Telumë prefers to avoid thinking about Maitimo at all when he's in war-related meetings, to the extent he can, so this suits him fine. 

"Our logistics for the very rapid version are as solid as they are going to get," he says. "If Sauron forces our hand then we will be able to accomplish all of it in - seventy-two hours, if we do all of it in one go. Closer to thirty-six hours if we do the first stage now and it survives transit, since the most important checkpoints are after that stage. We have rapidly assemble-able components for a number of permanent Gates within Arda, which can be assembled by Quendi and will not require a mage to activate. The permanent terminus for the inter-world Gate will require one of us, but there is only one so that ought to be more feasible. All of the plans for transportation are in writing and I can distribute them so that the relevant people can prepare in advance." 

He glances around. "With the artifacts, I ought to have enough mages for the plan, although barely." If Sauron had moved sooner than this, they could have done it anyway, but with somewhat reduced chances of even succeeding at the last stage, and with - a lot of mages dying of backlash, probably. "If the Star-Eyed decides to approve this, we will have a number of Tayledras mages as well, who can do energy-channeling if not the parts that require more specialized training. This would offer more margin of error so I hope She does agree to it. Also I have some actual plans for how to feed a network of Heartstones into either the second stage or the last one - it would be better for the second stage but we might not have a decision from Her in time, if we end up needing to do the fast version."

Telumë hesitates for a moment before going on. "I am not fully confident on any of the god-specifications, but much more so than I was. If it were my choice alone, I think I would approve doing the first stage now, in Arda - have we checked that the Valar will not interfere? - and for going ahead with all of it if it were to become urgent." 

"I have not checked whether the Valar will interfere."

"They wouldn't promise not to but our estimation is that it's unlikely."

"Vanyel, what do you think?" 

"I mean, what's our backup plan if they do decide to interfere? Gate it out? Hope they're too squeamish to kill something that's around as sapient as a Maia?"

"A Gate would also risk making it obvious to Sauron, but significantly less so. We do frequent Gates. This one would have a larger power-flare but we could partly conceal that by using a permanent threshold with an Arda artifact powering it, and doing it behind very thorough shielding." 

"Is there, er, an upper limit on how long we can keep the first stage godlet in your basement? Will it get bored or something?" 

Telumë chuckles despite himself. "No. It will require some much lower level of ongoing power input to keep it 'alive', if we are talking months, but the Silmarils and a handful of mages to channel them every so often ought to suffice." 

"If it were my choice, I'd set up the transit plan for it just in case the Valar do object, and then do the first stage now, and hope we can do the tests in Arda because that's a lot simpler. But it's up to more people than just me." 

"I agree that we should do it now. Buying thirty six hours later is worth some risk of annoying the Valar and having to leave early."

"I do not have very much stake in this exact part, but I agree with your considerations." 

Telumë glances around the room. "Then...I suppose we get ready for that. I will need to arrange to Gate over the people on my side who will be doing most of the casting." 

"And you need thirty volunteers?"

"Yes. Or a hundred humans, but if we know we have thirty volunteers then I would prefer that for obvious reasons." 

"We think we'll have three hundred thousand, we definitely have thirty."

He nods. "Thank you." 

"Of course. We're all busy," he says, and stands to leave.

Dara exchanges a smile with Treven. Fëanáro is so cute when he does that. 

Telumë hangs back to speak to the Valdemarans. "Unless you need me for any preparations here, I will head back to Velgarth and collect my people." Which ought to take about twelve hours, they're at separate compounds and he'll only want to do one inter-world Gate.

(Which means he might be able to fit in a couple of hours in a particular beautifully-decorated room tucked away in the basement of his command centre...) 

They're moving on something, he suspects as soon as he sees him. Not in a panic, or Telumë wouldn't be here - so moving on it at their own pace, because they're ready. 

It's terrifying. Not just because his side might lose- he has no idea what'll happen there, he still suspects that if Sauron manages to summon Melkor then it won't matter how friendly the Velgarth gods are to Telumë and his allies - but because it is, in its own right, terrifying the thing they're trying to do. It could go horribly wrong. Telumë is very conscious of it. 

And if he wanted to spend the next several hours thinking about it he'd have gone somewhere else, that's not what Maitimo's for.  He casts around for other threads of thought. "Did you write so many books because they were a useful way to catch yourself up, or to convince other people? Because I feel like you-these-days could've been much more convincing about the merits of banking."

Telumë sits down beside him, rests his hand on Maitimo's knee. "I think both, though informing more than convincing. I have sometimes written a book where the intent was to be very persuasive, but - that would be much more your strength, really. Usually I would simply describe a field to the best of my knowledge at the time, and other scholars could build on that if they wished. I think many did." 

He leans over and kisses him. He wonders whether Telumë will kill him to build his god. He hasn't yet, obviously, but now he's in the situation of planning to kill lots of people to do it, and that makes not killing Maitimo far more marked, it's saying that some other people deserve to die instead and that's unmistakably false. "I guess it's kind of friendlier to future scholars to not set them the task of un-filtering the evidence you sent them. The way I would do it would be to have the book be very persuasive and the appendices shaped more to be accurate, so that people who want to make progress can but people who are putting less than an hour of effort into this will just get shoved in the more useful direction."

"Also friendlier to my future self, I think, who has likely forgotten all about that obscure field, but who might know enough to end up being more correct about it than my past self who wrote the treatise was." Telumë leans against him. He's grown a little in the year that he's had possession of his current body; in particular, his hair is now long enough to braid, though it's wavy enough to not be entirely cooperative with this. He still undeniably looks like a teenager, though, just a somewhat less tiny one. 

"I missed you," he adds. 

"Missed you more. You should let me have a calendar, that says 'days since Telumë came over', and reset it when you visit, so I know whether or not I am being unreasonable missing you."

"I will take that idea under consideration." Telumë is still a bit distracted, but - no, there's no point doing this if his mind is still on other things. He shifts his full attention to his husband. Considers what he wants, today, here and now. 

(To be held, reassured, to be told he's doing the right thing–)

(To talk through everything on his mind, all the considerations, get one final opinion–)

He can't have either of those things, and his mind won't quite settle on what else he wants. "So?" he says lightly. "What have you been getting up to - any new art pieces to show me?" 

"Did you know that you have sabotaged my ability to draw buildings? I was working on something the other day and thought I'd draw Tirion and then drew this horrendous monstrosity -" he shows it. It is rather abstract. "I couldn't figure out what was wrong and tried dozens of times and then figured it must be tucked in too close with the spatial-reasoning stuff."

(He has noticed that his husband is distracted. Maybe because it's the last time - maybe because Telumë's deciding whether it'll be the last time - they can talk about the god, if Telumë would rather. It's not like he'll remember.)

"I like it, actually! It is certainly not recognizable as Tirion, though." He runs a hand down Maitimo's back. Talking about the god isn't going to be all that helpful, Maitimo doesn't have any of the requisite background to understand the parts that are distracting him. So. Focus on the moment. Hopefully it won't be the last time, having a baby god in Arda won't trap him there permanently, but - of course, he's never sure, is he? If Sauron starts moving then there won't be time to see Maitimo.

(To say goodbye, some part of him wants to say, even though the hope is that Maitimo survives. But not this Maitimo, not exactly. He thinks that he's going to die if and when Sauron does...) 

So instead, he's going to be gratuitously self-indulgent for an hour. He leans in, whispers in Maitimo's ear even as he reaches for his braid. "I want to hear all the reasons why you love me..." 

"because you are trying to build a god to kill me" is on the list, and he's not going to mention it, but otherwise he will be quite thorough. He has been learning old languages, reading old books, he knows things about Telumë that he might have forgotten about himself and he can give them back to him, in between distracted gasps and whimpers and kisses. Sometimes if he's very clever and very deft and has learned lots of interesting new things it'll look, for a few minutes in the middle, like Telumë has forgotten that they're pretending. 

When the hour is over, Telumë doesn't want to leave. He never does but this time is worse. 

He kisses Maitimo's forehead. "Do you want me to sing you to sleep?" The alternative is hauling Melody in here to do it. "I will think about that calendar." And this time, maybe he won't nudge Maitimo to re-braid his hair before falling asleep; he won't remember any of this when he wakes up, but he'll know Telumë was just here. 

"I would like you to sing me to sleep." He studies Telumë's expression until he is pretty confident in his guess that he'll wake up. 

Then he will. Learning to sing well enough in this body to get some of the Quendi magic songs to work was debatably a good use of his time, but it's easier to learn new skills when you have a helpful Mindhealer nearby. And he prefers it like this, that his last few minutes with Maitimo are holding him and singing softly, not being rudely interrupted by a third party with mind-control magic.

Once he's sure Maitimo is asleep, he disentangles himself, cautiously. Watches him for a long moment. 

Heads out. "Melody, can you redo the osanwë block, please - Nayoki will come fix the compulsions in a moment." He doesn't always set it up for Maitimo to share his thoughts, sometimes it's too distracting and he prefers not to know, but it's nice when he can avoid making Melody closely watch their sex life even if she apparently doesn't mind one way or another at this point.

"I'll let him sleep a bit longer before undoing the memory block." Melody offers him a hug. "Are you all right?" 

"What? Yes, fine." He looks up at her. "Why, is my relationship becoming more concerning?" 

"It's exactly the same amount of concerning it's been the whole time. I know you're being careful and trying your best. Just - maybe don't see him again for at least a week, all right? You seem off-balance." 

"That is not about him at all. We are about to do something objectively terrifying." Sigh. "And I will not exactly have time to see him for the next week anyway."

Melody pats his shoulder. "Good skill." 

And he collects all his mages and Gates them back to Vinyamar, introduces them to Fëanáro's team, makes sure they're getting settled and everyone's talking to the right other people. He excuses himself, promises to be back before they're planning to start, and heads off to Findekáno's office. 

He handles Fëanáro's inability to be in a meeting room with him by passing things on to Nerdanel before or if necessary during meetings, and has been handling the logistics of arranging for Quendi volunteers.

"Telumë."

"Findekáno. I wished to thank you again for all your help with this process." He switches to osanwë. Also, I will not take up too much of your time, but - the usual. I would like your advice on Maitimo, and whether I am still making a reasonable call here. 

Has anything changed?

Not hugely? He guessed we are beginning something. He - was thinking I might kill him for the god. Wondering if this would be the last time he ever saw me. He did not bring it up or act differently than usual, though. I found it somewhat more distressing, not being able to confide in him. I...may be less able to afford distraction, going forward. 

(He wonders how much longer they'll have at all, but there's no point trying to poke at that question more, not right now.) 

Do you think you can make it through to the end of the war without seeing him?

It depends how long, right? I could handle a month - I have gone nearly that long before, the time I was traveling. It would be harder if he noticed my absence and was very lonely, though, since I would know all about it. And another six months feels very hard in either case. I think I could do it if I had to.

It might not be longer than that even if Sauron doesn't jar them into action sooner; once they're ready, it'll be better to start on their own terms than wait for that. 

I think if it's mostly distressing you and distracting you - and there's things going on we don't want him apprised of - it might be a good time to go a month. 

Nod. Melody said the same thing. ...Well, she said a week, but if everything goes smoothly I will probably be in Arda for longer than that anyway. I think that going a month would be wise. Thank you. As usual, he wants to apologize for making Findekáno of all people give him advise on the absurd and terrible state of his marriage, but he's not sure of the right words. 

Good skill.

Telumë nods to him, and then heads back out to check on the preparations. 

Maitimo wakes up. He braids his hair, gets up to eat breakfast. Tries not to miss Telumë, because if Telumë gets more missing-Telumë emotions right after he visits that's terrible incentives. 

Kalira comes in! She's really delighted to see him and she found an new rare book about some entirely new-to-her species of birds in the south of the landmass! 

That's really cool! Found it where?

Well, technically someone else found it for her, since she's not allowed to leave given that she's friends with Telumë's evil Quendi husband. (Kalira is extremely matter-of-fact about this part, it's boring, unlike birds which are not boring at all.) She found a reference to the author's name in a different old book from Jkatha though, and then it turned out the Order of Astera had this one too. 

That's so convenient!! She will have to tell him all about it.

She can definitely do that! For hours! 

–However, before she can get very far at all, there's the bang of a door being flung open; which never happens; they don't have any reason to move hastily around him, not anymore, they've been settled into a predictable routine for a long time now. 

:Stay where you are: Melody sends before she's even in view, gluing him to his chair. 

- I didn't do it, he wants to object, but it won't be something he's done. The war, started in earnest, after - half a year, maybe, it's hard to tell in here - of course, that makes sense, two sides with piles of Foresight, both of them planning to add a god to the fray, waiting for a sign that their opponent was on the move - 

- and the only thing Maitimo can do is torture Telumë, through the bond, and he doubts he'll get to do as much as two seconds of it -

He gets maybe a second and a half, because Melody is moving fast and he can't move, and the instant she touches him, he's unconscious.

She catches him as he goes limp. Looks apologetically at Kalira. "I'm very sorry to interrupt your conversation, but we had something urgent come up. I think probably you're going to be off duty for the rest of the week. We can get you more books." 

Kalira bobs her head. She looks a bit irritated, not especially worried. She's shy around most people, but she knows Melody by now. "Do you, um, want help carrying him to the bed? I can help. I'm pretty strong." 

And a world away, Telumë's first warning, before anything else happens, is a second-and-a-half burst of distant agony.

Fortunately he's not in the middle of anything important; they finished the first stage an hour ago. About eighteen hours since their departure from Velgarth. It went smoothly, which it should have, every single part of this has been drilled a thousand times. Thirty Noldor volunteers are dead and there is a tiny baby god anchored to a quartz focus, for later transport. A couple of his mages and some of Fëanáro's people are poking it and 'talking' to it right now. There are still a lot of things to check, but the initial aspects look good. 

–and he doesn't know for sure, yet, but he suspects they've just run out of time. 

Vanyel's gone out to collapse in a heap and sleep a bit, and Telumë can't contact him or any of the Valdemaran leadership directly because he doesn't have Mindspeech. He isn't sure what Fëanáro is doing but probably he's better not interrupted, at least not until they have actual confirmation. Which, if he's right, will be arriving any second, but any amount of extra warning...

Nerdanel? 

Yes?

I expect to receive confirmation soon, but - I think it very likely we just moved to active war. Alert all the key people, except maybe Fëanáro if he is not at a good moment to be interrupted, that can wait for the official message. 

Mmm, she says distractedly back, presumably because she's doing that.

Official word reaches him via his communications artifact a minute and thirty seconds later. <The city of Leverand in Rethwellan was just destroyed. We assume Sauron. Population of twenty-five thousand. He is moving now>

Telumë relays this. Takes a moment just to breathe. <Maitimo?>

<Unconscious. We will keep him that way for - however long it takes>

Telumë hesitates, and then shrugs and relays this fact to Nerdanel as well. She arguably has a right to stay in the loop on this matter. 

Thank you. He couldn't have known, right -

I cannot think how he could have known before we did. I - assume he guessed in the last few seconds, probably because someone arrived in a hurry to knock him out and that would be unusual. He spent about two seconds torturing me through the bond, which he would only do if he knew what was happening. Sigh. He is in the safest place he can be, for this. It - will not be very much longer. One way or another. 

Mmhmm.

They've been scouting for other habitable worlds, in case they lose, but found nothing. There's Valinor, though not for Telumë and not for Maitimo.

Vanyel catches up. He looks exhausted but he's on his feet. "Gods. What timing. How did they know - we did it all here...?" 

"Vkandis has god-Foresight. I imagine there were ripples - He did not know Sauron's plan, of course, but if He told Sauron we were making a move on something very soon..." 

"I need to get to Velgarth and pay a call to the Shadow-Lover." He's too tired to Gate. So is Telumë. 

"I can Gate." Jisa catches up. She hasn't been back to the north since certain past events there, but now really isn't the time to complain about that. 

And Dara and Treven can help coordinate the other various pieces here in Arda. They're both taking it pretty calmly. It's not like it's really a surprise. 

"I ought go with you to Velgarth," Karis tells Vanyel. "I am not sure if there is a temple to Vkandis I can easily reach, but if I petition Him and warn Him what Sauron is actually about to do..." 

"I mean, I guess it's worth a try." 

The Noldor get an announcement. Sauron has figured out how to try to summon Melkor back from the Void into Velgarth, from which they mean to conquer both worlds. (They do not actually have specific intelligence on this, but it seems like a safe bet.) The allied governments of the Noldor and of Velgarth have been planning for this moment, but in order to do it they need a lot of volunteers. To die, in order to fuel the spell that will bring a new good god into the world and stop Melkor. Mandos is supportive and there are plans in place to ensure everyone's return to life goes very smoothly. 

The Gates are at the following locations. If you have questions, don't ask him please ask one of these sixty other people depending on your date of birth. 

The teams double-checking the god plans take a vote every week, lately. If Sauron attacks now, should we go ahead? The vote has come out "yes" for two months but it's still a narrower "yes" than you'd like. 

Ten minutes after the official warning, Vanyel is in Velgarth, courtesy of Jisa. Ten minutes after that he's in a bed with a couple of Telumë's Healers attending him. Stopping his heart on purpose only hours after channeling massive amount of power to a godlet is not the smartest plan in the world, but it's the one he has.

Stef is with him, this time. He should probably lie down or something. 

Vanyel doesn't hesitate. 

"Herald Vanyel." 

"Sauron is starting." 

"We suspected. We will try to delay him. The Star-Eyed will attempt to negotiate with Vkandis but this is not quick as mortals reckon it." 

"We know that too. Karis will try to speak to Him directly. I have no idea if that would be faster, but..." 

"The actions of mortals generally are." 

Vanyel nods. "...Do you See anything ahead, now? Does it look like–" he bites his lip, "–does it look like we'll succeed?" 

The Shadow-Lover doesn't answer. 

"Well, can you offer us any other help?" 

And twenty-five minutes after the official message, as soon as Vanyel is sort of awake and coherent enough to get out some words, Jisa contacts one of Findekáno's staff in Arda; he's presumably very busy right now and probably Nerdanel is quite overwhelmed as well. 

<We need to get Fëanáro's math teams to Velgarth as soon as possible. Mandos has...offered us a very weird favour>

The math teams? Uh, okay. I'll tell them.

Jisa waits for that to be passed on so people can start getting organized. Probably she should explain a bit more. She's kind of frazzled. <When Vanyel talks to the Shadow-Lover, he gets a sort of extreme time-dilation effect, he can experience hours or days in a couple of seconds. With Mandos helping, the Shadow-Lover can do that for an arbitrary number of our people, well, up to several hundred but I think it's fewer than that? Buy us more time for checking everything over. It, um, technically involves a brief near-death experience but it's pretty safe> 

- so they can have another couple of years or whatever -

<That's the idea>

This is passed along. The mathematicians are incredibly delighted about it. ...are there any mages left who aren't too tired to Gate them.

They decided to add some redundancy by training more of Telumë's mages on inter-world Gates. One of them can do it as soon as everyone's ready. Is Fëanáro coming too? 

Then a hundred Quendi or so can be ushered through this Gate into Velgarth.

Velgarth is very ugly but they're supposed to be nearly dying, apparently?

Vanyel is busy trying to convey a detailed enough sense-impression of Mandos' current location in Jkatha to one of Telumë's people. He's very relieved that there are people with osanwë arriving and he can ask one of them to just bounce it for him, osanwë is much better at that and he isn't concentrating at his best right now. 

They don't really have room to comfortably fit a hundred Quendi in here, but they can manage temporarily and maybe Gate them elsewhere afterward, though non-exhausted mages are going to be in short supply for the next few days. 

Less than an hour after the announcement, all of the Quendi math researchers have rooms they can lie down comfortably in, if not actual beds, and Mandos is being Gated in. 

Mandos will make all of the Quendi in Telumë's facilities allllllllmost die and then, with the Shadow-Lover, he will keep them that way. 

Telumë isn't delighted about taking part in something that requires a god's help and where if said god decides not to cooperate he might die, but the Shadowgod seems very firmly on their side, at this point, and the offer is open to humans as well, though it's probably a bit more dangerous for them so only a dozen of his staff and Telumë himself participate, to answer questions. The time-dilation effect can be varied in separate pockets of the Shadow-Lover's space, which makes sense, the Shadow-Lover has to handle all the dying people in the Shadowgod's regions. So he can bounce around answering questions as they come up, and hopefully spend a lot less than several subjective years there.

A number of Healers have just been Gated in from elsewhere. The Shadow-Lover ought to be able to send people back but can't do the almost-killing them himself. Telumë has Healing, though, he doesn't need assistance with that part. 

And suddenly about a hundred Quendi and a dozen humans are in a formless white place. 

"Welcome. You may stay here as long as you wish. If you walk a short distance, you will end up in your own region which will be disconnected from the others, but you can find them again if you wish. I apologize that it was not possible to bring your existing notes here, but you can recreate writing supplies in this way..." 

- huh. 

He should walk a short distance before people orient themselves and figure out who all is here.

- wash of surprise - 

Telumë should not be feeling anything at all through the marriage bond, for one Maitimo is unconscious and two, Telumë himself should currently be mostly-outside-of-time and Maitimo should not be. Meaning something went...unexpectedly. Or expectedly, in hindsight, this particular piece of context wouldn't have been obvious to Mandos but it's not like they've been going around advertising to the Quendi researchers that the currently-evil Prince of the Noldor is stashed in the basement here, somebody obviously forgot. 

Well, this place works something like Lórien's garden, he thinks; start walking, find what he's expecting to find. He expects to find Maitimo.

...He feels very calm about it. For the first time in over a year, nothing hurts. 

He finds Maitimo. Maitimo's walking away from the rest of the group, still surprised, and confused -

Telumë follows him a bit further, until the rest of the group is no longer visible or audible and they seem to be in their own small white world. 

"Fancy seeing you here," he says. It comes out kind of flirtatious despite his best efforts. He only ever sees Maitimo in one context, nowadays, and it's not 'wearing his professional face'. 

" - Telumë." He tilts his head, looking at him. "I take it this isn't Mandos. I was going to be very impressed, if it was, this is - better than advertised."

"Well, Mandos is technically responsible for your being here, I think, in collaboration with a Velgarth god." He has no idea whether Maitimo will remember this or not, but either way he should go back to being unconscious as soon as it's done, and then - everything will be over one way or another inside of a week - so it's almost like they can speak openly again. "Why, what was advertised about Mandos?"

"No one mentioned you feel better, or think better. I guess they often don't remember it very clearly. I was so afraid of it - but mostly, I guess, not for reasons that had much to do with what the Halls are like."

"Well, this is a temporary effect and I do not think Mandos has any reason to single you out there, although," he pauses. Expects the Shadow-Lover to appear and talk to him. Hopefully that works? (The Shadow-Lover isn't a single entity in quite the same way that a person would be; he's a...function, a small sub-part of a larger god with a particular purpose, sort of like a Maia but also a bit more abstract than that - it's hard to explain how Velgarth gods work to anyone who isn't a specialist.) 

"Yes, Telumë?" The Shadow-Lover appears as a tall man dressed in white, but not Herald's Whites exactly. He has long red hair. His face is in shadow but somehow his eyes are still visible, piercing blue, kind and sorrowful at the same time. 

He had forgotten the part where supposedly the Shadow-Lover appears to mortals with the sex and appearance they would find attractive (honestly, why, it seems so unnecessary, but so does a death god being called the 'Shadow-Lover', really.) 

"We need our own bubble for a while," he says, "and - at some point I need to go talk to the others, but he needs to not do that, he wasn't supposed to be here in the first place, we communicated poorly."

He wonders, vaguely, how the Shadow-Lover appears to Maitimo. 

More like original-Leareth than like Telumë, which seems like something to not share. 

"If you have made a mistake with your god I actually prefer you catch it here," he says mildly. "I don't mean to interfere with them."

He smiles, gently. "I know. I am just very paranoid, you know that. ...I was not expecting you to be here, obviously, but I think I am glad? I had not thought we would have an opportunity to speak again, and - in a place where neither of us is hurting..." 

"- are you planning to kill me, then?"

"No. Currently we are accepting Noldor volunteers, but you obviously did not volunteer. And of course we are hoping to win, and...it would be harder to fix the Maitimo who would exist after that, if you spent a long time with Mandos first. Also I am, perhaps, being a little selfish here." 

He nods. "Then probably we will speak again. Though one way or another it is likely to hurt a lot."

"...I suppose it is difficult to envision the future after the war ends, whichever way it goes. But, yes, there will be one." He looks down. "I am not sure if you will even remember this, later, but - I am so sorry. About everything." 

"I know."

"I want..." He has no idea what he wants. For it to be over. For none of it to have happened in the first place. To just be with Maitimo and have it not be so goddamned complicated. "I want you to hold me. Just for a little while." 

He takes a step back, crosses his arms. " - sorry. I'm not angry with you.

But I think - regardless of who wins - I would like to get ...back in the habit of thinking about that. Can I think for a few minutes -"

He's...relieved? Pleased. "...Yes, of course, I should have asked it that way." He sits down on a nearby white-fog-chair-thing. Waits. 

"You can come here," he says, a few minutes later.

Telumë gets up. Goes to him. 

...For some reason he's crying. It doesn't hurt, whatever emotion he's feeling, which makes it hard to tell what the emotion even is. 

He pulls him into his lap. "It is probably a waste of effort to figure out what I want, since it will depend on who wins this war and I am satisfied enough with my plans for either case. I am glad to be alive for it."

"You might as well stay and - do some thinking," Telumë suggests. "Since we have this space anyway, and you are going to go back to being unconscious afterward and will probably not wake up until the war is over one way or another. ...If my side loses then I assume I will not be alive in the aftermath, but I do still come back."

He's going to stay for a while for some cuddling, and then go out and be useful and tell the Shadow-Lover to please not let Maitimo find him by accident again. He feels very weird about having sex in front of a god-avatar so probably they shouldn't. 

"You do!" he says cheerfully. "The first time a descendent uses a fire spell. Sauron thinks Melkor can set up something for surveillance of magic like he was doing in Valdemar, but bigger, and I can catch you at it." Petpet. "I am planning to give you a planet, which is the best wedding present in all of history if you think about it."

Snuggle. "Probably!" It's quite romantic actually even if it really shouldn't be given the context. 

"No one has ever given their husband a planet before and probably no one will ever do so again because we will abolish the institution of marriage."

"Oh, why? Not sufficiently conducive to suffering?" This is such a weird conversation to be having. 

"It's Eru's! Remember, I hate everything to do with Eru even when suffering actually has nothing to do with it. Eru is a horrible meddling idiot and should stop. - he's the reason I got sent to you again, you know, I don't know if anyone told you."

"I do not think anybody told me specifically but I am not at all surprised." 

"After the revelation that you all were totally planning to use the Silmarils to kill tons of people my father asked if it was my fault and I said that it was and he punched me in the face and the Valar - panicked - barely remembered while trying to make everyone stop doing things that if they left no precautions I would just walk over and kill Vanyel - asked Eru for help - and then I was back in your cage."

"...I did have the thought when it happened that obviously the gods hated me very much and were laughing. The Valar continue to remind me of - oh, if one took a group of human six-year-olds and elevated them to godhood. They are not ill-intentioned - usually - but they are so bumbling." 

"It is probably very hard to rule beings who are fundamentally a completely different kind of thing than you! Now that I've met Velgarth's gods I'm impressed they at least talk! With words!"

"Have you personally met Vkandis? I tried to speak with him in the past and failed, on at least one occasion via being set on fire." What a thing to find in your own notes on previous lives. 

"I've given reports to people he was possessing. They weren't any good at formulating questions. And I've seen him interact with Sauron, which seemed to work better for both of them - I think that was Sauron's main advantage in negotiating, he could actually talk to Vkandis at all -

Also the Iftel communications people seemed terrified of me out of all proportion to how scary I was trying to be so maybe they do frequently get lit on fire for delivering bad news.

- such a dumb way to run an evil empire, lighting people on fire for delivering bad news."

"You would think so, right? Also, you are in fact very scary." He says it while smiling slightly. "Perhaps they were simply accurately recognizing this." Exactly like everyone in Arda failed to until afterward. 

"Oh, I killed people for causing bad news. Killed their families, sometimes, if it seemed like they'd understood their incentives to not be sufficient and would've done better with stronger motivation, though that wasn't actually anywhere near the most common cause of bad decisions. ...And I wanted our mages to be scared enough of me they'd rather do the suicide fireball, which they were really bad at noticing it was the moment to do. But it's just wasting my time if priests end up scared to deliver bad news that's not their fault.

- there's some we'll have to get back. If you win."

Telumë nods. "Well, if we win, we will have the help of several gods with that. And, yes, most people are not going to be good at making the call of when to Final Strike. It is not as though this is a habit one could practice that well in advance..." 

They can talk for a while. The conversation can't really be uncomfortable even if the content is, not here. For now, Telumë can accept that as a gift he'd never expected to receive. 

"...I ought to go," he says finally, reluctantly, as he disentangles himself. "But - stay longer, if you wish. I love you." 

"I love you."

And Telumë walks back out into the Shadow-Lover's realm, expecting to find anybody who has questions for him.

Interdimensional permanent Gate-terminals are completed and Almarë and Ertuon walk through holding hands. 

I think it's a lot better than dying fighting in a war, she says. Because that's probably traumatizing, what with the violence, and you might've killed some people, and even if that's not your fault it's got to affect you, right?

But if you go off to die fighting you might not die, he says, which is a lot less scary than definitely dying. There's the sense that if you're clever enough, if you're brave enough - 

They don't stop walking - they've been told not to stop walking - but they slow down the slightest bit to gawk at their surroundings. 

Their surroundings are shockingly ugly! They're on a flat plain, tundra stretching out as far as the eye can see in one direction; in the other direction, snowcapped mountains are visible, those are quite pretty. There are canvas tents and hastily constructed buildings or at least roofs with cloth walls that whip in the wind. It's cold. There's snow on the ground, in between patches of frozen brown mud. 

A number of humans at fold-out tables are handing out very makeshift warm clothing from crates, and maps of the camp, and pointing the arriving volunteers at where to go. 

A human woman, looking tired and harried, apologizes to them for the unsightly surroundings. They're not needed quite yet but it won't be a long stay here, less than a day probably. Unfortunately there is not really food for them right now, or anywhere to sleep. 

They raise their eyebrows at each other and start singing; other people, walking through the Gate behind them, join in. The song is mostly just to lift their moods but it will help with the cold, a bit, too. Once they have decent numbers they can melt the nearby snow. 

Okay, Almarë says, I guess probably this is moderately traumatizing. - the way King Fëanáro was rumored to have originally been planning it - you wouldn't even know -

- yes, Ertuon says, but also, what if someone was pregnant even though we'd been told not to. Or had a pet bird who'd starve if they were gone for a week. Or - probably you don't want kids - 

Presumably if it was bad for kids they would've said they couldn't volunteer, and they didn't say that. Though they might not have known it would be ugly.

I think war is always ugly. 

One of the Quendi volunteers starts directing the singers to work on flowers; by the time there are thousands of Quendi there are buds poking their heads out of the soil. And being promptly trampled because this is a lot of people. 

There are pretty detailed plans for this but also everything is being done so fast. Some Velgarth mages Gate in. Then more of them. 

Some of them have long white hair in braids and are wearing clothing that's almost pretty enough to go unnoticed in Arda. They gather in a circle and start doing some sort of magic, and then the wind cuts off as a giant barrier appears around the rapidly-erected camp. 

One of the human logistics staff is explaining to some people that they're Tayledras, which is good, it means the Star-Eyed Goddess must have elected to help after all now that they know how dire things are. 

Should we be coordinating with them on magic? I don't think ours will interfere but we won't do weather if they've got that covered, that sort of thing, says the Quendi who is coordinating the singers on turning this camp into a meadow of waist-high wildflowers.

"Oh, that's a good idea actually! We didn't know we'd have them until the last minute so they aren't as well in on the planning - I think that person is coordinating..." 

So the singer wanders over to confirm that the field of wildflowers is fine, and is there anything else that'd be more useful?

The person is tall and looks fairly young as humans go and also kind of sad. He answers in Velgarth Mindspeech; he doesn't share a language with them. :The flowers are not a problem, no. What else does your magic do?: 

The songs we can do on short notice mostly do healing, and plant growth, and decoration, and weather. There are some ones for hand-to-hand fighting but I hope there's not going to be any of that, some people brought children. 

:No. We are a very long way from the fighting: He looks sad again. :Nobody is hurt now, although if healing helps with tiredness, some of the mages are going to be tired from traveling here. Other than that - if plants and decorations will help your people, do that: 

Some people know a song for Velgarth-mage exhaustion and can hang around doing that; most of them will focus, though, on the decorations. Once the Crown Prince Macalaurë arrives this work goes quicker, not particularly because he is a fantastic singer (though he is) but because he has a natural advantage at getting everyone to go along with his choice of songs. 

By the time they are ready, the camp is full of waist-high wildflowers and butterflies and lightning bugs, blinking overhead. The Quendi are singing some extremely complicated beautiful song that has no magical effects but is, non-magically, keeping everyone cheerful and distracted. 

Whenever you're ready -

Terse messages are passed back and forth along the communication-artifacts. 

Telumë is on the Arda side, in front of a crystal large enough that it's going to need a cart to wheel it across. It's glowing. 

He's been talking to it. Talking to an infant god is pretty disorienting, even if this one is almost entirely cut off from the Foresight machinery of Velgarth. Which is arguably an advantage of having birthed it in Arda. 

It communicates via something vaguely like osanwë, which is neat, he and his people wouldn't have been able to build that in before meeting the Noldor. 

We are ready, he tells it, not quite in words. Are you? 

What he gets in response is a mostly-wordless, indescribable flood of information. 

Ready?

It's more like talking to a Heartstone than a person, or perhaps a very weird Maia, which is accurate. The godlet doesn't particularly have a sense of self, the way a human would; the patterns and scaffolding built into it are drawing the outlines of something much, much bigger. That outline is exactly the shape it should be, they've checked everything, and he's a lot more confident in those checks given that Fëanáro's teams reached the point of actually being confident in all of his work. Thirteen hours since the ball dropped - a little ahead of schedule, actually, but both the logistics of moving volunteers and the checks here went flawlessly. 

Telumë is, nonetheless, very scared. This is arguably the most dangerous part of the entire process, filling out those empty outlines as though turning an architectural sketch into a palace, bringing the godlet from small and incomplete and mostly blind, to - well, it will be a god, basically, after this. Just a very tiny one, that wouldn't stand a chance against the other gods of Velgarth if it came to a direct fight with all of them. 

After stage two, maybe twenty-four hours to go. Twelve hours of franticly verifying that everything in the scaffolding held up; if they got it right, and they really should have, the god will be utterly cooperative with all of this. And then - well, however long it takes to get the power they need for the rest. They just received confirmation that they'll have access to the Heartstones. That's less than half of what they need, though. The rest... Well, they're going to be fighting Sauron and possibly Vkandis directly, depending on how His upcoming talk with Karis goes, to murder the populations of several countries before Sauron can.

(Telumë's past and future selves can take responsibility for having emotions about that part. Right now, he doesn't have time. They can get the people back, eventually, and that's a problem for after the war.) 

"Ready," he tells Vanyel, standing.

Vkandis is angry. He's basically blind now - all the Velgarth gods must be - and his sources of information have no idea what they're talking about. They don't know how their enemies started flattening cities in Rethwellan. They don't know if they're going to be able to keep doing it. They don't know what their enemies want the power for. 

He's nearly halfway there.

He can't count on it lasting. Vkandis isn't stupid, and it would only take a few pieces of bad luck for him to realize what must be happening. It had better be too late by the time that happens. The plan was to keep picking off small towns, if the local gods seemed too shocked to react at all, but to go for bigger ones, if they looked like they might be pulling themselves together to make a real fight out of it. 

He heads towards Petras. He'll show up, to mage-sight, as a blur, racing faster than even a Companion. If people aren't stupid they'll be fleeing the city, trying to spread out, trying to minimize how many can be taken in one explosion that will by now have abandoned the semblance of a mage's Final Strike. But people are stupid so maybe they'll be sitting nicely at home, waiting, gossiping about the first and fastest-moving batch of rumors that their world is back at war. 

Two hundred fifty thousand more, off Petras and the little villages he'll swallow up on his way there, and then he will have enough.

Petras is not Vkandis' territory. Rethwellan is under the remit of a different god. One who almost never speaks directly to mortals. One who works at an even greater remove than most of the Velgarth deities. 

(Shadow-Lover, never seen by day, the popular Valdemaran song goes, only deep in dreams do you appear–)

Vkandis is - not exactly subtle, as deities go, but the mostly-nameless god of Valdemar and Rethwellan and partially of Hardorn is. 

And Rethwellan borders on the Pelagirs, the domain of another deity. Not one who has generally been allied with the nameless Valdemaran god who works in mist and shadows, but - times have changed. 

He arrives in Petras. He circles the city, setting out the boundaries of what he'll do, leaving traces that are visible to Velgarth mage-sight - not that they'll have enough time to do anything about it. He observes no opposition. The local gods are blind, and stupid, and useless.

He circles the city again. He takes it up in flames, the buildings and the fields and the streets and the people, two hundred thousand of them, enough for -

- not enough for anything, actually. 

They are his people, his souls, almost two hundred thousand of them when you include Petras itself and the outlying nearby towns that were struck in the last seconds and minutes. The Shadow-Lover is going to be very busy for the next little while, which is fine, he's built for that - usually not so many at once...

(The Shadow-Lover takes them in, with a gentle hand and a sorrowful smile, in two hundred thousand simultaneous instants outside of time, and he holds onto everything, memories, hopes and dreams and disappointments - it won't be quite as thorough as Quendi resurrection but it turns out that the fundamental limitations on how much can be saved in the Velgarth afterlife were much further out than it's always appeared, especially if it won't be for very long on the timescales gods count things, and Mandos has been very helpful.)

- they are his people and his souls and that means the power released by their deaths, as the bonds holding bodies and spirits together are torn apart, is - something he has a claim to, in some sense, and -

And in a single timeless instant, two entities that are most senses closer to forces of nature than people, will metaphorically reach out and link hands. 

–and the blood-power that should have been released into Sauron's hands, from two hundred thousand deaths, is instead gone.

In a place outside time, a little girl is crying in a white place, she's confused, her mama isn't here, and - 

- and a figure in white, with hair the same mahogany shade as her mama, kneels in front of her, bringing his head level with hers. Sorrowful blue eyes look out from a face hidden in shadows.

The figure holds out his hand. "I am sorry."

About forty Rethwellani mages sensed something, and - well, the rumours haven't made a lot of sense so far, but when there are rumours flying that your country is being destroyed one city at a time in fiery conflagrations, and then something baffling appears in your mage-sight, possibly the wise thing to do is to get out while you still can. A dozen Gates spring up, to anywhere they can think of - it might not be far enough, most of the mages don't have Gate-locations outside of Rethwellan– 

Their Gates do not end up at all where they expected. 

....what. 

If they can do that everywhere, every time, he has a problem, but he should try some more cities - Vkandis's cities, maybe, since whatever that was it wasn't Vkandis -

He heads for Karse.

Karis, the Queen-in-exile and supposedly rightful holder of the throne in Karse (though it is unclear if Vkandis still agrees), tumbles through the Gate. Vanyel's Gate - he's the only mage still alive who's even been to Sunhame - it's not ideal for him to Gate right before what's about to happen in the north, but he has one of the endurance artifacts, they're being distributed right now, and - and if they don't get Vkandis on their side again, they are probably going to run out of time and lose after all. 

She has to hope that Sauron isn't here - that the priests don't have orders to kill her on sight and if they do they'll hesitate - has to hope that she has five minutes to do what she needs to do–

The temple is ahead. Gilded everything reflects the midmorning sunlight into her eyes - it's like stepping into a furnace... 

She tumbles to her knees in front of the altar. 

Prays, a prayer she has never said in earnest before. Vkandis, my Sunlord, I call on your aid and your mercy...

She's afraid, but she sets that aside. Makes herself an empty vessel. She knows what it feels like, to have a god fill her–

Yes, daughter?

...Honestly, she didn't expect this to work. 

There's no time to explain in words. She's an imperfect container filled with the light of a thousand suns and all of her belongs to her god - always has, even when He had turned away from her - and so she holds it up, everything that's happened, everything that they've learned...

I see. 

And he holds onto her, which is fine - this is her only mission, here, she isn't actually expecting to survive it, isn't expecting to see any of the others again. 

(She wishes there had been time to say goodbye to Vanyel. Wonders if she's going to see Randale again, but they belong to different gods, if he belongs to any god at all...) 

(She wonders, desperately, if there'll be time to see her daughter again. Arven will be eight by now. She's probably grown. Is she scared. Does she know what's happening?) 

Sauron reaches Karse and can't get in. He tries impatiently, for a few wasted seconds, to cancel the magic at the border. He can't. It's like Iftel's. The plan had been to destroy them with agents seeded internally, because once Vkandis realized he'd been betrayed they would be unable to get in. 

He tells those agents to move anyway, because why not, but he won't get any power off it -

An elderly man in the simple robes of a local village priest steps across the barrier. 

His eyes are glowing. 

What are you doing, Vkandis Sunlord speaks through the mortal's lips. 

Ugh do they really need to talk about it -

Betraying your world to eternal torture and suffering. The alliance can only stretch so far, and will have its breaking points. He only needs two hundred thousand more. He can shatter villages as he goes, see what works and what doesn't, map out the boundaries of the alliance against him - 

A deity of Velgarth looks out at him through the man's eyes. Seems to be thinking. 

Karis is still kneeling. It's starting to hurt.

My daughter. What should I say to him? A question not quite in words. Vkandis Sunlord isn't very good at words. 

Wow. That's - all right, hmm, what should Vkandis say to Sauron? 

I am not sure. Tell him 'good luck with that'?

Good luck with that, Vkandis says to Sauron. 

And then the man is blazing, overflowing with divine light, too much for a fragile mortal form to hold for longer than fraction of a second - 

- and a crack opens in the fabric of the world, below and around and inside of where Sauron's disembodied magical shape is floating. Vkandis has a particular connection to the Elemental Plane of Fire. 

(It won't last long, of course. Sauron is a Maia and he knows how to navigate between worlds, he'll find his way back. But it will buy them a little bit of time.) 

- in between snarling frustratedly at Vkandis he pays attention, he can find the ways between planes now but he has to recognize them -

And then everything is spectacularly on fire. It's really a very good concept for a plane, he should emulate it, but he has to get back, first - no inconveniences will matter once Melkor is returned from the Void -

These are not all of the agents he sent, only the ones who were in place six months ago, Karis is thinking to Vkandis; she's given Him access to everything she knows but she ought to at least help him to prioritize. They may know the names of others...

And she starts listing off names to her god. 

All over Karse, various Sunpriests are suddenly having extremely specific premonitions. Literal brief Foresight visions, in some cases. Also some miraculous powers, even for the ones who aren't mages. 

(Vkandis can't keep this up. The gods of Velgarth aren't infinitely powerful, and shield-walling an entire country plus all of the rest will cost Him. But there's no point saving up for anything past the finish line, which they may or may not still reach.) 

And in Iftel, a long way away, the High Priest, their Son of the Sun, has a vision of his own. 

- he wakes up on the floor, disoriented, but only for a moment. 

"We need–" he coughs, clears his throat, sits up with the aid of his very worried assistant. "Pass word. We need Gates to Valdemar. There is - war - betrayal - we need to evacuate them now." 

:We're ready: Vanyel tells Macalaurë. :Telumë is coming across now: 

Things are happening. He doesn't really know anything more specific than 'things are happening'. He can't worry about it; he's done his part for the war raging south of here, dropping Karis off, and now he has to focus, the next four to six hours are going to be critical. 

There are three hundred twelve thousand Quendi volunteers. Enough for the second stage, comfortably; nowhere near enough for the third. Valdemar and Karse might be enough for the third. Valdemar and Karse and Rethwellan and Hardorn - 

- they've told all the Quendi that Mandos is supportive of this plan, and he's supportive of the second part, but privately Macalaurë is not sure that anyone involved in planning the third will be coming back any time soon. 

Telumë is terrified, but the time for hesitation is long past. 

His mages who were still in Arda cross ahead of him, two dozen people, immediately fanning out and falling into position. For some reason everyone has decided that it is 'symbolically' 'appropriate' or something for him to wheel the physical focus holding his baby god across, even though it really doesn't matter who does it. 

He is really badly hoping it makes it across intact. It should, they've got a much better idea of it now - and if they have to start over with stage one, they can just follow exactly the same process and dispense with most of the checks–

He crosses the Gate into Velgarth, stepping into a field of flowers that feels oddly thematically apppropriate for trying to build a god that will stand up for the flourishing of all people everywhere. Quendi are good at flourishing, after all, especially the ones who grew up in paradise. 

The Valdemaran government is already here. Dara sits in Rolan's saddle, well back. Rolan is actually pretty helpful to have around for this part; he has an eidetic memory and can Mindspeak a hundred people at once and help coordinate the exact correct rate of power release for the mages they have to get this done as fast as possible. 

:Telumë, are you ready?: 

Not having Mindspeech has never been more inconvenient. Ready, Telumë thinks loudly as he disactivates the Gate behind him and dismantles it by dint of knocking the pieces apart. Throwing around a lot of magic near an active inter-world Gate is a bad idea. 

Deep breath. He's so scared, but Vanyel passed the point of ever hesitating because of fear a decade ago. 

:Macalaurë, first block now: 

(It's really very convenient that Quendi can suicide on purpose, really, it makes this a lot less...messy.) 

Almarë squeezes Ertuon's hand. Makes her heart stop. It's weird, she's thinking, yesterday almost no one had ever died, in all of history, and tomorrow most people will have died, something they'll all have had in common - Mandos won't be angry, they said Mandos won't be angry, but it still feels like something you might need some time, to put yourself back together from...it feels right now like they might need a lot of time actually -

And four hundred Velgarth mages equipped with endurance artifacts channel the energy released into the empty container waiting to be filled. 

It's going to take a while. 

There's no room for fear anymore. But there's plenty of space left for grief. 

Natti clings to her mother's hand as they sprint through the streets of Haven. "Mama mama where are we going–"

"I don't know!" her mother admits, in between panting for air. "Somewhere safe." 

...Natti's getting tired. She just turned five and she's a big girl now but her legs still aren't long enough to keep up and her heart is pounding out of her chest with exertion and terror. "Mama I can't..."

So her mother scoops her up and runs. There's a glowy magic Gate ahead. Most of the Gates before now meant that bad things were about to happen, but this one isn't at a Temple to Vkandis and maybe it's different. 

There's a funny-looking man with long white hair standing on the other side of it, in a very funny-looking forest, the trees aren't normal trees at all... 

Some of the Valdemarans are hesitating, but Natti's mother doesn't. She dives across the threshold. 

...Elsewhere in Haven, and every other city and town in both Valdemar and Rethwellan with a population above ten thousand, Gates are springing up. (They have lots of extremely disoriented Rethwellani mages near k'Treva Vale, some of whom are finding their balance fast enough to help with this.) 

In towns and villages too small to justify a Gate, village priests and wise-women and anyone with the slightest connection to even a minor local deity is suddenly getting VERY LOUD PREMONITIONS. They need to run. Scatter into the countryside, spread out - along the river if they can, water will both move them quickly and slow down magic. 

The gods are at war. 

Sauron comes back, along with the hundred-feet-or-so of whatever was nearest to him. This causes a forest fire, which doesn't advance his goals but certainly suits his mood. He moves faster. There's no cities to circle, he can kill people as he passes them but that won't get him to two hundred thousand in time - he can, and probably should, head out of these gods' territory altogether, really - he reaches out for the minds of his agents who are mages, to demand a Gate - 

He's going to have to reach pretty damned far to find one of them who's still alive. Under ordinary circumstances it would be pretty hard for locals to kill mages, but when random god-coincidences and flickers of possession and miraculous powers keep happening, and the gods in question know the names of some of his agents, and Valdemar still has plenty of Healers around who have Thoughtsensing, it goes a lot faster. 

Well, on the bright side, if he can get Melkor at all the rest of the gods will be pretty much conquered already, he can tell they're spending everything on this. 

On the less bright side he is INCANDESCENTLY FURIOUS and it is too damned inconvenient to murder people about it and his nearest mage who hasn't died of a bizarre coincidence can't even Gate him to Jkatha, though with Sauron determinedly steering and no need for the mage to survive afterwards they can make it more than half the way there.

They're almost halfway there.

There is a field of waist-high flowers, full of dead Quendi (and some still-alive Quendi waiting for their turn).

Telumë is extremely focused, but a small part of him hangs back, detached enough from the process happening around him to leave room for a thin rime of emotion. Mostly a deep sadness. Not regret, exactly - the math isn't complicated, here, this is one of the most clear-cut and justifiable ways that murdering huge numbers of people to build a god could have gone. But... 

...but Fëanáro's family will be going with the volunteers. Might have already; he doesn't know who's in which block. The King of the Noldor can't ask his people to die for him without going as well, apparently, though Fëanáro himself is still needed for the third stage. It's - understandable - but it means that if they do win, Maitimo will have no friends or family nearby to be with him as he recovers, if he recovers.

(And Telumë is sort of assuming that Maitimo won't want to see him, not for a long time, though he supposes he could be wrong.) 

Everything is going very smoothly, he doesn't know why Nolofinwë spent so much time yelling at him that the logistics were very hard and complicated. The logistics of stage 3 will probably be nightmarish, because that's the part that's not with volunteers - and the work they're doing right now to deny Sauron civilian populations is going to cause them the same problem as it's causing Sauron, unless Vkandis is willing to let them use Karse and Isger. 

He feels upset about Nerdanel and all of his children being dead which is stupid because that was the plan and they'll be back soon. Luckily it looks like other people are also having a lot of stupid feelings about this.

They're nearly done. 

Telumë is still near the centre of a nexus of almost-unimaginable power. He's mostly not channeling it himself; his job is watching, supervising, doing all the verification steps, this is about ten times faster than he would really have preferred to do the second stage and he's had his math checked enough that it should hold up, it should be safe - so many of the extra stops and checkpoints in the process before were because he didn't have an entire team of brilliant alien researchers helping out...

- something very strange is happening. 

Telumë

–aaaaaaaaaaa it's talking to him a god is talking to him!

Telumë pushes away the panic. It's his god, that's the entire point, it's - safe - demonstrably safe, demonstrably on their side, he can - all right, he can't relax, his body doesn't seem to be obeying his commands to it anymore - his body isn't noticeably there anymore...

- He's in a place of endless light, shapes and lines and patterns - past and future all around him - 

(Everyone else will notice that Telumë has gone very still. Then he turns around. His body language is no longer particularly recognizable. His eyes are glowing.) 

You can call me Foundation, a very young god says through Telumë's lips. 

We are running out of time. Sauron is trying something different.

I need information on what is happening in the south.

Vanyel are you catching this -

:It would be pretty damned hard to miss it!: Wow this is kind of terrifying actually. :I - have Gate locations south of Rethwellan, I assume that's what They mean, Sauron must've decided to leave the areas where the Shadowgod has any influence - should I just Gate as far south as I can and try to figure out what he's up to...: 

Probably - what can we even do if Sauron's killing populations down there -

:I have no idea!: He's already building a terminus on the mouth of the nearest tent. Honestly it's going to be a relief to be anywhere other than a field of flowers and corpses. :I mean, the Star-Eyed has people there - I think the issue must be that She can't see what's going on, the gods' Foresight isn't that helpful with Sauron. Maybe if I come back and report to a god that's apparently way better at communicating with humans, They can tell her and do something: 

He will ask Telumë's research team if there's anyone to do all the rest of the checks at this stage since Telumë is possessed by the god, or whether Telumë being possessed by the god obviates the checks.

They can definitely do all of the checks; Telumë getting possessed by the god is a positive sign but doesn't mean they shouldn't check, although if they're really running short on time they could maybe afford to skip over some of them. 

The mages who aren't required for that will rest, and try to be ready to Gate somewhere on short notice since that seems like it might be what's happening next. 

I am not yet powerful enough to see a path to defeating Sauron, the god says. It seems the intention was for my ascent to be fuelled by the lives of mortals, and those gods who are my allies agree. Mortals who speak for Valdemar. Do I have your permission to do this. 

This is the worst ethical dilemma to have ended up in. "Y-yes," the King of Valdemar says. "But not yet - we need to run some checks first..." 

Of course. There is still a little time. 

Vanyel lands on the outskirts of Kata'shin'a'in, where Jkatha, belonging to who knows what god, borders the Dhorisha Plains, territory of the Star-Eyed Goddess (and also the location of a lot of weapons of mass destruction, albeit far underground.) 

He falls to his knees immediately, because that's what happens when you spend four hours feeding the equivalent of a million human lives worth of blood-power through yourself and then decide to Gate well over a thousand miles like some idiot. 

A man clad in the black of a Swordsworn on blood-feud is coincidentally nearby, and lunges to catch him.

"...Herald Vanyel?" Ke'valen says. 

"Emergency - evil torture spirit from another world is - about to bring back an evil torture god from the same place - who's currently trapped in the Void - I need to figure out what he's doing in Jkatha..." Vanyel digs in his pocket for his scrying artifact, he doesn't need a visual - he can adapt it to use mage-sight... "Where's the nearest temple in Jkatha itself? Find me a priest from there. Need to talk to a local god." 

He gets clear of the territory of the horrible Valdemar god, steers as far as he can away from the Star-Eyed's territory, gobbles up villages - the next major population center will be enough to do it, this is really annoying but they need to succeed every single time and he only needs to succeed once and they can't act here -

It's been maybe fifteen minutes. Ke'valen has brought him a drink of water and a blanket to lie on. Vanyel is scrying very quickly for magic - Sauron is in Jkatha, Sauron is moving through villages, he's fast but he's not infinitely fast and has no one to Gate him anymore...

And he's fumblingly talking to a priest of Anathei of the Purifying Flame. The poor man is so out of his depth, but he needs to get his attention - needs to get his god's attention, warn them to spend down all the luck and unlikely coincidence they have to make it even just a little more inconvenient for Sauron, because Sauron has so much less distance to cross than they do and he must be getting frighteningly close by now.

- which is when he gets a VERY STRONG PREMONITION. Vanyel has never gotten a premonition before in his life - there's the Foresight dream he shared with Leareth once, it feels like several lifetimes ago, but that's pretty different–

"I need to go," he tells the man in halting trade-tongue. "Ke'valen - I think I will probably be back, with more orders..." 

He gets up. He feels light all of a sudden, kind of giddy, but no longer too exhausted to manage another Gate. 

Foundation is still possessing Telumë. This seems to be the fastest way to do the checks, on a god-being which is no longer physically located in the material plane. 

What did you learn, Vanyel?

Vanyel stumbles through an explanation. "He only needs one more major city, he'll be there in less than an hour..." 

- he tumbles through light and dark, roads and dead ends, walls and doors - the way through is narrowing - there is a door he never wanted to open, all along he hoped there was another way, but every other way is blocked now - 

And one of the Tayledras mages responsible for channeling power during stage two walks forward to stand at Telumë's side.

His voice, when he speaks, is not his own. We join together now. We must.

We see only one path, the infant god says through Telumë's body. 

Vanyel, the Star-Eyed Goddess says to him. Wingbrother to k'Treva. You must return to Urtho's Tower. You must retrieve the weapon that you decided against using to kill Melkor. You must bring it to the priest of Anathei. 

And Foundation speaks again. First, however, somebody must Gate Mandos to Jkatha. It may not be too late to make arrangements for the lives lost there to return fully, in time. 

And then the light fades from Telumë's eyes and he collapses in a heap. 

Mandos manifests into a physical form; a Quendi man with a haunted, expressionless face. 

GREAT EVILS ARE BEING DONE TODAY, he says.  I WILL GO TO JKATHA, THOUGH THIS LESSENS THEM LITTLE.

"Yes, we're aware of that." Burning down the continent before Sauron can reach it... This is going to give Vanyel nightmares for the rest of his life, he thinks, but that doesn't mean he can afford to second-guess himself now. He's still filled with that same odd lightness. Apparently there are some advantages to being under the remit of a newly-born Velgarth god, one of them being 'infinite Gates'. 

He raises a Gate to where he remembers the high temple being, in Jkatha's capital city - the poor local priest had kept stammering that really he wasn't at all qualified for this... He doesn't go through, though, just waits for Mandos to cross before dropping it. 

We will come with you to channel the power, Brightstar says with the voice of a goddess; the other thirty or so Tayledras Adepts who volunteered for this are joining now. 

"Um, sure - you can pass it on the the right place? I have no idea how any of this works anymore." He starts working on the second Gate. "Um, probably I don't want thirty people tramping around Urtho's Tower - I'll come back through this one and then change the destination..." 

:Fëanáro, I'm apparently going to be pretty busy for a bit, er, can you - make sure Telumë's all right...?: 

Sure. If we're not ready to use the power from Jkatha yet do we have a way to store it - will the Star-Eyed - 

The Heartstone network will hold it, the Star-Eyed says via Brightstar. This much and no more. 

"If we really have to we could move ahead now," Telumë's head researcher is saying. "It looks like - hmm, I think probably Telumë just needs to be wherever it's happening. And enough of our mages, of course. But if we're denying Jkatha to Sauron, then - we should take all the time we can on this, even the really fast plan was meant to be twenty-four hours, I - assume we can't afford that long, anymore..." 

Is Telumë conscious and can they maybe throw some Healing at him.

He seems to be waking up a little now, he's mumbling something incomprehensible, and yes of course some of the Healers can go to him, everyone's been kind of in shock because what happened was very surprising and very fast but some instructions will jar them into motion. 

Telumë isn't hurt; he's got moderate backlash but that's probably from all the work earlier, not from being possessed. Within a few minutes he's sitting up, dazed and groggy but able to remember where he is. 

"...Can someone please tell me what happened?" 

"Your god possessed you, said he needed intel on what's going on in Jkatha, asked Treven for permission to use Valdemar, sent Vanyel. Vanyel came back and reported that Sauron's in Jkatha, and getting close to having the power he needs. Your god and the Star-Eyed agreed on a plan to use one of the superweapons from Urtho's Tower to - level Jkatha, I think, and take the blood power before he can - and then we have a couple more hours before Sauron can get anywhere else - and the Heartstones to hold it -"

"Oh." He takes a minute to absorb that. Drinks the water that's being offered to him. "Are the checks being done?" 

"Yes," the same person says, "we're doing it through the focus, like a Heartstone - I don't know if that's going to keep working, maybe we can drop that off wherever we - do the rest - instead of you having to be possessed again." 

Telumë rubs his forehead. "Being possessed is apparently very tiring. Do you need my help?" 

"Not right now. Get some rest." 

The high priest of the Temple to Anathei in Jkatha is very startled when a Gate appears right in front of the temple. 

And a couple of seconds later he isn't startled again, because he is instead filled with divine light. 

I am told we need to speak, the god says through his disciple's lips. 

MANY GREAT EVILS ARE AT WORK IN YOUR WORLD. I CAN SHOW YOU -

And he understands, from the Shadowgod, how to shape what he's sending so that Anathai can understand it. Two worlds on a collision course; an evil god here and a greater evil god about to be summoned, and a desperate group in the north working on a god of their own, which Mandos is inclined to gloss as yet another evil god but certainly of a sort more friendly to the continued existence of human civilization on Velgarth. All of this is already in the works, and little can be done about it, though Sauron should be slowed if he possibly can; soon the dead will flood Anathai's afterlife, and Mandos can help, if he wishes, to hold onto more of them.

Anathei needs a moment to think, but not very long, at least not as humans reckon time; the kind of thinking that Velgarth gods do is rather smeared out, across the past, when future were seen hazily, and also the futures He can see now. The picture grows much sharper now; the Foresight was very blurry before, disrupted by currents half outside of view. 

- two paths - a horror not fully seen, slipping into the world, a wall of darkness ahead - or a conflagration of flame, but, perhaps, light on the other side - 

Anathei, like Vkandis, is a god with a propensity for fire. He knows which path is better for His purposes. 

He will accept Mandos' help. 

...On reflection, Vanyel thinks as he stands in Urtho's Tower, probably having thirty Tayledras Adepts tramping through is a lot better than risking the weapon going unstable as he crosses and exploding everything in the north. If it's going to explode on contact with a Gate, that Gate ought at least be to Jkatha. 

He waits. The Star-Eyed can see, dimly, via the Foresight-Eyes of the Jkathan primary god, currently in a conversation with Mandos. Who will hopefully be fine when the entire country he's in goes up in flames. 

It takes about fifteen minutes, which is faster than they'd expected. 

Now, his son says with the voice of a goddess. And holds out his arms to take the weapon, which is small enough for one person to carry. 

"You're going to..." There's no point in having this conversation, actually. He hugs Brightstar. Picks up the weapon. Gives it to him. 

Raises a Gate to a different place, this one on the outskirts of Throne City. Might as well not drop it literally on top of Mandos. 

He snaps it down as soon as his son is across, and Gates the remaining Adepts to Kata'shin'a'in, where they'll be close enough to channel the energy about to be released. He stays behind in the Tower for a moment. It's probably the safest place to be within several hundred miles, given that it's under a hundred feet of fused stone. 

- ripples in the future - two paths collapsing into one - 

It is happening now, Anathei says. 

- and the high priest is suddenly just a mortal man again, falling to his knees on the flagstones. 

- Mandos reaches out and folds the man into his arms, and then everything around them is white-hot and very, very loud. 

Oh come the fuck on - how did they even do that - 

The weapon tears open a tiny crack to the Elemental Plane of Fire. It's not stable, to have a connection like that, it snaps back in a fraction of a second, but the pressure of it momentarily tears the crack much, much wider. Pretty much all of Jkatha is going to be a giant crater.

Anathei bathes in flames. He's going to come out of this stronger, not weaker, which is a good starting point when you need to immediately resurrect your entire mortal population before you can really do anything else. 

Sauron's not going to get any of the blood-power from it, either! Not even from his immediate vicinity. Thirty Adepts with the power of their Goddess behind them can make sure of that. 

He is starting to develop some kind of a grudge against the Elemental Plane of Fire, though he's sure it's a lovely place.

This is too much magic, too much movement, all while concentrating on clinging to the blood power he needs - he spends a while holding still in the crater of Jkatha, orienting himself. 

Fine. Where's the nearest population center. They can't just keep right on doing that, and if they do it will be a victory of its own, though a very infuriating one.

Velvar. Most of the country is sparsely-populated dense jungle, with some roads hugging the eastern edge; the capital city, Ashuel, has almost a hundred thousand people in its surroundings. It's three hundred miles to the south. 

He can't disguise himself to mage-sight, not while carrying three hundred seventy thousand souls of power, but he can stop BURNING A TRAIL WHEREVER HE GOES, and it's not like there's anyone alive nearby to see him clearly. He stabilizes himself. He heads for Ashuel as quickly as he can, which will still be more than an hour, aaaaargh.

Vanyel stands up, wipes his eyes, glares at his hands until they stop trembling, and raises a Gate on the doorway of the just-vacated Work Room where the weapon was stored. He heads back to the north.

Immediately flops down in the flowers, hopefully not literally landing on top of a dead body because - well, his day is pretty ruined already but that would not improve things. 

(Mandos, while he was here, did something with the Quendi bodies; maybe just destroyed them, maybe sent them over to Lórien. The field of flowers is available for flopping in.)

:We did it: he tells Fëanáro as soon as he's sort of caught his breath. :And by 'did it' I mean left a very large crater in a country that Valdemar doesn't have any diplomatic relations with and which belongs to a god who found out about this being a thing half an hour ago: He feels pretty awful about it, actually. 

Telumë has just started feeling a bit more normal, finally, so it's just perfect, really, when the feeling of being filled-with-burning-light comes back. 

We are running out of time, Foundation sends. He will not stop. We have only hours.

Vanyel clambers to his feet. "What, um..." He swallows. "What's our actual plan for...after?" 

Foresight does not show him clearly. But Telumë knows him and his magic. When I am powerful enough to combine that with the futures I can see, I think I will see the rest of the path. 

"...Great. The 'I think' in there is really reassuring." Sigh. "I guess we don't have any better options, and - having those people still alive isn't going to be better, if Melkor wins here." 

I know you had wanted to do more checks, but I am afraid that we need to start moving now if we are to see the path in time.

Vanyel shoots a helpless glance at Fëanáro. 

Well, it seems like a safe bet that Melkor winning will be worse than Foundation winning even if somehow in their years of checking they missed something and Foundation is actually going to pursue some completely random and arbitrary thing. 

Does it fit, Sauron reaching another city within hours?

:He was in Jkatha... He'll head for either Seejay or Velvar, I assume. How fast do we think he can move?:

I don't know. Huan can outrun a Companion.

:Then - hmm, two or three hundred miles - I think 'hours' is right. We should gamble it and move now: 

He turns back to the entity speaking through Telumë. "Er, where to?" 

K'Treva Vale. The evacuees of Valdemar and Rethwellan are there and so is a Heartstone, which will allows access to all the rest. Please bring the mages. I will not need them after this part but I am still not strong enough to draw in that power alone. 

...It's finally occurring to him that draining nearly all the power from all the Heartstones is going to be pretty awkward for the surviving Tayledras afterward. It's better than Melkor winning, though. 

He raises a Gate - a nice big one, so all the mages can cross quickly, again he feels very light and giddy and not tired at all. :Fëanáro, will you come to use the Silmarils again?: 

Yes. Is this the last time we'll need them?

They're going to make at least one more stop - no, two, surely they'll need both Iftel and Karse to meet their numbers - but after this, Foundation will able to just eat the power released without needing it channeled, apparently, which makes the Silmarils less additionally useful. 

:I think so: 

Just - missing everyone, you know. He takes the Silmarils and heads over to the Gate.

Telumë walks across, still glowing and moving a bit like a stick puppet. They leave the crystal focus behind; it's not the main place where the god lives, anymore. 

They are in a forest, some of which has been very hastily cleared. It's packed with terrified people, interspersed with Tayledras trying to reassure them. The trees are twisted and strange. 

I need to talk to somebody who can speak for Rethwellan, Foundation says. 

"I, um, I think they lost their entire government when Petras went down..." Vanyel glances around, trying to find faces that look more Rethwellani than Valdemaran. "Hey! You!" 

"...Yes?" The man who comes forward is dressed like a merchant, not especially wealthy but not poor either. 

What is your name.

"It's, um, Jadran." 

Jadran. I will ask you to speak on behalf of your country, since there remain no others better suited. We are losing a war with an evil god from another world. In order to fight back, we need more strength then we have. The only path to have this is blood-magic. I ask your consent for the people of Rethwellan to be included in this sacrifice. I know it is a very large thing to ask. You will return to life afterward, we have arranged this, but it may take a long time.

Jadran looks so upset! He bites his lip and blinks helplessly for a while. 

"...I, er, I mean, we're going to die anyway. Aren't we. Or - worse." Rumours of Vkandis' rule in what was formerly Valdemar, alongside - someone or something else - didn't fail to reach Rethwellan. "So - if we can die now to stop that, then I think we should." 

Thank you. This will not be forgotten.

Foundation turns to face one of the Tayledras. Did you have a plan here. 

"Some stacked Final Strikes," the man he's addressing says. "...Now? We can pass word to our mages..." 

Foundation looks at Vanyel and Fëanáro. Are you ready. 

No, it doesn't seem possible that in a thousand years he could be ready for this. "Yes," Vanyel says out loud. 

"Yes."

And about three hundred and fifty thousand people die, everyone from a major city or town in Rethwellan or Valdemar who was able to reach one of the Gates in time. 

It takes less than fifteen minutes. Which shouldn't be possible, really. 

It's not a huge additional amount of power, but it adds a third again to Foundation's current strength. 

The Heartstone. Telumë's body turns to face it. This, we can do more quickly. 

Vanyel does some quick mental math. The original Heartstone network contained roughly two million human lives' worth of excess energy that could be drained off. Now, with the life-energies of everyone in and near Petras and everyone in Jkatha as well, it probably has another two million lives' worth sloshing around. This is going to make Foundation a lot stronger, very quickly. 

...It would be awfully inconvenient if it killed Telumë, but at this point, they could probably do the rest without him. His god exists. Likely Vanyel himself could be possessed instead and act as a mouthpiece. 

:Now: he tells Fëanáro. 

He stops his heart. He was worried about this part but has since warmed up to Mandos. The Silmarils can do the rest themselves.

Vanyel was needed during the last part, to channel energy, but the Heartstones are basically doing it themselves now, feeding it into Foundation - who isn't really located in Telumë, but mostly outside of ordinary space entirely - he can feel it moving and transmuting and then seeming to vanish. 

It goes at a steeply accelerating rate as the god grows stronger, able to absorb the power faster. All told it takes about ten minutes. 

It hasn't been long at all, really, since Karis tumbled through a Gate. Less than an hour. 

She was close to the Palace, though. She's not sure if Vkandis passed a message or what, but nobody stopped her on her frantic sprint there. 

She holds her daughter. Strokes her hair. Sings to her, softly, a Karsite lullaby that she remembers her own mother singing. 

She's pretty sure she knows what's going to happen. She isn't afraid. She can wish, sort of wistfully, that something in the last year went differently, but she's too tired and drained and empty for there to be any anger left.

Maybe Vanyel will come back for her... No, that's not a stop he can really justify, not at this point. At least she got to see Arven one more time. 

She holds her daughter and sings, and waits. 

They Gate to the Ifteli border, leaving behind most of Telumë's mages to help the Tayledras clean up. 

(Telumë is conscious in flickers, though he's not particularly in control of his own body. He's not very fond of that part but it seems worth it, now, and - it's not like he really wants to witness and remember perfectly everything that they're doing right now. Though it feels a bit like cowardice, that. Vanyel is going to remember it.) 

Foundation moves Telumë's body right up to the shield-barrier. They're on a major road and there are some extremely worried-looking priests on the other side. 

We are fighting a desperate war, he says. I have the permission of the god to use your people's lives to help win it. I wish to ask the permission of a mortal who can speak for your people as well. 

There's some panicked shuffling around. Finally an elderly priest comes forward.

"We have received a very large number of prophetic visions and such about this," he says. "I am only relaying a decision made in the capital, but, yes. You have our consent to do this thing."  

And then his eyes glow with Vkandis' light. 

You are hurried. I will help. 

Vkandis has a particular efficiency advantage for setting things on fire. Things such as cities. He can't get everything neatly, not in the minutes they can spare, but Iftel has a large population, concentrated in a dozen major cities, and they can get a million that way. 

Vanyel Gates them to the border with Karse. Despite whatever the god is doing to help out, he's getting very tired. 

...He wishes he could go back for Karis, and Arven. Brightstar is already dead and he barely had time to say goodbye and - no, he absolutely can't think about that right now, it can wait until after. Everyone is going to have lost far too many people, by the time this is over. 

(Assuming they're not too late...)

Foundation repeats the same question in front of the more fragile temporary shield-wall that's sprung up around Karse. Gets the same answer. 

The fires are visible in the distance. 

The air feels heavy, almost like it does near the Valar. Telumë's body turns to look at Vanyel. 

I see what we have to do. Sauron is going to Ashuel, in Velvar. He is almost there. Telumë will need to do the Gate. He knows the way. Help him. 

The light fades from Telumë's eyes, and he falls–

Vanyel catches him. They don't have any Healers. He tries singing a Healing song. Hopes that they still have enough time. 

Telumë wakes up a couple of minutes later, but it's another few minutes before he's alert enough to both understand Vanyel's frantic instructions and also attempt a Gate to the place he remembers. It's very close to where he reincarnated. He supposes Sauron wouldn't know that. 

(Coincidences within coincidences...) 

It's not a very good Gate but it'll get them across. 

They arrive on the outskirts of the city, and Vanyel has to catch him again and support nearly all of his weight. Telumë isn't particularly following what the plan is, here. He's dizzy. It's horrifically hot despite being late autumn. 

He really hopes his god has a plan. 

Vanyel holds Telumë and reaches out with his mage-sight, stretching north, north - is Sauron close...? 

Yes. One more fucking city and then this will all be over, all be worth it -

The figure of an exhausted-looking and familiar human teenager stands in his path, on the road, visible from the distance. 

Oh, and also Vanyel, who isn't sure what he's supposed to be doing here. He supposes he could Final Strike? He's unclear how that would help though.

- how - but they don't actually look equipped to fight him - what happens if he tries lighting them on fire on his way into the city - 

That super doesn't work. Also for some reason he can't get past them into the city at all. 

Fine. He draws to a halt. I hope you are enjoying yourselves. If you are very brave and very determined, little heroes, you can probably take every life on this continent before I can. 

Vanyel, despite himself, chuckles. The air is feeling heavy and strange again, and Telumë is straightening up beside him. "Oh, you know, I don't think we actually need that many." 

Telumë lifts his head, looks Sauron in the eye. He can feel the light coming again, but it takes another fraction of a second before his vision doubles and then mostly vanishes. 

He thought he would be afraid, but he's way too goddamned tired for that, and it's not like he remembers Sauron that clearly from a previous life.

"You are not going any further," he says, and there's a strange echo in his voice - it's his words, but not his words alone. 

Telumë's god - if he has made it - cannot possibly have any claim on this land here. So he has to be working only through Telumë and Vanyel, and - 

- spending power is the last thing he wants to be doing right now but he focuses his energy to make the ground open up underneath them, to make the air itself catch fire, to make a thousand shards of glass fly out of nowhere -

The ground falls out from under him, the air burns, the glass flies, but somehow - it looks more like it's by lucky accident than as though there's a shield in the way - none of it touches them or causes them any inconvenience. 

–And then the light fills him to the brim, and the world disappears. 

Telumë stands in a shining city, the details unclear in the blazing light all around him. 

How would you destroy a Maia, his god asks him. If you had the power of a god. 

Tear apart the raw magic that it's made of for parts, obviously, but - he doesn't know the technique that would work, he has ideas for research avenues but that would be a project of ten years–

No. It is enough that you could know it, in the future. Buildings shift, a door opens, a path clears. The light is even brighter ahead. Because I see the future, and I know it now.

Telumë's body that the god is wearing takes a step closer to Sauron - a step on air, since the ground is, in fact, no longer under them. The air around him glows brighter. 

He should back off, have this fight only once he's confirmed that they've done this everywhere - he flings up a mountain between them and him, turns in the other direction -

She has no idea what's happening anymore. 

It was supposed to be about forty-eight hours from the point where their process was interrupted, even following the most rushed version of the plan, and instead it's been, oh, eighteen or so. All the mages Gated away from the staging-area just over an hour ago and they're completely out of contact, and–

–and it's starting to feel like maybe they've lost. But she'll sit here anyway, with Maitimo who is currently unconscious, sit here and watch him and wait. 

She's tempted to kill him if she gets conclusive evidence they've lost, even though Telumë definitely didn't give her permission for that and it's not like it'll make much difference in the end, even if Mandos somehow escapes. But she's not sure she could actually bring herself to do it. She's never killed anyone before. 

She watches the oath in his mind; it shows up to her Sight as a hideous metal ladder-like thing that's been inserted right through the tapestry, so that nearly every thread is knotted to it. With the scaffolding she's added, it was a lot of work, carefully knotting all those same threads in exactly the same places to the metaphorical 'framing' underneath, trying to tie everything where it'll mostly-sort-of hold together even if the oath breaks. Which does mean he'll still be evil (if they win, she can hope...), but - substantially less broken, which hopefully would mean substantially more fixable. 

...

She's bored and so she's been adding a bit to the scaffolding, she might as well, and she's watching very closely and sees the exact moment that it breaks. It's messier than her best-case scenario but not as messy as she'd feared it might be; it sort of snaps, splinters, and then disintegrates, all inside of thirty seconds.

She lets out her breath. Allows herself a small, tight, satisfied smile. Good work, Telumë. She doesn't know where or how, but somehow they pulled it off. 

Then she gets to work trying to tidy up the torn and damaged bits of tapestry, while it's still fresh in her mind what they looked like before. 

- he wakes up. 

So it must be over. And - 

- and Telumë won, and Telumë is alive, and it's sort of odd to have that much evidence about geopolitical events accessible from the inside of your own head - and the thing Jisa proposed, to keep his head intact, seems to have worked, because his head is intact - 

- but that means they still can't trust him and that means he should probably stop thinking about what he believes and values and wants, until Telumë comes in here to clarify whether that's what he wants, because it's not any less dangerous than it was before. (It is probably a little less dangerous than it was before. The amount of harm he can do is probably much more bounded. But it's not safe.)

He thought about this some, in the not-death place where the mathematicians were working on Telumë's god. He has a little bit of a dilemma. He thinks that he needs to be able to think - fully, unbounded by magic or by the knowledge that people are listening to his thoughts and that the wrong ones will make him too dangerous to keep alive - in order to figure out who he is. He suspects when he imagines the situation as an outside observer that at the end of this process he will not be particularly motivated to try to torture everyone in the universe, because almost no one ends up that way. But he's dangerous until he's at the end of that - and he doesn't see how to even start on it from here, where he keeps all his thoughts carefully centered around what Telumë needs - 

- no, wait, maybe he can work with that. Telumë needs to be able to believe that he did the right thing, here, and Maitimo has no idea if he did the right thing here, but he's glad to be alive, and that's a fact about the world which will help Telumë believe that he did the right thing, and Telumë won, and that's a fact about the world which will help Telumë believe that he did the right thing, and - 

- and if Maitimo were recovered quickly, quickly even as hurried hurried humans count time, then that would be a fact about the world that would help Telumë believe the right thing - 

- except that's stressful, because he's worried that he will skip a lot of steps if he tries to jump to 'recovered' from here, he'd have holes he could cover for if Telumë couldn't read his emotions and Telumë's people couldn't read his mind, and probably if you are evil and decide to just act like you are, instead, a good person you remember who existed a year ago, some of those holes are important, some of those holes will get in the way of people actually trusting him and believing he's recovered - he keeps bumping into the walls of what it feels safe to think here, he's increasingly suspecting he was right the first time that he can't make progress here - 

- there's a new god, presumably -

People pray to the Valar sometimes. If you call their names in the right spirit they will hear you. People pray to Eru sometimes. It's said that he always hears you. Maitimo does not feel remotely reassured by this. In Valmar songs of the Valar are popular. People talk about - the conviction that someone is on your side, that you are loved unconditionally, that you are in the hands of those who will use you for good. Maitimo has never particularly tried to enter this mental state about any gods because the Valar and Eru are not on his side. Right now no one is on his side, actually, because his side is objectively the horrible one - 

He has tried to enter this mental state about Telumë, sometimes, because it hurts much much less than being entirely at the mercy of someone you don't consider entitled to do whatever they want with that - 

Hey, god? I don't know if this works and I think it's probably lower priority than - man, what else could possibly be on the god's agenda - making really sure Melkor can't get out of the Void and anything that can't be done at all if it's not done in a week - but I think it might be important? For Telumë, and for the Noldor, and for - there's kind of a lot of stuff I could do, really, if I could trust myself to do it - 

There's nothing at first, and then there's a brush of - something... 

- the distant sense of light, of a shining city - vaguely reminiscent of Tirion under the Trees - open windows, open doors, paths stretching into the distance - 

I am not exactly sure how to do this yet, a voice that isn't quite a voice but is a little like osanwë whispers . 

- I think the thing you are doing is working. The Valar are louder but I don't know that that's an improvement. He doesn't even have osanwë anymore but it's the most natural way to think of what he's doing here. 

I am afraid I did not really understand your question.

Maybe I should try to break it down into more concrete questions. 

Uh. If I think about it for a long time, what will I end up wanting the world to look like? Or would it depend a lot on how I thought about it?

Is killing Eru the kind of thing someone could do, if they worked really hard on it for a really long time.

Is Telumë okay and what does he need right now.

The first question is difficult and the answer is not conveyable in words. I could show you more directly but it may not translate very clearly.

I would like that. 

And the strange sense of being in a glowing, blazing imaginary city vaguely like Tirion draws nearer. 

- there is a road ahead - forks to several roads that become twisting paths - doors that are closed but might someday open - doors that are locked but might someday have keys - windows that show dimly what lies ahead - 

- and some of the paths are far longer than others - some wind into the shadows - dead ends - ladders and stairways that hint at tempting shortcuts over the rooftops - but without an obvious path forward and so many ways to fall - 

- and off in the distance the ends of many paths converge - a place that is hazy but blazingly bright - not the same as the point where he started, if he were to look back - 

- not the same as where he started, that's - good, that's important - he feels relieved about it, it'd be easier obviously if he were just aiming for where he started but it'd also feel fake - 

Okay, shortest path there, what do I do.

Why do you wish so strongly to take the shortest path?

I am a prisoner and when I am trustworthy I will be free. 

I think that...

Pause.

It is not words but I will show you again.

And the god points closer at the strange city-map of his possible futures, it's more of a vague gesturing than an explanation, but the gist seems to be that what he just said, the patterns in him that underly that, is not obviously pointing at one of the shortest paths, though also the metaphorical cityscape is kind of blurred and the god can't see it perfectly either. 

I do not think I can direct you any more clearly, at least not at this time. I am sorry.

That makes sense but it's frustrating. 

The end place, if I get there - would a person in that place be allowed to live in your world? Would they be satisfactory?

Yes. Of course. This world, as we will build it, shall be big enough for many people in many places someday. It is not someday yet. But that place, if you reach it, would be perfectly acceptable even now, I think.

Not big enough for - the way I am now. Or was an hour ago, now I am mostly trying not to poke anything hard enough to tell if it's still there.

Not Velgarth, no. I think even our wider future could not hold who you were an hour ago and also give you the freedom that you desire and that all people have a right to.

The god feels sort of sorrowful about it, apologetic even. 

It hurts even though he knew it was true, even though he wasn't even asking. It feels like there's - something, there, that he can get a hold of - oh - 

He wants to make the world wider, so it can have more awful sorts of people in it. (The more palatable frame, which he can reach for readily, is that those people already exist, or have existed,  and he wants the world to be a place so robust that they can be free without hurting anyone else.) It's the clearest thing he's wanted since he woke up. He doesn't want it from the same place as he wants to torture everybody in the universe (that's tucked away behind shame and exhaustion and desperation to hide it, it's in the place where he used to keep the fact he wanted to have sex with men), he's actually pretty sure that the person-he-used-to-be would agree with him about it - the person-he-used-to-be said once that it hadn't been a mistake to want to parole Melkor, just to do it before they were ready - 

- it'd be an interesting challenge, right, to build a world that wasn't exploitable, and a necessary one because there are other worlds, and could be other visitors, and - there were a lot of good things about Valinor but the ease with which Leareth could have torn through it, if he'd wanted to - the ease with which Melkor had - and Velgarth was similarly fragile to Sauron, in a different way - but you could probably build something that wasn't.

- he feels like this might be surer footing for the shortest path and he knows that thinking about that won't help but he's doing it anyway. 

I think that is a very reasonable thing to want, and perhaps a useful direction.

- a view through a window of a door standing ajar - not yet in reach but in sight - and light blazing through the crack - 

I am not sure Velgarth will ever be that wider world, but some world, somewhere, will have to be, even if it is not mine. If we are to win fully. Is that what you were thinking?

Yes. There are a lot of worlds. Velgarth has a complicated balance of power among a lot of gods and it has people who don't fully come back when they die and other kinds of damage you can't reverse and far too many people have suicide fireballs and you could make it wider, but not wide enough for Sauron. But he can sort of vaguely imagine that you could make a place, someday, that was wide enough for Sauron, without coming at the expense of anyone else. It'd still be a cage, maybe, but it'd be such a very big cage.

Can I leave? I don't mean to do anything horrible - he can do better than that, he can form a very firm intention not to, he'll let himself think whatever he wants but he won't do anything that he doesn't want the god to see in Foresight - but I think I need to leave. I think it'll be better for Telumë, too. I'll come back. If you would like I can tell people about you, wherever I go. 

I think perhaps distance would help, yes. Where would you go? Do you have a way to get there?

I can't formulate plans around leaving, it's one of the precautions. But if it's all right with you then I bet they'll let me think about it.

I will speak to them. It seems quite clear that your being able to think about it, at least, is better than the alternative.

A pause.

You had other questions. On the matter of killing Eru. That is not something where I have the information to judge, yet, since the Foresight of Velgarth does not apply in other worlds. It is not obviously impossible. Why do you wish to kill Eru?

I hate him and I think most of this was his fault.

That makes sense. For your third question, Telumë is still in Velvar, very far south. It was a difficult fight, at the end, and he is not conscious yet.

- a flicker of the city again - the perspective a little blurred but the path straight and wide -

It appears he will be back here with Vanyel in two or three days. As to what he needs, that is less clear. 

If he doesn't want to be married to me, could you break the marriage? Is it the sort of thing that's possible?

The god shows him a glimpse of the city again, presumably this time for Telumë. It's very twisty and confusing and hazy but all the paths stay within certain quite clear bounds. 

I think it would not be impossible, however, it is moot because in all of the futures, he wants to be married to you. I suppose if you wished to break the marriage anyway, there could be a conversation about it.

I don't let myself think things that would make it intolerable to stay here. Once I'm out I can let you know, I guess?

...is this costly? How do gods work, what causes you to have more resources, what do you have to spend them on -

This is not especially costly. You are in the centre of my territory and I am drawing on processes that I am running anyway, since predicting your possible futures is an important component of steering Velgarth forward. Also, in some days' time, Telumë will ask me if I can help you. Since I know this, I may as well start trying now.

He feels rebellious about Telumë asking, Telumë has done enough sculpting him. This is a silly way to feel about it, of course Telumë would ask.  And of course if the answer were that Telumë had done enough sculpting him then that's the answer he'd be given.

Vkandis wanted - temples, people trained as his priests -

I was born here; I have something much better than temples or priests, I have the people who created me.

A pause, almost cautious.

And...the help I would offer you, if you want it, is not sculpting you according to what Telumë wants. Telumë may have been foremost among my creators but he is not my master now. I am not here to shape people towards Telumë's vision; I call myself Foundation because I am here as solid ground that can be built upon. Which includes providing safety rails, but in the end, what you choose to build is up to you.

As long as it's not 'torturing everybody', but that - doesn't feel totally arbitrary, actually, like it did the last time he contemplated it. (He still wants it but he can shove that deeper down. If a god sees mostly in Foresight then maybe they don't see all your wants, just what you might do, and - after everything that feels like a fairly extraordinary kind of freedom.)

That's what Leareth wanted. He thought - there'd be a world that couldn't countenance the things he'd done, to build it.