They are all very polite and also seem to be treading carefully. One of the men is actually Vanyel's father, it turns out! Lord Withen Ashkevron is a bit warmer toward both of them than the others, and asks after Vanyel. 

He seems happy; he's been doing lots of magic research and advising the Quendi on their own sudden population of humans, some of them with potential Gifts.

Leareth can say a few more things about the magic research and his sense of how impressive Vanyel’s work has been. Savil helped somewhat with the inter-world permanent Gate, and Leareth offered some advice, but it was while he was still recovering and really it was mostly Vanyel.

Leareth finds it surprisingly natural to feel warm toward Lord Ashkevron, and smile a bit more, now that it’s occurred to him.

The next couple of days are more of the same. Dara lets them know the day before Queen Karis’ planned arrival what time that meeting is scheduled; Karis would like to meet both of them.

They're looking forward to meeting her too! His language lessons are going well though he spends a lot of the evenings repeating sentences to himself over and over, trying to get the cadence right.

Leareth thinks this is kind of adorable! (He speaks Karsite already, though not amazingly well.)

"Are you always a powerful mage - can you always Gate and so forth - it seems like it'd sometimes be very inconvenient to start out without resources and not speak the local language -"

"I am generally powerful enough to Gate, but - my memories of locations tend not to come across clearly enough to work, so I often am unable to Gate anywhere I previously knew at the start. I developed a system of records caches so that I would be able to find one even with unclear memories of it and then I catch up before doing anything else. For language - I do keep some memory traces from the...well, previous inhabitant of the body. If I have Thoughtsensing then I can read thoughts to orient." 

Nod. "Do you know any things about Karse our hosts haven't mentioned -"

"Dara mentioned this but did not emphasize it - they are officially a religious state under Vkandis Sunlord, who is a much more meddlesome god than whichever one holds Valdemar as territory. I would have declined an invitation to visit Karse myself and - would have felt nervous about you doing so, even though you are likely to be safe since Vkandis does not personally have a grudge against you. I do not expect this to cause problems here in Haven, however, I am going to be somewhat on edge for it." 

- nod. "What does that mean, does he pick their rulers or talk to them extensively or is it just that he has more magical power there -"

"They have an ordinary monarchy, but - well, recently in their history there was a war, and a coup by the priesthood, and then Karis, the only surviving heir of the royal family, allied with King Randale to retake the country. And Vkandis sent her a personal Suncat, and intervened in an extremely visible miracle after the battle for the capital city. It made it very clear he had an opinion. The Suncats act as mouthpieces for Vkandis and have their own powerful magic. The high priest traditionally receives helpful prophetic visions. Also Vkandis occasionally strikes people with lightning if they annoy him, I hear, although I think that has not happened for several centuries." 

"Is that about as clear as the local gods get?"

"Just about. Supposedly the Star-Eyed Goddess manifested personally in order to speak to the ancestors of the current Shin'a'in and Tayledras peoples, but that kind of event happens extremely rarely. Usually Their avatars and Foresight given to priests serving Them, and blatant miracles, are usually as clear as it gets." 

"Well. We can work with that."

It's almost certainly fine but Leareth is still stressed about it, and has trouble sleeping as a result. Asks Maitimo to sing him to sleep, which is a pretty rare request nowadays, and then has a nightmare bad enough that it wakes him, which is even rarer. If Maitimo isn't already awake then Leareth is going to poke him, which is sort of rude but he badly wants reassuring snuggles from an awake person. 

Hug. "'s okay. You could leave, if you want to - 's a bit rude but we can cover for it -"

"...Leave Velgarth?" Leareth had not been considering doing that at all. "No. I - will manage." He pulls himself a little more awake. "It would be a rather large faux pas for Vkandis to set me on fire here. And I have better magical protection than I did. You...were right, under different conditions the gods may be willing to negotiate. Would be - good, to build that relationship."

And if he gets murdered, he will come back. He's just still very scared. 

Hug. Understandably! It would be awful. He is unclear on whether Leareth would remember him, not that that's really the important thing here. 

Leareth would remember him. He doesn't remember everything, certainly loses most specific events and details, but he remembers core events, the important things, and Maitimo has been one of the most important things in this lifetime, and - even if he doesn't remember any particulars, he won't forget that Maitimo is important, and the first thing he'll do is try to find him again. 

He kisses his forehead. I know that the gods have been very terrible to you and that trying to work with them even a tiny bit would be - really hard.

:I can try, though. If it is the right thing to do: 

Leareth squishes himself up very close to Maitimo and goes back to sleep. 

Hopefully it is, in fact, the right thing to do.

He has the language down by the time Karis arrives.

Dara escorts them to the meeting-room and Queen Karis rises and greets them politely - in accented Valdemaran, but switches to Karsite once it's clear they both speak it. She's clearly of a different ethnic group than the Valdemarans Maitimo has met so far, with black hair and eyes and warm brown skin. She is also dressed in very elaborate ceremonial-looking garb, including a cloth-of-gold headdress. 

She speaks and moves with a lot of poise, in a way that's clearly practiced. 

Maitimo is sincerely delighted to meet her. Any friend of Valdemar is a friend of theirs and they have heard so many good things about Karis and her reign in Karse.

Are they interested in importing the Arda-magic Valdemar is now using to make magic items that last without a mage powering them? In having their own scientific or cultural delegations? In entertaining the Noldorin ones?