- and he comes rushing back into the world, confused, disoriented, pulling together the shreds of memory.

A tower against the stars - a devastated wasteland - never to die never to walk away as long as it takes -

A snow-covered mountain pass in the far north, and a man dressed in white, his black hair streaked with silver. 

A young woman, and there's nothing all that extraordinary about her features but somehow her face is the most beautiful one in the world.

Belrun. He remembers her name even before he remembers his own. She was a Healer. Flashes of chicken eggs. A building in Rethwellan, exploding. Sitting together, talking over - something - both of them upset and apologizing...

- sending her fleeing to safety, promising he would come back and find her, calling down Final Strike to cover her escape - 

His name was Leareth. When the memory comes to him, it's of her voice speaking his name. 

They were lifebonded. 

He remembers her almost more clearly than he remembers the tower and Urtho, and it hurts, but - in a normal way, not a piece ripped out of his mind's foundation. 

Not like what she must be feeling right now, if in fact she made it out alive (and he should be able to think about the world where she didn't, but he flinches away from it...)

...

Focus. 

He's in Rethwellan right now; the bits and pieces of Essi, the child whose body he took, remember that. (A quiet murmur of regret, an apology to nothing, a promise to himself that someday somehow he will fix it...) 

North. He needs to get north, find his people, and then he can figure out what to do about Belrun. 

The weather is indifferent to Leareth's thoughts. It starts sleeting. 

Leareth looks at the pile of firewood, and starts a fire. 

...

He can't remember any Gate locations after the transition between bodies. It takes him three weeks of travel on a stolen donkey, eating what he can steal or scavenge, before he reaches his people in the north. 

Nayoki is so incredibly relieved when he finally stumbles up to one of the northern sentry-points, gives the right confirmation of his identity, and is shortly later Gated to the usual facility. 

She has a letter for him. It's from Belrun. 

Dear Leareth,

Love, Belrun

Leareth sits, alone, in the bedroom that's been kept aired out and ready for him, and reads the letter several times through. Nayoki's already digging up his recent notes and records for him, but the letter is honestly a better introductory summary. 

Eventually he gets out a piece of paper and starts drafting a reply. The draft ends up full of crossed-out lines and insertions. He goes through three pieces of paper before he has a clean final version. 

And shortly later the letter is being delivered via Gate to a particular house in Rethwellan.

...

Dear Belrun,

I am back, and I do not have a broken lifebond. 

I am not sure what most makes sense to do, here. I think it depends on what the Power that caused our lifebond wished to do with it, and unfortunately neither of us has that information, or an easy route to obtaining it. Given that, I cannot responsibly decide on the spot to return to you; I am sorry. 

That being said, I have not decided not to either. I love you, and having you as a trusted ally in my work was immensely valuable to me. I notice myself wanting it to be true that the correct strategic move is to come find you. Of course, wanting this to be true will not make it so, and I need to lay out all of the considerations here and make a reasoned choice. 

I will begin doing that on my own over here, but if you have any thoughts on the matter I would appreciate hearing them. 

I am sorry that I was insufficiently paranoid and let myself be murdered and left you alone. 

Love,

Leareth

When Belrun gets this letter she reads it nine times and sobs onto Amshalan's shoulder and cancels everything for the day to do more of both those things.

The letter includes a way to reply (bring it to this location in the city, where Leareth has an agent who can contact someone for a Gate), but Leareth isn't expecting a reply right away and possibly not for days. 

He waits. With a surprising amount of anxiety about what response he'll receive. He spends the time rereading Belrun's letter, and skimming over his notes and records, and rereading Belrun's letter, and catching up with the various staff in his organization, and rereading Belrun's letter yet again. He misses her. Apparently not having a broken lifebond doesn't do anything to interfere with missing someone. 

She eventually pulls herself together enough for a reply.

Dear Leareth,

Love, Belrun

Dear Belrun,

Given the use of wyrsa, which are native to the Pelagirs, my main suspicion is on the Star-Eyed Goddess, though the area is somewhat closer to Iftel which hints at Vkandis perhaps being involved as well. I mainly take this as weak evidence that They were not behind the original lifebond, since I have particularly strong reason to believe that They are against my work, and it does not appear that the lifebond scheme is a very effective way of incapacitating me, even if the original goal involved killing you and not me. This may be some indication that whichever Power did set it up is not as opposed to me, if the assassination attempt was a difficult god's work, but that is a tenuous inference given how little I know here. 

I miss you.

Love,

Leareth

This doesn't really call for a response. She writes I love you and then doesn't send it because that's all she has down and seems like a waste of a trip.

She hugs Amshalan a lot.

Leareth thinks about what to do. 

It's an unusually difficult problem to think about, because of the part where he wants reality to be a certain way, and so keeps needing to double and triple-check his reasoning on everything related. 

I suspect that whichever god is behind the Companions, he writes to Belrun, likely the more hands-off god of the Valdemar and Rethwellan regions, was also responsible for your bond to Amshalan. It is less clear if the same party was also involved with the lifebond, but I weakly suspect so. I am planning to write to Vanyel asking if Rolan can attempt to speak to Them and find out more about Their involvement and plans, or knowledge of any other gods' plans; I will also ask if Vanyel has any other ideas for contacting gods. The gods seem to dislike him less than They dislike me, after all. 

I continue to love and miss you so much. 

That seems like a good idea. Amshalan and I can ride up there if having us present in person is useful for Rolan or anything.

I love you.

Leareth is not very comfortable at the idea of Belrun in Haven where the Heartstone is, but he still includes it in the letter to Vanyel, since they had judged her previous visit to Haven worth the risk and, in fact, Haven wasn't where (most of) the bad things happened. 

Vanyel replies promptly, promising to ask Rolan and also adding that, if Rolan doesn't play along, he has another idea for getting a conversation with a god.

(He does not say what the idea is because nobody is going to like it.)

For now he doesn't think it's necessary to drag Belrun to Haven but he'll keep in mind that she's willing to come. 

Leareth relays this on to Belrun.

She confirms receipt of the letter and now has a piece of paper with I love you and nothing else written on it several times, it's more efficient that way.

Vanyel sends a reply with an apology; Rolan apparently still doesn't want to or doesn't think it's worthwhile to attempt a conversation with the god who even he doesn't know the identity of. 

Later that same day, Leareth receives a furious letter from Herald-Mage Savil, demanding to know if he's responsible for Vanyel 'idiotically trying to kill himself in order to yell at a god.'

Leareth is so confused! 

He writes back to Savil with a copy of his exact letter to Vanyel enclosed; he can guess now what the relation is between these two things but he certainly didn't have an inkling of it until now. 

He also writes to Belrun, summarizes the news from Savil, and says that it might be a good idea for her to consider going to Haven given that things seem to be ending up very complicated. 

She acknowledges this.

Rana helps her pack. She saddles up Amshalan.

Savil replies shortly, with a curt confirmation of having received Leareth's letter, and acknowledgement that if they want, it might be helpful to have Belrun over in person again, but Petras isn't within her Gate-range. 

Leareth directs a mage to Rana's house in Petras to collect Belrun if she's still up for going. 

That works too if they want to save Amshalan the run. Through she goes.

Amshalan is pretty relieved about not having to do multiple days of running all the way from Petras to Haven. 

She crosses the Gate, nuzzles Belrun's hand, and reaches out with Mindspeech. :Rolan?:

:Oh: Pause. :I did not actually expect you would come. I can send -: another pause, :I will send Savil to meet you: 

And shortly later Savil comes out on the Palace lawn to meet them.

"Belrun." She opens her mouth as though to add something else, and then stops and says nothing. 

"Is Vanyel okay?"

Is Vanyel ever okay, Savil thinks but does not say out loud. "Physically fine. Still not sure what in all hells he was thinking. How - are you...?" she trails off. 

Shrug. "I'm not dying."

"And Leareth? I guess you haven't actually seen him, but - goodness, the man was murdered horribly, is he recovering from that all right?"

A second later Savil realizes that it's possibly in the category of 'very rude' to bring up her lifebonded's violent murder, but oops too late. 

"Don't know. He made it north. His handwriting's the same."

It's an entirely reasonable response, and still makes her wince. "Anyway. Van wanted to talk to either you or Leareth, and I assume Leareth isn't going to come down here in person. You willing to talk to him now?" 

:I can manage on my own at the stables: Amshalan offers. :The stablehands here are used to Companions, they won't lock me in a stall or anything stupid like that: 

Belrun pats Amshalan absently and nods.

Savil, without saying anything else, ushers Belrun to the House of Healing. 

Vanyel is sitting up in a bed in the big shielded room that has room for a Companion stall in it. He looks faintly sheepish, mostly defensive. He ducks his head. "Belrun. I'm - so sorry about everything that happened." 

"Not your fault."

"Rolan didn't want to talk to the god, so I - decided to get the Shadow-Lover's attention. Did you know you can use Healing to stop your own heart. I didn't until I tried it." 

Savil is rolling her eyes. 

"I'm aware."

"Anyway. Um. I took notes - it wasn't that helpful, sorry, the Shadow-Lover is really cryptic, and then I might've, er..." he hesitates, "...asked to speak to the bigger god, but that was mostly just very confusing."

"The bigger god being -"

"I still don't know Their name! It's ridiculous! They were..." He squints. "They showed up as this sort of bizarre spinning white pillar of fire that didn't even speak in words, it just somehow went straight into my head. But They did admit to having, what is it, territorial remit, over Valdemar. And the Shadow-Lover said They weren't involved with Leareth's death, and that multiple other gods were." 

"Okay. Well, that's good to know, I guess, though They could just... lie, if they wanted, probably."

"I did also have that thought." Vanyel frowns. "They didn't confirm or deny having been involved with the lifebond, even when I asked the bigger god directly, but I think the Shadow-Lover was sort of giving me hints. He said multiple gods were involved with that too, with different goals." 

"That's uncomfortable."

Nod. "It sounds complicated." 

"Can I see your notes?"

"Sure." He holds out the piece of paper in her direction. 

She takes them and has a look.

They are not the most coherent set of notes! Probably because Vanyel was not in great shape when he wrote them. His handwriting is much messier than usual, kind of wandering over the page, and it's mostly in single words, not sentences. 

did not kill Leareth

multiple gods? 

control of Valdemar

maybe controls Companions?

other gods involved making them

unclear if did lifebond

multiple gods??? 

"Maybe controls Companions like, maybe is the divine force behind them we already know about, or like more than we suspected -"

Vanyel rubs his eyes. "I think I meant the first thing, although - that was also complicated. I think what the Shadow-Lover was hinting at was that the Heartstone being in Haven means the Star-Eyed has some influence too, but. Cryptic." 

Shiver.

"I know. Especially given what happened, I don't much like it either." 

"I guess I'll - render all this in a letter for Leareth -"

Vanyel nods.

He also wants to ask how Leareth is doing and if being murdered was awful for him - they haven't had the ice dream again and he's not sure if they will, with Leareth in this new body - but it would probably upset her and so he doesn't. 

She fumbles for her notebook. Drafts and then writes a clean version of what Vanyel's told her. "Anything I should post-script in?"

"Er, can't really think of anything? I guess tell him I'm sorry about causing him to get an angry letter from Savil. But I do think it was worth it, even if we didn't learn that much, it's not like it was actually especially dangerous for me." 

Glare. 

"I don't really know how you safely stopped your heart."

"I did it right outside Healers'? Also the Shadow-Lover always sends me back, even for injuries that caused way more actual damage." 

"Friendly of him."

"I mean, I think it's because I'm useful for his schemes somehow, not out of friendliness." 

"Well, whatever you want to call it." She folds up her letter. Offers it to Savil.

"Thank you. Er, you don't have to stay longer than this, if you'd prefer to get back to Rethwellan." 

"I might as well give Amshalan the overnight to catch up with all her friends and stuff."

"Right, we can set you up in a guest room then?" 

"Thank you."

Savil ushers her over to the guest wing. "It looks like the mage stuck around, so you can get a lift directly back when you want, no, er, risky stopovers." 

Amshalan wanders up to her window. :Thank you for staying a bit longer, I'm excited to see all the new foals: 

:Of course: Pet pet.

Amshalan hangs out with her for a little while and then heads off to catch up on Companion-herd gossip. :I'll be right there if you need me, though: she promises. 

Amshalan is very good and Belrun can cope by herself now and then to let any of that goodness flow in other directions. She writes and sketches hair follicles and at the end of the day she goes to sleep.

Amshalan considers sleeping outside her window, but it's getting quite cold at this time of year, so she just lingers until dark and then heads to the stables. 

She's back first thing in the morning, nosing at the window. 

Belrun opens the window in the morning to hug her around the neck. "Morning."

:Morning: Nuzzle. :I heard they got a reply from Leareth. Including a message for you if you were still here: 

:Well, I'm still here. Where to?:

:Heralds' wing, Savil has it: Amshalan waits for Belrun to dress and slip outside, and then can give her a ride over. 

Not having to walk places is very nice. Walking places is terrible.

Savil is sitting with tea in the office of the King's Own. "Morning. Letter for you." She holds it out. "Van's doing fine, by the way, the Healers let him go this morning after Gemma yelled at him a lot not to do it ever again." 

"Maybe if it ever comes up again Rolan will be more helpful." She opens the letter.

:Honestly Rolan wasn't even apologetic: Amshalan, riding along with Belrun's eyes and ears, jumps in. :Completely did not see it as his fault in any way: 

And the letter:

Dear Belrun,

Thank you for conveying word from Vanyel. I still wish he had asked first before taking such drastic measures but I suppose I ought not really be surprised, and this does give us some information. Knowing that the Valdemaran region's god did not wish my death here, does not exactly make me feel inclined to visit Valdemar in person, but it is better than the alternative. 

I still desperately wish I could come to you right now. I am leaning toward thinking that it is strategically correct, at least in expectation, to come retrieve you, given that it will apparently not leave me with a broken lifebond permanently even if something happens to you - and I do not think I would be more sad in that eventuality than I would be anyway. I miss your help and advice very badly and I am hopeful that with your help I can come up with a better plan than the current one.

I want to take some more time today to consider it thoroughly, though, before sending a final answer. 

Love,

Leareth

She SAID in her initial letter that she would APPRECIATE if he HURRIED.

She tucks the letter into her pocket. "It says he wants to consider it more 'today'. I don't know if he meant to imply that he'd have a decision by tomorrow or if I'm making that up."

"I don't know, sorry, the letter I got didn't say anything specific about that." 

"Seems silly to go home if he might want me to come north any minute."

Nod. "Well, you're welcome to stick around the rest of the day and hopefully he'll clarify by then." 

"Thank you."

:Want to go for a ride? I could use stretching my legs: 

:Sure, let's go for a ride. I haven't seen that much of the place, you can show me around:

Haven in early winter doesn't have that many attractions, and Amshalan is guessing Belrun isn't interested in doing the obstacle course, but she can carry her around the various paths, looking at (mostly-dead) flower gardens and various old buildings. 

Belrun does her best to inhabit the moment and absorb the wintry scenery.

Eventually it's a reasonable lunchtime and Amshalan drops her off at the dining hall, where various of the other Heralds are sitting around eating and talking; several of them nod to Belrun in acknowledgement but no one tries to start a conversation with her. 

That makes the process easier. She eats lunch. Consults Amshalan on portion sizes because she can't go by how much looks appealing.

Amshalan can advise on portion sizes and on taking a variety of foods. 

Near the end of Belrun's lunch, Amshalan excitedly Mindtouches her. :Message for you! Savil has it again: 

:Thanks:

She goes out to find Savil.

Savil is in the same place as before, with a cup of tea which is presumably not the same tea as before, paperwork spread everywhere, and a picked-at plate of food balanced on top of some papers. 

"Just one for you this time," she says without quite looking up from her work, digging around for it and then holding it out to Belrun. 

"Thank you." She opens it, trying not to get her hopes up.

Dear Belrun,

I have thought about it more and I want to bring you north. I miss you and I have found myself desperately wishing that reuniting would be the correct move, which is at least evidence of what I want, and I also think your research is of great value and you will presumably be more effective if you are not suffering a broken lifebond. I do intend for both of us to be very, very careful, at least until we have more information on the various Powers at work here and Their goals; I want to relocate all of your research to the north, and plan on neither of us leaving the secure facilities there. 

If you do not have any counter-considerations that you think I should consider, I instructed the mage who brought you to Haven to stay there in order to Gate you directly back. 

Love,

Leareth

:Amshalan we're going north:

:- Oh! I didn't want to get my hopes up, but - gods - I'm so glad to hear that. Do you want to leave right now? I can say goodbye to everyone quickly, they knew I might head out on short notice: 

:Yeah, right now, I didn't pack much to begin with:

Savil is still watching her expectantly. "Good news...?" 

"He wants me up north."

"Oh! That's a relief to hear. Are you going now?" 

"Right away, yeah, there should be one of his mages around somewhere?"

"Just a moment, I'll ask Kellan– He's coming, he'll meet you out front of the building." 

:I'm still saddled up, ready to go: 

Belrun joins Amshalan and waits, shifting her weight from foot to foot in readiness to walk through a Gate that isn't there yet.

The mage catches up at a run, looks around, and then just uses the doorway for a Gate. 

And Leareth is running to meet her, not yet in sight but he's in Mindspeech range. :Belrun!: 

And she's through the gate and it still hurts and that's very unfair that it would keep hurting even another second but she does not want to cry - :I'm here:

He reaches her at a run. He's very small and looks very different and his head only comes up to her mid-chest. 

Oh no.

She hugs him anyway.

He hugs her tightly. :I missed you so much - I am so sorry...: 

Pause. 

:...I do not think I feel anything lifebond-related yet? I am not sure if I remember fully what it was like, but...: 

:Nothing on this end either. As far as the lifebond's concerned you're still dead:

:Oh no: 

He doesn't know what else to say so he just hugs her more. 

She fails not to cry. Rubbing her sleeve over her eyes would require unhugging so his hair will get a little wet.

"We should go sit down or something." Leareth sighs a little. It's very Leareth-like and also seems incredibly weird when he's a tiny preteen. 

"Yeah, that's a good idea." She remembers her way around. They can go sit.

Leareth sits and leans on her. His weight is so much less than before. 

"This seems very unfair that it is not working." 

Nod nod.

"You're so small," she murmurs.

"I know. Sorry." He winces a little, fragments of Essi's memories rising in his mind. "...He was thirteen. The person I killed." 

"D'you know his name?"

"Essi. He ran away from home, I think. Lived with an abusive uncle who disapproved of mage-gift. I...do not think he would have survived the winter. But I am not sure." 

Belrun gives a little shudder.

Leareth says nothing, just stares into the distance for a moment and then leans against Belrun again, more tentatively. 

She puts her arm around him. "Well," she says. "This sucks."

"Maybe I could ask Nayoki to look at the - well, not the lifebond, but where it would be - see what is going wrong. I might be too young for it." 

"Yeah. Getting Nayoki to look is a good idea."

"I know you do not like Mindhealing but it seems worth at least having her look." 

"Yeah. I'll deal."

Leareth hugs her silently for another minute and then Mindspeaks Nayoki. 

Nayoki arrives shortly. Nods to Belrun. "It is good to see you again. I am sorry the circumstances of coming back are not better." 

"You and me both."

"May I look?" 

Nod.

The broken lifebond is very obvious, a space missing from the centre of Belrun's mind, the edges ragged. 

Leareth's side of it is subtler. She can see the potential lifebond there, just in the shape of his mind, but it's not doing much yet, if anything.

"The usual effect of a potential lifebond when one of the people is too young, would be that the people involved find each other unusually interesting, but nothing else notable. It is hard to tell if that is happening here, since Leareth remembers you, Belrun." 

"That makes sense."

"I am not sure if there is anything I can do to help with Mindhealing, assuming you even wanted me to do that. It might be worth waiting overnight to see if just spending time together helps." 

"That makes sense. Thank you."

It's not anywhere close to a reasonable bedtime, but Leareth is tired anyway - his current body is still recovering from preexisting malnutrition plus the arduous journey north - and he wants to cuddle with Belrun, even if this doesn't result in them being lifebonded again at least it's something. 

He's very irritated at how he just spend days agonizing over whether it was the right tradeoff to be lifebonded again, and now after all of that he isn't and his former-lifebonded is still miserable. 

She will follow him to wherever he's been sleeping and cuddle him.

He's back in the same bedroom they used to share. The bed is waaaaay too big for him and it's felt very lonely without her there. 

Leareth stretches out next to her. Doesn't say anything for a long time. 

:I am so angry with the Star-Eyed: he sends, eventually. :And Vkandis, if He was involved. It is one thing going after me, I expect it at this point, just - now that you are involved...: It's hard to even explain why that feels so much more beyond the pale. His mind keeps wanting to yell that it's not fair, even though he's never thought reality cared about fairness. 

:I'm upset too, yeah. Maybe they were after me the whole time. That'll teach me to try to eradicate the flu:

:I am sorry the world is like this: Snuggle. It doesn't feel like there's any real reassurance he can offer; it's tempting to say that he made a vow to fix it, but it's already taken such a very long time, and might still come at such a high cost, and it won't fix anything right now. 

She holds him, sighing.

Eventually he asks if she has any updates on her microbe research. 

"I've been doing basic research type stuff. I don't need a whole lot of my brain to be behaving in order to look at a microbe or a cell from a bigger living thing for a while and write down what it's doing and draw a picture of it till it dies or I need a rest."

"I would like to see your pictures but I am guessing you did not bring them from Rethwellan." 

"No. I had a bag packed, if you came back and wanted me right away I wanted to be able to hurry, but I didn't keep all my sketches and my microbe-spying notes in it."

"Well, we can figure out how to bring your things over from Petras, I think." 

"Yeah. My assistant knew I might want everything packed up and shipped off."

"I can send someone to arrange that, then." 

Nod. "Rana knows too. I moved back in with her."

"Right. ...I hope she took good care of you while I was not here. I was hoping I could take good care of you once I was back but the part where we are not even lifebonded again makes this hard." 

"Rana looked out for me. And Amshalan."

"I am very glad you had Amshalan. I have not tended to approve of the Companions but she is a very good one." 

"The very best."

"Well, she would have to be, since you are great." 

"I love you."

"I love you too." He cuddles up against her, wishing he were a more reasonable size. 

"...I wish I understood what the various gods here were thinking," he says eventually. "It is very concerning, not knowing." 

"Apparently talking to them doesn't even help that much. Did you know Vanyel could do that?"

"I think he mentioned once that he had spoken to the Shadow-Lover before? It did not occur to me that he could do it on purpose, much less that he would do so for these circumstances. Probably it should have, though." 

"Well. It was very kind of him."

"He was definitely going above and beyond to be helpful, and he was claiming in the letter he sent me after Savil's letter that it was not very risky for him, since the Shadow-Lover always sends him back. I am a little dubious of this but at least he ended up being fine." 

"Well. He knows what it's like, I guess."

"True." Sigh. He hugs her. 

Hug hug hug. She checks him over with Healing, though he's had weeks to be looked over by his own people.

He's doing all right physically at this point, though he's clearly inherited a body that wasn't previously in the best condition, and he's still trying to catch up on eating enough. 

Poor Essi. She doesn't say that. She pets his hair.

Leareth is kind of thinking it too, but doesn't say anything either. He half-dozes for a while; he seems to need a lot of sleep in this body, right now. Maybe mostly from the sleep deprivation he accumulated while traveling alone and in secret. 

"Do you feel anything different?" he murmurs finally. "With the lifebond? I - do not think I can feel anything." 

"Uh, it's a little easier to think around but I don't know if that's just having different facts to think with."

"Mmm. That makes sense." 

They can cuddle some more and eventually eat dinner and then it's finally a reasonable bedtime, though Leareth has been sleepy for a while before that. 

Belrun wraps him in her arms and sleeps, murmuring sad nouns.

Leareth is awake before her, and lies still waiting for her to wake up; he can feel the presence of her tightly-shielded mind, with Thoughtsensing, but he can't feel her the way he should be able to and it's a distracting note of wrongness, he keeps poking at it.

"Lemon," she says, and then she yawns and wakes up. "- hi."

"Good morning." Leareth starts leaning in to kiss her, out of habit, and then remembers that he's currently very tiny, feels weird about this, and stops. 

"- yeah no that'd be weird."

"Sorry. Are you feeling anything different...?" He keeps asking even though it's kind of pointless. 

"About like yesterday."

He's not actually being distracted by a broken lifebond but it's nonetheless kind of distracting watching Belrun be so sad. "Do you want to ask Nayoki if she can do anything to help?" 

"Don't you suppose she'd have said?"

"She told me that she might be able to do something, probably not to fix it entirely but it could help a little. I am not sure of the best way to fix it properly. Maybe use magic or Healing to make me grow up very quickly?" 

"I could try to learn that but I'm not at my best, maybe someone else can get it before me."

"I will think who I can ask to research it. I do not want you to have to wait any longer than necessary." 

She will... kiss the top of his head, that's not very weird. "Thank you."

Leareth doesn't want to get out of bed at all, but staying flopped on Belrun isn't actually going to fix anything, whereas talking to his other mages and Healers might. Eventually. Not fast enough. 

"Have you noticed anything so far that does help?" he asks her. "If cuddling me helps then I am happy to have us both do as much of our work as we can while cuddling." 

"It sort of helps and doesn't at the same time, honestly. It doesn't help as much as it seems like it should and that's bad, see -"

"I am sure it is not as bad for me as for you, but I also find it deeply disconcerting. I remember the feeling of being lifebonded, and I keep expecting to feel it again, and I do not..." 

"How much carries over - you've mentioned not everything -"

"I have several dozen clear memories of events in my past. About half of them are about you. I have significantly more implicit or procedural memory - for example, I always come back speaking the languages I did in my past life, and with much of my magical skill and most of my combat reflexes intact. Your letter was very helpful, though, I did not remember everything in it very clearly." He hugs her. "I would like to hear your recounting of our relationship, actually. I can tell you which moments and conversations I do remember, and maybe you can fill in the rest?" 

"Yeah. I can do that."

Leareth describes the parts he remembers; even those are sometimes a bit hazy. Their first meeting, the conversation when he was injured and she was Healing him; he remembers his panicked exit from the bed, and her shouting at him about it, but not why he was trying to get up. He remembers taking her to one of his records stashes, trying to explain his past, her very understandable disbelief. He remembers telling her about Urtho, and her telling Vanyel in turn. 

...He also has a few memories that are, well, not exactly of conversations, and feel very awkward now that he's in the body of a thirteen-year-old who does not, apparently, have much of a libido yet. 

Yes, that's very awkward, she agrees completely. She fills in the rest of it but omits to elaborate on anything in the genre.

Leareth listens, takes some notes. Snuggles. He loves his Belrun so much, and... Oh. Interesting. 

He spends a while poking at that feeling. 

:I am thinking about how much I love you: he says, eventually. :And - none of that is the lifebond mind-control, right? The lifebond is having minimal if any effects on me, right now. Obviously some of the origins of my love are from the lifebond before, but - I think it is not fundamental? I can separately assess that you are clever and ambitious and actually trying to fix everything - you are so impressive - and I can love you for that, and...just...it feels important, to be able to notice that? And so I wanted to tell you: 

:That is nice to know: she says, snuggling him.

:I am glad: 

Eventually, once they've talked over everything and there's clearly nothing more to be gained by more recounting of their past relationship, Leareth reluctantly disentangles himself and gets up. He still finds that he doesn't want to let go of Belrun's hand. 

He asks Nayoki to track down the mages and/or Healers best placed to research making him grow up faster; he's still re-learning who all his staff are, it's easiest to have her tell him who the relevant personnel are. 

And then they can go from there.