"Alright."

Once someone is set up to take notes, she takes a deep breath and starts explaining herself.

"Boston believes in keeping our word. We want to be people anyone can make deals with, people who can be trusted because we can be predicted. We think about the incentives caused by us being the people we are, and being known to be the people we are--if I tried to get an unfair advantage in a trade, people wouldn't trade with me. We try to live by rules that it would be good for everyone to live by--not to the point of assuming everyone else will live by them, but we keep it in mind. We won't try to gain an advantage with tactics we wouldn't want used against us unless lots of other people are already using them.

We don't harm anyone who doesn't harm us, but we respond to attacks with self-defense and with clearly predictable proportionate retribution so no-one has an incentive to attack us. This works; having to actually follow through on that heuristic is extremely rare. Please don't interpret it as a threat, it's our policy and you asked about our policies and it's not the same implications as if we had brought it up out of the blue.

We can't be threatened or blackmailed and we won't try to threaten or blackmail anyone. We make trades that all parties benefit from and accept with full information.

We are sworn to protect each other, the four of us and Annisa. Any of us would risk our lives to save another from certain death; any of us would die to save any two of the others. And when one of us promises on behalf of all of us, all of us are bound by that promise as soon as we know it was made."

She's never laid it all out like that at once, as much as she can express of what it means to be Boston for someone who doesn't have any context. It's hitting her, all of a sudden, that the four (five?) of them are Boston, here, even more than they were in the Scholomance where there were layers of reputation from all the students that came before. If this world ever finds her home, what everyone here expects from Boston will be based on what they said and did here.

Jisa takes notes. She...is probably going to have a feeling about this, later. Maybe several feelings. Later. Right now she....is already on the other side of having emotions, reeling and dizzy from the revelation that apparently her father is a GOD now and also neither Leareth nor Melody thought to TELL her this incredibly relevant fact until now– 

Focus. Later. 

....Probably that speech wasn't designed by someone reading Leareth's mind in order to sound convincing and appealing to him specifically? Melody would be able to tell, for one, and she would have warned him, or would be caveating it now since she's doing the translation, or - would have done something -

- Leareth is still too foggy to trace down all the arguments for why this is unlikely but he's...pretty sure that it's unlikely. 

And so - probably, in fact, this is what the teenage wizard from another world believes, about the best and most correct way to make decisions. 

....He is going to process that later. Once it's more possible to have coherent thoughts again. 

This is hitting Leareth hard. Melody can tell, even though she's not trying to read his mind at all and it doesn't show much on his face. Mostly it's because she knows him. At one remove, through Vanyel, but still. 

She translates, being very careful to capture as many nuances as she can manage. 

....And she reads all of the kids' minds. There's an argument that this is against the ethics of the Mindhealers' Collegium, sure, but it's not like they're her patients, and besides, Melody is so far past caring about protocols right now. 

Marcy is trying to remember if she left out anything important. Maybe something about how they're all equals and don't have any kind of internal authority structure, just a default that she does the talking? But "any of us can speak for all of us" probably covers that.

Kevin is thinking about how glad he is that Marcy is mostly functional again; he does not like being the point person. Also if Annisa comes back as a horse that's going to be weird but kind of cool.

Franklin is really really glad Annisa's not dead even though she's probably going to be annoyed at him for not shielding the tank well enough.

Abigail is really glad Marcy is doing better and thinking about how to help her keep that momentum if it takes a long time to get Annisa back and there's nothing they can actively do to speed it up. Also, she wants Annisa back! There are supposed to be five of them and Annisa is brilliant and fierce and funny and she should get to be okay.

Melody is not going to cry. Crying is for later. Or for people who aren't her. 

After a moment, she slips over to the bed and lowers her voice to address Leareth. Not that it really matters, for privacy - the kids don't speak Valdemaran, or any of the other languages known to Velgarth - but it still feels better. "They're telling the truth. They.... They're good people. They care." 

Really that isn't anywhere near enough words to convey something so complicated and rich and full of nuance, but...oddly, Leareth is fairly sure that he knows exactly what Melody means. 

(Though, of course, he's still going to make a mental note to follow up later, poke at the details, once he can think better.) 

"Tell them thank you," he says, dully. "That - is helpful to know. ....I will have further questions in a moment." Hopefully. He's trying to prod his mind toward that but it's not being very cooperative. 

Melody conveys that. 

:- Is Annisa, er, on...the same page as you, about - all that?: she adds. :I - if so, then I expect Vanyel would get along with her very well: 

"Yes, when I say 'us' I mean her too. We wouldn't've formed an alliance if she wasn't on board with it."

Traditionally a lot of obligations to allies expire after you graduate and then you're just good friends who live in the same enclave and have been through a lot together and know each other really well, but they haven't, actually, gotten home yet, and it was clear from Annisa's message that she agrees that they should still be operating like they were inside. It's the obvious thing to do, at this level of danger and uncertainty.

Leareth clears his throat. "Is this...a usual way of operating? In your world? I - can explain to Vanyel, I think, but - it is rare here. That anyone is...trustworthy, in that way." 

"Parts of it are common? So the first thing I need to say is that I've only seen the Scholomance and been in training for the Scholomance. Most people don't even know about magic and I don't know as much about how they operate. But I think most people try to deal fairly and don't start shit but are willing to finish it but are less absolute about keeping promises and nobody else does the total mutual protection thing except maybe in militaries. And everyone cares about incentives and reputation some but a lot of people don't get training on how to think about it in detail."

"By the way," adds Abigail, "is part of the reason this conversation is difficult because you're in pain? I have a painkiller spell I could cast if you wanted that makes touch and proprioception kind of confusing but if you just want to sit and have a conversation it wouldn't get in the way. But it's fine if you'd rather I not do magic on you."

Leareth considers this. 

"I - Vanyel can act here," he says slowly. "To keep me safe. He...trusts Annisa. And so I am - tentatively willing to trust you." And Melody and Jisa are right there, and will be able to tell instantly if the magic is mind-affecting in some other way, and deal with it. "Do you have a spell for nausea as well." 

"Yes, and I can do both." Most of the time, in the Scholomance, the correct response to nausea is to puke, but when the cause of the nausea is clearly 'testing the 360-degree vision spell' rather than anything you ate, it's worth getting back to normal as quickly as possible.

Leareth has barely anything in his stomach, so throwing up is mostly just very unpleasant and pointless-seeming, and then the Healers fuss about dehydration, and it doesn't even result in feeling better for very long. 

"Thank you." 

The spell for pain does in fact feel very weird! Leareth has multiple other reasons not to want to get up and walk around, though. And, in the meantime, he's much closer to comfortable. It doesn't fix all of the difficulty with thinking, he's still weak and tired, but it helps. 

"What...are your top priorities and intentions in the short run?" he asks Marcy, who seems to be the one doing the talking for them. 

(Melody will translate that.)

"Our top priority is getting Annisa back. If that involves lots of waiting, I want to learn the language and we all want to know more about this planet. Also if our magic can help with the problems here we'd like to help, but knowing more is probably step one there."

Nod. "Do you - wish to have help in finding a way to contact your home. Or return there. ...Annisa worried it would be dangerous to attempt travel between our worlds. Since - mals might come across. Messages alone might be safer?" 

"Even messages would be worth a lot. We would love to go home, but it would be a long project if we could do it at all. Let alone safely." And then she has to stop talking for a minute because she misses her mom and dad and her house and the Boston library and also the abstract concept of having a plan.

Leareth has so much empathy for missing the abstract concept of having a plan! He desperately misses that too. 

"I - have ideas for that research. Once I am more recovered. And - I am not currently in contact with my people in the north, but - I would be very willing to share my resources with you. Which include extensive libraries. It would be valuable to know more of what your magic can do, but - I do not feel unusually advantaged in having that conversation." 

"We can write down what all the spells we know do and see if wizards here can cast them at all."

Kevin raises a hand. "Also I think I can build some mostly non-magical technology this place doesn't have."