<Thank you. - aside from that I am very eager to return home. I think there is a lot of valuable work to be done and it will be - good to see what my people can be when we are not at war.>

<I am glad. I have to say, I feel quite excited to - see what you are like at home, doing your favourite thing which is politics, and not in a wartime situation.> 

<I expect you will find it very boring, it is mostly just talking to people!>

<Yes, but if you are happy doing it then I will appreciate seeing that, I think.> 

<I will have lots of fun.>

Leareth waves his tail, in the way that's roughly equivalent to a human shaking their head in amusement. <I am not sure I will ever understand how you find it so interesting and fun, but it is endearing. And I will get to take classes on planar mathematics, which I expect to find delightful, so we can both do the things we find fun.> 

<I will look forward to it.>

Leareth goes to track down Vanyel and ask if he'd be willing to accompany them and prepare a last-minute talk to give on the Web. 

Vanyel is where he's often found, in a little garden with benches set up for the humans, which he's now kind of taken over as his secondary office; he likes to be outside, especially since when he's stuck he'll often morph a bird on the spot and fly around. The little side table by the lounge-chair is half covered with his books and notes. 

He gets up, smiling. "Leareth!" 

Leareth smiles back, and poses his question. 

"Ooh. Hmm. I'd definitely like to. I should probably contact Savil with the interworld comms spell to get permission from Randi, though - she finally picked it up, thank the gods, Nayoki met with her up north to tutor her about it." He frowns slightly. "Also, er, sorry. I think I might've lost the book you lent me." 

Vanyel has a habit of leaving his books all over the place, which Leareth hasn't particularly pushed back on, he just makes sure to lend Vanyel copies he's not especially attached to, and it's not like any of what he's been lending Vanyel is very secret or sensitive. "Oh - which one?" 

"Um, the one about shielding techniques. I might've left it in the big apple tree, I climbed it and read up there for a bit last week." 

"You read in a tree?" Leareth says, a little dubiously. "That sounds risky." 

"I was in morph. Vervet monkey. Their vision is fine for reading and it's really fun climbing as one." 

That's kind of adorable. "Well, maybe avoid reading in trees again, if you might leave your things there. I can have another copy made if you wish." 

"No rush, it was just general background reading. Er, what time are we leaving tomorrow?" 

They discuss logistics, Vanyel comms-spells with Savil and gets permission from his chain of command, and then Leareth thoughtspeaks Matirin to confirm that Vanyel is willing to come, and heads off to join the Andalite herd for the night. 

The Andalites sleep. Matirin is tense about Alloran, has a rotation of people awake to keep an eye on him. He seems really happy to be sleeping in an Andalite herd again. He does not sneak off in the middle of the night.

Leareth is less tense because he was able to sneakily put up some wards that will alert him loudly if Alloran in particular leaves the herd in the middle of the night; it's not very notable, he always puts wards in the vicinity of where he's sleeping, it's instinct at this point. 

He sleeps reasonably well, and in the morning quickly demorphs and heads to his mostly-unused room in human form to finish packing, and then tracks down Vanyel and heads over to join Matirin. 

He is gathering the Andalites who'll be going back to the homeworld, and tail-waves at Leareth. <Ready?>

<Ready.> They'll need to Gate from Saturn, again, though he'd prefer to do the regular kind directly to the surface of the planet rather than squeeze an entire ship across, he's just not sure if they need the ship for some reason. 

They do not! It wouldn't be particularly appreciated, even. They can take the ship out to near Saturn's orbit and then prepare to walk through quickly.

That's very straightforward, then! Leareth spends the ride out talking to Vanyel about magic, and once they arrive he can do a quick uneventful Gate to the surface of the Andalite homeworld, he's been there before and done the Gate-routing many times and gotten it very efficient.

Vanyel has some drugs he's supposed to take before the Gate-crossing, since he's not finished his program for desensitizing himself. He also has relaxation exercises, which he hates, but he does them very diligently and the Gate doesn't hurt.