For simplicity, Leareth Gates them to his room at the inn, he’s already paid up for tonight and it’s less conspicuous than appearing in an alleyway, although the mage-students in town must be wondering what’s up with all the Gates. 

He hugs Belrun again. “Good luck. Be careful, please.” He is going to be so angry with himself if it turns out he was wrong about the appropriate level of paranoia against god-prompted assassins here.

"I'll keep an eye out. Uh, have some distinctly awake emotion at me when you're done with your nap or else I'll just swing by when it seems like dinnertime." She squeezes his hand and lets herself out into the hall and goes to her mother's house.

Leareth takes a nap. Well, tries. It takes a bit to fall asleep because he keeps daydreaming about Belrun being there next to him. 

And she is NOT. Instead she is INCREASINGLY FAR AWAY! Also she trips at one point.

Leareth was almost asleep and now he is NOT. He is instead up and halfway to the door before he catches himself with a forceful reminder that Belrun has survived twenty-two years of tripping sometimes (he can guess that is what happened) and is still alive, she doesn’t seem distressed now and hasn’t called him and probably there is not a god-scheme to remove a paving stone or something so she trips and breaks her neck. He makes another attempt at sleep.

She is apologetic at him when he startles.

He is apologetic back, and if she makes it the next few minutes without tripping and startling him again, he will manage to fall asleep. Resulting in some sleepy affection squeezed down the lifebond to her.

Awwww.

She has a nice surprise visit with her mother and waits for him to wake up.

Leareth wakes up a couple of hours later and semi-involuntarily sends off a loud pulse of ‘awake and MISSING YOU’ down the lifebond. 

Awwwww well she can come to him or he can come find her if he wants to try that?

He will head out in her direction! It involves a bit of guesswork but he can definitely tell if he’s getting closer or further.

She meets him in the street and hugs him.

Hug!

"Rana wants to meet you."

“That is your mother? I - all right.” Why is he so nervous, this is unhelpful. “Is there anything I ought to be cautious of?”

"Not especially, she's pretty friendly and easygoing."

"All right. I suppose I am willing, then. ...I have not specifically tried to make a good impression on somebody's mother in, well, probably centuries and possibly longer. You can inform me through the lifebond if I am about to make a major false step and I will shut up." 

"I will keep half an ear on it but she's really not very difficult to get along with." She leads him to the house.

Wherein a woman who looks very much like her is watering her houseplants. "Hello there! Belrun said she wasn't sure what name you'd want to go by with me -"

"Leareth." He nods to her. "Very pleased to meet you. You must be Rana?" 

"That's me! Have a seat - Belrun says you're a mage? I'm a teacher, little kids so high -" She gestures. "This one cheated me of teaching her to read, I turned around one day and she could already do it, so I make it up with other people's."

Leareth can't remember the last time he interacted with a small child in a way more substantive than 'smiling at them across the street'. (Literally can't remember, it was probably before he was in this body and wasn't worth re-memorizing from his summarized records.) He still smiles, mostly at the mental image of Belrun at that age. "How rude of her. I had already noticed she is very clever. What is your favourite part about teaching?" 

"Kids that small have no filter - I don't mean they say rude things, though they do that too, but they say inventive things, I never get tired of it. Other day I was talking about sunrise and there was a little boy who thought that sunrise was not very important because most of the time the sun isn't going up but is rather going left. I did not quite manage to explain that the sun doesn't have a left."

"How sweet!" And now Leareth is mostly out of anything to add on the topic of small children, and gives Belrun a hopeful glance. 

"Is that the same kid who thought that acorns were tree eggs and later clarified that the baby trees walked on their roots till they found a good spot?"