Carissa casts a translation spell as soon as they're alone. 

- wow. Okay. She was expecting it to take more persuading than that. "It's - very kind of you to check," she says quietly, holding Leareth's hand. "But I think important people will be angry if you are kind to us, and it would be better for you to go. I don't want you to get in trouble, I won't tell anyone that you were here."

"Oh good, thank you - I don't have very long, I need to go before anyone catches me. But I think we have at least five minutes and if I hear someone coming I'll go out the window." 

To Leareth, "- why did you pave your mind like that?" 

Leareth coughs. "- What?"

Again, it doesn't take much in the way of acting skill to start sitting up and then flop back against the pillows with a pained grunt. Just because he is probably physically capable of standing and walking (assuming he were permitted to) doesn't mean he's feeling especially healthy yet. 

Jisa gives Carissa a deeply concerned look. "Is he hurt? What happened?" 

Leareth closes his eyes and tries to look tired and ill. :...I am going to let you handle this one?: he tells Carissa. :You are better at it: 

"We were kidnapped and dragged here, and then the Heralds wanted to use lots of mind-control to imprison him and interrogate him, and I think it hurt him very badly, trying to keep him conscious so they could use magic to make him talk to them when he was barely able to breathe."

...Carissa is very good at this. It's impressive and - kind of disconcerting, but it's good for his goals, right now, so Leareth isn't complaining. 

"That's so horrible! ...Why did they do it to you too - I guess maybe he could run away if they didn't do lots of blocks, 'cause he's a mage, but you aren't." 

"I think it's just easier to mind control people than to un-mind-control them? They did it when they kidnapped us, and someone said it would be a lot of trouble for Melody undoing it. And Mindhealers are very rare, and you have to be very talented, I think, to do anything about this kind of powerful magic."

....That doesn't seem right? 

"I think the Heralds must've had a reason - Melody's good, she wouldn't mind the extra trouble - I think they would'd've had to have ordered her to leave it. I don't know why, though, it's horrible! Why did they kidnap you?" 

"Well, I only have guesses, and they might not be very good guesses, I'd never even heard of Valdemar when they attacked us in our tent. And I don't want you thinking your grownups are unreasonable, probably they are doing their very best and everyone makes mistakes sometimes."

"Is it because of the war with Iftel? I think they're really really really scared about the war with Iftel, and all sorts of things are happening and they're very busy so maybe they haven't had time to think about it more?" 

"That was going to be my guess! I'm from Cheliax, in the other world. Iftel attacked us a month ago. We had sent them a peaceful delegation and they burned it to death without warning, and then when we tried to retrieve their bodies - we can resurrect them, with magic in my world - they attacked those people too, even when we tried to explain -"

It takes Jisa a long time to find her voice. "That - that's so awful! They burned them? ...Is he from Cheliax too?" 

"No, I met him in Iftel, once the war started. We were in Iftel when Melody and Starwind and Moondance came in and captured us. And then Vkandis told us that we belong to the Star-Eyed Goddess, now, only I don't want to belong to the Star-Eyed Goddess, I want to go home, I want to show people from this world all the beautiful things in mine, and I - I want to go to my god when I die, not a strangers' god -"

Empathy says she feels INCREDIBLY STRONGLY about this and her tears are not feigned at all.

Jisa freezes for a second, and then hugs her. 

Hug. "You shouldn't help us, you'd get into lots of trouble." Sniffle. "Unless it looked like we escaped ourselves, I guess."

This is so important and big and scary and Jisa doesn't know what to do! 

She takes a deep breath. "...If I help you escape can you use your magic to bring back all the people who died in the war with Karse. My papa and my mama and my Uncle Van are so sad about all their friends who died." 

"I could do that. It would be hard, and it might take a long time, but I could bring back every one of them. And then they wouldn't be mad, maybe, they would see that we're not their enemy."

"I think the war is stupid. ...Uncle Van thinks it's stupid. I heard him talking about it. I don't know why he would keep you here if you could go back and help make the stupid war stop and then bring back all the dead people! Maybe if I just go talk to him -" 

Terror. "He'll punish us for - telling you our side of things - he thinks Cheliax is horrible. I told him I just wanted to go home and he said that he would sell me to some other god if I wanted but not let me go back because he thinks people shouldn't have my god. I swear to you, that's what he said."

"But -" 

Jisa starts crying. She can't help it. 

It doesn't make SENSE, she KNOWS Vanyel wouldn't do that, but, but -

- but she doesn't think the woman is lying. She's sososo scared and it's buffeting at Jisa's mind. Mindhealing and Empathy aren't perfect for guessing that and she hasn't pushed very hard with Thoughtsensing because if you have to push hard then people notice, but - she sees the shape of her mind when she says it, I swear to you that's what he said, and everything is lined-up in her and her terror is very very very real. 

She has to be brave, though. She has to do the right thing even if no one else will. Uncle Van would understand that.

She gulps and sniffles and takes a deep breath, and then pushes a little bit with Empathy, to try to calm the woman down.

"It's all right - I don't want anyone to hurt you, I promise. It just - doesn't make sense, that he would say that - maybe it's something else bad happening, sometimes if he's very upset about things then he snaps at people..." 

Another deep breath, and then she turns to the other man. "Where are you from? Why did they kidnap you too, if you aren't even from Cheliax?" 

Leareth gives her a bleary look. He's...starting to realize that he's maybe not as recovered as he had hoped; the effort of following this conversation, tracking all the details and mapping out all the implications, is making his head pound again. 

:- Carissa, what should I - I am not as good at lying as you are...?: 

How does he plan on fighting the gods if he doesn't have basic survival skills -

You want to resurrect all the people who died in the war. You have a plan for it, but Vkandis and the Star-Eyed Goddess don't like your plan, and Valdemar's caught in the middle, and can't let you go without making the Star-Eyed very angry, and they hurt you very badly trying to figure out what to do and now you're scared to stay here and try to explain it to them, you want to explain it once you're safe.