"The thing I said to Vanyel was that you tried, uh, having allies, trusting people, expecting that there was a way to be safe other than being ten steps ahead of everybody at all times, and they figured out your immortality method while you stood there working on helping them with magic and then severed it and murdered you and -

- I don't want you to have to be ten steps ahead of everybody else all the time! But we don't - we don't know how to ask you not to do that, if we can't actually keep you safe -"

Leareth tries to say something, and - fails, because suddenly all the emotions from earlier are hitting him again in overwhelming force, and he's remembering how he hadn't even realized until it was gone how...restful, it was, not needing to at every moment be on the lookout for betrayal. 

He scoots across the couch and hugs him. 

"I wanted to give you that. I wanted so badly to give you that. And - I'm so angry that I couldn't."

This is definitely the most unexpected hug Leareth has ever received, and he freezes for a few seconds, and then - well, if he's not safe here, in Abadar's divine realm - Abadar, who had a strong enough claim on him to have held off the Star-Eyed, who is going to retaliate, who was smug about that...

He relaxes, the first time since coming back that he's let himself relax fully, and then inevitably the thing that happens is that he starts crying again. Which is really inconvenient because he wants to say things and he still can't Mindspeak the pharaoh. 

He holds him and doesn't say anything.

He's going to have to un-relax eventually - someday - but right now all Leareth is aware of is that he was in pain, and he wasn't even able to notice it properly when he was holding himself on alert, he could only look at it head-on once it eased. 

"I - thought it was unfair," he says finally, without moving. "To - ask that of you - to be paranoid enough to - hold off all of the enemies I have made in two thousand years. I - apologized to Abadar. For, for failing to be on good terms with the gods of Velgarth, I - am sure - it is inconvenient for Him..." 

"I would have expected you of all people to have noticed that everything is unfair - and we - gods, there's not a single person in my country where I think I'm asking them for a fair thing that won't hurt too badly -"

Leareth is kind of shaking again. "I have not failed to notice. I - try not to ask others to - take on too much unfairness on my behalf. Because generally they will not succeed." 

"I thought I could!! I thought I had - enough - I thought Abadar had enough - I'm mad at Him though He thinks I'm confused and probably won't be mad at Him once I'm not - and I'm so angry with them, I wanted to torture them to death which is not something I have ever wanted before - I'm so frustrated and I want - Vanyel thought maybe we could learn to do half of it, meet you halfway there, take some of the burden off, and maybe we can do that but it's so infuriating, I want all of it, I want you to be safe with me like you are here..."

It's making Leareth feel some sort of emotion that he has no idea how to name. "I - am confused - I tried to ask Abadar but I do not think it is the shape of question He understands... Why do you want that...?" 

"Oh! I was confused about that too, until this morning when Vanyel told me I was being an idiot and I realized there's exactly one category of social interaction I'm vulnerable to being an idiot about. I have romantic feelings about you. I don't think we should do anything about them but it's annoying being confused and it's probably similarly annoying for you, because I think you do, too, and were missing them for all of the same reasons."

"...Really?" He's certainly been very confused about something but Leareth would not in a thousand years have named it as that. "I - I had not thought that was - a shape of feeling I could have..." 

"Well, I can't read your mind, but the thing that's been bothering me all week is - a sense that something is terribly wrong if there's distance between us even if it's of a kind that objectively doesn't get in the ways of our goals much if at all, and that it's more satisfying to accomplish things if you specifically will be impressed by them even if they're not things I need you for, and a bunch of other things in that genre where I was assigning salience weirdly, and then I was so incredibly thrown off by your murder and am still so upset about it, and so that's what's going on on my end, at least, and usually what is going on when I'm as confused about an interpersonal thing as I've been lately."

Actually, that does seem to make more sense of some of what he's been feeling. Leareth closes his eyes, his head still resting on Khemet's shoulder.

"I - I was feeling as though I had lost something so precious, with this happening, that was related to how you were around me, I could not figure out what it was. Just - you were happy before and then you were - not - and it did not seem I ought have much right to have opinions about that but it bothered me so much. And I - wanted you to talk to me but it felt unreasonable to - place more demands on your time... I was very pleased when you asked me to come here." 

"I felt like - I'd promised you something and if I couldn't do it, then I had no right to - try to make you believe that I could - if liking me was going to be a disadvantage then I shouldn't try to - and  making you like me is very tempting and very challenging and very satisfying and feels so intrinsically worthwhile, but none of that is for reasons that are related to whether I can keep you safe -

Vanyel said that whether or not I should have made you like me I did, and I was just going to hurt you if I tried to back off on it now. Which - isn't want I wanted at all - but I also want you to hold out for somewhere where you'll actually feel safe and be right about it -"

"I do like you. It - hurt, when it felt like there had to be distance between us." Noticing that explicitly is clarifying some of the pain he's been in, recently, and why it's better now; it's not just the fear and feeling unsafe, or the grief and anger with himself at losing his immortality setup after eighteen hundred goddamned years of being careful enough. "I - do not think we need to lose that, I think that is a separate thing from - whether I expect to be safe in your palace. But–" and this part does still ache, "but I do want - that - I had not realized until now how badly." 

"Couldn't've happened in the Dome, summoning doesn't work and also we ask everyone who enters to confirm under a truth spell that they don't intend to harm anyone while they're there. I could've used the Dome for operations, it just - it just would have made it harder to make you feel at ease in the first place and I guess I prioritized that over actually keeping you safe."

"That makes sense."

Leareth shifts a little, lifts his head so he can look Khemet in the eye. It continues to be weirdly hard to talk about what he's feeling here, but he pushes through.

"It - would have made it harder at first, I think, when I was not sure if you were on my - our - side, and so being less able to operate on my own there was uncomfortable. I - think that need not be true, now. You have given some very emphatic and costly indications that you are aligned with my goals and - that you care about me, as an individual, which is - not even something I would have been tracking, before." 

- nod. "Then I think we should operate from the Dome. And I will tell Abadar that even if His usual decision procedures allow for one assassination in the palace per two centuries because this is a perfectly reasonable rate of assassinations, I am a fragile human with fragile human emotional needs and cannot handle another one in the next decade and He should adjust accordingly. And the magical researchers can teach you how to cast through the distortion, it's possible, just takes some practice."

"That is a reasonable plan, I think." Leareth puts his head back down on Khemet's shoulder. For some reason he feels suddenly exhausted again, not physically but in some other way. "It - is not in fact irretrievable or even that costly if I am assassinated again, as long as I can be resurrected, but - I am nonetheless unreasonable scared of this happening." Every time he thinks about it, it feels like the ground sliding out from under his feet. "I think I am still very shaken about what happened, especially losing the immortality setup after all this time. I will probably be more reasonable and calm about it in a week's time." 

Hug. "I am not sure that being very distressed about it is unreasonable! But giving it time makes sense. And ...it seems possible that retaliating will help your mood. I think it will help mine."

"Perhaps. I think to the extent it makes it less likely that this will ever happen again, it will help a great deal." He's shivering again, though. "I - think - right now it is not harming my goals to be very sad, and - I am very glad you are here. Parmida thought I was underhugged and perhaps she had a point." 

"I'm surprised Aroden made - having a wife - work for that. I can't seem to, quite. But - I'm glad I can be here." Hug.

Hug. 

"They are both very convinced I need a wife. Though it - does seem hard to replicate the thing that they have. I am not sure how Aroden did it." 

"I selected really aggressively! All of my wives are exceptionally intelligent and capable people. And I still don't have - that. I don't know why not."