Human.

:Thank you: Melody relaxes a tiny bit. :All right, here goes. This - is probably going to feel like something but I'm not sure what. Keep talking to me, all right?: 

And she goes in with her Gift - a tiny bit clumsily, around the stupid Thoughtsensing amulet's blurring effect, but this isn't exactly delicate work - and gets her mental hands onto the fan of threads that's doing the heaviest lifting in terms of keeping his emotions separated off from his so-tightly-constrained thread of actual thought and subjective experience, and - holds her breath - pulls them out of the way.

Well that is horrible! It feels - actually painful, like he's under attack, and Mindhealing can do that and he doesn't know how to check that she didn't do something awful but he can't think about that right now - he's not actually sure he can think any more clearly but it's a different kind of unclear, like right now the problem is that he's - sobbing and whimpering and shaking, which are presumably the human physical correlates for the feeling, which he's having trouble putting words to -

- the feeling is that he has already lost everything he ever cared about and only duty is holding the pieces of him to the task in front of him and even if he wins it'll - matter for the world, but not for him, everything that mattered to him is gone. Which seems like the kind of thing that shouldn't be a feeling, since it contains several claims about reality, but there you go. Oh also he's lonely. Achingly, exhaustingly, miserably lonely, he has no one to talk to - and it would be really stupid to try, because then he would have to send them to their death, exactly like every single other person he has ever felt close with except the one he can't speak to for a year for information security reasons - this is also stupid but at least it counts as an emotion, unlike the doom prediction thing -

- he got it wrong, didn't he, pulling Cayaldwin back off the ship, he thought he was doing the more reversible thing given uncertainty but maybe he was just scared that Cayaldwin would die, a feeling that has no business being in him, a feeling that five billion people do not deserve to have determine some corner of their fate -

Oof that was not the most comfortable moment to have her Receptive Empathy all the way wide open. 

That...is in some sense an improvement, his mind is way less contorted into bizarre knots around itself and more - the way she expects someone to look when they've just dealt with way more than they have the capacity to cope with, and now have time to breathe and feel it. Melody has way too much of a sense of what he's feeling, and no idea what he's thinking. She gives him thirty seconds and feels very bad about it but he's not human and probably offering him a hug isn't going to help. 

:Matirin: she sends eventually. He's still sobbing and shaking but she gets the sense he's going to do that for a while. :Can you tell me what's going on?: 

<I am not sure that this successfully improved my ability to think clearly. I think I am thinking thoughts that have more components but I have less control over which thoughts they are, which is also an important element of thinking clearly.>

:My read is that you're having a lot of very normal reactions to - the kind of situation people shouldn't ever have to deal with. You lost people, you made hard choices under a lot of pressure - you're grieving, that's really normal. And you're going to cope but you need a bit of time to do that: 

<We should get the Dome ship in the air. It'll take some time to get to Earth from here, travelling long distances in hyperspace still involves travelling in it.>

:Probably, but you put someone else in command because you aren't thinking very well right now. I'm sure they're not stupid and have thought of that. I can stick my head out the door and ask if you want, though: 

<They might be assuming that whatever Velgarth thing I needed requires staying here, so I should clarify that it does not.> He is still shaking and sobbing. <Perhaps you should? I think my control of this morph is much worse than I thought.>

:I'll do that. And - is there anyone else, who you know better than me, who you might find helpful to have around while you're really upset? Humans having the kind of emotions I'm feeling from you generally benefit from having a friend there: 

<Everybody I have ever cared about is dead or - gone. - Cayaldwin is not but he is in the medical bay with serious injuries and also I expect would find it distressing to see me like this.>

:...I'm sorry. I agree we shouldn't drag Cayaldwin in here or you over there, right now: A flicker of an idea. :I know you don't know Van or Yfandes that well, but they're here, and - Companions and Andalites seem to have some things in common, I think she might get it better than I do. Also she's very snuggly. But I'd also understand if you preferred privacy instead: 

<I don't ever like being alone.> A jolt of a dozen different emotions which are also all deeply unpleasant, who would have guessed there was such variety of deeply unpleasant emotions.

:I'm not going anywhere. Do you also want me to ask Van or Yfandes or both of them to come here: 

<I am having trouble thinking through the strategic implications.>

:I'm not sure there are strategic implications, but I'm not the strategy person. Vanyel isn't going to tell anyone else about your, er, current state and he won't think worse of you for it. Yfandes even more so. I won't tell anyone I asked them in or why. Can you set aside the strategic implications part and just think about whether it'll help you, personally, feel less lonely right now?: 

<If nothing else whether I recover quickly is a strategic implication> he says, maybe slightly impatiently.

Melody does not ask 'are all Andalites like this' in a frustrated tone because it won't help. :I'm going to take that as a yes. I'll pass on your suggestion to - Ashul, right? And ask the two of them to come over to this room, which has shields on it: 

She gets up and heads for the door, slowly, in case he wants to object. 

He does not object. 

She does that. 

Vanyel has been pacing around getting slightly more in the way of confused updates from various people, and trying not to panic at the fact that they've lost Leareth, stay in control, they need him - it's possible Leareth needs him...

He's confused by Melody's polite, neutral summons, but answers it promptly, heading in with Yfandes. 

- and stops inside, because: what. Instinctively opens his Receptive Empathy even though he's quite possibly about to regret that life choice. 

Matirin is in human morph and also in agonizing emotional pain that he has no experience at all coping with and is mostly kind of wandering through confusedly. 

His mind-voice sounds almost normal, though. <Hello. Melody thought it might be helpful for you and Yfandes to stay here. I am not sure if this will prove true but it seems inexpensive to test.>

Oh gods what is Melody dragging him into now.

:I heard you had a really, really bad day over there: he sends. :Do you, um. Want a hug or something: 

<I am not sure. I had thought I had this morph figured out but it's behaving really weirdly. If that's the kind of thing known to help then I think I want to try most things known to help, this is a very bad time to be distracted.>

:Um, it's known to help humans. I know, it's really annoying how - human bodies do that when you're really upset about something...: Vanyel is somehow doubting this is a morph control issue, exactly, but maybe Andalites don't cry and that would be really confusing to experience all of a sudden on top of the emotions themselves. 

He approaches Matirin, moving slowly, and hugs him. Oh gods what is he supposed to say. He should think of something and say it. :I'm - sorry everything is so terrible. But - you're not alone. Whatever your people need, we're going to help: