Leareth goes out, walks around in the dim light. He still can't see well, or use a mage-light, but he can use his mage-sight to get a sense of the location of nearby artifacts, which helps a surprising amount in terms of feeling oriented.

He sits down on a bench near the cliffs and listens to the ocean pounding for a very long time, and thinks about a boy growing up in a troubled nation, millennia ago, and...how different his subsequent life might have been, if he had grown up somewhere like this instead.

Eventually he gets up and returns to his room. 

He lets Melody know that he's back.

Melody, when she arrives, looks both relieved and worried. "I'm glad you're asking to speak with me, Leareth. I was very concerned about you, a few days ago." She sits down. "It would be helpful to know some context on what happened, if you're feeling able to talk about it." 

Leareth isn't feeling very able to talk about it, right now, but - it does seem important for Melody to know. It would be a relief if Maitimo were comfortable explaining it so he doesn't have to squish words out. 

"Leareth told me something that really upset me. I went outside to think about it. He was afraid that I would not come back and not sure that his current approach to putting his head together would work if I wasn't going to participate in it."

"Oof." Melody winces visibly, which is about the strongest response to something she's ever shown in front of Maitimo. "I'm so sorry. That must have been awful for both of you. And...I agree, I also am not sure Leareth's current strategy here would work if you weren't going to stick around for it. Which is something I'd been meaning to bring up at some point, because...I wasn't sure whether it was a problem."

"Neither was I," Leareth says dully. "I am planning to - take some steps to be more comfortable with Vanyel. I thought it best not to ask you because that might place you in an awkward situation."  

"...Oh. This is - Melkor found Vanyel a useful tool to upset you, huh? I...could probably manage to wade through those memories with you and help you process it some more, but I cannot deny that I'd find it very uncomfortable. Anyway." She glances over at Maitimo. "Do you have any specific reason to think this is at risk of happening again?" 

"No. I needed two days, this time, and I think I'll need less if it comes up again, and it is not likely to."

"Mmm." Melody seems to be thinking hard. She fidgets with her sleeve, rolling and unrolling it. "–Right, anyway. Leareth, how are you now?" 

"Better today, I think. It - took some time." 

"I hope you realize that's not surprising at all. This must have shaken you up very badly. Well, may I have a look at your mind and see if I can turn up any obvious problems?"

She waits for him to nod, then bounces the tapestry sense-impression to Maitimo as well.

It's subtly but definitely different from a few days ago. The partially rewoven section around the break is actually looking sturdier, now, but in addition to the successful repairs there, it's also surrounded by what seem to be a number of abortive attempts to strengthen it by weaving in more of the rest of the tapestry – the end result being a number of frayed loose ends that aren't properly attached anywhere. The overall structure of the non-memory side has a vaguely stretched feel to it, as though subjected to great strain which was then suddenly released. 

This is not shocking but - ugh. 

Probably he should talk about that more with Melody when she's done with Leareth.

Leareth has Thoughtsensing back now! This means Melody can directly share her Sight with him and let him 'look around' a bit. It's not surprising to him either. He feels that way.

"You were stressed and it takes our minds longer than a day to bounce back from that," Melody says. "I'm not too worried there, just - try to be gentle with yourself for a few days. The rest, here... I think you were trying very hard to cope, using all the strategies you could, and some were less helpful than others. What did you consider, there? I don't know what these correspond to." 

"...I was considering going back to Velgarth, since I have an organization there. Although it is not very well equipped for - my current needs. I also considered," Leareth looks resolutely down at the bed, "killing this body and hoping I could be less - broken - in a different body somewhere else." 

"Gods! Please don't do that." 

"I am not going to! It did not actually seem very likely to help. Also I certainly would not have done it without telling anyone, since I needed Vanyel to check that my immortality setup is still functional from here." 

"I guess." This does not seem to make Melody much happier about it. "Well. Please don't, actually. Moving on. What else has been on your mind..." 

They talk for a while longer, Melody does a couple of redirects on the emotional-associations memory layer, and then she seems to have the same idea as Maitimo. :May we speak after this?: 

Of course. My room is next door to this one.

Leareth, not quite tired enough to nap, thanks Melody and then curls up in his library with a book to read. 

Melody can follow Maitimo. 

Do you want more detail on the thing that happened two days ago?

:...Yes. That'd be helpful context to have, as long as you, er, think he'd be comfortable with you sharing it, which seems likely to me but you know him better: 

I think he would. He explained in the course of a conversation about his immortality method that he kills and replaces descendents of his original body, and ensured there were lots of them with strategies including putting women under compulsions or impersonating their husbands. I took this poorly because I hadn't - thought of that, as something that people could do to each other. - some context that surfaced later was that humans can have children when it's not the deliberate intent of both parties. Quendi cannot, and consider having a child you're not ready for to be a tragedy much, much worse than death. I don't even know how we'd think of being forced to have a child, because as a species we seem to have never thought of it at all. We've talked through it now.