He nods. "I don't think it was good for him, but it's not - fair, to ask him to do anything else if we can't keep him safe - and I thought I could, and I couldn't -"

"Maybe we'd have to get better at the thing he does. Be five steps ahead, at least, so - so he only has to do five, and we meet him in the middle... I don't know. It seems really hard." 

"I mean, there are other advantages to being five steps ahead. But I think if I did it specifically for Leareth he'd feel weird about that, it'd be a - claim to intimacy when - you two have been friends for ten years, I met him a month ago."

"...I mean, sure, but he gets along with you really well? I thought you'd noticed that, I think it's why he was more able to be relaxed here. He really likes talking to you. At least I'm pretty sure. Having known him for ten years, I think I can somewhat tell." 

"Right, he does, but - I can just make people like me. Not with magic, I don't even need magic. And I think maybe I shouldn't've done that to Leareth, if I can't even keep him from being horribly murdered in my own home."

"Maybe? I don't know. Either way, I - maybe you shouldn't have done it but you did and - honestly I think you owe it to him to talk to him about - that. He doesn't suddenly hate you now or anything, he's just - really sad and scared." Vanyel hates it so much. Neither of those words should go with Leareth and especially not both at once. 

"I want to talk to him but I worry about doubling down on it, I don't know how to not make him like me more - I'm not very good at not making people like me, it feels like the kind of thing that - this all sounds very stupid when I say it -"

"It makes sense to me? As a thing to be worried about. But - I don't know, maybe you should point out to Leareth that this is a pattern about you, and he can decide how much he wants to compensate for it? I think he's pretty good at deciding how he wants to feel about something and then just - feeling that way." Vanyel is honestly so jealous. 

"- I'll try. And I'll make sure he's all right, today. I'm sorry to be leaving you in such an awkward situation." He gestures vaguely at them.

"I'll manage. I think it's even more awkward for them, I can't imagine... Anyway." He shuffles his feet. "Thank you for raising them, and being willing to send them back to Velgarth. They ar– they were my friends, and - I still don't want them dead. Or in Hell." 

"No one should be in Hell. Or stop existing. But I wish they - 

- it's stupid to go into an interrogation hoping you'll get emotional satisfaction out of it." Shrug. "I hope they're happy, in Velgarth."

Vanyel nods. He has a lot of wishes and they’re equally pointless. He wonders if the Star-Eyed ever expected to get them back alive.

”I hope so too,” is all he says out loud. “Er, see you tomorrow I guess.”

"Is Savil staying with you or Plane Shifting out with us?"

He looks over at her, sitting next to Starwind and Moondance in the lush meadow. "Think she's staying with me." 

"All right." 

And he takes Aroden's hand and Plane Shifts them back to the Material Plane and then Word of Recalls them from where they land in the desert to the temple of Abadar near the Dome in Sothis. 

Aroden thanks him. He seems a little curious about Khemet’s conversation with Vanyel, but doesn’t ask. “I am returning to Cheliax now but I will likely be back again tonight, if that is all right.”

"Certainly. I might take Leareth to Aktun but I'd expect we'll be back by then."

Aroden nods approvingly at this plan. “We shall speak again later, then.”

He Teleports out.

He goes into the Dome and talks to his husband for about an hour. 

Then he goes looking for Leareth.

Leareth is in the library again, reading about economics. To anyone else, his expression and body language would probably look relaxed and neutral. 

"We spoke to Starwind and Moondance. We didn't learn much of anything new. 

Will you come to Aktun with me? We'll be safe there; it's Abadar's divine realm. I'm allowed to go without my security."

Leareth was watching with scrying for part of it, but stopped after Aroden's questioning ended, because it had really seemed like there wasn't anything new and because it was - weirdly upsetting, mostly the part where Vanyel was so visibly distressed and awkward about it. He's realizing that one of Vanyel's decade-long friendships is alongside the other collateral damage of the Star-Eyed's hatred for him, and - it seems unfair.

He's a little surprised by the offer, but nods, smiling faintly. "Of course." 

So he walks back out of the Dome with him, Plane Shifts them, lands in the enormous vaulted room where the trolley lines come through. It's full of people. The local population of Aktun is only about a quarter humans; among those waiting for the trolleys are gnomes and dwarves and dragons and drow and crystalline sparkling machine-people and blueskinned, bipedal aliens ten feet tall with too many eyes, and clouds of glowing metallic dust which Leareth's thoughtsensing nonetheless informs him are people.

It's incredible. Leareth lets go of Khemet's hand after the Plane Shift and just stares around for a full minute, absorbing it. 

"What are all of the species?" he asks eventually, looking over in particular at the glowing metallic dust. "Are some of them the outsiders here?" 

"Yes. The ones that look like clouds of dust are axiomites, they're Axis's outsiders - like archons and angels in Heaven, or devils in Hell. Some of the metal people are also axiomites, they can shapeshift and generally give us something to work off, out of politeness, when they're talking to us.  The other metal people are called aphorites, the axiomates made them to be more psychologically similar to us to simplify trade. They come across as - not outside the space of humans, when you talk to them, if weird and foreign ones. That -" he points at a machine person - "is called an inevitable; they are also a created species, designed to defend Axis against extraplanar incursions. The blue ones are called mercanes. They're an evolved species like humans, but from another world, and the ones we've met are merchants who travel the planes arbitraging magic items. There's a couple million of them in Axis, mostly in their own districts - other species cluster and humans sometimes even cluster by ethnicity, people like familiar things -"