Sigh. "I see. In the unlikely event that you, say, catch some kind of local flu and both die, and therefore he can't find you, what do you expect him to do?"

Melody frowns. :I mean, if he went in and couldn't find either of us in Mindspeech range, he wouldn't necessarily assume we were dead, since we might've just moved to the opposite side of the planet. He...would probably at that point go make contact with people in the nearest city himself? Or more likely he'd send Maitimo in– Maitimo is our Quendi ally from Arda and he's much more interested in, um, the whole talking to people thing. Anyway I think he would ask about us and if he found out we'd died of the local flu he wouldn't blame you or anything. He's be devastated but he wouldn't blame you: 

...He would instead go looking for Leareth's next incarnation in Velgarth, but that's a whole new bucket of manure that Melody hasn't even lifted the lid on yet. 

"Not all locations within five hundred miles of here are part of this country, is that likely to be an issue at all?"

:....Um, probably not? Might matter if you're on good terms with the neighboring countries such that they'd pass on diplomatic queries or whatnot, but in any case Vanyel knows where he left us, he'd try for someone in this city first. It...could maybe get more complicated if Vanyel ends up dead or incapacitated and someone else re-derives the Gate routing to find us again? But I would expect that to take years if not decades, probably Leareth would be able to transport us himself before that point: 

The Secretary nods. "Will Leareth gain any other abilities he doesn't currently have in the course of becoming able to do that?"

:Um. If I unblock his mage-gift he'll regain all the capabilities he has with that, including I guess the ability to explode at will although I would definitely not do the unblocking if I thought he might do that at random. But I can't do it selectively or anything. I can try to draw up a list of all the mage-abilities I know Leareth has, if you want? And I'm - willing to defer to your government on whether it's a good idea to let him have all his Gifts again: 

She is technically willing but definitely not happy about the prospect, but what else is new. 

"I have no reason to think we're qualified to evaluate that compared to his mindreading therapist, it's just the sort of thing that has to go in the security report."

Melody honestly does not feel all that qualified to assess this either! She's probably more qualified than a random other world's local government and she's glad they're not going to argue about that with her but still. 

:Noted: 

"I'm going to go ahead and authorize Dree to handle you as permanent immigrants, in case that winds up being the case. This is an unusual situation and you shouldn't assume that if the portal opens and there are a million war refugees to resettle that we'd be able to handle all of those."

:That makes sense. I don't think anyone was assuming that: 

If something happens to Valinor then– well, if that happens then it's because the war is basically lost already, and it's hard to imagine anyone on the other end having the capacity to even try to evacuate. Melody is just going to not think about that any further. 

"Do you have any other questions for me?"

:...Not right now? Probably there are things I should be asking about but I was awake half the night and I'm not thinking at my best right now. I guess Leareth might. - Er, did you want to talk to Leareth directly? He hasn't asked to but I think he would be up for it, if you want: 

(Leareth has been listening in on the conversation via Melody-relay and feeling stressed about possibly getting kicked out of this world for being too risky! Oddly, though, it's not the sort of stress that makes him panic. He is doing his best to reason through all of the concerns that the local government might have and how to address them.)

"If he could confirm that you speak for him on everything we've discussed that would be helpful."

:Leareth?:

A few moments later, Leareth emerges from his room, wearing the duvet from his bed over his shoulders, and shuffles downstairs. He does not exactly make eye contact with the Secretary on the other side of the call, but he arranges to be visible from that direction. There are dark circles under his eyes and he hasn't fixed his braid since arriving here, so it's coming out in wisps. 

:I confirm that Melody speaks for me: He may not be happy about all of how she's presenting things but he certainly couldn't do better and trying sounds terrifying. :I - did want to say - I hope to share my knowledge with your world, and learn about your technology, and - find ways that it could perhaps combine usefully with mage-gift. If the war lasts for a long time or our side loses then I will be here for the indefinite future, and if our side wins quickly, and our magic seems of value to you, then Velgarth would likely be willing to send representatives with other Gifts: 

"- well, it's magic, it would be pretty hard for it not to be of value."

:It might not be very scalable with only the two of us, and I cannot actually make any mage-artifacts for you at this time. I - do have a Mindspeech range of over a hundred miles, theoretically, if instantaneous long-distance telepathic communication were valuable: Frown. :I - can locate people very easily, in terms of searching for the presence of a mind, and this does not necessarily require reading all of their thoughts. It is good for finding lost travelers and - and people who do not wish to be found: 

"- interesting. We have communication that's not literally instantaneous but it's close enough for any destination on the planet, but sometimes people do come up missing."

:I will keep thinking about other ways that Mindspeech or Thoughtsensing could be useful - though, yes, for long distance communication it seems redundant. ...Healers can sometimes use Thoughtsensing to communicate with patients who are unable to speak or write, or - assess the seriousness of a stroke or head injury and whether someone is likely to recover. Unfortunately neither I nor Melody have Healing Gift, which is one of the most common and widely-used Gifts in Velgarth: 

"That does sound useful, and if you send my office a report we'll prep for the possibility of Healers on loan appearing at an unpredictable point in the future."

Sending a report is mysteriously terrifying! ...Maybe not so mysteriously. It's very much an action taken with the deliberate intention of affecting the world on a larger scale, and Leareth can think about things like that at all now but he has to do a lot of careful steering around all the stupid traps and pitfalls in his head. 

"Is there anything else I should know? I'm going to send Dree the information she'll need to forward anything less immediate-term to me."

Melody knows that face. Leareth is a lot subtler about it now but she's practiced at reading him. 

:I used to work closely with the Healers. I can do a report on how they work. I don't think I have anything else urgent, as long as I can pass anything else I think of later to Dree:  

"All right. Thank you very much for your time, and welcome to Aldikay."