Vanyel paused, scanning the ranks of black-clad men filling the pass behind Leareth. His Companion tensed beside him, but remained still, waiting for his cue.
Ice rimed Vanyel’s eyelashes. This meeting was long overdue, and every delay only increased the tension. Too much had changed, and yet in some ways nothing had changed at all. Leareth was still devoted to his goals, still utterly convinced he was right - and Vanyel was still unable to fully accept that.
He took a deep breath, one hand resting on Yfandes’ flank. “Leareth,” he replied neutrally.

Leareth starts walking forward. raising a hand to cast the usual dream-false-magic that will let him build a shelter out of blocks of ice and heat it without this actually being at all tiring. (That part is convenient.) 

"You said that you needed time to think," he says, quietly. "And now you have had it. Do you have questions for me?" 

The midday sky turned cloudy as a bitter wind swept across the plains, bringing with it the promise of more snow.

Yfandes stamped a hoof impatiently, cold seeping through her winter-shod hooves. _:Chosen, there is something wrong here.:_ Her mindvoice was tight with wariness. _:This feels like a trap.:_

Vanyel sent back wordless reassurance. He knew the risks - but he also knew he couldn't avoid this confrontation forever. There were too many unanswered questions. And if he turned away now...

He took a steadying breath, glancing up at the illusion of walls and roof that Leareth had crafted from magic and will. "I have many questions," he said quietly. "But first - tell me again why you think this is necessary. Why you still believe your goals justify the lives that will be lost."

They've been over this before, of course, a hundred times, but - it's not surprising that after whatever he's recently learned, from his visit to the city of Kata'shin'a'in and the history he was told by the shamans of the Star-Eyed Goddess, and whatever else he found there, he has new variants on the same questions. 

"Because lives are lost every year," he says, tiredly. "Because there are still children starving, and things are not getting better, and it has been two thousand years. I will not deny that the cost is high, or that in a better world I would be thought a monster for considering it, but - I will not apologize for it either. I see only one way that the world will ever change." 

The Plains stretched endlessly before them, scoured by bitter wind and dotted by the ruins of ancient keeps. Yfandes shifted again, her unease flowing across their bond, but Vanyel kept his eyes on Leareth.
He tried to find the anger that had driven him here, the bitter certainty that Leareth had to be stopped - but all he could see now were two weary, aging men clinging to convictions that had long since hardened into dogma. And all around them, a world that changed too quickly to keep pace with.
_:Chosen.:_ Yfandes stepped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, a silent pillar of support. _:You know there is another way.:_
He drew a slow breath, feeling ice crystals forming on his eyelashes. "You're wrong," he said, meeting Leareth's eyes. "There is always another choice. And I will oppose you - with every power I have - before I let you destroy everything we've built."

"What do you think we have built?" Leareth says, quietly. 

The ruin of an old Tayledras keep stood in the distance, crumbling stone walls stark against the rolling plains. Something about its silhouette was oddly familiar to Vanyel, a tug at his memory he couldn't quite place.
Yfandes tossed her head, ice-encrusted mane glittering. _:There is old magic here, Chosen. Power, and purpose - and grief.:_ Her mindvoice was hushed. _:Great gifts were given, and great sacrifices made. This place still remembers.:_
"What we've built," Vanyel said softly, "is a world where people can live without fear. Where they have a chance to find joy and meaning, and be more than just another pair of hands to labor or die as kings decree." He shook his head, blinking against the cold that seared his eyes. "You would throw all that away. For what?"
There was a long silence. Leareth gazed across the snow-covered plains, expression unreadable, and Vanyel found himself wondering what the other man saw there - or failed to see. How they could stand in the same place, and understand the world so differently.