"Ah, so it could theoretically in the future matter, and you can’t just ask the future what to do?"

"Do you really want me to try to explain precognition mechanics to you, because I'd just be reading from Wikipedia."

"Not really. I was just wondering if it could possibly matter to anything important if I somehow turned out to have been designed to ruin everyone I talk to, let alone everyone who reads my mind, and it sounds like it could matter."

"Uh, that does sound like it could matter. I'm not reading your mind, I can't do that from over here, and hopefully nobody will try, but if you shouldn't talk to people you should probably still go to Valinor and get sung to."

He shrugs unhappily.

"Do you wanna go there now or just... sit in this waiting room."

He would rather stay in the waiting room than go to Valinor but there’s nothing about this choice that’s important enough to try very hard to get it right and anyway talking about preferences is not a good way to get what he wants. He shrugs.

"Right, so, I'm gonna go with the original plan and drop you off in Valinor. Four hops. I assume you don't have, like, other stuff than what you've got on you?"

"Why would I tell you that?"

"Yeah, I dunno why I even asked. I assume the Elves are used to people like you."

Pop pop pop pop.

It's a stunningly gorgeous forest, with towering redwoods shading the mossy ground and picturesque shrubbery muffling the sound of the babbling brook over there and bunnies grazing in a clearing.

"Just a sec," says the teleporter. He steps past a tree, calling, "Hey, who do I talk to about dropping off somebody who might as well be an Angband victim?"

"Over here! Hello!" replies another voice, belonging to a tall pretty pointy-eared fellow in gorgeous robes. "Thank you very much. Is this him?"

"Yeah. We don't have like, a name, or anything, so if you need to find records he's down as 'portalsnack 54'."

"Understood. I appreciate your bringing him to a safe place."

"It sounded kind of like he'd already escaped and wanted to go back but they're having technical difficulties." Shrug. "Probably somebody'll come looking if they figure it out. All set to take it from here?"

"Yes, I believe so."

Teleporter leaves. The Elf smiles at the new person and starts picking leaves and berries off apparently random plants.

He hates this Elf. He loves this forest which was probably designed to make him love it for nefarious purposes. Or maybe he’s underestimating the awesomeness of natural forests. He shuts his eyes and covers his ears and sits right where he happens to be and resents Valinor.

The next time he opens his eyes the Elf is gone. He is alone in the beautiful forest.

Like he’s going to open his eyes. Then he might see the forest.

At home in the land of the free, he interrupts his busy schedule of silent contemplation with occasional panhandling, hanging out standing guard over a sleeping friend, and buying coffee. He has nothing to do here except sit very still forever, briefly doing math and then being too tired to ever think clearly about anything again for all eternity.

...Or meander in the direction of that hot spring he can hear in the distance, he might be able to sleep there eventually. But - if they realize there are still ever times when he can sleep, they might fix that. So he doesn't. And he gets tired, and starts drifting off enough to start listing to one side, and panics and jerks hard enough to end up rolling down a soft slope right toward it.

That's such a suspicious thing to happen and he's very suspicious of it. He does not get into the hot spring. He does drop a hand in to feel the warmth.

There's a naked Elf in the hot spring. They've got their chin propped on their arms on the edge of the pool so it's hard to tell what sex of Elf. They look at him and blink once and then close their eyes.

That seems pretty valid of them. This Elf is the least objectionable person he's encountered since being kidnapped. He takes his shoes off and sits with his feet in the water, and eventually decides to lie down (still with his feet in the water).

There are occasionally munching sounds as the Elf picks clover and eats it. The hot spring burbles. Birds chirp.

It's so nice. It's even nicer than his park. It's so...

...one very brief power nap later he's regretting all his life choices, even more worn out than before, and very much not enjoying the forest.

Would he like the forest to be some other way? It's very accommodating. (The Elf is still in the hot spring and picking apart bits of grass from the shore to arrange in decorative patterns.)

He looks at the decorative patterns for a bit. Probably the forest will not be restraining and torturing him in exactly the way that is simultaneously not too bad to sleep through some of the time and boring enough for the demons that they never pay enough attention to notice him doing that, because this is a forest and not a torture chamber and he doesn't even particularly want it to be a torture chamber. Probably it will also not contain a coffee shop for the same reason. Though who knows, really, it's - it's obviously either reading his mind or paying attention to his reactions and telling the future - no, that's not obvious, it could also have researched his history in exhaustive detail and be guessing wildly -

- its behavior is really suspicious, though. He's so suspicious of its suspicious behavior. Okay. Quick test. He would like to see seven birds. He would like them to be blue or green or brown, he can't remember what the normal bird colors even are, whichever of those is a real thing. He will react visibly if instead they are red or orange or white, but he is politely silently asking the forest for green or blue or brown. This is so out of nowhere he's not sure how he'd come up with it by watching himself from the outside.

Seven quail trot across the background. They're brown.

The most important thing is to not react differently than he would if there were no quail. He keeps looking in their general direction for a while making steadily more impatient faces before sighing and shutting his eyes in his best facsimile of vague annoyance about the forest's refusal to provide him with evidence. He doesn’t feel like he exists. His hands and lips are tingling. He promises himself he will never ever mention this to anyone.

And now he knows. And now what would he want to do if he didn’t? Would he call their bluff? It’s essential that he keep acting like he can possibly ever achieve anything, like he isn’t totally fucked. He would not start crying. He would not give up. He isn’t sure what he would do. He hopes his guess is right.

He gets up. He walks in a random direction as straight as he can, hoping to find something other than the creepy mindreading forest eventually.

(Thank you for your honesty, he tells the forest.)

The creepy mindreading forest yields in a startlingly short period of time to not-forest. There's an Elf there, who smiles at him.

Smiling people. Why. "I have something to say to the person I spoke to before."

"I can try to help you with that, whom did you speak to?"

"...I think she claimed to be Sovereign Ristrell?"