And so Metis busies herself in the kitchen for a little while, sheer nerves driving her through the preparation of a more elaborate lunch than she'd usually make to put this tense conversation she's about to have off for one more minute -

But there's no escape.

She knocks on the door to their sitting room.

"Hey Zaril?  It's Metis.  You feel like you're up for having lunch?  I have some food ready, if you do."

Zaril has been sitting cross-legged in his bedroll, hugging the blanket to himself and wishing he had paper. Thinking through everything without paper is slow and effortful and kind of hurts his head. 

They know way more about him than he's comfortable with, but - aren't in fact reacting with horror? Even if they don't know the worst parts. Most people would be...scared, of the unknown, of the impossible and unusual.

They're not scared of him. They want to feed and clothe and reassure him. That...means more to him than he would have expected. 

And he is, in fact, very hungry again. His stomach has now had two actual meals in a row and is clamoring for this situation to continue. 

He stands up. "Yes, thank you." 

And Metis can bring in his lunch!

Though it seems like she's not leaving just yet, after handing it over.

Once he's started eating, she almost throws herself into one of the nearby chairs and says, with about the same tone as someone who's discussing the weather, "Found your supply cache, by the way.  It's really impressive work; I'm going to be trying to figure out how to stabilize a spell woven in three dimensions like the wards are for months, probably.  Oh, and - we're not going to take anything, it's yours, and it's not like I can succeed if I try anyway because of the interior set-spells - but if you want to get down there let me know and I'll gladly cast you a Gate.  ...Should probably get you a way of signaling you want out beforehand, actually, or - probably something for cleaning the air is better but it'd be best to have both ready - I'm, assuming that you can't cast Gates yourself, yet, or you'd have probably skipped coming in here at all."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH????

...she still doesn't seem angry? Or upset? He's so confused. She's...offering to help? 

"The air should be fine," he says quietly. "There is a set-spell for it." He squints at her. "I would have expected you to - have more questions." 

"I mean - I have so many questions, like how and what and why, but I always do, and - it seems to me that it's not the right time to ask them, you know?  You're - still recovering; it would be rude.  You'll tell me what you want me to know, when you want me to know it, and - that's your business; it's your secret to keep or disclose.  And if you think it's important for whatever happened, is happening, is going to happen, to be utterly secret - well, I imagine you'd know more than I do about that!  It's your - secret anti-Cataclysm plan?  Or...something.  But it's - important.  And I - trust you to be trying to help the world, rather than ruin it.  So - I'll help.  Because I can, because what sort of person would I be, if I refused a moment of my time to something as important as this?"

He's stopped eating. He curls his knees up in front of him in the chair and hugs them to his chest. 

"If you - trust people to be trying to help when you know as little about them as you know about me, you will often be wrong," he says quietly. "I - you are not wrong but you really should not be confident of that and it– if I cannot guess what would change your mind..." 

"In the middle of a panic attack your first instinct was to say, and mean, that you meant no harm, that you didn't even want to disturb us.

"You're a mage old enough to have seen the Cataclysm, and you're - still here, still fighting for something so important that it's the bedrock of your mind, even when your mind's broken.

"Sure, you could be some - peerless actor with a plan to tear down the world because you hate it - but...at the point where I force myself to assume that everything is the worst possible thing it could be, I just seal myself in my Work Room and wait to die, because surely the world in all its evil is going to kill me.  It's tried, before; I plan my travels to never intersect with high concentrations of worshippers of Vkandis, because they keep trying to assassinate me.  But - I refuse to give up on hoping that the world is better than that.  That - we can make it better if we try.  That - people, working together - can - learn, grow, shape the world, the arc of the future -

"Even through the dangers power brings, in the hands of mortal men.

"I know those dangers all too well - there's a simple modification to the spell that makes magelights, that renders the parts of the world it illuminates ongoingly dangerous to health, if powered in sufficient quantities.

"I occasionally cast it for a Healer friend who's trying to develop new crops, because it makes seeds do interesting things when they grow.

"...As far as I'm concerned, your - sheer conscientiousness, with what you're handling, with - the weight you carry - speaks for itself, honestly.  And this is - nothing I can't afford to give, no unearned benefit of the doubt.  I - don't know what you're planning, but...Ophelia is a good judge of character.  And she thinks that - what you're doing is the best you can.

"...There aren't a lot of people who've ever been kind to you, huh?"

He flinches, visibly, when she mentions the assassination attempts. There are unpleasant memories, there, and his emotional equilibrium is still so easily disturbed. He takes a deep breath, though, and manages to refocus on her and listen through the rest. 

It's true. It's true that he's - trying, incredibly hard, that he has been for so many centuries, because he can't walk away because (the Tower and the stars) because he made a vow and it's - the first time he can remember (though probably not the only time, he remembers very little right now) that someone has just - acknowledged that, unasked, without his even having to explain. 

There aren't a lot of people who've ever been kind to you

...he starts crying. It's not a voluntary decision, it just seems to be the thing happening now. 

Would he like a handkerchief, his blanket, or a hug?

"It's okay, it's okay, there you go, let it out...you're not alone, anymore, promise..."

Somewhat to his own surprise, he does want a hug, actually. 

- and once he's in her arms, the body seems to have reflexes about this! He finds himself clinging to her like a limpet, smushing his face into her shoulder, and it feels - safe the way that sleeping behind impassible wards feels safe, he didn't know that could even be a thing... 

She murmurs reassuring things that are, in her best estimation, true, and just...keeps the hug going, as soothing as possible.  He needs it.

...Maybe she does, too, honestly, she was - so worried for him, to be trying to do all this alone...she thinks he's - starting to change his mind, on whether shutting out absolutely everyone is a good idea. 

...She hopes he can find someone to confide in, no matter who.  Even her sister's careful image of - invulnerable unflappability, of infinite care - that mask needs to come down, sometimes.  She's seen her sister cry.  She doesn't think the wizard in front of her has let someone see them cry for a thousand years.

He sobs into her shoulder for a while, his small body slowly relaxing.

Eventually it would probably be nice to have a handkerchief? And maybe a glass of water, because his throat is actually sore from crying, he hadn't even known that bodies would do that. It seems stupid. 

He doesn't show any particular inclination to leave Metis' arms. It's strange, but - there's a basic baseline okayness that he can usually achieve just fine without hugs, and he hadn't realized until now has been inaccessible ever since he woke up in this body. It's so much easier to think like this. 

"I think I ought speak with Ophelia as well as you," he murmurs softly into Metis' shirt. "I - would appreciate a Gate to my records cache - but I should, should - explain some things first. I prefer not to - exploit your help on false premises." 

Then Metis can send her a signal to come in, and give him a handkerchief.

Ophelia treats this sight as entirely normal, when she enters, and sits in the remaining chair, after nudging it a bit so that it does not directly face the tableau.

"I gather you want to speak with the both of us, Zaril?"  Her voice is - feather-light, holding no expectations despite the question she's asking of him.

"Mmhmm. I -" 

This is so hard. Why is this so hard. 

"- you know more about me already than almost anyone." Even his allies. "But you should - I should - you need to know what I am planning. If you - want to help." 

Is telling them a good idea? He's not sure! But - one of the hard-learned lessons of the last five hundred years is that he does have to take that leap, once he's made a character judgement of someone and assessed that they could be allies in his project. Because they can't be his allies, if they don't know what he's trying to do or why. And - his explicit reasoning may be impaired right now, which arguably means he shouldn't be making a decision of this gravity until he's more oriented, but - it's a window that won't stay open forever, to work with them in good faith. And his gut is telling him that Ophelia and Metis have already demonstrated the core traits that mean they'll react to his plan by wanting to help. 

He leans into a not-exactly-memory of the tower and the stars, for courage. (It's very clear to Ophelia's Sight that he's doing something, leaning into the core of bedrock-stability in his mind.) 

"I am about seventeen hundred years old, though - obviously not in my original body. I spent the first eight hundred years after the Cataclysm trying to rebuild, and it - never worked - and eventually, to oversimplify it considerably, I realized it was because the gods opposed progress and nothing would really change until humanity had a seat at the table with Them. I...tried communication, and it never worked, and for most of the last five hundred years I have been. Planning a way to make a new god. One that will speak for mortals." 

He's curled up and shivering in Metis' lap and pretty clearly on the edge of a panic attack again, but his voice is still level. "The default way to do it will require....a very very high power input. I have looked hard for other ways, half of the staff at my organization are employed in research for that, but - the way that would definitely work is blood-magic." And he shrinks into a ball, as though however much courage he can try to summon, he still believes on a deep level that he's about to be attacked for this.

His voice is very small. "Ten million lives." 

...And now Ophelia is hugging him.  "...Is that why the Eastern Empire..." is like that, she doesn't actually ask, she doesn't even frame as a question.

"...I - think you may be in the right place.  To find an option that doesn't cost - so many futures.  And - gods, even if nothing of what we have or can find is of use to you.  If that's the sort of thing you need...our lives, we'd give, as best we could.  Metis, especially.  She already wants to kick Vkandis Sunlord in the unmentionables.  ...I think that my sister will have more questions on the practicalities than I do."

"...Now's not the time for them, though.  We've all been - experiencing unusual amounts of emotion.  So we - should probably, take some time to recover, from feeling.

"Remember this: those ten million lives, they aren't dead yet.  And they may never be, if we're - clever, lucky, industrious enough - to find a way that works without that sacrifice, or within the costs we pay by living.  There is still hope, Zaril."

Snuggle. “I know. S’easier when I have - a reasonable level of emotional regulation.”

"I take it you don't...normally come back as a child?"

Would he like hair-petting, perhaps?

“Usually older than this. The age when - mage-gifts awaken.” 

From which they are plausibly just going to infer more of the details of his immortality method, but if they didn’t react badly to the ten million people, he - doubts this is going to be the sticking point.

(There’s nonetheless a flicker of not-safe-need-to-orient-stay-in-control that flows across his mind, but it’s visible to Ophelia that it’s more habit than anything else.)

…He would like hair-pets, though his elbow-length hair is very matted (it’s at least clean after his bath.)

Metis actually made a spell specifically to solve tangles, because it's a problem she cannot be arsed to solve the long way when she has it.  It's soft and tingly.

"...That must...hurt a lot.  To - do.  To be - responsible for.  And yet - in your position...I'd - hate every moment, but - you're doing the best you can, I said that before and I'd mean it if I said it again, knowing everything I do now."

And now he’s teary-eyed again, though at least he’s not actively bursting into tears. “…I think I am finding it very disorienting that you are - sympathetic, about this. It is not your fault.”

"...like I said," she murmurs, "there's not many people who've ever been kind to you."

She's going to keep petting him; he clearly needs it.

"You can cry, you can feel, we're not gonna hurt you.  We want you to be in the best shape you can possibly be."

He will maybe take them up on that, and cry on Metis' shoulder while she pets him. 

...For five minutes. He really does need to look over his records and get his head into better order; he feels, right now, like the tower and the stars are a single steady point and everything else is...jagged not-quite-properly-assembled fragments, that only mostly line up and work the way he expects his mind to work. And crying in a cuddly grownup's arms makes it feel like everything is okay but is not, in fact, solving any of his problems. 

After five minutes, he tugs away, and scrubs at his face with the handkerchief. "I should– could I trouble you for a Gate to the records cache? I can disable the alarm so the countermeasures will not hit you."

He thinks for a moment. "- I would rather go in alone, I think - sorry, I am sure you would like to see it..." 

"I'm sure I would too, but it's your records cache, not my records cache.  Let me just..." She rummages in her pockets, finds nothing, Fetches something with a crack.

She passes him a - paired artifact?  "Just flick this to on when you want me to Gate you back up, if that's something you'll need, and I'll check back in - an hour, otherwise?"

And then: Gate!