And, within five minutes, Lady Treesa is back with a very young woman - a teenager, really, she looks about nineteen.

Except for her eyes, which are older than any human being's eyes ought to be. 

She frowns, and then - 

:Can you understand me?: 

Well, this planet just went up several spots on her priority list.

Yes. Do many of your people have this...ability? To speak without words? Do you have other forms of magic as well?

I need to speak to whoever is in charge. Does the ruler of this country live here? It looked like the capital, from space. I have information that may help you to contextualize the recent attack.

She accepts the tea and biscuits but nibbles cautiously at them. These people look human, but who knows if their biology is remotely compatible.

The tea doesn't taste exactly like Earth tea, and the biscuits have odd spices, but other than that it all seems as expected! 

:We've got, er, thirty-nine Heralds with Mindspeech range of a mile or more?: Dara answers, half on rote. :And, you mean capital of Valdemar? Ruler is - me. I guess: 

She sounds very, very tired about this. 

:Um, if you're here with information, though, you probably want Leareth? He's not ruling a country or anything but he, er, knows the most things:

This person is not old enough to be ruling a country but she's definitely seen people ruling in the aftermath of the Snap who seemed less prepared. And more happy about it, which is probably worse.

I intend to carry this message to all political entities and other factions on this planet who might be tempted to interpret recent events as the wrath of their gods or some other excuse for violence against their enemies. It is not.

Uh...I don't know what your scientific knowledge is like, but I saw a decent-looking observatory coming in so I'm going to assume that you know that planets go around suns and such. Well, every star in the sky is a sun, and many of them have their own planets around them, a small fraction with their own life, and a small fraction of those with intelligent species. But the universe is big. There are millions of inhabited worlds known to us—a few thousand with the tech level necessary to participate in the galactic community. We do not generally initiate contact with worlds as early in their development as yours, but I think that these circumstances warrant it.

The being who did this is named Thanos, and he does not even know that your world in particular exists. He...believes that life is doomed to destroy itself by multiplying until it consumes all available resources. He believes that this could only be prevented by the murder of one-half of all sentient beings, at random. He has acquired a set of extremely powerful magical artifacts, more powerful than anything your world has ever encountered, and used them to do this, on every world, everywhere. You are not alone in your suffering, and there are people with special abilities like mine working tirelessly to defeat him and undo his work.

(She doesn't mention the part where the entire solar system in which he was believed to be hiding was destroyed by a supernova that shouldn't have happened, and the Infinity Stones were nowhere to be found in the rubble.)

Normally I would end the speech there. However, because you seem to be magic-users of some kind, I will make the offer. There is a group of such specially powered people assembled on another world. If you would like to send some of your own to join the fight, I can transport you to them.

If there is anything you think I need to know about other political factions here, please tell me now. I will be verifying anything negative you tell me and will not be taking a side in any local conflict, so do not attempt to recruit me to do so. Also, tell me more about this 'Leareth'.

Dara's mind halfheartedly follows half a dozen thoughts and trails off, as the woman speaks. 

She wonders about the observatory. Leareth's, she's sort of assuming, less because she has any particular reason to believe that and more because her prior, at this point, is that any impressive project that she's never heard of was probably him. For all she knows, he was even the scholar who originally discovered that planets go around suns - though, honestly, it could have been Urtho. 

(Thinking of Urtho reminds her of the Tower, and thus of Vanyel, and she flinches away from the pointless stab of loss.) 

She thinks 'Thanos' is a stupid-sounding name and his plan sounds even stupider. 

Leareth would want to know about his absurdly powerful artifacts, though, she's pretty sure of that. 

Oh, right, she's probably supposed to answer or something. Being ruler of a country is terrible. 

:...Um, we know it wasn't the gods. Someone, er, talked to one of Them and we confirmed that. They have Foresight and didn't see it coming. Said it came from the outside: 

Which fits if it was someone from another world. Dara would normally be a lot more skeptical of that claim, she thinks distantly, but - it explains an awful lot, really. 

:And Leareth is -: 

Dara is suddenly wishing that she'd spent more time coming up with a short but accurate summary of Leareth as a person. Though maybe that's stupid too, it's not like she saw this coming. 

Whatever. 

:Leareth is an immortal mage, he's about two thousand years old and before this was, er, fighting the gods. He was going to conquer our kingdom as part of his plan to make a new nicer god that would fix everything: She will maybe leave out the part about all the murder, it's not like that's relevant anymore. :He had a prophetic dream with - one of our people: (another stab of grief), :who died when, um, when the thing happened. Anyway. We were expecting to end up at war with Leareth, but after the - thing happened - he opened communications and offered help instead. Which is the only reason things aren't a lot worse. He's - very smart - and very good at magic - I bet he'd want to help you: 

Well, this young queen or whatever she is clearly wants nothing to do with this and probably won't start any wars. Leareth sounds much more concerning on that front, but the queen's impression nonetheless seems positive, and she will let that color her own.

Also, this world has gods that people actually talk to. That wasn't the sort of gods she was concerned about, though.

Very well. I am sure you have things to attend to. I will go see Leareth. Use this if you need my help—if, for example, you are attacked. She hands her a black device whose screen displays a gold star on a red and blue background.

She takes off and flies north, landing in the middle of what she assumes must be Leareth's camp, near where she saw the observatory.

(Leareth has people in Haven, who Dara alerted as soon as Lady Treesa came to grab her, and they have communication-spell artifacts, and so Leareth's organization receives word of the woman from another world before she even departs from Haven.) 

Leareth's encampment in the north is mostly underground or shielded by illusion-spells or very unobtrusive, but the area near the observatory, which itself is nestled between two peaks of a range of icecapped mountains, has the densest concentration of aboveground structures - as well as a much larger total volume of underground rooms, dug into the mountain itself. 

It's very cold, even now in early summer. A cluster of people emerge from one of the buildings and look at her. 

Leareth isn't onsite, but as soon as he gets word of where the stranger landed, he prepares to head over. 

Hello, she thinks as loudly as she can, if that makes a difference. I am a visitor from another world with information on the attack that killed half your population. I would like to speak to Leareth, whom I believe is your leader?

The strongest Thoughtsenser on site is mindreading her in an attempt to get more information (from the shelter of a building, out of site) and so this comes across very clearly. 

One of the people, a woman in her fifties, steps forward. :Welcome. He's on his way from another site right now– oh, never mind, he's here, he's just coming up from the basement:

The Gate-threshold is underground; it's a lot easier to shield, that way. 

Leareth heads up, but pauses before leaving the underground section, reaching out to the Thoughtsenser reading the stranger for a report on anything she's thinking and not saying. 

She thinks someone who's planning to fight gods is probably a good ally to have at the moment but is a little leery about the whole "invading Valdemar" thing. This looks like, and based on the Valdemaran queen's description definitely is, a terrorist organization. Also, being the only immortal on a planet is rarely an indicator of being a good person.

She's fought with worse. She's fought for worse, though she didn't remember who she was while she was doing it.

About a minute later, a man and a woman people emerge from the building together, shrugging on warm cloaks against the wind. 

The woman is tall and very dark-skinned, but with a frizz of startlingly white hair, and crystal-blue eyes. She moves like someone trained in martial arts. 

She's also watching the man out of the corner of her eye, with something like concern. 

Judging by the way everyone's eyes turn towards him, the man is the one in charge. 

He gives off an impressively intense vibe of being - vigilant, careful, in control. Dangerous.

Aside from that, though, he looks incredibly tired, much moreso than the young maybe-queen-or-something of Valdemar did. His expression is completely neutral, revealing nothing, but his eyes aren't quite focusing, and he moves like someone who isn't, entirely, in the same physical space as everyone else around him.

:You wished to speak with me: he says, and his mindvoice conveys most of the same things except five times as much. He doesn't sound curious. He sounds like someone who's forgotten what curiosity means. 

Okay, he's very stressed out. That's, maybe, not the healthiest response to a completely out-of-context danger that's orders of magnitude more powerful than oneself, but it's one indicative of a potential superhero.

Yes. The current ruler of Valdemar recommended that I see you. She thought you might be willing to help me. I am fighting the one who did this to you.

His name is Thanos. He did it in order to...because he believed that life would destroy itself if its growth were left unchecked. He used a set of extremely powerful magical artifacts. We call them the Infinity Stones. The full set, if you possess the strength of will to wield them, grants one effective omnipotence. Any task you can conceive of can be done with the snap of your fingers. And Thanos' wish...was to wipe out half of all sentient beings in the universe. Not only this world—there are millions, with trillions of lives. You are not alone in this fight.

Starting from 'I am fighting the one who did this to you', he's suddenly intently and entirely focused on her. Which is a lot of - something - a degree of presence that most normal people would find utterly terrifying. 

He listens. Calculation flashes behind his eyes. Horror and anger, quickly controlled. His eyes narrow at 'effective omnipotence', then widen at 'trillions of lives'. 

And then on the last sentence, his breath puffs out slightly, his expression goes flat and empty, and he's suddenly - not there, whatever his eyes are seeing it isn't her. 

He's been trying for weeks to make sense of this, and what she's saying is critical and there should be hope in it, but instead - 

- for weeks he's been having nightmares of the Cataclysm. Scenes he doesn't, actually, remember, or that he never saw at all in life. A tower going up like a candle under a mage's fireball. 

A silver-haired man with the sharp curiosity gone from his blue eyes, alone in the last seconds of his life, choosing to burn his legacy and everything he ever built because in his eyes his pupil had betrayed him.

In his nightmares, it's all the same thing, somehow, the mysterious snuffing-out of millions of lives across an entire world, and Urtho is there and he doesn't need to say it, for Leareth - for Ma'ar - to know that it was his fault - 

Nayoki has spent weeks watching Leareth hold everything together around her, and then, at night, trying to help him eke out a few candlemarks of sleep in the least stupid ways she can think of, and she's scared, for everyone and everything and the future of humanity but mostly for him. 

He has a talisman against Thoughtsensing, of course, but not against her other Sight, and she flinches at the motion rippling through his mind. Reaches for his arm. 

:Leareth: 

He wishes Vanyel were here. 

Vanyel would be - better at this. Wouldn't be drowning in his own wounded pride, that he didn't see a danger coming from ANOTHER WORLD, one of millions - 

- trillions of lives and half of them gone and surely he should be able to feel that, he can do math, but he doesn't feel anything right now. 

:Leareth. Focus: 

Leareth drags himself back from a sky on fire. Tries to look at the woman. 

:Of course I will help you. ...What was he thinking, he could have done anything he wanted and the best plan he could think of was this...: 

No one has any idea what Thanos was thinking.

Okay. I am—occupied, trying to keep uncontacted worlds like yours from tearing themselves apart in the chaos. But there is a group of individuals with...various special abilities, gathered on another world, who are focused on fighting him directly. I can transport you and a small group of your people to them.

There is an enormous backlog of emotions trying to claw its way loose from somewhere emotions shouldn't even BE, and Leareth does not have time for that right now. 

:I understand. Our world is - doing well enough, I think, on that front. There is considerable chaos but, I think, mostly not in ways that you could mitigate by - sharing the information you just did with others. My organization can convey the news to other governments, if that simplifies your work, we are already in communication with...most of the governments that still exist:

A pause.

:I wish to coordinate with Valdemar on - whether any of their people will volunteer. How long may I take before it will delay or inconvenience you. ...Also, what is the maximum headcount you can transport: 

I have already spent too long here. However, you can contact me at any time and I will be here within hours. Just press the button on this. She hands him another pager.

I can transport three, maybe four, unaided. A much larger number, if you have or can build an airtight structure capable of holding them. I will need to fly them through space, and my own shields against the vacuum have a limited range.

Also, I realized I've forgotten to introduce myself. Captain Carol Danvers, United States Air Force (with all the mental connotations of what the US and its Air Force are and do), though most now call me Captain Marvel, after my mentor.

He accepts the pager from her. :Thank you. I - am honoured to meet you, Captain Marvel: 

It sounds like he means it, though the overtones behind the genuine gratitude are...complicated. 

:We will have more than four, I think. How much force does this airtight structure need to withstand?: