Pools of mana lying around and no mals. It's like something a six-year-old would imagine. "Why would anyone live in the Pelagirs, then?"

:The Tayledras are bound by a pact with their Goddess. To cleanse the lands and set them right from the damage the Cataclysm caused. They get - some protection, in exchange: 

Anytime before today - before the last candlemark, even - Tran would have said this with a VERY different set of emotional overtones. Right now, though, the words are deeply infused with grief and bitterness and simmering anger and bone-deep, soul-deep exhaustion.

"Earth doesn't have goddesses so I don't really know how that works but okay." Some people believe in gods or goddesses but none of them agree with each other and they never actually do anything as obvious as binding people. Or, apparently, giving Herald Tantras a terrible day.

:.....Oh. Interesting. That - seems different from our world, probably. Our gods are - usually more subtle than they've been lately, but Queen Karis did get possessed by Vkandis and granted miraculous healing powers to win the war, and that was most of a decade ago: Which makes him feel incredibly old, and even more tired. :You're saying your world never has that kind of thing happen? Not just that you've never personally seen it?: 

"There's legends? But it's always some guy two thousand years ago or something. And people who believe any one legend don't believe the others, there isn't any one that everyone thinks is true."

:Huh. I'm....not sure what to think, then. I guess that's some extra evidence that we're from different worlds, maybe: 

"Yeah, I don't think the past had nodes or wordless magic or zero mals. And you probably didn't have, uh, the Roman empire or the Han dynasty or the Aztecs?" That's most of the world covered, he thinks.

The words aren't familiar but maybe they wouldn't be. Still, he can grab a solid chunk of the concepts as well, and... 

:No. I think not: Sigh. :Well, at - least our world seems a bit better than yours in some ways?: 

"It seems really nice so far! Sorry we dropped on you while you were having a bad day." He looks like he's just lost an ally, which is a bad day even by Kevin's standards. (Arguably worse than any day he's had before today, really.)

'Bad day' is such an understatement. Tran's had bad days before, hundreds of them. He's never before watched helplessly from a distance as his kingdom's armies and Heralds prepared for what was either a critical final fight for their country's survival, or the worst mistake of their history. 

It was the latter. Which...should be a relief, really, but behind all the exhaustion there's a dull endless pain behind Tran's breastbone. Vanyel. He didn't even get to say goodbye, and it feels like he's never going to understand how or why it happened, for all that he was scarcely a few minutes' walk away. Oh, and then there's the part where they just escalated from a war with an immortal bloodpath mage to a war with the gods, and any sane person would be terrified in his shoes. 

Tran isn't scared, not exactly. He's angry. 

And, of course, none of that is these poor children's fault, and clearly they're also having the kind of day for which 'bad day' is a remarkable understatement. 

He tries to smile. It's not very reassuring. "Hey, you didn't pick the timing either. ....All right. How about I get you paper and you can draw us a map of your world?" On the remote chance that Leareth does know something about all this, that might be useful later. 

"Yeah, that sounds good." None of them are going to be especially solid on coastlines but they have a general sense of where the continents go and can label some countries and most of the cities with enclaves.

The man in the bed is clearly conscious, and just as clearly not very much not alert or oriented to his surroundings. He also, in Jisa's not-especially-qualified opinion, looks like shit, pale and clammy, the skin around his eyes sunken and bruised-looking. The Healers have him bundled up thoroughly in fire-heated blankets, but his hand, when Jisa grasps it, still feels cool to the touch. 

"Gemma, if he's stable, I want you out of here," Melody says, quietly calm. "Jisa and I can defend ourselves if he comes out of it confused and thinks we're a threat. ....Jisa, shields." 

Jisa is having SOME SORT OF EMOTION about this situation. It's very hard to figure out what the emotion is, when she's exhausted and shaken and drained. She feels like a village the morning after a storm and flash floods, sodden and flattened. 

She shields them, wincing as her mage-channels protest this vehemently, and she holds Leareth's hand and makes sure her face is in his line of sight. Right now his eyes slide past her with no sign of recognition, but that's normal and to be expected for a complete dissociative-block. 

"I'm ready." 

It's an easy block to reverse; it takes Melody about ten seconds. Grab the swath of threads that she had previously pulled and twisted and flipped over, knotting Leareth's mind into a shape where all the pathways that usually route through the center of his tapestry are instead blocked, keeping them forcibly separate. (He's been fighting it, which isn't supposed to be possible, this kind of block theoretically shuts down all volitional actions, but clearly for Leareth, trying to orient to his surroundings is basically at the level of instinct and reflex.) 

There are sensations, sounds and lights and touch, but nothing coherent to experience them - 

- and then, suddenly, there is, again, and Leareth wrenches himself toward alertness, where is he -

Auuughhhhhh she wasn't quite done! Melody's head is slightly ringing now from how forcefully Leareth brought up shields and shoved her half-out of his mind, as soon as enough of him was back to do that. Ow. 

He doesn't recognize the room he's in and this is only partly because his vision is blurry.

Leareth tries to Gate out, which doesn't even slightly work, and hurts enough that his vision half dissolves into black whirlpools and it's a struggle just to stay conscious. 

- right, she shouldn't Mindtouch him, he's going to have unimaginable backlash right now. 

"Leareth. It's Jisa. Please don't do that. You're in Haven, you were hurt pretty badly, but you're safe - the Heartstone's down, we think -" 

Leareth blinks until his vision clears enough to confirm that, yes, the face swimming in front of him is Jisa's. He unshields his Thoughtsensing just enough to check - ow - that the flavor of her mind is right as well. 

Skim his jumbled recent memories. It...worked. He thinks. He doesn't remember finishing it, so presumably he lost consciousness, but he held it together for long enough. 

He closes his eyes. He's not safe, but - for right now, this will have to be good enough. 

"Leareth. Hey. Are you with us? Squeeze my hand if you're listening." 

It's odd and out-of-context to hear Jisa using that very Healer-like tone of voice, but - of course, her mother was a Healer, after all, it fits. 

Leareth wonders if Shavri survived the working. He's too tired to ask, right now. 

He squeezes Jisa's hand. 

"Good. I - Leareth, I know you feel awful right now, but I............need help. With something." Actually, what Jisa desperately wants is to burst into tears and hide in her mother's arms, but she can't do that, can she. 

Not at all surprising, given the givens. "Mmm," Leareth manages. 

"I - um - you're going to think I'm crazy, but I swear we have some young people who just showed up claiming to be - mages? From a horrible mage school? Except they....seem to maybe actually be from another world, and the spell for them to graduate from their horrible school got messed up. Their magic works totally differently from ours and they've never heard of the Cataclysm or anything else I mentioned. Er, and my Companion was reading their minds the whole time, they were telling the truth about everything and there's no sign they've ever heard of you or Valdemar. Only, the timing is sort of suspicious, right? Even if they don't know it, one of the gods could be setting them up to be pawns, to try to kill you? So we're - being careful - but these poor teenagers are scared and confused and their parents are going to think they got killed during their horrible mage-school's horrible graduation ritual..."