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lost centuries one broken earth
lev and leareth are lifebonded
Permalink Mark Unread

Levris is in the back of a tavern in Baires, drinking some strange herbal concoction and indulging in his favorite hobby of poking at people's brains. 

(Yes, yes, there's privacy issues. But Levris is not going to tell anyone besides himself, and they're all strangers anyway, and people are so fascinating.)

He looks around in the library that is the barmaid's mind and takes a book off the shelf. He can't read them, of course, it's not Thoughtsensing, the books are all in a language he cannot read; but the weight and the color and the heft tell him things, and sometimes there are extraordinarily interesting pictures. 

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Meeting dubiously trustworthy contacts in dimly-lit taverns in foreign countries isn't Leareth's favourite activity, especially when it involves being less than a mile from the Valdemaran border and the new Web. Baires is full of mages, though, so an urgent Gate out wouldn't even stand out that much. (It would be kind of rude to his hosts, left with the job of cleaning up the local weather afterward.)

He waves down the barmaid, orders tea and a meal, and sits near the fireplace with his back against the wall, waiting. 

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Oh look mysterious guy with a cup of tea. Levris decides to poke at his brain. 

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The mysterious guy with the tea has a mind which is VERY WEIRD! 

He's a mage, that part shows up pretty clearly. Lots of mages around here. He's obviously smart. A well-organized mind, albeit organized in kind of a bizarre layout. He's a very well-educated person, based on the size and number of divisions in the outer sections that look like explicit memorization as well as normal episodic memory and implicit practiced skills.

Going in closer, the shelves are weirdly - not sparse, there's a lot of content there, but it still feels very pared-down, minimalist, most of the books don't have pictures in them and are just illegible text. 

There's an inner part to this library - a sort of sunken area, and a small roofed, glassed-in area, like a gazebo. There's something in there but Levris can't tell what. 

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Oh gosh that's fascinating. Does he have a shield up against Thoughtsensing?

 

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He is super well shielded against Thoughtsensing, unfortunately for Levris. 

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Aw. Well, maybe Levris can go poke around near the gazebo.

(Why does his library have a gazebo! That's so weird!)

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There is a door, which is metaphorically made out of slightly frosted glass, so Lev can see dimly what's inside it - a single bookshelf, a fairly elaborate and decorative one though, not at all like the simple, minimalist feel everywhere else. 

The door is firmly locked, though. 

(What was that? Maybe nothing; he can't sense any magic nearby. Leareth blinks, shakes his head a little, tightens his shields against mage-attacks and Thoughtsensing.)

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If Levris knew how to do compulsions he could suggest that this mage really needs to get some Mindhealing done. This is probably "unethical" or something but Levris really wants to know what is up with that gazebo. 

Levris entertains himself for as long as the mysterious guy is there opening up books and looking at the pictures. 

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Leareth's contact shows up and they talk quietly in a language Levris doesn't speak. Leareth hands over a sealed letter. It's not a long meeting. 

...He keeps feeling like he's being watched. It's subtle, and it's not magic, but - he's getting pretty sure it's something real. So he lingers a bit after the agent he came here to meet leaves, and puts out some Thoughtsensing feelers of his own. Where's it coming from...

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Well, everyone in this tavern is not watching him, and this one Thoughtsenser has very good shields. 

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The style of shielding is vaguely familiar. Valdemaran-trained? Odd, though he supposes they're not far from the border. He's fairly sure that what he's been noticing isn't Thoughtsensing, though. 

...Hmm. 

Oh. Obviously. That's inconvenient and Leareth is mildly irritated with himself. (This shows up in his mind mainly as some of the books rustling on the shelves as though in a gentle wind.)

He finishes his tea and stands up. Crosses the room. 

"So," he says levelly, in the man's native tongue. "What brings a Valdemaran Mindhealer to Baires?" 

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Blink blink. 

"Oh, hello. Sorry. --Your mind is very interesting."

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Leareth switches to Mindspeech. This doesn't seem like a conversation that needs having in a crowded tavern where other people probably speak Valdemaran. :Why were you looking? I was under the impression that Valdemar's House of Healing has rather strict ethical standards about that. Also, in case that was not clear, please stop looking at my mind: 

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:Well, normally people don't notice, and it's not like I tell anyone anything I find? And people are so interesting.:

He is not looking at the interesting person's mind anymore.

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He really should be annoyed and suspicious but he isn't actually feeling that way. He sits down. :Well, I noticed. I will not say anything about it if you tell me what you saw. What is particularly interesting about my mind?: 

It's going to look very unusual, but the extent to which it does, and the ways it does, vary depending on the exact setup of a given Mindhealer's Sight. He supposes this man could be a spy but if so he's really not doing a good job of it, and it's unlikely in the extreme that he's a spy aimed at Leareth in particular, who Gated to Baires a day ago and is leaving in the morning. Whether his sneak peak is a problem is going to depend on exactly what he saw. 

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Oh good! Maybe he will not only not get in trouble but also get answers to questions. 

:My metaphor is a library and-- did you know there is a gazebo in your brain????? WHY is there a gazebo in your brain? Gazebos do not usually exist in libraries! --Also your brain has almost no pictures and a very bizarre organization scheme.:

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No, this is not someone who anybody would think was a good idea to train and send to Baires of all places as a spy, in the middle of a war with a different country on a different border, when as far as he knows Valdemar has a single digit number of Mindhealers. 

:Well, it is presumably a metaphor for something. I wonder what: 

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:I could find out:, Levris says hopefully.

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That is weirdly tempting even though it's a terrible idea. :Do you spend a lot of time poking at strangers' minds in public places?: 

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:Well, normally I poke at strangers' minds for my job.: Levris's tone suggests that this is the best job in the world actually. :But today was my day off.:

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"Well, I feel rather private about my mind and I do not think I need Mindhealing, but thank you for the offer." Leareth feels oddly curious about the stranger; well, it's not that odd, Mindhealers are rare and curious Valdemaran Mindhealers wandering into other countries to poke more minds are even rarer. 

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Aw. This is a little bit disappointing.

:Then I won't look anymore. Is there something else you wanted to talk about?:

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...Honestly he might as well talk to the rather intriguing Mindhealer, he's not leaving before the morning anyway. Unfortunately it's difficult to know what specific topics of interest they could share, especially since the man is probably still too ethical to share anything about his work.

:I would be curious to hear your general philosophy of Mindhealing: he says finally. :One of my friends is a Mindhealer, but - trained in a very different place, many hundreds of miles from here, so I wonder where it might differ: 

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:My philosophy is a lot about... honestly, trying to do as little Mindhealing as possible? A lot of the time you can look around someone's brain and figure out what's going on and talk to them about it in words. And when you patch things up it's always important to try to... understand what's going on? Work with the grain of the person's brain instead of at cross-purposes with it? A lot of Mindhealers just slap a block on someone without thinking about what the thing is doing and... it's clumsy and inelegant. I don't like it. I think you get much better results by trying to take the time to figure out how this person's brain works first.:

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Leareth can't help smiling at the phrase 'clumsy and inelegant' applied here. :That makes sense. It sounds - efficient. Do you ever have disagreements with your colleagues on this philosophy?:

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:I don't really... talk to other people... very much.:

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Leareth chuckles. :Other than patients, you mean? Also, you are talking to me right now: 

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:Patients are easier! There's a script! And... I don't know, you're just not scary for some reason.:

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Leareth wonders if this is the first time ever that somebody has called him less scary than other people. :So how did you find out you were a Mindhealer? I know the Gift is very rare and I hear many people who have it are not correctly identified at first: 

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:When I was a kid I used to spend a lot of time imagining what it was like to be other people and then... one day while I was imagining I pretended it was a library and I could go look and read all the books in their head. And then I tried reshelving some of the books in different places and it turns out I was not in fact pretending.:

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:I hope it was not too difficult to put back!: 

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:Yeah, I remembered where they were before, it worked out fine. Was a bit scary for a while, though.:

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:Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught? I know it is hard to do standard training for Mindhealers because the Sight metaphors can be so different - did you know, my colleague who is a Mindhealer sees people as loaves of bread? I am curious what sorts of things seeing a library is particularly good for; this is not my field at all, but I understand different Mindhealers are advantaged in different areas due to which exact Sight metaphor they landed with: 

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:Loaves of bread! How do you get anything interesting out of loaves of bread? Are they different kinds-- are some of them rye and some of them sourdough-- was she a baker or something, does she have a sense of what different kinds of bread are like--: He pauses and belatedly realizes he was asked a question. :Uh, I think the library is really good for understanding things which is... convenient, given my philosophy... or I guess my philosophy could come from what I'm good at? But if I'm confused about what a shelf is doing it's really easy to just pick up a book and flip through all the pictures and I think a lot of my colleagues do not get that level of understanding.:

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:Her father was a baker. I don't know, apparently bread has a surprising amount of detail to it. She said it's advantageous for seeing the overall gist of who someone is, it's worse for anything to do with memories of life events than most metaphors, but better for sort of more general shifts in how someone relates to some broad area. Mostly she does theoretical research rather than working with patients, though: 

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:Ooh, I want to do theoretical research. --I mean, I don't. I want to have more hours in the day so I can do the same amount of patient-seeing I do right now and also do theoretical research.:

He bounces about the concept of theoretical research.

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Aww, that's very lovely actually! ...This is not normally the sort of thought Leareth has about people, though he does appreciate it when anyone is excited and enthusiastic about scholarship. :What sort of theoretical research avenues would you pursue if you had time?: 

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:I want to figure out how the brain creates minds! I bet there's a lot you could figure out if you got a Healer and a Mindhealer working together.:

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:My colleague works on something a little similar to that, actually: Unfortunately that's hitting the limit of what he feels he can say about Nayoki's work, even to a stranger who has no idea of the wider context. :Is this a sort of research that the House of Healing might do someday, in Valdemar?: 

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:I'm not sure. They don't really talk to me about that kind of thing.: Or much of anything, really.

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:Do you mostly work alone, then? I do not know very much about Valdemar's current setup for Mindhealers: 

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:I'm on circuit... basically all the time? I don't have to be, I just... really like my job and don't have a lot else going on in my life.:

This person is weirdly not scary? This is the most words Levris has said to someone who isn't a client in a while.

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:Valdemar has Mindhealers traveling on circuit? I mean, I was aware Heralds worked that way, but it seems like it would have downsides for Mindhealers. How do you find it?:

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:I mean, people in farming villages have mental problems too, what else would you do about it? --I get really really tired of sitting on horseback.:

Gah! That is a stupid thing to say! Now this person is going to hate you.

:Uh, what's your name?:

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Have they really gone this entire time without exchanging names? He tries to weigh the odds that Vanyel or any of the others in the government who presumably know about his Foresight dream will both bump into this one specific Mindhealer who spends literally all his time on circuit, and also tell him about it. It seems low. :Leareth. And you?: 

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:Levris. --That's a nice name.:

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:Thank you: He decides that explaining the etymology would probably stand out too much. 

The barmaid swings by them again. Leareth asks for another tea and glances over. "Levris, could I get you anything?" Probably he has more money than someone on a Healers' stipend. 

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"Um. Tea is good."

Why is Leareth buying him tea??????? (Levris is uncomfortably aware of what his preferred explanation is.) 

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Leareth is completely oblivious to Levris' confusion, but he's enjoying the conversation a surprising amount and will cheerfully keep asking various questions about Mindhealing and Valdemar until they're finished their tea. 

"...Sorry, I ought to get some sleep, I have commitments in the morning." It's gotten kind of late all of a sudden. 

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Is that a proposition.

"Okay," Levris says. "My room is, uh, upstairs? If you think of anything else you want to talk about?"

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Leareth slightly notices that he is confused about this response, but is mostly thinking about the meeting he needs to have tomorrow and hasn't spent tonight planning for at all. "Yes, sure," he says absently, "pleased to have met you..." And he heads off to his room, which is down the hall, snagging the barmaid and making sure he's paid his tab first. 

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Okay apparently it was not which was hopefully not the most excruciatingly embarrassing event of his life.

Levris goes to bed and puts his head under a pillow and decides to pretend that he has never even MET Leareth.

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Leareth is up early and slightly underslept; he's oddly tempted to leave a note for the interesting Valdemaran Mindhealer, but on reflection setting up correspondence with random Valdemarans (who are very unlikely to be recruitable) is kind of a fraught idea, so he decides against with a faint note of wistfulness about it. 

He heads out for his other meeting. 

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Lev wakes up in the morning and pokes at his brain. 

...Thaaaaaaat's new.

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Shortly after his second meeting, Leareth is riding a rented horse deeper into Baires. It's not that he can't concentrate today, exactly, but as soon as his mind is less occupied it starts drifting back to Levris again, the research he would be doing if he had time for it, his circuit logistics - it's so odd that he's even finding that interesting... 

Leareth is still pretty attentive to his surroundings but perhaps not quite as much as usual. 

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The library that is Levris's mind has grown a secret passageway behind one of the bookshelves. (You open it by taking out the book that has his meeting with Leareth in it.)

That's not supposed to be there.

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Lifebond!!! He has a lifebonded!!! His lifebonded is so handsome and kind and tolerant and probably his lifebonded would have all those traits regardless, because of the lifebond, but Levris is still very excited about these facts being true.

He decides to head in Leareth's general direction and hope that once he's closer he'll be able to find Leareth through Thoughtsensing and share the good news.

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Leareth is perhaps a couple of miles ahead of him at this point, riding up the local minor road that runs alongside a river. There's a bridge ahead, which he needs to cross to reach the larger road that heads in the direction of Qorthes, the capital of Baires. 

He's kind of daydreaming as he turns, paying just enough attention to be sure that there aren't any minds within a mile of him or any offensive magic. He can sense some sort of magic in the vicinity of the bridge, but practically everything is magical in Baires, they're swarming with mages, they must have the highest per capita rate of mage-gift outside the Tayledras. Half their buildings are maintained with magic in some shape or form. 

Leareth turns his horse onto the bridge–

–and a damaged maintenance-spell on the stone fails, and fails in such a way that there's an energy-backlash with ripples out and destabilizes one of the other structural spells - and if Leareth were paying attention he could have caught it in time, but his mind is half-occupied wondering when Levris' circuit-route would take him near a border and if they might run into each other again...

The bridge collapses in a groaning screech of stone-on-stone and Leareth goes down in the middle of it, along with his poor horse - his shield-talisman isn't really specced against several hundred pounds of stone trying to crush him, the spell valiantly holds off most of it before crumpling, and he's kind of stunned as he hits the water. 

- he flails for the surface, gets half a breath, starts trying to reinforce his personal shields, and then slams into the rapids that are right downstream of the bridge. There are several very painful collisions with rocks, and then one of them strikes his head, and there goes any chance of doing more magic right now. Leareth clings to consciousness for a few seconds longer, trying to get out a Mindspeech call for help - for some reason he's instinctively reaching for Levris in particular - and then everything goes vague and shapeless before fading to black. 

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Leareth is hurt.

It is the worst thing, it is the most horrible thing he could imagine, and he has heard about people being able to do amazing things like lift up rocks that weigh ten times as much as they do when there's a surge of adrenaline and it seems like this is probably true because Levris can gallop without falling off his horse and he isn't even worried about falling because his whole mind is consumed with Leareth, Leareth, Leareth has to be okay--

When he gets closer he starts yelling :Leareth! Leareth!: in Mindspeech.

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Leareth does not answer him because he's currently unconscious in the river, being tugged along in the current. Not very fast at this point, because the river widens out and slows right after the rapids. Levris will still be able to sense him a little. 

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Okay. Okay. Levris is going to-- go to the river, and not freak out about how his lifebonded might be DEAD, and-- try to get Leareth out, and put him on the horse and take him to a Healer and everything will be fine.

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Leareth coughs and splutters as he's fished out of the water, half wakes up for a few seconds, tries to get the rest of the way there but everything hurts a lot and - and for some reason he has the absolute conviction that he's safe, which is a feeling he would normally be pretty suspicious of but he's way too groggy to question it, so he relaxes and focuses on breathing, which is hard for some reason, and pretty quickly slips into unconsciousness again. 

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His lifebonded (!!!) is NOT DEAD which is the most exciting and important fact in the entire world. 

Levris will ask someone where to find the Houses of Healing and get directions and take his lifebonded (!!!) there. 

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There's a House of Healing in the town they just left, and the person he flags down on the road also knows where one of the Healers who's off-duty today lives and can rush off to grab them, and so even before he gets back to the town, someone is running out to meet him. "What happened?" 

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"He fell into a river, I didn't see what happened before that."

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"Slow down a moment, let me..." The Healer stands up on tiptoes beside Levris' horse and very quickly examines Leareth. "Looks like he got a good knock on the head, and some internal injuries - you'd better go ahead to the House of Healing, I'll catch up, just try not to jostle him too much." 

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"Okay."

This horse is going to go as carefully as possible to the House of Healing. This is painfully slow (because his lifebonded might DIE) but Levris can tolerate it.

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The off-duty Healer must have Mindspoken ahead because some more people are running out to meet him, they can help to carefully get Leareth down from the horse and carry him inside and lay him down on a bed. 

"What's his name?" someone is asking. "Has he been conscious at all?" 

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"Leareth," Levris says, "and he was conscious for a few seconds as soon as I pulled him out but not since."

(Does this mean his lifebonded is going to DIE?)

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Everyone is ignoring him rather than telling him whether or not Leareth is going to die! One of the Healers is saying his name and asking him to open his eyes, which Leareth is not doing, although he does moan and grimace when someone tries to peel back his eyelid, and again when they work on getting him out of his soaking-wet clothes and bundling him in heated blankets. Several of the Healers have gone quiet, presumably in a Healing-meld.

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Someone is talking at him and this is very unpleasant, Leareth's head hurts and he can't really think and it hurts to breathe too, which seems unfair - where is he - there's someone familiar...

:????: he sends at Levris in very flaily Mindspeech. 

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:It's okay: Levris sends in a comforting tone. :You fell into a river and the Healers are going to treat you now. You're going to be all right. Everything's fine.:

Levris decides to save the !!! exciting news !!! for when Leareth is more conscious.

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And finally someone thinks to talk to Levris. "He's going to be fine but it'll be a rough few days - were you traveling together? Are you able to stay here with him? You sound Valdemaran - is there anyone back in Valdemar we should notify? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to even ask your name." 

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"Uh," Levris says, "I'm Levris, I'm his lifebonded, I can stay here with him, I can take care of notifying people."

(That last bit is technically true, the Healers would have to wait for Leareth to wake up to notify anyone anyway.)

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 "Huh!" That gets him a startled look, and several of the other Healers seem kind of weirded out, presumably by the concept of two men being lifebonded; no one makes any further comment though.

"Well, that's good," the person who was addressing him said with forced cheerfulness, "he'll make a quicker recovery having you nearby; if you notice you're more tired than usual, it's probably because he's drawing energy from you to heal, I had a lifebonded patient once and that happened. Anyway. He should rest now, but please let someone know if he starts waking up more. Oh, and he's a mage, yes? He might do some accidental magic if he wakes up confused, that happens sometimes, if it does it'll probably hurt because of the head injury - usual advice is to avoid startling him, make sure he knows you're there, say what you're going to do before touching him. Sometimes the trainees forget, so it might be good to remind whoever's on night duty." 

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Well, it's not the worst reaction he's gotten to being shay'a'chern. 

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And now he gets to hold Leareth's hand, and stare at Leareth, and appreciate how Leareth has the best face in the whole entire world and makes such GOOD expressions even while he is asleep.

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The day passes very slowly. The Healers are thoughtfully keeping his room dim and quiet, and Leareth sleeps for most of it, occasionally waking up enough to mumble that he's thirsty or in pain; they have a trainee sitting with him for most of the afternoon, who can get him water and pain-drugs. 

It's not until around evening shift change that Leareth drifts more fully to alertness. His head is throbbing, but not too badly to think. The twinge when he breathes hints at broken ribs that were mostly Healed but are still pretty sore. He still has the deep sense that he's safe, he's with someone he can trust, but - hmm, he doesn't actually know where he is, which is kind of worrying. 

He opens his eyes a crack. Oh, it's the Valdemaran Mindhealer, Levris, who's holding his hand for some reason - it seems like the sort of thing that he ought to find weird and surprising but instead it feels normal and expected, what. Is he in Valdemar? That makes no sense and would be pretty concerning.

Leareth clears his throat. "Where am I?" 

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"A House of Healing in Baires. You fell into a river."

Levris Mindspeaks a Healer. :He's awake.:

Then he considers which is the least startling way to bring up that Levris is Leareth's lifebonded.

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Oh right he remembers now. "Actually I think a bridge collapsed on me–" he starts coughing. 

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:On my way: the Healer sends. 

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...okay probably if he hears it from a Healer that will be more startling and Levris is not really sure at all how to explain this to the healer so, uh, here goes. 

:I am sorry for surprising you when you have a head injury:, Levris says, :but I am quite certain we're lifebonded.:

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Leareth's instinctive response to this, once he's spent five seconds even processing the words, is very stupid, though in fairness (he thinks afterward) he has a head injury. His response is to yelp and attempt to Gate out. It's unclear how this would help even if it worked, which it doesn't; instead he ends up screaming in pain, making the floor shake, and accidentally setting the curtains on fire. 

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The Healer comes running in. Fortunately, since it's known that mages sometimes do this and the House of Healing sees a lot of mage-gifted patients, there's a damp towel draped over a chair for this purpose, and the trainee who sprints in a second later uses it to smother the flames while the senior Healer darts to Leareth's bedside and gently nudges him to lie down again. :What happened?: he sends to Levris. 

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:He woke up and lit the curtains on fire. I don't know what happened.:

To Leareth: :Sorry, sorry, very sorry about this.: and Levris calms him. :They don't know we just lifebonded and I would rather not... explain.:

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Ugh, Leareth does not like being forcibly calmed down against his will when the situation is, in fact, bad and deserving of some sort of drastic response, on the other hand, panicking is clearly not doing anything useful so he'll take it.

:Show me...?: If they're not fully lifebonded yet then maybe he can at least tell Levris to go away now, even if he definitely isn't going anywhere himself - somehow that thought feels very bad, it feels scary to imagine Levris not being there, safe and comforting and trustworthy, however that is definitely a lifebond feeling and not his feeling and, in summary, aaaaaaaaaaaa. 

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Levris shows him the secret passageway in Levris's brain. :Can I look at yours?:

(Levris feels a quiet sense of impending doom.)

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:Yes, you can look at mine and show me: 

Levris' side of it looks pretty solidly rooted, damn it why wasn't he paying more attention, if he'd noticed he could have dropped all his meetings and Gated out - or not spent candlemarks last night talking to Levris, that has to be when it got enough of a start that Levris knew when he was in the river. Of course, if Levris hadn't known then he would probably be dead...possibly having to start over in a new body would actually be less inconvenient than getting stuck with a lifebond of all things, how, why... 

The series of convenient coincidences here gives him a good guess at who. 

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Levris.. very carefully looks at as little as possible of Leareth's brain and just shows him the passageway.

:Mine opened up when I took out the book that's the memory of how I met you but I don't want to go digging around in your books since you don't like it.:

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Gah. :You looking at my mind is really the least of my worries right now!: Leareth is involuntarily projecting significant distress along the lifebond, and also in general, he's still groggy enough to not be shielding that well. That - sure looks like a lifebond that's now not going anywhere, if he'd been more with it he could probably have noticed it introspectively by now.

(He briefly considers whether he should kill himself and start over in a new body in hopes the lifebond doesn't ride along, but then all of his emotions are screaming that this is a horrible thing to do to Levris, and also it might not even work...) 

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:Do you not... want... to be lifebonded?:

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:It is very inconvenient!: 

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Levris curls up. :Sorry.: He doesn't quite manage to avoid accidentally sending the thought :even your lifebonded doesn't want you.:

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:...I am sorry if I am hurting your feelings: It's a horrible situation but that isn't Levris' fault and the fact that he's now upset about it is very upsetting to Leareth too! As is the fact that he can't even have emotions without involuntarily inflicting them on someone else who really doesn't deserve it! :It is not that there is anything wrong with you - you are very good - I just, I do not have positive feelings about lifebonds on principle...:

Which won't do him any good at this point, he can't undo being lifebonded. Stupid god scheme. Also it seems like doing accidental magic and then a lot of Mindspeaking while recovering from a head injury isn't the best idea, he's in a lot of pain now and quickly running into a wall of 'no more thinking' and he just wishes he could go back to the part where he was comfortable and there was a safe-trustworthy person nearby and he didn't have to try to have any plans about it... The light hurts so he pulls the covers over his head. :I am sorry: he manages, :please do not leave...: 

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:I won't leave unless you want me to.:

Misery misery misery misery.

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Ugh he would really prefer not being bathed in lifebond-conveyed misery, but trying to say any more words about it is unlikely to help. Leareth manages eventually to mumble to the Healer who's there that he's fine and he just wants to sleep in peace, and he curls up, desperately wishing he could use magic enough to Gate out or even just send a message, but nope, he's trapped here with his miserable lifebonded. He eventually does manage to actually fall asleep. 

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If Leareth hadn't asked him to stay Levris would be on a horse and back on his circuit, lifebond or no lifebond, but Leareth wanted him to stay (wanted something from him!) and so Levris is going to sit here being uncomfortably aware that he's so awful that he somehow managed to get one person in the world magically destined to love him and even that person can't stand him.

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Eventually the night shift Healer comes back. "You should get some sleep," he says kindly. "...Are you all right? You look upset. Someone did tell you that he's going to make a full recovery, right? You did great, getting to him quickly in the river - it's not your fault..." 

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"Sorry, it's unrelated," Levris says. "Is there a way I can be-- around here? I don't want to leave him."

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"Yes, of course." They can lend him a bedroll to put on the floor by the window, only feet away from Leareth's bed. 

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Levris feels KIND OF RIDICULOUS sleeping on a bedroll so he can be near his lifebonded who DOES NOT EVEN WANT TO BE AROUND HIM.

 

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Leareth wakes up feeling substantially better, at least until he tries to sit up, which is a bad idea. He bites back a yelp, flops back, and waits for the room to stop spinning. Damn. He'd been hoping that maybe today he'd be capable of Gating back. Clearly not. Concussions are terrible

Also there is still MISERY coming at him from the corner of the room. :Levris: Leareth sends, more snappishly than he intended, :you are a Mindhealer, can you not just Mindheal yourself into being less upset it is very distracting: 

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:Sorry.: And now there is less MISERY coming at him from the corner of the room. 

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Leareth sighs and squeezes his eyes shut, the light from the crack between the curtains is excessive and rude. It's been a day, he's definitely not leaving yet - gods, he at some point needs to send a very apologetic message to a certain contact in Qorthes for missing the meeting time - focus, he has other problems right now. He's still lifebonded. If anything, poking around his own head suggests that he's more lifebonded. His mind is trying to generate warm fuzzy feelings about Levris having stayed all night and slept on the floor just so he wouldn't be alone. 

(This was probably actually safer, even; he's aware that in Valdemar, as in most places, Mindhealing isn't considered an offensive Gift, but Levris would probably do a lot to keep his lifebonded from harm, and his ethics are clearly flexible enough to permit reading random strangers' minds in taverns, he could do a lot of damage if he pulled out all the stops.) 

:I am sorry about upsetting you yesterday: he sends, cautiously. :I had not planned on getting lifebonded and it startled me. I am - well, I like you, you are interesting, and we are not going to get un-lifebonded now so there is no point being distressed about that aspect: Can he please stop being miserable now and making Leareth feel bad, if apologizing doesn't work then he isn't sure what will. 

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:You're very nice.: Levris sends back.

Levris is not miserable anymore! Also, his body is being operated by some mysterious force that he doesn't get any input into and his brain is just sort of floating along for the ride.

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Leareth starts trying to very slowly inch into a sitting position. He's in the uncomfortable state of being both hungry and kind of seasick from the dizziness. Drinking some water might help but it's all the way over there... :Levris can you help me?: 

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Levris is still MOSTLY not having feelings but he gets a flare of happiness from getting to help Leareth. 

He fetches Leareth some water.

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Leareth sips it slowly and decides he feels well enough to at least try standing up; if he's able to ride a horse then he can travel to someone who could contact someone who could contact his people and then he could get a ride home.

He carefully slides his feet over the edge of the bed. Moving his head still makes him dizzy so he waits that out before attempting anything further. 

- and NOPE it is a BAD IDEA and he nearly collapses on the floor, makes a grab for Levris to avoid falling. 

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Levris helps him back to his bed. 

"How about," Levris says in a Healer's voice, "you let me deal with whatever it is you need to do so urgently, and you can rest?"

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It's so weird hearing Levris talk in Healer-voice but of course he would have that, he must've trained with the Valdemaran Healers at least a little

"Wanted to get word home," he manages, "but - far... I feel awful." He's not sure why the last part slipped out, usually he doesn't whine, but it's true and his hindbrain keeps feeling like Levris could fix it somehow, maybe just by being comforting and nearby. 

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"Okay. I can-- probably take a message unless it's supposed to be secret? And if it's supposed to be secret I can at least tell them you're sick. --It makes sense that you feel awful, head injuries do that, but you're not going to feel better unless you rest."

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"I know. I will try to think if there are ways you could pass a message, it is - complicated..." Leareth closes his eyes, and when it still doesn't feel dark enough he puts his hands over them as well. "I apologize for being so boring - I am glad you are here..." However irritating it is being bedridden in a foreign country with only his lifebonded who he literally just met, being stranded here completely by himself would be worse. 

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"Well, congratulations, you're magically the most interesting thing in the world."

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Leareth chuckles. "Even when I can barely think? ...If you wanted to talk about something interesting, I would appreciate some distraction." 

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"Yes. I kind of spent a couple hours watching you sleep because you made such interesting faces. I'm unsure to what extent this is the lifebond and to what extent I'm just like this. --Possibly next time I sleep you should experiment."

(Now Levris is present in his own body and operating his own hands and everything.)

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Leareth's first thought is 'that's adorable', which is probably not the usual sort of thought he has about people? He smiles, though. "I will keep it in mind." 

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One of the day shift Healers gets in shortly later. "Good morning, Leareth. You seem a lot better today, I'm glad!" :How was his night, Levris?: 

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:It was fine. He slept well. Didn't light the curtains on fire. He seems alert and oriented.:

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:I'm glad to hear it!: The Healer examines Leareth and asks him some questions and eventually gets him to sit up again for breakfast. 

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Eating is not the most pleasant experience in the world, since Leareth's body still can't make up its mind about whether to be hungry or nauseous, but he manages it and then lies down again with relief. "Sorry. I think I need a nap." 

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"That's fine. I'm going to go get a book from my pack, I'll be back really soon."

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"Of course." Leareth's emotions seem to think that Levris going anywhere further than ten feet away is scary and bad, but that's obviously silly, so he wriggles properly under the covers and closes his eyes instead. 

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When he wakes up, Levris is reading The Art of Government, which may be somewhat familiar to Leareth as he wrote it.

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He sits up, which goes better this time, and smiles. "Where did you get that book?" 

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"The Heralds' library has lots of books! I really like reading about governments."

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"So do I. I have read that book as well. I disagree with some of the material in the second half..." (He wrote it when he was a lot younger, okay.) 

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Bounce bounce. "Yeah but the stuff about using incentives to guide the population to do the behavior you want is really interesting!"

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Leareth wriggles more upright. "Yes, it is interesting, and often it works, even! Nonetheless, I think that in the centuries since that book was written, history has proven that it is often very complicated and hard to predict what precise incentives and therefore behaviours will end up resulting from the relatively clumsy levers of change that politicians have..." They can go back and forth on this topic for a while if Levris stays interested, although at some point it'll start making Leareth's head hurt again. 

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Levris is not going to be the first one to stop talking about it!

His ambient misery about whether Leareth secretly hates him does not, apparently, stop him from saying Leareth is wrong about goddamn everything.

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This is very fun! They don't stop even when a baffled-looking Healing trainee comes in to examine Leareth again and bring him lunch. 

Eventually Leareth yawns. "All right, I think I had better eat something and then rest some more. Maybe tonight they will be able to tell me how much longer I need to stay here. I am already tired of this bed, it is uncomfortable." 

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Levris says, "I can check if your mind looks better."

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"Interesting, is that something you can actually see with Mindhealing? How does it show up?" 

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"I've looked at people with head injuries before, their books are more... scattered? Disorganized? I haven't studied it enough to be able to diagnose anything."

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"That makes sense, you can look and tell me about it. ...In general I am not bothered if you want to look at things in my mind, at this point. You are my lifebonded and so I figure we are going to end up knowing each other rather well." 

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"Thank you!" Subjects that make Levris bounce apparently include "getting to look in Leareth's head whenever he wants." Levris looks at it, and as an afterthought shows Leareth. "It looks like some of the pages are gunked up? I didn't check before but I could look at the rate that the gunk is going away."

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"That is very interesting. It is sort of how it feels, my thoughts are kind of gluey, I dislike it." Leareth eases himself back into the bed.

:You seem to be in a much better mood: he adds in Mindspeech. :I am glad, and I apologize again for carelessly upsetting you - I could try to explain at some point why I was in the past somewhat disturbed about lifebonds in particular...: Something is tugging at his memory. :Wait. Did I snap at you earlier and tell you to do Mindhealing to stop being upset? That was rude of me: 

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:It's fine, I did it.: Levris switches to showing Leareth his head. There's a part of Lev's library where the texts and pictures are blurry and hard to make out. :It's conditional, it's not like normal Mindhealing. So if I'm miserable it can sort of... shut down all my feelings and make my body run on autopilot? But if I'm not miserable it's fine-- see, more of it is getting blurry while we talk about it. I invented it!:

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Leareth is torn between being very impressed and very concerned. :What a fascinating technique, that is brilliant! You know, I would have expected you to do something much less drastic than 'turn off your emotions'. You do not need to leave it like this. If you are still upset about something then we should talk about it: another yawn, :well, maybe after I have taken a nap, sorry: 

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:Okay. And I don't mind, it's-- not nice to be projecting misery all over you just because you don't want to be lifebonded to me against your will.:

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Leareth holds back from saying what he's thinking, which is that Levris might be a lot less pleased about the lifebond if and when he learns a few more facts about Leareth's life.

(Really, it has to be 'when'; Leareth can't relocate to Valdemar, being lifebonded and separated most of the time is well known to be miserable, and it feels kind of unrealistic that he could keep that many secrets about his life the whole time. Also he keeps finding that he wants to tell Levris things, which is probably a lifebond effect rather than a rational response, but still.) 

:I do appreciate it: he sends, with an internal sigh. At this point he can barely keep his eyes open. :Need to - sleep - now...: 

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Levris bends over and kisses him gently on the forehead. "Go to sleep."

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Leareth is momentarily distracted by the forehead kiss and the fact that it's giving him SEVERAL surprising feelings; mostly he feels very safe and loved, which is not at all an emotional experience he's used to having. He's drowsy enough that he can't muster much curiosity, though, and drifts off to sleep within a minute or two. 

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Levris is still reading when he wakes up. 

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He's pretty disoriented and his first half-awake thought is that he wants a hug; this is very uncharacteristic and strange, but he's sort of accidentally projecting it along the lifebond anyway. 

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Levris hugs him!

"Nice sleep?"

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"I feel a lot better." Wow, and being hugged is bafflingly nice. He would stay here for a long time except that now he feels kind of awkward about it. "Did you have a good afternoon?" 

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"Yep! I read a book and went to a guard-house for a bit to send a letter explaining to everyone that I did not just disappear for no reason."

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Leareth sits bolt-upright. And then grabs his head, it turns out moving fast is still not the smartest idea. "...What. Did you put my name." 

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"Um. Yes? Was I not supposed to?"

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Leareth buries his face in his hands. He has a headache and thinking is hard and he still can't do magic and now this completely predictable consequence of his failure to be smart in time is happening. 

:I am sorry: he remembers to send a moment later, since Levris must be getting a helping of his distress about it and, knowing him, will use it to quickly become miserable. :It is not your fault, it was a perfectly understandable and reasonable thing to do, just - very inconvenient. For reasons I did not get around to telling you yet: He hadn't thought Levris would leave. Mostly he hadn't thought period, due to thinking still being kind of painful. 

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

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

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

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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. 

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

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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: 

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Yes. 

Forehead kiss before he goes?

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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.  

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

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: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: 

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

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

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: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.:

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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. 

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: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.:

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: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: 

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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.:

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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:

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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.

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

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:You're so good!:

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: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: 

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...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.:

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: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. 

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

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:No, it is - more complicated than that. Anyway, that is related to why I am concerned about problems with the Heralds: He takes a deep breath. :For various reasons I had planned on invading Valdemar with an army. Herald Vanyel - you might know of him at this point? - received a Foresight dream warning of this. I also had the dream. Then it turned out we were both in the same dream and could talk to each other. I am not sure how many Heralds other than him would know my name, but - probably some: 

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:I guess... if you took over other countries... it's not that weird that you might want to take over Valdemar? Ack.:

(Distress about all of his patients dying in a war! Vague feeling that this is silly because it is not like people matter less if he has not personally understood their brains.)

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:...I am sorry. I know you did not ask to be lifebonded to someone with plans to invade your kingdom. It is very rude of the gods to do that to you, really. I can add it to my very long list of grievances with Them: 

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:Maybe I'm supposed to try to convince you to not invade?: He sounds very dubious of this. :--Wait, what happens when I die?:

 

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:I am not sure! It would probably be very bad for me!: Sigh. :My - method of immortality - does not actually involve my current body living forever; I can and do die but I come back again. Possibly a broken lifebond would not last through that transition. I am not keen to test it though: 

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:Possibly you should figure out how to make me immortal.:

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:Would you like to be immortal? I think it is obviously good but - I am aware some people would not want it, even though I find it very baffling: 

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:Obviously? Obviously I want to be immortal.:

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:Good! I will have to find a way of doing that, it is very important: Leareth yawns. His head is starting to ache more fiercely again. :...I am sorry, I think I need to rest, may I explain the rest later...: 

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:Yes.:

Levris is growing somewhat more confident that his forehead kisses are welcome.

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They are! Sleepily, almost without noticing he's doing it, Leareth reaches for Levris' hand as well. 

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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Levris' happiness makes Leareth smile a little, and then he dozes off. 

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A Healer comes in a few minutes later for shift change. :–oh, sorry. Um, how much of today has he been asleep, actually?: 

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:Most of it. Why?:

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:It's a little worrying? He slept right through the night - and he wasn't awake any of yesterday, really - it's normal to sleep somewhat more with a head injury but not all day. Did it seem like he overexerted himself at some point?: 

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:Um, yes, rather. He lit the curtains on fire yesterday and there was... some trouble with business.:

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:Well, he's got to rest or he'll keep setting himself back. Please don't let him exert himself - that includes reading or writing, maybe avoid conversations with him that are too intellectual. He needs to rest his brain, not just his body: 

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:All right, I will.:

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:I'll come back later when he's awake. We'll need to wake him at some point if he doesn't on his own, he hasn't eaten supper: 

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When it is time for supper, Levris wakes him and then says in his Healer-voice: "No explaining things until your head's better. The healer says you have to rest your brain or you will keep setting yourself back and not get better."

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The worst part is that he's right. Leareth grumbles, but sits up and eats.

"Are you allowed to talk to me?" he says finally. "I am bored." 

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"Yes, but not about intellectual things. I think traditionally when you have a lifebond you spend a lot of time discussing how pretty and good the other one is."

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Leareth chuckles. "I feel that would get repetitive, no?" He's feeling an oddly strong desire to lean on Lev's shoulder, or just be touching him more in general, this is obviously lifebond-related but it seems fine and not like it would otherwise be a bad idea or anything, so he reaches out. 

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Levris puts his head on Leareth's shoulder. He isn't doing any undignified squealing with his mouth but some of it probably comes across the lifebond anyway.

Also probably coming across the lifebond: previously Levris had dissociated away his sexual attraction to Leareth because it was inconvenient and perhaps unwanted, and now it is very very obvious.

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...Okay, Leareth has no idea what to do with that - it's not unwanted, it's sort of nice, he's just confused by it. He sets the confusion aside, though, he's not supposed to be doing lots of thinking. For now he can lean against Levris and feel very cozy and warm and safe.

"...m'I supposed to be staying awake?" he mumbles at some point. 

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"I think you can sleep as much as you want. No thinking."

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Then Leareth is going to fall asleep on him shortly after.

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Awwww sleepy Leareth.

(Levris is maybe somewhat touch-starved.)

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At some point the Healer comes back. :Goodness, I really need to catch him at some point while he’s lucid. Thank you for getting him to eat. You should sleep too:

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Levris will go back to his cot and stop leaning against Leareth and go to sleep in a few minutes. He is so warm and cozy right now and he doesn't want to move. But in a few minutes he is absolutely going to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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Leareth sleeps pretty solidly through the night, half-wakes up a few times just enough to notice that he’s comfortable and warm.

The footsteps of the day shift Healers in the hall wake him fully. He turns a little. :Levris?: They’ve ended up very smushed together, the bed isn’t exactly huge.

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"Yeah?" he says sleepily. "Talk with your mouth so you can rest."

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It’s true that Mindspeech makes his head hurt a bit but talking out loud is still more work. He sighs. “Were you here all night? I hope you were not too uncomfortable.”

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"I guess I fell asleep? Um. I don't really get to... touch people... much."

(Mild distress.)

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Aww. Maybe Leareth can fix that by hugging him? If so it seems sort of like cheating, being able to fix a problem that easily and in a way that's so pleasant for him. (Leareth is maybe not totally awake yet.) 

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Levris thinks this is an excellent solution.

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Then the day shift Healer will come in to both of them cuddling. "Aha! Leareth, finally managed to catch you awake. How are you feeling?" 

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Leareth instinctively starts disentangling himself, his current position isn't very dignified, but then stops. Nothing about the last few days has been dignified anyway, and it's not going to affect any of his longer-term goals at all if some random Healers in Baires see him cuddling the person he's lifebonded to. 

"Better, I think?" he says. "I am still a little dizzy when I move but the headache is mostly gone, at least right now." 

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"Good, good. Today I'd like you to get out of bed for a bit - we'll take it slow, no long walks yet." He addresses Levris in Mindspeech. :Did he have a good night? No setting anything on fire?: 

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:Yes. He did very well.:

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Then the Healer will help Leareth put on a robe and stand up and walk about four steps to a chair. He's still kind of unsteady, but makes it there without incident. The Healer makes him promise not to try to get up alone, which Leareth isn't going to do anyway because it's stupid - well, unless there's an emergency, he thinks he could probably fight with magic if he had to at this point, although he really hopes he won't have to, it would probably set his recovery back by days again.

"Am I allowed to think now?" he asks Levris, once the Healer has left them with privacy again. 

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"The Healer says a little bit is okay if you're feeling better but don't push yourself."

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Sigh. "Am I allowed to Mindspeak a little? I could do it sparingly. I want to answer any questions you have but some of the answers will be sensitive." 

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"My curiosity can wait a couple days for you to get better."

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"If you are sure." He switches briefly to Mindspeech. :Are you willing to leave with me? If I become able to Gate again, or if my people arrive to give me a lift out of here before the Heralds decide to come calling: 

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:...do I have another option? We're lifebonded.:

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Leareth recognizes that Levris has limited good options here. :This is most of why I am opposed to lifebonds on principle: he admits. :It is inconvenient for you as well - probably more so - and reduces your options, which seems unfair for the gods to do to you. I am sorry. I will do my best to make it up to you, I promise: 

This feels VERY IMPORTANT, which is probably another lifebond mind-affect, but going around trying to ignore and compensate for lifebond-related feelings feels maddening, so he'll go with it for it. 

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:--This is frustrating to explain and when you're better I want to just. drop my shields and show you my entire brain.:

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Huh. He's not sure what is so hard to explain but he's not opposed on principle. :All right: And he should probably stop Mindspeaking now because, while it doesn't actually hurt yet, he can feel it getting more effortful.

"Anyway. Do you have a topic of conversation that will not require me to think too hard? Otherwise I am going to be very bored." 

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"...I could tell you stories of my patients where I change all the details for confidentiality reasons?"

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"Sure, that sounds interesting." 

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Then Leareth can hear about interesting traumas and compulsive behaviors and mood issues and how Levris fixed them.

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It's very interesting! Leareth knows almost nothing about Mindhealing and most of the problems being described are very alien and confusing to him, but Levris explains it well and is pleasant to listen to and he's enjoying it. 

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Levris is sending over the lifebond that his lifebonded is VERY GOOD and interested in the MOST INTERESTING SUBJECT IN THE WORLD and Levris is HAPPY except for the part where he's vaguely concerned about his lifebonded being evil and not wanting to be lifebonded to him. 

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Leareth isn't exactly tracking the bigger picture very well, but in the moment at least, he's not upset at all about being lifebonded to Levris. He's tired out after a couple of candlemarks, though, and asks Levris to help him get back to bed. 

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He's still asleep when Levris hears some sort of commotion outside the room. There are raised voices. One of them says Leareth's name. 

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...well, that's not great. 

"Who's there?" Levris says.

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"Aw, come on, we have a treaty with you," a woman is saying, sounding quite irritated. "Also he's very dangerous, you really don't want him here." 

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"Think I found him," someone else says, and the hurried footsteps come right up to the door, which a moment later is flung open. 

There are three people standing there, all of them wearing Heralds' Whites. Other than the Whites, though, it's a sort of ridiculously motley arrangement. There's a young man, obviously blind, with scars on his face and a cane in his hand; the dark-complexioned woman beside him is tiny, though very fit-looking, and sports a wooden leg. 

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"Doesn't look like he'll put up much of a fight," the peg-legged woman says. 

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The third man, middle-aged and stolid-looking, steps forward. "Leareth?" His eyes fix on Levris. "He must be the traitor Mindhealer. We have orders to arrest both of you." 

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For some ridiculous reason, Levris's first response is offense at being called the traitor Mindhealer. He has not even done any treachery yet, he told everyone where he was like he was supposed to, and there is no law against cuddling people even if they are probably evil. 

Well, he thinks, the 'I'm innocent' defense clearly wasn't going to work out well for me anyway, and he reaches for a skill he hardly ever uses and sends to all three of them :Go to Haven. Forget Leareth is here.: 

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It seems to work for a moment! They go blank-faced and turn to walk away. 

–The peg-legged woman stops, with great effort. "Doesn't – no... Wrong. Rasha says... Going, help..." 

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Well, that's no good. 

:Sorry:, he sends, and then suddenly all three of them are hearing sights, smelling sounds, and seeing scents. 

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Leareth is busy struggling awake, gluey-headed. :Levris, what...?:

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:Heralds stopped by. I disabled them for now but I don't want to rely on this long-term. Should we go to the temple-- can you Gate--:

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Leareth tests his magic. Ouch.

:Not unless it is a dire emergency and I could not manage far: he admits. :I think we ought go to the temple, yes:

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:Okay, let's get out of here.:

Does Leareth need help standing?

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Yeah, he kind of does, he can move unaided but not fast, and it seems like maybe they want fast.

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Okay. Levris helps him walk out of the House of Healing and towards Levris's horse.

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The way to the stable is blocked by two furious-looking Companion mares.

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Leareth flinches and instinctively tries to shield both of them. He gets a sloppy barrier up and yelps in pain.

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Can you Mindheal a Companion? Let's find out.

Levris reaches in to try to rearrange their senses. 

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His Gift works on them but their minds are laid out oddly and it takes a few seconds to figure out where the sensory processing lives. Seconds which they use to make a run at Leareth’s barrier!

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Leareth flings energy into it, wincing at the suddenly pounding headache and leaning on Levris for support.

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Moment of irritation that he can't stop and take a longer look at how Companion minds are arranged, and now their procioception is telling them what temperature it is so probably they are going to have a bit of a hard time walking.

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Now there are two very upset Companions sitting down on the grass! 

Also some alarmed looking Healers have followed them out of the building, and now one of them is heading in Levris' direction! 

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Leareth drops his shield and sort of half-collapses against Levris. 

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:Go back into the building: he sends to the Healers. 

:I really hope you're not going to lock me in a dungeon forever because in the past few minutes I've kind of blown up every other option I have: he sends to Leareth. 

Okay. Now horse?

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Nobody obstructs them from getting to Levris' horse, although Leareth needs a lot of help to mount and stay on. He's mostly not able to have thoughts or process his surroundings at this point, so he really hopes Levris has a plan here. 

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Levris's plan is to go to the temple and hope that the temple has a plan. 

He rides as quickly as possible. 

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Bouncing around on a horse riding fast turns out to be an awful experience when you have a concussion and have just exacerbated it will ill-advised emergency magic use. Leareth keeps his eyes closed and holds onto Levris and manages, just barely and with great effort, to hold off on throwing up until they've stopped moving and he's managed to half-climb, half-fall off the horse. 

:Sorry: he tries to tell Levris, but Mindspeech isn't a great idea either.  

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:Don't lock me in a dungeon and we'll call it even.:

He goes into the temple and tries to find someone who looks official.

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A junior priest gives him a confused look. "Are you looking for someone?" 

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"Um, I'm looking for"-- he gives the name of the senior priest Leareth sent a letter to-- "it's urgent? And important. Both urgent and important."

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"Ah, yes, of course. One moment." 

And a few minutes later he has the senior priest, looking a bit harried and perhaps annoyed to be interrupted. He freezes as soon as he sees Levris, though, eyes widening. "...You're the one who brought the letter, no?" 

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"Um, yes. --We need a Gate. Quite badly. Uh, I'm not sure to where--" He looks at Leareth in the hopes that Leareth can help with this part.

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Leareth is following with difficulty. "North," he manages. "Or - Hardorn, would do - Rethwellan even..." 

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"We sent your message with the utmost urgency." The priest seems kind of overawed in Leareth's presence. "We haven't received an answer yet. We could potentially hire a mage locally who could do a location in Rethwellan." 

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"Um, yes, that sounds good. As fast as possible please?"

(He is glad he doesn't have to know any passwords.)

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Apparently whatever passwords were in the letter were plenty to convince the priest, who ushers them to a back room where Leareth can sit down more comfortably, and then bustles out. 

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Leareth leans against Levris, putting his head down on Levris' shoulder. "Thank you." 

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"I didn't do anything special. Anyone could have done it. --Anyone with Mindhealing, anyway."

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"I think you are a very exceptional Mindhealer, actually." 

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"It's not my fault it hasn't occurred to anyone that there are combat applications to synesthesia."

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Leareth chuckles. "See? You are more creative." 

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Less than ten minutes later, the senior priest is back with a young mage in Baires Journeyman robes. "You need a Gate to Rethwellan? Any particular place?" 

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"Petras would do...Levris, do you know anywhere...?" 

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"Uh, no, I... barely ever leave Valdemar."

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"You already travel more than most people, I think." Leareth tries to make his eyes focus on the mage. "Outskirts of Petras. Please. Near another temple of Astera, if you can." 

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The mage can do that, to a spot a few blocks again from said temple, Gating from outside so they can bring Levris' horse. 

...And now they're in Rethwellan. 

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Leareth is leaning heavily on Levris. He feels absolutely terrible again, which isn't surprising. "Need to pass a message," he manages. "The temple... Then I want to lie down." 

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"Okay." Levris offers him support in walking to the temple.

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:We need to not visibly be together: Leareth remembers to tell Levris. :Rethwellan is deeply hostile to same-sex relationships: He still leans on Levris to walk to the temple, because that's not obviously romantic in nature and also he's too dizzy to keep his balance unaided. 

Leareth is with it enough, barely, to ask for the senior priest himself - he gets someone significantly higher in the overall hierarchy, Petras is a far more central, happening place than the outskirts of Baires - and to recite the relevant passcodes, which gets him more shocked near-awe and a promise that messages will be going around in realtime within the next few candlemarks. Also they have a back room for visiting priests, where he can lie down, and they'll lend him a mage to guard it. 

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When they get in the back room, Levris says: "...who are you?"

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"It is complicated and a long story...can I tell you later, please..." Leareth desperately just wants to sleep. He feels bad enough that it's overriding his habitual paranoia; he doesn't even check the other mage's wards himself. 

(Possibly it helps that he has a lifebonded who can and will use Mindhealing offensively if something happens while he's asleep.) 

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"Okay. Sleep."

Levris can't kiss him because Rethwellan but he can imagine kissing him quite vividly and then send it.

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Aww. Leareth wishes with surprising intensity that he could fall asleep holding Levris' hand or perhaps snuggling him. He falls asleep still thinking wistfully about it. 

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And within two candlemarks, the priest is politely sticking his head in, clearing his throat to get Levris' attention. "We, er, someone's on the way to pick you both up, I'm told." 

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"Thank you," Levris says, and hopes there is not something else he's supposed to say about it. 

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The priests waits for a few seconds, but it's not clear if he's waiting for Levris to say something more. When Levris doesn't, he ducks out. 

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And a few minutes later, footsteps approach. A woman who doesn't look like she's from anywhere that Levris has ever heard of stops in the doorway. She's beaming at him. 

She seems about to speak, but spares a glance for the Rethwellani mage and priest, and reaches out in Mindspeech instead. :You are his lifebonded? Wonderful! I am delighted to meet you: 

"My name is Nayoki," she says out loud. 

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:It's nice to meet you too.:

"I'm Levris. We've had an... interesting... couple of days."

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"I had heard! Well, hopefully it will be less interesting for a while!" She frowns at Leareth, still asleep. "I think we ought to wake him at least to cross. He will be alarmed if he wakes up halfway through being carried across a Gate." 

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"Hey, Leareth," Levris says, "wake up. We have to Gate."

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Leareth drags himself toward consciousness, momentarily disoriented, but calm about it because the first thing he can sense is that Levris is nearby. "All right." He struggles to get to his feet. 

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Levris helps him in a way that he hopes the Rethwellans will perceive as suitably heterosexual. 

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The locals are far too distracted by the fact that Leareth is a very important person to care about how heterosexual the helping-him-across-the-Gate looks. 

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Nayoki helps support him on the other side as soon as she's taken down her Gate. "We ought get him settled in the infirmary - it is just this way..." 

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"Okay-- is there a way I can be nearby--"

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"Of course! I was about to ask you if you were willing to stay. I will bring a cot in for you tonight." 

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All right! At least he is not going to immediately wind up in a dungeon because of some sort of premediated lifebonded protocol. 

It would probably, he comforts himself, be a very nice dungeon. With servants and books and good food.

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Leareth immediately heads for the cot and flops. Then turns and looks sort of hopefully at Levris. Everything is spinning and saying words is too hard. 

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Does Leareth want forehead kisses?

(Maybe he will wind up the sex slave of a mysterious and powerful man? This is probably (?) an improvement on dungeons, however nice, because he can probably persuade Leareth to send people in and let him poke at their brains.)

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Leareth would like forehead kisses, and to hold Levris' hand while he falls asleep, it's not clear why that does anything to help but it really does. 

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A while after he falls asleep, Nayoki comes back with another man who introduces himself as a Healer and pulls up a chair at Leareth's bedside, opposite Levris. 

Nayoki leans against the wall. :I am sorry, I realized you might be bored. Do you want books? I have some on Mindhealing. When Leareth is awake I can check that he does not mind my sharing my research with you, but there are some things he ought explain first: 

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:Books are good! I can entertain myself indefinitely with books.:

(And he's probably going to have to.)

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:Of course. You know, he told me in Mindspeech that you were very interesting and I would like you. I had to tell him to stop Mindspeaking because he would hurt himself, so I did not have a chance to hear more: 

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:I'm pretty sure he'd say I was interesting whether or not I really was, because of the lifebond.:

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She gives him a mildly skeptical look. :Anyway. You were attacked in Baires? What did you do to hold them off?: 

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:Tried to lay a set-compulsion on them but it didn't work because they were Heralds. So I wound up inflicting severe synaesthesia on them instead. I hope Melody can sort it out. --Got a chance to look at Companion minds and they're very strangely laid out:

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:Oh, fascinating! Say more?: Nayoki looks genuinely very interested. 

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:I didn't get a chance to look at them closely because I was in combat at the time but they're... twisted around something? I guess is the best way to put it.:

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:That makes sense. They are beings partially made by a god, shaped to be a certain way: 

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:My metaphor is libraries, so:-- he sends over a picture-- :they're just... laid out in this incredibly strange way, and it's all... around something I can't really poke at.:

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:What a good Sight metaphor! I like it. Mine is not as friendly for looking at the details in a neat way: 

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:What's yours?:

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:Bread: She can show him a couple of anonymous examples from her memories. They're more distinct from each other at a glance, in some overall-gestalt way, than minds under Levris' Sight - and she can do large, nonspecific shifts more easily - but it's obvious that it would be harder for her to keep track of exact fine details and return to the same ones as reliably as he can with books on a shelf. 

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:Oh, wow, that's fascinating. We should look at the same person sometime and compare.:

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:We could ask Leareth if he minds, once he is in better shape: Nayoki straightens up. :I should go back to work, but I will send over some books for you. Hopefully he will recover faster now that he is somewhere he feels safe and is not having to fight with magic: 

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:I hope so too. Thank you for talking with me.:

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Someone else drops off some books for him a few minutes later. Leareth remains asleep until suppertime, although he's easy to prod awake and the Healer isn't worried. 

His head feels gluey but doesn't hurt anymore. "Sorry for being so boring," he manages. 

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"It's all right," Levris says. "I got some reading about Mindhealing done. You have a lot of books."

Levris reaches out to check whether Leareth's mind is in order.

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Chuckle. "I certainly have plenty of books. You ought to ask Nayoki to show you the library here." 

Leareth's mind is not fully de-gunked but the books are mostly back in order now. 

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"I will."

...Levris looks somewhat uncomfortable.

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Leareth is with it enough that he eventually notices this. He reaches for Levris' hand, almost without realizing that he's doing it. "Is something wrong?" 

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"Um. I like... books? And interesting intellectual work to do? And if I'm allowed to Mindheal people sometimes that is good? That is basically what I need to be happy."

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Leareth pulls himself into a sitting position. He's so confused. "Those all seem to be unsurprising facts about you. Why are you - feeling a need to repeat them to me now?" 

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"...because I am in some location I don't know with my lifebonded who is very mysterious and very powerful and I don't know what he wants except that he is probably evil, and I just gave up every relationship I had with anyone other than him?"

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"...Oh." Leareth has been mostly failing to simulate at all what it would be like from Levris' position, as the one with both drastically less magical power and general influence, and also a complete lack of information on who Leareth is. He knew he would have to fix that at some point, it's just such a long story. 

He holds out his arms. "Levris. Listen. I am not going to - trap you here against your will, or deny you things that you need, or - or do anything that will make you unhappy, because if you are unhappy I will be sad about it. Also I think I ought to stop being so mysterious and tell you about my life and who I am, it is just...a great number of things..." 

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"It would make sense to trap me here," Levris points out, "because if I die you die."

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"We already had the conversation about how neither of us wishes to die! I will figure out immortality for you and then it will be fine. In the meantime we can have conversations about acceptable risks. You are a smart person who can understand those tradeoffs." Sigh. "I might try very hard to convince you that a risk is not acceptable, but–"

Why does it even feel so impossible, Levris is right, it does kind of make sense strategically. 

"...Because you are my lifebonded, and I respect you and - want to respect you - and it would not be very respectful of your intelligence to trap you here instead of simply talking about it." 

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"...um, not that I'm grateful that I'm not going to wind up getting put into a very nice dungeon but objectively it is extremely weird that you're not going to put me in a very nice dungeon, given that I am currently one of your biggest vulnerabilities and you know almost nothing about me."

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...Is it weird? 

Leareth, on reflection, has to admit that he's not being nearly as paranoid as is characteristic for him. He's relaxed around Levris. On some deep level, his hindbrain doesn't expect Levris to hurt him; the opposite, some part of him thinks Levris will keep him safe. 

That is, in hindsight, very strange actually. And concerning. 

What information does he actually have about Levris, objectively speaking, setting aside the presumably-lifebond-driven emotions? 

"Do not take this the wrong way," Leareth says, carefully, "but - you seem mostly quite harmless." On reflection, he's still pretty confident in his assessment that Levris isn't someone who's hiding an agenda and a lot of schemes, and is averse to even slightly inconveniencing Leareth or hurting his feelings. "Also, you rescued me, presumably at some risk to yourself, and then - burned approximately all of your resources and fallback options in order to protect me when I was incapacitated. That is a rather costly sign that you care about my safety and wellbeing." 

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"I wasn't thinking that I would hurt you. I like being alive and, as you pointed out, have approximately no resources or fallback options and am entirely at your mercy. I was thinking that I'm one of your biggest vulnerabilities because people could kill me, or torture me, or Gate me thousands of miles away from you, or keep me prisoner and blackmail you with my safety..."

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"Honestly, you seem reasonably able to defend yourself! I expect you could become much, much better at it with the appropriate training and some artifacts to cover against unexpected mage-attacks. Also I assume you do not wish to be killed, tortured, Gated thousands of miles away, or used as blackmail material, and would therefore not actually need the precautions against it imposed without your consent!" 

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"I'm not really sure it matters whether I consent or not."

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"Because I am more powerful and could do it anyway?" 

Leareth takes a deep breath. Lets it out. "I feel as though we are having different conversations here, and I wish to back up and start over. I apologize for disrupting your life so much; honestly, I think it is far more inconvenient for you to be lifebonded to me than the reverse. That being said, we are lifebonded and ought make the best of it. I wish to figure out what we can do to minimize the cost to you; I think, on reflection, that this could well be a plot by some god to obstruct me by having you assassinated, so I will want to be very careful, but again, I think our incentives are well-aligned there."

Sigh. "Probably part of why I care about you and your wellbeing so much is the lifebond and not my own choice, which is a thing I dislike about lifebonds in principle. However, it is still how I feel, and I think fighting it would be a very frustrating uphill battle. Which I would prefer to avoid when it seems entirely possible that we can get along well! You are objectively a clever and interesting person, and I think would have to be, in order to be lifebond-compatible with me of all people. What do you think?" 

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Levris sighs with frustration and says "Look" and drops his shields and drops a ball of feelings into Leareth's brain. 

People don't like Levris. They tolerate him or they ignore him; they're not cruel to him, not anymore (and that thought is skirting around a lot of things Levris does not particularly want to think about). And-- it's fine, really. It's fine. Levris has grown so used to being lonely that it has stopped even registering to him, like the pain of an old wound. And he can't really imagine that someone would like him for him but he used to daydream about being liked through magic, by a Companion or his lifebonded. He's not going to get a Companion (he's too amoral for that) but... maybe he could get a lifebonded someday and then there would be one person who wasn't just tolerating him, and it was a stupid frivolous dream because obviously he's too unimportant to wind up lifebonded but it's the only way he could see to having someone who likes him.

And then he was lifebonded! And he's still annoying and inconvenient and someone who has to be tolerated except now instead of being on his own he's utterly dependent on his lifebonded who is very mysterious and very powerful and very evil, and-- he's useless, there's nothing he can do to help, there's nothing he can do to make Leareth happy, he just has to be put somewhere out of the way where he won't fuck anything up.

(Leareth might notice that these thoughts are all very well-organized and analyzed and Levris is really remarkably aware of all of them.)

"Sorry about your head," Levris says, "communication is hard."

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It does kind of hurt his head, but also this seems very important, and oh no, and almost without realizing it, Leareth is reach to pull Levris in his arms, and shoving quite a lot of affection and concern and regret through the lifebond. "Have you been thinking this entire time that I find you annoying?" He tried to tell Levris he didn't, but - wow, it seems like there a lot of buried feelings there, which he was busy being oblivious to due to barely being conscious. 

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"I mean, you find being lifebonded annoying?"

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"I do not approve of lifebonds in principle, and I object to whichever god decided to scheme at me with one, but at least as much on your behalf as on mine. You deserve better than to be used as a tool to hurt me. Anyway, it would be very unhelpful at this point to keep being annoyed, indefinitely, about this specific lifebond with you in particular. Especially given that I like you as a person! I am confused about it, and concerned that I have not yet understood what the plot was here, and I am unhappy about the disruptive effect it had on your life, but... I want to make the best of all of those things. Also, I absolutely do not agree that you are useless. Nayoki is already trying to recruit you for her research team. Also you probably saved my life, earlier. I am very grateful for that."

He finds himself leaning in to kiss Levris' forehead, and is a bit surprised, it doesn't feel like he decided to do that and he's basically never physically affectionate with people. Presumably it's a lifebond thing. That doesn't seem like a good reason to stop himself from doing it on principle though. 

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Levris responds to forehead kissing by wiggling

"It's really terrible that you have brain problems so I have to express my feelings with my mouth instead of just dumping them on you through Thoughtsensing."

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"I am not going to have them forever! ...I probably ought to rest now, though." His head is feeling gluey again and the headache is threatening a resurgence. "Are you less upset with me now? I - would like it if you stayed, and held me, if you do not mind, I...liked that before." 

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"--there are a lot of feelings I have trouble putting into words but I like holding you."

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"Mmm. Maybe tomorrow my brain problems will be better and you can show me those feelings too." Leareth leans against Levris' chest.

He's running out of verbal fluency to say the thing he wants to convey, but maybe he can manage it. "The lifebond...wants me to trust you. I could fight that, but - I wish to see if you can be someone I justifiedly trust. It would be - nice - to have that." His eyes are sticking shut now. "Also, remind me tomorrow to have a go at convincing you that I am not actually evil." 

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"Mm. Okay. I should show you my feelings first though."

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"All right..." Sleep. 

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Mm. Sleep.

Going to bed cuddling Leareth has not stopped being great!

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Leareth wakes up feeling pretty well-rested, and with nearly all the cobwebs gone from his head. 

:Levris?: he tries, to see if Mindspeech feels okay today (it does!) 

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:Yes?:

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:Did you sleep well? I think my head is much better today. I suppose you could look: 

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:Sounds like a good idea.:

Levris looks. 

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The disarrayed books are entirely back in place. There's still a bit of cobwebby stuff in a few corners, but not much. 

"So?" Leareth says out loud, moving to sit up, but not letting go of Levris. "I had better not push it too hard, by doing difficult magic for example, but I think you could show me your feelings." 

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"Okay," he says, and sends:

Leareth is really quite handsome. Levris is not sure if he knows how handsome he is but he's so handsome. (Sexual thoughts have been tucked off into a corner where they won't show up, but there is clearly a Sex Thing here.) And he's smart, and powerful, and wealthy, and evil, and-- there's something very exciting about being with someone who probably murders lots of other people and can do whatever he wants to you, but in fact wants to hold you and listen to you talk about Mindhealing and tell you you're smart and who does not want to murder you even a little bit. (This is also a little bit a sex thing but mostly not.) It's a wildly unrealistic romantic daydream of the sort he associates with Bard songs more than with actual reality.

Leareth has been kind of out of it since they got lifebonded so Levris is not really sure what his... personality... is? Presumably it is something compatible enough that they got lifebonded, and he can talk about Mindhealing which is the most interesting subject in the world. But even setting aside the personality thing the idea of being lifebonded to Leareth is... very appealing.

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Wow. That's - very flattering, and also touching in some way and setting off emotions in him, and it's also just a lot. A little overwhelming. 

Several responses pile up and the words that come up aren't any of them, and also aren't really the answer to a question Levris asked at all. "I am trying to fight the gods."

Leareth has no idea why he said that right now! Obviously Levris has to know eventually because it's sort of important for making sense of his entire life, and also Nayoki's research is related and she really wants Levris, although he sort of suspects Levris might be more useful leading his own project... Getting ahead of himself, though. 

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This sentence fills Levris with an enormous quantity of affection. "Why are you trying to fight the gods?"

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Awww. "I disagree with a number of their policy decisions. Would you like a list?" 

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"Yes! I imagine I am much more sympathetic to some possible lists than to others."

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Nod. "Mainly they hate progress and change. They kept murdering me about it - for context, the way my immortality works is that my body can die but I will come back, I am not sure if I said that." 

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"Makes sense," Levris says. "And... hating progress is bad because it means that people understand fewer things?"

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"Understand fewer things, build fewer things, have fewer capabilities, have lower crop yields and buildings that collapse sooner... And then people die, for stupid reasons, when it need not be inevitable at all - and the gods do not seem to care at all." 

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...Levris kisses him. 

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That is UNEXPECTED and STARTLING and Leareth goes very still. It's not that it's unpleasant - it's the opposite - he just doesn't know what to do

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"Ack-- sorry, I--"

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Leareth takes a deep breath. "No, I am sorry. I should have - I meant to say earlier but did not manage it. I...have not really had a relationship of this kind in a very long time? I apologize, I will probably not be good at it." 

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"...that was the first time I'd kissed anybody."

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"Oh." Leareth smiles. "I did not notice you lacking kissing skill!" 

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"Well, how are you supposed to know, you probably haven't kissed anyone in five thousand years."

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"Not quite that long, I think, but - I do not have any clear memories of kissing anyone, at this point. I suppose if we are both figuring it out together, then neither of us will mind, and no one else needs to know." He blinks. "That was very nice, actually, we could do it again?" 

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"Maybe I should wait until the next time you say something you deserve to be kissed for."

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Fine, he can do that and be patient. "Where were we– right, gods and my list of complaints. The Star-Eyed Goddess enslaved an entire ethnic group's descendants for all time, and requires them to do dangerous work where they often die; it is very necessary work too, to be fair, but nonetheless I think people ought to be able to agree to it themselves, not be bound to it because their ancestors two thousand years ago made a pact in exchange for not literally dying." 

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"I think mostly people think that's fine because they're gods and they're supposed to act like that?"

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"You could say that for any of the things gods do!" Sigh. "And, in fact, people do say it. 'The gods work in mysterious ways'. The core of my objection here is - well, They demonstrably are not addressing all of the horrible problems in the world. The Companions are a god-miracle, for example, yet Valdemar still has people starving in it - including in Haven, to my understanding - and bandits, and a vast number of people in situations of poverty that are impossible to climb out of. I suppose it would be one thing if the gods were simply not powerful or clever enough to make the world paradise, but - they actively interfere with anyone who tries! They murdered me for trying to implement democracy, once!" 

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And now there is kissing. 

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Leareth does not freeze in surprise this time! He kisses Levris back. 

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"Being murdered for implementing democracy is very cute."

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"...That is not a term I would ever have thought to apply to it, but, I suppose I will take it. I think that I was also murdered once for attempting to spread the use of a magical printing press, although it is hard to know because I also invented some other things and wrote some books in that lifetime."  

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Does Leareth know that he needs to be kissed?

"Best lifebond!"

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Leareth had no idea before yesterday that he needs to be kissed, actually! Until just a few days ago he had no idea cuddles were this necessary either.

"For the sake of balance," he says with some reluctance, "I ought also tell you some of the reasons why the Heralds were after me." 

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"I assume you have done something terribly evil."

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"Well, I was planning to invade Valdemar in order to found an empire. They were not supposed to know about this, obviously, but then some rather blatant god-driven coincidences led to Herald Vanyel being absurdly powerful, and he was given a Foresight dream about my invasion." 

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"...I am against this plan, personally, it seems like it would involve a high chance of killing my patients. --Former patients."

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"I also disprefer it and tried all of the better plans first! It is much easier for the gods to disrupt anything that involves alliances and such using small nudges. I am sure They will try something about this plan as well, but They would have to be much more blatant, and They are not as good at that, in my experience." 

He pauses. Frowns. "...I am going to jump ahead to the next piece, but you will probably find it very alarming." 

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Levris puts his head on Leareth's shoulder. "Go ahead."

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"I am intending to create a new god, with more human-flourishing-compatible values, since the current ones are doing a very bad job there. I have spent a very long time working out the magical and, well, values-checking aspects of this plan, and a very long time failing to discover a feasible energy source other than..." he hesitates, "...other than a vast quantity of blood-magic. Which is what the large empire is needed for. Once there is a god who is on board with reincarnating people complete with their memories, I think I - well, They - can bring them back." 

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"...can I check your work."

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It's Leareth's turn to decide that Levris definitely needs to be kissed for that answer! 

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"I assume that's a yes."

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"I would be delighted." Hug. "You will need to learn a great deal of background material, but that is a significant part of what Nayoki's team is working on, so I think she would be happy to catch you up." 

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"Yeah, I'm not a mage and I know a little bit of the theory behind magic but not very much?"

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"Did you study the theory behind magic just because it was interesting?" That gets him a forehead kiss and snuggle. "I have many very detailed books on it - some are not even ones that I wrote! You would also need to know some math." 

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"Yeah. I'm also not very good at math. But I can learn."

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"I know you can. You are very smart." 

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Wiggles. "You don't know that!"

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"I feel I have significant evidence, actually! It is evident in conversation with you, especially when you were reading my book, and also you showed me your brain." 

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Intense happy wiggling. "I'm very stupid actually."

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"Oh? Is it because you are in love with me and I am very evil?" 

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"No. The gods decided that, not me. But-- I'm slow, I don't understand enough things--"

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"Really? I think you are doing very well for someone your age." He frowns. "I am sorry, I do not mean any offence by that, just - you are very young compared to me." 

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"We're probably all stupid compared to you." Levris kisses his cheek. 

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Leareth runs a hand down Levris' back. "There is knowledge and intelligence, and they are separate things. I am of the impression that you learn very quickly, which is what matters." 

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"Not quickly enough to compensate for the vast seas of ignorance I have--"

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"Then I suppose I will have to make you immortal - by a method better than the one I use - and provide you with all the rare books I have, so that you can catch up." 

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"And maybe by the time I'm a thousand years old I will be acceptably non-stupid."

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"I still wish you would omit that word from your vocabulary and use more precise ones instead, because I would claim you are already not stupid now; ignorance is a different thing." He runs his hand through Levris' hair. "Did others call you stupid, in the past?" 

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"As far as I'm concerned I spontaneously appeared as a half-trained Mindhealer at the age of seventeen."

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Leareth frowns at him. "Do you mean metaphorically, or that you literally do not remember anything before that?" 

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"Uh. Metaphorically. --I don't like thinking about it and I really don't like talking about it."

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"Oh." Squeeze. "I am sorry. I will leave it alone." If he kisses Levris some more, maybe that will distract him and make up for having brought it up? 

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Levris allows himself to be distracted!

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Leareth thinks he's covered all the most urgent explanations, and the distraction is quite enjoyable, so maybe they can do that for the next while.  

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Levris thinks this is an excellent plan.

Perhaps they can discover some things together.

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Perhaps they can!

It’s - weird, for Leareth, exploring a domain where he doesn’t, meaningfully, have two thousand years of experience. It’s pretty great, though, actually.

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It is pretty great to be an equal to his lifebonded!

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And then eventually Leareth is very tired. He doesn’t quite have a headache but it feels like one might be on its way. 

He apologizes. “I think that I need a nap.” Yawn. “You could speak with Nayoki about her research? Or go see the library, it is very good...” Leareth is suddenly very proud of his library and pleased by his past self about it; he never really thought about it that way before now. 

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Bounce bounce. "Library!"