal and their gods indifferent. And he's glad of it, but he misses Tirion under the light of the Trees. Bella's world still has Trees, maybe the Valar here can reconstruct the Trees from the other live Trees or something.

He wants Leareth to be happy. He wants it very badly. It feels like some enormous imbalance, in the universe, that Leareth has done so much and been loved for so little of it.

It's a very kind thing for Maitimo to share with him, to think at all, and it makes no sense for it to be scary. Leareth doesn't even think it's for Melkor-related reasons, it feels different–

Nonetheless, he shivers and curls into himself and finds himself sobbing. 

He flinches a little - it's the thing he would've held back, except they'd thought that maybe it'd be better not to hold back, and he's sorry if he was wrong about that - it's not just the part of him which Lórien can fix and which he still hasn't been able to make himself go to Lórien about, it's really not, he's pretty sure that most of it will still be there even once he does that and it can be soon if it's a problem - it's just that Leareth matters, and ought to be all right, and that the way Leareth has pursued his goals is beautiful and terrible and admirable and it's not a path Maitimo wants him to walk alone anymore -

Leareth hugs himself, focuses on breathing. Keeps all of his thoughts private until he's slightly calmer and his mind is less an incoherent mess of nonsensical emotions and thought-fragments that won't make sense to anyone else. 

You did not say anything wrong, he manages. Please do not go to Lórien. He has no idea why Maitimo thinks that would help. He doesn't think Maitimo did or thought or felt anything wrong, here. 

He's not sure what to say so he waits. Sings something that's not magic at all.

Leareth focuses on breathing, waits for his heartbeat to slow; it would be a lot faster if Bella could do the calm thing but she just did and he doesn't want to start relying on it too much. 

Finally, he feels able to uncover his face and sit up. I am sorry. This cannot be a very pleasant visit for you - you do not have to stay...

Do you want me to leave?

Aaaa trying to figure out what he wants is one of the harder directions to push in. Leareth tenses up a little. ...No. Only if you want to.