He tries to figure out what needs to happen.

Cayaldwin. Getting medical attention. That's fine.

Mages. Gated across, need to rest now. That's fine.

Leareth. He needs to murder Leareth and he can't think how. That's - Melody might be helpful with that, actually, she has Nayoki's Gift -

- there are probably other things but he can't think of them -

<We can talk> he says - rearranging her words is easier than coming up with his own - and he walks steadily into one of the conference rooms. 

Melody shuts the door and looks him in the eye. This feels so fraught to approach - Andalites are weird about mental instability just as much as physical disabilities, she's picked up on that, even though it makes so much sense that Matirin is incredibly traumatized right now...

Trying to handle it delicately probably isn't going to work and will also be slow. 

:You probably want my advice on actual war things, but, um, the thing I actually wanted to say first is that I'm extremely worried about you. And - I really, really think we should talk about that before you make any strategic decisions: 

That was several sentences in a row and he's not totally sure he was tracking them. He can replay them from his chip. 

<I was not injured> he says, slowly.

:That's not what I mean: Melody sits down. It might make her look less threatening, and also her feet hurt. :Something really catastrophic just happened out there, and - you're trying very hard to cope and press ahead anyway, I imagine, but. I have Mindhealing Gift. Thoughtsensing talisman doesn't block my Sight for that. And I have the very strong impression that you're - struggling a lot, right now, with the coping thing: She tilts her head a little. :...You're having trouble even processing what I'm saying to you, aren't you: 

That was, like, six sentences in a row, that's not fair. 

<This is not the first time I have had the command for a battle that went badly.>

Melody looks him in the eye and tries to be very, very calm. :Matirin, look at me. I think you need to temporarily give someone else command and then we can figure out what you need right now to be okay. Does that make sense?: 

< - yes.>

He steps out of the conference room and notifies Ashul-Isfalet-Corrill that he has the command while Matirin is occupied with a Velgarth thing and steps back in.

...All right, wow, that honestly went a lot better than she was expecting. 

There's shielding on the room. Leareth's work, maybe. Her Thoughtsensing can't get out. As private as anything, although it's a bit scary not being able to call for backup. 

:All right, we've got some privacy and some time. Can you tell me what's going on in your head right now?: She goes slowly; going by her slightly-fogged Mindhealing Sight, he's having a hard time tracking his surroundings at all right now. 

<I'm confused. I don't know why they surrendered. I don't know if I was right to stop firing or not. - never really know that kind of thing.>

:I know. I don't get it either. We'll have more information soon, I guess. My sense is that you made reasonable calls and also the order to stop firing didn't actually change any outcomes - the ship exploded less than a second later, right: 

She sits back. 

:Sorry to be blunt, but - I'm an Empath, and what I'm picking up is that you're really hurting right now. Although it might be hard to tell because you're also dissociating a lot. What's upsetting you this much?:  

<The thing where it's hard to think. That's very worrying. I am upset about it.>

Nod. :I would be upset by that too. Can I spend a bit longer looking at your mind, and help you figure out what's going on so we can fix it?: 

<Yes.>

So she looks. It's not perfectly clear but she's not going to push him to remove the Thoughtsensing talisman just yet. It seems likely to her that he's mostly going along with this on automatic because making any independent decisions is too hard, and less because he actually trusts her to poke at his mind. 

...His tapestry is made up of so many parts. It's also more complex in layout than human minds, probably that's a species difference, she hasn't studied them before. The fascinating segmented-ness to it, though, she doesn't think is an Andalite thing, she suspects it's him. 

There are also a LOT of - it almost looks like Mindhealing blocks, in there? A number of the different pattern-segments are mostly cut off, thoughts bouncing away from them, and she suspects it's been going on for a while. His thoughts are very constrained to a few pathways he can still access without bouncing away from - grief, guilt, anger, just a whole lot of trauma, she isn't sure what originally did that. Also those few pathways are under an incredible amount of metaphorical tension. He seems to be refusing to interact with his emotions even though they're, at this point, eating the vast majority of his cognition. 

...

Okay, she has a better guess, what in all hells is she supposed to do about this mess. 

:Can I bounce my Sight to you with Mindspeech?: she asks him. It's really hard for her do that with non-Mindspeakers but hopefully the Andalites' thoughtspeak will count. 

He has no idea what she means by that at all. <That sounds good.>

Probably not the clearest explanation. :I'm going to show you a sort of semi-metaphorical picture of what your mind looks like, right now. Unfortunately I don't have a baseline for comparison or anything: 

She does this. Waits to see how he's going to react. She's half predicting it'll be with blank incomprehension. 

Yep. 

It's very visually complicated. He doesn't know what it's a metaphor for. 

<I have not tried morphing off - damage that came about in some fashion other than physical injury. I should try that, maybe.>

:...I am kind of doubting that'll work, but I don't know exactly how morphing functions, so you might as well try. It'll just take a few minutes, right?: 

<Yes.> He morphs another Andalite, it's the least exhausting morph, and then back.

He doesn't feel different. Maybe slightly less - wound very tightly around a fraying piece of wire, the aftermath of adrenaline from the battle. But not different about the thing that's the problem here, the thing where he is having trouble thinking clearly. 

<Can you explain your metaphor vision.>

She can see that he's calmer and that's helpful, if only a little bit. 

:Here, let me show you a simplified version: The conference rooms have pen and paper around, now, from the human mages' research earlier, and she grabs some and sketches a very rough outline of his tapestry. :These are some parts of your mind. Different areas of your thinking. Did you notice how a lot of them are kind of blocked off right now?: 

<Yes. I am having trouble thinking clearly.>

:I think we have to get you more able to access those bits of you. I'm not all the way in your head, I'm just looking at a metaphor for it, so I can't tell you exactly what's causing this. It's probably related to, er, everything that happened in the last twelve candlemarks, and it's almost certainly reversible, but it might take a while to go away on its own: 

She hesitates. :- Or I could use the kind of magic I have to unblock it some, which might be faster. Do you want me to try that: This is an extremely dubious plan and she's never treated an Andalite before but she has no idea what to do about this, and her patient is not exactly in a place to be helpful. 

<Yes> he says immediately.

She takes a deep breath.

Pauses. :...Um, would you mind morphing human for me, first? It'll make this easier for me: This is not quite a lie. She's implying it'll make her Sight easier, which is false, it'll make it a bit harder, but it will also mean that if forcing him to stop dissociating makes him instantly very suicidal, he won't actually be able to kill himself in the first tenth of a second before she can react. 

<I can do that.> Morphing twice in quick succession is tiring but an advantage of not feeling things is that you don't feel tired.