Leareth smiles thinly. "And, if certain rumours are correct, she has been restoring lost limbs and curing the blind. Clear signs of altruistic motivation, and of courage. I have certainly not heard any reports of violence or threats; had I, I would be much more concerned."

He pauses for a while, his black eyes impassive. 

"There are different flavours of altruism," he says finally. "And not all of them would indicate that someone could or would wish to cooperate with my mission. Most people will help their own kin. There are many who would save a stranger's child from drowning, or from a burning building, if it came in front of them, but who would not look further afield, much less look at the numbers of which path would help more, and prioritize that way. Most Heralds of Valdemar consider themselves responsible for their Kingdom and not others, even when a child of Hardorn or Rethwellan is just as much a person. Many people hold clear bright lines – do not kill, do not lie – even in situation where this predictably leads to more deaths and more suffering. Most people do not think to consider that the future holds value as well as the present, and what this means, when there is so much of it." 

Another pause. "I have evidence she will help rather than harm Valdemar, locally. This is better than the alternative, and I am pleased that, given that a stranger with great power is in your midst, they seem friendly. However, I do not have the information, yet, to determine what underlying motivations drive this friendliness, and whether cooperation between us is possible even in theory, let alone in practice." 

I don't know why he thinks asking where I'm from and how I got here would shed light on this.

You can tell him I have no particular reason to be partial apart from having found hospitality here.

Vanyel can think of some inferences that Leareth could try to make – if he could learn anything about the culture of Bella's world that could at least hint at her moral views, if she came here on purpose, or was sent on purpose by another force, then there would be a why, a goal, and that could be indicative. Those thoughts are legible to Bella if she's paying attention but he doesn't try to shape them into Mindspeech.

:I think he mainly wanted to know that for the understanding-how-reality-works part: he sends. :Since he just found out he's either wrong about the limits of magic in this world, or that there's at least one other world. But the thing I said was about friendliness, so he answered that. I don't know how to say the thing you said without making it really obvious that I'm talking to you right now, he might've guessed already but I'm not sure I want to give him more confirmation: 

Legit. I would imagine it'd be possible for you to derive that I'm not partial but maybe he'd guess anyway. Uh, what's he going to do if he decides he can't achieve the alliance with me he wants?

"Leareth. What are you going to do if you decide it's not worth trying to ally with her?" 

Leareth is silent for a while, his face unreadable.

"I would try to arrange it so that we interfered as little as possible with one another's actions," he says finally. "I do not actually have any desire to prevent a motivated person from doing good work. For many possible scenarios of what her motives could be, this would not be difficult – given that most people track local more than global outcomes, or make their decisions entirely from rules or sense of virtue. If it seemed that I could not rearrange a version of my current plan that would accomplish this, then I would need to have determined the extent of her power, and how a fight between us would be likely to go. It seems remote but possible that she has powers I cannot defeat, in which case I would most strongly prefer to avoid a confrontation entirely, and thus, if she does prove loyal to Valdemar," a flicker of a smile, "then perhaps I would choose to begin elsewhere. Then, of course, there does remain the possibility that we fight and I defeat her – or that I misjudge, and lose. Neither is an option I prefer." 

Another pause. 

"It is possible," Leareth says, "that she knows of my existence already, since you do, and you are in Haven and so is she, and as powerful magic users you are presumably of interest to one another – I expect you would already have considered her as a potential ally against me. The scenario in which she does know is, of course, one where you trusted her enough to share this – in which case I would think it an order of magnitude more likely that an alliance is workable. Since, after all, I consider it worthwhile to make that effort with you." Another slight smile. "Of course, I do not know yet if this is the case, but in that scenario, you would be welcome to tell her of this conversation." 

I don't know if it's a good idea to ask this but I'm dying to know if he's considered that if I'm from another world there are probably more people in the other world.

:So am I, and I think I can ask in a way that just sounds like me, because I've been thinking it since the start of this conversation: 

"Leareth, um, if you find out that there are other worlds, are you planning to try to go invade and fix all their problems too?" Vanyel says. 

Leareth blinks. 

"...I am not sure why you assume I would jump to that immediately. Other worlds - inhabited, clearly, if we have a visitor - suggest a much larger total number of people in existence than I had realized. There are many implications of this which I would need to think through. I currently know nothing about the conditions there and so I would not want to take any kind of action until I had more orientation. One visitor implies that more could arrive, although the likelihood, and the intentions with which they may arrive, depends on the how and the why – it is very different if her arrival is pure accident, versus the first success of an exploration project, versus the work of some larger force such as a god. It could imply that perhaps other such visitors have already arrived, and gone unremarked." 

"Other worlds, as well as different magic, may have different knowledge bases. Why would I begin by invading when instead I might arrange a trade in scholarship? Other worlds may have skilled and value-aligned people who I wish to ally with, and that is an opportunity I would not lightly throw away – in fact, I would be willing to put considerable effort into opening friendly relations with our current visitor, much greater than I usually would for an individual, due to her representing our only known link to such a world." 

Leareth takes a step back. "Other worlds...may not actually have problems that are in need of fixing. If they do, they may have locals far better suited to this task than I am. Or, if they do have problems they cannot solve alone, perhaps a transfer of our knowledge would allow it. Invasions are costly in resources and in lives and suffering, and they are not my preferred method of solving problems and the only reason you see me now with an army is that, in our world, I have tried everything else. I would at least wish to check whether these other worlds have the properties that caused all of my other attempts at lasting change for the better to fail."  

Tried everything else to... what? What's an invasion his last-ditch plan to do?

How does he usually identify people he wants to ally with, anyway?

Vanyel lifts his hand. "Um, right, let me...digest that a moment...?"

:I don't know, he talks about examples of problems Valdemar has like there not being enough food or road security, and says he can fix them, and if I press on details he says he doesn't trust me that much yet, which honestly is fair given that I'm destined to fight him and all. And, I don't really know? Um, it seems like in past lives he's gone into kingdoms and tried to be a helpful scholar-advisor and made some things better that way. He knew Herald Seldasen? Er, someone who wrote a treatise on tactics that's in the standard Herald training, and one on ethics that Leareth recommended and I just read over the last few weeks. I don't know if Leareth considered Seldasen an ally, he just said he thought he was an unusually sane man: 

I don't know about here but at home invading a place is an absolutely abominable way to get their food or roads secured.

:I'm pretty sure that's one of the first things I said to him about it! I don't know, it doesn't make sense, there have to be parts he isn't telling me because I don't think he's stupid. And I don't know how to ask the right questions because I probably AM stupid: 

Is there any reason to believe that he's currently trying, like, a diplomatic annexation or anything like that? Any sign of other options in fact being tried?

:I'm not sure I would know if he was, but my sense was that he meant he tried all the things one at a time over the past thousand years, and for some reason formed the belief that none of them will actually work in the long run? I don't know. I think he was already motivated to get me on his side and that got him to tell me more than zero things, and he's even MORE motivated about you and maybe that would be enough that if I straight up ask him the right questions he'll tell me? This is way more than he usually tells me. Um, also I need to say something probably but I don't know what help: 

You could ask him what questions you should be asking him.

:Huh: Vanyel seems impressed. :That's a good idea. I...hmm, I want to ask about a thing he said that was weird, I just noticed it doesn't make sense. He said that thing about maybe other worlds don't have the the properties that make it so his other strategies didn't work? And I don't even understand what that would mean, why would diplomatic overtures work other places– actually that's not it, the question is why WOULDN'T they work here, if he has a belief they don't that's probably for a reason but I don't understand what the reason could be. I don't even know what the right question is to ask here but I'm so confused: 

I mean, I think science working or not working in different places is at least that weird but he probably doesn't know about that part. You could ask him what the properties he expects to vary between worlds are especially as pertains to his goals.

:Right: 

"Sorry, that was a lot of things to process," Vanyel says. :Bella are you taking notes, that would be really helpful, then I wouldn't have to stay up half the night after this doing it: "Um, the last thing you said, though. That there are properties that could vary between worlds. What sort of properties would you expect to maybe be different?" 

I didn't bring paper, where's paper in here?

:Bedside drawer. Or my desk in the other room: 

"A moment, please." Leareth is silent for thirty seconds or so, thinking. 

"This will delve into a subject we have not spoken much on," he says. "And where I would normally wait until I had conveyed more of the prerequisite concepts, however, it seems that there is a time-sensitive opportunity here. First: I have said to you before that Valdemar is not such a bad place, as countries go. If you are thinking that an invading army is definitely going to worsen things in the short term, you are right, and also right that under any reasonable circumstances, this would make it a stupid way to accomplish my aims. However. Even Valdemar still contains an amount of suffering that I do not consider acceptable in the long run – something I think most people do not consider as heavily as I do, is that the future contains a very, very large number of years, and people yet to be born." 

He's silent for a moment, looking up at the blowing snow. 

"And," he goes on finally, "this world contains greater forces that apparently do not wish to let anything change. However, many of the strategies that I would agree are very obviously more sensible, such as diplomatic overtures with existing kingdom or focusing on advancing the state of magical knowledge, invariably fail to result in long-term change. Often they do work in the short term, exactly as you would expect, but the failures accumulate, and over centuries they become suspicious. I am not sure why the gods of our world wish for everything to remain exactly as it is, starving children and all; they do not exactly communicate to me, or to anyone, their true underlying goals."

Leareth smiles, briefly. "I have tried diplomatic overtures there as well. It does not seem they are the sort of beings where such a concept even applies. In any case, it is a fool's move to keep trying the same actions that have failed in the past and expect them to result in something different. I am not certain that my current attempt with work either, and it does bear a cost far higher than I ever wanted to pay, but it will avoid failure modes of previous attempts." A slight head-shake. "And, I expect it does not make sense to you, since you are missing so much context. I apologize that I am not willing to share the full explanation until I have more reason to believe that I can trust you." 

Bella fetches some and casts a light while writing as fast as she can an outline of the conversation so far. I want to know what he knows about the gods.

:Um, so do I, but I'm worried he's going to notice I'm getting cues from someone else and I don't know if we want to at least think about whether we're fine with that? And we're sort of under time pressure right now and aaaa: 

Did you ever suggest he could send you a letter?