Huh. Leareth hadn't known this was the plan. Makes sense. 

He looks up at the sky. Familiar, but it's - not home, home means safe and he isn't, in this world, and he doesn't have magic. 

He stays mostly calm about this fact, but it's taking a lot of willpower. 

Emril is milling around asking everyone how they're doing and if they need food or water, thanking the Adept who Gated them here, reaching out with her Mindspeech to ask those Andalites nearby what's supposed to happen now. 

They're going to get some Mindhealers over to fix everyone's compulsions and Gift shutdown and other precautions, it shouldn't be too long.

Leareth should probably be doing something helpful but for some reason everything is feeling very hard right now. Probably it's the lack of Gifts and general feeling of overwhelming helplessness. Also he's kind of having an adrenaline crash, now that it's over and they seem to have - done it...?

Emril is watching Alloran kind of worriedly. She's sad about him and concerned the other Andalites aren't going to be helpful at all. 

The Andalites have huddled together in a tight circle on the grass and mostly aren't speaking. Alloran is worrying that he's forgotten how to move his body and is trying to move it a bit to check without being conspicious. He's pretty sure he'd lose a tail-fight very very badly and that feels simultaneously important to fix and impossible to try to fix.

He doesn't, exactly, want to die but he doesn't really remember wanting anything else.

After a while, when nothing explodes, and a couple more Thoughtsensers have read thoughts and determined that no one is secretly turned to the Yeerks' side and planning to betray them, one of Leareth's mages who stayed behind when the Dome ship left uses the communications spell to contact Nayoki. He lets her know that they have the prisoners and can they please get Mindhealers over, like, now? 

Nayoki passes this on to both Melody and Matirin. 

Damn this means, presumably, being in a different place from Matirin, which doesn't seem ideal. Melody has a peek at his mind and emotions again. 

He's scanning news from Earth, especially human media about the publicly-known events of the last day. They detected the destruction of the Blade ship. Speculation is rampant. He's operating in a corner of his brain that's not full of minefields. He's stressed and sad in the background; he knows which people they got back, now, which means he knows which ones they didn't.

At least he's not blocking out all his emotions again. 

:Matirin: she sends, as Nayoki grabs another mage to Gate them back to Velgarth. :I'm headed over to see the prisoners. Wanted to check in with you first since I could be gone awhile. Scale of one to ten, how well can you think right now?: 

<Nine.>

He didn't spend very long thinking about that or stopping to check, but Melody doesn't feel in the mood to argue about it right now. :Good. Er, if something happens and that goes below, hmm, five, please have someone send a message to me. If you start feeling numb again, I think you should take a five-minute break and try describing to yourself in words what emotions are in the background. Are you on board with that?: 

<I will keep in mind that if I do not do that something worse might happen and take your recommendation very seriously.>

:Thank you: 

And Melody follows Nayoki through the Gate back to Velgarth. 

Nayoki spends fifteen seconds taking in the gestalt of the full group of Andalites-plus-humans, and then goes straight to Leareth.

He looks fairly calm, though very tired. He's sitting on the grass looking at nothing in particular. 

"- Nayoki. Can you please fix the set-command, I would like my Gifts back." 

She kneels, looking into his eyes. "Yes, of course, just a moment." Peek at his mind. ...Well, that could be worse. She gets to work. 

:I want you to speak a little to Melody about how you are feeling: she says while she does so. 

It's kind of distracting trying to listen to her when also his entire visual field and/or the inside of his head feel like they're melting, Leareth thinks with irritation. And he still can't answer in Mindspeech. "Why?" 

:Because you had an unusually horrible day and are probably somewhat traumatized about it: 

"Trust me, I had not failed to notice."

:Matirin wants everyone who was captured to take mandatory leave, but I am somewhat concerned you will refuse to do that: 

Sigh. Now he has Mindspeech again, though, that's so much better. :Nayoki, I need to go back to Earth as soon as possible, and I need to speak with Matirin directly about my interactions with Mhalir. After that I would be delighted to take some leave, I am very tired, but - things are delicate right now and the stakes are very high: 

She doesn't answer right away, just finishes removing the set-command and then undoes the suicide-compulsion, phew, dealt with. 

:I know. Talk to Melody about the considerations, all right? We can see what she says: 

She reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, briefly, and then heads to the next person. 

Melody spends a bit of time also picking out glued-on set-commands in parallel, these people have had a bad enough day, they shouldn't have to spend any longer than necessary also Gift-less. 

Then she heads for the Andalites, turning her Sight on those minds, trying to do some very rapid mental triage for who she's going to talk to first.