:Leareth -: 

:Please try to put compulsions on them - both of them - not to harm us, not to cast any spells -: Leareth is already attempting the same. 

Ma'ar is VERY CONFUSED about what 'both of them' means, but - maybe this is somehow like Tadesse, even though it's Carissa - he tries for the compulsions...

She is not very surprised. Her decision did not admit any consideration of the consequences of trying and failing because it - doesn't really matter? She can do math. She might as well think about it now since it didn't work but she finds herself bouncing off the idea, not wanting to even consider it, not wanting to do all of the obvious things to try to mitigate it like - apologizing, or seeing if she can comb through the thought process for an error she could thank him for preventing. 

It's going to happen again. 

Everything is dark and she is not sure what it means to be her, right now, and it's going to happen again. 

And now they're both very thoroughly compulsioned not to attempt to harm anyone else on the Void-vessel, or to cast any spells or do any magic. 

Mhalir can sort of feel this happening. He doesn't resist; he's made his gamble, now, and the dice will fall as they do. 

Everything hurts.

He's not ready to have thoughts, yet, about the things that hurt. He keeps Carissa shoved down into the dark. 

Leareth takes another slow breath, and does his best to meet Carissa/Mhalir's eyes and look reassuringly at them - well, the kind of level calm expression that would be reassuring to another Leareth - 

- and he tries, pushing hard, to read their mind(s). 

There's a very very good permanent magic shield up, from one of the items they're wearing. Past that Carissa's not resisting, though. Instead she is floating in the dark thinking of cities burning, of glassy ash ground, of a map of Dis they had on the wall in her school, growing up. All maps of the city of Dis change to match the city itself, magically. They are all empty now. 

It's going to happen again.

What. 

It - hurts - Leareth doesn't even know what it means, yet. But he recognizes Carissa's mind. And she's in pain. And - he's not quite following yet, he doesn't need to follow yet, but - something destroyed, something gone - cities burned to glass and ashes...

(...too much resonance, too many echoes, with a thousand awful occurrences in his own many lives...) 

He can't reach through to the other mind. It doesn't matter, he decides. 

:Mhalir: he sends. :Carissa: 

(He makes sure to send this straight at her mind, as well, even pushed down as far as she is.) 

:Please - tell me what is going on: 

He is dizzy and the world is falling apart and everything hurts. 

Also he doesn't know if 'Leareth' has any of Golarion's translation magic. 

"I came to Golarion from another world," he says, and at the same time thinks loudly, pushing it out to the very surface of his thoughts, they way they used to when they wanted to communicate something to Ma'ar's Thoughtsensing. "Many things happened. Among them - we used alien technology to fight Hell. To - destroy it." 

For a long moment he can't manage to go on. 

"...Carissa is Chelish. And - Asmodean. She was - very devastated. By this." 

His Carissa isn't exactly Asmodean, hasn't been for a long time, but - but Leareth remembers talking through very similar hypotheticals, with her. Late at night, when the rest of the world slept and neither of them were ready to close their eyes... 

:I - understand: he thinks, and then has no idea what else to say. 

Mhalir releases his tight hold on Carissa. Lets her have sensory input, but keeps a firm grip on their body - not that she could do anything anyway, he's fairly sure, this is another him and he's being appropriately paranoid... 

It didn't feel like very long. Probably only as long as it took to arrange that it couldn't work even if he was inattentive, because Mhalir's not a very punitive person.

If Leareth is a Velgarth mage making sure she couldn't do it wouldn't be hard. 

She doesn't really have anything to say to either of them. It feels like usually there's some infinite source of desperation and selfishness and want, rushing in to energize her - and right now there's not, and so she can't unstick herself on the memories. 

She doesn't try to say anything or think anything. She does try to move her hand but she is not surprised when it doesn't work.

:....Carissa: Leareth says, softly. 

A long pause.

:Mhalir, could you - let her move - not cast spells, just move and speak...?:

Are you sure? Mhalir thinks loudly at him. 

:Trust me, she cannot do any harm here: 

.......Sure, then he can do that. 

:Carissa: There's - pain, in Leareth's expression, as he looks into her eyes. 

He knows this isn't his Carissa, but - some part of him doesn't think that this matters at all. 

His voice sounds oddly intimate to which her instinctive reaction is apparently - 

"I don't know you."

:I know. The Carissa I met is - a different you, from another world. But - regardless of whether you know me, you do know Ma'ar. And I know another you. Is...there any way that these two facts could let us trust one another: 

She knows what it means to be a Mhalir/Ma'ar/Aroden/whatever. It means a lot of good things. And it means destroying Hell. It doesn't feel like any part of the problem is one of trust, here. 

:...I understand that Hell was destroyed in your world. I - do not intrinsically value that. In fact, I - would much prefer the alternatives. And I imagine we will have more alternatives, if Asmodeus has no possible way of knowing that the resources of Mhalir's people even exist: 

".... I know that. I don't think Mhalir wanted -

- I am sure you'll all be very sad about it."

Leareth bows his head, unsure what to say. 

<Carissa...> 

And Mhalir trails off. Everything still hurts and he doesn't have words either.