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the dreamer wakes, the nightmare proceeds
AAAAAAAAAH
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Aydanci is much too levelheaded to turn his pterodactyl around until they know for sure it's safe.

...He is just barely too levelheaded to turn his pterodactyl around until they know it's safe.

Oh Eru where's Kib where's Kib -

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They head several hundred miles south before the pterodactyls get too tired.

"I'm sure they got out. My dad made those things to hurt Thauron, they could definitely hurt golems - they're all going to be okay - "

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Aydanci lets out a held breath against the onrushing wind from their flight and focuses on not falling off his pterodactyl.

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The news catches up with them. Fourteen thousand dead, a few hundred missing. There's no settlement at Lake Mithrim, any more. The army found Men and Dwarves at each others' throats with no Thauron involved at all, left a couple thousand warservants to straighten it out, are now back. Please communicate your status.

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...they're okay (as far as that goes). Got away clean (with these people, only) -

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"I'm so sorry," the Elf communicating this says, after a minute. "I'm so sorry, Aydanci - they haven't - haven't found his body -"

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...

 

Doesn't the Enemy know what Aydanci does to things that hurt his spouse?

(He doesn't say anything.)

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When it's safe they head back.

 

The Elves are singing.

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Aydanci was raised by Elves and he will sing too.

While he tries to think of something he can do to solve the problem of the Enemy still doing whatever it is Valar do that isn't draw breath.

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After a few days' frantic activity the King wants to speak with him.

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Aydanci will charitably assume that this is not a frivolous waste of time, considering. He shows up.

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We're marching on Angband, but we need a better counter to the illusions first. Golems see through them. Can you do some kind of binoculars?

 

And do you want a hug?

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Binoculars - probably not - something that renders images as it sees things, though, yes, like a scribe almost - trick'll be getting it fast enough to use for more than recon - no thank you.

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Can't do it until we have something faster than recon, that's twice now he's run rings around us in different ways. A lot of little printing elements, like stamps, each of them on or off, to draw out a whole picture at once?

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...Yes. I can get started on the programming for it immediately, it can parallelize if someone else puts together a puppet chassis prototype.

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I'll have that done.

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Thank you.

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We need to assume the Enemy can use all Kib's servants now.

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I have root permissions to most of them. I can lock him out.

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Thank you.

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I'll do that first. There's some older golem models I was never added to though.

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Then I think we'd better break those ones down.

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I'll courier you a list when I'm sure I've remembered all of them.

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Thank you. Good skill.

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And Aydanci goes off and works on all of that ferociously, shorting sleep, barely remembering to eat enough to keep himself in one piece.

Less staring at the wall this time around. Then Aly was merely dead.

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This is worrying but there is no obvious avenue to provide comfort.

 

He's the calmest person in the place, since none of this is real anyway. He lets Findekáno fall apart on his shoulder and offers Findekano more than that since now he does not have an extra boyfriend. Findekano observes that there really isn't time, and bites his tongue to avoid observing a lot of other things, and they plan an assault on Angband -

 

- as soon as Kib can't order any of the golems, as soon as there's a way to see past the illusions, as soon as everything his father developed is bigger and deadlier - 

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Reordering the golems is pretty straightforward except insofar as some of them have to be recalled from far away for Aydanci to have a word with them. He assigns Lári root access in case something happens to him. And he makes routine terse reports on his progress with the anti-illusion scribelike thing, testing puppets for image quality, honing instruction sets.

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Aydanci's time is too valuable to waste awakening more of the things. Lari can do it. Macalaure'll skip her sleep when she gets behind. He wonders if she'll complain but she doesn't, just clings to any of her brothers who are within clinging range. He wonders if his real sister is like that.

 

He talks Findekano into bed. He's not sure what he's trying to prove. At this point he will be grateful to wake up, at this point he is hoping for the proof that it's not real...

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Aydanci, meanwhile, makes do on a diet of negligible physical affection except what his parents and his brother manage to insist on. Sleep skipping? You don't say.

- missing the dreams hurts but missing the time he could spend working hurts more.

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More war golems. Longer-ranged Maia-shredding projectiles. Tyelcormo can kill things from five miles away, and demonstrates this, viciously, at any animal which could be an Enemy pet and gets within five miles.

 
The dinosaurs are all Kib's. The dinosaurs should all be put down, probably. Would deafening them work instead?

 

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No. Doesn't strictly depend on hearing. You can pet snakes, they don't even have ears.

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He orders someone to kill all their dinosaurs.

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If there's any eggs, Lári can pet those when they hatch. Aydanci's busy.

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They hadn't thought about breeding the dinosaurs. Goes rather against Elven instincts, making an animal bear children in wartime. Too late. Too late for so many things. Next hallucination he'll suggest breeding the dinosaurs.

 

Several of the factories that turn out chassis are entirely automated, now, from the mining to the minute Lari awakens them. The only constraint on how much they can throw at Angband is how many of the things she can touch.

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The sight-scribe works now.

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He wants six thousand.

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Aydanci will touch them all except any they want Lári to do for strategic reasons.

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Yeah, probably wisest to split that half and half.

 

He calls in Aydanci again to let him know what they're planning to do if they find Kib alive. There's a plan for if there's a chance to make it out, and a plan for if there's not. Are you going to want to stay here or are you going to want to petition the Valar to open the portals, if he's dead already or if we kill him?

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They shouldn't open the portals again until the Enemy's dead.

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Agreed. Thank you. You're on a week's rest, no going in the workshops, because your parents are worried you will work yourself to death and my assessment is that you very nearly already have. Eat. Sleep. Get your dreams. Then figure out a project that'll help us kill a Vala, but for a week don't even think about it.

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Nod.

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He's not going to help anything by complimenting his work ethic. That's all. Good night.

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Aydanci goes. He eats, he sleeps, he dreams his first childhood and he dreams Kib coming home to him in their house in Valinor and he dreams watching Aly eaten away by a death that was never anywhere near worthy of her and he dreams the process of realizing he was in love and he dreams telling Kib that it was him who got the pox back -

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And they march off to war, again.

 

When he gives the cue Angband crumbles. It's very satisfying. He wishes it were real. The golems rush over the collapsing walls. Their orders are to kill everyone inside except Kib, and to kill Kib if there's no avenue to get him out.

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There he is.

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They've got one well-defended Elf in full armor per battalion of a hundred war servants, to react to things they can't have given instructions for in advance. Someone bounces him Kib's body, their location, the status of the fighting around them -

 

-get him out, he says, because it wasn't the wrong decision with the King, was it -

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Kib's barely reacting to his surroundings. His eyes flick around, but he's not focusing on things, doesn't speak, doesn't try to order the servants, doesn't resist when one picks him up and delivers him to Findekáno.

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I love you, he says. Please don't move and don't talk and let me get us out of here.

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He doesn't talk. He doesn't move except to sigh and lean his head on Findekáno's arm.

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Which is probably not a very cozy place to lean because he's armored. They fight their way out. There's someone handling the other prisoners - there's someone handling the other humans - he will track all of that later. They break clear of Angband.

Got him.

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The King is too distracted to respond, except for a flicker of some emotion that's not particularly happiness.

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If the armor is uncomfortable Kib is not particularly reacting to that. Or anything. He's just... being carried.

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He is looking forward to piecing together all the bits of this particular variant on 'failed to actually rescue my boyfriend' later once the operation has concluded.

 

 

 

The operation concludes. They've got ten human prisoners who aren't Kib, gagged. They've got a couple dozen Elven prisoners. The war servants charged Melkor's throne and melted as they did but they are pretty sure they injured Thauron because when they hit him fast enough from a great enough distance the illusions faltered and by the end of the fighting there weren't any illusions and all things considered they're inclined to call this one a victory. Casualties on their side can be counted in the dozens. Lovely, having machines do your fighting.

 

And he can carry Kib home.

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No comment from Kib.

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If Kib is broken they will probably have to kill him and hope that resurrection works twice. Not that they'll learn the answer. Kib at least isn't Aydanci and will be fine without them.

 

 

They take him back to one of the most-defensible fortresses. Aydanci, can you come order a golem to restrain him if he attacks anyone suddenly? And we'd better assume the Enemy's looking through his eyes, but with that in mind you can come see him. He hasn't said anything yet.

 
And to Kib, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell everyone you think this is a hallucination, it might be disruptive for them to realize Maitimo thinks that too.

 

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If the Enemy looks through Kib's eyes, he will see the inside of Kib's eyelids. No response to the request.

Aydanci turns up with a rootkitted carefully-ordered Charp. When the door opens Kib opens one eye to glance briefly at his husband - sigh with what could easily be mistaken for contentment - close his eyes again.

"Kib?" says Aydanci.

Kib doesn't react to that either.

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"I am going to have healers in to check him over."

 

He does this.

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Kib does not have anything to say about the healers, or about Aydanci tentatively touching him when he's no longer so thoroughly battered and it doesn't look like he'll fall apart if handled. He does lean in to the hand on his shoulder. Different problems from Maitimo's, whatever the details, apparently.

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He has some ideas. He's not going to voice them; Enemy's still plausibly hijacking Kib's senses. He reminds Aydanci of this and goes out to see if he's needed more urgently anywhere else.

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Aydanci gradually escalates to holding his husband in his arms. This does not provoke a sudden attack or any greater lucidity or - anything, really. Kib is silent, and passive, and snuggly.

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He has Lari order the golems for the rest of the prisoners. He has his brothers talk to the Elven prisoners so the 'escapees of Angband don't believe they're really out' thing doesn't become widely known. They sing for the dead. They figure out what opposed the Enemy best and refine evacuation plans for if he leaves Angband to come after them. He periodically asks Findekano for status updates. The answer is always the same.

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Aydanci is extremely patient about not haranguing the King for advice on how to handle an Angband rescuee right when he is presumably deluged in other things to do.

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And eventually he'll come to visit. "Hi, Aydanci."

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(Kib cracks an eye open, closes it.)

"Hello," murmurs Aydanci. He hasn't said anything. Or done anything.

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I assume Kib told you parts of this?

The Enemy has prisoners in Angband hallucinate being rescued over and over and over. Sometimes the hallucination of being rescued drags out for years. He can meddle with subjective time so not much of it need have passed. He can also tamper with memories. I don't know what's going on with Kib but he probably does not believe he's safe and he may not have complete or accurate memories of any of us.

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Parts, yes - is there a good way to find out what's the matter, he isn't - reacting like you did -

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He probably has fewer memories of us doing him violence, then, which is good. I can try to talk with him but his intent is presumably to be not useful, and so getting him useful will be hard...

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Aydanci's hand clenches. Right now I'd be grateful for lucid.

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"Hey, Kib, what's my name?"

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Blink. "You don't like it," he says.

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"...yeah. Do you love your husband?"

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"Mmhm."

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"Do you want to be able to leave this room?"

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No answer.

(Aydanci sighs, adjusts his hold. Kib relaxes right into his arms.)

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"Do you want people to stay here with you?"

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No answer.

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"Uh, no answer on questions about preferences, answers on easy factual questions, is one very extreme way to not give the Enemy any information. That might be what he's doing. What I can't guess is whether he's processing normally and just not expressing or communicating preferences - but, no, he's not that good an actor - Kib, what color was the sky in the lost world?"

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"Blue."

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"Do you know if you're missing memories."

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...amused snort.

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"The Enemy'd know that, you don't help him by telling me."

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Silence.

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"Well, at least keeping him comfortable and not in apparent distress is going to be straightforward. Everything else might need to wait on the memory necklaces, and time, and whatever means we eventually discover for convincing Angband's survivors that it's real..."

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"Kib what happened," Aydanci murmurs, not sounding like he expects an answer.

There is one anyway.

"He can tell what I'm thinking," Kib almost yawns, "so I stopped."

Aydanci goes absolutely still.

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"Is that a human thing? Or a - Kib thing, most people couldn't..."

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"Kib could," says Aydanci. "It might not even have been - strategic, it might just - privacy reasons -"

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"Okay. So after we win the war I ask my father to develop some kind of absolute protection against mindreading that's internally verifiable as such, and he'll be okay, but that might be a long time. We didn't stand a chance against Melkor directly, today..."

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"How long till we win," Aydanci says softly.

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"I'm not sure." This isn't real anyway. "There might be a faster way to do it but I don't know what - you could take him to Lorien. He seems in a state where Lorien might help."

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"You'd be down to one servantmaker and it might take slightly longer to kill. Him."

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"Yeah.

 

If it helps any I think he'll be basically content in the meantime.

 

 

 

Kib, can the Enemy fake your magic dreams?"

 

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"...mmm."

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"Would require thought to answer? Okay.

 

Are there other things the Enemy can't fake? Some sensation associated with servantmaking - he's got less practice with humans....

 

 

 

We should make sure he's more than three hundred miles from anywhere Thauron can speak to him, that'll delay his recovery."

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"Where do we go, then?" asks Aydanci.

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"Dunno. Maybe Thauron is dead or badly injured and it doesn't matter. If not, I'll probably hear from him. Kib, will you tell us if you hear Thauron in your head."

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"...enh."

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"If I ask you every day 'did you hear Thauron in your head' will you be able to answer."

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"Yeah."

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"Thanks.

 

 

 

 

Would you rather we kill you so you can - have another try -"

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This would require thought to answer, apparently.

Aydanci clutches at him, eyes watering. "We don't even know if it would work again."

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"I know. And he'd have to live it all over again, and it might break him just as much the second time.

 

 

I don't suppose he knows enough about music to distinguish Thauron and Macalaure."

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Aydanci shakes his head.

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"I'm surprised the Enemy did not just wipe him of the information that the Enemy may be able to read minds."

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"Did a couple times," Kib comments.

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"...it didn't stick?"

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"Dreamed it," Kib says.

"...they put themselves in chronological order," Aydanci murmurs.

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"So the Enemy wouldn't, actually, have been able to run him through very convincing hallucinations - couldn't  erase the obvious giveaways, not lastingly, he'd have one shot each time and a patient who remembered everything, including the ways he tends to err." By the end of that he sounds almost optimistic. "That means it might not take as long for him to observe that this isn't a hallucination and he's in fact out of Angband."

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"If he can do that without thinking," Aydanci chokes.

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"Yeah. Or if he can conclude without thinking that a little bit of thinking'd be worth it. Somehow.

 

I'm sorry."

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Aydanci clutches at Kib and says nothing.

Kib snuggles up.

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"Let me know if you need anything. Love you, Kib."

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"Love you," sighs Kib.

"I will," agrees Aydanci quietly.

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He relays the conversation that evening, and holds Findekano quite tightly for it.

Do you really think any of the things you suggested will work?

No.

Then -

I do think he'll recover a bit eventually. He's - too impatient, he can't have turned it off entirely -

Do we have a plan to have the Enemy die.

Not a more specific one than we had yesterday.

Should I go cuddle him.

Probably sometimes, yeah.

Tonight?

Stay with me tonight.

Is this 'at this point I want the hallucination to end, I will be relieved when I look up at your face and it's Sauron's -'

Yep.

 

 

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Aydanci gets an un-instructioned scribe chassis and puppets it from a few feet away so he can get work done without letting go of his husband. Lots of work. It's not as dire as when the Enemy still had Kib but - the Enemy does sort of still have Kib -

 

 

When Kib sleeps the screams are bloodcurdling and well past forming intelligible words. Aydanci can't sleep through it. Can he... get some enchanted earplugs or something.

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Yeah.

 

Kib's boyfriends will also take shifts on cuddling if Aydanci occasionally would benefit from getting out of bed.

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Occasionally, yes, probably a good idea, he can talk himself into it.

Kib will snuggle right up to Findekáno.

And he is ever so good at holding still for Maitimo.

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"You don't need to," he says once. "I got over that. Had a lot of time."

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Well, apparently Kib cannot evaluate this claim without thinking.

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Of course. He could prove the point by kissing him or something but he'd never do that if this were real, so he does not do it. He sings, quietly.

'Can I send emotions or should I not."

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Insofar as Kib reacts to things he seems to like singing. No opinion on sending emotions, apparently.

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Then he might try it. Once. "This is me feeling happy. Do you want me to do that again."

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"This is me wishing there were a way for Elves to stop existing, do you want me to do that again."

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Small unhappy noise.

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"Okay. I won't do that." And he goes back to singing.

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Sigh.

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"It made me happy that you remembered that I didn't like my name."

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"Dreamed it."

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"Do you want to share any memories? I can show you mine, if you want."

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...answering would require thought but he looks almost tempted to invest it, for a moment.

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Oh, Kib, are you there - "You can't hurt me with them."

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- nope, thought does not seem to be happening.

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"Did Thauron talk to you today?"

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"No."

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He closes his eyes and builds Lorien in his head. It's not somewhere he ever spent a lot of time. But. "There's something I want you to see, will you look?" and he sends the feel of the memory.

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"'kay."

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Here they are. Even by the light of the Trees it wasn't too bright. Stunningly pretty. Quiet. Safe. In his own head Maitimo is not an amputee, and his hair reaches all the way down his back, and he's still able to not-even-pretending smile...

Do you want to go back to Valinor?

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No opinion.

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Angband, then. Stunning, how easily that image forms. Do you want to go back there.

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Is a small unhappy noise an opinion? Kib can do "small unhappy noise".

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He dismisses it. So if your only moods are 'no' and 'neutral' we can probably eventually get somewhere with that. But if you could add 'yes' we could do it without scaring you, and I don't want to scare you...

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Sigh.

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Probably won't work. But -

 

Anguished. I need you to tell me. When I was rescued, was that real?

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Yeah.

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I'm safe now?

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Yes.

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Are you safe now?

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Dunno. Is that better than not answering?

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Yes; makes it feel more like a conversation. When you don't answer I feel like I'm just sitting here clinging to your body.

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Oh.

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If I thought that were helping you it'd be fine. But since I don't think it is helping you -

 
 
Can you go back to not thinking if you started thinking for a little while.

 

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...could.

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You should. Just to think about where you want to be and what you want us to do.The Enemy does memories, anyway, not surface thoughts.

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Do whatever you want with me.

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Some things get sad noises, some don't. And I need you. I know you're free of Angband, you know I'm free of Angband, there has got to be some way we can help each other...

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Sigh. Love you.

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Yup. And I don't think you'd want me to leave you like this so I'm going to keep poking you even if I can't think of a way for it to work.

 
Aydanci'd be so, so happy if you told him something he could do for you. Can you come up with something for him? Even if it's not true? If you say to him 'I'd like to see more places than the inside of this room' or 'I'd like to hear about your work' or 'how did you get past the illusions' - he was brilliant, with that - can you say that sentence to him? You don't have to actually care....

 

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He's very brilliant.

I could go outside.

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It would make people happy because they'd think you were getting better. Ask him how he got past the illusions.

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No.

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Why not?

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Thinking.

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You'll make him so happy. You don't have to think about the words to make him happy, just give him an opening to tell you. He worked so hard to save you.

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Won't.

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Making Aydanci happy is worth a little bit of thinking. You can go right back to not thinking. He nearly worked himself to death, trying to save you.

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Stopping hurts.

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Stopping thinking?

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Mm.

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Do you think in your dreams? When Aly is learning something interesting, do you pay attention, or do you try to pretend you aren't there?

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Isn't up to me. She thought, so I dream thinking.

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So you're not getting no intellectual engagement. That makes me feel a bit better. Does changing from dreams where you're thinking to awake where you're not hurt?

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No.

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Have you tried stopping thinking again once you've started?

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When I forget not to.

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How often is that?

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Coupla times. Might not have dreamed them all back yet.

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Next time it happens, can you ask Aydanci to explain to you what he did. Since you'll have to stop thinking again anyway, and you might as well hear something nice, first.

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I have to forget a lot to think for very long.

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You mean, when you'd start thinking again, it was because the Enemy erased your memory that he might have mind-reading? And lots of other memories, so you wouldn't dream it right back?

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Yeah.

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Well, then it's not going to happen again, so there's not much point. ...you'll be able to tell pretty soon that the Enemy hasn't tampered with your memory in months, right?

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No.

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Why not?

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Dreams're random.

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And you've still got a lot to get back?

 

 

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Dunno how much. Some.

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Well. Once you've got them all back then you'll know your memory hasn't been tampered with since you got carried out of Angband. And he usually does it all the time, right?

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Sigh.

Evaluating that argument seems like it might require thinking, and apparently he doesn't have an answer stored.

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I should get back to work. Love you.

 
Are there things interesting enough you're not bored but not so interesting you have to try really hard not to pay attention?

 

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Love you.

Music's good.

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Okay. Love you.

 
Findekano spends more time singing to Kib. As much time as he can spare.
 
The Noldor develop flying golems for a better quick evacuation. Figure out how to enchant them for stealth without it interfering with anything else.
 
Maitimo briefly considers doing an evacuation drill that involves Kib having to pilot one out of there and south, to see if this gets him to think. He is pretty sure Kib'd forgive him. He doesn't do it.

 

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The singing's nice.

Aydanci takes Kib out for fresh air now and then. Kib doesn't make very much eye contact with anybody but he can look almost normal strolling along holding his husband's hand.

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The other survivors of Angband aren't in much better shape, so. Most of the Elves either asked to die or asked to be packed off to Valinor. Most of the captured humans are easier; they're firmly convinced that Elves are evil and dangerous to interact with and will command your mind if you speak with them at any length, but Lari's happy to play diplomat there.

 

 

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Kib's not really in a diplomacizing state and anyone watching him produce approving Elf-related statements would probably conclude that he'd had his mind commanded. Alas.

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Yeah, that seems like a terrible idea.

 

He checks his tampered memories of Kib over with Findekano, trying to figure out if the real Kib would want them to elaborately shock him into thinking, if they can even figure out how.

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Well, it's sort of hard to say, isn't it, they didn't discuss this in advance.

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They should have. What does Aydanci think?

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Aydanci is very frustrated with himself because he doesn't know for sure. Presumably if they shock him into thinking in any way the Enemy could've duplicated he'll use the time spent thinking to derive this fact and dig himself back in harder...

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Yeah. He can think of ways to do it but they're ones the Enemy could pull off, too. Maybe once Kib gets all his memories back a solution will present itself.

 

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Maybe. Hard to say how much he's missing; the lengths of the time gaps don't mean that much when arbitrary durations could have been compressed into them.

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Yep. Maybe the Enemy will be dead by then. Maybe they can consult the Valar.

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Maybe.

Aydanci resumes trying to cope by being constantly at work whenever he isn't doing something strictly incompatible. Holding Kib is not strictly incompatible.

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"I wish it'd just end," he tells Findekano.

 

"This - scenario? Or - "

 

"Everything, but I was only really thinking about the scenario..."

 

"Please hold on. I know that's not fair."

 

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One activity Kib can do is reminiscing. Aydanci gets into the habit of waiting till Kib wakes up, and taking out his earplugs, and telling him what he dreamed about, and Kib can without having to do any novel cognition at all relate his side of the story and fill in anything he recalls from before or after the memory. Aydanci was missing his umbrella that day because he left it at city hall. Aly had to patch up her scooter after that crash while missing half her tools because that jerk never gave them back. What ever happened to that lady? We didn't see her again until the fundraiser the following spring -

It's something. There's some comfort in it.

Aydanci still wants to murder the bastard.

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This opinion is widely shared. Fëanáro sends Aydanci letters - Fëanáro spends all of his time under perception-accelerating magic, these days, can't come talk to Aydanci directly - asking for lots of highly specific absurdly bright refracted shines. The railways stretch across the continent now, so they can get servants to the Dwarves quickly. The quick-print golem has other uses.

 

They work. They keep their factories pretty enough that they barely need to take breaks from them. They sing to go faster, to sleep less, to keep themselves mostly sane. They are crumbling, under the pressure, and the King holds them together. The King is so calm. People find it inspiring.

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Aydanci is happy to correspond with Fëanáro. He can go through Kib's work notebooks, just the work ones, catch up on servantmaking faster than the dreams alone would do - and he can produce all the shines Fëanáro wants.

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Fëanáro sends refined instructions, and refines them further, and works and works and works. Nerdanel occasionally locks him out of his workshop and makes him take a day off; she insists he's more productive for it. He admits she's almost certainly right.

This is going to take years. The pace isn't sustainable. The Elves settle back to being, well, Elves. There are three-week festivals. They tweak the production lines to make the war servants prettier. They have flying evacuation golems which are stunning. 

 

The King has more time for Kib. If that's any help.

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Kib's not going to object; he's not keeping nearly enough track of... anything... to have an idea that the King might be needed elsewhere. Kib appears to be operating under the contented assumption that his boyfriends will show up only when this is a reasonable thing for them to do.

Aydanci's kept them up to date on how Kib responds to this-and-that, if there are any memories the King would like filled in and reminisced about.

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"When I'd just come back from Angband you filled me in on how we'd met."

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"I remember you picking up the common," Kib murmurs. "Don't have first meeting you back yet though. D'you want to see?"

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"Yeah."

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The memory picks up in the middle of the language lesson, with "the shoulder sits on the building's bird", followed immediately by Kib laughing -

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"I'm really glad you get your memories back."

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"...mm."

Presumably the need for earplugs - which Aydanci didn't ask for when it was only pox dreams - indicates that it is not an unmixed blessing.

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"I know. And I'd still relive it all if it meant having it back, having it impossible to take from me...though I suppose if that didn't happen for you you'd be recovered by now, so..."

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...this logic may require thought to piece through. Kib doesn't.

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"He wouldn't have let you remember that he might be able to read minds."

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"Yeah."

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"So now you'd be thinking, and you'd be like me."

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"Recovered," remarks Kib; the sarcasm is attenuated but it's there.

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"If I find out I'm really rescued I'll be glad of how I spent this time. Except for not saving you, of course. And if I find out this is a hallucination, that'd mean you're home and safe."

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"Unless it doesn't."

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"It would mean there's at least hope you're home and safe."

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Sigh. "Love you."

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"...after the war, if we can get the Valar to open the portal. Do you want. To start over. If we could find some way to verify that's what'd happen."

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"You can do what you want with me."

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"What I wanted to do was orchestrate something that'd make you think. I don't think you'd actually be okay with that."

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"Won't stick."

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"If I can find a way to make it stick, do I have permission to do it?"

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"It won't, though."

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"I know you said it hurts to stop again, but even if we just had you thinking a little while we could ask you about your preferences on things like killing you to start over."

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"You can start me over if you want. Well. Ask Aydanci."

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"We don't want to. We don't even know if it'd work. We just don't know what will."

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Sigh. "I don't know."

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"If you were thinking even for a little bit you might think of something we could do that the Enemy couldn't fake."

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"Didn't come up with anything before."

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"My father did. After the war he's going to figure out a way to restore all my memories and if that happens I'm going to believe it at least likelier than not that this is real. I can verify that several decades have passed. I can do things like 'likelier than not'. You can't."

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"I'll get all my memories anyway."

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"Yup. And then we'll hope that after a century you're so unbearably bored of not thinking you decide to chance it long to enough to verify it's in fact been a century, and that the Enemy couldn't have pulled off a convincing hallucination for that long without erasing any memories."

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"Okay." Almost wry.

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"I just wish I had something better than that to offer Aydanci."

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"Sorry." Softly.

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"Not your fault. It might even have been the right strategy, now that we've got other people who can program."

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"Mmhm."

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"Love you. I'll think of something."

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"Love you."

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He thinks of a lot of things. The most tempting is to go find a human population on the south continent - probably one at risk of a famine or something - and dump Kib on them. He might decide just to smile vaguely and let everyone starve to death, of course, but it seems likely that he would not do that.

 

It's definitely something the Enemy'd do, but he's not really trying to convince Kib he's not hallucinating, he's trying to convince Kib to be a person long enough to tell them what he would want done if he weren't.

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Also, in order to do that he'd have to pry Kib away from Aydanci, possibly literally out of his cold dead hands, because it is entirely possible that Kib would smile vaguely and then starve to death with everyone else.

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I was not in fact planning to let anyone starve, if he's not willing to snap out of it.

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Then if the Enemy ever did try anything like that before and it actually got him to think he'll have reasoned that out and he can remember it at any time.

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Yeah. I just don't see any reason he would ever under any circumstances have another thought, and I find that upsetting.

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Do you think I don't?

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You probably have it worse since you think it's real. Have you thought of anything? We have his permission to kill him, incidentally, if we can get the Valar to open the portals again...

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He's mentioned.

We don't know if it would work.

- The Aly memories were never tampered with that he can recall. Could get a Vala to roll him back all the way to when she died and tell - her - what's going on, it'd be sort of like starting over.

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You think missing memories will stick if it's the non-evil Valar doing it?

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No, unless Lórien in particular can keep them from coming back by virtue of his specialty. He'd be lucid a little while, but - no, he'd notice how long ago everything was, I don't know how he'd react to that without any other information -

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Well, explaining the whole truth would not be the thing the Enemy'd employ - the Enemy'd leave out that he might be able to read minds, and possibly that Kib was ever his prisoner -

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I doubt very much that Kib is willing to put as much confidence in - stylistic assessments.

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So you think if we told him the whole truth he'd just wind up concluding he's a prisoner after all? Again?

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...Maybe not immediately.

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Not telling him the whole truth is also an option, I guess.

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The memories coming back may jog something loose on their own.

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None of this works unless Lorien can give him persistently dreamless sleep, or control which dreams he gets back.

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Yeah.

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The other option is something - less urgent than a population starving to death, but something like Valinor when he arrived - new situation, where he won't starve if he goes around not thinking but he'll do a lot of obvious good if he's willing to, something that makes it worth the chance it's real.

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He's not evaluating the chance it's real. He's not looking for opportunities to do things.

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You really think he'd see a lot of people hurting and not do things about that? He still has a 'some things are bad' instinct, basically intact.

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Intact but not - exploratory.

And I think one of the things he was doing with the not thinking was using it to avoid reacting to threats to third parties.

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Wouldn't have helped. I mean, yes, the Enemy would have tried to shake it out of him with 'I will torture this person or this person, you pick, or both of them if you refuse to pick', but then he'd just torture both of them, he'd never set up a situation where Kib was actually advantaged by refusing to do anything for other people...

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I haven't actually asked him about this part directly, I don't know.

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I'm pretty sure he'd have done that whether Kib was responsive or not, he just enjoys doing it. Does, in fact, keep his promises, at least on every occasion I remember. Don't know if it's helpful to tell Kib that - if he's telling himself that the Enemy'd have done it anyway -

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Helplessly: I don't know.

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I offered to share memories with him and he - seemed like he was considering it - or considering considering it -

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What memories?

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Angband. The - the things I think of as tells for hallucinations, the reasons I don't think he can share surface thoughts, but it'd be artificial if I just shared those, so - everything.

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I think he may just be dividing things into 'unpleasant' and 'not unpleasant' and that probably sounded unpleasant.

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No, it was different - he sends the memory.

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...maybe he has... half a cached answer to the question but not the whole thing.

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Maybe.

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In which case I guess you could try asking again - or differently, sometimes I can get answers with one phrasing but not another.

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So he tries it, the next time he has an afternoon free for Kib. I asked you once if you wanted me to show you my memories.

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Mmhm.

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You seemed conflicted. Aydanci thought maybe I was asking the question the wrong way.

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Some things I can remember what I used to think about them and some I can't.

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Do you want me to send you memories that might help you remember what you used to think about things?

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If you want.

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I do. What's something where you don't remember what you used to think about it?

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...don't remember, Kib points out.

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Have you tried reading your old notebooks? We still have them...

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Aydanci asked. I don't want them.

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Okay. What's the difference between that and memories?

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Memories're far away.

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I don't have much of anything from before this scenario started but I can give you anything you're missing since then.

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Big gap around autumn of year twelve.

That would be when they did the vow renewal.

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He can make the city in his head, the memories are clear enough. Debating whether to do something about people who'd make silly comments. Kib unworried by whether he'd have housefuls of presents.

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Sigh.

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You'll dream it back. You were very happy and very in love.

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Yeah.

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He'll be okay if it takes a really long time. He won't be okay if it never ever happens, and we haven't thought of anything the Enemy couldn't pull off. Yet. But we will.

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Okay.

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Anything more?

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Finding where the gaps are is a little hard. I knew that one because Aydanci asked.

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I can go over a loose outline of everything since I was rescued? I spent a couple months physically recuperating. At one point in that I - explained to you, the sort of games he plays in the hallucinations, and you told your golem to keep people away from me. We came up with the idea of having me read your notes. I liked that, a lot, but I was worried it meant the Enemy had them.

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I don't know if he got them with me or not.

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He didn't, they were buried in collapsed parts of the city, but I don't expect you to trust me on that. Anyway, you were working on Charp - since we'd been fooled by an illusion, you wanted something that could talk and see through them - and clinging to Findekano a little and avoiding Aydanci, he was still a child...I disliked doing nothing but sitting around, knew I'd never be able to live with myself for having done nothing but be a liability if this was real and that I was desperately unhappy to no end if it wasn't real. You and Findekano figured it out, had me swear to say a few specific words, loudly, if I realized an Enemy oath was acting on me, told all the golems to kill me if I said that. I took the Kingship back. You and Findekano looked over everything I did to make sure I wasn't sabotaging us.

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Having Findekáno then was really good, sighs Kib.

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Yeah. He's had a pretty rough go.

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Yeah.

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Not your fault. I'm looking out for that.

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Love you.

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The Moon rose, and then the Sun. You made sarcastic comments about it taking the Valar two Years just to accomplish copying the lost world's lighting system. We expanded trade with the Dwarves. You finished Charp. We found out there were humans, not servantmakers, and Thauron was messing with them. Sent some Charps. Wasn't much they could do. Aydanci started having dreams and you told him and he took it well. You were very happy.

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I remember being really nervous about that. Don't have the conversation back.

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You told me about it that evening but I don't know the details. I bet you could ask him. Thauron used the Men to kill a community of nearby Elves. We besieged Angband and made it so nothing could go in or out. Aydanci had a really good dream and threw himself at you. My father figured out weapon enchantments that could take chunks out of Maiar. You and Aydanci renewed your vows. We got long-ranged projectile weaponry working. Thauron tried to start a war between the Men and the Dwarves.

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I remember the part where I got captured, sighs Kib.

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Hugs. Our fault. I'm so sorry. We should have known - should have been prepared -

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I remember saying something like that to you.

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I'm the King, I'm supposed to be responsible for this kind of thing.

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Sigh. I love you.

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When I wake up in Angband I'm going to be so relieved.

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The real Kib's safe and happy and won't live out the rest of his life without ever having another thought.

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Sorry.

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For what? Being a lie? I just said I'm glad of that. I wonder if this was even specifically meant to torture me or if Thauron just had a very hard time imitating you convincingly.

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Love you, Kib. Night.

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Love you. Night.

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Fëanáro has something. They're shaped like oversized cut gemstones, responsive to their environment, stunningly pretty. Indestructible - or, at least, no weapon of theirs and no scrap of the work of the Enemy can scratch them.

"Aydanci," he says, "I need automata that can take orders from these."

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"...in what format?"

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"They're intelligent. They're responsive to the environment. I am pretty sure they can also be responsive to the Enemy's magic, and here's how, and here's what they'd need to pick up on..."

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And so Aydanci notes what patterns of light the automata will need to pick up on and what they'll need to do in response. And he flings himself into work.

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They keep it very quiet. Just in case. Few dozen people. They're still assuming the Enemy could somehow be reading Kib from here, so it can't be talked about around him - which is a problem, because Aydanci does as much work as possible around Kib.

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Kib has absolutely no objections to being blindfolded while Aydanci puppets a scribe along a page, working out pseudocode and then code. He never looks at the work anyway. He never asks what he's working on.

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It takes years.

 

They are not betting they will get more than one chance at this.

 

And they are not betting it'll work at all, within Angband, so something else will be needed to draw the Enemy out. There's a separate team on that. Everything they're considering is very, very ugly. Liquid fire that can be dumped from flying golems in quantities that will have the whole place smouldering for centuries. Bombs with embedded shrapnel of the Maia-shredding kind. Lári can't keep up at the production lines, but a few of the rescued humans are in Maitimo's assessment trustworthy enough by now to wake non-war-related automata that'll promptly be shipped Dwarf-wards.

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Kib shows no signs of being untrustworthy, but it does not seem likely that he is willing to perform the action of waking anything.

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The King doesn't even ask; if anyone asked him the equivalent he'd refuse, after all. He is himself only involved in this effort at several levels of abstraction. Fëanáro and Aydanci think they have a superweapon, and need circumstances engineered to deploy it; then either he will hallucinate winning or hallucinate losing.

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And Kib will hallucinate being curled up over Aydanci's lap, held with one arm and petted with the other because his husband is a servantmaker and doesn't need his hands to write.

And Aydanci will wake the weapons.

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It takes another year to set it up all right, to have communications synchronized, to have a fleet of flying golems to deliver the weaponry who can fly high enough above Angband. Can't be done without enchantment; the air's too thin.

 

 In the Year of the Sun 39, they pray to the inattentive gods and the probably-fictional one and they launch.

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Kib was still thinking and therefore forming associations between things the last time there was an earthquake. He doesn't have a productive panic response but he has a panic response.

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(The first fleet flies over. Drops Maia-shredding bombs, drops liquid fire, drops the sharp-edged bits of the Enemy's own servantmaking, indestructible as it conveniently is. Everything set to detonate in midair, before it's in reach of him; each subsequent wave set to make it a little farther - they've mapped how the shockwaves will compound -

 

Andband falls. And its ruler picks himself up, flaming, seething, uninjured -

 

And then it's time for the real fight.)

 

"Is he shaking the continent," says the King, "or is that aftershocks of what we did-"

 

"Could be both -"

 

And a hundred thousand automata coordinate the Silmarils in a wild blizzard of light around the Enemy, and they melt and they vanish and more of them keep coming to fill the gaps -

 

And then there is a roar like a god drawing his final breath, and a few orcish prisoners acquired for the purpose gasp as their oath snaps loose.

 

And Beleriand sinks into the sea.

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(Aydanci has to get Charp to carry Kib to the evac golems, Kib's incoherent with fear -)

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They've learned from their mistakes; there are evac golems for the population of each city parked outside it. Doesn't mean everyone reaches one. It's not fast - it appears, actually, if you look, to be like glass shattering in slow motion- but it's fast enough.

 

 

Doriath pokes their nose outside their borders and notices they are an island. They are all right with that.

 

Ulmo's city was in a mountain range, but his seas find themselves at its doors. And peaceably turn away.

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(Kib calms down some while they fly away on the golem.

He doesn't watch the continent fall.)

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They land on the south continent. They send emissaries to Valinor to convey the good news and inquire after the dead. There are a lot of dead. And Dwarves and Men don't have Mandos.

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When Aydanci tells him that they did it, Kib manages something almost like a smile and says, "That's two. I love you."

And then he resumes being as he was.

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Fëanáro's next project is memory. But it'll be a decade and might not even help. Do they want to try Lórien.

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Might as well.

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The Noldor are building a city. Pretty city. No one's sure how long to sing for the death of a continent, so they have not stopped. Even Elven voices get hoarse after a few months.

 

They wish Kib and Aydanci good skill, a bit distractedly.

The King is going too.

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Lórien's comfy.

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Lórien can stop dreams, or send specific dreams. He doesn't know if this will override Kib's existing dreams. He can also remove unwanted memories, with Kib's consent. Which in this case he'll take from Kib's husband, under the circumstances.

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"What would we even tell him, about why we're in Lórien..."

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My advice, having seen many cases like this, is to temporarily remove memories more recent than the Darkening of Valinor. Then explain to him when he awakens that you were killed in that catastrophe, and he warred against the Enemy and was taken prisoner, and after the war you brought him here for healing, which with his consent included this approach. Now that we have him in psychological health, he can direct the course of his own recovery from there, including how he desires to have memories of your death, the war, or his torture back.

 

I recommend this approach because for some people, the knowledge they were captured by the Enemy, he can tamper with memory, and that the Enemy does vivid hallucinations of rescue is sufficient for them to conclude they might be hallucinating. Since it seems Akibel is not functional while convinced he might be hallucinating, and since we want him able to advise us on the course of his further treatment, I do not want him to start out knowing that. He can perhaps advise us from there, and if not, that the now-dead Enemy had such capabilities might be something it's simply better he doesn't know.

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"Everything since the Darkening - that's, that includes everything I have non-dreamed memories of. You can put them back all right when he wants them?"

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Of course. We could pick a later date if you're confident it would still be before he learned any of those things about the Enemy.

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"...he learned that the Enemy could maybe read minds when I first came to Valinor and had my aging slowed. We couldn't be certain but I didn't think I slipped on my private thought distinction and he reacted to something I hadn't said."

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I am less comfortable broadly revising his memories unrelated to the horrors of the war but if, in order to have him in a state to advise us on his further treatment, he needs to forget that interaction, I can do that.

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"...I don't think so. He wasn't nervous about it most of the time between then and the Darkening, I think."

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Then the Darkening. Do you want to explain to your husband what we're doing, in case he is able to articulate opinions on it?

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"...yes."

So Aydanci goes and explains, and Kib is doing that thing where he's just sort of allowing words to happen around him, and Aydanci keeps repeating himself until he thinks at least the gist has gotten across, and -

"You can do whatever you want with me," Kib says.

"I want to help you."

"Okay."

...and Aydanci officially can't do this shit anymore and tells Lórien to go for it.

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It takes him a few hours, because he's being very careful that the memories are still there and can be replaced easily. He assures Aydanci that he's not viewing them.


And then Lórien says, can you hear me, Akibel?

 

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Yeah?

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You're in Lórien. Several Years have passed; you were very badly injured. Aydanci was killed, and born again to the human world, and is here with you.

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How was I several Years worth of badly injured? "Honey?"

"Here," breathes Aydanci.

"- hello new face..."

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You were captured and tortured by the Enemy. When rescued you were all but catatonic, and your loved ones tried for two Years to help you. In addition to avenging you. Melkor is dead.

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"Well. That's two."

(Aydanci sobs. Kib pats his knee.)

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Now that you are in a position to consent to treatment: you are missing Years of memories. We assume if you had them all back you'd be catatonic again. We restored you to this state, which probably involved more memory loss than needed, so you could advise us on how you want to recover from here. If you desire to spend some time with your husband before considering this, you absolutely may.

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"What am I missing besides - catatonia and warfare?"

"Me dying - you were there. Leadup to the warfare. You weren't immediately captured once it started, either, you got some work done before then - finished the talking golems - when I grew up there was some, awkward re-courtship, we renewed our vows -"

"- and then I got turned into a vegetable, shit, sorry, honey -"

And now he has an Aydanci crying on his shoulder.

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Lórien: will be absent until Kib happens to desire his presence, whereupon he'll be just behind the next set of trees.

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Kib has no real desire for Lórien's presence at this time. He is learning a new face and comforting his husband. "How supervised-by-default are we in a place named after a Vala...?"

"I asked; not. Unless you want somebody around or listening they're not, by default that includes him."

"Where're -?"

"Maitimo's here. Findekáno's on another continent while they build a new city there."

Kib sighs and rubs his eyes. "I don't appear to look like I was tortured into catatonia. Also Lórien or was Melkor just very cosmetically considerate?"

"Also Lórien."

And Kib would like to see Maitimo.

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Who has also been fixed, physically, and could consent himself to forgetting that this is probably a hallucination, which he's decided not to do, for now. It's not like Kib, he's functional.

 

He sees them through the trees and heads cautiously towards them.

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"Hi. You hauled overseas to watch me wake up and be confused?"

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"I got captured too! And wasn't catatonic but was in pretty bad shape, physically and mentally, and even if I could have coped - I sort of was coping, I was King and everything - it meant an excuse to come here. To be here.


Eru, it's good to have you back."

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"Oh, congratulations on kinging. ...Elision over at least four tasteless jokes I would probably not make if I could remember anything about the last couple Years."

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He hugs him. "Oh, Kib. Oh, Kib. We thought - we thought it might quite literally never be all right, we were debating killing you even though there was no way back to the lost world and we didn't know if even that'd fix it and you just kept saying 'you can do whatever you want' -"

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Hug. "This was a catatonia where I could talk and say depressing things?"

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"We could get short, rote answers out of you. Seemed to respond to tone more than content. You can ask Lórien for some of the memories of being catatonic back, I doubt they'd themselves trigger a relapse - and if they did, well, he could help again, I guess - please don't relapse, I might actually die of grief -"

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"As long as I'm not just saying 'hit me with everything' on the suspicion that this might be a terrible - apparently possibly fatal to bystanders - idea, that wouldn't be my first choice for something to solicit back."

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"You could get your vow renewal! It was lovely! There is also a possibility you'll dream it all back anyway, Lórien's going to try to prevent that but your memory-dreams are weird, and if that happens we'll just have to hope that getting it in that format isn't vegetative-state inducing." He rather clings. "Oh, Kib."

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Squeeze. "Hey, it's okay, I'm fine, I'll go through my notes between 'what happened to the Trees' and 'being comically interrupted while writing, midsentence, by my capture' and pick out what needs to go back and - huh, I'm more filled on Aly than I thought I was, not entirely but way farther along, I guess that didn't get snipped by removing the times in which I had the dreams -"

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"Really? Well, that's convenient, we know nothing in Aly's life was vegetative-state inducing. And all your notes are - um. The continent sunk. When we killed Melkor."

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"...All of them? Shit."

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"I think so - Aydanci was busy carrying catatonic you onto an evac golem-"

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"I had a couple of the indexes in my go bag for mostly sentimental reasons," Aydanci says. "And I wasn't carrying you, Charp - you named the talking golem line Charp - was, so I had my bag. But that's just the indexes."

"Well, indexes'll at least tell me that I probably want this date or that, I suppose."

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"Do you want to stay in Lórien until you're satisfied with the state of your head or do you want to go back, meet your Charps, everyone else'll be ridiculously glad too - Findekano's desperate to see you, it just would have looked very fishy for the merry four of us to go along - and then come back once you've got the complete list of dates to restore?"

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"Mm, how long's the trip?"

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"A day and a half in a boat. The walk from Lorien's longer but we didn't walk, we took the flying golems there too - oh, and Aydanci can finally tell you how he got picture-printing golems up and running to rescue you -"

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"What, how does picture printing have anything to do with - tell me all about it -"

And Aydanci does.

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Awwww.

He is no longer desperately hoping this is a hallucination. It still probably is. Maybe in a couple years he'll ask Lórien to meddle with him until he thinks otherwise.

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Kib decides to stay in Lórien until they have a chance to see how Lórien has done with staving off weird otherworldly dreams. He stays up late catching up verbally on what he's missing, writing on conveniently papery tree bark with a conveniently ink-sapped stick to make sure he doesn't forget to ask for this or that restored. And then he curls up with his husband and falls asleep.

 


To judge by the wordless screaming, the answer to the question of how Lórien did is - not well.

Aydanci doesn't have his earplugs in. He wakes Kib up.

Kib glares at him.

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"So that's a no on keeping the memories out? ...you're going to have to go through it all again? Fuck."

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"Well done," Kib says. "That was a really pleasant day. Might even have been worth having to fucking re-do this."

"- no," murmurs Aydanci.

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"Kib - the Enemy can't read minds, just memories - it doesn't even help - please -"

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"I'll give you ten minutes. Explain the distinction, do, I find that my memories contain a lot of me thinking in them -"

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"I would have adopted your strategy too if I thought he could gain from everything that crossed my mind. And he wouldn't even need to lean on the hallucinations, not nearly as heavily as he does, and sometimes I noticed things were wrong but he didn't reset until I'd indicated things were wrong, and that occurred even in hallucinations he erased from my mind as soon as he was through with them and so his intent there clearly was not to mislead me about his capabilities - without Lorien I wouldn't even have known this - my honest best guess is that he gets memories but not first-person, somehow. Like being in someone's memory palace. The Maiar and Valar don't think like us, it took them millennia to even manage to osanwe in a way that was comprehensible to us, they do not have the psychological capacity to read and interpret surface thoughts, he can get senses and I am pretty certain that's all he can get. I can't prove this to you from your own hallucinations because you'd already gone for the annihilation option by then, it's achingly transparent in my own hallucinations and you know I didn't try to avoid thinking even when I thought I was hallucinating, but if that's not enough then I don't yet have enough."

 

 

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"If you told me this before he got me," Kib says, "I don't remember it."

"Please," Aydanci says, "please, please - stay with us and we can get Lórien and he can put everything back and you can see if it matches -"

"Even taking the premises at face value I'm not a very good actor and with my brain turned on I'm dramatically easier to manipulate -"

"Please no please don't -"

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"Do we have permission to ask Lórien to erase your memory of sleeping every time you wake, get a couple more days with you, see if we can think of something better together -"

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"You hardly need my permission," Kib says, "if that's what you want to do with me."

"Lórien we need you right now I don't know how long it takes him to -"

Kib closes his eyes.

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Lórien's there. What went wrong?

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"Dreamed - something - put it back put everything back maybe it'll snap into place or at least he won't have to dream it again - Kib wait just a minute -"

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He puts it all back.

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- Kib flinches, opens his eyes -

"Kib. Kib please."

"- nope, didn't have any of that before he got me," Kib says, "can't -"

"Don't go don't leave me."

"Love you honey."

Closes his eyes again.

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"...I just have to tell my father to work out a way he doesn't need sleep -" he says, "it's okay, it's okay, Aydanci, he's still there he is still going to be okay if we just figure out how a human can go without sleep indefinitely -"

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"Enemy kept trying it and didn't get anywhere, he told me once," Aydanci whispers into his hands. "Couldn't keep him up more than two weeks."

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"My father has already fucking demonstrated that he's smarter than the Enemy he made him immortal he can make him not need sleep-"

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Aydanci is now crying too hard to answer but he nods.

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"And the Enemy - only had him two years - we've got as long as we need, we've got as long as it takes..."

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Crying. Nodding.

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Yeah.

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Of course as soon as Aydanci reaches for Kib he snuggles right up.

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"Do we want to try it again, have Lórien on hand to erase the new memories as they come in, see if we can think of anything else with a week with him to talk it through, or do we want to just let it rest until we've got sleep solved - that way he doesn't have to dream any of it again, at least -"

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"He's not going to be able to talk through the actual problem with us, as soon as he knows what it is he'll -"

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"Could ask Lórien to edit in the things I was just telling him, add them to a conversation we had in Tirion Years ago, take out that one incident that made him suspicious -"

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"I am a terrible liar."

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"...and make you forget that this isn't the first iteration? I wish he'd answered my question about whether we had permission to keep trying, I'd live with his wishes if I knew what they were - he did say it was a lovely day, almost worth it..."

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Aydanci shakes his head.

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"Think he'd want us to stop? If he were fully informed, and this were real?"

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"It is real," mutters Aydanci. "It's real and I am really not going to pile up more - mutilations - that probably won't even help - to get him in exactly the right frame of mind to do whatever we want and me in the right frame of mind to tell outright lies to my husband and - no. When he won't need to sleep anymore we can try again from there."

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"Okay. I'll tell my father to get to work on it."

 

 

And they head back.

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Kib has Aly dreams. Those seem Vala-invulnerable in both directions.

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He tells his father that they need a way for humans to never need sleep. His father thinks it'll be a Year or two. He collapses into Findekano's arms and sobs and then eventually explains things.

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And you?

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Want to get me edited into thinking it's real? I don't have a way to dream back the memories -

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I want both of you to be okay. Actually truly uncomplicatedly -

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Well. Can't say it wasn't worth it.

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Do you still want to die?

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All the time.

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Okay.

 

And he shakes his head and curls up in the King's unscarred arms and sobs and waits for the passing of the Years.