Hug. ...Altarrin is maybe actually just going to scoop Carissa up. She seems like maybe she could use scooping right now and also he wants to. 

"I really am sorry about the headband. Arbas thought it would make the stakes - more real - in a way that might help with leveling. And also that he would not be able to maintain the deception for long enough if you were still smarter than him. But...twelve days, right? To make a replacement? And we have time, there are not in fact any emergencies." 

"You don't need to apologize for anything." She feels dizzy. She's trying to - rerun two months of memories, check against what she thought she was doing and - how, and why, and -

"I'm in Imperial custody, and have been this whole time, and my compulsions are satisfactory?"

"Yes and yes. ...Well, your compulsions are satisfactory to us but - more than sufficient, and you did complain about the loyalty one before - I leaned on Bastran to agree that we could remove everything while the three of us are here, I said you had demonstrated your loyalty more than enough. I want you to have everything you need to process this, before we consider returning to the capital, I told Bastran I am going to need at least the next week free. ...If you want me here, of course, but I - would like to stay - I missed you and if Arbas had not sold me on this absurd plan then I would have gotten to see you every week for the last two months." 

The dizziness is worse, now. "Sorry, I think that was - too much information density - 

- I'm not angry, I'm really not, but reasoning from - past things rather than introspection - I'm also not remotely okay, and I need - a lot of dumb things, probably - it's not a bad thing, it doesn't mean anything went wrong, just -"

"All right. We do not need to talk about anything tonight. I...want to figure out what you need and help you get it but I am not sure I am actually very good at this. You should get some sleep, I think - do you want me to stay with you, or Arbas to stay with you, or to be alone -?" 

"I'd rather have you with me if you will be very careful and I'd rather not if that will be very annoying to you. I'm going to cry a lot, probably, and be stupid."

"I want to stay with you and I do not mind trying to be very careful. Or if you cry. I– do you want a talisman against Thoughtsensing, or do you want Arbas to be able to read you and tell me where I need to be especially careful." 

"You can read me but - I think it's a bad time to change my thoughts around even if they're stupid - 'm not even going to use an Owl's Wisdom -"

"I promise that Arbas will leave your head alone except for reading you if I cannot figure out what you need and ask him to, and I will not try to convince you to change your thoughts around." 

And rather than negotiating the stairs with Carissa in his arms, he'll raise a Gate to the dorm hallway. He carries Carissa into room 14, the bedroom assigned to her personally and across from his. It's nearly identical except for a different pattern on the rug and different wall tapestries. 

He sets her down on the bed. Sits with her. "If you decide you want to be left alone, I can go next door. Do you need - food, water, anything else?" 

She needs - she has no idea what she needs - she needs Abrogail -

- she's not in fact crying but it feels like a bad thing rather than a good thing -

Altarrin also isn't sure what she needs, and he feels kind of terrible about it! He'll gently nudge the door shut with a burst of magic, and put a blanket around her shoulders, and then stay there with her and hold her and keep himself very calm and still and relaxed, not saying anything unless she addresses him first. 

- what he really wants to do is tell her how insanely impressive the magic items were, and also that Arbas absolutely did not warn him that his part in the plan involved being turned into a toad. He'll sit quietly for five minutes first before testing the waters on that, though. Maybe Carissa will manage to think of something she needs and say it in words and he won't have to guess. 

Carissa's mostly trying not to have thoughts, actually. The thoughts that come to mind are mostly variants on being mad at herself, which seems dumb, or an effort to effortfully piece everything together, which seems not-yet. She will snuggle Altarrin and tell herself that she is safesafesafesafe.

"You know," he says eventually, very gently stroking her hair, "it does follow from other facts I was aware of, that your magic could involuntarily transform people into small animals and back again, but somehow I still did not predict it. That is even more spectacularly impossible with our magic. ...Your plan would have worked, I think. If this had been real. Which is really saying something." 

Yeah okay that's the right genre of thing. "'m very impressive, yes. ...still feel like an idiot."

"...I can walk you through what I would have done in the same position, that I think might have been enough to catch it. Though I suspect the relevant mental habits are the same ones that make it - incredibly hard on me, to be a helpless prisoner - and I think my mental processes would adapt less gracefully to losing a significant amount of my usual intelligence. I - think it is worth it for you to invest in those skills, because the more powerful you are, the less likely it is you will end up being a helpless prisoner and wanting to be able to endure it gracefully, but..." Shrug. "This is a conversation for later, probably." 

"I think ....sometimes it feels safe to stop being small, and then it isn't. It won't really feel safe until I'm immortal."

"That makes sense." Squeeze. "I have been working on it, while you were here. I think the good option is to use Clones, once you are at eighth circle, but in the meantime, once both of us can work together on research, I think we can get something no worse than my current setup as an interim, maybe even within a year or two. And hope the gods will be dissuaded from trying so hard to kill you if it will not even work." 

"'m a bit scared of getting to eighth circle. At some point you - actually won't really be able to contain me -"

"...And then what? Maybe I am missing something, but I - feel like someone involved would have to be - doing something foolish - for that to be a problem." 

" - if you have me compulsioned loyal and I - stop being all muddled inside - then it won't work on me the way it works on other people. I dunno exactly how it'd work. And if you don't, then - if I were the Emperor I'd be pretty scared of an eighth circle wizard who isn't his -"

Sigh. "I can trace down the full causal history of exactly why I built the Empire this way, and I still– I wish very much that I had not. It is so - how do I say this - it is so disproportionately costly for the best and most talented people who could serve the Empire, and - those whose core motivations are most aligned with what I actually wanted to build, seven hundred years ago." 

He strokes Carissa's hair. "I am not sure what will end up making the most sense. But I think I want you to only be under compulsions that you endorse having, that - are just making the goals you already have and the Lawfulness you already believe in more legible to our system, and something we can put weight on. I want that for myself, too, I - thought it was already true, and it is not, but I think it should not have to be impossible."  

"Does Bastran want that."

"I think Bastran is confused and scared and feels out of control of the situation and - has never felt he had the luxury to consider what he would want if he truly had the resources to attain it - and that makes it harder. But I think he was starting to notice that - being twisted into an unnatural shape - was not good for me. He was comfortable sending me here knowing that you were planning to dispel my compulsions. He trusted me with that, and I think you are not any less trustworthy, and if he is not an idiot - which i am fairly sure he is not - he will eventually believe that." 

"I want - I dunno. To be small and safe and immortal and a god. I don't know. There's too much everything for me to keep track of. I'm a funny shape and I have no idea what shape I'd be if I wasn't scared because I'm always scared."

...Altarrin laughs, despite himself. Squeezes Carissa tighter. "I - sorry - I am not laughing at you. I would be tempted to say something like 'ah, the human condition' except that...actually, I think I have never experienced feeling small and safe in the sense that you mean, I - had not even considered it was something I could want until you told me about dath ilan." 

He strokes her hair. "I am not sure we can have any of those things anytime soon, but - I do want to see if we can find a way for neither of us to be scared. At least sometimes. I want to find out what shape both of us could become."