drifted off like the land split by sea

the-final-accounting

There's a lot to be done, in the immediate aftermath of finding Carissa and young Ma'ar in Urtho's Tower, and for a while Leareth is very very busy, as well as very happily distracted in his scant free time by having his wife back. And Ma'ar needs lessons, in magic and other things, and he has a baby daughter and spends more time than he strictly needs to visiting the nursery to hold her.

He introduces Ma'ar in the palace as a 'relative' who's going to be fostering here with him and Carissa for the next few years; he doesn't try to further explain the situation. There are curious whispers and various rumours about this for a little while, but then it stops being controversial.

Running Cheliax continues to hold many ongoing headaches. There are nobles used to getting away with more than he especially wants to let them; there are a handful of local insurgencies that need dealing with, and uncertainty around whether there's any larger organization behind this; some neighbouring countries are still discomfited by the rapid changes of the last year. But nothing goes sufficiently wrong to reach the threshold of being an emergency, rather than just a hassle.

They try a Sending to the other Velgarth he found, but it doesn't work, maybe 'the Leareth who lives there' isn't specific enough, and even after consulting his records he hasn't been able to narrow down what name he was going by or what he was doing at the time.

After six months, he finds time to slip off with Urtho and return to the Velgarth of a millennium ago, and check the cache where he left a note for his younger self. There's no reply, which is unsurprising - even over the entire course of a given lifetime he won't necessarily visit all of them - but in the meantime he's looked up the locations of a dozen other records caches, spread around the world. He leaves more notes.

Another six months later, there are still no replies. This time he brings a Chelish wizard with him too, to attempt a Sending from within the same world; this doesn't work either.

After that point, he stops going in person, and sends one of his mages every so often, equipped with a map and a list of locations to check, plus knowledge of the counterspell-techniques to his protective wards. Someone who's travelled widely throughout their Velgarth and can manage Gates to places that haven't changed too much, and compensate with scrying for the differences across a thousand intervening years.

At the two-year mark there's still nothing. Leareth worries about this a little, and then puts the matter out of his mind; the very fact that this is taking place during a gap in his records, and that there are no large-scale activities that hint at his presence, means it's not as time-sensitive as many of the other things on his plate.

He still sends another mage a year later, though, with the same briefing, a list and a map.

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Both their countries have permanent Gates, now; messages go through regularly.

He replies about two hours later. :Leareth?:

the-final-accounting

Leareth finishes scribbling a final note and sets down his papers.

:Yes, here:

:I hear you found a you?:

the-final-accounting

:I think so. ...At least, maybe. He seems - off, to Carissa and me both:

:I have to say, 'you but off' is not on the list of people I'd love to meet. Off how?:

the-final-accounting

:Carissa and I both read his thoughts. We do not think he is dangerous, just– hmm. For context, he is sharing his body with its original inhabitant, which is - rare for me - and something I had already tested and decided against by this point in his - our - timeline. Anyway. He seems mostly - disengaged, and tired and moody, and when I read his mind he was ruminating on various bad things. Rather than doing anything about them! Discovering an entire new world and an older and more experienced version of himself should...be an exciting and promising opportunity, for a me...:

:...yes, it really should! Huh. Have you ruled out any kind of magic interference or mind control - what's the person he's sharing with like -:

the-final-accounting

:I did not see any kind of Velgarth mind-control - come to think of it, Golarion mind-control would also be apparent to mage-sight. The person he is sharing with seems - curious, mostly? His parents are explorers. They are here as well, now, Vanyel and I picked them up once we were alerted to that:

:Do you know if that usually happens when you try to share?:

the-final-accounting

:I quickly checked some of my notes on my early tries at sharing, and...there were problems, which is why I stopped attempting it, but I do not think the worrying things I observe about him correlate particularly with the problems I noted:

:Huh. I could come meet him, if you'd like. We'd have to keep it awfully quiet, or do it in Aktun, if we wanted to avoid a lot of fuss.:

the-final-accounting

:Carissa thought it would be valuable for you to speak with him, which seems right to me. I would prefer to avoid fuss and can probably bring him to Aktun for it - at least, in a day or two once I have spoken to him about this:

:That sounds good. Your building?:

the-final-accounting

:Sounds good. I can alert you once we have a time arranged?:

:That sounds good. How are Carissa and Ma'ar and Aspexia.:

the-final-accounting

:Well, overall. I think both Carissa and Ma'ar are worried about the current situation. Pexa is - presumably not, but I think she is sad that her papa went away for days and then was too busy with paperwork and stressed about mysterious adult matters to wish to play with her:

:Children turn out all right whether or not you parent them, you know.: This is very gently teasing; Khemet would probably have fewer children and pay them more attention were it entirely his decision.

the-final-accounting

:Yes, yes, and I know she has plenty of parenting available from the nursery staff, nonetheless it seems I miss her and she misses me: It turns out he has substantially more feelings about parenthood than he had expected going in.

:All right. Let me know when it'll be a good time for me to meet Tadesse. - what is his sharing-person's name.:

the-final-accounting

:Ekunde. I will do that - see you then: Pause. :Love you:

:Love you.:

the-final-accounting

Leareth is suddenly so tempted to Gate to Osirion right now, he misses Khemet, but now is an especially terrible time to do that. He sighs and goes back to skimming through and signing off on other people's reports and proposed decisions.

Ekunde Obi

the-unforgiving-minute

Ekunde has eventually reached the point of being incredibly sick of sitting in bed. He feels fine physically, it's just Tadesse filling the back of his head with an ongoing stream of weariness and resignation even though that makes no sense.

He gets up and suggests to Ayodele that they go explore.

madeleine-mantock-tomorrow-people-2110506

Ayodele Obi

They can do this! Well, assuming they're allowed; Ayodele shyly finds a servant and manages to communicate, despite the lack of a shared language, that they want to rejoin the rest of the family for the tour.

Dayo Obi