"Unless I found a better method in the next seventy to a hundred years, I was going to kill ten million people for blood-power. I thought it - more likely than not, but - not certain, that with a helpful god we could reincarnate them afterward." 

"Reincarnate?"

"Oh, right, we have not even covered that. It would not come up in Fairyland. Here, people have souls, which can exist independently from their bodies and still exist after their death. Souls can come back again as different people. In most cases they begin again as infants and remember nothing, which - does not really count - but in Valdemar, to the south, a god once created a miraculous government system and the souls of past humans, with their human skills and faculties and at least some of their memories, are placed in the bodies of horses. It is - not entirely dissimilar to how I come back when I die. Except, of course, with a god's cooperation they could be given new bodies rather than...what I did." 

"Okay.

Sorcery can de-age people. I don't know how to do it but I know it's a thing."

"That...would help this world immensely. You can learn new sorcery from books, yes?" 

"Yes, if I find a library I should be able to get a book on how."

Leareth takes a slow breath, lets it out. "Is this - overall project - something you are interested in helping with." 

"I mean, I don't want people to die? I don't know about the god thing, I don't have a lot of intuitions about making people exist since I just happened and also I don't know if I'd understand your spec."

"That makes perfect sense. I - am really not in a hurry with that aspect. I would like to check thoroughly if there are ways to render it unnecessary - if, for example, I can negotiate with the gods via you - and if not, I want to take another fifty or a hundred years. And solve some of the stupid problems in the meantime, of course, if you are willing to help."

He seems - it's hard to read exactly what the expression in his eyes is, and the rest of his face is as composed as ever, but there's - admiration, surprise, hope, maybe something else less legible. 

"I can find a Valley Continent library with some looking and get a book on de-aging mortals."

"Thank you. We will, of course, help however we can." 

"Thanks. It seems like I was pretty lucky to land on you."

"...It seems so, yes. I would - perhaps apologize, for being someone the gods have a grievance with, but in fact I think you would have attracted Their attention as soon as you accidentally learned a name, and - most people who are not me lack the resources to fend off an attack even as well as we did." Sigh. 

"It could have gotten unpleasant," she agrees. "Though I guess it might have been lower-casualty, strictly speaking."

"If they had - not killed you, but destroyed your body, I suppose - what would actually have happened?" 

"I don't know, Thorn didn't keep going after I lost consciousness."

Leareth grimaces slightly, which is just about the most expressive he's ever been in her presence. He seems to be thinking about whether to say something, looking past her...

"- Sunspring thinks she can make people forget names," is what comes out. 

"I think fairies remember names differently. Even fairies?"

"She would have to test it to know for sure. But - she can see fairy minds, her Gift should work on them. She thought she could remove the bindings Thorn put on you, it would just have taken much much longer and been somewhat risky." 

"Risky how?"

"It showed up to her like set-commands - that is what she did to you when she was compulsioned by the Ifteli army. She knows how to safely remove set-commands on humans done by a Mindhealer, but someone with her Gift and lacking training could accidentally cause damage if trying to do so. Mindhealing is very powerful and general-purpose," his lips twitch slightly, "people consider it as a Gift for healing emotional rather than physical wounds, and it is that, but it can also be an offensive combat Gift, just as ordinary Healing can. Sunspring is well trained and careful, but since fairy commands are presumably not exactly like set-commands, she would have been improvising."

He shrugs slightly. "Disrupting memories does involve damaging a person's mind. That is almost the point, it is very precise and controlled damage of just one specific thing. For that reason, though, she would not have any qualms about doing it to Thorn but would be reluctant to test it on you." 

"There goes my idea, then."

"It is possible she can test it safely with enough study time in advance, but - I do not especially want to gamble that and risk harming you in some hard-to-repair way. My tentative idea had been to attempt to kidnap someone from Thorn's court - ideally someone much less powerful than him, but who is as unpleasant as him, such that removing all their memories of names will - improve your world overall. We can station a Farseer concealed a hundred miles away to spy undetectably on the court, that part is fairly safe. The second part would of course alert Thorn that something is happening, which I understand you wish to avoid right now." 

Nod nod.

Sigh. "Well, we can set it aside for now, and perhaps figure something out. But - I do not wish to allow Thorn to continue having power in Fairyland. It is a state of affairs I disprefer." He says it neutrally, but his eyes hold a flash of anger.