This is the WORST conversation to be trying to have on four candlemarks of sleep but it seems like it would be bad to look evasive and even worse to lie? 

:Er, during the period after he was captured by the evil god in the last war, he– so, the evil god, Melkor, could control people's sensory experiences, give them arbitrary hallucinations, and edit their memories. Melkor had only captured one Velgarth mage and he.clearly wanted to have Leareth's capabilities and he tried very hard using all of that to trick Leareth into doing magic for him. I don't think this was his fault in any meaningful way but the other gods in Arda were scared and so they banned him from Valinor: 

"Regardless of whether it was his fault, is he currently hazardous?"

:No. His ability to use magic other than Mindspeech - the telepathy we're using to communicate - is blocked, and we're not planning to change that anytime soon: 

Melody HATES HER LIFE but she can't deny that the Premier's representative is asking very reasonable questions. King Randale would have the same sort of questions and - actually she's been in a pretty analogous situation, with Randi, and she was upset and frustrated but she couldn't really judge him for it. 

"The report I got said you're planning to sell some personal effects to fund your stay here. Do you expect that to last until someone - comes to pick you up?"

:Probably not? But I have some useful skills that I'd be happy to provide and get paid for, and Leareth has a lot more although I don't want to ask it of him until he's ready, and if we can't earn our keep here then our backup plan is to camp in the wilderness and we do actually have all the supplies we'd need for that: 

"What skills are those?"

:I'm a Mindhealer. This is one of the Gifts we have in Velgarth but it's also a skillset, and I'm pretty experienced and - if I can say so myself - pretty good at it. I can help people to cope with their emotional difficulties or traumatic experiences - that's not an exhaustive list or anything, it covers more than that: 

"So like a therapist?"

Melody obviously doesn't recognize the word! If she looks in a little closer and deeper at Zare's surface thoughts, to try to get more of the underlying concept, what is that concept? Does it sound similar to what a Mindhealer does? 

Zare's trying to actually parse the conversation and not just repeat the sounds but he's imperfect at this. His associations on "therapist", such as they are, is that you go to them if a) you have a mental condition that makes you wash your hands 5,000 times in a row or hear voices or try to kill yourself, or b) you don't have one of those but for some reason have no friends to talk to and are paying one to listen to you instead.

The a) cluster mostly fits? Well, Melody is weirded out by the whole "washing your hands 5000 times in a row" concept, she's never had a patient who did that specifically and it's definitely not 1/3 of her patient load, but the other two fit, ish?

....She is so mystified at the idea that anyone would pay a Mindhealer to talk to them because they don't have friends? Mindhealers are annoying. Or maybe it's just her, but this sure does seem to be the consensus with her patients. Also there are five Mindhealers in the entire country of Valdemar. It sounds like this world has a better ratio, which maybe makes sense given that they don't have magic at all, and once you already don't have magic at all, it must seem like a better idea to just train un-Gifted people in helping other people with their emotional problems. Melody has been advocating for this for years. 

:- Er, yes, I think roughly that? Not exactly but there are enough cultural differences here that nothing's going to match up exactly. - And I do have a Gift for it, I can - hmm, so for example if someone tends to get into a guilt-spiral about being fundamentally inadequate every time they see something that reminds them of their parents: that must be generic enough right, :I can go in and directly add a different redirect. It's a shortcut, obviously, and you can't fix everything that way, but it's really useful: 

"That does sound useful. It seems like it might be hard to apply existing malpractice law to."

:....I don't know what that means?: 

"I'm observing that therapists, and the pharmacists they work with who prescribe drugs to the patients, are covered by a set of laws governing how they're supposed to do that, and none of that law or how it's usually enforced covers magical therapy which no one else can directly observe. - that doesn't mean you can't practice, it means you have to get patients to agree to waive certain rights."

:Oh!: Melody's eyes light up. :That - I think I follow what you mean - that's such a good idea! Valdemar has laws around the allowed ethical using of Healing - that's a different magical Gift that can treat physical illness or injury - and I've really wanted there to be an equivalent for Mindhealers but there just haven't been enough of us, it's lower priority because it just affects fewer people and even if it were a priority none of us had time to write up some kind of official standards and then argue about them. But I really want to see your version! ...Not sure it matters that much whether you can directly observe Mindhealing, it must be even harder to directly observe the effects of a therapist having talked to someone: 

"The patients are allowed to record their sessions secretly if they wish."

:Record as in - take notes?: Melody would have thought it would be hard to take notes in a secret invisible way! :Or, wait, it's probably a technology thing like phones, isn't it–: 

This is the point at which Leareth - who is still asleep - starts projecting DESPAIR at his immediate surroundings. 

This is so awkward! It's maybe not quite as awkward as her argument with Randi about putting Vanyel under Truth Spell right after the whole stupid drama with Leareth's grand reveal and Yfandes running off, but it's close! 

:Ummmm sorrysorrysorry I should probably go - deal with that - just give me a minute -: Melody sprints upstairs. 

(She put some pretty serious blocks on him! How is he even doing this?) 

Well, that leaves Zare suddenly sobbing for no reason and trying to explain to the Secretary about that.

Melody would have put a shield on Zare but, given her lack of mage-gift and of any special training for that, she only knows how to share her own mind-shields with someone else to cover them if she's touching them, and it seems like she more urgently needs to go solve the source of this problem.

Halfway up the stairs, she reaches ahead and Mindtouches Leareth. :Wake up. It's Melody. You're with me in the other world. Wake up, everything's fine -:

Leareth wakes up. Stops projecting. Does not stop crying. He's yet again so confused about where he is and also for some reason he's very groggy and can't quite finish his thoughts and also - 

:- Is Vanyel dead?: Leareth is very sure he just saw Vanyel die! The exact circumstances are unclear and also now he's confused about everything to do with his epistemic state but he saw it. 

(Leareth isn't deliberately trying to include Zare in the link, but he's also not trying for directional Mindspeech and he's projecting kind of loudly; from Zare's perspective, this will probably come across as the telepathy equivalent of someone screaming not-quite-comprehensible words from a long way off.) 

Zare decides to hang up on the Secretary apologetically and LEAVE THE HOUSE and walk away until stuff stops happening to his brain.

It would be really great if Melody had any way of confirming that Vanyel is definitely not dead! Leareth is probably asking for reasons related to whatever nightmare he just had, as opposed to actual events in the real world. But there's a war on and she cannot, actually, give him any certainty that Vanyel is alive. 

:I doubt it? I haven't heard anything indicating that he's dead and when we last spoke yesterday it didn't sound like the war situation was that dire and also Maitimo would absolutely sit on him and stop him from doing anything stupid: 

Leareth is kind of mostly following that, but he's maybe just going to lie here crying for the next day or so anyway.