"Yeah, that's about as far as we've gotten, too. Guess we'll find out soon enough."

Shadow totally has additional questions which this tag is too small to contain.

Ashkon will answer to the best of his host's ability!

And eventually Shadow thanks them and offers them a business card. By now Ashkon's host has realized he doesn't really need to be consciously dwelling on the past for Ashkon to get information out of him and is contemplating whether it would be nice to try more teas today.

Ashkon bids Shadow a polite goodbye and goes and gets samples of all the teas laid out to smell. Sniff sniff. <I think I like this green one.>

<You can try it! Do you want to try it with something or just plain?>

<I'll ask what they recommend.>

The Elf at the tea shop gets them a cup with a stevia leaf and a lemon wedge.

Sip.

This... is... allowed. He would be making a face if he could make a face but that barely even distinguishes it from anything else. He hates it like twenty percent as much as anticipated, which is definitely to say that he hates it.

But it's something Ashkon wanted and he's proud he can offer Ashkon that and also he would like to either hear all about how great it is that he's tolerating this or not have to keep tolerating it.

<I like it, and in particular like it a lot more than coffee, though it's possible we should be getting caffeine by taking pills with water instead of by drinking beverages at all.>

They can do that? Maybe they should do that!

<I think I remember you saying something before about fancy beverages improving my stamina, though?>

<Calories might do that, but it doesn't have to be a caffeinated beverage. We could drink smoothies or shakes or something, and take caffeine pills.>

He's nervously tentatively in favor of this plan.

Ahskon pays for the tea and heads to the school store and asks about caffeine pills, whereupon the proprietor tells him that actually there's a song to skip sleep, would that do?

Uh, probably! replies Ashkon. Wow, I guess I forgot about that because back when I read a list I couldn't sleep.

Imaginary cackling.

<Sorry!> says Ashkon sheepishly, and the Elf supplies dosing information but clarifies that it's for normal living people and the caffeine doses they're accustomed to would certainly kill one of those so they'll probably be fine, worst case is passing out and being asleep for a while so they should tread somewhat carefully in case Ashkon gets stuck. Probably Ashkon can osanwë for help getting to the Pool if his host is unrouseable though.

<...Should we make sure people know where to find us all the time while we’re testing that?>

<Neither of us is in the habit of shielding that we exist, so they'll know, but yeah, I should warn people.>

Or they could sleep. That would be a completely pointless waste of Ashkon's time and kind of miserable but it is kind of oddly appealing.

<The nightmares are pretty bad but if they're not bothering you we could also sleep!>

The nightmares bother him a lot but there's just this quality to his thoughts and to existence in the first day of being awake that's so bright and clear. Coffee takes the edge off the exhaustion and keeps him on his feet but it doesn't really let him feel like that all the time. He used to also really desperately miss getting to stop being on edge and being able to safely let his attention wander, and he used to only ever risk that if he was about at the point of feeling safe enough to sleep, but these days it's mostly not his job to be alert to anything anyway.

Then that night they can put on the sleep song and have some horrible nightmares.

He dreams that Pete is down in the caves being flayed. He spends most of the dream sneaking through endless caves in the hope that he'll find Lórien somewhere and be able to ask for help, but of course he doesn't find it. The emotional tenor of the dream is a little odd, with his body enforcedly calm; it's grim but he never really panics, and the realization that he's very unlikely to succeed doesn't quite spark despair.

When he wakes he tries to shift position as he orients, and it doesn't take him long to recognize why this fails, at which point he tries to grab their pillow and hug it.

Ashkon obligingly hugs the pillow. <It's okay. Do you want to check up on Pete today?>

...Wow, he could do that, that’s incredible. He could just stay in touch with anyone he wants. Maybe he could even try to get back in contact with people he's already fallen out of touch with.

They should maybe have some tea first because he has a headache from not having had any caffeine all night. Or they can quit cold turkey. He's not going to argue about it.

Ashkon goes and gets a tea and emails Nocawe to see how to find Pete, given that he was dropped off at a bus stop. Nocawe is able to dig him up and forward on their contact information to him.

He really ought to just list all the things he's vaguely sad about not getting to do and see if actually half of them are this obviously trivial. ...Fly. Have a completely perfect memory. Okay, those are probably not trivial, the important category is probably things that he's used to not being able to do because they rely on the people around him being kind and also rich. Learn to sculpt? Learn how to grow every kind of flower? It'd feel stupid, having all these things occur to him only now that his body is busy doing something else, but realistically it's not a coincidence and if he were by himself he might not have any fun even if it did occur to him to try gardening because he'd spend the whole time distracted by the background misery of existence. And - well, the fact that watching Ashkon do things and letting Ashkon comment on his problems leads him to have a better BATNA each day than he had the day before does not exactly make him want to change anything.

(Pete doesn't really keep on top of his email. Probably he'll answer eventually.)