In walks somebody who looks like a slightly younger, substantially less appendaged Cam, stark naked, recently systematically brutalized but not to the point of the loss of the use of his limbs, who seems unbothered by these facts as he walks in with unfocused eyes and looks at things in places that don't have things in them - ignores the exploding stars, doesn't see the people, calls "Aydanci? Honey? I need the day off, can you -" -

- the door shuts and his knees buckle with sudden pain, he blinks and sees the bar and Midnight and Findekáno, seems to recognize them -

"I think something is wrong with me," he says in a small voice, and he collapses unconscious.

He will scoop him up and carry him to the infirmary - ask the bar he tells Findekáno - and then the Bells - another one of you just wandered in and collapsed, taking him to the infirmary -

"Is that another instance of Cam and Miranda and Mirelótë -"

Yes.

The mage in the infirmary heals the Bell and reminds Maitimo of the nudity policy.

"He walked in like that, if Cam doesn't come down in a couple minutes I can try to find him something but the bar did give him a door -"

"Yeah, I get it, and it'd about kill my friend to have to stick him in a cell but it's not worth our jobs, you've got layers on, maybe loan him something if you want to go back out before his twin shows up."

"Okay. We'll stay here until he wakes up - were there injuries that weren't visible, I don't know, can you do diagnostics -"

"Nothing precise but yeah, he was real fucked up. Not sick, though, just hurt."

Cam?

I'm coming, where are you?

Infirmary. 

Cam's there a moment later. Puts the other Bell in jeans and a T-shirt. "What, uh, happened -?"

He sends the memory.

"I don't know what to make of that. Maybe he'll be more comprehensible when he wakes up."

"Recognized Findekáno and I. Very carefully and very badly injured."

"Well. Thanks, Tse Lux. Midnight, can you put him on the sofa? I'll read up on wherever he's from, I guess."

He picks him up. 

"It looked like he recognized you in a positive way? Whereas I'll be bewildering and the girls'd be strangers - do you want to hang out and be there when he wakes up -"

"Of course. And yes, I think he knows a me -" Couch. He waves Findekáno over. "He doesn't have a belly button. I don't know if the first Arda humans had belly buttons."

"Yeah that's weird."

- the new Bell starts muttering in his sleep.

And then screaming, not even words, just bloodcurdling agonized cries until he runs out of air.

"- Jesus, what the - wake him up -"

He's already shaking him -

New Bell's eyes open briefly but he can't hold them that way, he's awake long enough to take a breath and drops off again. The screaming doesn't resume immediately.

He exhales, looks back up at Cam - "we can help you read about his world, maybe the healing messed something up somehow -"

"Maybe." He gets book recommendations, appears a couple of titles near Midnight and Findekáno, picks one up himself.

They start reading too.

Cam quizzes Bar, between paragraphs - the bellybutton thing is normal there; the screaming in his sleep isn't -

- the screaming picks up again.

What if he tries singing him something - deeper sleep, a painkiller -

Painkiller does nothing; deeper sleep makes him scream more quietly.

"Is that an improvement - do you have drugs or something -"

"I don't even know what this is, it could be nightmares or some weird otherworldly condition, he doesn't have a navel I'm not going to introduce drugs to his system."

"Magic isn't inherently safe either -" can they get anywhere by waking him up this time -

Brief sleepy whimpering, not fully awake, and then it's back to All Screaming All The Time.

"Can we get him to open his door in his sleep, get help somehow -"

"He came in covered in recent injuries and obviously hallucinating, I'm not sure we'd like whatever's there."

"Yeah, I'd feel fairly justified in reading their minds and they would probably at least know what's going on."

"...He's not spontaneously bleeding or anything and the infirmary does the 'categorically sufficient' thing like Security does, I want to see if he can sleep it off and then talk to him first."

Nod.

"...but I am going to call Timothy down to get him to stop hollering audibly." He pulls out his computer and writes.

New Bell, this one's a face match. Midnight got him to the infirmary and he's no longer all cut up but he's now asleep and screaming; trying to play it conservatively and wait till we can talk to him and give him a chance to sleep it off before trying to get his door open or drug him or anything like that but can you do a spell to keep him quiet, it's disconcerting.

And he comes downstairs.

And casts something; now they can't hear him. "I assume you've tried things -"

"Yes."

He sits down next to Cam and puts an arm around him. "Where's he from -"

"Have a book." Book.

He starts reading.

It's an interesting world. Spontaneous human babies, storks, creches, magic robot things, city-state organizational habits, one big continent and a handful of little ones and islands, absolutely no explanation for screaming in his sleep.

Elves are upset about the spontaneous babies.

Of course they are. "Do we know your alt's name?"

"No. We can assume it has Bell in it somewhere and maybe something with an M and an R in it."

"Yeah, seems like a constant. I'm not seeing anything here that would explain the injuries. Or the screaming."

"Or recognizing Midnight and Findekáno - Findekáno do you have a nickname, I know you're the only one around but others do exist and it seems like New Bell probably has one at home -"

"Yeah, we should probably have a schema too - can you check for alts of us in his world, or would you need names for that..."

"...I might be able to go off 'alt of you' -" Check. "- but his world doesn't have you, if I can -"

"...could be lookalikes and not alts -"

"I also don't think he'd have looked at us like that if he knew human alts of us. That wasn't 'wait a second you look very much like someone I know but a different species' - he thought he'd run into his versions -"

"His world's only got humans. Unless the hallucination thing has something to do with it -"

"Lacking an explanation for the hallucination thing I couldn't say. Maybe his world has a tiny population of extremely secret Elves, or something. They went into hiding because the spontaneous babies were too upsetting, he found them, hijinks ensued?"

That resulted in those injuries. He raises an eyebrow at Midnight.

Crossed my mind, but he didn't look afraid of me. "We wouldn't be hiding. Not without a lot of considerations that all didn't make it into print - how about Elves in his world, is that a thing you can conjure for -"

"Tiny basement dwellers, coming right up."

He gets a small pile of Elves, none of whom are redheads.

" - well. They'd have known me, maybe he knew of us from them - or maybe we used to have alts and they're dead -"

"He looks, like, eighteen -" Cam goes stepwise year by year. The pile of tiny basement dwelling Elves does not change until it disappears completely.

They cannot think of any explanation. "...maybe he's been to Milliways before, and that's how there are Elves in his world? If he landed on mine some people might choose to leave, either to help his or to get out from under the Valar -"

"Could be something like that... are these chip or soul -" They're soul, turns out.

"I know them," he says, squinting at the tiny figurines. 

"Does the assortment suggest anything?"

"Not especially - uh, if we're assuming he met them in Milliways or something it's not an implausible selection of people - they're not the people I'd pick to have wanted to leave most, but our world's non-standard, and they get along with each other and - hmm, the Arda's 1460 or earlier, she got married and her husband isn't here -"

"None of them is named 'Aydanci', I assume."

"No."

"We might have to wait for him to wake up and ask him questions."

Nod. 

Eventually the new Bell stops screaming, even silently, and dreams something pleasanter and mouths inaudible words where he's laid out on the sofa.

He cancels the spell.

"Plectrum," says the new Bell. "Glorious."

"We all do that in our sleep."

"It's adorable."

"Apparently some of Miranda's roommates hate it and she has to do that spell before she goes to bed every night, but to each their own."

"Miranda's roommates are closedminded and silly. Some of them will grow out of it. It's adorable. - we could ask Bar if new Bell's been here before -"

"Ooh good idea - Bar -"

Not that I can recall, although my memory does not extend infinitely.

"But he's like eighteen so probably no."

It is entirely plausible that a trillion years have passed for me in his most recent week.

"The differentials get that big? Okay."

I don't remember ever catching one that size, but of course I could only do so every trillion years or so.

"Do they get that big in the other direction? A trillion years in a world without much time passing for you?"

I see no reason why it could not.

Nod. And more waiting.

Eventually the new Bell wakes up on his own.

He opens his eyes and shuts them and mutters very quietly "this part is easier if I'm on fire".

"-hey. What's your name, do you know where you are -"

"Angband," snaps the new Bell, and he curls up into a ball. To himself: "Just a dream just a dream only dreaming -"

"- what are you - doing?"

Sobbing into his elbow, apparently.

"Do you want us to keep you asleep - do you want us to kill you -"

"You can do whatever you want with me."

"I'm not the person you know, we've never met before, if the door opens on Angband we can't even go fetch the people you probably intend by that -"

Silence.

" - how come the books didn't pull up that they had a Melkor and an Angband -"

"Bar, can you get us books from where he walked in from?"

She can!

And it's an Arda. "Well. That explains it. I'm so sorry, Cam -"

"What are you apologizing to me for?"

"He's not listening."

"We've seen a fair few of these."

"Not the - whatever he just did, that's unusual.

No two people come out broken the same way but - I don't think he's going to be okay."

"What's the - flat version like?"

"I don't know. You heard him say this would be easier if he was on fire -"

"People don't believe they're out and so they are really reluctant to say what happened, that being something that would provide information about what left an impression," he clarifies. "Injuries significantly more severe than his are standard but perhaps they're more careful with humans -"

"There haven't been any human 'escapes' or rescues."

"We know he tortures them, obviously, we know he breeds the orcs, we know that pretty much everyone comes out and asks you to kill them - or they don't, they're fine and then a month later murder forty people in the middle of the night -"

"...any clues why?"

"It's possible they're sworn to it - they won't swear they aren't, which makes sense because if you don't think you're really out it's categorically a horrible idea to swear to anything - we think he can tamper with memories, maybe he sets them up to believe it's somehow the right thing to do -"

"Well. New Bell can't be sworn to it, I imagine. And seems to think catatonia is the right thing to do."

"It's one way to be useless to your presumed captors, I suppose."

"I mean... yes, but it seems like it would come less naturally to me than sarcastic commentary."

"I can't help. People who 'escaped' had only the memories of Angband he wanted them to have anyway."

"Timothy, do you have any Veritaserum around?"

"- yeah -"

"Give him a while to decompress - see if he'll eat or if I have to get nutrition into him - then maybe try that, he'll be able to account for what he says, it's not like mindreading."

"Okay. Should we get him a room, move him upstairs - new Bell, do you want company -"

"Might as well. Especially if he's going to yell like that."

Nod. Float. "Bar, can we get another room -"

They can. They do.

They take him upstairs. "If he thinks we're - Angband - he's not gonna answer what we can do for him, do you have any guesses -"

"I have never been to Angband - and the chip one is different - and I don't have a model of why he'd do this instead of critiquing my fashion sense or something -"

Nod. "...leave him alone for long enough to see if he'll eat, like you said, and then Veritaserum can at least elicit preferences about supervision and so on - do you want to leave him the means to kill himself -"

"Yeah. I want to be kind of excruciatingly conservative about assuming he'd want it but if it's there and he goes for it I'm not gonna second-guess him."

"Okay. If he's just a normal human there're potions that're painless."

"Several of them? Who develops these things?" Room. Door.

"Assassins who expect their enemies are checking for specific things but have no way to check in full generality. Mostly. Accio -"

Cam puts a meal that will still be reasonably tasty if left there for hours and should be comprehensible crossculturally on the room's desk, and makes a label that reads in bright colors Lethal Poison [Optional] to put on the potion.

Here is the potion. "- if he'd prefer to continue to exist under the conditions 'indestructible magical being' but not otherwise -"

"If he wouldn't prefer that we can't undo it."

"I know."

"Also it'd become a problem in case of the 'murder forty people in the night' thing."

Shiver. "I hear things go badly when the daeva is smarter than the summoner but 'you with all your faculties' is smarter than 'you being catatonic for some reason'. We'd have to grab him back but we could do that."

"If he recovers enough to, like, answer yes-or-no questions, revisit it then, I think..." But he adds a note next to the lethal poison that if he can hold off on taking it and hold a conversation they have 'indestructible magical being' on offer.

"And maybe put on some music or something?"

"Yeah, good idea." Cam sets up a nice long playlist.

"And I will be wildly optimistic and suggest instructions on how to contact you as well."

"I was just going to conjure the plate periodically to see if he'd eaten, but sure." Little notebook, pen, introductory paragraph.

And they leave.

"Wonder if the Killing Curse works on Maiar and Valar."

"We were wondering this about the Imperius a while ago, weren't we?"

"Might not have the same answer, since the Imperius works on daeva and Avada Kedavra doesn't. And there are already Melkor containment solutions in place, what I want is a way to kill him. Them."

"Small you's world has one captive, maybe they'll hold him still and let you try it."

Nod. 

Sigh.

Wingput.

"The mes don't want to die, right? And they get back to functional fast enough to gracefully stitch Elf politics back together and I think the massacres later are unrelated. Maybe he'll be okay."

"...we haven't actually met a you who's been through Angband. They might not disclose suicidal inclinations to their biographers."

"And they do kill themselves, eventually, and if they're soul-Elves killing themselves doesn't even really help..."

Back downstairs.

"Yep."

Cam periodically conjures the plate. The food on it disappears after a couple minutes.

"That's promising."

"Yeah, let's go make sure it hasn't been a week and he's not starving."

Back upstairs. He grabs Veritaserum.

New Bell appears to have rolled over under his own power, cleaned his plate, and not touched the little notebook or the optional lethal poison.

He looks to Cam.

Cam sits.

"Hey," he says. "You up to talking?"

"You up to indicating that you're listening in any way?"

"Are you up to resisting force-feeding of magical truth drugs, 'cause that's next."

Sigh.

"There's a dosage that just means he couldn't lie to us, which isn't helpful, there's 'will volunteer true information in response to questions', and there's 'will volunteer all true potentially relevant information in response to questions' -"

"Second thing, we can try the third thing if he's in any condition to be evasive."

He measures out two drops. "Is he likely to fight me because it's supply-constrained by having to open Hazel's door again -"

"...I don't think so but we're only doing this at all because I'm confused about how he ticks."

"I'm going to stun you and then wake you up," he tells new Bell, "Stupefy."

Potion.

"Enervate."

"- Timothy how long does it last -"

"Hour or so, why?"

"Wanted to know how aggressively to prioritize. What's your name?"

"- Akibel Mowar," and now he's scared.

"I'm Timothy, this is Cam, if we were working for Melkor he'd have won a long time ago, Cam's an alternate universe version of you and we're trying to figure out what you're doing and why."

"...what is it that's easier if you're on fire."

"Stopping thinking."

"...why do you do that?"

"- because he can read memories -" Akibel is shaking, now.

"- oh."

"Makes sense now?"

"Yes. Akibel, having demonstrated that we have the ability to get you talking whether you like it or not will you talk to us if we let the potion wear off?"

"Yeah."

"- do you want me to get an antidote -"

"Are you going to be informative?"

"I'll answer like I do when you stage a rescue first."

"How's that?"

"I'll tell you what you already know."

"That's fine to start out, at least, assuming you mean you'll tell us what Melkor already knows. - means we should ask advance-directive-y things before the potion wears off, though -"

"Yeah. Are you suicidally inclined?"

"Sometimes."

"...are these right now the sort of conditions under which you are suicidally inclined."

"Yes."

"Skipped the potion because?"

"Suicide in hallucinations just ends them."

"Can you ever identify things as nonhallucinations in any way?"

"Dreams that fit right."

"What is the deal with your dreams?"

"I'm reincarnated and get my past life back that way and any memories you delete."

"...If you could be sure that what you are currently experiencing was not a hallucination, would you want to kill yourself?"

"No."

"Would you want to become an immortal indestructible but potentially mentally vulnerable magical creature."

"Probably not."

"If you could be sure this was not a hallucination what would you want us to do - in terms of company, in terms of enlisting the help of the competent Valar, in terms of magic we have or might turn up -"

"...Something intelligent given whatever constraints you have."

"Try to roll you back to before Angband, yes or no. Keep you in a coma until we can kill your Melkor and access your - Aydanci? is it? - yes or no. I have a magic mind-control spell that I probably couldn't manage to cast on a younger traumatized Cam no matter what but would you want it demonstrated yes or no -"

- Akibel mumbles confusedly.

"I don't think he can produce answers he believes reliably true on this little information - who's Aydanci, is he or she authorized to make decisions on your behalf -"

"My husband. Yes."

"How'd you two end up in an Arda?"

"A magic snake ate me and then the Valar made a portal and I went and got him."

"Where would we be getting your husband from?"

"Wherever they fell back to after I was captured."

"How long had the war been going on when you were captured?"

"23 years."

"Melkor must know that, we can save it. Are there memory charm reversals that might apply?"

"Complicated as hell and we'd have to go to St. Mungos but conceivably, yes."

"Akibel -"

"Kib."

"Kib! Conditioning on the hypothesis that I'm an alternate universe version of you, that those are a thing, that this is an alternate universe Maitimo, that there are lots of worlds with all kinds of resources available, and that we can access all published written works from your home world and your Arda, what do you think we ought to know."

"- he got my Maitimo first. But Findekáno got him out again. I might reincarnate again if I died. My past life was named Alymbel Mahri and invented storks anonymously. Waking me up when I have nightmares doesn't help in the long run. I'm still missing a lot of memories. Doing the thing I'm doing is really really boring and I hate it."

" - Cam, I don't know if the competent Valar would take alt consent to fix the memories but I bet they could, if Melkor can -"

"Seems like it'd save him some nightmares - right, Kib -?"

"I think I never dream anything I remembered when I went to sleep."

"Conditioning on the hypothesis that among our resources are friendly Valar do you want your memories all put back?"

"Yes."

"Is keeping you unconscious better or worse than letting you keep doing the thing you're doing?"

"- depends on if I dream -"

"Is dreaming preferable conditioning on the hypothesis that we are friendly."

"No."

"And if we can put everything back and doing so prevents the dreams?"

"Preferable."

"And if we can keep you awake indefinitely?"

"No - please -"

"Because then you can't confirm anything -"

"Yeah."

"If you're doing - the not-thinking thing - do you want company, do you want entertainment..."

"People are nice until they start hurting me - music's nice -"

"Are there things that hurt you that we wouldn't expect to hurt you, or hurt you much worse than they'd hurt you-before-Angband -"

"I - don't remember -"

" - Cam can you think how to phrase it, this is something I would be evasive about in his position but which we do need to know -"

"...What was your state of information immediately before you said 'I think something's wrong with me'."

"The last thing I remembered I was back in Valinor with Maitimo and - then there's - weird memories of a couple weeks of hearing that there were humans in Endorë and us deciding to go meet them and - the memories were wrong, I checked my notes and they were there but didn't make any sense - and I went looking for Aydanci to have him take over teaching the humans servantmaking and before I found him I was in that other place and suddenly everything hurt and I was so tired -"

"What'd you dream about this past sleep?"

"Torture and then an Aly dream and then a hallucination that went on a couple subjective weeks and it had dreams within dreams when I imagined I slept and more torture."

"So you don't remember most of it and might have phobias you don't know about or something -?"

"Maybe."

"I would kind of like to know if the people we have up here are causing him horrible torment by picking at their nails exactly the way Melkor does it or something but I can't think of any way to learn things like that without dosing him occasionally to ask and that doesn't seem - warranted -"

"Do you think you are likely to have phobias like that."

"No."

"Are there people you would not want to have as visitors who alternate universe versions of you might find perfectly good company -"

"Not if they don't hurt me it's okay until they hurt me -"

"This right now is okay?"

"This is terrifying but not because you look like me and like Maitimo."

"- that's all I have that needs Veritaserum, do you -"

"Did this knock you out of your not thinking thing."

"Yes."

"Are you going to redo it -"

"Yes."

"If you were permanently out of Angband and no one was reading your mind, would you want us to let you do that? Alternatives include continuing to dose you and have people talking with you so you can't redo it or checking interactions with various other forms of mind-affecting magic available to us."

"It only does its job if you can't stop me."

"But this doesn't count as demonstrating ability to stop you?"

"Not quite."

"- Cam do you want to keep him dosed while we figure out what to do- do you think the higher dose would qualify as proof -"

"Might. Worth a shot but - is there a way to cut him off if we phrase a question badly -?"

"Asking another one, or I can make us unable to hear him -"

"Kib, if this potion you're on got way more itself would you cut it out with the not thinking?"

"Probably."

"Should I knock you out again or will you have a second dose?"

"I can't stop you!"

"Yes, but would you try."

"No."

He measures out three drops. He passes Kib a spoon.

Kib takes it, trembling.

"How does servantmaking work?"

- and Kib goes on a long ramble about the five kinds of servants and the fine differences between the three programming paradigms.

"What are the applications of most interest to Melkor?"

"I don't remember anything current to the war -" He speculates wildly. Mass production, giant golems, pet spies -

"We can probably safely teach your original world summoning, they've got plenty to trade daeva - the reincarnation thing isn't universal, is it -"

"It's only me and Aydanci that I know of but I might not remember if we ever figured anything else out."

"Are you satisfied that we can extract arbitrary information from you?"

"No but I wish I were because I'm convinced you could make me miserable in the course of proving it."

"What do I need to ask to prove it?"

"I don't know if this thing can make me do more than talk - if you made me do any substantive research I guess but I don't remember anything current -"

"You don't have a way to avoid doing substantive research other than ceasing to think?"

"That's not what ceasing to think is for, ceasing to think is to stop you from having my thoughts, but you could prove that I can't limit your access even by trying not to think if you cause me to do substantive research - you can get idle thoughts just by rolling me back -"

He looks at Cam. "I don't actually know if the potion does that - I might have to at least know what I was walking him through - Imperius can but Bells throw it off and also yeah no -"

"...I'm not actually sure we couldn't crack that without magic or demanding research. If some alternate universe yous hovered and narrated what we thought you might be thinking do you think that'd make you cut it out?"

"Maybe."

"Should I ask Miranda and Ambela up -"

"If I'm right it'll work when the dose is worn off and be less scary then but - they should be ready to catch him then before he goes under again."

"Okay. - do you need more information or anything to make it work -"

"Inconveniently I need information about his personal life."

And so Kib winds up mumbling about his childhood and his reincarnation and how he met his boyfriends and how great his husband is and how traumatized his Maitimo (though he remembers only fragments of the last). Cam cuts him off when he gets irrelevantly or inappropriately detailed.

It would be adorable if it weren't all completely horrible. And -

can you ask Ambela and Miranda to come up to room 700022, please -

Timothy and Cam would like you to come to room 700022, he tells them. He is playing with his car in the room with the circle for the lunar-arcology-destroyer because he thinks daeva murderers are interesting and he wants to meet some more of them.

Did he say why?

Coming.

He asks, and conveys, you have an alt who Milliways scooped out of Angband and Cam thinks it'll help him to meet the other yous.

On my way.

Zoom zoom. 

The girl Bells arrive and Ambela knocks.

"Hi. Thank you for coming - he's under a truth potion but it should wear off any minute, don't ask him questions until then -"

"People from our Utumno are always rolled back - there were too many forks who'd been in too long -"

"This one was in a Flat Angband. Has a husband of no obvious template from his own world and is also simultaneously dating his Maitimo and Findekáno, who he picked up while still reaccumulating memories from his first life, from which he reincarated, and at the time he didn't remember he was married. He's missing a lot of memories from after that - doesn't know when his Melkor broke parole or why his husband reincarnated or how his Maitimo got captured or anything -" He catches the girls up.

"You willing to hang on for a little while after the potion ends, Kib?"

"You can have a minute."

"Thank you." And he sits back and watches Cam unhappily and waits a few more minutes.

"And - now, should be gone. Kib, do either of them look like Aly -"

Long pause. Headshake.

"You're clear," he tells the Bells.

"I'm not sure I'm as much use -"

"Then hang back till you have input. - Timothy, he doesn't really know you -"

"Do you want me to leave? Or not listen?"

"Leaving's marginally more verifiable in retrospect when he puts his mind in better order -" Cam kisses him and shoos him.

He shoos.

And goes and looks for published works on Angband.

For some reason there are not many firsthand accounts.

Not many isn't, in four hundred million Ardas, zero.

Any that match Kib's up to Kib's point of entry?

Bar finds Kib's Arda to have been standard up until his arrival by her metrics.

So some from those.

Voila.

Reading.

The Bells come downstairs.

Kib looks really annoyed, but alert.

"Hi!"

"He's convinced that outright ceasing to think is not helping but he still thinks he's in Angband because he didn't even get a rescue sequence, and being surly is more comfortable than being scared. He's not going to be very good company for a while - we're introverts, he'll be okay alone."

"Okay. If he prefers not having company, that is, if it's just that he thinks we're all Melkor I'd sooner tolerate that - his Maitimo wouldn't leave him alone -"

"I bet he gets real - cuddly and cooperative, when he's been given a rescue hallucination - but 'hallucination of something unrelated cuts out with no memory restoration in the middle of the bar' isn't one of those. But no, not having company is not better-for-him."

"Then we'll visit. We don't need cuddly."

Was he involved with -

Yeah. The story's honestly super cute but we forced it out of him so I'm not repeating it.

Kib plops down by the fireplace and stares at it.

"You should read something. If we're Melkor coming up with plausible books for you probably takes more of our time and energy than coming up with a convincing fireplace. Human or Elf literature? Ambela's Elves all write relentless tragedies, if you find normal Elf content a bit too goody-goody."

"I'm waiting to pick a new strategy after you give my memories back or come up with an excuse not to do that after all. Maybe you're really good at propaganda and just save it for special occasions."

"Mirelóte, can Lórien -"

"I'm not sure about mine but it should be within a flat one's skillset."

Nod.

He starts singing softly.

Is silent weeping an improvement?

No, not really. "Should we not -"

"Oh, depends, what are you going for here?"

"An interaction that doesn't involve anxiously clinging to you in the infirmary while the apologetic healer tells me that you're breaking some stupid bar rule by not of all things wearing clothes?"

"Thanks for that, I guess, if it makes sense to thank you for there being a framing story in which I don't spend a few months bedridden recovering."

"You'd want to thank Tse Lux, they give up their own immune system for healing powers or something - not, like, as a voluntary choice, they're selected for it at four - does my local alt spend a few months bedridden recovering? Does he in fact recover, I peeked at his notes but they're - less than revealing, I'd act fine either way -"

"What in the name of the fucking Pineapple Islands is the point of asking me this before you put my memories back."

"Oh, I'm not counting on the Valar to be competent, that's the people whose Valar didn't try to control their populace with mass mindcontrol."

"Oh! You have backstory!"

"Have I annoyed you sufficiently that I can sing without reducing you to tears or are those not on the same axis somehow?"

"You still sound like him."

"We can go outside, it's fine."

"Should anyway, if they're getting Valar -"

"Yeah." Lean.

They go outside.

"Do I too, or is it an Elf thing."

"If you sing I probably won't cry."

"I sang a bit before we came down, it was all right."

"I'll tell the other Elf mes, then, that they shouldn't -"

"And Findekáno."

"The one you met is the only one here so far but if we run into any more I will tell them also."

"Great."

"If interactions with people who don't look like and aren't alts of anyone you know are preferable there're Singularity Elves outside. Or you could sit in on daeva interviewing."

"I'll take that under advisement."

Sigh. 

Sitting. Staring.

After an hour or so a car will come zooming into the room, and then a small child will come toddling after it.

"Hi," he says to Kib. "I'm the Maitimo called Mingling because there are a lot of us."