Then he will do so, get as much distance between himself and his family the former family of his host body, his distant descendants, and - pang of grief, this is upsetting and right now he can't trace down the memory of why, or of whether it's hurt this much every single time. 

Once he's fairly sure of not being found, his next item is to find somewhere quiet. Unfortunately renting a room at an inn is going to be hard because he's fifteen and his pockets prove to contain a few coppers and some string and nothing else. 

The city of Ashuel is not quiet. It has temples that are, or he could keep wandering all the way to the edges of the city and wander into a flooded field of rice.

Then he will end up by the flooded rice field, and look around for a place to sit - his minimum criteria are that it be in the shade, and offer some cover so no one will see him and try to talk to him for the next few hours. 

He can sit in the shade of a tree growing at the edge of the rice field, and if he's sitting on the ground he'll be hard to see through all the rice.

Then he'll do that. He keeps part of his attention on listening for noises in his surroundings, but mostly focuses inward. 

...First, he pieces together all the critical memories of who Tarek was, because for some reason this feels very important - get him back someday - he isn't sure why he believes this is even possible, yet, but he drags together some basic mnemonic techniques, half-reinventing them on the spot, and memorizes the key facts about Tarek that would let him pick the youngster out from a lineup of all the humans who ever lived in Velgarth–

–there are worlds other than Velgarth, because he remembers being in one. Tarek spoke Rethwellani and trade-tongue; Leareth can piggyback on that. The language he remembers at all from his previous life is - probably from the other world? It's very pretty. 

He remembers a Herald of Valdemar whose name is Vanyel, standing in a frozen pass - a dream - and talking to him. Also the torture memory has Vanyel in it, which doesn't make sense. It wasn't really Vanyel, though? He's pretty confident of that, it was a trick somehow, but he'll have to wait until he's fit together more of the loose puzzle-pieces to see the full picture. 

He remembers a man who doesn't quite look human - what was his name - at least ten of the most central memories of his last life are of him, actually. The one with the stars, seen through eyes that weren't his. Having his hair elaborately braided, which for some reason feels very significant and meaningful. The man standing in the ruins of a fortress, briefly making eye contact before gesturing for someone else to club Leareth in the head. 

He remembers facing a - god? No, there are two memories there, actually. A man ten feet tall, standing by a forge, handling the red-hot metal barehanded. YOU WANT TO BUILD SOMETHING. I CAN TELL WHEN PEOPLE WANT TO BUILD SOMETHING. PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BUILD SOMETHING AS INTENSELY AS YOU ARE RARE. I WISH YOU GOOD SKILL. 

And a different time. Eru likes beautiful stories, and Eru thinks that the most beautiful stories are the stories of how people are utterly destroyed by what should have been their greatest strengths. I am not the enemy of the peoples of Arda except incidentally. I am the enemy of their god.

Leareth knows that in the second memory, he was about to make a terrible mistake. It's frustrating that he isn't sure what the mistake was. They were - at war? With an evil god. Probably this is related to the part where he was being tortured at some point. 

He remembers watching the first sunset in a new world that never had a sun until now, with the man whose name he still can't remember. The man was so happy. 

He remembers the man holding him, singing a mourning song for - what? It was for him, he thinks, but that's very confusing. Leareth is pretty sure that waking up in a new body is not always this confusing. 

–And he remembers telling the man to put him down. I will not forget you and I will come looking. I promise. And the man answering, Love you, and - walking out toward an army, gryphons bearing Vkandis' standard, and going out in a blaze of fire, and how in that moment he wasn't afraid. 

He is so incredibly confused, still, but he can already tell, as he pieces the fragments of himself together, that the current situation is very bad. 

The sun rises in the sky. It's very hot. No one comes out to the rice fields; it's not the season for that. 

It's unreasonably hard to think in the heat, but he pushes through it, and by noon has managed to fit together the core of himself, built around one blazingly clear memory of the stars, seen through mountain air and the alien eyes of someone he loved - still loves, someone he promised to go back and find. And a second memory, speaking to Vanyel. I look at the stars, and I remember that there are so many lights in the world, who are worth saving, and we cannot save all of them – from the very beginning, it was too late to save all of them – but we can still save some. It is never too late for that.

Except maybe it's not too late after all, because there are other worlds, there are always more than two, and someday, somehow, they're going to fix it, they're going to go back and save everyone. Including the child he just murdered. No matter how long it takes.

...He needs to give himself a new name, traditionally he does that in each new body, it helps keep track. 'Leareth' means the night sky, in ancient Kaled'a'in. And there are fragments of a different language in his head, still. The language spoken by - Maitimo, that was his name. Nelyafinwë Maitimo, who he is headed to find. Vanyel is still in Arda, hopefully, and safe - he needs to find out how long it's been–

Telumë. A word that means the sky, in Quenya. That can be his name. 

The boat moves over choppy waves. 

Jisa stands by the railing, staring out at the water. Treven is sitting a few yards back, eyes silently on her. Stef is huddled up with Yfandes, further back on the deck. 

Van is still alive. He hasn't contacted them but it's not clear how he would. According to the best of their knowledge, nothing has come through from Velgarth to kill everyone. 

Now what? 

They have to hope it takes their enemies longer to rederive how to find them than it takes them to be ready. And they can't count on mages, so that means local magic, which is slow. This is not what the Silmarils were meant for but he can't think of anything else that could do it even in principle. 

He sits on the deck, scribbling notes.

Jisa turns away from the waves, heads over to him. :Are you busy?: 

Yes. Do you need something?

:I might have an idea. It's not a plan, yet, and I don't know how to turn it into one, but...: She closes her eyes, steels herself. :I have mage-gift in potential. We think it's possible to awaken Gifts on purpose, Van was trying it before. I don't know how, but - I'm a Mindhealer, that gives me more options, and also we have Arda magic, and...maybe we can figure something out: 

That would be very useful. I guess as a first pass we could ask Lórien if he knows how to do it?

:Seems worth asking. I do know how Van's Gifts were awakened - I don't know if he ever told you but it wasn't the usual way where they wake up naturally. We can't do exactly the same thing but it might give us hints at the general shape of thing that could work: 

He didn't mention. What happened?

:He was lifebonded to a trainee Herald-Mage. There was an emergency, and in the aftermath Tylendel was trying to Gate them out of danger, but he wasn't strong enough alone, and - lifebonds mean you can draw energy from the other person, so he basically did a concert Gate with Van. Which we know now is possible in general but back then we didn't. Then Tylendel - lost his Companion, called a Final Strike. Left Van on the other side of an unstable Gate that was still tied to his life-force. Someone tried to take the Gate down before it killed him, did it wrong, sent all the mage-energy through Van instead of grounding it out properly. That tore open his potential Gifts, all of them, which is why he had so many and they were so powerful: 

Huh. You're lifebonded but Treven's not a mage - or is the essential element just sending a lot of energy through the person -

:I don't know for sure. If the lifebonded to a mage part is important then I can't replicate the thing, but - I think Van thought it wasn't that, at one point he was working through the mage-potential of other Heralds and hoping that might work to awaken the potential. It didn't, but it was way less energy than blasting someone with an entire Gate worth, maybe it has to be a lot? But Arda magic has things with a lot of energy. Like the Silmarils: 

Can you send me a detailed impression of what working through the mage-potential of another person is? What it's doing in the other person's head?

Jisa can! She was very young at the time but thanks to her Mindhealing Sight and her ability to do concert-Sight with mages and with her mother (who is DEAD but she pushes that aside), she was actually involved in their early experiments. She can send across her memories, slightly blurred impressions of Van's mage-sight on the other Herald's inactive mage-channels, her own Mindhealing-Sight showing where the channels would link up with their mind if the Gift were awake. 

- huh. I will see if I can do anything with that. It seems like a top priority.

:I could actually show you impressions on my own mind: Jisa offers. :Mindhealing Sight works on myself too. We don't have anyone with mage-sight, but I've got the three active Gifts and the potential mage-gift and I can point out to you where all of them are: 

Yes, please.

Jisa turns her Mindhealing Sight on herself. She Mindspeaks Treven some pointless affectionate comments just to show how that area lights up. Projects a bit with her Empathy. :Treven, I gotta demonstrate Mindhealing, can I put a redirect on you and then put it right back?: He is, as always, perfectly patient and obliging and he lets her do it. 

And she can point out where her mage-gift would link up, if it were active. That spot in her mind-garden is dim and folded-up but it's sort of possible to imagine how it would grow. 

Huh. I don't know how I'd do anything with that but I'll think about it. And do ask Lórien, if he can and will do it that'll definitely be faster.