"I'm not surprised! I'm glad you were able to get here with relatively little incident."

"It was mostly because I could come here, and expect Valdemar or at least Vanyel to be friendly. Which is entirely thanks to you." 

"You had laid some groundwork with Vanyel before I came on the scene," she points out.

"That is true. I do not remember most of our conversations very well, though. I am looking forward to having my notes again and feeling less like I have no idea what is happening." 

"Do notes jog your memory or just substitute entirely?"

"I think it is a mix of both. I usually keep two or three dozen clear memories, and then there is a lot of - blur, and I think my notes will help me make sense of that. But for anything more than a single lifetime ago, the records substitute entirely - except for some very core memories of Urtho that I make a great deal of effort to carry across each time, because that is - where I keep my sense of purpose, I suppose? Of who I am and what I am trying to accomplish in the world, and why–" Goddamnit he's crying again, this is so irritating. 

"How long is a memory - like, a day, or events of varying length, or a minute, or -"

"Events of varying length, usually more than a minute, but definitely not a full day. I remember meeting you, and I remember the dreams we had with Vanyel - and our conversation where I told you of my plan and you were horrified and trying to think of alternate power sources - that might have been more than one conversation? It is a bit fragmented." 

"I'd have to look it up."

"Anyway, I think I retain significantly more - sense of who I am, I suppose - then would naively be the case with so few explicit memories of events. But there is a great deal missing, and then I have to sort of, hmm, to check it against the written records? Make sure I am still a similar shape of person to the past self who wrote them, ensure that my goals and values have not drifted sideways by accident... It is kind of nerve-wracking every time. This is not true of most people, but - I wish to do large-scale things in the world, right, and so I am the sort of person where most random changes to who I am would make me a lot more dangerous." 

"Right." Pat pat. "Also, like, continuity of self is I think valuable to most people."

"Mmm."

This is the point at which there's a tentative knock on the door. "Now an alright time for visitors?" 

Belrun glances at Leareth to confirm, then says, "Yeah?"

Shavri comes in, Vanyel behind her. "Oh, good, you look much better. Can we talk briefly? It'll be mostly just logistics, figuring out what our plans our for the next few days." 

"All right." 

And Vanyel taps politely at her shields. :Belrun, could we talk privately for a little bit, after this?: 

:Sure, once Shavri's gone?:

:That works fine, we can talk in Mindspeech if you don't want to leave the room for it: 

Shavri sits down. "All right, Leareth, I'm guessing you'd prefer to head north fairly soon, is that right?" 

Glance at Belrun. "I think so, yes. I apologize for not being more helpful with arranging that." 

"Don't be," Shavri says gently. "You were barely lucid yesterday. We can help figure out what makes sense, here." 

:Sure:

"I assume the actual diplomats are here now and have a way to talk to the folks up north."

"Yes! They've already passed word north that he's here. It's long-range for a Gate and the mages who did the Gate yesterday are a bit tired still, but you two could Gate out tonight if you wanted. I'm not sure if there's a reason to stick around a bit longer, though?" 

"I'm not aware of one."