"I wouldn't want to mess up your art! How long were you thinking it would ideally go for?"

"I think ideally the material I have would last for three to five weeks."

"Hm, okay - I think I'll only be able to do a few days but I have an idea for a drug that would mess with someone's perception of time that could definitely give them the experience of it being weeks."

"I'll trim out some excess detail to slim it down for your timeframe, since that'd affect the prisoner but not you, presumably, but that will mostly affect the orf's briefing; yours will be the same."

"Do I have to make my costume myself?"

"You don't need a costume at all, His Lordship provides the appropriate visuals for the prisoner. Actors are there to supply personality and body language that are more difficult for a single controller, even His Lordship, to manage with convincing diversity."

"Neat! I'm excited to collaborating with you!"

It takes her under an hour to whip up the time dilator injection - there's plenty extra for any other hallucinations that could benefit from it. So long as the prisoner gets one injection each day it should work fine, giving them the impression of many days passing of vaguely similar feeling events without altering their impression of time on a minute-to-minute scale. Higher doses are fine but she doesn't recommend they give more than a thousand times the amount she's using since when she did that her subject started assuming everything outside of themselves was fake and an illusion and she thinks that would drain all the fun out of Angband. She doubt's it will have that effect if they keep it under a few years of subjective time per real day.

She goes to bed early that night so in the morning she can be well rested for her first big day of being an actor!

Beka arrives to do a little workshopping in the morning! "Hi! Do you want to practice answering to 'Mell'? And having a conversation out loud while clarifying what we're doing over osanwë?"

"Sure!"

The orf starts miming serving something into bowls. "Mell, breakfast is ready!" It's berry compote.

"Oh, berries! My favorite."

"Mm-hm, eat up while they're hot. I'll go see if our guest wants any this morning." Mime mime. "Looks like a no today. Well, one day maybe she'll be ready to get her strength back up enough that she can go meet her son." Her son's our neighbor who doesn't want to see her till she's not visibly Angbandy.

"I bet he'll be so excited when that happens."

"No sense rushing, though. It'll be a joyous occasion now or in a hundred years." She mimes washing the dishes.

Bonesaw can mime helping wash the dishes.

Eventually it's time to go! They have a bit of a set, so they can do things like sit down and retrieve objects without His Lordship having to patch too much inconsistency in the mime. There's their prisoner, very authentically beaten up and in no condition to go have a joyous reunion with her son at all. The orf maintains a very solemn affect about their "guest" in character, smiling at "Mell" and the extras who stop in occasionally but treating the prisoner with appropriate gravity except for the prescribed frequency of concerning smirks.

Bonesaw LOVES the simulation. She has a bunch of fun playing house with the orfLalwen and helps tend to the prisoner, setting a challenge to herself to help her get better without looking like she's doing anything much and occasionally hurting her in ways that seem like accidents.

Towards the end of the first day she turns to her acting partner and whispers loud enough for the prisoner to hear: "Mommy, what do you think happened to our guest to hurt them so much?"

"Monsters got her, sweetheart. This is why you must never go out into the woods by yourself and always need somebody with you. Monsters catch anybody they can and take them back to the Enemy's stronghold."

"And what happens there?" Mell asks innocently.

"Maybe one day our guest will tell us all about it." She reaches out to adjust a bit of the prisoner's clothing. "If I'd ever been there myself, I don't think we'd be here right now!"

"Well, I'm happy you've always been here with me!" says Mell, giving her Mommy the biggest of hugs.

"And I'm so happy to have you, my darling Mell." Hug.

"Will you tell me a story before bed tonight?" she asks, sitting on the edge of the bed with the prisoner and 'accidentally' leaning against a particularly sensitive bruise.

"Of course, honey. Do you want one about the Valar, or one about regular people?"

"About the Valar!"