"- But the obvious problem is that Leareth is banned from Valinor. Unless Melody re-blocks all his Gifts." 

"I don't want to do that to him. I - think it would be a huge setback, at this point, this is really godawful timing and - it's going to be bad enough, having to tell him that this is happening. Which, by the way, is that a job you're going to leave me saddled with?" 

Sigh. "I'll tell him. I had been really, really hoping it...wasn't going to be this." 

Stef glances around the table. "Do we have any alternatives. Er, Van, what about that - whatever it was you thought you'd found, when you were Gate-exploring...?" 

"...Huh. I hadn't really thought of that, but - maybe." 

The conversation with Leareth does not exactly go well. Vanyel feels terrible about it. Leareth is doing vastly better in so many ways, but he's still very reliant on their support, and 'immediately after finding out that Velgarth is in danger - and that all of them have been keeping a critical secret from him this whole time - is the worst moment to lose that. But he doesn't actually see that they have a choice. 

Melody will go with him. Vanyel is awfully tempted to send Stef with him - even Valinor doesn't feel safe enough for his lifebonded - but, as Stef points out, being in different worlds will be debilitating for both of them. 

He leaves Leareth to spend a few last precious candlemarks with Maitimo, and re-attacks the Gate exploration problem. He didn't pursue it further before, but he was pretty sure there was something there, a stable destination on the other side of the Void - 

There is, in fact, something there. His first test Gate appears in the middle of an ocean, but a couple of additional trials confirm that this is a planet, with life on it, and cities, albeit very strange ones. 

Leareth is mostly past panic and deep into exhausted resignation. He asks to be asleep for the Gate transfer, because he's not sure that right now he's capable of making a conscious decision to say goodbye and possibly never see any of them again. 

Vanyel does his best to drop the threshold of his final full-sized Gate in the midst of one of the cities, but his 'aim' is rather haphazard.

The Gate lands in the parking lot of a grocery store (not that Vanyel recognizes either of these things, per se). From the perspective of anyone watching, a glowing door-sized rectangle appears out of thin air, flashes brightly, and then shows the stone walls of Vanyel's Work Room (which are kind of absurdly covered in beautiful carved bas-relief images.) 

"All right, go," he says tightly. "I can't hold this for long."

This is incredibly nerve-wracking! Melody is desperately wishing she could have had more than three candlemarks' of warning about this! Though it is, to be fair, significantly more warning than she had when she last left Valdemar. She had time to pack and everything. 

And if it's this uncomfortable for her, she can't even imagine how terrifying it would be for Leareth to face it on his own. 

Vanyel said there were people here, who at least looked human at a glance, and that he was going to try to drop them in an inhabited area so that she could ask the locals about their willingness to shelter a couple of refugees from another world. 

She shoulders her pack and walks through the Gate, and immediately extends her Thoughtsensing as well as looking around in all directions. 

An old man carrying a bag full of fruit and bread and cheese, approaching his nyoom, is very startled by this eventuality! He doesn't drop the bag on the ground but it's a near thing, he swings it awkwardly into the nyoom's basket.

She has also startled two dogs, a crow carrying a grocery list, and a family of six, but the old man is closest.

That's a crow carrying what? Melody blinks mildly at the scene in front of her for several seconds before she manages to find a semblance of composure. 

:I'm very sorry to bother you, but I'm from another world and there's a very dangerous war happening there. I need to know if - if it would be possible for me and, er, one other person to stay here for a while, so we're out of the way of it: She can explain all the complications related to the fact that the other person is Leareth later, once Vanyel isn't holding a Gate open. 

"- you trying to tell me there's a war in space and it's coming here?" says the old man.

It's just bizarre how agonizingly awkward and stressful this interaction is! ...Maybe not that inexplicable. It feels high stakes because it is, they - don't really have a fallback plan better than Valinor, which may or may not actually be safe anyway, and whatever Vanyel says, Melody feels very uncomfortable about the idea of getting dumped here without having first had some kind of conversation with one of the locals. Not that they've got much time for it. 

:No! Definitely not! The, er, parties responsible for the war have no way of knowing or caring that your world exists, so we'll be safe here, and for um complicated reasons that would take too long to explain, my - friend - can't evacuate to the usual place: 

"You obviously know my world exists. Don't like the sound of reasons that would take too long to explain, either."

Gaaaaaaah this is not going how Melody had hoped at all. Not that she's sure what she was expecting, exactly. Maybe she should have tried to start this conversation with literally anyone else. 

She doesn't want to make Vanyel exhaust himself by holding the Gate for half a candlemark, but what is she supposed to do with Leareth if Vanyel dumps him through the Gate here and now and leaves? One of Maitimo's staff is available to carry him across, but the ground is all stone or some kind of cement, she can't just plop him down there and she certainly can't carry him herself. 

:We do, but it wasn't of particular interest before: Because Vanyel hadn't picked up on any hint of magic, locally. :I expect it would be of even less interest to the enemy our world is facing, and that leaving the two of us here wouldn't make much difference either way, since there's no way to track our Gate or locate us once we're here. And - if something does come up we can leave again: 

In theory. Ish. It would require unblocking Leareth's mage-gift and trusting him to embark on more Gate research, which nobody is in any rush to do. 

Melody bites down the urge to snap 'well, if Vanyel leaves us here what are you going to do, kick us out.'  :Is there someone else I should talk to about this?: she says instead, calm and measured. 

"You want I should phone the government?" asks the old man.

The mother of the family is taking pictures of the Gate; the rest of her group has left.

This is the moment that Vanyel picks to stick his head through the Gate. :Melody is there a problem I really can't hold this much longer: 

He notices the mother taking pictures, and smiles and waves. 

:I...don't think so? This place seems - organized: And notably wealthy, too, going off the sheer quantity of paved road and glass storefront windows and the bountiful food being carried out of the market. :Just - some understandable reluctance around a war potentially putting them in danger: 

:Interworld Gates shouldn't be traceable, even if we weren't doing this behind shields: 

He makes eye contact with the mother again, since she looks - friendlier. :Excuse me. Is there anyplace sort of close by where we can put a sleeping person. It's complicated, Melody will explain after: 

And Melody should probably stop ignoring the old man, even if he's mostly been unhelpful so far. She's understanding him at all only by dint of skimming the words in his surface thoughts and she still has no idea what a 'phone' is, though in context it's probably a mode of communication? 

:- Um, yes, I think so?: 

"They'd think I was crazy," snorts the old man. "Heck*, maybe I am. Your process is terrible. Should've gone to the government to start out."

He boards his nyoom and nyooms away.

* Literally "burr" - the kind of seed that sticks to you.

How is she supposed to go to the government to start with, she has no idea who or where the government of this place is– nevermind, not productive to get into an argument with the old man about it. 

Sigh. 

Vanyel, now putting substantial effort into not falling over, repeats his question to the mother taking pictures, and then extends his Thoughtsensing further - is there anyone inside the market-looking building who going off surface thoughts seems to know what's going on or be in charge? 

The market's coming up on closing time; there are a few workers there, none of whom seem very in charge of anything larger than the dairy counter.

"Uh," says the woman taking the pictures, "you... shouldn't put a sleeping person in the parking lot. There's a bench over there?" She points. There are a bunch of benches, actually.

:Oh. Good. Thank you: Vanyel's vision is starting to go hazy and grey around the edges; he can't actually make out the benches. :Melody, can I leave this with you? I'm sorry about the awkwardness, just -: