Maybe the Space Findekáno who whisked him off somewhere would have a hint. It was Delight.

"It's - I am actually less concerned about him - I will know, pretty much as soon as we interact, exactly what my counterpart was trying to elicit, and if my counterpart turns out to have more in common with Thauron than general attitude towards ethics then I will probably have a breakdown and I get the sense that'd make him nervous."

"Do you want me to go talk to him while you stand within osanwë range or will it only work if it's you?"

"If you sent me all your past interactions that ought to be sufficient, actually."

Here they are at Elf-safe speed.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Yeah, it's kind of upsetting. ...She's right that he's probably not an Evil Findekáno under all the mistreatment, right? Are Findekános usually nicer than that?

"Not evil, no. If he were that strategy wouldn't have worked - most of them are less nice, but in the sense of 'being used to having avenues to get things they want other than having it amuse me to grant them'."

Oh.

"Did no one notice that was what was going on."

Aredhel was the one who told Elspeth. She knew it was fucked up. Most people knew that the king's consort was not being kept in consort-standard conditions - Findekáno went around with short hair, hard to miss - but there was some amount of possibly willful ignorance about how much.

"He cut. his. hair."

"I put it back."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

The hair thing is weird. Elspeth wears hers long and braided by complete coincidence. The Elves were alarmed when she had to cut it.

"I think to humans and probably vampires it does not feel the same. I'll send a memory if you're actually curious. I - cutting someone's hair without their permission is just a particularly sexual way of mutilating them. And for no reason, I don't even find short hair exceptionally appealing."

Well, she is sort of curious but it seems likely to be the sort of memory that is personal and insert standard disclaimers about putting things in Elspeth's brain if you don't want them scattered hither and yon.

"The Enemy already had all my memories, it makes me incautious about sharing them now." He sends something. It's selected to just be some fully-dressed, no-time-for-more hairpetting.

"Yeah, that's different. Vampires have really amped-up tactile senses in general but nothing scalp-specific."

"I assumed it had to be different for everyone else as soon as I met anybody else. You can tell versions of your mother that touching an Elf's hair is like kissing the back of their neck."

...Elspeth has some practice aggressively NOT REMEMBERING her parents' honeymoon.

(Golden has some practice holding perfectly unbreathingly still and not doing anything that would dredge up more of this memory when Elspeth makes that face.)