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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the-final-accounting

Leareth goes over and hugs him.

the-unforgiving-minute

Tadesse stiffens briefly, and then leans on his shoulder and cries some more.

the-final-accounting

Honestly Leareth feels like Vanyel is much better at hugging crying people, but he'll give it a solid try.

He looks so discomfited, it's very entertaining. He will go try to acquire drinks.

the-unforgiving-minute

By the time he gets back, Leareth seems to have relaxed into it somewhat, and Tadesse has mostly gotten the tears under control and is just sniffling and dabbing at his face with his sleeve.

He has whatever Leareth's staff provided, which is probably very good, and offers them some.

the-final-accounting

Leareth doesn't drink very often but he's not about to make Tadesse drink alone right now. He smiles gratefully at Khemet and sips from his glass.

Ekunde Obi

the-unforgiving-minute

Ekunde is going to take over and make Tadesse gulp down their cup and hold it out for a refill, he sure seems like he needs it. "- Oh. Wow, this is good stuff."

"Aktun is good at everything. They say it's not good for the living to envy the dead but the dead go on being all enviable."

Khemet drinks a lot, but not around Leareth, who'd probably be all worried about him or something. He settles in across from them and says "have you explained Vanyel to Tadesse?"

the-final-accounting

"Not in detail," Leareth admits.

"You should! It's a very good story," he tells Tadesse. "Though for some reason they both hate telling it."

the-final-accounting

:It is a horrible story and sometimes you make no sense to me at all: Leareth mutters to him in Mindspeech.

:Do you want me to tell it?:

the-final-accounting

Vanyel might prefer it if fewer people told others about him period, but it does seem relevant here, and if Vanyel is going to befriend Tadesse he'd probably prefer not having to explain it himself. :Yes, please:

"All right. So you're a handsome mage in a mountain lair north of Valdemar, plotting to conquer it, and one night you fall asleep and wake up in a dream. You're at the mountain pass you carved to take your troops on down to Valdemar, done more than a decade in advance so hopefully no one is yet paying anywhere near enough attention to learn of it. You're pretty sure they weren't. And yet here, in this dream, as you march your men across the mountain pass, there is a Herald. ...Valdemar hasn't been founded yet, has it. Hmm. In about three hundred years a man named Valdemar will leave the Eastern Empire and wander west to the edge of the Pelagirs and found a kingdom there, and when he asks for divine intervention to ensure the prosperity of his kingdom, they send horse-people, who soul-bond to the King and selected subjects of the King and aid them in running the kingdom justly. They're called Heralds.

There's a Herald in the pass, in the dream.

They have a very awkward conversation."

the-final-accounting

Leareth covers his face with his hand. :You are having far too much fun with this:

the-unforgiving-minute

"That does sound very awkward," Tadesse allows.

Ekunde Obi

the-unforgiving-minute

Ekunde is pretty sure this story is going to end up being hilarious, probably in a horrifying way, and he's looking forward to it.

Khemet thinks this story is great and he is going to tell it in great detail all the way through Vanyel kidnapping Leareth to Golarion to decide whether they were friends or enemies. "He decided on 'friends'. For some reason."

the-final-accounting

"He mostly just wanted to know if I had been lying to him all along. And I had not been at all! I kept many secrets but I never denied that to him." Leareth is relieved that Khemet just told that part of the story, not Vanyel's horrifying backstory, and he didn't dwell too long on the part where Vanyel was very depressed after Yfandes ran off.

the-unforgiving-minute

Tadesse nods. "I am glad he did. He seems like a very useful ally."

the-final-accounting

"Also a good friend."

"Also very handsome." Leareth for some reason consistently finds it disconcerting when people have this opinion even though it's obviously true.

the-final-accounting

(It's almost never relevant to the conversation at hand! Also Leareth sometimes almost wishes that either Khemet would be less perceptive about his feelings, no one else notices that, or else less likely to find it entertaining, but both of those would be kind of equivalent to wishing he were an entirely different person, which Leareth doesn't.)

"Anyway. Vanyel is very good - and Good, too - and I think you should talk to him."

the-unforgiving-minute