That was both less disbelief and less... disagreement?... than he only now realizes he was expecting, so he thinks something of his meaning didn't get through quite right.  But... it feels right, mostly, or at least the acceptance and something like respect does - it's clear that Vanyel believes him that he's willing to die, which is most of what he wanted, even if maybe Vanyel has the reasons wrong.  Maybe he just feels better when he can think well of people.  But no, it seemed too big a shift for that, too much like they were... more on the same side than a moment ago...

Oh. He thinks I might die because of deciding I disagree with you.  Which... is also, still, something that might happen, and he has not at all been thinking about it.  But it's true that he knows almost nothing of what Leareth is planning, and maybe the awful thing will be too awful for him to want to have anything to do with - this doesn't feel likely, it's not that he has to agree with it, just that he has to still feel like Leareth is someone who would do something better if he could - or just too awful for him to feel like he can stand it, which could be true, for all he knows.  It would be sadder, and more complicated, than dying because they were on the same side against some possible problem.  But he knows Leareth would understand, and he thinks he still wouldn't want Leareth to hurt, after having known him like this.

Which still leaves Vanyel missing the more likely reason, but - Vanyel knows he doesn't understand everything, and when Karal imagines Vanyel and Leareth talking about his absence afterward, it no longer feels like it'd be a conversation he hates, so he's willing to leave it there rather than try to convey all the possibilities and details that may well never be necessary.

He did spend a long moment thinking through all this, but... he feels like that's understandable, under the circumstances.  He gives Vanyel an almost-smile and a grave bow.  "Thank you. Be well, when you can."  And lets Leareth have the body.

(That makes a lot of sense, actually, it's clearly the reason that would be most - legible - to Vanyel, and it also makes sense that it's a story Vanyel feels better about than the one where Karal is a coerced prisoner. The more likely reason is also more complicated to get into, and Leareth thinks he agrees that this is a reasonable place to leave it. ...And Leareth is, again, appreciating Karal's perceptiveness.) 

He takes control of the body again, and - 

- now what? Leareth hadn't been coming into this with a particularly fleshed-out plan, and...he's not sure what kind of conversation Vanyel is in shape for right now. When did it get this bad? Maybe it's easier to see when he's coming back to it, like this, more able to see it fresh... 

"...It is not too late for any of it to matter," he finds himself saying, switching back to Valdemaran. "I know that when so much has already been lost, it can feel like there is nothing left but ugliness. Like there is nothing worth salvaging from a world that is so desperately broken. I do know that feeling, Herald Vanyel." 

Vanyel blinks at him, clearly nonplussed. He answers in Valdemaran as well; it's as good a way as any to feel like this conversation is back on normal ground, except it isn't, because now Leareth of all people has apparently decided it's time to talk about their feelings??? 

"Really? You of all people don't seem like someone who's ever tempted to give up. I would've pictured you just - deciding that despair didn't help." It comes out sounding more bitter than he had intended to let slip. 

"I have, actually, occasionally in my very long life, had emotions that did not help."

Vanyel is even less sure what to say to that. He's off-balance, again. The itchy, restless anger is back, even though it won't help - maybe, in some twisted backward way, because it won't help. 

“I guess it's easy for you to stand there and say that," Vanyel spits out, hearing himself as though for a distance. "Somehow. Even knowing how many of the people are dead because you killed them." 

It's a good thing, Karal thinks, that he's no longer in control and can't shout at Vanyel to think about what he just said.  But since he isn't in control and what he does doesn't matter, he will very quietly count to himself all the people he knows who are dead because Vanyel killed them.  The names and faces run into the hundreds, and if he counts strangers he only saw die across the battlefield, it will be many times more than that.  It does not help anything.  He's trying not to distract Leareth with it (sends a quiet mental apology, but he doesn't expect Leareth to be easily perturbed), it's just that he cannot be here and not react.

He knows Vanyel doesn't even mean it.  He's suffering, and knowing what Karal is thinking would make the suffering worse and wouldn't help anything, when they both already know they wanted none of this to happen.  And he knows he himself is not being fair, both because of everything Vanyel has done, and because he likes Leareth, Leareth who can keep in his mind exactly how much harm he's doing even as he does it, and who can talk this calmly and thoughtfully to his fated enemy...

In the end he knows that both of them are good men, and reasonable ones, and maybe somehow this will be enough, for whatever good all this is meant to accomplish.  If it's not, he doesn't think it's because he made it worse.

(Leareth is indeed pretty sure that Vanyel is not thinking at all about how what he just said must sound to Karal. ...And Leareth has almost certainly killed more people than Vanyel, even if you only count people he killed at least as directly as the battlefield casualties under Vanyel's name, and not the fallout of his worst mistakes. Or of policy decisions he made that weren't mistakes, where he always knew the cost. And that's ignoring the future, which– later.) 

Leareth really wasn't intending to pick a fight with Vanyel, but it's not clear if there's a way to avoid that, with the mood Vanyel is currently in. Definitely it seems impossible to navigate this conversation without upsetting Vanyel. All that's left is to try to say something that might help later, even if nothing is going to help now. 

"If I am willing to make sacrifices in the short term," Leareth says slowly, carefully, "it is only because that is the way I see forwards. I do not like it either and I do not weigh it lightly. ...It does make it harder, though, to - remember and believe in what matters. And it is hard in a different way when it feels as though I am the only one trying."

He takes a breath and lets it out. "I look at the stars, and I remember that there are so many lights in the world, who are worth saving, and we cannot save all of them – from the very beginning, it was too late to save all of them – but we can still save some. It is never too late for that.”  

Vanyel...just stares blankly for a long moment. He is way too tired to try to unravel what game Leareth is playing. (Somehow, the thought that it's not a game - that it's just something Leareth is saying to him, in earnest, because he wants Vanyel to know it - hurts substantially more.) 

“Why are you doing this?” he snarls finally. “Why do you care how I feel about it? I’m your enemy. We’re going to try to kill each other someday.”

Only if the gods succeed, again, at cutting off every route to something better.

Though that's admittedly still the main outcome Leareth is expecting. Vanyel's entire existence was Their move, and it's - a lot to ask, to try to shift that. Leareth is obviously going to try anyway, in whatever time he has, because - (a complicated tangle of emotion that doesn't unpack enough for Karal to see it properly, some of it tangled in Leareth's hazy memories of Urtho, but so much more wrapped up in the mental habits and associations formed by memories Leareth doesn't currently have) - because if you want a world that can build things instead of destroying them, you have to try for peace instead of war, every time, even - especially - all the times when it probably won't work. 

“I hope that is not what will come to pass, in the end,” Leareth says finally. “I am not willing to let you stop me, and yet. You are trying to do what is right. Even when it is hard, and when the answers are not simple. You do not flinch from the truth, and you do not walk away. It is rarer than you think. In a world of lights, you burn brighter than most. I cannot wish to see that extinguished.” 

(Karal knows Leareth must have killed even more people - it's just that at some point he thinks counting is not the right thing to do any more.  It's been too many on all sides and none of them can tell themselves they've done nothing wrong.  How many people has he himself killed, people who were only trying not to let their country be invaded by a horrifying enemy?  He knows that number as well, and it isn't hundreds but it's still enough.  What is the point of trying to make sure the blame is distributed correctly, when there's enough of it to drown all of them?  There must be something else to do with all this death - maybe Leareth's way of thinking about it is right, he cannot tell and doesn't know enough to understand it, but at least it's... trying for something different.)

And after Leareth's words about the stars, Karal is just crying.  Yes, all of these people whose names he just finished remembering were lights in the world, worth saving even if nobody managed it, or nobody tried... (Kadrich, who he can still barely think about, but the image makes it a little easier...)  And so many more left, people he knows and cares about, and people he doesn't but someone does, an incomprehensible number of people all of whom matter... 

He doesn't know how Leareth manages to keep all this in his mind without breaking.  He couldn't, not for longer than a few moments at a time, but he will remember this.

He barely registers the rest of the conversation, but what he does catch adds to his understanding of Leareth, on some level far below the words.  Enough of it that he thinks maybe he'll manage to make some sense of whatever the awful plan is, in the morning.

Vanyel is apparently not going to manage to say anything in response to that until the dream comes apart around them. 

Then Leareth won't say anything either. He's not sure if that helped or made things worse, and he's certainly not going to push Vanyel any further. 

Karal will have to cry purely internally for the remaining duration of the dream, but it's not very long before the sky comes apart and they find themselves in the guest room, at which point Leareth is happy to give Karal control of the body. (He does want to take some quick notes on the dream before going back to sleep, but he doesn't need to do that instantly.) 

Karal does not mind much either way, but letting him physically curl up and weep does seem to help him be done with it - his body knows how to move on even when his mind doesn't.  It doesn't take him long to sit up and wipe his eyes.

(He did notice that Leareth had something else to do, and he could have just taken a hold of himself and let him do it.  But since it wasn't urgent, he appreciates the time to deal with a bit more of his grief.  And notices, again, being a little surprised at how thoughtful Leareth is about letting him have what he wants even when it doesn't really seem necessary.)

He'll let Leareth do what he wants, too, before trying to have any more thoughts about what just happened.

It takes Leareth somewhat longer than it normally would to get notes down - the room is unfamiliar and he has to actually get up to find paper - but once he has it in front of him, jotting down some shorthand notes on what they talked about takes less than three minutes. It doesn't need to be incredibly detailed, just enough that he can jog his memory in the morning and flesh out the notes more then. For his own part, he's not really planning to try to do much thinking right now, it's still the middle of the night. 

That is a good point, and in any case Leareth's shorthand is unreadable enough to Karal that staring at it quickly pulls him as close to sleep as he can get while Leareth is still awake. 

His dreams are more confusing than before - some brief and oddly alien scenes, some abstract images that manage to be sad without depicting anything, as his brain tries to grapple with concepts it has no symbols for.  At some point, there are stars.

Leareth's dreams are, again, fairly abstract and significantly consisting of math. (He doesn't dream of Vanyel again; apparently the Foresight dream was enough Vanyel for the night.) He drifts halfway to awareness, sometimes, and instinctively checks the wards with mage-sight and relaxes again without fully waking up.

He's not particularly trying to wake up early (it's also quite hard to tell what time it is, since they're underground), and will let Karal take the lead on when it's time to get up. 

When Karal wakes up again, he feels... not entirely rested, maybe, but rested enough that he thinks he'll have trouble falling asleep again, when there's so much to think about.

He briefly wonders why it's still dark, until he realizes the room has no windows.  (Of course Leareth would be against windows.)  How do you tell what time it is?  He feels a little stupid for having to ask, but this place is different enough from anywhere he's ever been that he will inevitably have a child's questions about it.

Leareth...is not actually sure of the answer to that question. I think I probably have some kind of magical timekeeping in my actual room? Or I would have checked with Mindspeech, which I - do not currently have. The random guest room also doesn't appear to have any timekeeping device, even one of the not-particularly-reliable nonmagical pendulum clocks that are in common use...somewhere...probably the Eastern Empire but apparently he only half remembers a fact related to that. They should probably just get up and go find out what time it is by asking. 

(Leareth thinks some of his facilities are aboveground and have windows? ...Admittedly probably not the ones where he prefers to spend his time. But some people need regular sunlight in order to be happy and productive, and if Karal is one of those people, Leareth is sure that there's somewhere they can work where he can see the sun.) 

Karal is entirely unfamiliar with the concept of non-magical timekeeping devices beyond a temple sundial or an hourglass for when small precise measurements are needed for some reason.  He supposes one could make a large hourglass to measure a night's sleep?  But going out and asking does seem much simpler.

(He likes sunlight, but the idea that anyone might possibly live a life without it has never occurred to him, and he has no idea whether or how that might make him unproductive - and as for being happy, he's mostly just once again surprised that Leareth would worry about it.  He doesn't think about where his surprise comes from, but one might get the impression that his previous life has not featured anyone he served thinking about his comfort very much.)

It turns out that it is morning, though fairly early.  Can someone point him to where he might get breakfast, or are they still under some confusing quarantine after having Gated in last night?

... Who do any of these people think he is, for that matter?  Do they act like he's a stranger who appeared last night and is apparently allowed to be here, or like he's... their lord, or whatever exactly Leareth is to them, or has Karal's separate existence been explained to them while he was asleep?  Should he introduce himself?  Perhaps he should have figured all of this out before trying to talk to anyone.

Nayoki did actually make sure that everyone still in this wing of the facility was briefed on Leareth's arrival last night and Karal, who a handful of the staff have been jokingly referring to as "Leareth's new roommate" even though that is really not the right word for it. She also asked to be alerted as soon as they were up. 

There's someone in the hall - a woman, not one of the people who they saw last night - who isn't, uh, entirely sure which of them she's talking to right now and can't think of a non-awkward way to ask, but she'll introduce herself as Rosta and ask if they need directions to the hall where meals are served? (She's also a Thoughtsenser and will Mindspeak Nayoki to let her know.) 

It's pretty obvious that she's uncertain about something about him, so he'll smile and introduce himself back in the hope that this helps with whatever exact confusion she's experiencing.  "Yes, please, that would be great. I'm Karal, it's good to meet you."  It is, because he really does want to get to know all these people he'll be sharing a life with now, but he also watches her to see if her reaction tells him anything.

(He doesn't act much like Leareth, for people who are familiar with Leareth and half-decent at reading tone and body language - but if they haven't seen Leareth come back in another body before, they might not know how... obviously himself... he still is afterward, so the confusion still makes sense.  Assuming it is that particular confusion, and not just that she doesn't know who he is or if he's allowed to be here or if he's someone she should remember.)

In any case, Leareth is free to advise or take over if he would like to stop watching Karal flail, but Karal doesn't mind the flailing, it's a perfectly good way to get to know people.

"Oh! I wasn't sure. It's - good to meet you." She sounds sincere about that, the hesitation there seems to be mostly confusion. 

It's - odd, talking to this stranger she knows rather little about, except that Leareth must get along with him unusually well or something, given how he doesn't normally share bodies like this at all - and that he was apparently willing to drop his entire life and come north to work with Leareth. (...To be fair, there's an argument that she did exactly that when she signed on.) It's not a bad kind of odd, though. If anything it's less intimidating than talking to Leareth himself. 

She'll point him - them? - down the hall. "Did you sleep well?"