Rosta is - thataways, maybe fifty yards forward and thirty yards to the right of them. Empathy alone isn't very informative about her surroundings, but he can get a sense that she's not doing anything particularly active or stressful, and whatever she's focused on is a little mentally stimulating but not very; she could plausibly be sitting at a desk reviewing paperwork.

He can sense half a dozen other minds who don't obviously correspond to people he's met before, though he might or might not recognize the Healer they very briefly interacted with the night before. It does seem like each mind has a distinct feel, or maybe more like a flavor or smell, it doesn't quite correspond to any existing sensory modality. It's a little hard to categorize, since he isn't used to it, but it feels like with practice he ought to be able to remember a person's Empathy-signature directly and recognize it if he sees it a second time, whether or not he actually talked to the person. 

- and there's Nayoki! She's in fact not far at all, and very recognizable, with a brightness and something like "density" to her Empathy-signature that stands out. ...He can't actually pick out any more detail than "present" and "dense", whatever mood or emotion she's feeling is behind shields. 

And now seems like a good time to stop pushing it, Leareth nudges him gently. A backlash headache will affect him as well, and they'll have plenty of time to practice later, in small increments as the Gift gets more broken-in. He does think Karal is picking it up very quickly, and is quietly impressed. 

He'll head off in Nayoki's direction - well, to the door first, and from there he can figure out which way down the hall and then which of the side rooms she's in. 

Oh that's incredibly strange, that he can recognize her without... seeing anything about her... somehow?  But it is Nayoki, obviously enough.  Seeing someone whose existence is visible but all of whose emotions are behind shield is strange and uncomfortable, like seeing someone with no facial expressions or body language at all - but the way people have distinct signatures is interesting, he wonders to what extent they tell him something about the person on their own...

He wasn't going to try to do the selective projection Leareth thought about - if he was dealing with an entire base full of people and a far-away target, it would probably be complicated and he does realize he should practice simpler things first, when it comes to something that might bother and confuse everyone in this entire place.  But feeling her so close and brightly recognizable did nearly cause him to not-quite-deliberately project friendly recognition and wanting-to-talk, aimed at her but probably not very well kept from spilling over to the other people around, and it was only Leareth's reminder that stopped him.  Ah, you're right, thank you, he responds, a bit embarrassed in his usual cheerful way.

He does wonder if Nayoki would have found the contact comprehensible - actually he has no idea if she could tell who it's from, if Empathy in general makes the source obvious or not.  The thought is nearly simultaneous with a wordless appeal for Leareth to remedy his ignorance.

It's good that he could help find her, in any case, and he'll be quietly pleased with that.

Huh! Leareth isn't actually sure what the answer to that question is, though this seems more likely to be a missing-memory thing than the answer not being known in general. He does think that Nayoki specifically would have been able to tell it was them - and probably that it was Karal specifically using their shared Gift - because she's Mind-Gifted herself and has read them with Thoughtsensing before. 

(Leareth does not think that Karal should worry unduly about bothering or confusing others in the facility. They'll understand, and it's much better to be experimenting here than somewhere else later. But he really would prefer to avoid the headache.) 

Empathy thinks Nayoki is behind that closed door! Leareth knocks. 

Nayoki is up and opening the door for them in seconds, smiling in a more relaxed way than yesterday. "Leareth! You look much better rested. - Karal, good morning." (She turns a little while still looking at them, somehow making it clear that she's addressing him separately and then turning back to Leareth.) "What are your priorities today? I would normally have been meeting with every week to discuss our operations in the north, and obviously we are overdue for that, but there is nothing incredibly urgent." 

Leareth nods, considering this. "If nothing is urgent, then it might be more productive to meet tomorrow, when I have had more of a chance to become generally oriented. ...And I would like to have explained everything to Karal before that, it seems - likely to come up." 

Nod. "...Is that something where you would like my help? Normally I would say you are the one with the most context on explaining it, for all the obvious reasons, but - possibly not right now." 

....Leareth will have to think about that for a while. 

"I - think that I should be the one to explain, but - if Karal agrees, I think I would appreciate your being there. There are - probably clarifying questions where I do not actually know the answers right now and would not know where to start looking." 

What does Karal think about this? Leareth is still feeling slightly unsure if he wants to get into it now, but - mostly because it means committing to a long and likely exhausting conversation, not because he has any specific expectation of it going badly. 

Karal doesn't resist the impulse to push a little burst of friendliness when Nayoki says hello, having no other way to communicate at the moment.  (Unless she's reading his mind again, but someone would probably say something?)

He doesn't mind her being there for the explanation at all - he likes her, she seems like a... stabilizing sort of presence... and Leareth is of course right that she will know things he doesn't.

Whether he wants the full explanation now... Honestly he doesn't, he doesn't think he has enough... context? social balance? to be able to usefully think about whatever horrible complicated thing it is, and won't have it for days or weeks.  But it also seems like he should know, because it keeps coming up everywhere, and he expects that will just keep making him feel off-balance until he knows.

He doesn't really think it'll go badly, but how could he know?  ...Does Nayoki think it'll be all right?  She's seen him - both of them - in a way they can't.

...Hmm. It seems reasonable for Karal to predict that he'll find this easier with more context - and also that the details of what Leareth's organization is actually working on are part of that context, and it's going to get increasingly weird to talk to people while eliding that, in a way he expects would start bothering Karal more and more. 

Nayoki in fact isn't reading their mind (they have shields up, which Leareth is maintaining on instinct but feel like this, and Leareth would let her through if she extended a Thoughtsensing probe, but that would feel like this and Karal would notice if he were paying attention), so he'll have to ask her explicitly. 

"Karal thinks he would find it easier to absorb if he felt more - generally oriented, maybe more socially integrated here - but I think delaying the explanation in itself is making that harder. Do you have any thoughts on how to - approach it so the context that would help make sense of it is more included?" 

Nayoki pauses to think for only a second or two. "- Well, the obvious is to approach it the way you did. You have notes on the lifetime when you first formed the plan, and - what you were thinking and feeling at the time." 

...Oh. Leareth - can see how that might help, yes. He doesn't actually remember the details, or anything specific at all from that incarnation - which means he needs to review those notes anyway, it's hardly going to be duplicating his efforts - but he doesn't need to, to guess that he was devastated about it at the time. And - for Karal, he does think that seeing some of the history that had brought Leareth to that point, how he felt about it and what he saw as his alternatives, might be an important part of the context he needs to make sense of it? 

Oh!  Karal hadn't thought of that at all, but yes, that sounds like the best possible way to find out.

And seeing how deeply upset Leareth originally was about it feels like it might help, for... feeling like they're on the same side about things.  (He knows Leareth has emotions and then packs them away and stops considering them once he has made the decisions they were important for, but this results in the version of him that's packed them all away feeling incomplete and - not exactly evil, but Karal admits he can see how people would come to the conclusion.  He suspects, now that he thinks about it, that if their first meeting didn't have Leareth feeling off-balance and more emotional than is usual for him, they would've gotten along worse, although probably not worse enough to irretrievably break anything.)  He's sorry that all this will hurt Leareth more than he'd probably need to hurt otherwise, but he doesn't expect Leareth to consider this a reason not to.

Also, Nayoki is great and he's glad he thought to ask her.  (He'd generally like her to be reading his mind when she's around - in fact a large part of him would like most people to be reading his mind, and the shields bother him on an instinctive level now that he's noticed they're there, but they're obviously necessary and he thinks he'll manage not to get into any reflexive fights with Leareth about them.  Not that I have any illusions about the result, he adds with a mix of amusement and respect.)

Leareth thinks he understands that. He - feels like in general he's reluctant to present his ideas or plans in a way that involves - angling for sympathy? Trying to lean on the natural human instinct to feel for someone in pain? Certainly if and when he tells Vanyel about this, he intends to do it without especially showing emotion, and either the concepts will stand on their own or they won't. 

But it's not a lie, that Leareth was upset at first, and - he would, he thinks, have taken that into account as information about the situation. ...And he might find it upsetting to read, but that's definitely not a reason he would avoid it. It feels important to start by remembering that, before he tucks it away to focus on strategy. 

(...Leareth is also musing that there's not much reason to shield in Nayoki's presence. He shields instinctively, and he doesn't want to retrain that reflex to something else - it's an appropriate reflex for a fundamentally pretty unsafe world - but for now  but as long as they're in private, he thinks that in addition to it giving Karal a higher-fidelity way to communicate in parallel, Nayoki might actively appreciate it and find it - nice - if Leareth himself shielded from her less. The researchers and other staff with Thoughtsensing often don't go around shielding much from each other, when they're in a secure facility. Leareth - has a feeling that it's important for a lot of his people, to feel like some places are safe to be open in, even if the world as a whole isn't. ...He's not sure if he's ever considered whether it would be good for him to feel and act more that way. It might?) 

"- That sounds like a good idea," he says to Nayoki, while still holding those thoughts open to Karal. "We could - it sounds like you have read at least the summarized records, and presumably know where to locate them?"

Which Leareth...doesn't. If he were alone, he knows what he would do - go to one of the records caches, locate the crate of records labeled by his past self as "start here", read the index, go from there - but that's a process that would take months. He isn't alone, here, and can skip some of that by consulting someone who actually remembers the context. ...He appreciates that a lot, and should remember to tell Nayoki so at some point, even though he's sure she already knows. 

Nayoki smiles. "Of course. I would propose I take you to one of your personal libraries - it is at a different location, but it is much more comfortable than one of the records caches and we had worked there together before, I know where to find things." 

(Yes.  People like feeling safe, and known - like feeling they're among people who it's safe not to hide from.  It might be good for Leareth too, given that he does have people like that.  Or, well, he has Nayoki, and Karal hopes he can be another, once they've gotten through everything they need to.  It feels important.)

He's definitely noticed that about Leareth.  It's an almost inhuman attempt at fairness, and Karal understands why he does do that and doesn't even really think he's wrong, but...  (There's a memory here of Leareth telling him it would be unfair to try to convince him it's right for him to die - it was such a very Leareth thing to do, it really... meant something Karal doesn't have the words for... but it was very important that Leareth actually said that instead of simply not explaining his decisions.  Would he count that as angling for sympathy too?  Maybe it was, in some sense, but mostly it seemed like angling for understanding, and Karal doesn't think that could have been a bad thing.)

But the main thing is that Karal is not the sort of person who can take pure concepts and see if they stand on their own or not.  It's... not how his mind works.  Maybe Vanyel can do it, although it seems quite possible that he can't either, that this is why the whole previous decade of careful conversations was necessary.  But Karal simply knows he can't - even if he understands all the concepts, which is debatable, he can't... integrate them with the rest of his thinking, his values and intentions, without-- he can't explain it in anything approaching words, but there's an image of a network of emotions and social connections, more felt than seen, stabilizing his thoughts and plans and his place in life, linking together parts of his own mind so that all the important things work together instead of against each other, and linking him to other people the same way, making sure the whole final result is right in a way it couldn't be without them.  He can change which people the network of his mind is most anchored to (Leareth, now, and Nayoki a little, and he thinks the other people here will help once he's gotten to know them) but he can't not have one, and the connections do not... work well... without some emotion on both sides, he thinks. 

And it does sound like Leareth has something like that too, in Nayoki, and would be worse off if he didn't - it's a small thing in theory, that she remembers something he doesn't, but trusting in that is still in some sense letting someone be part of you.  Although Karal remembers the unyielding strength and stability of Leareth's mind and has no doubt that he could stand alone.

Yeah. 

(Leareth has...some sort of emotion...when considering the extent to which he does or doesn't feel like Nayoki is someone he can - lean on for stability, or trust to be part of his reasoning process. He does trust her, in the sense that he's confident she would never try to hurt him or sabotage his plans, and that bringing her in on something will make things go better rather than worse, but - he doesn't feel like he can in any way make his path forward rely on her being there? ...Probably this is something that comes of being immortal and unable to just make other people immortal, though he has a feeling he's also lost a lot of allies to - various hostile action - well before they would have died of natural causes. But it means he can't make anything rely on particular other people, definitely can't keep any of himself in other people the way it feels like Karal reaches for. And he still has to reach for alliance and cooperation, over and over, because he can't do all of this by himself, but - 

- if he had tried to return to the north and found his organization wiped from the map, he doesn't think he would have been incredibly surprised? Dismayed, frustrated, but not shocked. And he would have found a way to pick up the pieces and keep going.) 

He nods his agreement to Nayoki. "I am in favor of that plan. ...You might want to bring other work to do, if we are going to be reading for a while." 

Nod. "I can be ready to go in a few minutes. Do you need to - I suppose you probably do not have packing to do, but the library is back at the facility where you normally stay and work, so I am not sure it makes sense to return here afterward." 

Leareth...is finding it surprisingly hard to remember if they left anything in the guest room? The winter coat from the supply cache is probably worth bringing along, at least. Maybe there are some travel supplies packed from Karal's home? He was very tired last night, apparently, and not being particularly attentive to his surroundings. 

It hurts, that Leareth is alone like this.  But it's true that he is, and that he has to be, and that he can.

But there are ways in which he isn't alone, too, even if they're inherently temporary, and it's all right to let that matter, even if it can never matter so much that it would be impossible to go on without them.

Karal has his sword, which he would very much like to keep, and didn't stop to put on when going out to find breakfast in a secure base full of civilians.  Some other things too, simple practical ones with no individual importance, but still his last pieces of home, and he would keep them if he can.  (He'd have a bag full of small gifts, if he had told everyone he was leaving, but he hadn't, and he was right not to.  It might keep them safe.)

(Yes, Leareth thinks Karal was right not to tell anyone he was going, and he appreciates it. He pushes a faint mental note of apology; he recognizes that this involved Karal giving up something important to him.) 

"We have a few things to pack," he says to Nayoki. "I think we can be ready in ten minutes." 

And then he's going to let Karal have control of the body for heading back to their room and packing, since it's Karal's belongings, and Karal might actually enjoy greeting and interacting with anyone they run into on the way, whereas Leareth is not particularly in the mood. 

(There's a thought half-formed in his mind, mostly just trying to name the vague sense of sadness that he's suddenly more aware of than usual. It's - the fact that there were other people before who were just as important and trusted as Nayoki, and he doesn't remember them. And - that this isn't the first time he's shared his body with someone, he knows that as a vague memory-of-a-memory, there must have been some previous life when he shared his thoughts this closely with someone else. And he doesn't remember them either. Anyone who mattered to him in his first lifetime, and maybe his second as well, he won't even have records of - 

...maybe there's a good reason why he doesn't normally try to poke at the feeling of missing people he doesn't remember. Leareth is not at all sure that whatever he's feeling about it is a helpful emotion.) 

That's... Yes, that's awful.  Karal sends the mental approximation of a hug, having nothing better to say.  For himself he thinks that sadness would be a helpful emotion, but Leareth isn't him, and... he's not sure he could do it for a thousand years, either.  That must be so many people...

...No wonder Leareth feels the world is fundamentally broken and needs to be better that this. 

(This is not quite the first time Karal thought something against the gods, but it's the first time that feels like actual blasphemy - like he's insisting that he knows better than Them, absurd as that seems, rather than just admitting to his confusion and deciding to rely on his own decisions to deal with it as well as he can.  He doesn't know if he wants to take it back, or even if he could.)

He will head back to their temporary room, visibly sad in a way that Leareth likely never is in front of his people.  He'll still try to smile at anyone he sees on the way, and will be glad they exist, but he won't start any conversations just now.

He gathers his things, few and mostly not unpacked in the first place.  ...Oh, that's why it didn't feel right to put on his sword in the morning.  He's a prisoner, and shouldn't be carrying one without formal permission, for all that it feels faintly ridiculous to ask for it.  He has no idea if there's even a point to carrying a sword in this life, or if it means either of the things he would normally hold it to mean, or if Leareth himself normally goes armed.

(The handful of people they pass in the hallway are perhaps a little weirded out by the visibly sad, even knowing that there's an explanation and that it's probably not Leareth in charge of the body. They are not entirely sure how to respond? Karal gets several smiles back.) 

...Oh. Leareth had apparently missed all of that subtext in Karal's thoughts. He does not think there's any issue with Karal wearing a sword, if that's enough to constitute "permission"? Leareth himself doesn't normally go armed; he can fight with a sword, but he's enormously more skilled at fighting with magic, and if he's carrying nonmagical weapons at all he would rather it be something easier to hide. 

(Whether it makes sense for Karal to conceptualize himself as a prisoner seems - mostly up to Karal? Leareth is definitely thinking of it as - some more complicated thing that he doesn't have a convenient label for - and he would at some point like to make it fully clear to both of them what that thing is going to be going forward. Nayoki is almost certainly not thinking of Karal mainly as a prisoner, and the other staff will be taking her lead. But it's true that Karal can't decide to leave, and will be stopped if he tries to do anything unexpected and hostile-seeming.) 

On reflection, it doesn't seem pointless at all for Karal to have a sword, if that's where most of his combat training and skill is; it might even mean they can defend themselves both ways in parallel. ...Also, he's not sure what "either of the things he would normally hold it to mean" is referring to, Karal will need to unpack that thought slightly more. 

(It's all right for the people who see him to be confused.  The circumstances are confusing.  If he stays, they'll get to know him, and then eventually things will make sense.)

Karal mentally apologizes for... causing Leareth to have a prisoner without giving him much understanding of what this is supposed to mean... and the mental tone in which he does this is more formal than he usually uses, but there's an underlying amusement, because he knows Leareth doesn't really think in rules like this, and the rules don't even apply very usefully to their bizarre situation, so none of this fundamentally matters except through Karal's impractical attachment to it.  But it doesn't seem like it'll hurt anything for him to occasionally be impractical about things.

(He gets the feeling that this will be another one of these things where he tries to explain the entire context of his life to Leareth in five minutes, which is in some sense a doomed endeavor.  But then again they mean to spend the rest of the day on Leareth doing the same for him, and they do expect that to work...  Leareth is just vastly better at mentally organizing information, Karal thinks with a tinge of apology.  But it's all right, they'll get to know each other well enough eventually, and he might as well start with the question that just came up.)

What constitutes permission is, well, technically simply permission, but what it usually means is that you trust you prisoner not to use this or any other capacity against you.  Which Karal will not, he's held himself bound to that from the start (without exactly talking to Leareth about this either, now that he thinks about it, but in his defense there was so much happening and his personal concept of honor wasn't important... He thinks it came up when he was trying to show Nayoki as much as he could about himself last night, but there really has been so much happening.)  He will swear it, if that will make a difference, and perhaps it should.  But does Leareth trust him that much, with an oath or without one?  On the emotional level he knows the answer is not quite, but on the conscious mind's level it might be otherwise, or not.  Or they can simply decide that Leareth's ability to read his mind constitutes trust enough, since it would be useful for him to have the sword, in practice.

The first way one may carry a sword is in one's own right, where it means you're... the sort of person who can use a sword, and will use it, in your own defense or for whatever other reason you think right.  It's important for this to be visible, because it would be wronging people, to let them attack or insult or act against you without knowing the possible consequences.  (His home is a violent culture, but they try to be honest about it.)  The other way is being bound to someone's service and carrying a sword in their name only, using it according to their orders and not to your own will.  That's how you act as a guard or common soldier, for instance - you don't answer your own insults or do anything else that isn't your duty.  He started out that way when he was young, with a sword carried only on duty and going unarmed when he was on his own, until he was able and trusted to know what was right.  (That's how the younger mage-priests are supposed to use their magic, as well, in the god's service only.)  Later his lord gave him a sword and told him to keep it - you can be that way too, bound to someone's service while armed in your own right, and so expected to do both your duty and your own will, when they don't come into conflict.  (People around you can generally tell which category of person you are and which of these things you're doing, but Karal is entirely failing to enumerate all the tiny cues this knowledge propagates by.  The more he talks about all this the more he realizes how it doesn't entirely make sense, is probably a half-forgotten form of some older system, but... it worked well enough, he thinks.)  If you let a prisoner carry a sword, it's meant the first way, that they may do what they want as long as it isn't acting against you.  You cannot have a prisoner sworn to your service, those two relationships are mutually exclusive, the way neither of them is with friendship.  But he supposes none of this matters very much, except as personal background, since what actually matters is what people here, or in other places they might go, will conclude from Karal carrying a sword, and he expects the answers to be varied but not very complicated.

So, then, the other question.  Leareth is right that what Karal is here is more complicated than that, but... the most basic truth of their situation is that Karal cannot act against Leareth's will, and he would like the structure of their relationship to reflect that rather than pretend it's not true.  (He doesn't resent this, for wordless reasons that are only partially related to Kadrich's burial, but he would resent having it unacknowledged, he thinks.)  It can certainly be something more collaborative on top of that - Karal thinks being someone's honor-bound prisoner doesn't at all preclude friendship or trust - but the only two relationships he knows of that match that basic truth are being someone's prisoner or being sworn to them.  And... he knows that he likes Leareth, trusts him, and wants to help him, but he isn't (yet?) sure if he would swear his life's service to him, and he can't think of a third option.  (He almost wants to apologize for the uncertainty, but he can predict Leareth telling him he has every right to be uncertain.  The prediction doesn't really make it hurt less.)