(And Leareth isn't going to share his thoughts unprompted. It seems very understandable to be grieving in this situation. Whether Leareth himself would decide to put aside having any emotions until after he had reached safety, rather than before, is besides the point.) 

Leareth spends most of the candlemark trying to piece together fragmented memories. (This process is folded carefully away from where Karal can see it). He...thinks it's usually less frustrating than this? And doing it crouching in a forest uncomfortably close to a battlefield, rather than somewhere safe, probably isn't the entire difference. 

His reflexes are fine, he thinks, modulo the negative effects of working in an unfamiliar body also still suffering from backlash. His basic reasoning feels slow - some of that from fatigue, probably, and some just because he's still very disoriented, operating with the bare minimum context. 

Leareth remembers Urtho. A tower. Stars. A promise. ...A war that shouldn't have happened, that he certainly shouldn't have tried to win, and he's not sure if that memory always hurts this much, or if it's especially painful to be dredging up that piece of his history while huddled beside a corpse, sharing his body with a man desperately grieving for his lord's dead son, experiencing the physical correlates of grief alongside him. (Leareth could take over and make Karal's body stop that, but it doesn't seem worth it, for something that would inevitably - and rightly so - come off to Karal as spectacularly invasive and rude.) 

He thinks the core of himself is intact, anyway, which is the part that matters. 

He remembers Vanyel, fairly clearly. He remembers his plan, and that he's not very far from ready for the initial stage: invasion of Valdemar. Not a step he's delighted about; also not one where he has a better alternative, yet, and he's surely running low on time to think of one. 

He seems to have retained infuriatingly little in the way of specifics on his northern operations. That's - inconvenient. The process of dying and reincarnating gives him some amount of control over what he carries with him, but he still can't remember anything about his most recent death, and his spirit can't form new memories from the Void. Leareth doesn't know why his past self, in a now-erased moment of decision, might have chosen to hold onto the memory of specific dream conversations with Herald-Mage Vanyel at the expense of anything about his northern facilities or staff or upcoming concrete plans. Though one obvious guess is that, if he trusts his people in the north, he can expect to get a full debrief from them. Which he can't necessarily ask of Vanyel, his...well, his Foresight-destined enemy. 

Somewhat more than a candlemark passes before Leareth is confident that they have enough in reserves for a moderate-range Gate.

He nudges Karal with a mental touch. Are you ready?

Yes, with weariness but no desire to delay.  He gently picks up the body, cold but at least not stiffened yet.  Standing is much less of an effort than it was before, although he understands that's going to change again soon, and tries to brace himself for it.

He calls up an image of one of the seasonal storage sheds outside the walls - the old half-ruined one may be best, it has a doorway but no door in it, which seems like it might matter but he doesn't actually know if it does.  Well, there are other options, and presumably he'll be told if he should think about them.

He tries to pay attention to what the magic is doing, but very definitely isn't going to do anything without an instruction.  He's never been near a Gate, but he knows they're rare and powerful and probably the sort of thing to be careful about.

(What that means about his own level of power has not really occurred to him. He's not even sure if the magic is really his, and it certainly doesn't feel like it.)

Leareth wields Karal's Gift with substantially better control, this time – the minor magics before helped him calibrate to it, and the rest and time to think did a lot to sharpen his concentration. Felt from the inside, it's obvious that this is a powerful and challenging magic, carried out with remarkable skill trained to the level of instinct – a little as though Leareth were guiding Karal's body through the motions of an intense swordfight. Something that would be dangerous and fraught for someone with less skill, but in fact they're perfectly in control, with plenty of margin for error. 

...It hurts. Not like it's causing a new injury, and not as bad as, say, trying to put weight on a broken leg - there's no magical damage to Karal's mage-channels - but Karal's mage-gift was, nonetheless, quite recently and quite abruptly awakened to full strength, and metaphorically bruised and strained in the process. It feels a bit like lifting a very heavy object the day after a fight, where bruised and aching muscles might protest that it's way too soon for fresh exertion, but it still doesn't feel like they're causing damage in the process - 

- and then there's a glowing doorway forming, half-scaffolded on a storm-damaged tree leaning against a larger tree in something vaguely like an arch-shape. It takes several seconds to solidify, which is appallingly slow by Leareth's standards, and then the search-spell lands. Karal will feel the power draining out of his reserves - it feels uncannily like rapidly losing blood - as the Gate snaps into place, empty forest floor replaced by the view as it would appear from the doorway of the old half-ruined storage shed. 

Leareth doesn't seize control of Karal's legs, but sends him a forceful mental nudge to go across now, hurry. 

Oh, that's a fascinating sensation - the skill and power, the satisfying feeling of difficult training long turned into instinct, but all of it on a level of existence he didn't know he had a few hours ago...  Karal thinks he might get used to this, if he has the chance.  The pain he doesn't mind at all - it wouldn't be a problem regardless, it's still on the long list of things that don't matter, but this one is almost physically obvious about not being damaging.  The power drain he likes much less, but he assumes/hopes it's supposed to be that way...

He wastes no time going across when prompted, then turns to lean heavily against the wall, waiting for the bloodloss-feeling to stop and unsure of what else is supposed to happen.  (He doesn't seem to mind the uncertainty much.  His companion clearly knows what he's doing, and Karal is vaguely curious about it all, but feels no urgent need to know things that aren't his job to know.)

It's an incredible relief, to be home, away from the accursed Valdemaran border.  His breathing eases, his body losing some tension he had forgotten it could lose.  He looks around, finding everything as he expected - the castle wall to one side, the forest and mountains to the other, no people near enough to see them, though he nearly forgets to worry about that in favor of filling his eyes with the familiar landscape.

The Gate goes down the instant they're through; there's a sucking-collapsing sensation that nonetheless feels very controlled, distantly reminiscent of packing and folding away a tent, and a small measure of strength actually flows back into him as Leareth reclaims the mage-energy bound up in the Gate-threshold. Physically, he's drained enough to feel slightly weak and unsteady on his feet, but definitely not about to collapse. It wasn't as far as Leareth had worried it might be. 

I am here if you have questions or - need anything - but this next part is yours, I think. And Leareth backs off to let Karal take the lead. Though he'll maybe keep some light control of Karal's Gifts, without intending to use it; Karal is untrained, and it would be awkward if he were startled and let off some obvious accidental magic. 

(He has - some sort of feeling, one he can't pin down - about Karal's obvious relief to be home. Home. It feels like such a real, solid thing, seen through Karal's eyes, and yet - Leareth isn't sure when, if ever, anywhere in the world felt like home to him. Maybe Urtho's Tower, once, before - all of the things that happened...) 

He doesn't startle at the odd sensation, just waits until things seem stable, so he can evaluate how he feels about walking.  Well enough, it turns out.

Thank you.  There's real gratitude in his thoughts, and he pauses there to make it obvious - he's home, and his lord can bury his oldest son here instead of perhaps never even finding out what happened, and he couldn't have done any of it without this unexpected and incomprehensible help.  He appreciates it, incomprehensible or not.

Then he straightens and focuses on the task ahead.  And does instinctively reach for his Empathy, just to spread it out and see where he can find everyone - it comes much more naturally to him than the Mage-Gift - but if his companion blocks him from it, he'll back off without a moment's struggle or more than a light pressure, and with no resentment.

...He can have his receptive Empathy, that seems fine and useful. (Leareth is himself making full use of passive mage-sight, not that there's much to see so far.) Leareth isn't even sure if that Gift is newly-awakened at the same time as the mage-gift or longer established. 

I have shields on us that should catch it if you start to project emotions by accident, he tells Karal, since - again - it's probably helpful to communicate more than he's spontaneously inclined to. I am not sure if you know how to avoid it deliberately, and - you are very upset, it would be noticeable to others if you were projecting. 

He likes the receptive Empathy.  Especially here, where he can look for people he knows instead of presumable enemies on a battlefield, where he can see a mind and - oh, he knows who that is, and that one, he can see who's standing guard on this side of the castle walls and whether they're tired and whether they've seen anything interesting, he can see the children at their lessons and how much they must have grown to be able to focus like this, he can stretch further until he can feel his lord's presence just at the edge of his range...  A wave of warmth washes over his mind, for all these people he hasn't seen in so long and who are still here, safe and familiar and leading their wonderfully normal lives.  He manages to catch his instinctive attempt to project the warmth outward before it hits the shields, but it's a near thing, and he sends his companion a bit of self-deprecating appreciation for the backup.

(It's obvious to him now that he did have many flashes of this Gift before today, not conscious or controlled ones, but useful.  The concept that it might be invasive doesn't occur to him at all - these people are his friends, it doesn't feel any different than looking at them and seeing their expressions, and if it wasn't for incomprehensible things going on in his head he would be actively happy for everyone to be able to read him the same way.)

And of course the grief rushes back in, the moment he takes a step and feels Kadrich's body shift in his arms.  But it's still easier, when he's here, with people who will understand and do the right thing.

He walks around the curve of the wall to the main gates, where the guards - another pair of familiar minds, one of them was still a child when he last saw him - stare at him in shock.  Faced with "He's dead, let me take him to his father" and the anguish in his voice, they let him through and don't demand any more of an explanation.

He lays him down on the floor of the main hall, and stays on his knees, tears making fresh marks through the dirt on his cheeks, waiting for one of the men to call the lord from his study.  There are a few questions, ignored by him and quickly hushed by others, and then everyone waits, staring at the tableau in silence.  A woman is crying, somewhere in the back.

It turns out that showing up with the dead body of someone beloved is an excellent way to have everyone way too distracted to ask questions. Leareth keeps that thought well away from where Karal can see it.

He doesn't think his intervention will be needed, here; he's still on guard, but mostly what he needs to do is not jog Karal's elbow at a bad moment. 

(He feels...sad, he thinks. For - why - for Karal, mostly, who has to leave this place that was home to him - would probably have to leave anyway, and he might never have made it home at all without Leareth's presence, but Leareth is still stealing something precious from him. And from everyone else who knows and cares about Karal. Which Leareth does every time he takes a new body, often under circumstances worse than this, but he...doesn't normally get to see it this close up.) 

Balthin does not take long to arrive, and he, too, is silent, waiting for Karal to speak.

"I did everything I could, my lord, and I couldn't keep him safe."  His voice nearly breaks on the words, but after a moment he continues.  "One of their mages killed him, with lighting from the clear sky. The Butcher in White, I think, but we never saw most of them."  He shakes his head, focuses on things more important than the details of that battle.  "He... led us well, for all the years before that."

The lord nods, and manages to keep his voice strong.  "And the others?"

"Most died with him. A few ran, I think."  He was past paying attention, at that point, and everyone looking can see it in his face - the horror of the sudden magical onslaught, enough not for one man, but for dozens, maybe hundreds.

"And yet you are here."  Balthin's eyes are searching, if not quite suspicious.  He is not a stupid man, or easily distracted.

Karal bows his head.  "You know I would have died for him, my lord. I was too far."  This time his unconscious Empathy projection does hit the shields, because he's telling the truth and cannot bear the thought of not being believed.  The lord looks at him for a moment, and softens his voice.  "I know."  Karal's breath catches with some unnameable feeling.

Balthin kneels, touches his son's face.  "We should take him to the chapel. You can stand vigil with me until morning, and tell me everything."  He carries the body himself, giving orders as he goes, and everyone follows him.

Leareth follows along quietly in the back of Karal's head. He doesn't think Karal needs reminding that telling Balthin "everything" is not necessarily a good idea. 

He seems like - a good man, he thinks to Karal, very quietly. They're walking and Balthin is distracted calling out orders, no one is likely to notice if Karal makes an unprompted facial expression or something. It's not an incredibly contentful thing to say, but it doesn't cost him anything, and it seems like it could matter to Karal. 

It does, and he appreciates it.  And he's used enough to having someone else in his head, at this point, that he doesn't react in any odd way to a bit of conversation.

There's a chapel to Vkandis in one of the wings of the castle, but a small one, with no priest except when one comes to visit.  It's not evening yet, but the afternoon is cloudy, with no sunlight streaming in through the windows, so they light all the candles even in daylight.  There should be light and warmth, for a farewell.

It's a long vigil, and most of it not very organized - there's only so much time you can fill with ritual, and people do have other duties, so most of them come and go and maybe come again later.  There are the formal prayers at sunset, and Karal recites them without much worrying about the state of his faith - that's not what matters here, not really.  Then everyone just tells stories through the night - Balthin speaks about his son first, serious and formal, then other elders talk about his childhood, and more people join in with how they knew him while he was still here, until nearly everyone has said at least some small inconsequential thing.  Not all of them are good, but most are.  Balthin speaks again, about the king's messanger demanding a levy for the war, and Kadrich, then a boy of fifteen, demanding to go despite everyone's advice and doubt.  About how he didn't stop him, and wasn't sure he could have. 

Then it's Karal's turn, as the only one who can speak about the last few years.  Again he instinctively reaches for Empathy, considers it, asks.  Could you make it so I can project a little, but not so much that it'll be strange? I'd like to... let them feel what it was all like, and I'm not very good at speaking like this.  He's tired, it's long past midnight, and he knows he might not be thinking clearly about what is and isn't a safe idea, but he doesn't have to come up with that answer himself.

It's - not something where it would even have occurred to Leareth to assess it as an option, on his own. The risk isn't enormous, he doesn't think, but it is a risk, and the upside is - what - that Karal might sound more charismatic in his recounting of what happened on the front? 

...But that's real and important to Karal, even - maybe especially - if soon after this he leaves and never sees these people again. And it does cost Leareth something, this time, he doesn't know for sure that no one here has the experience they need to recognize even mild, controlled Projective Empathy, it would add another note of suspicion to the non-explanation for how he made it here at all - but it's only a small risk, given that Karal is clearly surrounded by people who care about him and don't want to distrust him.

(And they do have the ability to get out, in an emergency. Not cheaply - they've been offered neither food nor a chance to sleep, so their shared body's mage-reserves are replenishing only very slowly - but Leareth could probably manage a fifty-mile emergency blind Gate into Hardornen territory, if it comes to that.) 

...Yes, he decides after a moment. I think if I retain control of the shields, to modulate it, but - give you control of projecting, like this -? Leareth isn't not sure if he ever had reason to coordinate sharing Gift-control like this, in the past, but it's not entirely dissimilar from concert-work, and he can probably make it work despite Karal's lack of any training. Using Empathy seems to come more naturally to him. 

Someone did give Karal more water at some point, but every moment from his arrival on has been too solemn an occasion for anyone to think about food, when vigils are traditionally held fasting.  He himself hasn't noticed how hungry he obviously is, and wouldn't have done anything about it even if he had.

He has no idea what concert-work is, but he can... take the flow of power he was handed, feel what it's doing and some of what's going on around it, and trust that what he can't feel will still be the right thing.  Even though he still knows nothing about the nature or plans of other presence in his head, it has been consistently kind and sensible and easy to talk to, and so his instinct is to trust it when he can feel it working by his side - to relax into the half-control, and not overcompensate when something feels off but shouldn't be his to fix.  It's a little like fighting side by side, knowing someone's there to block the blows you can't, or perhaps more like rowing a boat together, relying on each other to stay in balance.

He starts speaking, and his emotions come through just a little more strongly than they otherwise would.  "We weren't sure he could lead us, young as he was, but he could. Of course he made mistakes, and needed advice, and didn't always take it. But he was growing into a great leader and a great warrior, and even at fifteen we could all see it. He was proud, and difficult, and we argued, and I loved him."  It's true and heartfelt, and the little projection he does is enough that none of these people, who have known them both, can doubt any of these things.

He describes the years of war, as well as he remembers them - not every camp or order or wound or argument, not even every battle, but enough of them that everyone can feel what it was like.  He doesn't voice his doubts about the war or the priesthood outright, but that too comes through in what he's saying, and the Empathy makes it easier to keep the implications clear without saying anything that might count as treason.  But he focuses on Kadrich, his character and abilities, admirable even if the war wasn't, and those of the other men with them, loyal and doing the best they could.  Finally he describes the last battle, the nearly-successful attack, the sudden onslaught of the distant mage's power.  How quickly everyone was dead.

He doesn't give the day of that battle, and simply says nothing about what happened afterward.  He could, but tradition doesn't require it, and nobody would feel right about asking - the funeral is about Kadrich, not about Karal's travel or his survival, even if some people must be thinking about how strange those were.

They carry the body outside, praying, and burn it in the candlemarks before dawn.  Bury the ashes in the spot where sunlight first touches the ground.

Balthin embraces him afterward.  "Thank you, for this, and for everything you did. We should still talk, but I should let you sleep, first." 

Karal bows, entirely out of words, and then just stands there, finally aware of how exhausted he is.  He does need sleep, or food, and he promised a conversation... What do you want to do?

Karal seems (understandably) very, very tired, pretty much at his limit for doing anything. Leareth, to be fair, isn't sure he's feeling much better. He's spent the entire period on guard, ready to Gate out if something goes wrong, and he doesn't think maintaining that level of alertness would normally be this draining, but right now it definitely is. 

(All the waiting in the background has given him a chance to dig harder at fragments of memory – and to poke at the decisions he's currently making, because it's now getting to the point that staying and letting Karal say goodbye, to the extent that Karal even agrees with "saying goodbye" as what he's currently doing, pretty clearly is adding both delay and nonzero risk for getting back to his own work. And what is that worth, if there's still greater than 50% odds that he ends up deciding to kill this man and fully wear his body...? 

Leareth's conclusion was that, to a significant extent, it's because he still mostly expects to kill Karal that he wants to, if possible, give him a final day when he isn't afraid, and - hopefully - gets to have a little more of what matters to him than he would have if Leareth had never showed up in his mind. It's not a fair trade, hard to imagine what would be a fair trade, but it's, maybe, a tiny step in that direction.

...And, maybe a little, it's that it makes it easier to remember how deeply he hates that his plans kill anyone, if he knows enough of Karal as an individual to feel more of the tragedy of it. It's still worth it, and it won't be worth dwelling on guilt about it, but it should still hurt.) 

You do need to eat, he thinks to Karal. And then - it would be safest to Gate out and sleep elsewhere, in case anyone has suspicions and might act on them while you - we - rest. But only by a small margin. There are definitely advantages to sleeping indoors, for one, and even based on his own paranoid assessment, it seems unlikely that anyone here will ride out on the spot to find the nearest priest-mage, even if they do have questions about Karal's non-explanation of his arrival. If you still think that you can navigate a conversation with Balthin later, then - I will not argue against. 

(Partly because it's still the case that he could seize control and Gate out on a moment's notice, and Leareth is by now quite confident that in matters of Gift-control, Karal wouldn't be able to stop him. And he does intend to lay wards on wherever they sleep, just in case some suspicious party does try sneaking up on them while they sleep.) 

God, I really do, don't I.  He's more tired than hungry, but hunger takes longer to go away than sleep, and he knows he'll feel better if he eats first.  He heads toward the kitchen without a conscious thought, and one look at him is enough for the women there to point him to a chair in the corner and give him a chunk of fresh bread and some eggs and a bowl of whatever is quickest to heat up.  He gives them a grateful look, and doesn't pay much attention to what he's eating.

Gate out and, what, sleep in the forest?  He supposes they could, at that, but why?  Won't that just be exhausting again?  What if someone knocks on my door for an entirely normal reason and notices me gone?  It seems enormously overcomplicated, to him.  Or if someone does have suspicions - they'll come to talk to me about them, or go to my lord and he will come talk to me, and both of those will go better if I haven't- mysteriously disappeared.  He has a feeling that their lives must have been enormously different, for their ideas of reasonable behavior in difficult circumstances to be this far away from each other.  But after all that's happened he can't really be sure which one of them is right, and even less sure which sort of life today and tomorrow should be counted as.

And anyway - he extends his Empathy sense again, as far as it goes, which is not the entire castle but is most of it - nobody seems like they're going to do that.  I can walk around and make sure, before we sleep?

And yes, I can talk to my lord later, and should.  Probably the two of us should talk first, so I know what-- happens after.  He is afraid of what happens after, a little, but in a resigned way.  He took on a debt, and he will pay it.  He doesn't consciously think about whether he expects to survive that, but it won't take looking much deeper to see that he's not sure, and that he's still entirely capable of extending trust and cooperation to the person who might kill him.

…Yes, they really should talk. 

(It doesn't feel safe, but Leareth suspects that feeling is a lot more based on habit than on any specifics. He also doesn't really know how to start, especially if he needs to squeeze it down to relatively few and simple pieces in order for Karal, in his exhausted state, to be capable of following.) 

Even for a heavily simplified version, he thinks it would be better if Karal weren't worrying about controlling any visible reactions in front of people. You might as well walk around and check that no one is suspicious, and then - once we are alone, I can explain. 

Or I can sleep first. Are you as tired as I am?  He has no idea if voices in people's minds get tired.  Either way, he definitely agrees with doing it once they're alone - he doesn't know what to expect from the conversation, but he's quite sure he doesn't want to have it in front of people.

He takes the stairs up walks around the walls, tired but still happy to fill his eyes with the familiar landscape extending in all directions - and to incidentally look at whether anyone unexpected just left, see if any of the guards feel like anything worrying happened, check all the other minds in range.  People look at him with curiosity, sometimes uncertainty, but everyone's subdued and sympathetic (perhaps more than they would've been without the Empathy push), and it doesn't seem as if anyone means to do anything immediately troubling.

He asks one of the men who just came on shift whether he can have his bed for the day.  Of course he can.  Luckily it turns out the man still has his own room, with a bed and a door that locks, and finally they're in it and he can- not relax, exactly, but stop waiting.

They should sleep before any serious back and forth conversation, for sure, but Leareth thinks he probably does want to say something first, if only to give Karal some warning that, if his worst paranoia here is justified, he might wake up to Leareth Gating them out to a random forest after all. 

(He can explain a little at the same time as he lays some wards, low-powered and almost undetectable from a distance even to mage-sight, but enough to wake and warn him if, say, someone is entering the room, or if any magic is thrown around within a wider radius.) 

You wondered what I was, he thinks. I was - I am - human, and a mage. I have - lived an eventful life, (many lives, but how many is probably for a later conversation), and in the course of it, I have come to believe that the gods are not on my side, or on the side of anyone who wants peace and prosperity. ...I died, recently, I am nearly certain at the hands of one of the gods. I had laid a spell in advance, so that I would not be destroyed entirely, and - here I am. I am leaving out a great deal, that much has got to be incredibly obvious, but - that is the core of it. 

A brief, mental sigh. I know Vkandis is your god, and I would not claim that He has done nothing for the people of Karse, but - I think He does not want an end to this war, at least not yet, and He will not protect you from the priesthood that claims to serve Him. And my own past experiences have taught me to be wary of the gods. I would be more at ease outside of Vkandis' territory, but - I think - I will not be in much danger if we linger here for one more day, and - I know it is important to you. 

Karal probably has a lot more questions now than he did before Leareth said anything! Leareth is perhaps slightly gambling that Karal will be too tired to want to address them now, though he'll find the energy to answer them if Karal wants. 

(And if Karal reacts very badly, that would be...information. Worth having now, rather than later. But Leareth mostly doesn't expect that he will.) 

He starts out watching him manipulate the magic in that fascinatingly ingrainedly skilled way of his, but the words distract him nearly immediately. 

The gods?  What, all of Them??  He's never wondered what all the gods together might want or agree on, if anything, and the man considering himself on the opposite side from every single one of Them is - well, alarming, certainly, but mostly just incomprehensible by sheer scale.  Karal has no idea what that would even mean, or how any human could reasonably say it.  He'd jump to judging him insane sooner than evil, but neither of those seem right, and so he has no idea what to think.

The next part he likes even less, but mostly because he cannot argue with it.  You're right about the priesthood, and... you might be, about the Sunlord.  If He wanted to stop all this, He could, or if He cannot or doesn't want to, He could at least tell us why.  The rest... I have no idea how I could even begin to make sense of it.

So instead he focuses on the things that he might be able to make sense of.  You, though.  What do you mean to do?  He should ask a more specific question than that, but he can barely think of what all the possibilities are.  I would like another day, if you're willing, and if it's not too much of a danger.  And... I take it I must leave, after that.

...Okay, it sounds like they're having the entire conversation, or at least a chunk of it, now. Understandable on Karal's part, and - probably a good idea, despite both of their exhaustion. Leareth is not at all comfortable assuming that they would have an opportunity for un-time-pressured conversation after rather than before sleeping. 

I have not found all of the gods to be equally - unhelpful - but none of Them seem willing or able to communicate or work with, and I tried very hard. I am not sure if it makes sense to get into the details of it now - as a broad summary, They seem to oppose change, which unfortunately includes those advances in magic and artifice that could improve the lives of huge numbers of people. Perhaps it frightens Them, I am not sure. But I am - not willing to accept a world that will never be any better than it is now. 

A pause. He should probably just say it. Karal is already afraid, and making it specific what he has to fear is more fair to him. He gives the purely mental impression of someone taking a deep breath, collecting himself, before forging on.

This is not the first time I have died and returned. I normally drive out - kill - the original inhabitant of a body. I think it usually happens immediately and not entirely voluntarily, when someone - fights me - but there may be other reasons that I do not remember yet. 

Another mental sigh. I do not like killing people. Under any circumstances, really, but especially when they have done nothing to me. (And are usually twelve to fourteen.) I do it anyway, because– ...it seems unfair to argue with the victims of my immortality backup on why I think it would be justified. Because I can. But it is not my first choice, and I would rather not jump to assuming it is necessary. I would be inclined to return to my base of operations in the north. With you, if you would - agree to it. And I am willing to wait another day, though if something does go unexpectedly wrong then I am prepared to Gate out. 

He mentally waves a tired hand at the talk about the gods.  I have no way to know any of this.  Either I'll learn to trust you enough to believe it, or I won't, and either way having the explanation now accomplishes nothing.  He wants to know what will happen to him, tomorrow or next week, not... complicated things he's much too tired to understand.

Ah, he'd be less easily frustrated if he did sleep first, he supposes.  He sends a mental apology for that, and a wordless attempt at reassurance when the mage shows that he too is not finding the conversation easy.

Then closes his eyes, and nods, surprisingly calmly for a man told he will likely die.  Manages to even smile a little, at the comment about unfairness.  Holds in the immediate questions and listens quietly until the end.

... So he might not die after all.  But he is confused.

If I agree to it?  Do you mean you'd let me do what I want, otherwise?  Or just that you'd kill me rather than making me go with you?  I won't hate you, if it's that.  I won't hate you if you decide to just kill me regardless - I said coming here would be worth my life, and I meant it.  I'm just trying to... get it straight in my head, how I should think of this.  He needs some familiar structure to impose on whatever this is.  He can find one that will work, but he needs to know where to start, and he really wants to get it right.

I would kill you. Leareth isn't sure he could "lose" a fight for Karal's body on purpose even if Karal were trying to win it, instinct-to-survive runs very deep, and - he wouldn't willingly make that choice anyway, he's not going to be misleading about that.

He does something a little like closing his eyes, though he's not currently claiming any control of Karal's body. It is not a fair trade. Bringing you home, in exchange for - the rest of your life - it does not make it any less monstrous, that I am willing to do this. But it - cost me very little, and I did want to– I am glad I could give you that much, whatever else happens.