"That's what I said, yeah, he could maybe try doing things that didn't involve a lot of managing our state of information about the things."

"I'm surprised he thought it would work, honestly? You're, um, not someone I would expect to succeed at keeping an important secret from. But I guess he probably wasn't thinking clearly on multiple levels, and - didn't know a useful way to protect from that." 

Nod. "And I think he thought - that if he wanted to want to have a relationship then that'd transmute into actually wanting one? That's how he normally works."

"Wow, I - I don't know if I wish I worked that way or if I'm really glad I don't, I would probably abuse it if I could do that. Um. From having talked with him a bit recently, it was some point in the last few weeks but before, er, all this, I...wonder if he didn't succeed at that. At least a bit. He seemed - actually happy, about a lot of it, in this 'was I missing out on this the whole time' way - I thought it was very sweet at the time. Though I also felt very, um, I guess awkward about the topic, and I'm not as good at reading people as you, so I might've missed something about how he was feeling." 

"I'm a little confused and I think he's a little confused but I think there might be something there? He definitely got farther than - than I did, when I tried to do that - but I still don't really expect it to work all the way. At least not while he's also traumatized and can't distinguish between 'don't want to because of Melkor, which I should ignore' and 'don't want to because I don't want to'."

"Gods, no, apart from all the other problems with his plan the timing was obviously doomed, but I guess I can see why that wouldn't feel as obvious to him." 

"I think lots of obvious things are not obvious to him!"

"It's really exasperating sometimes! Maybe I should make a list of all the obvious things and put it on his wall. Or, hmm, I think some things would seem obvious to him about other people, but he hasn't recalibrated for himself? I am not sure it'll actually help because it's starting to feel like nothing does, but I could suggest he think about the advice he'd give me, in whatever situation, and then assume he needs it too."

"That seems like wise advice. I definitely don't want him to conclude he can't do things. Just - slightly more caution about which things."

"To be fair I have made worse plans than that which were even less going to solve my actual problems."

"I expect that story would go some way towards explaining why whenever I tell humans I think you are very sensible they gape disbelievingly at me."

"I do not believe that Melody gaped disbelievingly. She might have raised one eyebrow. Very politely. She was in fact personally there for some of the aftermath of my..." Vanyel makes a very odd face, "...third worst plan? You know, I have never actually tried to sit down and rank all of the stupidest things I've done by which of them were worse ideas than Leareth doing that." 

"Well, maybe it will cheer Leareth up if you do."

"...I'm concerned it would be upsetting? I don't have a very good model of what actually upsets him, though." 

"One of the things he said to me and Melody was that he tried concealing how badly things were hurting him because he felt like we were - overcorrecting for it, trying too hard to make sure nothing upset him..."

"Oh. That makes sense. I've felt that way a lot - I'm not sure I was always right to, but I understand why he feels that way." 

"Yeah. I think we can - try to tread a little less carefully, and if he was wrong about it hopefully he will notice."

"I'm...not sure I trust him to notice things being bad for him, but - well, it's probably worse for him if no one is trusting him with that, so." Shrug. "I'll do my best not to be stupid about it." 

"I trust you." 

And he will let them go do that. 

This mostly seems to go okay, or at least not result in any disasters? Leareth seems a bit more fragile than usual for the next week, mostly not leaving his room, but after a while he seems back to his previous normal. Except for spending a lot more time with Vanyel and less with Maitimo. He still often asks Maitimo to sing him to sleep, but only very occasionally asks for a hug if it hasn't been spontaneously offered. 

Two weeks later he tells Vanyel that he would maybe like to travel sometimes. Going to new places is stressful, but he thinks it's good for him to sometimes do things that are a manageable amount of scary. 

Vanyel relays this. "I don't know where we'd go. Valinor seems - fraught, we could go but I wouldn't be able to Gate him back right away if he got overwhelmed, and I think it'd be a better idea to have that as an option." 

"I have been thinking about relocating to within osanwë range of Vinyamar anyway, it'd make my work easier. Maybe you two could go explore the coast near there? It's safe enough, and you can Gate if you end up needing to, and if you find someplace you like we could build a place there."

"That's a good idea. Probably exploring the coast would be less overwhelming than the city itself at first. I don't know if there are any potential risks - I guess wild animals? We wouldn't actually be in danger but it'd scare Leareth a lot, if we got chased by wolves or something and he couldn't do any magic, even though I doubt there's anything on the whole continent that would be a threat to me. So I should scope out an area first and make sure nothing's going to surprise us." 

"I think that's a good idea, yeah. There's nothing that's even particularly scared us but he feels awfully vulnerable right now."

Vanyel does that. He can Gate across by himself first, poke around a stretch of coastline, and put up some passive wards so he'll be alerted in advance if any maybe-scary-looking wildlife has wandered in.