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What convinced Lucian wasn't, ultimately, that Lianelle couldn't remember her past. Sure, it was suspicious how all of her connections to anyone besides May had been cut or weakened, but that was only enough to push Lianelle so far. What convinced him that May was mind controlling his friend was Lianelle's lack of interest in being anywhere but by May's side. Lianelle didn't do that for anyone. She loved Katia with an intensity Lucian had hardly seen in any marriage, but she'd only visit Quiteria for a week at a time - never staying unless it was urgently required. When armies had been raised to fight the Magyar Lianelle had been there, but even then she'd ride off alone often, returning with news about how one village or another was now free. Seeing her relegated to a bodyguard and lover of someone she'd just met, with no apparent intention to ever leave, was... wrong. It wasn't Lianelle.
And so, this is how Lucian finds himself digging a hole in an unremarkable forest in west Austria. Well, digging several holes - the landscape's changed enough in the last 1200 years that it's difficult to locate the exact spot where he and his men, victorious but weary, buried the Magyar's artifacts that they could not understand the purpose of.
"Different one, I'm guessing? I suppose I could be wrong and this could be the same one, actually. Also she resurrected me in the esper universe but hangs out in the one where mind control prevents people from noticing magic. She's planning on resurrecting someone named Tomorrowgirl, I don't know who else."
"We had a Tomorrowgirl. Unless offical reports are lacking she wasn't actually that impactful in spite of the name - Isabella here is a better precog than Tomorrowgirl was - but her partner was a big deal combat esper."
Nod.
"I don't really have much of a plan to take the mage on. I had a trove of magical artifacts confiscated from the evil mages I fought, most of them were horrible or confusing, but one of them promised to send me to another world with allies, and that's how I ended up here."
"There was a largely decayed book on magic for blinding people, and a powder that had something to do with reverse clouds."
"...reverse... clouds... Anyway, I'm Haru, that's Isabella, Isabella and her Lucien are from, you were calling it Eclipse -?"
"Yes, we've got non-esper magic there, it hits harder at the high end and it's more flexible in the long term but the odds that any particular weird thing people don't already do all the time can get done in the near term is nil. Also we can't get there at the moment, we got here in two consecutive freak accidents via a different planet."
"I'm from Aragon in the 9th century after christ. Specifically the Aragon in the non-esper world with the magic veil I mentioned."
Isabella did the introducing for him, which is good because talking still seems kind of hard.
"I spent a lot of time in what I believe is now France, and in lands further east, helping to coordinate armies."
Nod. Lifeline's read about the Second World War - sometimes fighting is really the best option you have.
"I think her magic is limited, and she didn't think I'd be a threat? I don't have my own magic, I'm unfamiliar with the modern world, and my closest friend Lianelle no longer trusts me nearly as much as she once did - though she did still remember me enough to mention me to May."
"Okay, so, how does her magic work - is there a way to take it, I'd certainly like to have Tomorrowgirl and Chaos back in action the next time there's a confluence. Or to undo the mind control surreptitiously, since she's apparently got decent taste in who to resurrect."
"The magic allows her to do a variety of things, with limitations on how long it takes May to acquire enough magical energy to do so, as well as backlash she claims to need Lianelle to remove. My understanding is that she acquired the magic by winning a fight to the death with six other mages, though I'm not certain of some of the details, including how she entered the tournament in the first place. The tournament was supposed to recur every quarter century, but the mage found a way to prevent that and keep the power for herself."
"I suppose killing her and waiting for the tournament to happen again might work for taking the magic, if you were willing to wait that long. I don't know how to undo the mind control surreptitiously."
"Oh, and all of this is based on what the mage and Lianelle told me, so it may not be entirely reliable."
"May is an esper? Or this is backlash from your world's magic system and they just use the same term?"