:Are you on the run from the law or something?:

:It is...complicated...I think I cannot explain it all now. Who was the letter addressed to and when will it reach its destination?: 

:I sent it to Herald Nina at Whitefell, about thirty miles away from here.:

Calm, stay calm, calmcalmcalm, getting upset about this won't help. Leareth takes a deep breath. :I am sorry. I promise I will explain as soon as I am - better at explaining things - but we need to leave and I cannot do it unaided. I am going to write a message for you to take to the Temple of Astera - there is one in the town, no? - and please tell them it is very, very urgent, and hopefully we will have a ride out of here before there is any trouble: 

Thirty miles; a Companion could cover that in a day, a Guardsman on routine patrol probably won't, and that's assuming they even do mail runs daily, they must be absurdly understaffed given the border war with Karse. 

:Okay:, Levris says. (Floating; he is floating; he is out of his body; things are happening without his input.) 

Leareth asks for paper, gets it, writes a letter in hurried code - trying to write something in code when you have a concussion is extremely unfair actually - and he shoves it at Levris before flopping down again and covering his eyes with a forearm. :Can you please take it now: 

Yes. 

Forehead kiss before he goes?

That’s nice. Leareth smiles weakly without opening his eyes. He focuses on relaxing, being tense isn’t going to help the situation at all or bring him any closer to being capable of Gating.

As stressed as he is, he’s also exhausted again, and somehow manages to doze off before Levris gets back.  

:Sent the message.: he sends when Leareth wakes up. :I'm... really curious what all this is about.:

:I am not sure how likely it is to actually be a problem, or how urgently, but - at least some Heralds know my name and - would probably come here and interfere if they knew I were here and incapacitated: 

:I'm not like... super thrilled? To discover that my lifebonded has apparently pissed off the magically confirmed-good horse people.:

:Yes, I figured you would not be. I am sorry:

:Fortunately, my hobby is poking into people's brains without permission because I'm curious and no magic horses ever decided to confirm me good.:

Sigh. :I should tell you part of it, at least. Honestly the thing where you stop having emotions as soon as you would get upset is very weird, but it might be good for this purpose: Leareth is trying his best not to get upset himself. This is so inconvenient. He hates being injured and unable to fight - and somehow it’s even worse that this means he also can’t defend Levris if trouble decides to show up. 

:My mind is not normally like this! I just don't want to be projecting misery or other inconvenient emotions at you all the time.:

:I know - I was going to tell you that you could undo it now, I am feeling a lot better: That is kiiiind of a lie, he keeps waking up feeling somewhat better and then immediately exerting himself, mental exertion apparently counting, and feeling awful again. :I would rather know your actual feelings even if they are negative. However, maybe you had better do so after I tell you things that might otherwise cause you to panic. Sorry: 

Levris is floating six inches to the left of his body again.

:I'm not really that easily panicked of a person in general.  Although telling me that you have to tell me something that would cause me to panic might work.:

Then Leareth is going to inform him of a few FUN FACTS and they can talk after. First one: 

:I am immortal and almost two thousand years old. I know this sounds implausible but it is true. It is probably related to why my mind appears odd to you:

Levris is about to ask, remembers he's allowed to look in Leareth's brain, and starts examining him closely for signs he has a delusion. (He shares what he's doing with Leareth.)

:Doesn't look like you have a delusion.: Levris sends once he's done.

:A reasonable thing to check: Leareth says, he can’t help smiling. :I wrote the book you were reading earlier, you know:

:You're so good!:

:That is not usually something people say about me: Leareth admits. :I am an extremely ruthless and unscrupulous person, although I act toward the mission of - of trying to fix everything, really. I can tell you more details at some later point, it is a long story. Anyway, I have killed a lot of people and done other horrible things and I would understand if you were disturbed by this: 

...okay so first thing Levris is going to turn off the conditional dissociation. :I can feel all my feelings now. I turned off the thing that makes my feelings turn off when I'm upset.:

:I don't care. I thought about it because the Heralds don't like you and figured you were probably evil and that's fine as long as you aren't evil to me. I guess if you're torturing people right now I'm going to ask you to stop.:

:I am not torturing people right now! I - cannot say that I have never been responsible for organizations or governments with policies that include torture, but that is not even very strong evidence of evilness, many governments - including Valdemar on some occasions - have been known to torture captured spies for information. Anyway. Thank you for understanding: He hopes to convince Levris at some point that his decisions aren't actually 'evil', of course, having his lifebonded be fine with him being a horrible person is not exactly the thing he wants, but - it's nice that he doesn't have to rush to try to explain all of it right now. 

:I honestly assumed you were just trying to get very rich in an unethical fashion.: