Oh that's actually a good idea. It would feel like a weird thing to say to most people, like he's making helping them about himself rather than them, but with Leareth it seems like it might just strictly add clarity. 

:I'm not sure exactly what to do to help either but I - if it were me, I wouldn't want my friends to ignore me when I was sad, even - especially - if I was overwhelmed and didn't know what would help. It's important to me to try to be a good friend to you. ...I know it was sort of complicated before, whether we could be - friends - but I think it's less complicated now, right, we're not going to have a war.: 

Oh. 

That...at least moves around some of the confusion, though it doesn't make Leareth feel very much less confused overall. 

:If it is important to you for some reason then I think I do not mind if you want to stay: he says. 

That...is probably the clearest answer from Leareth that Vanyel can reasonably expect right now. 

He goes in and finds a stool against the wall to carry over. ...He'll pick up the pillow on the floor and put a clean pillowcase on it from the linens shelf and put it back on Leareth's bed. :...Er, would it help to have something to do with your hands?: 

Leareth spends a good five seconds trying to consider this as purely as a hypothetical before it occurs to him that he was trying to do a thing with his hands three minutes ago and could instead remember whether it helped then. He thinks it was pretty mixed? It was probably a bad idea in principle to try to distract himself with something he's going to be very bad at right now and that wouldn't be useful even if he succeeded. 

:It is not important.: 

Vanyel considers whether to be dubious of this, because if he said something like that while upset it would not be trustworthy at all even if he thought at the time that he meant it, and ends up deciding that it would drive him too insane to interact with Leareth that way. 

He sits down. :I figured maybe I could fill you in? On some of what you missed, I don't know what Nayoki already explained.: It can't have been that much, there wouldn't have been time, and Leareth might not have understood it as well since it was before he'd had even one Restoration targeted on his ability to think. :- er, not because I need you to make any decisions: he adds quickly. :Just, it must be confusing and if I were you I wouldn't like that.: 

Vanyel did not actually ask if this would be a good use of his time, or if Leareth would enjoy it, both of which feel like questions he could answer but the answers are not just there, he would need to...go looking...for them, and he's getting very tired of every single thought requiring him to go looking. 

:All right: he says. (Instead of 'that makes sense' because he asked himself if it was true that it made sense and did not feel confident of this within half a second.) 

That wasn't exactly an enthusiastic answer but at least Leareth didn't, like, flinch about it. 

:What did Nayoki already explain?: he asks. 

Remembering and recounting something that someone else said feels a lot less fraught than venturing opinions.

:Healer Shavri explained first. She told me that Brightstar helped. When I asked how it was accomplished so quickly. I had predicted it would take longer. She said there were unsafe Gates. To the Elemental Plane of Fire. She said that - that you -: 

Leareth had at the time been dedicating nearly all of his concentration to managing and getting in control of the whole 'bone-deep certainty that he was about to die forever and none of his allies had the power to prevent this' emotion. (Which, incidentally, Leareth is SOMEHOW STILL HAVING even though it's CLEARLY NOT TRUE OR APPROPRIATE TO THE ACTUAL REALITY, but it's at least a quieter level of internal screaming now, and he can somewhat think around it even with all the other impairment.) 

Anyway, the level of distraction is probably why he failed to actually flag what should have been a spectacular note of confusion. 

To Vanyel's eye, it's fairly obvious that Leareth isn't just confused, but upset. He was in the room at the time, what did Shavri– oh. Right. That thing. Somehow Vanyel had also failed to register it at the time.

:She said Brightstar could only pull off the insanely dangerous research strategy because I had six channels a day. ...I'm a cleric of Shelyn. It happened on - the first morning, I think? After we were attacked? We - it wasn't obvious if there was anything we could actually do but Blai told us some things about the better gods and everyone who thought they might be aligned with a particular god tried to pray to Them. Herald Joshel got clericed by Abadar. I...wasn't even praying, really, but Shelyn chose me. She's the god of love and art. Neutral Good. I - it was pretty surprising but it kept us alive.: 

He doesn't have the slightest idea how to explain to Leareth why he's so happy about it even apart from the practical utility. Saying that it's reassuring and makes him feel less alone every morning is going to sound insane to the man who's spent millennia being murdered by Velgarth's gods, including one instance that from Leareth's point of view happened, like, a candlemark ago. 

Well. It obviously had a good outcome! That...seems like the most important thing? Probably? 

Leareth spends a while struggling to get traction on - some other angle of thinking about it, he isn't sure what - and lands on, :- You seem happy.: 

:...I am: Vanyel says, surprised and then unsure why that response should be surprising. 

:...I am glad that you are happy: Leareth settles on. :I hope it will continue to have good outcomes.:

He's fairly sure that he - believes - both of those utterances and isn't just producing words that aren't particularly related to anything in reality. 

Awwww? 

:I think Shelyn approves of - being a good friend to the people you care about: he says. :So I'm - I guess I'm trying to do better at that.: 

There are several different responses that come to mind but Leareth is finding it impossible to determine if he believes any of them, so he just nods.

There’s very little reason to think it’s even remotely likely that a Good goddess of love and art would possess Vanyel and make him murder Leareth right here in Haven, so it should have no bearing on Leareth’s emotions. He…thinks that’s true, actually. It isn’t Vanyel that he’s afraid of. It isn’t anything that’s actually in this room, or in the present at all. It was eleven days ago and it’s over and it just - feels - like it’s still the thing that’s happening every time he closes his eyes.

There was some kind of flinch there and the obvious cause is 'Vanyel taking advice from a god' but Leareth, overall, seems to be taking it in stride? 

:Queen Karis was chosen by Sarenrae as well: he adds. :She's in Iftel somewhere right now, doing relief work.: What else... :Oh, I don't know if anyone explained the context on, er, why Brightstar helped and why we - let him - he got an apology vision from the Star-Eyed. He helped find you, actually - you'd managed to reach Jisa, they were trying to check all the records caches from a map but - everyone had to evacuate, up north, nowhere else was hit as bad but there were earthquakes all over - and that was before the full apology vision, but like five minutes earlier Brightstar got a short vision from the Goddess where She admitted She might have made a mistake. So Jisa - figured she might as well ask him, I guess, and he - used the method he'd used before, which means you were definitely still alive when - or it wouldn't've - we were almost in time - Leareth, I'm so sorry -: 

It is pretty much impossible for Leareth to process most of what Vanyel said enough to think about it at all, much less figure out something to say in response that makes sense and is true and appropriate to the situation, when nearly all of his attention is on feeling intensely like he's still on the floor of the records cache dying and the sense-memory of it is somehow a lot louder than his sense of being in the actual location he is now. 

What did he say???????

…Okay, fine, once Vanyel thinks about it for two consecutive seconds it’s kind of obvious why reminding Leareth of the really terrifying thing that he’s probably been trying not to think about might, conceivably, have been a bad idea. 

:Leareth?: he tries, when it’s been a solid twenty seconds of Leareth just. Not moving or saying anything. :Are you all right?:

Aziza? Help?? :I think I - scared him, or something - that doesn't normally happen!: he sends privately to her. 

:In case he doesn't know you could tell him Shelyn definitely doesn't want to hurt him or anybody?:

It hadn’t felt like that was the main thing Leareth was reacting to, but Vanyel can at least be pretty confident that it's true, and he...doesn't, actually, feel very sure that the Star-Eyed Goddess, who he more recently mentioned multiple times, is actually going to stop trying to murder Leareth at this point. 

:Shelyn definitely doesn't want to hurt you, or anyone: he sends. 

The part that gets through is mostly that Vanyel is still there at all, and worried. Leareth didn't mean to make Vanyel worried. That seems like it would distract him while there are important things to do, which seems bad. 

:...I - did not think She did: he manages. :I - it is not - I am reacting to things that are not happening anymore -: 

Oh no. Vanyel definitely knows exactly what Leareth means! It's really unpleasant when that happens! He...had not at all imagined that Leareth was prone to it??? It's so bizarrely disorienting to learn otherwise, like the ground sliding under his feet. 

...Vanyel also isn't really sure what to say or do, because the thing that helps for him the most, other than Yfandes - which isn't an option for Leareth - is...hugs...and he's really not hugging friends with Leareth in general and also Leareth's body language is really not at all indicating that he would want that. Honestly Leareth's body language is mostly making Vanyel feel like he's getting in Leareth's personal space too much and should leave him alone? Which, if it were him, would really do the opposite of help, but obviously Leareth is a different person - but also, gods, Vanyel probably has given off...conflicting signals...like that before. Poor Savil and everyone else who had to deal with him.

At least Leareth is still able to do a pretty reasonable job of communicating his preferences in actual words, even if he seems weirdly on-edge about that too. 

:Am I making it worse by being here?: he asks. :Would it be better or worse if I go?: