"Huh. You?"

<My corresponding local is the pharaoh of Osirion. He is not sure it'd be safe to be in his head because Abadar is. And he knows a lot of state secrets. We just talk.>

"Iomedae can talk to Mhalir and I at the same time fine."

<My understanding is that the gods who were never human are more dangerous to try to directly speak to.> Tail-shrug.

<I think that is true> Mhalir says to Carissa. <And - remember how I was after I went into Aroden's head - and he was an ascended-human god, even. I think Iomedae does a great deal to shelter and protect us, when we talk to her.> He remembers the sense of falling and being caught, or scooped out of an unbearable wind. 

...He's feeling very tired again, right now, and probably it's some more specific thing than 'tired', which he can address more usefully if he knows what it is, and also he promised Carissa that he would do the talking here and instead she's done what seems like most of it. Though he thinks she did a very good job. Better than he could have. 

"I understand that you are under many constraints," he says to Matirin, hoping it comes across that his dislike here is for said constraints and not toward Matirin personally. "- Is there anything else we should talk about now." 

<I don't think so. My father is sending you his morph research?>

"Yes, he said he would." 

<Good. You can let me know if anything comes up that we can be helpful with.>

"I will." 

And he leaves the Andalites in their nice demiplane, and heads back to their room in the palace. Probably at some point they should arrange a different place to stay, decide what they're doing next, where... But right now, he wants a comfortable place with walls and no one bothering them. 

Eventually she wants a place in Absalom, she thinks, if it's safe now. Or they can consider Cheliax but it seems likely it'll just make her sad. Somewhere where she can talk to other wizards about her research.

Absalom seems good for that. Aroden's wife and daughter lived there, he remembers vaguely, though they might have moved over to Cheliax with him now. Maybe Mhalir and Carissa can relocate to Cheliax in a couple of years, once more rebuilding has happened, so it won't be such a constant reminder of tragedy, and once she's had some more time to process. 

And once they can see what the country is like under Aroden's rule, yeah. She hasn't the slightest idea what to expect. He is presumably responsible for Rahadoum banning the gods and she didn't see much of Rahadoum while she was there and Cheliax isn't Rahadoum, anyway, and he's personally indulgent but she doesn't know what to expect about how that'll extend to his secret police and so forth.

Mhalir still feels like Carissa is somehow making predictions from within the wrong frame, here, but it's not like he himself has especially clear expectations, yet. They can wait and see. 

She goes back to her room and climbs into the bed and under the covers. She feels disoriented, and a bit guilty, and a bit scared, and none of that makes any sense. 

It doesn't not make sense to Mhalir. The world feels very disorienting to him too, right now. 

...He's curious about the guilt, though, mostly because that's a flavour of emotion he almost never feels and so it's less automatically understandable to him. 

She mostly doesn't do that either. She's not sure what's up with it. She thinks she believes - Mhalir went away and got better, and it'd be fairer to him if she'd also done that, and he was disappointed that she instead just did a lot of trying to talk people into Hell, and probably it was the wrong thing to do since their functionality from here forward might be more important? And Mhalir's not going to get mad about it because very low standards so instead she feels guilty? Objectively this is stupid, though.

Huh. 

No, Mhalir isn't disappointed, or worried about the fairness to him. He - was upset about the situation at first, finding out that she spent much of the last year hurting, while he spent it learning how not to be hurting all the time, which it turns out is a really difficult skill. And he finds it upsetting to think about Carissa being in pain, because he cares about her, because almost by definition that's what caring about someone means, and of course he isn't disappointed in her about it, that would be silly. 

It feels like that's an entirely separate thing from whether her talking people into Hell rather than Abaddon was the 'right thing to do', which - he thinks it probably was, given the options made available to her, it's not like anyone was offering her any of the space and support she would have needed to instead learn how not to be in pain. (Also it seems like that part hurt her less than the rest, she found it enjoyable, she was good at it, it seems like she - learned something about herself and what matters to her, from doing it? Which feels valuable to him in a long-term way as well.) 

Mhalir's feelings on it are conflicted, because on some level he wishes he'd been instead offered levers to achieve things he cared about on a larger scale. He did get something valuable out of the last year, but - maybe not as valuable as however many souls still exist because of Carissa's work, and would otherwise be eaten and gone? It's not that he feels guilty about not doing as much as her, exactly, but there's a wistfulness there, a sense of something-lost, even if something else was gained instead. 

He doesn't know. It all feels very unclear, and maybe it's not the thing that matters anyway, it's in the past and now the present and future are what they have to deal with. 

...he does really hope that he can help Carissa find a way to be less tired and hurting all the time. It's really nice, not being in pain. 

It sounds really nice. She's - blaming all of the getting kidnapped and imprisoned and rekidnapped and reimprisoned and killed and stuff but - she is not actually sure she wasn't in pain before that. And she doesn't really think she'd feel better, if she imagines somehow having survived the war, huddled in Corentyn trying to figure out whether to flee the country and how to not attract notice. She's not clear on what Aroden was doing with former soldiers. If it were her she'd let them buy a pardon for approximately all they are worth plus a commitment of future work for the crown, a couple of years worth, and if not for the Andalites maybe make them all take a Yeerk if they want to go free.

He doesn't know what Aroden is planning either. It seems complicated. Mhalir thinks Cheliax was a place that hurt most of the people living in it, before, and the war was even worse for that, and now that damage is there and won't go away just because the war is over, to him it's one among many looming weights that need to be carried.

Mhalir wants Carissa to be okay, and also he desperately needs her help for the project of helping everyone else be okay, and - that's something they're going to need to find the best way to juggle, short versus long-term, he's not sure yet how that's going to end up looking. 

He's hopeful about it, though. 

Firayar sends over his explanation of where he's at with morph research, which Mhalir can mostly make sense of especially once Carissa's headband is reacquired.The rest of her magic items trickle in. She asks around about news about Cheliax but doesn't hear much more than what she already knew, which is that it's rebuilding. Corentyn was particularly devastated, of course, being the place from which the attack on Rahadoum was launched and the place where Rahadoum struck back. She doesn't seek out information about anybody in particular. 

Mhalir goes over Firayar's explanation repeatedly until he's fairly sure that none of his remaining confusion is about something obvious or stupid that he could figure out on his own, and then sends over a list of questions and comments. 

He also finds out who his people were in contact with over at Aroden's administration in Cheliax, and sends a message to Aroden politely requesting time to meet, non urgently, he understands Aroden is very busy. 

Aroden is very busy, but someone from his palace staff answers by the end of that day, with a meeting time and place suggested for two weeks from now. 

Firayar sends a very curt but helpful reply a few hours later; some of the questions are thereby answered but some just clarify that he's doing something very complex and difficult.

Mhalir isn't offended at all by the terseness. Again, he pores over it for a long time on his own, in between various accumulating commitments, and manages to at least narrow down some of his remaining confusion, and a few days later sends another list of questions, as well-specified and thereby easy to answer as possible. 

He replies again a few hours later suggesting Mhalir just come by, it'll be faster.