"What? It's definitely the Healers' job! Er, they weren't very well equipped to do it for you, maybe, and - this place is deserted, isn't it, I think Joshel might've demanded that they redeploy everyone they could spare as soon as he heard that we were healed. But we should've - had someone from your organization guard the door - I don't know why we didn't, that was stupid of us and I'm sorry, I think - I guess it seemed like having Sera with you covered it but - er, should I check on her, actually, is she all right, she slept through the whole–" 

That was so many words and even so Leareth should not be having nearly this much trouble processing them. Is something getting worse - that’s an alarming thought, and Leareth’s body manages to produce a fresh spike of panic even though one would really think he had hit the maximum possible panic already -

- Vanyel was asking him a question, what was Vanyel’s question - 

:It was not loud: Leareth says. :We were talking in Mindspeech. I do not think she is in any danger, she told me that she was just very tired, from self-Healing on what the spell did not fix and - from being dead and brought back at all, I assume - and she is not unreasonably scared, she knows it is safe to rest here and she should do that to recover as quickly as possible without costing you more healing spells - do not wake her, it is not worth disturbing her -:

“All right, all right, I won’t.” Vanyel is absolutely going to make sure a Healer who was not just raised from the dead has a look at her soon, though. “…Anyway, the point is that she’s not doing much to look out for you, especially if you’re this reluctant to bother her. So I’m absolutely not leaving until we have one of your people at the door.”

why in the world is THAT making Leareth feel worse and more like he’s dying 

…Huh, that was some kind of flinch.

“- Or I can not leave?” he says tentatively. “If it’s - helping, that I’m here - I’m not busy, I was done for the night.”

:…Having you here is better than being alone: Leareth manages, because it’s a thought he’s had before and he doesn’t have to do any new thinking.

Awwwwwwwwwwwww!!! Shelyn look he's making ✨ friends ✨ with Leareth! 

- focus. 

"Then I'll stay. And I'll get someone to guard the door anyway because I can stay all night but I don't think I can stay awake all night so there's kind of the same problem." 

:Fandes?:

:On it. ...Nayoki's up north coordinating some sort of mage-artifact retrieval operation, do we need her back here?: 

Do they??? :Er, I think someone should pass a message to her that this happened? If I were her I'd want to know, even if it was a bad time to come back. And - say I'm with him and I'm trying to handle it but if he's not - better than this - in half a candlemark I think I want backup.:

Vanyel considers asking Leareth for his preference, for about three seconds, and concludes that he would find that an overwhelming question in Leareth's position, especially since it sounds like Nayoki is in fact busy doing something important. 

:I'll make sure it happens. And find someone to stand outside his door.: A soft mental nudge. :You're doing fine, love.: 

Vanyel feels like he's floundering wildly, but - he's pretty sure he always feels that way when something feels important and delicate, the information there is "he cares a lot about how this goes and it feels like very small wrong moves could screw it up" and that doesn't mean he's making wrong moves. 

Leareth hasn't actually said anything else, though he sort of nodded agreement to Vanyel declaring he was going to stay. 

"- Do you think you're going to calm down on your own if I just keep sitting with you?" he asks. 

Leareth...has no idea. That mental query is not working.

On priors, pr....obably? It seems physically impossible to keep panicking for no reason all night when nothing is happening? But if there's a move to calm down on purpose he's not finding it. 

:Eventually?: he says uncertainly. And frustratedly. 

Oh no he's so miserable. 

"Is there something that helped before? I mean other times, earlier today?" It feels almost condescending as a question, because obviously Leareth is going to be trying to handle this, but Vanyel definitely remembers times when he had just...gotten himself too upset to think of something that would have been perfectly obvious when he was only a bit upset, and it was a helpful reminder to have, and would give Yfandes an opening to gently nudge him through the thing. 

Leareth is not even slightly parsing things on a level where 'that's a condescending question' would occur to him. 

:...I think that before it would help if I tried to take slow deep breaths but it is not helping - or not working - I am not sure - something is wrong with how I am breathing -: It normally helps to be paying attention to it but right now it's doing the opposite, Leareth is trying to focus on how he's breathing to describe what isn't working and everything is even worse. 

Oh no that does sound familiar. “I think maybe you’re over-controlling it? My theory is that you’re doing the ‘I’m in an important meeting and need to not look like I’m panicking’ thing, and that’s - not an insane thing to do in a stressful conversation - but I don't think it's the same as the calming-down thing?" 

Vanyel hesitates. "...Can you try just - not? No one else is here. Nothing bad will happen if you look upset." Except that Vanyel will find it REALLY DISTRESSING if Leareth starts crying or something because that shouldn't be allowed, but that is so emphatically not Leareth's problem to worry about. 

That feels kind of scary and dangerous but Vanyel is probably not telling him to do something actually dangerous, for one thing Leareth isn't dying and it seems really unlikely he can seriously harm himself by being scared that he's dying when he isn't? And Vanyel is much less impaired, and is talking about it like this has ever happened to him before, which probably means he has better ideas than Leareth himself, who has no ideas at all right now because nothing about what’s happening makes sense.

…It’s surprisingly nontrivial to figure out how to - stop - over-controlling his breathing, which you wouldn’t think would be hard. Eventually it occurs to him to - it’s hard to describe, but to figure out what the suffocating feeling “wants” to do instead, and try for that on purpose, and -

- well, now he’s gasping raggedly like someone who was just drowning until five seconds ago, but it - surprisingly - doesn’t actually feel worse? Maybe it really was taking a lot of his mind to concentrate and impose discipline on his own breathing, because there’s abruptly a bit more room to think. And it feels...less like having some kind of obscure breathing disease. More like an emotion. Not a pleasant emotion - it's not just 'scared', there are other flavors that he likes even less than scared - but less possible to mistake for physically dying. 

It's probably really unpleasant! BUT, consider: Leareth is no longer giving off the body language of someone who might knife you for hugging them. And Vanyel thinks he can probably manage to notice if it does the opposite of help, if Leareth isn't trying so hard to clamp down on every single visible expression of his feelings. 

"I'm going to hug you," he says, and hugs Leareth. 

If it's stressful to be hugged by Vanyel, the stress is not even registering right now. It's very distracting, but since literally everything it could be distracting Leareth from is much worse, it's more or less a strict improvement on not being hugged by Vanyel.

….Probably not a terrible disaster idea? It would be nice if Leareth would say something, and also he really should have, like, put the mostly-empty teacup somewhere else first because now he only has one hand on keeping Leareth from dropping it - hm, that’s fixable with Fetching, again - it would be really nice if Leareth would say literally anything to indicate that he doesn’t hate it, Vanyel doesn’t think he’s misreading but he’s still worrying - it’s probably the opposite of comforting to harass Leareth for Mindspeech commentary on his hug experience so Vanyel is stepping on the urge but aaaaaa - 

Leareth is…maybe…mostly…not experiencing “panic” anymore? …Instead it’s the aftermath of it, which is its own equally unpleasant flavor of physical badness, but it’s - not completely unfamiliar territory anymore - it feels like the comedown after half a candlemark of intensively using magic in a combat situation, just without the backlash, except that his body seems to be insisting on giving him psychosomatic backlash nausea anyway out of some deep-seated association. At least it’s not going as far as a psychosomatic backlash headache; Leareth does have a mild headache, or mostly neck-ache, from being tense, but it starts to ease as he remembers how to unlock the muscles in his shoulders. 

He feels cold and hollow and shaky, and a tiny bit dizzy, and significantly more than a tiny bit like his consciousness is somehow off-center from his body, and also weirdly - thirsty? - maybe he actually just is thirsty for completely normal reasons, drinking enough water is…higher friction…when he can’t actually do it on his own -

- this isn’t the feeling of dying, though, it’s the familiar feeling of having survived something dangerous. Leareth knows what to do with that. Wait it out, mostly, but it has a predictable course.

He could ask Vanyel to get water but Leareth is not yet that confident that the feeling-of-dying isn’t lurking in wait ready to come right back if he’s not being hugged anymore. It would be confusing but everything is confusing. He’ll just…stay, like this. For a little while. 

Wow Vanyel is so glad this happened after he bathed! At least he's not, on top of everything else, self-conscious that he smells terrible. 

Leareth seems...calmer? Upset but not freaking out? He's breathing more normally, at least. 

Vanyel switches to Mindspeech. :Would it help to talk about it, or not yet?: 

Would it help? Leareth has no idea! Does he want to– ...apparently, yes. He's confused! Being confused is uncomfortable and stressful by itself! And it seemed like an - important - conversation, and if Leareth misstepped in some way then it's better to know. 

:He came in and said he needed to apologize for -: You know what, this time Leareth is thinking ahead and aware that his mind is inexplicably full of pit-traps with panic at the bottom and is perhaps not going to go over the exact specifics. Vanyel already knows, anyway. :- he said the Goddess sent him a vision? That She apologized? ...I did know that, you told me, but - not that it was so long - there were so many pieces -: 

:Mm. ...I'm not sure I ever heard the full thing? Brightstar reported it to Select Blai and Seldan, of all people, while most of the rest of us were sleeping in a Nap Stack. ...I should probably ask Seldan for their full report, I think Brightstar is - fragile - right now. Are there pieces you wanted to talk about now?: 

Leareth considers it. 

:...He made it sound like She was very - confused, or indecisive - that She said She had been sure that by Her values it was the right thing to - kill me -: only a slight stumble, there, he's found the mental move to consider it from a distance, :- but that now She seemed to think maybe it was correct or maybe it was - not worth steering for - and She could not tell?: