:They are confusing: Sigh. :...I feel some desire to speak with Alloran, to hear his perspective on events and on Mhalir - I am sure it is not an unbiased one, but Mhalir is going to be biased in his own favour. He might not wish to speak to me, though, and also I am reluctant to go to Haven given that multiple gods have strong influence there. Vanyel built a Heartstone, which gives the Star-Eyed Goddess a foothold even though it is not primarily Her territory: 

<I can send him north, if you think it would be valuable. He is very damaged but wants to help with the war effort.> Sigh. <The peace effort. Whatever it is we're doing.>

:I think it can wait:

Sigh. He wants - something - he wants it the way a thirsty person wants water, except he doesn't know what it is. Maybe just for this not to be what's happening, but that's not something he can have. Not with any amount of power and magic and cleverness. 

- hug?

Leareth is startled, he didn't realize Andalites did that, but - yes, hug.

He thinks it helps, somehow, even though nothing else about the rest of the situation is even a tiny bit different. 

Andalites mostly don't but humans do, he's seen them at it. And Leareth looked so sad and tired.

Leareth isn't sure why everything is still affecting him this much. He feels much less traumatized, now; he's barely jumpy at all and even the thought of going down on Earth with his Gifts blocked, if for some reason that becomes strategic, doesn't induce much internal screaming at all. He's just - sad, in a bottomless pervasive way that doesn't make it hard to think, exactly, but makes it hard to - feel like the future can ever be rebuilt to be okay. Which isn't at all a way that Leareth usually feels, but, well, he's never inherited a situation with quite this much damage to be repaired, of so many varieties. 

He's not going to walk away from it, though.

:Thank you: he sends, eventually. The rest of his thoughts feel too complicated and messy to put into words. 

<I rather think I should thank you. It - seems that if history was to repeat itself I would have destroyed the world, and pointlessly.>

:Mmm. If Mhalir's life had continued analogously to mine a long time ago, you mean?: 

<Yes.> He has perhaps been thinking too much about this.

:I keep having very pointless nightmares where everyone on Earth dies and somehow it is because of Urtho's Tower and it is all very confusingly blended. But, that is not what happened here, and it is not going to happen: 

<It is not. Once everything is public and settled we can dismantle the means to do it, even.>

Well, that's a relief. :Good. ...The human leaders are probably all being freed right now. You had wanted to meet with them first before the public announcement is made?: 

<Yes. I don't really know what sort of state they'll be in but I want to get off on the best h-foot we can and get them apprised of what we're about to be announcing, if I were a world leader I would really want a warning about that. And maybe they will poke some holes in my first attempt at spinning everything, which we can then fix before we put it on all the television channels.>

:That makes sense. Do you want me to be there for it?: 

<I think so. As a representative of Leareth.> That last bit is half teasing but only half.

He chuckles, halfheartedly. :I can do that, then: 

Elsewhere a long way away, in Haven, a very small human child (about age six, by the looks of it) has escaped her governess' supervision and is marching in the direction of Companions' Field. 

...Ooh, that definitely looks like an alien! It's so pretty and blue-purple and furry, and like a horse-person except with a long swoopy tail that has a sharp axe-thing on the end of it. Jisa breaks into a run.

"- Hi! Are you the alien who's visiting here? My name is Jisa, what's your name?" 

<I am Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. I am staying among your people for a little while. Are you supposed to be out here?>

"Ooh, you have Mindspeech. I'm allowed to be out here if I want to." 

Jisa is absolutely reading him with Thoughtsensing and Empathy, it's not her fault it's just really really hard to shield all the time. Mama says it's easy but she doesn't understand that actually it's HARD when you're six. 

He is thinking that his daughter was about that age when he last saw her and he's SO SAD AND ANGRY about that and that he does not at all believe her that she is supposed to be out here but he does not know the local customs for correction of children and it's kind of overwhelming to try to think through the steps of doing anything about this situation anyway. 

<Long ago my people spoke only with our hands, and then legend had it that a god came to walk among us, and he had the habit of speaking mind-to-mind, and gave it to us.>

Oh no he's so sad and angry, it's very loud and it makes her shoulders turtle in a bit until she remembers to centre and ground and try to shield a bit more. "Oh wow. What are your gods like? One of our gods made Companions and a different one told the Tayledras how to clean up the Pelagirs, my Uncle Van is best friends with them so he knows their secret magic even though it's a secret." 

<Our legends have it that once a very long time ago he was a man, but then he grew and kept growing and now he is something that cannot be comprehended. - the time when he gave us thoughtspeech was from when he was more possible to comprehend.>

Jisa's eyes go big. "Is he still growing? Now?" 

<I assume so but I do not know because it is not as if we would have any way to tell.>