:...Maybe the other half of the problem I am having is that I also do not really want to do things right now, it just - feels unacceptable and not okay that they are not done yet: This feels like an incredibly stupid problem to be having. 

:What things?:

:Mostly the fact that we do not have a way to reach your world or a way for Aroden to intervene cheaply here. I want to figure out a way to Gate there and take you to Aroden's church so they can use your world's magic to fix the rest of what the Star-Eyed did to you. I think once we have that I will feel better about - not going as fast as I can, on everything else. - I do think magic research is probably not the sort of thing that is that bad for me to do when part of me would rather not be doing things: 

: - Ma'ar. Urtho can figure it out. He's got to have wildly higher spellcraft. If you're itching to help him do it, then fine, but if you've got an elaborate explanation of how it probably won't be that bad for you and it will make you feel better about not going as fast as you can on everything else - 

- it's peacetime! That's not how to make decisions in peacetime!:

Ma'ar is deeply unsure that he has a different mode of making decisions– well, aside from the fact that feeling like doing things is costly and bad for him is not a problem he usually has. He thinks. Probably. He's not entirely sure he would have noticed when he didn't have the headband-self-awareness. 

The headband-self-awareness is helpfully informing him that this is probably not an ideal way to have his head set up, and he's probably spending a lot of wasted mental motion and emotional energy on arguing with himself over it, and he might be less tired if he stopped that.

...The headband-self-awareness is getting pretty tiring in itself, Ma'ar is starting to suspect that the headband is very good for getting a lot of things done quickly and...makes it harder to actually get his mind to be in a resting state. 

Separately his emotions absolutely do not buy that it's peacetime but that seems like a separate conversation. 

:Imagine that at some point in the near future Aroden contacted us and said we can use Urtho's superweapons for an assault on Hell itself and Asmodeus won't see it in prophecy and we just need to coordinate with all the forces of Heaven to do it. Would you be delighted, or would you wish very dearly it hadn't happened quite that soon because you aren't ready to embark on that?:

That feels hard to predict in the abstract.

Ma'ar tries to stare at it anyway. ...It's hard to think about, and Ma'ar is suspicious that's in itself an answer to the question of whether he feels ready for it. 

:...I think it would help with not wanting to do things, I was not having this problem yesterday when there were still urgent deadlines. I - do not feel actually ready for it, I think, though it is hard to tell, but - probably part of that is being tired, and part of it is - wanting to have more time to figure out what my mistakes were and practice not making them while I work on problems that have slightly less enormous stakes: 

:That makes sense. That is - in significant part what peacetime is for, to me, getting myself into a state where if I got news like that I could turn my whole self over to it immediately. Which is to say, not being tired, not forcing myself to do things that don't really matter anywhere near as much as being ready for that could matter, doing things that are not high stakes but that I can learn from, enjoying myself, feeling complete and whole and human...:

:...That makes sense. I am not sure how to use time when there are not emergencies to do that but I can figure it out, I have figured out harder things before: 

He closes his eyes. Notices that he's very tense, and makes a deliberate effort to try to relax. 

:I think I want to take off the headband. It makes my emotions much louder and it makes it much harder to just...have them...instead of doing a lot of sanity-checking whether they are useful or emotions I endorse, and - it is very useful but right now I am finding it unpleasant, so you can have it back if you want. - I suppose there is an argument that we should give it to Urtho once he is ready to work on Gate-research, if you think that is a good idea, but you can have it for now and decide on that?: 

:I would like it back, yes, thank you.: Wow, he's - really not okay, is he, that was kind of a disjointed and concerning way for him to express that compared to the expected and usual 'would you like your headband back'. She isn't upset, and doesn't let surprise into her mind-voice, it wouldn't help.

Ma'ar is expecting to be even less okay once he takes the headband off, at least in the short run, he's not sure what's going to happen but it's been long enough that he's definitely built some new mental habits that are about to suddenly stop working. He...should probably warn Iomedae about that, actually. 

:If something about the geopolitical situation or the god situation explodes, I am trusting you to figure out which of us is actually less impaired and can make the best use of the headband to fix it. I am - predicting I will be quite impaired until I get used to not having it again.: 

...He's not looking forward to this at all but he grits his teeth - catches himself and tries to stop, it'll give him a headache - and takes the headband off and offers it to Iomedae. 

Iomedae puts it on. She usually doesn't have a lot of her self-concept tied up in how much enhancement she happens to be running at the moment - she lends the headband out a lot, so everyone in the Knights's leadership has had the chance to really think about key decisions - but in this specific moment she's really looking forward to finding Ma'ar less confusing.

It is, as expected, intensely unpleasant. A lot of the structures in his thoughts immediately collapse, which would probably be kind of panic-inducing if he were capable of experiencing fear, and he isn't but it's still upsetting in other ways. It feels like all of the emotions he was in the middle of having, which he was mostly able to lay out and name and make some sense of, are now being violently compressed into less space and merging into a pit of incoherent awfulness. He tries to - react to this in some way - but it's a mental habit that doesn't work anymore. He can't remember his previous train of thought at all, including why he thought now was a remotely good time to take off the stupid headband. 

He is holding himself very still because it feels like the only other action available is to collapse and start sobbing and he really cannot deal with a concerned Mindhealer right now. 

- well, that's less confusing but only in the direction of narrowing her guesses down on 'he is having a total breakdown'.

Does he want a hug?

It's very frustrating how he can't figure out why he's so intensely miserable, because it's apparently related to thoughts he can't retrace anymore. It seems like a baffling and pointless emotional reaction to be having to the fact that they just signed a peace treaty. It's not a good time to be having a total breakdown, because there are - other problems - he's pretty sure there are problems - but it's also just confusing to react this way to a success. He's trying to calm down and the 'try to calm down' mental motion isn't doing anything or at least isn't doing very much very fast. 

He would very much like a hug. 

Someday everything in all the worlds will be all right.

It isn't this day.

She does not expect to live to see it, not really. 

But humans need to be all right more often than that. She holds him and doesn't say anything. 

Ma'ar leans into her arms and focuses on breathing and trying to calm down, and after about a minute of that is close enough to calm that he can actually hold a thread of thought, and try to reconstruct which part of what they were just talking about was upsetting. 

They were talking about...researching Gates to Golarion...Iomedae was surprised, said he should take several weeks off, said - something about the gods, something about it being bad to make decisions while recovering from injuries, which doesn't make sense because Ma'ar isn't injured and neither is Urtho - he said he wasn't in the mood to be at parades - she asked what mood he was in and it was hard to answer and he asked her to do the no-fear effect for him and...then he was upset? He's so confused about why that was upsetting. 

He's so tired. Not in a way where he wants to sleep, but in a way where it feels like he feels the mental equivalent of having carried an incredibly heavy load up a mountain and now his muscles are exhausted and trembling and trying to move at all hurts. He pushed ahead so hard through so much and it's not even over and he - he isn't scared now, but somehow that only makes it more obvious how much of the last week he's spent being terrified, and how much effort it took to keep doing things anyway, not just any things but the right things, that would make them safe, that would keep Iomedae safe, over and over and he was the only person who could do it, and the fact that he did it somehow doesn't make that - feel more all right -

He should...probably try to talk to Iomedae. Talking to Iomedae usually helps. 

:Was so scared: he sends, shakily and not very coherently. :Trying to, to get it right - had to keep you safe, no one else could - was so scared it would go badly, bringing you here...: It's feeling hard to breathe, which is a really stupid problem for emotions to be causing. :M'so tired. Want to be safe. Want things to stop happening.:

:You did very well. There's peace, and you're safe, and nothing is particularly happening, and I don't expect it to.:

It does help, to hear that. Ma'ar is finally starting to relax. It doesn't actually lessen the feeling of immense shaky exhaustion. He's becoming aware that his entire body aches, physically, from holding himself tense. But something in his thoughts hurts a lot less. He isn't sure what. 

:...Not alone: he manages, finally. :S'better. Thank you: 

:Aroden didn't particularly expect the Star-Eyed to be able to act again this soon. I mostly expect that we'll have some quiet and maybe another clumsy Vkandis move. They can't see very well, is the thing. We are in unusually little danger.:

It seems like, again, this was the right thing to say. Ma'ar is nearly all the way to actually relaxed, now. Having compelling reasons to believe that they're safe definitely wouldn't be enough on its own, and the feeling of safety probably wouldn't be enough if there were reasons to intellectually believe they were in danger, but - both together, and probably also the being hugged part, is enough. He's still very tired, and he's still sad - for the dead, for the living who lost people they loved, for all the other damage of the war that a peace treaty doesn't undo - but he mostly isn't actively upset. 

:...I think I am all right now: he sends after a few minutes, once it seems clear that his mind is going to continue not throwing more unexpected deeply unpleasant emotions at him. 

He's not going to pull away from the hug for a while, though. 

:Would I guess correctly that it'd be bad for your credibility with your King and your staff, in Predain, if you were visibly - weak or scared or in doubt -:

:- Oh, definitely. I am usually good at hiding it. I...think I am okay enough now to succeed at that, though it was definitely easier with the headband, but - that is probably one of the reasons I do not really want to have to be present at a parade right now: 

:I'll go with you, if you end up feeling like you have to go. It sounds - very lonely, having to hide all doubt from everyone close to you for a whole war. It seems like it'd make it harder to even feel it.:

He's not sure anyone is really close to him, not even in Predain. 

:I would like that. I suppose it is lonely. I have to think about my uncertainty by writing about it in cipher, and - it probably did mean that I was less able to notice my doubts.: