Leareth isn't going to recover. 

It would almost have been easier - or at least simpler - if he hadn't survived the frantic emergency evacuation up north, or if the Healers hadn't managed to get him through those first tense, awful hours. Because then there was hope, only slowly extinguished, as hours turned to days and weeks and Leareth still showed no sign of waking up. 

(The sequence of events that led up to his injuries was so stupid, a should-have-been-simple recruitment mission in Seejay gone horrifically wrong, but that part isn't surprising. Nayoki knows who their enemies are. It's infuriating, but it's not entirely unforeseen, and it's more inconvenient than disastrous. It's not the worst timing for it that it could be - though Nayoki is still half-expecting to find out later than the timing was far worse than it seems right now - and it probably won't delay their plans by more than a year or two.) 

Everyone involved in Leareth's treatment is cleared to know that he comes back, if not necessarily any details on how.

It still feels like giving up, when she has to make the final call and tell the Healers to stop keeping Leareth alive. 

The quiet empty pocket outside ordinary space is never a place where new memories can form, and the existence he has there isn't exactly one where he has thoughts in the ordinary sense, but there is still space to hold onto a handful of memories, and normally that includes the memory of what just happened and how he came to be there. It's generally important information. 

Leareth has no idea what happened; there's nothing there but blankness. Even when the cord of magic pulls and catches, yanking him back into the world, he still doesn't know.

He has space to start to unfurl, to be thinking actively rather than static, but he's significantly more disoriented than usual. Inclined to hang back and orient, first, rather than immediately wrestling for control of the new body. 

Where is he? What seems to be happening in his surroundings? ...Maybe more to the point, who does the person whose body and mind he's claiming - or not claiming yet - seem to be? 

The fact that Leareth appeared in the middle of a battle, or perhaps near the end of one, may be the most urgent piece of information.  The man he currently inhabits, as yet unaware of this particular danger to his mind and body among all the rest of them, is an adult in a Karsite soldier's uniform. He's strong and well-trained, but suffering from truly awful backlash on top of deep confusion about his very new ability to do magic, both of them held at bay by grief that is by far the most obvious thing about his mind.  He is, for all that, surprisingly functional, and at the moment managing to navigate this battlefield without dying.  He has no intention of re-joining the battle he was clearly taking part in a few minutes ago, but he's not leaving it, either - not until he finds his lord's body among the newly dead.

He has enough Empathy to sense other soldiers and avoid them as much as he can, but he's clearly doing that on instinct, without even knowing what it is.  The rest of his magic he isn't even trying to use. 

He's crying, quietly.

Well. That's interesting. ...And Leareth is going to worry about the exact unlikeliness of this setup, and what - or Who - might be responsible for the implausible circumstances, later. 

Leareth's first instinct, under normal circumstances, would be to Gate out. That...is not realistically going to happen right now. Leareth is still incredibly disoriented, none of his fragmented memories are clear enough to offer a Gate-location, and even with millennia of deep-engrained procedural memory in the use of magic, he's still going to be working with an unfamiliar Gift - strong, he thinks, but that almost makes it harder when the Gift is this newly-awakened and raw, and the body's reserves are unsurprisingly already drained. 

So. He's going to have to get off this battlefield the slow way. Which means shields are a priority.  

It's not difficult to seize control of the body's mage-gift, even with the original inhabitant still right there; the original inhabitant has no idea how to use it and mostly isn't. Shields - against physical attacks and projectiles, first, that takes the most power and least control - then layer a simple shield against mage-energies, and a clumsy illusion-spell to blur his silhouette a little and make him a slightly less obvious target... 

(All of this takes about a second and a half. Leareth is still expecting to end up in a fight over the body as soon as the man notices that he's no longer alone in his head - one he's almost guaranteed to win, he has a lot more practice - but he's not going to borrow trouble before it comes to him, and if he's about to be distracted he would very much rather be shielded first.) 

What just happened?  Did he-- No, he didn't do that, whatever it was.  He can't tell what the magic was for, but it was complicated and completely unlike what he did before...

--And it still doesn't matter.  Maybe he'll go insane tomorrow, maybe this is why the priests do what they do, but right now anything that isn't in his way will wait. 

(The man is surprisingly good at controlling his thoughts.  Once he decides not to think about it, he genuinely doesn't, even though he would have no trouble noticing Leareth's presence if he paid attention for a moment.)

He kneels to pick up Kadrich's body - it's still warm - and when he stands up with it he nearly falls right down again.  His head feels awful.  None of that matters either.

Their camp was uphill, so he'll walk in the opposite direction, where he hopes there's nothing for anyone to pay any attention to.  He would very much like to be elsewhere, somewhere far away from here - there's an image in his mind, of the castle, the graveyard near the back wall, a glimpse of the mountains behind it.  He has no way to get there, and no idea where around here is safe, if any place is.  Likely not, but he doesn't need to be safe for very long, so perhaps however far he can manage to walk like this will be enough.

...Leareth likes this man. He's faintly surprised to catch that thought flitting past, but he does. 

He has a hazy but mostly legible view of the man's surface thoughts as they move past, and relatively little access to deeper memories and context unless he decides to make his presence a lot more obvious and have a dig around. Which he doesn't think he can spare the attention for yet anyway; so far they don't seem to have come under direct attack, but this is not a safe area to be distracted. 

Carrying a dead body is slowing him - them - down. And it's not like there's anything to be done for the man now. Leareth feels, and sets aside, a brief flicker of regret that he didn't manage to show up a minute or two sooner, when he might still have been able to change that outcome. 

You need to leave him, he thinks in not-exactly-Mindspeech at the mind now sharing his body. There is nothing you can do for him now that is worth dying for. He doesn't, quite, add explicitly that surely the dead man - a relative? beloved, one way or another - wouldn't want his - whatever this man was to him - to die as well, pointlessly. 

Survive first, he adds after a moment. If you survive, you can come back for him. 

No, he thinks back, fiercely and immediately, and only then processes where the not-voice came from - briefly gives in to the instinct to struggle against the intrusion - stops it, quickly and entirely, his thoughts taking on an apologetic tone for a moment.  He's still deliberately ignoring anything beyond the one thing he cares about, such as what in God's name is going on in his head, or whether he will survive tomorrow.  But that was an attempt at immediate advice, and thus deserves an answer and not violence, even if he didn't like what it said.

You do not leave a dead body in a forest and expect to find it again. I will bury him, and if I die in the trying, it'll still be worth it.

He means that, and it's clear that he cannot be persuaded out of it, at least in his current state of mind.  But he's not being entirely unreasonable - the battle has moved on, the remaining Karsite troops retreating in disarray and Valdemar following.  Of the fewer people still nearby, so far nobody has decided to attack a man visibly too burdened to pose any danger himself.  There are plenty of bodies to loot without at fight, for those looking for them.

...Fine. The extent to which having both hands occupied in carrying a body makes them visibly not a threat might, in fact, be enough to outweigh the danger of moving more slowly. Leareth is still wary of ending up accidentally in the way of a mage-attack - if he's right that Vkandis did some nudging for this man's mage-gift to awaken traumatically with exactly the right timing to catch Leareth's spell, that was probably for a reason and not one in Leareth's favor - but, given that Gating out remains off the table, he can best address that by focusing on their shields and on maintaining situational awareness, extending the body's Othersenses for nearby magic as well as the glow of minds. 

(Now that he's had more than thirty seconds to reorient and piece together his especially-fragmented memories, he - has a suspicion that Vanyel was involved on this battlefield – but almost certainly from a distance, and they aren't currently within Valdemar's Web. As long as he sticks to defensive magic only, even if Vanyel still has Farsight on the scene, there's nothing to make a burdened man clearly not in a mage's uniform stand out.) 

- and, as they make their way further from the remaining battle, he dares some gentle probing of the man's memories. Starting with his attitudes toward Vkandis. He - feels an unusual inclination not to try to take sole control of this body, at least not until it's more obviously unworkable, but 'devout follower of the Sunlord' would be more than unworkable enough. 

Karal hasn't been consciously thinking about how being visibly at a disadvantage helps in a situation like this, but he knows it does, on the subconscious level on which he knows things like this.  And on the same level he knows very well how far away people are, and exactly how fast he could draw his sword anyway, if he needed to.

Magical attacks, on the other hand, he doesn't think about at all, consciously or otherwise.  Surely nothing happening here now would be worth it - and he has no inkling of how untrue that is.

He feels the touch at his memories, and allows it with barely a conscious thought.  He was a devout follower of the Sunlord, that's entirely obvious.  But then there were the new priests, and the war, and... it's clear enough that the Sunlord either cannot protect his people the way they were always told He would, or doesn't want to, or something else is wrong.  Karal doesn't know what to think, but he can't just believe what he was told, any more.

You can tell me what you think, later, if you want.

That...is a surprising response. Leareth isn't sure if it makes sense to be as surprised as he is - something is wrong, he's not usually this disoriented even in the first seconds in a new incarnation - but it's not what he expected. (He keeps those thoughts to himself.) 

It's certainly not a topic to explore right now. His current priority is to get out of sight of anyone involved in the battle, and then ideally somewhat further away than that, and find a place to hunker down behind wards where no one is likely to stumble onto them. And rest - it would be ideal if they could sleep, to recover as quickly as possible from the backlash, but Leareth isn't expecting to find a hiding-place that feels secure enough for that, and just sitting for a few candlemarks will suffice to ease the backlash headache and get back some reserves. 

...And then Gate, to - somewhere else. The memory he glimpsed in the man's thoughts ought to be clear enough for a destination, if it's a safe place and if they're - on cooperative terms - which so far doesn't seem impossible - 

- he tries to make those thoughts visible, he might as well. 

Karal gives the thoughts an acknowledging mental nod.  They're at the edge of the denser forest now, and should be out of sight soon enough, if they don't stumble into anyone else trying the same idea. And if Karal can keep walking for a while longer, through the underbrush, with the body in his arms.  He thinks he can, if only because he will not let himself consider any other answer.

I don't know what you are or what you want, but if you can-- take me home, after we rest, and let me bury him there-- I'll be in your debt.  He doesn't want to think yet about what will happen afterward, or even about what exactly is happening now - it's too much at once, and he needs to grieve properly before he can start dealing with anything else.  He realizes it's rarely a good idea, to make and accept promises like this without knowing anything about what they'll mean, but - he's trustworthy and means well, he leaves himself open enough for that to be entirely clear.  And whatever cooperation means here, he expects himself to be able to manage it with most people.  If people are what he should be thinking of.  But it has seemed like it, so far.

Leareth is happy, for now, to let Karal take charge of the body, and of continuing to put one foot in front of the other. He keeps some of his awareness on the body - he would like some warning if Karal is about to collapse - but Leareth has his own experiences with pushing himself past the limits of exhaustion, and he doesn't think they're about to collapse. He can deal with the underbrush when it impedes them, discreetly snipping branches aside with crisp, tightly controlled bursts of mage-energy. 

(Leareth is having...some sort of complicated feeling...about what he's picking up in Karal's thoughts. It seems off, somehow, for Karal to consider himself in Leareth's debt for something that costs Leareth nothing - he needs a safe destination to Gate to anyway, within a distance he can actually reach on limited reserves, and Karal's ancestral home is certainly better than attempting a blind Gate in a random direction and hoping for empty forest. He appreciates the cooperation, freely offered even though Karal is clearly aware that he doesn't really know what that promise means, but - it probably isn't enough. Leareth isn't making decisions for the longer term, right now, his memories are too fragmented and he really needs several candlemarks in a place where it's safe to think, but he does remember, blurrily, that he doesn't normally end up deciding that sharing is tractable. And that there's almost certainly a reason for that, one that will come back to him once he has time to think it through. And that whether or not it should be harder, to kill an innocent man and wear his body after rather than before taking him home to bury his dead relative, it predictably will be harder. Which - doesn't mean it's the wrong decision, but.) 

....Focus on practicalities. Are they carrying any food or water? It's not essential, they won't starve in a few candlemarks, but eating and drinking will help rebuild reserves more quickly, and make the upcoming Gate much less draining. 

He appreciates the help, and does his best to learn to relax into the deeply odd experience of his magic being used by someone else.  It feels stranger than suddenly having magic in the first place, but not by that much, and the results are certainly better than he could manage on his own.  (That's all that matters. It's obvious in all of Karal's thoughts - the reason he's acting like this about what is objectively a bizarre and frightening experience, the reason he's willing to take on an unknown debt to an eerie stranger, is because nothing about the rest of his life matters to him nearly as much as the body he's carrying.)

He doesn't collapse.  Once they're what seems like a reasonable distance from the site of the battle and all other signs of people, far enough not to be seen or heard by someone who only goes a few minutes into the forest to look for shade or privacy, he lays Kadrich down as carefully as he can manage when he can barely make his limbs obey him, and stays down next to him, overtaken by the exhaustion and grief he's finally stopped fighting against.

Basic awareness of the body and its surroundings will tell Leareth he has a waterskin on his belt, half full, but Karal doesn't think of it or even seem to remember it's there.  There's no food.

Now does not seem like the time for a conversation – about anything, really, but particularly not about who or what Leareth is. Not that leaving it until later will necessarily make it easier, but - well, Leareth is tired as well. (Or if not exactly tired, something else with similar effects.) He - they - can rest first, and figure out the future later. 

Does Karal resist if Leareth tries seizing control of their arms in order to unhook the belt-waterskin and drink some? 

It's more of a startle reaction than real resistance, and he stops it more quickly than last time.  He's a little wary as he watches his body move without his input, but the action turns out simple and obviously helpful.  He manages a smile in response, because yes, he did need the water and he's not sure when he would've managed to think of it.

It would probably be - 'polite' isn't quite the word, is it, but - helpful in expectation, maybe, to actually communicate something in some way about his intentions. (It's not like it'll make it worse, if he does end up killing this man for the body.)

For whatever reason, it...feels harder, than just doing what he was going to do anyway. Maybe the physical fatigue is affecting him more than usual, when he hasn't yet gotten himself established or reconsolidated his core memories. 

It makes sense to rest now, he thinks at Karal. We are as safe as we are going to be, until we can Gate out. I think that will be in - two, three candlemarks. And then they can talk, except that the Gate itself will be exhausting, maybe more exhausting than the battle was, and Karal's grief won't necessarily be any less once he's somewhere safe. 

I will plan to - explain more - once you have buried him, he settles on. 

Karal nods at the plan, and his inchoate thoughts about coming back home indeed don't seem like his grief will be any less.

Yes. Thank you.  Relief, that there's nothing urgent enough to force the conversation to happen earlier.

Although is there anything they do need to talk about before then?  He should think about it, hard as it is.

If you could not-- do things-- once we're around people? I don't think they should know.

They shouldn't. Leareth sends his silent assent. 

(The case where Leareth would plan to 'do things' is the one where Karal tries to tell someone about the new presence in his head. In which case Leareth will definitely take control, which might or might not - but probably would - require evicting Karal entirely, and - depending on his level of exhaustion - either Gate out immediately or impersonate Karal to his family, which ought to be made easier when Karal's relatives can blame uncharacteristic behavior on exhaustion, grief, and the aftereffects of war.

He keeps that line of thought to himself, too tired to find a way of conveying it that won't just be read as a terrifying threat.) 

Do you plan to explain the new mage-gift? Leareth thinks at Karal. Who will be there, and are they likely to ask questions? Gates are advanced magic, not something you could improvise on the spot - will anyone know to be suspicious of that? 

He might under different circumstances recommend Gating some distance away and not revealing the mage-gift, just for simplicity, but he isn't sure if their body will be in any shape to walk after a Gate - what distance is it? - and it would be difficult to explain how else Karal covered the distance so quickly with a fresh corpse. Leareth shares those considerations as well, pushing the thoughts across without bothering to neatly formulate words. 

God, that's too many questions.  He doesn't want to deal with them.  He doesn't want to attempt to... explain his entire life... to a stranger with no reason to care beyond a strategic puzzle, and especially doesn't want to attempt to do it in words.  He can show him, once they're done talking - it's not that he minds him having the information, just that... everything hurts. 

I'd rather they not know that either. I think - but he isn't sure - that if I ask my lord not to ask me questions, he won't.  Everyone in Karse this year knows that there are some things they are better off not knowing.  And that's a separate grief, that his country is now a place in which he cannot be honest with the people who matter most to him.  A place in which he cannot stay, he suspects, although that decision will have to wait for later.

I can find somewhere people won't see. His thoughts are considering doors of various rarely-used outbuildings - he doesn't know Gates without a door can be done at all, and knows little about them in general.  He's never seen one up close, let alone been through it.  But walking through them is not, he thinks, the complicated part, and it's not as if he expects to be doing anything else.

Leareth would also prefer not to have to extract information about a stranger's entire life under...what isn't not duress...when it's clearly a particularly painful time for it. Unfortunately it does seem kind of time-sensitive. He keeps this thought tucked away - it really won't help - but he doesn't feel particularly safe trusting Karal, in his current state, to navigate a fraught interaction with his family without raising any suspicions. It's not like jumping in to impersonate him is likely to go any better - and for this very specific goal, he thinks they do want the same thing - but it's hard to figure out how to help. 

...Their goals might converge for longer than that, if Karal does end up wanting out of Karse. Though that in itself is surprisingly convenient, which makes Leareth immediately inclined to suspicion. To find himself in a conveniently adult body, with a conveniently awakened-to-full-power mage-gift, and sharing with an existing mind as...amenable to cooperation...as Karal, are all adding up to feel like being steered. Which he's inclined to be especially watchful of here, in the core of Vkandis' territory - 

- not decision-relevant right now. The only decision he could make differently is, what, evicting Karal from his body now on the strength of his suspicion that Vkandis is angling for something? And then what - it would be one thing if he had a different Gate-destination lined up, but he doesn't, just a very hazy recollection that he has a safe base waiting for him somewhere or other. North, he thinks. Outside of his current range even if he could manage a blind unscaffolded Gate to somewhere in the right general vicinity. 

Anyway. He's not going to do it. He might feel differently if he did have a plan to immediately evacuate to safety without a risky detour (or, maybe, if he didn't have a safe place to retreat to later, where he's pretty sure someone whose judgement he trusts can assess whether sharing the body with Karal's mind is affecting his judgement.) He's going to be on his guard, and he's going to get them safely to Karal's ancestral home, and then - handle whatever happens, one way or another. 

A doorway in a rarely used outbuilding would be fine. Leareth doesn't really want to gamble on his ability to raise an unscaffolded Gate in his - their - current condition. He would ordinarily scry ahead to check that the area was unoccupied, but without a focus it's nearly as complex a casting as Gating (and much less deeply overlearned until he can cast it nearly on pure instinct) and he doesn't think they can spare the power for it. If telling them not to ask questions fails, you could claim that a priest-mage did the Gate and dropped you off? I am not sure how plausible that would be, but it would be hard for them to quickly check. 

He would appreciate peeking at Karal's memories, if that's being offered. (Leareth doesn't actually need permission or cooperation for that, but he's trying to be polite here.) 

I'm not going to lie to my lord - his mental tone is insulted at the suggestion, although he realizes it's unreasonable to expect the voice in his head to have known that - and in any case I'm a terrible liar.  He really is.  If I have to admit to the magic, I will - it's mostly for their safety that I don't want them to know about it.

Ah, this is such a needlessly confusing way to talk about it all.  It's clear how much it doesn't come naturally to Karal to try to think through all the possibilities and consequences of an conversation in advance like this - he'd rather not do it at all, he doesn't think it'll help him have the conversation, but... the stranger doesn't know that, does he, and it makes sense to be frightened by not knowing.

We're doing this all out of order. Will you be quiet for a candlemark, and I'll show you everyone?  He'd like to have some time to just remember, and it seems like they can spare it.

(Leareth could probably have inferred from what he's already noticed that Karal would be unwilling to lie, if he were himself in a better state for thinking ahead. It's clear that Karal is in a position that his skills aren't well specialized for - it's starting to seem like a fundamental trait of his that he wants to be openly cooperative with the people around him, and having that suddenly be unsafe is...going to be an adjustment. That part isn't entirely Leareth's fault, it seems like the mage-gift alone would be a problem, but Leareth is definitely not making it easier. It wouldn't help to feel guilty about that, and he doesn't, but he does feel...something.) 

Yes, of course, and then he stops and tries to leave Karal space to think. 

He sends wordless gratitude, closes his eyes for a moment, and lets himself remember.  Not in a particularly useful order - they have the time, so he'll just grieve, the way he would anyway, and think about why it hurts so much and how he got to this point, and all these memories will fill in the shape of his life well enough.

Balthin, his lord, who he's loved quietly and from a distance since he was a boy first sworn into service.  He's a good man, thoughtful and honorable, who doesn't get along with the new priesthood and would've hoped to stay out of the war, were it possible.  He will likely trust Karal enough to simply not ask questions, but even if he doesn't (there's a well of pain tangled with this possibility), he will not press him too much, or refuse to release him from his service, if he asks.

Kadrich, now dead - the lord's oldest and illegitimate son, proud and difficult, who Karal loved perhaps even more strongly, and certainly more complicatedly.  With whom he felt needed, because the boy trusted few people, and so being someone he could rely on felt like it could really make a difference, help him grow up into the great man he could be - could have been, now.  Kadrich never wanted anything more than to prove himself, and when the war summons came, of course he volunteered to go, and of course Karal went with him, on Balthin's request and with his blessing.  Swore to follow and serve and protect him, and failed at that...  He knows it's not his fault, but it doesn't make the failure feel any less awful.

He wonders for a moment whether the voice was right, that Kadrich wouldn't want him to die just to get his body off the battlefield...  He's not sure, in truth.  It's not in his nature, when he devotes himself to someone, to think about what he's getting in return.

More distantly, in the background of many of the memories, there's the lady, and the other children - precious, but too young to figure much in a warrior's life.  There's Karal's own family, who he hasn't seen in a decade, after an argument his memories barely touch on.  There's the castle itself, not a very large or important one, in the foothills of the mountains halfway down the border with Hardorn.  So many memories of his life, work and training and service, all centered around these two men, whether they were there or not.

He's crying nearly the entire time, but has the presence of mind to be quiet about it, not being in a safe place.  Subsides, eventually, and pushes a formless question, still not feeling up to thinking of words - anything else? was that enough to understand?

That's - helpful. Clarifying, at least. (Leareth had definitely been under the impression this entire time that Kadrich was a close relative - brother? particularly close cousin? - just because of the sheer weight of emotional importance to Karal, but it's not like anything in Karal's memories doesn't make sense.) 

...Stupid, pointless, tragically wasteful war. Leareth isn't going to dwell on that thought where Karal can see it, it really isn't the time, but - anyone sane would prefer to stay out of it if they could. 

That is enough to go on for now, he thinks to Karal. He doesn't understand everything, yet, but he feels oriented enough to Gate there, and - willing to trust in Karal's planned approach. 

They're still not quite rested enough to Gate, at least not without immediately collapsing at the destination. Another candlemark should do it. 

Then Karal will spend another candlemark crying, and maybe remember to drink some water himself.  The grief doesn't seem incapacitating any more - it's there, and will be for a long time, but his mind feels like he'll be able to focus on something else once he decides to do that.

He wonders, a little, what the stranger thinks of it all, but he doesn't ask.

(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. 

He nods again.  Reasonable.  It would be odd, to go to all this effort for another life and then give it away, but he wanted to hear it and be sure.

At the next words, he shakes his head, and there's warmth in his inner voice.  Do let me trade my own life away, will you?  I won't tell you it's not monstrous, that you do this to people, but-- don't hate yourself on my account, when I'm glad you were there.

He wishes, pointlessly, that he could see him.  It's odd to be talking like this to someone without a face.

It hardly matters what he looks like, really, it's not - something he considers important about himself, when it's changed so many times. He's not...actually sure he remembers, either. 

He has a name, though, and it's - it goes against the grain to share it for no reason, but maybe it isn't no reason, and it doesn't risk much. You can call me Leareth. A word from a dead language. The cognate means something different now, but a long time ago, in a place far from here, it meant the night sky, full of stars. 

Leareth.  He takes a moment to form the image in his mind, the night sky full of stars. 

We should sleep, and I will go with you tomorrow.

They should sleep. 

The Foresight dream doesn't come, presumably because they were up all night and are now sleeping offset from Herald-Mage Vanyel. Good. Leareth isn't sure if Karal would be...dragged along...and he hasn't explained that. 

Leareth has ordinary dreams, tangled and strange, mostly not in images but surprisingly vivid despite it. (He's shielding both of them from external observation - and against accidental Empathy projection - but not, within that, particularly shielded from Karal while asleep.) There's a surprising amount of math, which probably wouldn't be comprehensible even to awake Karal. 

Occasionally there are visual fragments. Urtho's Tower going up in a fiery blaze, several times, even though that's an imaginary constructed memory that he was never there for in reality.

Vanyel's face, once, standing in the pass in his Whites, silver eyes and thickly silver-streaked hair, but the image is only coherent for a moment before it dissolves back into raw concepts without visual elements. 

Karal dreams of the battle, over and over.  Of having no magic, trying to help, and dying there.  Of having magic and trying to make it do something more useful, and still failing.  (Sometimes flashes of Leareth's math blend into it, and that really doesn't help.)  Of being alone afterward, or being captured, or being burned alive.

But it's the brief image of the man in white that makes him wake in a near-panic.  He doesn't know him, but he knows what they are.

He's too used to a soldier's life to shout or thrash when he wakes up - just tries to calm his breathing and reminds himself of where he is.  The daylight helps.

Leareth is momentarily incredibly disoriented, and remembers to extend mage-sight and check the wards well before he can retrieve recent memories to make sense of, for example, where he is. 

...He's not alone, right. Sorry, he thinks at Karal, since he's not sure whether it was his own dreams that woke both of them. 

Does his - their - body feel rested enough to be getting on with? 

The quickly hidden burst of disorientation is too similar to Karal's own reaction to register as separate, and a moment later he's still thinking about where he is rather than how he got here, so he startles when Leareth stops hiding and says something.  Then he remembers his existence (a little flash of warmth as he recalls the dream of being alone, and the waking world where he wasn't), and finally their last conversation (sadness, acceptance despite confusion, the expectation of more understanding later).

My fault.  Not even a surprising nightmare, given the context, so he has no idea that it was neither his nor really a nightmare.

He sits up, moves a little, drinks some water.  Their body isn't fully rested, but no longer exhausted either.  More sleep, or should we talk to people while it's still daytime and try to sleep at night?  He'd go with the latter, but he doesn't know how mage-reserves work, or whether their travel plans would make sleeping during the day a better idea for some reason.

Leareth considers, checking their reserves. Not fully recovered, but surprisingly adequate; Karal's body is clearly in good health, with excellent physical stamina. Yesterday's backlash is almost fully resolved. A thousand-mile Gate on reserves alone - or a fight followed by a Gate - would be pushing it, but if it comes to that, it would be safe to tap a ley-line or node now, and there are some within reach.

Talking to people now is fine, he thinks. It seems like it would take a while to relax enough to go back to sleep now. (Planning to sleep at night does risk overlapping with Vanyel, and having the Foresight dream - this would certainly count as new information - but that won't be for many candlemarks. And if they can finish Karal's business here, then he can get out of Vkandis' territory sooner.) 

All right.  He considers asking more questions, first - it's not as if he doesn't have them - but maybe it's better to wait until they're away from here, both because of Leareth's safety concerns and just to make it easier to avoid telling anyone something he shouldn't.

He goes downstairs to get something to eat again, washes, borrows a change of clothes from someone, tries to make things feel something like normal.  Chats with the people he sees, but if anyone wants to know how he made it here, he dismisses it with "I got so little sleep I barely remember" or "Don't make me think about it" and a wry expression.

Until his lord asks to see him, in his private study, alone.  "Now tell me the things you haven't. He was newly dead. I don't know how many people noticed," he's a sharp enough man to realize it might be better if they didn't, "but you did not spend a week traveling here from the front, and I have no idea how you would have managed that in any case. What's happening?"

"I... You're right, my lord," he bows his head, "there are things I'm not telling you. Confusing and frightening things have happened to me, and it'll do nobody any good to know. I have to leave anyway, and I doubt I'll come back."  That's enough to imply that whatever it is is dangerous, to him or to others - his lord knows he wouldn't leave if he had another choice.  "But everything I did say was true."

Balthin nods, slowly, thinking it through and deciding not to ask any more.  "Are you... going to be all right?"

Karal's face softens at the question. "I think so."  He is all right, and whatever happens next is so much less important than that.  But it doesn't seem like a miserable fate, either.

"Very well, then. I won't ask. Take what supplies you need."

Karal kneels.  "Then I would ask you to release me from your service, my lord."  He thought he was all right, and suddenly there are tears in his eyes.  "Though I will miss you all my life."

Balthin takes his hands in the formal gesture, holds them a moment, lets go.  "I release you. Go in honor, and with my blessing."

That was the one thing he needed most.  He'd like to stay a while longer, but it's not as necessary, and it doesn't take him too long to stop thinking about that last conversation and turn his mind to the future.  He'll have time to think about the past later, when they're somewhere that doesn't leave Leareth worrying about danger. 

What now?  What do we need, and how do you want to leave?  It seems better if people don't see - I can stay the evening, ask for a room for the night, and have nobody know when I disappeared.

That went better than I expected. Leareth is...he's not sure if 'impressed' is exactly the word for it, but he can recognize that Karal had something precious here, something Leareth wouldn't have thought was possible under most circumstances and certainly would never have thought to aim for. 

He considers for a moment. I would rather not sleep here tonight, but I am not otherwise in a hurry. ...If there are maps here, particularly ones that include Valdemar and Hardorn, that would help for planning where to Gate to. 

The thing about Karal is that he doesn't know how to aim for anything else, has never tried imagining a life without it.  But he knows he was lucky to have this much of it.

I think I can find some.  And we can leave in the evening.  They're not in that much of a hurry, so he spends some time talking with people - he doesn't say goodbye to anyone else, doesn't mention he's leaving or say anything about his plans or his problems.  But he asks how people have been doing, helps with their work, congratulates them on all the weddings and the new babies, sympathizes with their sorrows and the deaths in their families.  Tells some children war stories, when they corner him to ask, then manages to deflect them into showing off their newest skills so he can make impressed noises and give advice on how to better string a bow.  Asks the chatelaine for a room he might have, "at least for a while", finds another change of clothes and some basic travel supplies small enough not to be noticed.  Goes up to the library to look at maps.  Watches the sunset over the mountains.  Dines with everyone in the main hall, sits a while by the fire, listens to the songs.

He could do all these things for days or weeks or months - but it wouldn't change very much, and Leareth is right that they're not entirely safe, and neither is anyone with them.  So he asks,  after going up to the room in the evening, Now?

Now, Leareth agrees. He is more than ready to get out of Karse.

He's decided against Gating directly north. He doesn't actually have a location, just a vague recollection that it's north of Valdemar and of...something...mountains maybe? Maybe unsurprisingly, none of the maps available in the castle records include the unclaimed wilderness north of Valdemar. It would be very awkward if he hit Iftel by mistake. 

He was able to consult some quite detailed and well-labeled maps of Hardorn, though, and in the process identify a couple of promising locations for where he thinks his past self might plausible have planted a records cache. (Leareth copied out the relevant map bits as an aide-memoire rather than steal the good maps belonging to the castle.)

He'll try for the abandoned mine first. It'll mean a candlemark or two of searching the nearby forest, but the Gate-distance is barely a hundred miles, they won't be very tired, and it's already dark but it shouldn't be desperately cold. Depending on how long it takes, he might decide just to sleep at the records cache, but he would rather be all the way in the security of the north. He just needs his past self's clearer written instructions for where exactly to go and how to alert his people to find him. 

Leareth lays the departure Gate-threshold on the (closed) doorway of Karal's borrowed room – aiming mostly on the distance and bearing he calculated based on the map, but supplementing with his intuitive sense that the terrain should be so, a river flowing southwest, jinking around a bend at this angle... It's clearly a much more challenging version than the earlier Gate, where Leareth had a clear and detailed visual memory to go off, albeit a borrowed one. Leareth is concentrating very hard, and takes his time waiting for the spooled-out search spell to land as precisely as he can manage, before he sets it down by "feel" just there and starts building the destination threshold from scratch.

(It may be the first time Karal has had any inkling that unscaffolded Gates are possible.) 

The initial setup feels slightly more draining than the last time, but the distance isn't any greater and they're starting out better fed and rested; it feels tiring, but somewhat less like rapid blood loss, as Leareth steps across. 

Karal pays close attention to the still-fascinating magic, and does notice something is different about it, but he definitely isn't going to interrupt Leareth's focus with questions.  Or argue about who's doing the walking, although it's a very odd and uncomfortable feeling, to not be in control of the body at all.  But Leareth's been putting up with it this whole time, and Karal will obviously have to get used to sharing.

He doesn't figure out what was different about the spell until they step through the Gate and when they look back there's nothing there at all.  You are extremely good at this, aren't you.

There are places in the world where that technique is taught routinely - at a very advanced level of instruction - but yes. ...And Leareth is probably significantly responsible for that curriculum, though he's wildly guessing about anything related to the Eastern Empire right now because his memories are a mess. And there might be other Gate-techniques that only he knows. He's - been doing this for a long time. 

Searching the forest doesn't have to involve tromping around in the dark; Leareth will stop controlling Karal's limbs, and then start casting an area-wide detection spell. You can sit down if you want, he thinks to Karal. I need to focus for the next couple of minutes, but after that it is fairly repetitive and you do not need to worry about distracting me. 

Places in the world, huh.  I've barely even been outside Karse.  He is increasingly getting the impression that his life is going to involve a lot of things he never even thought about before.

He sits down leaning against one of the bigger trees.

What are we doing?  What happens next?  Assuming you can safely tell me these things now.

Can he safely tell Karal these things now? ...Leareth doesn't have a particular argument for why not, at least. (He's not going to get into the details of his plan until it matters less if Karal is being distractingly upset in his head – Karal being upset about it wouldn't even be a reason to update that they can't work together, Leareth suspects that he was distractingly upset about it and unable to make progress for - some period of time, at least.) 

He sends a wordless thought to wait while he finishes building the scaffolding for his spell. Once that part is done, it doesn't take much more concentration than, say, glancing through the contents of one drawer or cabinet after another. 

I am searching for a magical signature on a hidden cache of supplies and records that I think may be nearby. ...I lose a significant chunk of my explicit memories when I - come back, like this - so I am not exactly sure, but I have a process for putting them in locations that would be predictable to my future self, that I would choose again a second time. Once I find it - if I am wrong about the location, I have a second idea to try - then I will reequip myself with protective artifacts, and there should be a map that will direct me to my current project facilities. Which are in the very far north, north of Valdemar, but the climate is...less comfortable, there, and I would rather not wander around blindly until someone from my organization finds me. Though I believe they will be looking. ...Hopefully they will be able to fill in how I died, I still have no idea. 

He definitely wasn't asking about anything like the large-scale plan, just about why they were in this particular empty forest and when they could expect to be somewhere else.  He nods.

All of that sounds tricky.  Tell me if I can do anything to help, but I imagine I can't.  In the meantime, is this a reasonable time to ask you some questions, or should I let you be until you've found your things?  I'd like to have a better idea of... how we mean to deal with there being two of us... before there are more people to interact with.

 Now is a fine time to ask questions. No structured magic is showing up in this segment of forest. Leareth metaphorically closes that drawer and hops to the next to peruse it. It's really very repetitive, almost soothing. 

I may not have all the answers, he admits. I am - very disoriented - I think moreso than usual when I die and return. I am reluctant to make major decisions or long-term commitments until I am back among my people and can check my judgement. But - it seems good to ask. 

I'm not asking for major decisions, he nods, just trying to figure out what makes sense for now.  Sends sympathy about the disorientation.  It sounds hard, but it's not as if he can help, and not talking probably won't help either.

I'm... your prisoner, is the closest thing I can think of.  He means it as a fact, not a complaint or accusation.  One you can't reasonably release, and don't want to kill, and so are being kind to when you easily can.  Does that sound about right?

...More or less. Leareth doesn't have a better frame. I would rather not kill you, and - I know you feel that you owe me, for bringing you home with Kadrich's body, but it made things easier for me as well, to have a safe - safer than the battlefield - place to rest. Most people would have - made things harder. You did not have to be helpful, and you were, and I - 

- I think I have, sometimes, shared a body rather than killing its original inhabitant. I am not going to assume you want anything to do with - what I am doing with my life - but I am not ready to assume you would rather be dead, either. I think that ought to be your choice, whether you want to hear my explanation and what you want to do with it. I worry that this - that everything happening the way it did - was steered by Vkandis, in which case I am afraid of where it leads, but - I am not going to be the first one to decide that cooperation is impossible. Even if I am afraid. 

...I would rather not explain what I am trying to do with my life now. I do not actually remember most of the details and I am very tired. 

This might be more words than he's heard from Leareth at once, and certainly the most emotion he's been allowed to see.  It pulls at his own heart - the uncertainty and the clear attempt to do the right thing in the sort of complicated situation where there might not be much right to be had.  He closes his eyes and projects warmth and reassurance, It'll be all right.  You don't need to explain, and of course I can't tell what we'll decide in the end, but - I appreciate how you're going about all this, and it'll be all right either way.  Please don't worry about me so much.  He realizes that's more than a little ridiculous, but Leareth is trying to be so careful to let him have all the choices he can that it hurts to watch.  He truly wouldn't even mind dying all that much.

I know what my last few days have been like, and it sounds like yours were worse - I can't imagine what it's like, to die and come back like this, without remembering most of what you need, but still knowing what you should be afraid of.  I... I suppose I can't really be sure that I'm glad I could help, since I don't know your plans, but... I am anyway.  And... of course I'll miss my life and everyone I've known, but I don't think I could have kept it anyway, and given that I couldn't, I don't mind this being what happens next.  I've liked your company so far.  You seem like a good man, for all the strange things you're doing, and I don't think you have any reason to be pretending for my sake.

...Leareth isn't sure what to do with that. (He starts out instinctively keeping his reaction pulled back where Karal can't see it, but - deliberately makes himself let go of that, after a moment, and shows, not all of his thoughts, but at least as much of his affect as Karal would be able to see if they were speaking face to face.) He appreciates it, and - feels like like it's evidence that it wasn't unreasonable to decide to share with Karal for the interim term, even if it may not end up being the right choice once he has more context to assess that - but he feels almost more off-balance. 

I generally prefer not to pretend. I think it - trains bad habits. But killing people thoughtlessly is also a bad habit. He may not remember all of the details, but he knows that he's been - trying to do a difficult and dangerous thing, not just dangerous on a concrete level but - the kind of path that can change people, even starting with the best of intentions. And he's been doing it for a lot longer than one human lifetime. There's a remarkable amount of hubris in that, really, to think that against all the odds, he is the one who can remember who he wanted to be and what mattered to him rather than losing track of it. 

But it's why he wants to - try to be kind, whenever he can afford it. Even if it makes it hurt more, later, if he decides he can't afford it anymore. 

Karal appreciates getting to see more of Leareth's reactions.  He doesn't at all mind feeling him in his head, and finds it disconcerting when he pretends he's not there.

He shakes his head a little, smiling.  Then you'll have to kill me thoughfully, if you need to.  I just - wouldn't want it to hurt.  You seem like you do enough hurting already.

...Probably less so when I am more established than this. Leareth methodically moves to checking the next spell-marked block of random forest.

He won't bother trying to disguise that the current situation is...difficult, and one where he's going to be unhappy in multiple ways. He doesn't like being disoriented, or the fact that he doesn't know for sure if his sense of self is intact until he's had a chance to read over all of his old records and make sure they feel like they were written by the same person. ...Oh, and it probably doesn't help that right now he's half borrowing Karal's experience-of-emotions, and Karal - feels more things than he normally would on his own, he thinks. This isn't, to be clear, entirely or even mostly because he's sharing with Karal's mind; a surprising amount of the experience of having an emotion is physical, and comes with a body, at least until he retrains that. 

All of that will take a while to stabilize, of course. Though he'll probably be a lot happier just to be behind real shields, somewhere that he and people who report to him are in control of. He feels very...squishable...right now, and it's not good for his mood. 

Oh.  He finally feels like he understands something of the difficulty.  I'm not helping, am I.  I'm sorry.  He tries to make himself quieter - he was assuming that communicating more emotions would help, because that's what he'd want, but Leareth clearly doesn't.

I'll try to get out of your way until you're more sure of yourself.  But tell me if I can do anything.  He relaxes, the way he would on a long shift of guard duty, standing still and unobtrusive for candlemarks at a time and not letting himself think about anything too distracting.  It does make a difference to the way his body feels to inhabit.

...Leareth wouldn't have asked for that. But it does, in fact, make it easier. He sends a quiet waft of appreciation, and keeps checking quadrants with the search-spell. 

...It's about fifteen minutes later that he finds something, and another five minutes before he's sure that he recognizes it as his own work. It's going to be an awkward ten-minute walk through the undergrowth, though he can light there way with a discreet mage-light and snap branches out of the way with bursts of force. (He doesn't want to risk Gating; it doesn't seem like anyone is coming to investigate the first Gate, but two Gates in short succession might stand out more, and he would rather not mark the exact destination with a loud magical signature.) 

This way. He's going to take control of the body to do the walking part, unless Karal seems to disprefer that.  

Karal likes walking, and more generally is a very physical person who would almost always prefer doing the moving himself, all other things being equal - but he thinks it's probably important for Leareth to get used to his body, and for him to get used to not controlling it (sometimes rather than ever, hopefully, but that can be figured out later), so he'll encourage that to happen and do his best to relax into the experience.  It's odd, but not bad, really, and at least the sensations are still there.

Leareth appreciates it. (He's not what he would describe as a very physical person, and isn't in general that attached to doing the moving himself - if anything, it's occurring to him that dividing it up could be efficient - but he's also still very on edge, here out in the open without any magical artifacts for protection, and it helps a little to feel more in control.) 

The underground cache is well concealed. There's a trapdoor buried under a hinge of sod, and Leareth actually has to separate quite a lot of tangled long grass and undergrowth in order to lift it enough to slip through. It's probably had twenty years or more to grow over; he thinks that for routine maintenance he might usually Gate directly in, behind the shields where it's not detectable from the outside. Karal's body isn't keyed to the wards, yet, and this lets him lower himself into a narrow antechamber-tunnel and disable them properly, the slow way, before he enters the cache proper. 

It's a surprisingly spacious underground room, dry and clean and lined with warded bricks. There are crates stacked against every wall, nearly to the ceiling. To mage-sight, which Leareth has fully open, the entire place is glowing brightly, the walls and crates sheathed in complex, multilayered shields and wards. 

Leareth is going to key himself to the wards and re-enable everything, and then....sit down on the floor for a moment, actually, or maybe longer than a moment, because he's very tired, and now that he's approximately safe it's much harder to ignore. 

That's... Even the amount of normal physical supplies looks impressive, but almost all of it is magic, the walls and the crates and likely much of whatever's in the crates as well, in incomprehensible quantity. Karal hasn't been able to see magic before, but he's still pretty sure that he's never seen a tenth - a hundredth, maybe a thousandth - as much of it. He watches it all, stunned.

On one hand, it's riches beyond imagining. And on the other hand, it's tragic, that when Leareth finally feels safe, he's sitting alone on a storage room floor.

...Ah, he was trying not to have emotions, wasn't he. It was much easier when they were doing something, but he can keep trying. Leareth clearly does need time to find his balance. (Karal appreciates that Leareth has been letting him see that, and see a lot more of all his thoughts. It makes their odd coexistence feel much better, and it makes it easier to try to give him what he needs. Which Karal keeps trying to do, without even having consciously made that decision.)

Leareth isn't going to spend very long sitting on the floor doing nothing, because this place may be relatively safe but, if they move quickly, they can get to somewhere both safer and actually comfortable to sleep. Also, right now there are presumably people in the north who are very stressed about his death and waiting anxiously for contact, and he doesn't know how long it's been; he can't even remember what season it was when he died. 

(Also - and this is a relatively small proportion of his motivation, but it's there - he unavoidably has Karal with him, which does incline him to put somewhat more effort into getting to his destination sooner. He can make a more definitive decision on...the long-term plan here...once he's spoken with people whose judgement he trusts - he doesn't remember their names but they definitely exist - and, besides, it just feels polite to Karal, who has spent recent years in a war zone, to try to get better conditions than a bedroll on the floor and nonperishable rations.) 

Leareth methodically tracks down the ciphered inventory notes, finds the right crate, and loads himself up with shield-talismans, which immensely helps his mood. It takes somewhat longer, and opening several crates, to find some maps of the north and an artifact meant to, when activated, broadcast a magical signature telling them to pick him up. He digs out proper warm-weather gear and a weather-barrier artifact, as well - the maps aren't enough to Gate directly to a facility even with the artifact, and there might be a bit of a wait. 

Does Karal have any questions for before they Gate to the northern tundra and, probably, stand around for half a candlemark waiting for Leareth's people to scry him and send someone to collect him? 

Looking at text that Leareth can obviously read but Karal himself cannot decipher anything from is a bizarre experience - it doesn't actually give him a headache, but it feels like it should.  He doesn't complain, since obviously this is a necessary step in figuring out what they're doing, but he tries to focus on the (equally incomprehensible but much more interesting) mage-sight view without getting in Leareth's way by attempting to move his eyes.  He can see some differences between the various talismans, and he can see in Leareth's thoughts what they do, so he should be able to figure out something about how the two things correspond... Not very much, but it keeps him occupied while Leareth does all the necessary travel preparation. 

I don't need to delay you.  If Leareth has people he trusts, however that works when he doesn't know who they are, then he should be with them.  It sounds like they won't expect Karal, but Leareth seems to have a plan for dealing with that, and not one in which Karal should be doing anything until decisions have been made about him.  (He has somewhat complicated feelings about that last part, but not ones there's any point in drawing out until he knows more.  He's calm enough in the meantime, beyond a vague hope that nothing will be too sudden.)

(Leareth also has somewhat complicated feelings about...all of this...but it's not useful to dwell on now, so he doesn't.) 

He does take the time to dig out some of the nonperishable emergency rations; he doesn't keep a lot of food in the caches, but among the items he does stock are thin slabs of ground and dried fruit. They're slightly difficult to eat, but if they end up waiting a while after Gating nearly 800 miles, he's going to want something sweet to eat.

Again, Leareth spends a while setting up the Gate-spell, eking out as much efficiency as he can. It's still a very long way - Karal has likely never heard of someone Gating that distance - and it feels, again, uncomfortably like rapidly losing blood. 

Leareth steps through into dark windy tundra, and...doesn't immediately collapse, but it takes some willpower to stay on his - their - feet. It's cold; not below freezing, in summer, but uncomfortable even through the heavy coat he just donned. He activates the call-for-help beacon artifact, activates the weather-barrier talisman, and then focuses on staying on his feet. (The ground is wet and soggy, almost swampy, and he doesn't particularly want to sit down in the mud.) 

Karal has never been in a tundra before, dark and windy or otherwise.  He can't exactly say he likes it, but it's interesting, and a bit of a challenging environment, in their current state. 

Want me to do the standing?  Unless I shouldn't do anything until you explain me to people.

And regardless of who's doing that, they can probably do some talking, now that it's not delaying anything.  Anything else I definitely shouldn't do?  And - I'm curious what to expect, how many people and what sort of place and what they're going to do first, but I don't know if you know the answers, with your memories missing.  That has to be so incredibly strange.  He hopes Leareth will be able to get to know them all properly again, rather than feeling like something important was lost forever.

You can do the standing. Leareth is curious if this will actually make it particularly less unpleasant. 

I think I normally remember more about my associates. It's just that this time, one, his memories seem unusually jumbled, and two, a bafflingly high percentage of them are taken up by– ...is now really the time to get into it, it's occurring to Leareth that Karal will probably have complicated feelings about it, given the war - well, it's as good a time as any, they're waiting anyway, and he really should convey this before they sleep tonight - 

- Leareth makes his thoughts as open to Karal as he can. A high percentage of his memories are taken up by a relationship with someone who isn't anything as straightforward as an ally. Though even missing a lot of the context, Leareth has a feeling that however it started, at this point it's lot more complicated than 'destined enemy'. They've only ever spoken in a lucid Foresight dream, which is itself a baffling intervention by some god or gods. Leareth wouldn't be at all surprised if the dream happens tonight. 

Also, that person is Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron. 

He takes the body and does in fact manage to make it feel better somehow.  He might just have better balance than Leareth, but most of it is that he enjoys the physical challenge of staying up despite the exhaustion and cold and terrain - manages to relax into it, find all the tiny body shifts that make it easier, as if it was a skill game he was practicing on himself and his surroundings, not something he was resenting and fighting against.  There's an odd effect where if you stop tensing up and shivering, you feel less cold even if your body is objectively speaking generating less heat.

And then this turns out to have been a very good idea, because he has something to do when the understanding hits.  He can anchor himself to his body and movements, the need not to collapse or stagger, and weather the first shock that way.

After that... He doesn't even know what he thinks, besides a blank grief and distress at needing to confront it - and now, when there's already so much he's trying not to think about.  When he tries to push through the emotions to some kind of conclusion, all the clarity he can manage in the first few seconds is that he doesn't hate the man in white, not really, he just doesn't want to ever have to think about him or about what he did to-- to so many people... And apparently he cannot have that.

He makes the mental motion of leaving his reactions open - not that he thinks it makes a difference, Leareth can presumably see everything anyway, but just to make it clear that he wants him to see, and can't really manage words yet.

...Yeah. Leareth would have preferred not to bring it up this soon - and, to be clear, doesn't need or expect any particular reaction from Karal, or for Karal to be ready to think about it at all - he just doesn't think it would have been...better...to have the Foresight dream sprung on Karal without warning, if it happens tonight. He's not even sure if Karal will be pulled into the dream as well, he just doesn't want to rule it out. 

There's a lot he could say about Vanyel. It...might help, later. He's not going to talk - or think - about it right now; for one, even if this is the most intact region of his memories, he's still missing a lot. 

(He's bothered about that, a lot more than he's bothered about not remembering the names of anyone in his organization. It feels much more like losing something he isn't sure he can ever get back. Leareth doesn't hide that line of thought from Karal entirely, but it's very, very quiet.) 

The air is slowly growing warmer, as the weather-barrier effect kicks in. 

Karal appreciates Leareth very much.  It helps, to have the quiet presence in his head, to have someone see and understand while keeping enough emotional distance to have calm sensible opinions about everything.  The dream can be another thing he is not going to think about right now, since he has no idea if it'll happen or what it'll be like, but he thinks he'll be... somewhat... less upset by then.  (He nearly says that if he's too upset Leareth can just have his dream conversation and ignore him - then considers what it'd feel like to be curled up in the back of his head, horrified and helpless and ignored, and doesn't say it.)

And, well, maybe he won't live long enough to worry about it.

He would probably just stand here and weep, except that Leareth's people are supposed to scry them, and he's known Leareth long enough that he can imagine how incredibly concerned they'd be to see him crying.  So he'll try to focus on his body, the view of the dark tundra, the way the magic is quickly warming the night air.  There are going to be things to do soon enough, and he will do them, and he will do his best not to make anyone's life more difficult than it must be already.

... Ah, no, there's one more thing, he realizes once he's calmed himself enough to be able to think around at least the edges of it.  Does he know how you come back after you die?  Or even that you do at all?

Not all the details, but - that I am immortal, and that it involves living under different names and faces, yes. Already more than almost anyone outside the core of Leareth's organization knows; it was - relevant early on to what Leareth wanted to convey to him. And Leareth is sure he's put together some of the implications. ...He's not actually sure how the dream will work with having died and come back, whether he'll still appear with his old face or not, but if not, it's perhaps a little less complicated that at least he doesn't look thirteen. 

...He won't necessarily know that Leareth sharing a body with someone else is even a possibility, though. That part is likely to come as a surprise. 

Karal has no idea how magical dreams work, and will refrain from worrying about it. 

That could be worse.  I won't mind-- well, no, I'll mind being there at all, but if I have to be, I won't mind explaining myself.  (By which he means that if he has to sit there and listen to Leareth, whom he likes and appreciates, call himself a monster to the Butcher in White, he might scream.  Yes, he realizes everything is much more complicated than this, but nonetheless.)

Leareth doesn't follow why– ...Leareth is on an emotional level nonplussed by that reaction, but it does make sense. He prefers not to hide the new situation from Vanyel even if the dream setup makes it feasible at all (by having him appear with his old face) and it does seem better for Karal to, well, introduce himself. 

(Vanyel will have emotions about it. Which he will try very very hard to conceal, because that's the way he approaches their conversations, and which Leareth will notice anyway, because they've been doing this for a very long time. Vanyel will probably be perceptive enough to pick up on some of Leareth's complicated feelings about the situation; he's practiced at reading Leareth, possibly moreso than some of Leareth's own allies, who have...less of an intensely strong incentive to try to develop that skill. Again, this line of thought isn't hidden from Karal, but is held in the background and very quiet.) 

All that emotion-hiding sounds incredibly complicated, and hopefully having someone there refuse to do the same will make things better rather than worse.  (He's not sure if it will, and cannot at all predict what his own emotional state will be when it first happens, but... if it's been going on for this long, it'll presumably continue, and they'll find some sort of equilibrium over time.)

... But he's getting very much ahead of himself again, since he might not be there at all, for at least two separate reasons.  Still, at least he's successfully distracted himself, and now he can stand around calmly enough, waiting for someone to find them.  Probably best not to start any more difficult conversations right this moment.

Leareth is pretty sure that concealing emotions isn't something he was doing specifically on purpose for the conversations with Vanyel, it's just - how he is as a person. Maybe Karal doesn't think that's any less complicated. 

...It's going to be a difficult conversation for Leareth, reuniting with his people. He hasn't been let himself be daunted by it, because it won't help, and probably it would be a lot less daunting if he could have it after rather than before a full night's sleep - but it is what it is. 

He's a bit on edge. Being scried won't feel like anything, so his first warning will be a Gate-signature – and a Gate-signature here is almost certainly his organization responding to the beacon, and not...someone else...but he's not sure of that. 

He waits.

It's been nine days. 

There are teams monitoring detection-wards all across the north. (They're also watching a few backup areas in safer countries like Rethwellan, that Leareth might remember exist and might be able to reach faster if he comes back without a strong enough mage-gift to Gate.) When one of the teams picks up on the beacon, Nayoki is notified within about ten seconds. 

She doesn't need to authorize the scry, but of course the result of it isn't definitive. It's confusing and mildly suspicious, actually, since it seems to be an adult man. But definitely carrying an artifact that only Leareth should have been able to find, and confirmed on the scry to be wearing half a dozen others that look like his work. There are a couple of explanations - maybe Leareth's new incarnation is just older than expected for someone with a new mage-gift - maybe it's not a new mage-gift and they just...never cast a fire spell before this...? - or maybe Leareth is for some reason unable to travel, and recruited someone else to send in his stead. 

She does need to authorize a Gate, and decide where to put the other end and whether she should be there. ...She decides, reluctantly, against. They'll collect hopefully-Leareth and bring him to a secure location, and she can Gate over once it's been more thoroughly confirmed that it's him, or if not, that it's safe and her presence is necessary. 

The Gate-signature appears. 

Leareth instinctively flings power into their shields, even though they're already wearing shield-talismans. He isn't currently controlling their body, and so doesn't have an opportunity to startle visibly. ...Possibly he should be controlling the body for this, but he's not going to forcibly seize it back from Karal. 

(His thoughts make it clear that he's relieved, and also - in a different way - even more tense than before.) 

Karal wonders if maybe they should have slept in the storage room after all, but Leareth made that call and presumably he knew what he was doing. 

He knew they were expecting a Gate, and has already seen three of them cast, so the sight doesn't cause him much of a reaction.  He's a little tense, in a soldier's way, but only nods.

And yes, Leareth should have the body, it'll be much less confusing for everyone that way.  (Although they should also at some point practice Leareth seizing control and Karal not resisting it, because he doubts he'll have the time to ask politely every time, and there will be circumstances in which a fraction of a second's delay or confusion will matter.)  He'd like to meet some of these people, but Leareth should definitely be the one to speak to them first, and even if they could theoretically split the voice from the rest of the body, having physical reactions at odds with what they're saying could be suspicious.  He'll wait, calmly enough, with more curiosity than trepidation for the moment.

The other end of the Gate seems to open to an underground room. Mage-sight is blurry across the threshold, but it seems like there's a lot more there for mage-senses to see than the uninteresting stone visible to the naked eye. 

Someone steps across, also glowing with layered shields. He reaches out with Mindspeech. :Identify yourself.: 

Leareth has not really had a chance to dwell on the fact that Karal's body lacks Mindspeech even in potential - it's not like it can be changed - but he had it in his previous body and doesn't now, and it's frustrating. 

He answers out loud, rather than attempt to figure out how to answer in thought without taking off the shield-talisman and baring all of his thoughts. "Leareth." And he does have some of his verification codes, in cipher on one of the maps. He reads them out. 

(He has absolutely no idea who the person he's speaking to is, or whether he knew them before as more than a casual acquaintance.) 

The man doesn't introduce himself, which sort of argues against him being one of Leareth's close associates. 

Leareth is, however, ushered across the Gate into a shielded Work Room, and asked if he needs food or rest or Healing before they do a more thorough debrief. 

(Leareth haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates feeling this disoriented. He's pretty sure everything is happening exactly according to plan so far, but he still hates it. He...has a vague expectation that there's someone he expects to come do the debrief - someone who he didn't expect to come out immediately, before they had checked that he is, in fact, himself...but he doesn't remember any details and that bothers him.)

He's uninjured. He...probably could use something sweetened to drink, it was a long-range Gate. (And he forgot to actually eat the snack he brought; the thing about intensive magic use is that it temporarily suppresses appetite, and the leathery dried fruit slab sounds effortful and unappealing to consume.) He would like to proceed to the debrief promptly, though, and rest afterward. 

...The Thoughtsenser will pass this on. Leareth will be offered a padded chair to sit down, and delivered a hot sweetened drink, while an update is passed offsite. Someone will be over very soon. 

(They haven't noted any specific warning flags yet - Leareth is behaving characteristically enough, taking into account that he's expected to be very impaired, and it would be very very surprising if anyone could impersonate him to the point of reading his ciphers - but Nayoki will still likely want to see him in the shielded Work Room before they relocate somewhere more comfortable.) 

Leareth has no complaints. He's behind shields, which - it's helpful in a way that he still has enough uncertainty about the debrief to feel slightly tense, because otherwise he would be relaxed enough to really feel the exhaustion. As it is, it's catching up to him more than he would prefer. The room is a comfortable temperature - too warm with the coat, actually, he's going to shed that - and he can get some nutrition into himself without much effort and expect to feel less drained in a few minutes. 

...How is Karal reacting to all of this? 

There was a flash of anxiety at the Mindspeech, since he knows little about how it works and had no idea which one of them could or should reply, and a bit of embarrassment once Leareth dealt with it the obvious way.  The entire setup is extremely paranoid and impersonal and not particularly pleasant to go through, but it seems entirely characteristic of Leareth to have set it up that way, and he has no serious complaints.

In minor observations, since they have some time alone:  You're tired.  (So is he, but he doesn't really need to be able to think quickly.)  Do you have an idea how long this will take?

(Leareth supposes his reception here has been impersonal, but he's not...sure what else it could be? He isn't going to remember anyone who comes out to meet him, and so it would just be - odd, if they greeted him in a more familiar way.) 

I am tired, Leareth acknowledges. It - should either take a few minutes or a couple of candlemarks. Depending, mostly, on whether his trusted senior people are very concerned about him sharing a body with Karal, or were left with specific instructions that he doesn't remember giving about why this is a problem. ...And maybe somewhat on whether anything very eventful has been happening in Valdemar since his death, but even then a summarized update shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes. 

Anyway. If he hasn't forgotten something critical about bodysharing - if it's just the obvious, that it doesn't normally come up because normally the fight for control is instinctive and over in seconds, and that on the rare occasions it's an active choice, most people are...not Karal...and wouldn't find it workable - then it shouldn't take long. If the concerns only apply in the longer term, then it doesn't need to be a long conversation now, it can wait for a better time. Where it gets complicated will be if they do have immediate-term concerns, and he needs to make a judgment call on whether Karal - who he likes and appreciates, who seems not just 'possible to get along with' but like he could potentially be actively helpful as an ally who happens to share Leareth's head - is, in fact, unique enough that historical concerns might not apply. 

Would it be odd?  Of course there's going to be some oddness either way, but Karal doesn't see how treating Leareth like a stranger makes that better.  He'd feel reassured by a familiar greeting even from someone he didn't remember, although he does realize by now that they're very different people.  But probably not everyone in this organization is like Leareth - he thinks it would be difficult to assemble a group of loyal people all of whom were so... emotionally self-contained... and he doesn't know why anyone would aim for that.

He has no idea how unique he is - he's never felt particularly so, but all this is making him start to notice ways in which it might be true - but he wants to be the sort of person who can be helpful even in complicated and difficult circumstances, and managing it and having it noticed and appreciated fills him with warmth. 

A couple of candlemarks will obviously be worth it, if there's an urgent question of whether this is in fact a good thing.  It would be sad, if it turned out Leareth cannot have this, but... many sad things happen in the world all the time, and there's no reason this couldn't be one of them.  It'll still be good that they tried.

Leareth appreciates Karal. Now probably isn't a productive time to unpack all of it, but - that line of thought, right there, is so much of why Leareth feels like, whatever the reasons in the past why sharing a body didn't work, this time could be different. 

...And there indeed isn't going to be time to dwell on it, since someone is (after politely knocking) coming into the Work Room now. 

The woman who comes into the room is tall, with very very dark skin, almost black, and an incongruous puff of snow-white hair with a texture more like wool. (Less incongruous to Leareth, since it mostly conveys that she's a powerful Adept who has used a lot of node-energy.) Her eyes are node-bleached as well, to a luminous deep blue. 

"Leareth. ...I am Nayoki. Do you remember me?" She's looking at Leareth with the expression of someone who definitely knows him very well, is deeply relieved and glad to see him again, and has a lot more she wants to say than she's currently saying. 

There is a feeling of familiarity there, that wasn't present with the other man. No explicit memories - the handful of clear episodic memories that came across and aren't of the Foresight dream mostly didn't have people in them at all, or were of dangerous situations where he wasn't among allies - and he's not sure he would have successfully plucked her name out of the fog without her saying it, but it does feel like something sliding into place and fitting there.

He wouldn't be able to describe any particulars of their history, but he does have a vague sense that she - feels she owes him something - and that her loyalty is something he could put weight on. ...And that she's impressive and formidable. Maybe has a particularly rare Gift? He's not sure which Gift, though. 

He inclines his head. "Not - well. I am sorry." 

A flash of something in her eyes, that might be anger, but not directed at Leareth. "You are hardly the one who owes me an apology." A hesitation. "Are you - all right...?" 

She doesn't exactly look like someone stepping on the urge to give Leareth a hug - if there's an urge, it's more deeply buried than that - but she does look a bit like she's holding back from offering some kind of reassurance that she would want to if Leareth...remembered her... 

Leareth is mostly not paying attention to that aspect of the interaction. 

He frowns. "Somewhat complicated, I think. - I should know this, obviously, but are you a Thoughtsenser?" 

A brief flicker of something that might be dismay, quickly hidden. (It's not pleasant to be reminded how...damaged...Leareth is right now.) 

"Yes. And a Mindhealer. - mainly in a research capacity, I am not trained in conventional Mindhealing." 

Ohhhhhh. That does make some other pieces of mostly-buried memory fall back into place, and Leareth is now a lot more sure that he does, actually, know what Nayoki's role is in his organization, the details may still be hazy but the important part is there and he can fill himself back in from notes. (Everything is going to be like this for a while, he thinks; he usually remembers more than he initially thinks he does, just - without any handles to find it.) 

"Understood." He's really very tired. "...The complication is that I am sharing this body with its original occupant. The circumstances...made it convenient, initially, and I judged I had - time to think before making any longer term decisions. His name is Karal and he was fighting on the Karsite side in the war. It is a long story, I will not get into it now, but he was - not unwilling to leave. and we are - getting along well, so far. I know I do not normally do this, but I am not sure I recall all the reasons why not, so I wished to have a second opinion on - whether there is still a risk here even if he is someone we can work with in general." 

...And, basic explanation complete, Leareth is inclined to just take off the shield-talisman against Thoughtsensing and let Nayoki read both of their minds. It'll be faster. (It's also very obvious in Leareth's thoughts that he trusts Nayoki with this, there isn't any hesitation about baring his thoughts to her; it's equally obvious that there probably would have been a hesitation in general, and the shift is in something he's now managed to remember.) 

But he does want to ask. Karal, is that all right with you? It's not something he can avoid indefinitely, but Karal doesn't know Nayoki, and if he would prefer to introduce himself the normal way, in words, Leareth is willing to start with that. 

Of course.  He wouldn't refuse anyway - this is important, and he generally has little inclination to keep his mind secret - but he doesn't take long to form opinions on people, and unlike Leareth he has been paying attention to the emotional aspect of the brief conversation.  He likes Nayoki immediately - she cares about Leareth the way Karal cares about people, and Leareth trusts her, and Karal is so relieved to finally find someone like this in this strange place.  He wants her to know everything.

He feels for her, too.  Cannot help imagining himself in her place, all his loyalty reaching toward someone who no longer remembers his name, and it hurts.  But it's the all right sort of pain, dull and warm.  No wrong was done here.  He gets the impression that Leareth could've tried harder to remember her, but she wouldn't have wanted that, if he needed the memories for something else.  ...Or at least Karal wouldn't have, in her place.  He should make slightly fewer assumptions, no matter how relieved he is at Nayoki's obvious care.  And right now he should focus on the things that are important for her to see - his brief and surprisingly cooperative history with Leareth, his feelings and opinions about their relationship, his determination not to leave Leareth worse off for having been kind to him.

He'd like to talk to her at some point, the normal way, in words and in control of his face - but that can wait, and it'll be a better conversation if she knows him first.

That makes sense. Leareth is appreciative. ...And fairly sure Nayoki wouldn't have wanted Leareth to do anything differently, assuming he prioritized the way he did for sensible reasons - which he suspects he did, he has enough to get back to a healthy working relationship with Nayoki within a week or two, with her cooperation, and he notably doesn't have that for Vanyel - which he's not going to dwell on because of everything being complicated, but he does think it matters. Anyway. His prediction - based, to be clear, on an intuitive sense of Nayoki that he has despite not remembering how he formed it - is that Nayoki is upset, but mostly on Leareth's behalf, and would not consider herself the party harmed by his recent death, and would think her feelings are her own business that she's entirely competent to handle. (Leareth still finds that he appreciates Karal noticing that Nayoki's feelings probably exist.) 

He inclines his head to her. "For now, it seems probably simplest, and fastest, if you just read my - our - mind." 

Nayoki looks briefly a little surprised and nonplussed at Leareth's revelation, but she's not reacting with worry, at least not visibly. She nods. "All right." 

Leareth takes off the shield-talisman. 

Nayoki is probably better placed than he is to poke at where she thinks is important, but for the moment, he's focusing his attention on his memory of the conversation where he explained to Karal the basics of who he is and how he had come to be sharing Karal's head. It wasn't until many candlemarks in - initially, Karal was willing to work with Leareth with no explanation at all, albeit maybe because Leareth was willing to follow a plan that also accomplished what mattered most to him. It would have been actively harder for Leareth to make it off the battlefield without Karal's collaboration, and Karal's home was, if not necessarily definitely safe for Leareth, at least definitely safer than anywhere he could easily have reached on his own. 

And then he explained, and Karal - took it calmly, even though Leareth was himself too disoriented and exhausted to explain it particularly well, and even though it was really quite a threatening kind of explanation, that Leareth would by default have killed him on the battlefield and might still choose to kill him and had, at the very least, snatched his body and dragged him without consent into a very different life, one where he too is subject to the dangers Leareth is and the enemies Leareth has made. ...Leareth hasn't explained the full plan to him, and still isn't thinking about it in detail, but Karal knows that he considers himself opposed to the gods. He...should probably let Karal speak, or rather think, for himself on how he felt about that. He was at one point a follower of Vkandis but it seems - complicated - now. 

Karal is likewise entirely willing to have Nayoki look through his mind, or tell him what she wants - but he can start with the Sunlord, although he doesn't know that he has a good answer.  He is-- not sure to what extent he's still His follower, or even what that means in a world in which he suddenly has to think of gods as... entities one might oppose, or disagree with, instead of something like the land and weather, timeless and inevitable and simply there.

But on some level it doesn't matter very much.  He holds his word above everything else, and even though he hasn't given it here, he still considers himself bound to-- there's a vague bundle of concepts here, he's doing this on instinct rather than thinking through it in words, and trusting himself that the instinct is right-- but he wants to be the sort of person who can be trusted.  Not just trusted to keep his word or tell the truth, but to work together with when nobody knows what promises to ask for or what the truth is, to not take someone's kindness and use it to make things worse.  He will not, even if his god should command him.  (He might have thought differently, before the war, but... he cannot find it in himself to want to be the Sunlord's tool against his own deepest principles, not after how wrong everything has gone already.  And that, probably, is answer enough.  Perhaps it was enough that he was able to even consider the question - but it would've been difficult to spend a day with Leareth's thoughts in his mind and not absorb some of them.  If he is wrong in this, he will die, and atone afterward.)

Whether he agrees with Leareth's plan isn't really the right question either - he assumes it's something terrible and even harder to wrap his head around than opposing the gods in the first place, and of course he'll have to think about it at some point, but...  What matters is whether things will be better if he's here than if he isn't, and he thinks it's often possible to disagree with someone and still make the world better by trying to help them.  If they will change the world much more than you could on your own, and if you have enough in common, if you see something in them worth your friendship or your service - and he does, here.  People do better when they have more to work with, when they aren't alone, and he doesn't think even Leareth is an exception.

As for the body snatching - a soft mental shrug.  He was a soldier in a war of invasion.  If the Valdemarans had taken him prisoner, he would have accepted that as legitimate, and cooperated just the same, if he found honorable people on the other side.  He could, he supposes, blame Learath more, having not been at war with him, but... Leareth didn't act on a lawless whim or for the sake of harm - he's clearly fighting some larger war he feels bound to, no matter how strange, so Karal cannot in honesty resent him.  And doesn't feel like resenting him, even if he had no good reason not to.  It would go against his natural inclinations, and against his nascent but obvious affection for Leareth, and help nobody.

And of course Nayoki may still decide that something in their mind is going wrong and cannot be allowed to continue, no matter his intentions and opinions.  He trusts her to do that, having seen what she and Leareth are like together, and he's very glad she's here to make sure.

What a fascinating, extraordinary sort of person. 

Nayoki just watches, for a while, making sense of Karal's thoughts. He's a very unusual person, for sure, but not, actually, a confusing sort of person to exist. In some ways, he makes more sense to her than Leareth. (Asking whether he's more or less unusual than Leareth is...not very useful...she's fully aware that Leareth is himself extremely unusual.) 

...It's a little suspicious. Not that he exists, or was fighting on the Karsite border, but that - it must have been a fairly specific and unlikely series of events, that led to a mage-gift awakening late on a battlefield, and Leareth landing in his head under circumstances where he would find it particularly convenient not to immediately be alone there. 

It happened on Vkandis' territory. Another reason for suspicion. Leareth cannot possibly have failed to notice it, which - makes some sense of his obvious uncertainty. Leareth is not, in general, someone who tends to indecisiveness. He's needed to make critical judgement calls while newly incarnated before; he should in general be comfortable with it. He might have come back unusually disoriented, given the injuries he suffered, but...not enough to explain why he evidently seems inclined to significantly defer to her judgement. 

That is incredibly frustrating! The obvious theory is that it's a trap! Which Nayoki hates, because she likes Karal, already, and suspects she could grow to like him a lot more. She would ordinarily say that it could be - very good for Leareth - to spend a lifetime getting such a close-up view of Karal's thoughts. Particularly this lifetime, when everything is unusually high-stakes even for him. But, given the givens, now she has to ask how, exactly, this could be a plot to disrupt everything. Aughhhh. 

Leareth, at least, seems mostly like himself. Disoriented, badly impaired, even more exhausted than he wants to let on, but - given all of that, his thoughts are as characteristic of him as seems reasonable to expect. He was able to get himself here from Karse - and he's wearing his own artifacts, so he must have remembered enough to guess where to find a records cache. And Karal's reaction to him probably has a lot to do with who Karal is, but it can't be entirely that; Leareth must have been with it enough to explain himself in a way that made sense. 

She only has Leareth's descriptions to go on, in terms of comparing his state now to his past deaths and incarnations, but it at least seems like his condition before he died hasn't made things massively worse. 

...She's going to pull over a chair and sit down next to Leareth. (The Work Room isn't the coziest place to sit and talk, but Leareth seems fine with it and asking him to get up and move elsewhere would feel like more of an imposition.) 

"Karal," she says, smiling as naturally as she can manage. "I am pleased to meet you." And, more seriously, "- Leareth. I want to look at both of you with Mindhealing Sight, and - can you trade who is controlling the body? I would like to see how that looks. And - see your oldest memories, if that is all right." If it's not all right with him then she has some concerns, but it's still polite to ask. Most things aren't particularly, well, emotionally sensitive to Leareth. The Cataclysm is. 

...She has a feeling he hasn't showed that to Karal yet. She's pretty curious about how Karal would react. 

"Of course." Leareth's affect is, for the most part, enormously reassured. Nayoki isn't acting like he's forgotten something enormously concerning. "...Tell me when I should give Karal control." 

Nayoki opens her Mindhealing Sight wide. 

...That is incredibly bizarre. Probably Leareth's mind very recently in a new body would look bizarre anyway, but - wow. 

It looks like two loaves of breaded intertwined – something in between "two colors of dough" and "two entirely separate breads, overlapping in some impossible fourth dimension." 

Leareth's mind is more "in focus" right now, maybe because he's the one currently in control, but it's obvious to Nayoki's senses that, however dense and busy the center of his mind is, there...isn't that much...of Leareth. Not relative to how many of the body's entrenched pathways, the engrained physical and emotional habits of reaction, are Karal's. The exception is everything surrounding their mage-gift; the metaphorical crumb of Leareth's mind is tentative there, not yet fully comfortable or established, but the Karal dough-color doesn't have anything much at all, so it's not difficult for Leareth's mental habits to dominate. In terms of physical control, though, the pathways Leareth has are, though strong and thick, also oddly simple, blocky and almost clumsy. 

Nayoki licks her lips. "I would be curious if - Karal, can you take control without Leareth actively letting you? What happens if you try?" 

Now there's a question he has not at all been considering.  He's not even sure which one of them he's been trying to protect by not considering it.  But it would clarify some things, to have the answer...

And then there's an instant in which he goes from vague contemplation to all-out attack, the decision made in a deep enough level of his instincts that even with the full view of his mind Leareth might have trouble noticing it before it happens, if he isn't looking for it very closely.  That's how you start a fight when you mean to win it rather than just practice.  It's his body and he wants it - but more than that, he fights for it as if there was something truly important at stake, in a way that Leareth wouldn't have felt before, when Karal's brief attempts at struggle were only instinctive and without the full force of his will behind them.  He's thinking about what he's doing, now, to the extent that he can think about anything usefully in this strange ghostly struggle, but it turns out that a lot of his battle instincts carry over well enough.  He knows Leareth doesn't want his body the same way, doesn't care about being in it on the same deep level, and certainly doesn't know it as well, and all of that is an immediate advantage that he knows how to apply - how to use his hold on the dozens of specific physical details to make his position stronger, find a weak angle in one of the many places Leareth has to defend at once without being deeply familiar with them, and push until it breaks.

He is, still, being careful about his aim.  He's trying to take control, to force his way through the barrier separating him from his own flesh and muscle, not to push Leareth out.  (Though of course it will be some information on whether he could.)  He doesn't want to hurt him, either, and if more than a little of that seems to be happening, he'll stop.  It's a duel, not a mad struggle, and he's entirely capable of abiding by some rules while genuinely fighting to win.

(... A moment later there's a faint realization in the back of his mind that perhaps he could've been less aggressive about this.  Maybe Nayoki didn't mean this at all, or didn't expect him to just try it without asking.  But he's a warrior, so this was the first thought that came to him, and he didn't wait for a second one and risk losing whatever advantage of surprise there was to be had.  At this point the alternative doesn't matter and doesn't need to be considered - he chose this way, so he'll go through with it rather than second-guessing himself and failing to do either option reasonably.  But if one of them tells him to stop, he will.)

Leareth also wasn't expecting it! He was in control, but not actively defending it or clamping down; his attitude had been one of half-waiting for Nayoki to tell him to surrender it entirely. 

He does resist, of course, without thinking about it. (And one of the first things he does, mostly involuntarily, is yank his surface thoughts back from where Karal can see them; for at least the next second or two, Karal won't know in detail what Leareth is thinking. Leareth can still see all of Karal's thoughts, of course.) 

In the places where Leareth's attention is, his force-of-will is undeniably "stronger" than Karal's, an iron wall that won't budge to any mental pressure Karal can exert. ...But Karal is also right, that Leareth doesn't know this body the way he does, doesn't feel ownership of it in the same way - Leareth honestly isn't a person who relates to being physically embodied that way in general - and Karal is the one with physical habits and reflexes attuned to this body in particular, which has been his for his whole life, and he has a lot more angles to push from. Karal can very quickly have Leareth off-balance, and start to consolidate more control from there.

...If this had happened at any point before about five minutes ago, Leareth's response would, probably, have been an all-out assault, almost certainly ending in Karal evicted from the body entirely. Leareth isn't sure he could have had a different response to feeling under threat. But - he doesn't feel threatened, right now, not in the relevant way. He's back in the safety of his northern operations base, Nayoki is there and watching, and this is a deliberate test. It's in the reference class of sparring, not of a surprise ambush, and Leareth does bring quite a lot of intent-to-win to sparring, but - within bounds, and even if the rules for this particular bout weren't exactly negotiated in advance, it's not hard to tell what rules Karal is seeing himself as following. 

Leareth could still win, he thinks, but - not without going on the offensive, and mentally attacking Karal in directions other than his control of the body, trying actively to hurt him. He's not going to do that. He's going to make Karal work to get full control, but only defensively, and his defensive motions are just a lot slower than what Karal can muster.

Even at the speed of thought, it takes over a second, and then Leareth is no longer in control of the body. ...And unhides his thoughts from Karal. Mostly to convey that he's impressed, even faintly delighted (and not upset or scared or annoyed), though he's also quietly noting that he still has full control of their mage-gift, Karal has far fewer angles to contest it, and Leareth could if he wanted just place a compulsion on Karal to give him the body back. Maybe. It's fiddly magic and Karal might - Leareth would give him one in five odds - be able to distract him enough to disrupt a casting. (Leareth has no intention of actually doing this, it's more that assessing the tactics still available to him is itself an instinctive mental motion.) 

Well. That was very informative. (And fun to watch, actually, the same way it's fun to watch Leareth sparring with magic.) 

It...says a lot, she thinks, that Leareth, despite being startled, clearly didn't feel genuinely threatened. That might be the most informative observation she's made so far. Leareth is - a lot more paranoid by nature than she is - and he hasn't even had that long to develop a rapport with Karal. But he can see all of Karal's thoughts, and - clearly, whatever he saw was enough. 

Also! Now she's looking at Karal's mind in the foreground, and also presumably his body language. She smiles reassuringly at him, and - focuses on what more she can pick up from the deeper motivational structure of his mind. 

Oh good, nothing is wrong.  He takes a slow breath, settles himself in his body, the transition obvious from Leareth's more closed-off and careful body language.  Grins, and gives them the seated approximation of a duel-winner's bow, radiating satisfaction and pleasure.  He did very much enjoy the strange half-physical battle - it was an oddly exhilarating feeling, partially the fight itself and partially, he thinks, the new ability to let go a little instead of being so careful with each other.  Putting a bit of weight on their trust and their feeling of safety and finding that it held.  He mirrors Leareth's delight, is impressed with his strength and his reflexes when ambushed and grateful for his self-control, and appreciates his tactical comments.  (Wonders briefly whether he could contest the Empathy and if there's anything to be done with it, but that's a thought for later.)

He also deeply appreciates the pure amount of mind-reading going on - the fact that neither he nor Nayoki had to wait even a second to be sure that everything was all right is wonderful.  "Well. I should apologize for taking that risk, but it looks like I was right to try it. And," another half-bow in Nayoki's direction, "I'm pleased to meet you too. Did you see what you wanted?"

The deeper level of his mind is entirely consistent with the outward picture, and all of it is structured to be easy to see.  He's a very honest and straightforward man, and he likes people, nearly all of them, with rare exceptions, and wants his presence to make their lives better rather than worse.  He feels secure in himself - he'll be all right, on some level, nearly no matter what happens, and perhaps a lot of that is through not expecting much, but it does still feel like a basic level of psychological safety that most people lack, a secure base from which he can reach out to others and see if he can connect and help.  The principle of trust is still there just as deeply - it's the most important thing in the world, when other people reach back to him, and he will not make them worse off for it no matter what else they've done.  He calls it honor, when he thinks about it, but it's a different and wider concept than what most people mean by that.  He doesn't think about it very much - he runs most of himself on instinct, doesn't attempt to think through all the concepts and possibilities the way Leareth does, and his internal structure is straightforward and self-consistent enough that this works.

He wants all this known about himself - wants all of himself known, really, and beyond tactical reasons he would be entirely happy to have people able to read his mind at all times.  It's clear that the connection with Leareth is good for him - it's not that he's been lonely in his earlier life, but he still loves not being alone like this, being really seen, the instant feedback between their thoughts.  Most minds would flinch at least a little from being this entangled with another, but he genuinely seems like he can be comfortable in their strange shared twisted structure.  And that he will keep a boundary there - a soft one, but his mind isn't trying to merge with Leareth's.  He keeps a mental structure for their relationship, wants to know who they are to each other and what their mutual responsibilities are, doesn't mind that they might disagree or argue. 

Another thing that's obvious upon deeper inspection: a lot of this isn't new.  He hasn't shared his mind before, but his life has belonged to others for more than a decade, and he's used to a shape that leans on someone else and is leaned on in turn, even though the someone else is not usually present in the same way.

All of that seems - very good. The best news she could possibly have hoped for, really. ...Implausibly good? Maybe, but what exactly are you supposed to do with that. Leareth is the one who's good at spotting godplots. Nayoki is failing to think what Vkandis could even be hoping to accomplish with this. 

Well, it's probably not urgent on the level of candlemarks. And...Leareth has also been the one to point out to her in the past that sometimes the gods aren't actually that good at steering mortals. Their advantage is that They can lay a lot of them - including ones that don't look plotty at all - and sometimes it's not particularly costly to Them if one fails. It's not absurd to posit that maybe it was just cheap for Vkandis, in the moment, to trigger a mage-gift to awaken with convenient timing and hope that His pawn would stay a pawn. It's plausible that Vkandis just can't see very clearly what happens to a mortal mind in close contact with Leareth - or maybe the intention was to somehow corner them at Karal's castle estate, but it didn't come together in time, or Leareth successfully dodged a trap without even recognizing it as that... 

...she hates this kind of reasoning. In any case, in the scenario where this isn't a throwaway godplot that's already failed, it can probably wait for Leareth to be in better condition to reason about it? They're in the safety of the north, now, a long way from Vkandis' remit; it's hard to imagine what could go wrong before tomorrow morning. 

She bites back a sigh. "Leareth, I will not keep you much longer, but - I do still want to see your core memories. And it would be good for Karal to see as well, I think." 

...Right. 

(The feeling Leareth has isn't exactly hesitance, more just - recognizing the significance, and what it means that he's not especially hesitant to show Karal the innermost part of himself.) 

Leareth was, as far as he knows, born more than 1800 years ago, in Predain, a kingdom that no longer exists. His name was Kiyamvir Ma'ar.

He doesn't remember his childhood, exactly, just memories-of-memories, now whittled down to the bare fact that certain events happened. He was, he thinks, from a semi-nomadic herding people, and by the time he was reaching adolescence, conditions had gotten...very bad. He knows that his clan practiced infanticide, and that - there would have been a sister, one year, if they hadn't been already too close to starvation by the time the baby arrived. He knows that his father died by violence, and his mother in childbirth. He knows that he was different – mage-gifted, and...different in some deeper way. He doesn't remember being that child, not really, except as a formless emotion, the sense that, for all that he hadn't yet known anything different, he knew that this wasn't good enough. 

Ma'ar left. He doesn't think he knew, at the time he left, where he was going, just - that if he stayed, nothing would ever change, and something had to. 

The first memory that can really be called that is of Urtho's Tower, in the neighboring kingdom of Tantara. It's a memory consisting more of emotions than of anything more concrete - it was a place of wonders, of incredible magics, of books and learning, and it was a place where he never really understood any of the other students because they had grown up safe. But he does remember standing on a high balcony, looking at the stars - so many lights - and then at the ground, the bustling wealth of Tantara spread out in the darkness. Fewer lights than stars, but - still so many, and there could be more. He could take what he learned there, and bring it to Predain and fix it, and - and then to everywhere, because by now he knew there was an entire world. Maybe it should have seemed more daunting, to leap from fixing one country to fixing an entire world, but he thinks it wasn't as daunting as leaving the plains of Predain in the first place. 

He made a promise, there at Urtho's Tower, that he wouldn't stop until everything was fixed and everyone had the safety and wealth and wonders of Urtho's Tower. 

(Later, though he thinks not very much later, he realized it would take a lot more than one human lifetime, and began searching for a magical solution to immortality. He found several. The one he's using now was - a last resort, a final backup that he thinks he was only willing to countenance because he shouldn't have needed it. But, unfortunately, events went - differently than how he had planned.) 

Ma'ar studied at Urtho's Tower until adulthood. He was, he thinks, reasonably close with Urtho - only one of his students, but a particularly brilliant one. He knows he very badly wanted Urtho to be proud of him, and...he thinks that at least sometimes, Urtho was.

And then he left, now a young man, and returned to Predain. Again, what he remembers here is unclear and mostly in emotional impressions. He remembers that Predain was a rougher culture than Tantara, living closer to the edge of violence - and he knew it wasn't the end state, wasn't what he wanted to build, but it made sense to him like Urtho's Tower never had, and he knew how to work with it. He remembers being impatient, hungry, frustrated that the best plans he could come up with to increase Predain's wealth and stability - and to improve the lot of the desperately poor regions bordering on Predain - would take decades to pan out. In hindsight, "decades" was an incredibly short timescale to be working on, but - he was young. 

Ma'ar knew how to navigate Predain's culture and politics, and rapidly had the ear of the King, but - evidently he was lacking a lot of skills related to international relations, because - and it seems obvious now, but it really wasn't at the time - Tantara's King was alarmed by Predain's expansion, and Urtho had always been disturbed by political ambition, and - he doesn't know what happened. The records are gone and any memory of it is lost in fog. But, one way or another, the two kingdoms ended up at war. 

Predain was winning. Ma'ar was - good at waging war, and Tantara had been at peace for over a generation and had no idea what they were doing. Leareth...is still pretty sure that Ma'ar tried to negotiate for peace. It's not as though he wanted to conquer Tantara, when Tantara had been stable and prosperous and doing fine. 

Whatever he tried, it wasn't enough. He learned, too late - pieced it together after the fact, really, when he woke up in a teenager's body in a devastated world - that Urtho had weapons of incredible power, and that Urtho was willing to wield them, not just to send after Ma'ar in Predain, but to destroy his own Tower and everything he had built before it had any chance of falling into Ma'ar's hands. 

(Leareth doesn't think that Urtho meant to set off the Cataclysm. It seems more likely that part was a miscalculation. But whatever the intentions, what was left afterward were two craters and a swath of unlivably damaged territory between them. He has only guesses at how many people died, but...it was in the millions. It might have been tens of millions.) 

...And Leareth wasn't among them. He had taken just enough precautions, and his last-ditch contingency worked even when all of his other immortality setups had been destroyed. He was, for better or worse, one of the few survivors of a final escalation that he - may not have intended to push Urtho into, but that was still causally his fault - and he had made a solemn vow on the stars to fix everything, and learned the hard way how badly it was possible to miscalculate, and - 

- he wasn't done. It's only the beginning of the story - Karal will learn a lot of the rest along with Leareth, there are huge swaths of his life that he has only the vaguest inklings of and he needs to spend a few weeks with his records, catching up - but that's the core of it. 

(- never to die - never to give up - never to walk away -) 

Oh.  Oh, what a dizzying superposition of things that make all the sense in the world and things he cannot comprehend at all.

He isn't like that at all, himself.  He would have never thought that things could be that different, that much better.  He certainly wouldn't have left everything he'd ever known for a nebulous hope of change.  It would never occur to him - he still cannot really wrap his mind around the concept of wanting to fix everything and everywhere.  Of deciding to become immortal in order to do something a mortal man couldn't.  No wonder Leareth thinks he can fight the gods, when he's halfway to one himself. 

But Karal knows with immediate certainty that if he had been in Predain, he would have been Ma'ar's, absolutely and completely.  He would have served him with all his soul for a tenth of that dream.  Maybe he could have helped, could have done something to prevent that unimaginable disaster. 

He isn't sure what that means now, nearly two thousand years and the gods only know how many lives later, but... something, surely. 

Yes. Let me help.

That is kind of a baffling response to admitting that he was responsible for almost destroying the world

(Leareth mostly isn't...assessing...Karal's reaction yet. He's busy tucking his core memories back into the metaphorical vault where they belong, and getting his emotions under control. It's obvious that nearly all of his motivation runs through something built on that tight bundle of memories, and equally obvious that he doesn't intend to spend all that much time dwelling on it. It's in the past. The lessons he can learn from it are learned, now, and there's no point in re-imagining how he could have acted differently, or even in wishing he remembered more.) 

It's a perfectly sensible response, Karal argues back, because Ma'ar didn't want to destroy the world, and so him having someone who could have maybe had even the smallest chance of making that go better would be just about the most important thing possible.  That's part of what he meant earlier, when he said the most important question isn't even whether he agrees with Leareth's plan, but whether he can make something better.

(This explicit reasoning isn't really why he would have done it, he doesn't naturally think that way, but it's what his instincts are pointing at when he does the things he inevitably does - and he's absorbed enough of the way Leareth thinks that he can begin to see that.)

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. 

Nayoki is capable of making observations other than how sweet this is! She's carefully assessing whether Leareth's memories - or perhaps more importantly, the attitude bound in with the memories - seem as she knew them before, and whether the crumb-pattern of his motivation and thinking seems linked up in the right way. 

She smiles at Karal with quite a lot of warmth. (At Leareth, too, but he'll get more from the waft of relief and reassurance she sends along the Mindspeech link, and right now Karal is in charge of the body, and it's still more natural to think of the face she's smiling at as belonging to him and not Leareth. She will get used to Leareth not looking the same, but it's going to take more than half a candlemark.) 

"That is everything urgent to cover from my point of view," she says. "Leareth, you are clearly yourself and that is the most important part. I am - suspicious that this looks steered, but I am not actually seeing any way that Vkandis could use Karal to harm you before tomorrow, so we can discuss it then. ...Do either of you have anything else now before I let you get some sleep." 

Leareth does kind of want a ten-minute briefing on the state of affairs in Valdemar, but he'll wait to see if Karal has other questions first. 

Nothing is urgent, although Karal would appreciate an opinion on whether what he just thought made sense.  If not an answer to the rest of his reaction, which really should wait for tomorrow.

"I was going to ask if you could help me sleep, but after the last few minutes I think I'm emotionally wrung out enough not to keep myself awake."  He still doesn't want to have the dream, but a perspective that includes the Cataclysm would make any horror pale. 

"It made perfect sense to me."

She switches to Mindspeech directed just at Karal, which isn't actually private but feels a bit less like she's talking about Leareth in the third person to his face. :Leareth is not confused by your reasoning, I think, he just - he decided a long time ago that it was worth it to - use strategies that most ordinary people would consider beyond the pale. To be someone most ordinary people would consider evil. It was a difficult choice, that he made only because he thought there was no alternative. I think he finds it surprising when people want to help anyway, even if it makes perfect sense and he should know better. ...He is also very impaired, right now, and reacting from habit more than usual. I think he will feel less confused about it tomorrow.: 

Well. Nayoki does know him very well. 

We should probably have a Healer look at us just in case, he thinks loudly at her, assuming that she's still reading both of their minds. They could safely help us sleep as well, if it still seems helpful then. 

Karal smiles at Nayoki.  :That makes sense of why he keeps... being like that at me. I can hope he'll get used to it eventually.:  This in no way means that he won't end up finding some things Leareth does evil and horrifying.  From how everyone thinks about them, they probably are.  But he doesn't think that will stop him from wanting to help.

For everything else, Leareth and Nayoki clearly know what they're doing - they can have a Healer and a Valdemar briefing, and it doesn't seem like he needs to worry about whatever else should happen before they sleep.

Update on Valdemar, then! Including on aspects of the strategic situation that well predate Leareth's death, because he probably doesn't remember things like "how many Herald-Mages were killed in the war and how many are left."

(The answer is "very few." Some of Leareth's earlier plans were involved in whittling down the number - often before the point when they could even be Chosen, though he should know that Vanyel knows-or-suspects anyway - but the war deaths weren't, actually, particularly downstream of anything Leareth did. It seems like maybe Someone, for some reason, wants Valdemar weaker on mages specifically, though of course Vanyel alone is equivalent to five or ten Adepts.) 

In recent news, it's mostly that tensions are heating up between the tiny neighboring countries of Lineas and Baires. Valdemar has yet to take any official actions about this, but may be quietly taking unofficial ones; Leareth's spies have limited penetration into the Heralds' operations, and any unofficial actions being taken aren't known to the Council. 

Vanyel is still, as far as they know, alone on the border, acting as their main active Herald-Mage. Karse's priest-mage numbers are of course enormously down as well. 

Are there any prospects for Vanyel not being alone on the border? 

(The feeling behind Leareth's question, obvious to both Nayoki and Karal, is a lot more complicated than "concern for Vanyel's wellbeing", but definitely isn't just about the tactical situation of two nearby kingdoms at war. The war is...bad for Vanyel, and makes him worse, and Leareth is very suspicious that Someone wanted it that way.) 

Some of the Herald-Mages injured earlier in the war are making a recovery? If there are specific plans, then Leareth's spies in Haven are unlikely to find out until they're actually carried out. 

(Nayoki is a little worried that Karal is going to be finding this conversation weird and uncomfortable, but she's not going to make that obvious, since she expects that would if anything make it more weird and uncomfortable.) 

It is weird and uncomfortable and he's mostly trying not to think about it, but there's not much to be done about that.  Well, he supposes they could have the conversation where he couldn't see it at all, but that wouldn't be comfortable either.  He'll just have to get used to this.

It's true that the war makes everyone worse and that almost no one deserves that, no matter his feelings about Valdemar and its mage, and about him being the center of everyone's concern.

Thinking about the Cataclysm helps.  This isn't about who deserves concern, it's about what might keep things from getting worse.  Things more important than their border war, he expects.

(Unfortunately Vanyel is a central figure in...kind of a lot of things. And much more obviously a pawn steered by the gods than Karal. It won't help to say that she's pretty sure Vanyel hates this situation even more than Karal does, so she won't say it, but she's thinking it.) 

They can keep the conversation quick and efficient. ...It's been a while since the last Foresight dream, is perhaps a useful addition. The frequency has always varied, but it's been nearly two months, which is an unusually long interval. 

So he would be going into this with a lot of uncertainty about Vanyel's current state of mind even if he weren't missing memories. 

The last dream he really remembers clearly is...from the year 799 in Valdemar's reckoning, probably mid-spring, so - a little over two years ago, it's summer now. Leareth is slightly surprised to note that he remembers the date that clearly. He remembers the pain and doubt in Vanyel's eyes, and his response when Leareth asked what was troubling him. It was surprising that he answered, but - only a little, by then. The war had been wearing him down, and one side effect of it was that he spoke a little more openly. 

I had to make a hard choice. There weren’t any good options, and I – I would regret having chosen the other way as well.

I do know what that is like, Leareth remembers saying to him.

Vanyel smiles, crookedly, bitterly. “I didn’t do what you would have. I didn’t compromise what I think is right.”  

And Leareth remembers his answer. He also remembers that he thought about it quite hard as he chose the words. 

Herald Vanyel, all decisions involve a compromise. Otherwise the answer would be obvious, and there would not truly be a choice. I suppose you mean that in the tradeoff between actions you think are right and results you think are good, you chose the virtuous action, perhaps at the cost of failure. 

It is a simplification to say I would always choose the other way. I think that everything is grounded in results, in the end – but the world is very messy, and sometimes there is not time to explore and chart out the results I anticipate from each path. Sometimes, when time is short, it is in fact better to fall back on rules I have set, before, when things were not so rushed. And so I choose an action based on what you might call virtue, and afterwards when there is time I evaluate if, in fact, that is the decision process I should have been running, that would have had the best results over all the possible scenarios, and if not I change it. But in the heat of battle, I do not often break those rules I have set, even if I am greatly tempted. 

He doesn't know what Vanyel's hard choice was; if he had any guesses based on recent events, he doesn't recall them. He might never know.

There have probably been a lot more hard choices, since then. 

....Aaaaaand he's going to put those thoughts aside, and ask Nayoki where they should sleep tonight. 

This facility isn't Leareth's usual base for his research, but it's as secure as it - arguably more secure - and has comfortable guest bedrooms available. Nayoki is guessing Leareth would prefer that to having to relocate somewhere else by Gate right now? 

Yes. Please. Can Nayoki show them there and have a Healer meet them? 

(Leareth doesn't think that he is going to need any Healing-assistance with sleeping, given the exhaustion rapidly catching up with him.) 

He'll let Karal do the walking. 

Maybe they should be having the Vanyel conversation where he can't see it.  He feels like he would like to at least meet the man by himself before ending up convinced to pity him, as seems increasingly inevitable no matter how much he resents that outcome.  (He knows he's being irrational about this.  He thinks he has the right, if the cost isn't high.  Perhaps it is, but-- if what happens here is years of conversations only a month or two apart, then it seems likely that the best way to deal with it is to let them have their emotions at each other and then fix things, rather than preemptively trying to arrange for calm cooperation that, with the underlying issues unresolved, is unlikely to stay calm forever.)

He can walk, looking around this strange place, and use the physical details to distract himself from all that.  And yes, he thinks he can fall asleep on his own afterward.  He's not quite to the point of looking forward to it, even exhausted as he is, but - to the point of wanting it over with, maybe.

Leareth absolutely thinks that Karal has the right to - he's not even sure 'being irrational' is a useful framing on it, all of Karal's feelings are based on true facts about Vanyel. He's - going to spend a while dwelling on things related to Vanyel, but he can keep that where Karal doesn't have to see it. 

(Leareth is...used to holding a perspective where the actions of individuals slip out of focus, and what he sees in the foreground, when he looks at the situation between Valdemar and Karse, is a stage set by the gods, with goals he doesn't fully understand but that he suspects have more to do with making Leareth's life difficult than with the people or nations being steered. But he's not actually sure that it's fair to Vanyel, to - attribute so little agency to him. Seen from the human level, Vanyel is the one making his choices.) 

...Leareth does feel intensely mixed about the prospect of Karal and Vanyel 'having their emotions at each other'. Maybe just because this is something he's been managing very, very carefully for a number of years, and he's not sure what happens if Karal shifts that dynamic. 

A Healer will meet them at the guest bedroom! (Leareth has no memory of the man.) Is anything obviously wrong with Leareth's new body to Healing-Sight? 

The body has some scrapes and bruises, and even a couple of strange relatively fresh burns from his first violent experience with magic, because Karal has not been being careful with himself lately (or for the last weeks and months and years), barely even notices these things and cannot bring himself to care.  But under all that he's very strong and healthy, and would have healed most surface damage fine on his own given time.  He lets the Healer do whatever he thinks is needed, without concerning himself with it much one way or the other.

I don't know that you have much of a choice about me shifting it, if I end up in the dream at all.  Maybe even if he doesn't, over the long term, though maybe Leareth is good enough at controlling what he lets people see that nothing about Karal will show through.  It seems like too much of an important change not to affect everything.  And...

...Oh, of course.  Karal swears internally.  That's what the trap is, if there is one - for me to hate him so much that I ruin whatever careful thing you've built.  He doesn't think he hates him that much, not really, but he's hurt and angry and grieving, and it would be so easy for someone - Someone - who didn't know all the details of his mind to expect him to burn everything down with it...

I wouldn't have, I think.  But now I'll try harder.

Now he'll have to be reasonable about Kadrich's death, and god, he doesn't want to.  But neither does he want his pain to make the world worse, and he can accept everything that's happened, to avoid that.

Oh. That - would be it, wouldn't it. Leareth is now torn between feeling annoyed with himself for not thinking of that sooner, and impressed that Karal did think of it this quickly. ...Also a flash of anger, tired and quickly past and definitely not aimed at Karal - it's exactly what the gods would do, isn't it, taking someone's fundamentally human strengths - Karal's loyalty to his people and his country - and lining things up just so, aimed such that those same strengths make everything worse... It's almost never productive to dwell on frustration, and he doesn't, but it's there. 

(There's a flicker of relief, too. It feels less - waiting for the other shoe to drop - to at least have a coherent theory of why this entire situation feels so...obviously steered.) 

He - does think that if that's what this is meant to be, Vkandis miscalculated. Which wouldn't be that surprising. The gods are - (a flicker of not-quite-unpacked concepts, how Leareth sees the shadow of fundamentally alien entities cast on the world, beings that swim in Foresight and don't, actually, have all that much ability to perceive the world the way humans do) - the gods don't necessarily understand people very well. 

...Leareth still notices that he feels quite stressed about the prospect of Karal, if he does end up sharing the dream, speaking directly with Vanyel. He...doesn't think it's that he necessarily expects it to go badly? (He actually thinks that Vkandis would be underestimating Vanyel, if He predicted that Leareth sharing a body with someone who hated Vanyel would explode everything.) He also doesn't want to force Karal to think more about this right now, if it's - a bad time - he's just making the mental note that he is, in fact, stressed about not knowing what Karal would say. 

(Also Karal should maybe shoo the Healer if they want to go over this more rather than immediately sleeping and wanting help with that? It doesn't seem like they need any immediate Healing, and it's at least slightly distracting having another person in the room.) 

Karal shoos the Healer, and promises to wash the burns and give them another look once he's had a chance to sleep.  He'd usually want to know much more, and some part of him still does - who does this man think he just saw, what's his name, does he have a family, what does he do here... Not that he needs to know these things about every person he encounters, but he's already thinking of Leareth's people as his people too.  But there's so much happening already, and they're so tired.  He can find these things out tomorrow.

He, too, is angry, and not suppressing that.  He still can't really bring himself to confront the idea that it's the Sunlord who did all that to him, but that anyone would - and not just Karal's good impulses, but Leareth's too, because he could have simply killed him and he didn't and he should not suffer for that choice - it's a horror, a wrong so deep he can barely stand the thought of it, and if the gods truly are like that then he can see why Leareth is their enemy.

And he will not let it work.

Explaining to Leareth how might almost be the harder part.  I don't know what you imagine a good time might be, a wry hint of a smile.  But I don't really understand what you want from me, either.  I will... see him, and say whatever seems right to say when I have some idea of who he is and how he reacts to me, and... He struggles to form a conscious concept of why that's how things work and doing them differently is impossible, but this is important and he has to try, so he imagines doing whatever it is Leareth wants him to do and how he thinks that would go.  I could try, maybe, to learn more about him now and imagine in advance what I might say to him, but - if I said it, later, I would sound like a stranger who knows too much about him and is repeating rehearsed words to bend him to some planned goal, rather than like a man who just met him and is genuinely reacting to what he sees, and I don't think that would help anything.  He hopes that makes enough sense.  He likes Leareth, but attempting to straighten out the tangle of his instincts into a Leareth thought-shape is so hard right now, and he's so tired.  He can try to... explain what he wants out of that conversation, in some more general sense, if that would help... as long as it feels like thinking about it and not like a rehearsal.  It does make sense for Leareth to be worried about all this.

Leareth has definitely been forming the impression that Karal is - very good at difficult conversations - and that he keeps that skill is in a completely different place from where Leareth keeps his skills for navigating interpersonal interactions. It's important for Leareth to go into high-stakes conversations not with exact words rehearsed, usually, but with an idea of what he wants and what he expects to present obstacles to that, and at least a vaguely-sketched-out decision tree for various ways he expects it could go. ...This is obviously easier when he has extensive information on someone in advance, which he does for Vanyel, and to a lesser extent had before they ever spoke. He...agrees that it feels wrong to just try to convey everything he knows about the man now; there's value to him, possible new information, in Karal having the chance to form his own impression with fresh eyes. 

...Though, yes, it probably would help Leareth's stress levels about this if he - understood better the angle that Karal is approaching this from, even if it's still underdetermined what he's actually going to say. 

Oh good, Leareth does understand that they're doing fundamentally different things both of which work.  (Or at least he assumes the thing Leareth does also works - he just definitely couldn't do it himself.)  That's the important thing, really, and he can try to think through things more easily when he feels like Leareth understands.

... It helps that he's too emotionally wrung out, after this endless day, to feel as much about all this as he would otherwise. 

Even so, he's in a lot of pain, and he wants... some acknowledgment of that, from the man who caused it.  A reaction, whatever it'll end up being.  It might be that Vanyel won't care, and that will be information - not information he'll like, but it would mean he can just be angry and not risk upsetting anything, which might almost be easier.

But from what he's seen in Leareth's thoughts of the man, no matter how much he's tried to avoid them, it seems likely that he will care.  That it'll hurt him - and Karal does want him to hurt, he can't pretend otherwise.  But he thinks that once they've both seen each other hurt, they will... be able to do something better.  Or at least he himself feels like it'll be easier to talk to a man who understands on an emotional level what he's done to him, than to one who hasn't ever had to think about it.  He can get past the pain, once he feels like he doesn't have to pretend it's not there, and he thinks most people are the same way.  It's not even as if he thinks Valdemar's Herald-Mage shouldn't have done what he did - and he can say that to him, but it'll be so much easier when it's clear how much it costs him to remember that.

(And now there are tears running down his face again, emotionally wrung out or not.  It's definitely good that the Healer is gone and nobody can see them.)

(Leareth is impressed by the thing Karal is doing! It feels like an obvious value-add over and above what Leareth himself already knows how to do, it's - one of the reasons he's now so determined to make cooperation with Karal work, whatever hidden angle of sabotage might or might not be present in the situation.) 

...Vanyel will definitely care. Leareth could generate a lot of hypotheses about Vanyel's exact reaction, and - isn't going to, right now, he's tired and it does take some effort and doesn't seem likely to help Karal orient.

Anyway. If what Karal wants is mostly just for Vanyel to witness that his actions had consequences that hurt people, before they can move on from that, that seems fine? Leareth doesn't expect anything terrible to happen. 

Anything else before they sleep? 

Ah, so that part was simple.  He never knows, with Leareth, what will be and what won't.  But he feels affectionate about this, and expects to get better at guessing.

(He appreciates the bit of additional information, but yes, he definitely doesn't want any more detail, it wouldn't help at all.)

The other thing he wants, which also doesn't seem likely to make anything terrible happen, is to explain the situation with Leareth sharing his body in a way that... matches how he feels about it.  He knows the obvious story is that something awful has been done to him, but it hasn't, and it's important to him that this be clear to anyone he expects to do a lot of interacting with.  (He sends an affectionate expectation that Leareth will have some sort of weird complaint about this, but he insists that if he's the supposed injured party then he gets to decide how injured he is.)

Karal obviously has the right to feel the way he feels about this, and to express that. Leareth...does feel like it's relevant that most of the time, someone who decides to reincarnate themselves into other people's bodies will be wronging them thereby (even leaving aside the part where usually he just kills people, and usually those people are twelve to fourteen). Karal not feeling wronged is relying a lot on very specific facts about who he is as a person, and equally specific details of the when and where, and Leareth couldn't reasonably have anticipated that being the case. 

...Also there's a tactical concern that Vanyel might be less likely to believe him if he says something that - sounds like it would be very convenient for Leareth if it were true, and might therefore be something Leareth coerced him to say. Leareth would absolutely not do that - at worst he would prevent Karal from speaking, he wouldn't force him to lie - but Vanyel doesn't know that. 

(Leareth wants it to be clear that he's not particularly making a bid for Karal to do something different, just - presenting information that immediately occurred to him.) 

Yes, all of that is important too, and Karal is definitely not arguing that there's nothing wrong with killing children.  (There were people out there who felt about these children the way he feels about his own dead, and it's not any less a tragedy just because they aren't here to speak about it.  He knows, and he's quite sure Leareth knows - and also children die all the time, and so do adults, and nobody can give all this suffering the attention it deserves.)  Just that there's nothing wrong with his specific situation, because that matters too, separately from everything else.

... The possibility of not being believed did not occur to him, and he hates it.  Is there any way to prove he's telling the truth?  If there was, presumably Leareth would've already used it on more important questions.

(There's a fleeting wordless note that if Leareth did try to force him to lie, he would fight him all-out and likely die for it.  But he hasn't been considering that as a possibility ever since their first real conversation, so it barely rises to the level of conscious thought - it's just a fact about Karal, irrelevant to the situation he's in.)

But it seems like a stupid lie, when he thinks about it.  If Leareth wanted to coerce him into a convenient narrative, it really would be easier to just not let him speak and pretend he didn't exist.  Well, depending on what face they show up with, he supposes...  But there are still more convenient lies, there's "he was dead already" or "I asked him first" - and probably there's some convoluted scheme in which his specific story is the best possible option, but he doesn't expect most reasonable people to really suspect that.  Unless Leareth has a good idea for how to explain the truth and be believed, he'll just have to try and hope it works.

Leareth is in fact pretty limited on ways to prove anything at all to Vanyel; the best he can do is, sometimes, point Vanyel at externally-verifiable evidence where, even if Vanyel can't be sure that Leareth couldn't fake it, it seems obviously not worth the effort. 'It would be a stupid lie' is in fact a decent angle for being believable, and Vanyel is smart enough to reason through it and notice that for himself. ...And Karal may, in fact, just be able to speak to Vanyel with conviction and be convincing that way. There's a skill there that Leareth has much less of, and in some sense made a deliberate choice not to invest in. Certainly it seems worth trying. 

That seems well enough.  They should finally sleep, if there's nothing else.

Sleep is good. There hasn't been nearly enough sleep lately. 

And they are, in fact, granted several candlemarks of actual restful sleep, interrupted only by ordinary dreams, before they find themselves in a snowy dreamscape. It's very clear and detailed for a dream; it's probably just because of Leareth's long exposure to it that it feels vaguely like theatre set-dressing.

There's an army behind them, and mountains ahead, with a passage carved between them, straight and level. The dream-setting presents it as a sourceless known fact that this is a real place, and that the pass was carved by blood-magic (no other way to do a working that significant without the magical ripples being detectable halfway across the continent.) 

And, standing in the mouth of the pass, a man dressed in ragged, travelworn Heralds' Whites. Slender, almost gaunt, with node-bleached hair, matted in the wind, and haunted silver eyes. 

(Vanyel is so, so tired. The dream hasn't come as frequently, as of late – maybe pushed out by nightmares of dead children and villages burning, maybe because he's so often been too tired to dream at all. It's beginning to feel like the world will never be anything except ruins and corpses. He's genuinely unsure when he last spoke to a living human being face to face.) 

He's already taken a few steps forward, on tired habit, before it registers that, for all that the dream is informing him in its neutral sourceless-fact way that the person facing him across the snow is the immortal mage he's known for years he would die fighting, that person...does not actually have the same face that he's preeeeeetty sure Leareth had in the last dream several months ago. 

What. 

Vanyel isn't quite concealing a double take, so presumably he does look different.

(He's - not actually entirely sure how he would know, otherwise, it's not like he's ever looked at himself in a mirror here. In fact, given that the dream is supposed to take place at least several years into the future, it wouldn't be that strange if he had always looked like Karal here - except for the fact that he does, actually, suspect that the sequence of implausible events leading up to his unlikely death, let alone incarnating into Karal's body, was a recent set of interventions, perhaps in response to earlier-laid plans not actually going as the gods involved had hoped.) 

...Also, Vanyel is obviously not okay, and this may well be even more obvious to Karal, who's generally more attuned than Leareth to reading emotions in others. ...Assuming Karal is here and also experiencing this as a lucid dream, is he...? 

At first it felt to Karal like just another dream, not out of place among all the other confused and awful visions of the war. 

But there's someone in his head - Leareth - and he remembers what happened yesterday and what he was expecting to happen.  The first fully conscious sight of the man in white makes his whole mind flinch in horror and grief, but- he wanted to meet him, to say something to him, so he makes himself see him rather than his own nightmare, and--

Oh god, he recognizes that look.  He's seen it on so many people, but rarely as bad as this, what happened to this man - he knows the war happened to him, but he didn't think it was like this--  He cannot want this man to suffer any more than he already is.  He's not sure anyone could.

"God, you're worse off than we were. I didn't know. I-- I'm sorry."  He makes the mental motion of talking, but it's barely a push for control at all, he's just too dream-addled to have thought about whether he has it or not - so perhaps the words won't even come out. 

Leareth almost cuts him off from saying the words out loud, if nothing else Vanyel is going to be spectacularly confused, but - he's not, actually, sure that's a bad thing? There's something Karal is doing, that Leareth doesn't entirely understand but has already seen the effectiveness of, and it feels like there's something valuable in Vanyel seeing Karal's actual, genuine, first reaction. 

He lets Karal speak, and have control of their facial expressions and body language. 

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

...Honestly, Vanyel looks substantially less horrifyingly haunted than he did five seconds ago, if only because there's now too much utter bemusement competing with it. 

Leareth takes back control of their body and mouth. "There are some things I should explain. - I look different from before, I am guessing?" 

All right, that's definitely Leareth, everything makes sense agai– everything absolutely does not make sense again, unless he's somehow short enough on sleep to start hallucinating things IN A FORESIGHT DREAM - but Leareth is acknowledging and reacting to his confusion - what - 

"Yes," he manages. "I– oh. You...died? And came back." Vanyel...has some sort of emotion about this. He's genuinely not sure what emotion it is. "I, er, would ask how you died, but it's not like you have any reason to tell me, do you." 

(Perhaps more to the point, Leareth...still doesn't actually know how he died. It wasn't one of the top priorities in tonight's - last night's? - rather hurried debrief.) 

Vanyel put it together very quickly. Leareth is quietly impressed; it's not going to show much in his face, but he isn't going to bother to entirely hide it, either. Vanyel is intelligent - moreso than he really gives himself credit for - but it's particularly impressive that he put it together on the spot while as obviously exhausted as he is. 

"It is not very relevant," he agrees, levelly. "As I am sure you can observe yourself, I - do not come back as an infant." He did at one point consider if that would work, as a modification of his existing setup rather than trying to slip an entirely new mechanism past the gods, but without some kind of external temporary memory storage while the body and brain became capable of sustaining his adult mind, it would be just as bad on fidelity-of-self as ordinary reincarnation. "Likewise, I am sure you can gather that when I appear in a new body, it previously belonged to someone else." 

Vanyel had in fact put that together, at least as one guess; the publication dates for work by a handful of the scholars who were Probably Leareth wouldn't have worked, otherwise, though it was conceivable Leareth just liked to swap around false names.

He's not really sure where Leareth is going with this? 

"...Normally this involves killing the original person," because apparently Vanyel is out of energy for putting the pieces together himself, and Leareth is going to have to spell this part out, "but it is - not magically required by the setup. And, this time..."

Karal, would you like to introduce yourself? 

Karal has been slightly squirming with the desire to talk the entire time, not so much because he had anything very coherent to say as because being interrupted like that was a bizarre and uncomfortable experience - not half as much so as for Vanyel, clearly - but Leareth is the one who actually has some sort of relationship with the man, so Karal cannot really complain about him wanting to have a conversation.  A much more sensible one than he would have managed, he has to admit, although he expects he would've gotten there eventually.

Yes.  The shift in body language is clear again - he's uncertain, far from Leareth's calm self-control, and more than a little haunted himself.  He still can't bring himself to look at Vanyel for more than half a second without flinching, but his eyes are soft, and the broken sympathy in his face isn't a lie.  (And notably, if Vanyel is inclined to wonder about that, he's not wearing a prisoner's trapped expression.  He's in pain, but he doesn't mind where he is.)

"I'm Karal, the... original person. It turns out we can share. Ah, I don't even know where to start."  He will find something sensible to say in the next second, if Vanyel doesn't, but it might be better to see what Vanyel will ask about first.

(Leareth sends a brief wordless mental note of apology - he does endorse having jumped in to explain faster, he thinks, but he definitely could have done it more politely, he just - doesn't yet have new mental habits suited to handing control back and forth like this.) 

Vanyel blinks at...Karal, apparently. That does make more sense than - he's not even sure what he was assuming, he kind of just didn't have a theory before Leareth jumped in to provide one - 

- the initial baffling comment was actually in Rethwellani, he's realizing now (which didn't stand out enormously in itself, at the time - he's been fluent since he was a child, pretty much everyone at court is, and probably more than half of the books he's read on Leareth's recommendation are in that language), but - spoken with an accent - and the man doesn't look Rethwellani - 

"...You're Karsite, aren't you," he hears himself say. And then - he is comfortable in the language, if not perfectly fluent... He switches to speaking Karsite. "Would this be easier for you?" 

(He doesn't mind, he sends back to Leareth, it was just going to be a confusing situation no matter what, and it's even clearer now how much trying to pre-arrange any of it wouldn't have worked.)

He nods at Vanyel's first words, and then... He's been speaking Rethwellani with Leareth from the beginning, since Leareth started out in it, and to have this man of all people be the first person to speak his mother tongue to him since he left home - only half a day ago, but so much has happened that it feels like forever - nearly breaks him again. 

"I think so."  It makes it easier to look at him, mostly - to see the man in front of him, ground down with misery and exhaustion and kind to a stranger despite that, and not a nightmare.  "Thank you. You're... I have no idea what I was expecting you to be like, but it wasn't this."

Vanyel's mouth twists, bitterly; he redirects it into a crooked humorless smile.

"...I suppose you wouldn't. I don't - I mean, I do know how I - must look to the other side. It's - maybe I forget, sometimes, because, I don't feel - invincible and terrifying." He's a little more hesitant in Karsite, but honestly, it's mostly that this is...not the easiest topic in the world. "I - want to say I'm sorry, but I don't. Know if that's fair. When I can't see what we - I - could've done differently. ...We didn't start this war. Just - didn't want to be destroyed. But...you aren't the one who started it either, it's not your fault." 

And now, of course, he's thinking again about how much faster they could have ended it, if Randi were willing to send an actual invading force to take Sunhame. There's a bright line there, he knows that, but - it's hard to see how it's any kinder, at this point, to keep on doing what they've been doing now for years... 

It's painful, how fair Vanyel is trying to be.  Karal sees why he and Leareth understand each other - almost nobody else is like this, to feel like even an apology or an explanation is an unfair burden on someone whose fate they can't or won't change.  It has something to do with having that much power, maybe, but he's very sure most people with that much power are very different.

"Of course you seem invincible and terrifying, when we only ever see the lightning."  The memory makes him close his eyes in pain.  "But... yes, I know you didn't start it.  I... imagined that you of all people must have had more choices than this, but... you didn't, did you."  That is not the face of someone who had any choices better than to suffer in endless horror - more than Karal's own people, somehow, and Karal is only now starting to think about what it would have been like, for someone who hates killing, to have to stay back and rain destruction on people helpless to defend themselves.

"....Everyone always has a choice." That's probably something Leareth said to him, isn't it, or at least it's part of how Leareth has shaped the way he thinks. Vanyel ducks his head. "Doesn't mean you have any good ones. I - didn't like any of mine. I could say I picked the one where I watch fewer of my friends die, but -" Helpless shrug. "You know, it'd feel more reasonable to say that if it had worked better." 

Vanyel doesn't know if this conversation is in any way a good idea, or - even why he's having it, really. He's exhausted and everything hurts and - it's not like he didn't know what he was doing to the people on the other side, how much damage he was causing - it's most of what he's been aware of for months - but it feels almost unfair to have to face it here, of all places. Valdemar has lost so much, so stupidly, and he's angry, or would be if he had the energy for it. It would feel more satisfying to be angry, he thinks. Only, the people he wants to say all of that to are the King who started this war in the first place, or the stupid blackrobe priest-mages summoning demons, or whoever is behind the coup. Not Karal. 

...He's not sure if it would feel that simple even if he did have the actually-responsible parties in front of him, is the thing. Maybe everything is broken and everyone is trapped and no one could have done better. That's definitely the kind of world it feels like he's in, lately. 

Vanyel isn't overtly showing that much emotion, but Leareth is going to send a quiet mental nudge of warning, that Vanyel seems - fragile, right now - and Leareth isn't sure what "being careful" looks like here for Karal, or whether there's even a way to be more careful that would help, but he's worried. 

Karal doesn't really know what being careful looks like here.  Maybe the entire conversation is too much and he should stop talking about all this, but he doesn't think that's the right thing to do either.

His voice is quiet.  "I'm sorry, about your friends. I don't... think it's wrong, for us to say that to each other, even if we had other choices that would've just resulted in slightly different people dead."  He doesn't know if any of his other choices were better, and there's little point in trying to think about it now.  Sometimes everything is awful, that is definitely how the world works, but... they can still try not to hurt each other, when they can.

"I appreciate that. And...I'm sorry as well." 

Vanyel would rather not keep endlessly rehashing it, though. He takes a deep breath. Lets it out. "- And you're - sharing bodies with Leareth, now? I assume you're not still in Karse..." Though it's very strange to think that presumably not that long ago Leareth was close enough to be in Mindspeech range, if only briefly, he surely wouldn't have stuck around on the front. 

Vanyel probably isn't deliberately fishing for more information than Leareth would spontaneously tell him, but that's probably part of his curiosity. ...Not that Leareth minds, particularly. Karal doesn't really know anything about his current operations that he's keeping secret from Vanyel, who knows that he operates from the north and has extensive caches of supplies. (Leareth actually pointed Vanyel to one of them, years ago, as a way to verify some facts about himself.) Vanyel doesn't know about the Cataclysm, Leareth never brought it up mostly because it's unverifiable for him, but it's - ancient history, it's not strategically sensitive. 

He bows his head for a moment, letting himself remember, but - that's enough, for now, and Vanyel is right that it might be easier to talk about other things.  That conversation went as well as it reasonably could, he thinks.

"We only made it to the north this evening."  He does, for this, make the effort to make his thoughts clear enough in advance that Leareth can warn him if there's something he shouldn't be saying.  "It's not quite been two days yet, since he came back, but he tells me the dream happens as soon as there's something new for you to tell each other.  What a strange thing."

Nod. "And so you just - left with him? ...I guess you probably didn't have much of a choice." 

How in the world are you supposed to approach asking someone if they know what kind of person Leareth is and what he's done, when they don't actually have a choice about it. Overall it seems more likely that Karal does know at least some of it - Leareth could have hidden more from Vanyel than he actually has, he doesn't seem inclined to...put on an act, or at least not a "good person" act...and it's not like it would be a practical lie to maintain for long, when Leareth probably has all sorts of horrifying business to hurry back to. 

"I'm - sorry about that happening to you," he finds himself saying instead, which is a supremely stupid thing to say, really. 

He smiles a little, shakes his head.  "I'm all right.  Well, no, I'm not, but... not because of him."  Because of you, he had meant to say when he thought about this conversation before.  It's still true, and if Vanyel thinks about what could have happened he'll likely see it, but Karal finds himself hoping he doesn't.  They'll still have to talk about it someday, but... some other day, when it might hurt him less, if that ever happens. 

"He keeps saying it was unusual luck that he didn't have to hurt me, and of course he's right, but - he didn't, when he didn't have to.  He let me go home, and... bury someone, and - you're right that I didn't have much of a choice, but I didn't mind going with him, after that."

Oh, so Leareth just happened to get the kind of person who'll go along with anything to avoid causing trouble Vanyel definitely wants to snap something sarcastic, but he wants to snap it at Leareth - not at Karal, who's been hurt enough, and by Vanyel specifically, he didn't miss that implication - and he can't, actually, have a private conversation with Leareth right now. Anymore. Ever again? ...There's something immensely frustrating about that, actually, it's– it's maybe that he had gotten used to Leareth being someone he couldn't meaningfully hurt. 

You’ve made yourself an enemy, he said to the man once, angrily, spitting the words. When the time comes, Leareth, I’m going to come north, and I’m going to have all of my friends with me. I will kill you, and I will make it hurt. And Leareth - wasn't angry, or hurt, or defensive, or anything really. Which of course was infuriating at the time, but...that was a long time ago. 

(I cannot say I would change my decision, Leareth said then, if I could go back and do it over, which I cannot. Still. Your Tylendel was a light in the world, as are all people, and I am sorry to have caused you pain.)

He wants– he doesn't know what he wants. For it not to be a horrible thing to do to shout at Karal for helping someone like Leareth. For there to be something he can be angry with where it would actually help, which is such a stupid thing to want. For the whole world to stop, maybe. 

"...I suppose you're happy that he's planning to conquer Valdemar," Vanyel says icily, which is probably still a cruel thing to say but it slips out before he can stop it. "Did he tell you how he arranged to kill our Herald-Mages and kidnap our mage-gifted children for years, so Valdemar would be weaker?" Not that it was enough, in the end, to make things much better for Karse. That would definitely be a cruel thing to say out loud, and he manages not to. 

....Leareth had not actually gotten into that with Karal, which in hindsight is - definitely an oversight - though there were kind of a lot of things. (He's not sure if Karal had inferred it from the dream-setting.) He - had been intending to explain at the same time he explained everything, but, again only in hindsight, it's obvious that this was pretty likely to come up. Vanyel doesn't know about the full plan, but the Foresight dream alone makes it clear what the first step is. Or - was originally - it's complicated - 

- anyway. It's true. It's also true that his decades of advance preparations, intended to overdetermine the outcome as possible and make for a shorter and cleaner invasion, included some amount of contracting with mercenaries in the north to attack Herald-Mages and snatch Gifted children.

...Well, he did in fact stop those operations when he told Vanyel he would, he's...not sure how long ago – he remembers the dream conversation quite clearly but the only hint at the date is that it was shortly after the (genuinely accidental, as far as he knows, or at least a god-steered 'accident' rather than a Leareth-steered one) death of Valdemar's then-heir, and Learaeth...cannot currently recall what exact year that was in, apparently. Before the war started, but definitely less than a decade ago? 

(It's stressful navigating the Foresight dream conversation while this impaired, especially with - added complications - though that's obviously not Karal's fault and he doesn't think Karal's presence is contributing nearly as much to the stress as the inherent fact being incredibly disoriented.) 

Anyway, he - needs to actually read his notes to remember everything he was thinking, but he's pretty sure part of it was that, up to the moment when he actually calls for his army to head south, he's - still looking for a less destructive way to obtain the resources he needs later. It is on priors incredibly unlikely that gaining Vanyel's trust and cooperation is a possible way out, but if the gods want to throw them into a dreamscape together at regular intervals for years anyway, Leareth was determined not to waste that. 

(He's not going to take control, or even make a bid for Karal to respond a particular way, just - if he'd been more capable of thinking ahead, and circumstances had been better for it, he would have tried to supply some of this context beforehand.) 

(There very much were a lot of things, and Karal doesn't blame Leareth for not explaining, or even think he particularly made the wrong call.  He admits he didn't infer anything from the dream, in which there have also been a lot of things, but he did get the impression that Leareth was doing something awful, and probably the invasion itself isn't even it, is it.  Doesn't seem awful enough.)

There's only so much kindness either of them has in them, it seems.  If Vanyel wants to have this argument, Karal is not going to refuse.  (But he will not go too far in it, either.  He knows all the reasons he shouldn't, and he doesn't want to, after the earlier conversation.  But it might do them both good, not to pretend they're not angry about everything that's happened.)

"Maybe I should be happy about all these things.  I promise you I'm not.  Shall I ask you which deaths you're happy about?"  His voice started out calm, but it's impossible to speak that last thought without letting some anger leak into it.

...Well, he really was asking for that. Oddly, it almost makes Vanyel feel better. On steadier ground. It's...less confusing, for Karal to be angry - 

(- and feels like it's more of an allowable motion to– ....no, he still, can't, actually, be angry with Karal for, what, for being willing to share a body with Leareth rather than preferring to die? Some part of him still wants to snarl, you have a choice, everyone always has a choice, you don't have to work with a monster - but he doesn't think he means it, really. Not when he's been talking to Leareth for a decade, when in some ways - many ways - he's come to respect and admire the man. When - and it's a thought that hurts, but Vanyel thinks it's true - when it sometimes feels like Leareth is the only person who understands him, anymore. If their positions were reversed, then...would he, really, choose to die rather than be a passenger to Leareth's life– ...well, he probably would. But that has more to do with how he feels about being alive, doesn't it. 

The whole awful inexorable arc of the past decade, the life he was forced into without being given a choice, wasn't Leareth's doing, even if Leareth is the person standing at the end of it. 

...now he's mostly just tired and sad, but in an odd way he still prefers that to whatever he was feeling beforehand. It's comfortingly familiar.) 

Shrug. "Not especially. Even when they did something awful, it's - it doesn't undo it, killing them. There are just - some deaths I regret less than others. ...I have to admit I don't really regret killing Lord Nedren and his demon-summoning mage, when they were hanging around in Hardorn killing peasants. Except for how it inspired some Bard to write the stupid song." 

Oh no he said the last part out loud. Vanyel doesn't think he meant to say that out loud. 

(The incident that earned Vanyel his "Demonsbane" moniker. There's indeed a song, very popular in Valdemar. Leareth admittedly has no idea if it's known in Karse.) 

He nods with a sigh.  "From what I remember of Lord Nedren, I don't think I can blame you."  He didn't know the details of that last mission, except that the man went to Hardorn and died there, but his holding was near enough for Karal to know what he was like, and killing peasants doesn't exactly sound uncharacteristic.  The song is unfamiliar, but that... may be for the best, under the circumstances.

That was not much anger at all, and Karal isn't sure if there are more emotions left.  Or - of course there are, but maybe not now, and he should let Leareth talk, at some point.  "And for the rest - I don't need you to agree with my choices, just to understand what they are.  And even that isn't really important, it's just... if I'm going to be here from now on, I wanted us to know each other."  A lot to ask from one meeting, maybe.

... And then he realizes something.  I still might not be here, next time.  Should I... warn him about that...?  He feels like he should, because otherwise he's going to hate the conversation they will inevitably have about him afterward, but maybe that isn't the most important factor in existence.

Why does the Karsite soldier now willingly lending Leareth the use of his body have to be LIKABLE and CONSIDERATE Vanyel does not have to like anything at all about the situation, but that's no excuse to be...rude...about it. He nods, as levelly as he can manage. 

Hmm. Leareth hadn't considered that in advance either. ...He's not sure he should have, when Karal explicitly hadn't been finding it useful to game out the conversation before having it, but he's a little surprised at himself that he didn't. 

- oh. It's probably mostly because he would, at this point, be both surprised and - genuinely some amount upset - if something happened to make this not work. Because it would feel like the gods winning again Mostly because he appreciates and admires Karal, and it would feel like giving up quite a lot of value, losing that. 

But it's in fact on the table, and Karal is right that if he wants to have his say in how it's framed and how they might talk about it later, it's probably a good idea to warn Vanyel now. (Leareth doesn't mind, it's not like it gives Vanyel any new or secret information, and also he isn't really thinking of this as something where he has the standing to tell Karal what he should or shouldn't say.) 

He feels a burst of warmth in Leareth's direction.  It's... been good, surprisingly so, no matter what they end up deciding tomorrow.  And he does feel like it'll be a shared decision, at least in some sense.  Their goals don't diverge at all on the subject, because he refuses to have his existence be a trap for someone who's been kind to him, and would count death a favor to avoid it.  But also - he expects Leareth to be the one to do most of the thinking, but he knows anything he has to say will be heard and considered, with something approaching inhuman fairness as well as surprisingly human affection, and this is... so important, somehow... that he can barely feel unhappy about the thought of dying.

Explaining all that to Vanyel might not even be possible, and he definitely shouldn't try, but he does want to say something.  For the first time in this conversation, he pauses and looks like he's not sure how to start.  "I did forget one more thing.  I... might not be alive, next time you see him.  I'm not sure I can explain to you why, or whether you want to know, but... I'm all right with this, and I don't want you to think otherwise, if it's what happens."

Oh. 

...Vanyel's first instinctive response is a burst of new respect, actually. He's not sure how Karal is framing it to himself - it makes sense that the whole way Karal relates to Leareth is very different from how Vanyel does, after their decade-long cautious dance - but the obvious interpretation is that Leareth isn't sure Karal can be trusted to be on his side – one assumes because Karal isn't sure, yet, that he can stand by and watch what Leareth is doing. 

It means that Karal isn't a man who would do anything and follow anyone if the alternative was dying. Which - makes sense. It sounds like he's been on the border long enough to have seen plenty of death, and - it's harder, after that, to be as deeply afraid of it, when it's something so nearby and thinkable.

He nods. "I - understand, I think. ...I mean, I'm sure I don't, but - as much as I can." I hope you're still here next time. He doesn't quite want to make those words any more real. It feels like holding himself open to more pain than he's ready to bear from this angle he didn't see coming. 

Leareth is very used to reading the nuances of Vanyel's words and expressions, and he's still not sure he knows what Vanyel is thinking, but - 

He believes you, that you are not afraid of dying, and - I think finds it reassuring? I am not sure why. Maybe it feels less like he - needs to pity you. Actually, he's curious now what Karal's read is on that complicated reaction. 

Also, yes, he would like a chance to talk to Vanyel, if Karal thinks he's done. 

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?"

Leareth thinks Karal is managing fine, and it seems higher priority for Leareth's staff to get to know him; they already know Leareth, and Leareth can remind himself of who they are just as well by watching along with Karal's conversations. He doesn't interrupt. 

Aha, so she does know the name, and presumably the story as well.  Someone, he assumes Nayoki, does quick work.  Everything here seems very efficient and tightly run, so it's not surprising.

"Well enough," he nods.  The Foresight dream probably isn't something he should chat about with random women in the hallway.  "But how do you tell when it's morning, down here?"

And, since he's pretty sure it'll be easier for both of them not to pretend nothing strange is going on: "By the way, I'm pretty sure you'd be able to tell if I was Leareth. He's still very," there's open affection in his voice, "obviously himself."  She probably knows what he means by that - he has trouble imagining anyone meeting Leareth and not noticing the ways he's different from just about everyone.

She seems to know what he means; she bobs her head and smiles before answering his earlier question. "Well, there's a skylight in the dining hall. For those of us whose work in on a schedule, the Mindspeakers on duty will go through and tell us when it's half a candlemark before our shift or whatever. I think some of the mages will set timekeeping wards, or have an artifact for it, but a lot of people don't bother. ...Most of the researchers sleep when they feel like it, which isn't always at night." 

"Ohh, you're just all... doing an entirely different thing here than anywhere I've ever been. I can see how that would happen! I'm going to have so much to get used to."  Mindspeakers on duty, mage artifacts everywhere - what a strange and fascinating place.  But it seems to have normal pleasant people in it, so far, which is a very good sign.  "Was it a big adjustment from where you lived before, too? ...Assuming you weren't born and raised in Leareth's underground base. For all I know that happens all the time!"

Rosta laughs. "I wasn't born and raised in Leareth's underground base, no. I grew up in Rethwellan, went to study at one of the academies that does Mindspeech training, and was - very carefully recruited. There was a lot of security vetting, which - my friend who recommended me did warn me, but I maybe hadn't thought..."

Aaaand she's maybe not going to say more on that topic, since Nayoki did not confirm that Leareth's new not-roommate - who seems lovely - is fully read in on The Plan, and that's got to be an awkward enough conversation without her putting her foot in it and making it moreso.

She shrugs a little. "Leareth does a lot of recruiting in Rethwellan. Anyway, it's - probably less of an adjustment from the student life than it is for you? I was used to being surrounded by very clever people working and sleeping at all sorts of odd hours. Mostly it's just - more magic and less sun. And better books. And not being in a city, though I don't actually miss that, I never did get used to the smell in Petras." She shakes her head slightly, smiling. "It's odd to imagine being born and raised here, but two of my friends here - they're with the mage-researchers - have a little daughter. She seems happy enough." 

(Leareth is faintly surprised to notice how much he's enjoying this! It's fascinating, to see his work described from that perspective, and get to see Karal react to it.) 

And they're now at the dining hall. It does indeed have a skylight, or rather some clever arrangement with mirrors that reflects the sunlight at a better angle (most of the year, the sun doesn't get that high in the sky even at noon.) There are long tables against each wall, and a sideboard at one end of the room with a spread of the sort of breakfast foods that can be left out and keep for a while. There are a couple of men at one of the tables having a very intense discussion - one of them is evidently a mage, and mathematical illusion-diagrams are involved. 

Karal stops near the middle of the room to look up at the skylight, trying to see how it works and just enjoying the brightness, but keeps talking. 

"Ah, right, everyone here would have been very carefully chosen and recruited, except for your friends' little girl and me..."  He grins, amused.  "I should meet her and compare notes sometime."

"So what do you do here?  You said you were training in Mindspeech, but what sort of daily work does that mean?"  How this entire place works has to be enormously complicated, but if he starts by finding out more about the nearly randomly chosen thread of Rosta's job and how it interacts with what other people do, and does that again enough times, he should have a picture of this life that makes sense to him.

Rosta laughs. "Oh, I'm not really in training anymore, that was years ago - though I'm still learning, there are lots of opportunities for that here. Leareth has us do a lot of range exercises - apparently in Valdemar it's common for Mindspeakers to have a fifty-mile range, and he thinks that's something more people could get to if they bothered to aim for it. I can do thirty miles now, for directional Mindspeech with another decent-strength Mindspeaker, so I do regular message relays with some of the other facilities, for logistics and things, and on-call for emergency messages..." 

She can happily talk about her duties with Leareth's organization for a few minutes. She's not herself a researcher, but it's common for researchers who don't have Mindspeech themselves to want the boost of sharing thoughts directly, and so she's also been training in the type of concert-work required to hold a link between two or more others who don't have Mindspeech themselves. It's a lot more interesting than the training for range extension, which basically just means a session every two weeks or so spent holding increasingly long-distance links until everyone gives themselves backlash. 

(Leareth does think - remember thinking? odd how he remembers that specific fact - that the Companions are probably part of the answer to why Valdemar has so many long-range Mindspeakers, enough that most of Valdemar's land area is within reach of the Mindspeech relay system. But people do improve with drilling, and it's an incredibly valuable skillset to have around.) 

Karal serves himself a big plate from the side table, impartial between familiar and unfamiliar dishes like a man who mostly thinks of food as fuel, and eats with a soldier's efficiency as he listens to Rosta's stories with obvious interest.

It does seem like an incredibly valuable skillset in a lot of ways, once you have enough Mindspeakers around that you can have them do such a wide variety of things!  He's interested in what all that is like - the mind-link concert-work sounds fascinating, and he starts saying he'd be happy to volunteer to walk thirty or fifty miles into the tundra for range practice, except he immediately realizes they'd just have people Gate for that.  He's never worked closely with mages or other Gifted people - in Karse they're... either priests or, more recently, dead, or in most cases both...  which would definitely add up to a different environment than a Rethwellani university, and he expects it'll take him weeks to stop being surprised by various things getting done with magic here.

(It's clear that he's finding adjusting to a new place like this a really interesting exercise and looking forward to it, and his response whenever he's inevitably wrong about something obvious is amusement rather than embarrassment.)

"I'm sorry - I assume you were doing something when I ran into you, I shouldn't keep you. I imagine I'll see you again later."  ...Well, if he lives - but these are Leareth's people and he trusts him to be able to explain his absence sensibly, without needing to distress this happy friendly woman for the sake of a relatively unlikely possibility.

He could happily get into another conversation or five like this (maybe not with the mage-researchers, he'd like to preserve some math-free times in his schedule), but he knows they have other things to do today - this bit of normal life has been very helpful in getting his mental balance back, but it's been enough for now, if more important things are waiting on his readiness to deal with them.  He'll spend a moment finishing his meal and waiting to see if internal or external hints about the next steps materialize without his involvement.  (He wonders if Nayoki or anyone else has been Mindspeaking Leareth and keeping him unaware of the conversation - it would be a bit surprising given how open Leareth has been with his thoughts lately, but how quiet Leareth has been this morning has also been a bit surprising, so he's not sure.  Maybe Leareth just needed a few minutes of relaxingly unimportant normal life too.)

Honestly, Leareth has mostly been enjoying watching Karal's perspective as he learns about Leareth's organization. (And observing with interest how quickly Rosta relaxed with Karal, even knowing Leareth was right there; it's...hard for him not to be intimidating, he suspects, but apparently Karal is sufficiently the-opposite-of-intimidating that people aren't self-conscious even when he thinks they would be if he were more obviously present.) Also, he - did have the sense that Karal needed this. 

He's pretty sure Nayoki is nearby and was probably waiting for them to finish breakfast before interrupting. They do have other things to do - he wants to get a more thorough briefing from Nayoki on the status of his northern operations, and flesh out his notes on last night's dream, and then probably get a start on reviewing past notes to refresh his memory - but none of that is screamingly urgent, and giving Karal the chance to adjust also seems like a priority. 

...Leareth is curious if Karal has any thoughts on the Foresight dream, actually, though - only if it's a topic Karal is in the mood to think about.

Yes, Leareth is objectively a very intimidating person.  It's a good thing Karal doesn't think he could react that way to someone he's this close to - having someone be anxious about you in your own mind would probably be pretty unpleasant.  For both of them, really.

And the way Rosta was acting makes sense - it'd be different if she was actually scared of Leareth, he's pretty sure, but if it's just a reflexive intimidated reaction, she'd have no reason to try to keep it up when her instinctive mind wasn't doing so because Leareth wasn't visibly there.  (... He's glad she wasn't scared.  He only now realizes how upsetting that would have been.)

He does need to think about Vanyel - in the mood might be overstating it, but it doesn't feel like it'll hurt much, and it's very obvious now how important it is.  No wonder you were worried about that conversation.  It must've taken you so much restraint not to tell me more about what he's really like, when I was imagining something entirely different!  But I'm glad you didn't.  It would've... felt wrong, not to see him for myself first.  Not to feel that visceral shock that turned all his emotions upside-down.  Just a memory and an explanation wouldn't have done that.  But you're right, he's... managing to be kind, and trying to be fair, despite how much he's obviously suffering, and very few people are like that.  And he's talking to you - not just because you're there, but like he really might let it change something.

Yes, Leareth agrees. I think you needed to see it for yourself. ...He was worse off than I expected. He is - always suffering - (and Leareth should really at some point explain more of what he knows about Vanyel's history, it's important and relevant) - but I think he was not so obviously miserable, before the war. An amused mental huff. I would be tempted to write to his King and insist that he be granted leave, if that were not an utterly absurd thing to do under the circumstances. 

Vanyel was the first one to manage lucidity within the Foresight dream; Leareth had been having it too, for months, but it wasn't until Vanyel broke the script and said, "This is dream," that he realized they were both there. (It's not how Foresight dreams usually work. He's nearly certain that this particular Foresight dream is the direct intervention of a god, and its shared nature could well be a separate intervention, in which case he still doesn't grasp the purpose of it - and is instinctively suspicious - but he's not going to ignore the opportunity for that reason alone.) 

Vanyel has always listened to him, and gone and read the books that Leareth recommended, and Leareth is fairly sure that what he's telling himself is that he needs to understand his enemy in order to have a hope of winning, but - at least some of it is that Vanyel, as a person, wants to understand things. 

...Even in the unaltered script of the Foresight vision, the confrontation never played out to its conclusion, but the subtext is obvious, the plot it's leading up to: Vanyel calls down a Final Strike, in hopes of stopping Leareth and delaying his invasion enough for the army to get there. Which doesn't make a huge amount of sense on multiple dimensions, it's deeply unclear what Vanyel is...doing there...by himself, with an army implied to be candlemarks or days but not weeks away? But it might have worked, if Leareth were unwarned, and - Vanyel's life would make sense, if it were about shaping him into a weapon powerful enough to take out unwarned-Leareth, and into someone who would make that sacrifice entirely willingly and perhaps even see it as a relief. 

It absolutely won't work with warning, though. Leaving Leareth unsure what whichever god or gods were involved in setting up Vanyel's current trajectory are aiming for. He doesn't like it. But it's still not a case where aiming that paranoia at Vanyel is going to help. 

You... could end this war, somehow, couldn't you.  It's awful for Vanyel - of course it is, now that Karal puts together all the information he has on what things have been like, how the Butcher in White has to constantly travel and hide to evade attacks and strike from a distance, how much of Karse's effort is directed against him, and how much easier it would be to kill anyone near him than the man himself...  And Leareth has so many resources at his disposal.  There was something in the dream about the war weakening Valdemar for the invasion - but also about Leareth stopping some of his war preparations as a sign of good faith, and it might not be a bad idea to do something more in that direction.  Especially something that would also make Vanyel less awfully miserable and-- not even easier to talk to so much as make it easier for him to think, because he's clearly barely managing right now.  Karal isn't at all sure if it would be a good idea, doesn't know enough of the context and wouldn't trust himself to make this decision anyway, but... it's something that could be done, he thinks - and stops his thoughts there, well enough that only a little confused longing escapes.

The nature of the dream is even more confusing - yes, it makes sense for Vanyel to have it, but no sense at all for Leareth, so why would Someone have made it happen this way?  Karal's instinctive first guess is that one of the gods is on their Leareth's side after all, but Leareth seemed very confident this wasn't true.  Of course Leareth doesn't really remember why...

They really need to read the notes before they can think usefully about any of this.  He wonders how long it's going to take - how much it's even possible to remember from a hundred lifetimes, and how Leareth organizes it all to decide what to re-read every time...  There's some deeply complicated system, no doubt, and he also has no doubt that it works.

It's surprisingly difficult to intervene productively in wars between two other countries, even with a lot of resources, even when it seems like it really shouldn't be that complicated to improve the situation. Leareth...is not actually sure if he's carried out any indirect interventions in Valdemar's favor – he does anticipate that in terms of what benefits his own future plans, he wants Valdemar to win this war, and not lose any territory to Karse.

(It would also make things awkward if they took territory from Karse; his exact memories here are hazy as well, but the Valdemaran people are - surprisingly disinclined to worship gods in general, and have a surprisingly strong following of Astera of the Stars, who is non-interventionist to a degree that it's not absolutely clear to Leareth whether She exists. Leareth actually uses the temple order to Astera for various covert recordkeeping and message-relaying. He would be more inclined to think this indicated a friendly god if Astera had ever visibly done anything; as it is, it's not really informative one way or another. ...Anyway, Valdemar is probably disinclined to annex any Karsite territory even if they ended up in a position to do so, so that's not likely to come up.) 

...They really do need to read the notes and get caught up. And - probably Karal needs to get an explanation of the full plan, in order for the rest to make sense. Leareth is noticing that he feels a lot of reticence, and he suspects it's because his considerations on telling Vanyel have involved over a decade of ground-laying first. But it's - not really a comparable situation, and it seems like Karal being able to see all of Leareth's reasoning up close (and not being worried that Leareth might be lying about everything for arcane reasons of his own, which Vanyel is definitely worried about) might make it a lot easier. 

(It should be easier than in most wars, he thinks, because most of Karse doesn't want to be doing what it's doing, people resent the coup and are terrified of the priests and if all that collapsed he thinks they would stop... Or maybe they wouldn't and he's only letting himself assume the best of everyone, or Leareth is right that there are more complications regardless.  He probably is.  Karal just wants so badly for his country to be better than this.)

... Could Leareth be lying to him about everything for arcane reasons?  It doesn't feel at all like he is or like he's the sort of person who would, but he can do a rather incredible number of things, and when Karal thinks about it it doesn't seem entirely out of the question that he could do that too. 

He sends a note of apology - he's not really being mistrustful here, he's just... trying to be Leareth, a little?  If there's an important question, even a confusing and unlikely one, it seems good to spend a moment seriously considering it.  And if someone else ever asks him this, he'd like to have an answer and not just a feeling. 

So, what answers does he have?  Well, first, Karal doesn't see what it would gain him - it's not as if Leareth is getting much tangible help out of this arrangement, only Karal's view of things, which he expects would be much less useful if he was being lied to about everything.  Second, it does genuinely seem incredibly difficult, to look like you're holding your thoughts this open and still be consistently hiding something important.  Karal expects he'd notice something off, the mind's pattern being pulled out of balance by a weight that wasn't supposed to be there.  Leareth makes sense as a person, in his strange and complicated way, and Karal can't imagine someone who could pretend to be Leareth while in fact being someone else, or why they would not choose to pretend something easier.

Is there anything else he can do about this?  Hmm.  He has Empathy, and he doesn't know if he can turn it around on himself and see anything about Leareth that way, but he can try, and does, slowly and carefully.  It will be fascinating if it works - the question that prompted this aside, he's so curious about what an Empathy-feeling of Leareth's mind would be like.

He can totally do that! (With some effort and trying-different-mental-motions before it clicks; it's clearly not the most automatic or natural use of the Gift, and feels a little like trying to force his eyes to focus on his own nose rather than something at a more reasonable distance.) 

It's maybe not as informative as he would have hoped, though it does add to what he's getting just from Leareth holding his thoughts open; Leareth mostly seems to have quite muted affect, his emotions quiet and relatively "in the background." He's currently feeling faintly surprised and amused, and impressed - based on his thoughts, probably in reaction to Karal both thinking to try this and succeeding at it, though maybe some if it is lingering from "he's not really being mistrustful here, he's just trying to be Leareth". Leareth's mood feels generally fairly relaxed, not so much "unhurried" as "secure, and comfortable in it". There's a sense of distance from all of his emotions, as though he's not really quite taking and experiencing them at face value. 

...There's also a pervasive emotion throughout all of it, not flickering or changing like the more moment-to-moment reactions, and surprisingly hard to categorize. Determination, maybe, but it doesn't feel entirely captured by that. It has some of the flavor of impatience or dissatisfaction, but it's not unpleasant, or accompanied by any urgent need to resolve or escape it; there's an immovable-bedrock stability to it. 'A sense of driving purpose' might be the clearest description of it in words, though that doesn't quite capture it either. 

Karal is distracted enough, first by the tricky Empathy problem - it's not a physical exercise, but it almost feels like one, there's a tangible motion there and it's interesting to try to get it right and eventually feel it succeed - and then by the new view of Leareth's mind, that for a long moment he entirely forgets about the original question he wanted to answer.  He just watches with warm fascination - the calm and fluid surface emotions, like waves on the water on a pleasant day, and the stability underneath, different from the way other people are stable - more deliberate, more directed, not just Leareth's underlying nature as a person, but his goal and the way he's shaped himself to achieve it.  It's all lovely to watch, especially when he has the view of Leareth's thoughts as well, as if seeing underwater as well as above it, both the underlying detail and the blended flow.  And he can see how his own thoughts make the waves shift a little - which he knew, of course, their thoughts and mental emotions go back and forth like this all the time, but the Empathy view is something else.  He wants to watch like this all the time.

Can he look at himself like this, so Leareth can see too?  Oh, that's an even harder problem, he has to stop eating and focus on trying to-- not just twist the Gift around in a way it doesn't naturally go, but turn it inside-out entirely...  He thinks he could do it, with enough time, but it's complicated and keeps eluding him, like a new move with the sword that he can instinctively feel the mechanics of but can't guide his body through yet.  He wants to sit here and keep trying, but they did have other things to do...

... Such as, for example, the question he was trying to answer in the first place.  He stops trying to turn things inside-out and goes back to just watching Leareth, looking for discrepancies between what he's thinking and feeling.  Isn't at all surprised not to find any.  Mmm. You know, I'm not sure it would even show up in your emotions, if you were lying to me about everything and confident enough of not letting it show. Which is so very like you.  There's a warm smile in his mental tone as well as on his face, but he is, also, still watching, to see if Leareth thinking about that will show him something more.  It seems like there should be a way to - combine the two views, see both down through the calm surface of Leareth's mind and up from the independent viewpoint inside it in a way that makes it obvious that nothing is occluded.  He's not sure that's a real thing, but it feels like it should be, and it's such a natural goal for his mind to strive for that it barely feels like effort.  He can spend a little while trying, not at all forcefully even within himself, just letting his instincts shift between different angles to see if one of them makes everything go clear.

(None of this feels like adversarial action.  He really doesn't think Leareth is being anything but honest with him, he'd just like it if he could have clear proof, and he thinks Leareth wants him to have it, if he can figure out how.  Although of course if Leareth started thinking of it as adversarial, Karal would probably notice, and Leareth knows that... It's a very strange loop to be in, but as long as neither of them breaks it, it doesn't feel wrong.)

It's not adversarial, and that part does feel important. Leareth isn't sure he could do this at all if he didn't both trust that Karal wasn't going to try to hurt him, and - separately, it's not the more salient half now but he thinks it's important - believe with reasonable confidence that Karal couldn't hurt him even if he wanted to. And they're in a location where he feels in control - that's also important, Leareth thinks he would still endorse trusting Karal with this even if they were somewhere less safe, but he's not sure he could manage to be this open for it. He's...very paranoid, he suspects both by nature and by deeply-engrained habit, though maybe 'nature' in this case is also just the part of the deeply-engrained habit that goes back further than his records do. 

But it feels - not fundamental? Leareth would prefer a world where a person like himself was being unreasonably paranoid and careful, under circumstances where it couldn't possibly be justified. He wants to build that world, someday. And - here, now, he thinks it's not justified. And apparently can believe that on a deep enough level to feel it - which is almost more impressive, and probably relies a lot on Karal being...himself. 

Karal was trying to answer a question, right. Leareth isn't quite putting together what he means by combining the two views, but he - does feel like there's a sense in which he's a self-consistent person (he's worked very hard on this), and the self-consistent person he is, is moderately against lying in general and - since deception for tactical reasons is pretty much unavoidable in an adversarial world - particularly against lying and trying to conceal that fact, against scenarios where someone would consider deception a betrayal rather than an obvious and unsurprising thing for someone to do given their goals. He can try to unpack the reasoning behind that intuition, if it helps, though he thinks it's not an intuition that he got originally by reasoning it through, it's - a way that it felt right to be a person, that he spent a long time trying to understand and reconcile so he could, as much as possible, live that way in all the messiness and danger of reality. 

Karal is not really sure what specific thing Leareth would worry about even if he didn't trust him!  (If there is a way to hurt people with Empathy, he has not discovered or even considered it.)  If he found something he really wasn't expecting, he'd... mostly just want to have a conversation about it, and depending on the outcome of that conversation he might possibly decide he didn't want to live - but not more than that, when none of his commitments relied on Leareth promising to tell him the truth.  But of course having an instinctive resistance to this much vulnerability makes sense - although it hurts, that Leareth is someone who would want to be more open and lives in a world where he can't.  ...Perhaps he really can build a better one, someday.  (Long after Karal is dead from old age if nothing else, is the expectation implicit in the thought.)

It also makes sense that the thing Karal is trying to do isn't clear to Leareth - it isn't clear to Karal either, just a half-captured idea put together by instinct, and no doubt with no relationship at all to normal Empathy training.  But it's not the reasoning he wants, it's the-- yes, the feeling-right, just like that-- for a brief flash the emotion-surface of Leareth's mind goes something like transparent, and it's absolutely clear how his thoughts and the sense of him as a person match perfectly and there's nothing hidden or missing or wrong.

Of course there wasn't.  Karal isn't sure if he could have done - that, whatever it was - with anyone less self-consistent, let alone anyone who wasn't trying this hard to cooperate, and he is so glad that Leareth is the sort of person he could manage it with.  Thank you.  And - I feel like I should apologize for trying in the first place, except I could see you didn't mind, and you could see I didn't mean you harm.  Having his own mind visible continues to be wonderful.  At the moment it's full of appreciation for Leareth being the way he is.  The specific objection to betrayal rather than just deception is exactly right, and... it's good to know that not all of him is reasoning and math, that some of his principles are like Karal's own, things that felt right long before he could explain why, and that principles like that could survive the process of shaping himself for what needed to be done.

Also, Karal has a headache now - he's not sure whether from Gift overuse or just from doing deeply convoluted things with it.  Probably best to let go of the Empathy for now, in any case.

(Leareth doesn't have any specific threat model for how a version of Karal who wanted to hurt him could do that! It's just that "not being able to think of a way something could go wrong" is - really not protective enough against things going wrong, and if he didn't trust Karal there would have been vastly less reason to take that unknown-unknown risk.) 

He's glad Karal could check what he felt he needed to. And, yes, it's easier to strain a Gift if you're trying to trying to do something convoluted with it and now is probably a good time to stop. ...And for Leareth to take over and go speak to Nayoki, if that's all right with Karal? 

(That's not at all how Karal is used to thinking, but it makes sense.)

There was something else he meant to think about - ah, what prompted him to go on the entire experimental Empathy detour was Leareth feeling worried about explaining The Plan to him.  He wonders quietly if the new certainty of his trust helps, and if there's anything else he can do to help - but they can think about that once more urgent tasks are done with.

And yes, of course.  He completes the mental handshake of voluntarily giving up control, and then watches to see how quickly the various people in the room notice.

It would probably be pretty easy for them to notice if they were paying attention, since Leareth gets up immediately to put their empty breakfast plate away on the cart where dirty plates apparently go; he probably has noticeably different body language from Karal even if all he's doing is sitting and eating, but he definitely moves differently.

Rosta seems to have left while they were distracted, though, and the two mage-researchers having a math conversation are very immersed in it. One of them, the one not currently occupied in updating an illusion-diagram and with his back to them, does glance up on Leareth's return pass from the dish-cart, but whether he recognizes that it's Leareth in control or not, he doesn't seem to consider this to justify more than brief eye contact and a nod. 

...Leareth is running into the fact that he would normally have an instinctive habit of reaching out with Mindspeech to check what Nayoki is up to, and - cannot do that. He wonders if there's a way to do it with Empathy - there must be a way to at least check where she is if she's in range of Karal's Gift, which probably covers the entire facility except for the individually-shielded rooms, and he actually wouldn't be surprised if one can figure out a way to selectively project to someone, which wouldn't be as informative as Mindspeech but you could agree on some kind of signal for 'I'm available to meet now'... 

That's probably a yes - Karal is a complete stranger to the man, he'd warrant either less or more of a reaction, not something this absent-mindedly habitual.  But clearly Karal will have to observe more people reacting to both of them later to fully satisfy his curiosity.  Well, it's not as if he was going to stop paying attention to how everyone looks at them.

Hmm, can he find Nayoki?  He remembers her very well, for all that it was a brief meeting - partially for herself, and she's a very singular person, but mostly for how she reacted to Leareth and how Leareth in turn thought about her.  (Another task using the new Gift he enjoys so much, and the thought of another person he already likes, make him forget about his headache entirely.)  He can... reach out and see if he can find and recognize her?  She's warm and cheerful, almost oddly light for this place; she's obviously in command here and that should be a clear enough feature of a mind, although with some added confusion now that Leareth is back but not fully briefed to take over yet; she's no doubt wondering where Leareth is and how he's doing in the morning - unsatisfied curiosity and likely some loyalty-tinged worry as well... Can he find a mind like that?  Is there only one?  Where?  Assuming she's awake at all, and unshielded, none of which his has any idea about, but it's still worth trying.

He doesn't know her well enough to simply pick her out from all the other minds without thinking - he's pretty sure there is a way to do that, if you're familiar enough with someone, the way you hear your own name in a crowd without paying attention to all the other words (he thinks he could find Leareth instantly anywhere he could reach him, and he could have found Kadrich as well, but neither of those will ever come up...), but he doesn't know Nayoki well yet, so the process has to involve actually spending a moment looking at every mind he can reach in turn.  Which he will quite happily do even if he can identify none of them except Rosta - he can see where she's gone to and how she's feeling, maybe look for the little girl she mentioned, count everyone else and get a general impression of what they're doing, maybe see if the mage-researcher who just looked at them had enough of a reaction to their presence for it to be identifiable or if he's already lost in the confusing diagram together with his companion...  His headache gets slightly worse - only slightly, but enough to remind him that he should perhaps focus rather than trying to do everything at once.

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.)

...It's a little complicated how far he trusts Karal, Leareth thinks, but - not that much? Less complicated than he has realized before he had a reason to think about it so explicitly. 

It feels related to what Karal just thought, that -

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.)

- (which, incidentally, feels oddly familiar to Leareth as a frame, he's not sure he thinks it's the ideal kind of culture but it's - one he knows how to live in) - anyway, it feels like it helped him pin down something about Karal he had already formed intuitions about. It does matter that Karal hasn't decided - can't decide, yet, until he has full information - whether he's on board with Leareth's life and Leareth's goals, and until then Leareth can't reasonably consider him an ally. But he does, actually, trust Karal's intention not to try to hurt him, and would trust his oath somewhat further than that, if he's comfortable giving it. He trusts that if Karal were to change his mind - or, maybe it's more fair to say, make up his mind in the first place and land on the side of "opposed to Leareth's work" - that this wouldn't come in the form of a surprise betrayal. 

(- a pang of grief-bitterness-frustration-loneliness, surprisingly intense - Leareth nudges it aside, not now -) 

...anyway, even if Karal could expect to hide his thoughts from Leareth, Leareth - trusts that he wouldn't, that Karal would make sure it was clearly stated and conveyed between them that he was withdrawing his agreement to cooperate. And also Leareth can read his thoughts and does expect he could intercept any attempt at sabotage - which probably matters, in terms of how secure Leareth feels in making decisions based on even a very confident character assessment of Karal, rather than defaulting to the highest level of caution because that's the safest policy to be following. Given that, it seems solidly neutral-to-better for him to have Karal armed (even if there were a realistic route for Karal to commit sneaky sabotage with a sword, which there isn't really when they're about to Gate to a library and then sit there and read. Nayoki - and most of the other people here - are going to be wearing shield-talismans and are impractical to injure with edged weapons.) 

(Leareth doesn't really like the uncertainty, looks forward to it being resolved, and definitely hopes it resolves in the direction where they can be allies. He's deliberately not focusing on that, though, it seems - unfair to Karal, to let his own feelings about it leak too much and risk putting emotional pressure on Karal to come to a particular conclusion because doing otherwise would make Leareth sad.) 

Leareth is entirely right in what he thinks Karal would and wouldn't do.  And Karal could, of course, simply be a man who Leareth can trust with a sword because there's little harm to be done with it, but he would much rather be more than that, to the extent he can.  And... it's good, to know his oath will mean something here.

I swear - it would usually be in the Sunlord's name, but he doesn't mean it any less without it - that I will not betray you, or act against you, or hide my intentions from you, with no condition except that you let me die if I ask. 

It settles on his thoughts - Nayoki would be able to see it more clearly than Leareth, perhaps - not quite like a compulsion, but almost halfway to one.  He swore he wouldn't, so he will not - it's outside of the range of thinkable actions now, on the instinctive level where most of his decisions are, and it doesn't look like anything could change that.  (He doesn't have the habit of wording his intentions very precisely, and he likely failed somewhere, but the underlying commitment is to being trustworthy rather than to the specific words - if there are loopholes in what he said, he doesn't intend them and will not use them).

Some things would be harder to promise, wouldn't settle so easily down to the subconscious parts of his mind, but this one isn't hard at all. 

He sends a tentative smile, and a feeling of being more settled in their mutual trust.  He's glad they had the conversation that led here.

And for the other decision, he sees around the edges of Leareth's thoughts that they're... thinking about it somewhat differently, maybe?  He's not sure.  It's not impossible he'll decide to die rather than cooperate at all, but he knows Leareth well enough that it seems very unlikely - the main question, in his mind, is whether he'll stay like he is now, an honor-bound prisoner inclined to help but sworn only not to interfere, or whether he'll decide he wants to bind himself to more than that.  They've been in the first option so far, and that has... been all right, he thinks, and he hopes Leareth doesn't think staying like this is something to worry about.

Leareth is also glad they had that conversation! It was clarifying, and incidentally means that less of his thoughts are being vaguely sad, which he knows Karal doesn't mind but it didn't feel productive to him. It's...probably going to keep being the case for a while that it feels like they're belatedly having important conversations that should have happened earlier, but realistically couldn't have because there just aren't that many candlemarks in a day and there are a huge number of important conversations to have. 

(Leareth hasn't been actively worried about Karal's - wellbeing or comfort feels incomplete, but something including that - in their current equilibrium, and he's glad to have it more explicit that Karal thinks this is all right. For his own part, Leareth isn't sure it would feel entirely stable as a long-term destination, but - hmm, it's hard enough to unpack why, even to himself, that probably they should just go read some records. Leareth is vaguely hoping he can consult notes on the lifetimes where he shared his body, to see more of how that ends up looking - or at least one way it could end up looking - weeks or months down the line.) 

They can go meet Nayoki for the Gate. 

If Nayoki notices a difference in Karal's mind after giving his oath, she doesn't say anything about it, but she does smile at him with particular warmth. (She's been trying to figure out how to convey in body language that she's addressing words or expressions to Karal versus Leareth, though she isn't sure how clear it will be.) 

She's not as fast and smooth at Gates as Leareth, but she's clearly very very good. 

And the library on the other end of the Gate is - not just incredibly magical everywhere, or full of a spectacular number of well-organized books, it's also nice, in a way that nothing else Karal has seen so far really is. There are permanent mage-lights that are also made in attractive crystal designs, and the bookcases are polished hardwood with some amount of decorative carving, and there are thick rugs and upholstered chairs and finely-made desks and tables for reading.

Leareth's last train of thought amuses Karal - I can't remember the last time someone's been this worried about my comfort! - but yes, they should go read some records.

(He does notice Nayoki smiling at him, although he's not sure how much it's the body language and how much it's just that he thinks she wouldn't look at Leareth with that particular expression.)

That is a lovely library.  He doesn't care for himself, but he's glad Leareth and his people get to have things like this, at least sometimes. 

The magic, too, is lovely - they can settle at a convenient desk, and he'll happily watch the spells and try to make guesses about what they're doing while he waits for what happens next.  (Reading, presumably.  He wonders if it's all going to be in code.)

Nayoki seems to have thoughts on what they should read first; she heads immediately for one of the shelves, this particular one behind a magically-locked door that Nayoki is apparently keyed to, since she opens it without Leareth's help. “I am thinking you start with the high-level summary of your work as Altarrin - that was your last lifetime in the Eastern Empire, there are very good records of it and the summary includes earlier context - and then the notes from early in your next life on why you decided not to return. And then I think from there you can jump to the later notes on - what you decided you needed to do instead." 

She sifts through a shelf, pulls out and hands them a fairly thin leatherbound volume, and then nudges them toward a chair. "I will go make tea." 

Leareth spends a moment trying and utterly failing to remember anything from the name "Altarrin" and the knowledge that it was the last lifetime he spent in the Eastern Empire. He...remembers facts about the Empire, apparently, and expects he could retrieve a lot more of them if prompted with the right questions, but apparently all direct recollections of his personal life - lives - there are gone. 

(Facts that come easily to mind: it's east of Hardorn. He's not sure how far east, the borders have expanded - and occasionally, but more rarely, contracted again - over the nearly 1700 years of its existence. Leareth founded it, not in the sense that he was the only person involved, nowhere near that, but in the sense that he's pretty sure it wouldn't exist without the impetus he provided. It's wealthy and full of magic, one of the few places in the world that equals and in some ways exceeds the state-of-the-art from before the Cataclysm, and...nonetheless not a nice place, in many ways. It bans all worship of the gods. Anyone powerful or important or Gifted - or who happens to live or work near such people - is under compulsions to serve the Emperor. It's impressively stable given the inevitable political infighting, and - hardly anybody there is free.) 

Without forcing it, Leareth makes a gentle bid to take over the body and start reading. 

(The book isn't in cipher, but it is in the Imperial language, as it was spoken and written 1100 years ago - it must have never seemed worth translating his older notes. Karal presumably won't be able to read it. Leareth does intend to read more slowly than he otherwise might and take care to make his thoughts fully open to Karal, since the whole point of this is to give Karal background as much as for Leareth himself to jog his memory.) 

Karal is aware that the Eastern Empire... exists... and is somewhere in the east, although now that he thinks about it it seems an odd name for a place.  It's not right east of Hardorn, he knows that much, but probably past one of the countries in that direction.

Under compulsion to-- Karal barely knows what a compulsion is, but the name and mental context is clear enough, and he hates the thought of it.  It sounds like an awful place, at least for anyone who's trying to do anything.  But it's clear that Leareth meant to make something good there, and they should read about it so Karal can see how. 

He gives up the body to Leareth, and tries to distract himself from the still slightly dizzying experience of reading text he cannot in fact read.  (He considers whether he should be trying learn some of these languages, but there's probably dozens of them...)  But he's looking forward to finding out what it was like to live in such a completely different place, and what Leareth was like when he was... someone else, in a sense... and so long ago.

Some very quick initial background: Altarrin was the third son of the Duke of Kavar, and like most nobleborn children in the Empire at that time, was sent to court to be educated (and to be a hostage to ensure his family's good behavior). He wasn't Leareth, yet, when he left his parents' home at nine or ten and was placed under the standard court compulsions. By the time he saw them again, he was. He was generally recognized by his teachers as very intelligent as well as hardworking, and he was also a mage, Adept-strength; this was far less of a lucky strike of fate in the Empire, where approximately all noble families had the Gift in their blood. He graduated from the Hall of Learning, passed the civil service examination with the highest possible marks, and embarked on a long and fruitful career, first as a military officer - nearly a requirement for the positions of power he would need to nudge the Empire's policies in his preferred direction, but he was also genuinely very good at it - and later at court. He attained the title of Archmage-General before he was fifty - young by the standards of the Empire, where life-extending magic was universal among the powerful - and served the Empire for a number of decades after that. 

(From Leareth's perspective, looking back and still not actually remembering any of this firsthand, it's - not clear to him to what extent Altarrin at any point had a choice? By the time Leareth - not-yet-Leareth - woke up in a teenager's body, he would already have been under the standard court compulsions. It would have been very difficult to leave. It - might not have been fully possible to think about leaving.) 

What a place, to take people and just... use them like this, even in its highest positions, give them all this power but somehow still no meaningful choice.  (He can see why, when he thinks of it like that, because he knows what other things people will do with power, but... it's still wrong, to take away all their choices in order to remove the wrong ones, and besides it's not clear it even worked for that.)  The parents were under the same compulsions and he assumes couldn't think about not sending their children to court either.  How far back?  Who started this?  Probably Leareth doesn't know and neither does this book they're reading, it's just hard not to wonder.

And... it seems dangerous, for Leareth to be trapped in a place like that.  He worries about whether sharing with Karal will change him too much - would living his whole life under this sort of all-encompassing compulsion not be worse?  It doesn't seem to have been a disaster, and in any case Leareth didn't have a choice about it (Karal doesn't know the details of how his reincarnation works, but he thinks if choice was involved he would have noticed), but it's still a worrying thing to have happened. 

Going by the existence of these notes, Altarrin did leave something for his next self instead of sacrificing all his supplies and knowledge to the empire, but how did he manage even that?  Did he just assume, being himself unable to think of doing anything else, that his next incarnation would come back to serve the empire the same way?  ...How many times did Leareth come back to the empire when he wasn't born didn't take over a body already trapped there?  He did found it, and it makes sense for him to have wanted to come back to his project, but...  Karal doesn't like any of this.

Well, they're reading these notes, so they can see something of the results.  What was Altarrin trying to accomplish, with the Empire's policy decisions or anything else in his life?  Did it work?  Seen from the outside, does it seem like something Leareth would be doing?

There are snippets of context on the Empire's history covered in the notes, though it's not really meant as a history primer, and it's also prompting Leareth's memory. The system of compulsions doesn't date back to the founding of the Empire under the First Emperor; originally, compulsions were only used as an alternative to execution for serious crimes. The expansion to "everyone important" happened later, after the First Emperor and his top advisors, including Arvad - who was one of Leareth's lives - were messily murdered, as part of a plot by followers of Atet, one of the gods worshipped in the region near the tiny initial core of the Empire, and the Empire collapsed into civil war until the Second Emperor - the next of Leareth's incarnations - took power. And started considering options to make it at least harder for assassination plots to reach the core government of the Empire. ...And then, of course, the system became a self-reinforcing one, and in the periods between when he was alive and in a position of significant power, it had a definite tendency to start degrading into worse, more pointlessly exploitative versions of what Leareth had initially built.  

Which...does feel predictable now, but Leareth genuinely isn't sure how predictable it was without the benefit of hindsight, or the deeper understanding of governments and politics that he's built gradually over centuries? And - certainly at the start, less than two hundred years after the Cataclysm, he must have been mostly caught up in desperation. People were starving, Changecreatures were at large even well outside the Pelagirs per se, bandits were roaming unchecked, and the survival of civilization must have felt so, so tenuous. 

He must have chosen to come back a number of times when not strictly bound to it; his immediate previous incarnation, for example, was an immigrant born outside the Empire entirely, and it's not in these particular notes but it seems plausible on other occasions he came back in the body of a common-born youngster whose mage-gift had yet to be identified. It's still a minority of the Empire's population under compulsions, and a much smaller minority of twelve to fourteen year olds; it's just that to do anything interesting - and, for a long time, he thinks the Empire was the best place on the continent for that - you need to be near the centers of power, and being trusted with power is something the Empire runs entirely on mind control. 

Altarrin does not seem to have been impaired in keeping his records updated, or even in sometimes Gating off to do personal errands outside the Empire entirely. He was bound by compulsions to obey direct orders from the Emperor, but it seems like most of the day-to-day work, once he was in a senior position, involved operating with quite a lot of autonomy; he couldn't do anything to sabotage the Empire, but he doubts he wanted to, and the compulsions allowed him to have personal goals that weren't about obeying orders. Also, it was one of the eras when "serve the Empire" was ranked above "serve the Emperor", and Leareth suspects that - given how he conceptualized the Empire as his own creation, and as a vision he had yet to achieve fully - he could eke quite a lot of flexibility out of that, and justify maintaining his records and resource base as obviously in the interests of the true spirit of the Empire. 

- anyway, in broad strokes, Altarrin spent his career accumulating political favors and then using them to root out corruption and nudge the Empire's laws and institutions toward the more functional and human-welfare-improving state that he wanted. And, of course, holding off the inevitable external and internal threats to the Empire, many of which he diagnosed as directly god-related plots. (The northwestern-most province of the Empire was nudging up against Iftel, by then, and despite its relatively low population - it was cold and arid with poor farmland and a short growing season, and had been annexed mainly for mining - Isk was the ultimate source of a truly excessive amount of sabotage. The Empire's southern border also expanded on Altarrin's watch, annexing the country formerly known as Oris and, thus, involuntarily adding a population base who - understandably - had some strong resentment against the Empire.) 

Mostly it seems like grinding, unrewarding work, and even the tersely summarized notes, written near the end of Altarrin's life, are permeated with a feeling of weariness. At least according to Leareth's sense of it now, Altarrin seems to have focused his attention on broadly reasonable things – maybe with the exception of his military work on expanding the Empire, which Leareth has at best very mixed feelings about, particularly Altarrin successfully crushing a particular thorny rebellion in newly-annexed Oris that happened at the same time as a couple of very poorly timed rebellions by Imperial generals in long-established provinces. But a personal history of glorious military victories was clearly one of the currencies of influence that Altarrin used to root out the inevitable abuses of power that had crept up since the last time he had enough sway to do anything about them.

Outside of his official duties, Altarrin invested quite a lot of time and attention in finding and mentoring particularly promising young people – especially people who genuinely cared about and believed in the ideals of the Empire, but who lacked the political savviness to survive in the Imperial court. There are dozens of names mentioned, often with real fondness leaking through.

(Leareth doesn't remember any of them)

Altarrin's largest success, at least according to his own summary, was in cultivating, successfully appointing, and mentoring his chosen candidate for Emperor, Bastran IV. Someone who, against the odds, genuinely and deeply cared about doing right by the people of the Empire. ...And was still constrained, by the Empire's laws and culture and the other power bases he needed to placate, by the weight and momentum of six hundred years of history, but he does, in fact, seem to have worked with selfless dedication toward the welfare of his citizens for his entire life. 

(Bastran, too, would have been under compulsions since childhood. As Emperor, he was under only a single and quite flexible compulsion, to loyally serve the good of the Empire.) 

(There's a short addendum to the notes, presumably added later, because it states that Altarrin died at the hand of rebels on the western border - followers of Anathei, this time, though internal politics of the Empire played a part in why he was there - several decades after the pacification of the rebellion in Oris. There was nothing particularly unique or brilliant about the plot, Altarrin had survived dozens if not hundreds of attempts on his life, but he had rolled the dice over and over for his entire life, and eventually he wasn't careful enough. 

A handful of years later, Bastran IV was found dead by poison in his own quarters. The assassin, if there was one, was never identified. The addendum to the notes states, without any further explanation, that Altarrin wouldn't be shocked if his death had been a suicide, though he would have expected the compulsion of service to at least make suicide difficult to consider.) 

Ah.  God, yes, of course you would build a system that trapped and used up its best people if that was the only way you saw for anyone and anything to survive.  But the later expansion seems just clearly wrong - it doesn't sound like the people of Oris or Isk were at such great risk of starvation or bandits or Changecreatures that it made sense to fight them about it.  (The war in Oris reminds him of his own war, in the horrible pointlessness of it.  One of those things that seems like it could have simply not happened - but Leareth is right, that there's always some horrible complicated reason why these things happen and it's hard to make them stop.)  It's not clear if Altarrin agreed, or was even capable of agreeing, but he clearly thought it was worth it to for the influence and the chance to make his empire better, and... none of it really worked.  (And so many good people lost to it in the meantime.  He sees Altarrin's fondness for his promising young people and his emperor, and grieves for them.)  Or, it did work, briefly, but-- he doesn't know how much of this he's seeing in Altarrin's notes, and how much in Leareth's broader view of what happened before and after, but... 

If the gods are as you think they are, it... sounds like nearly a trap for you personally, this place.  To keep you spending centuries trying to fix it, while it got worse again the moment you weren't there, so you couldn't make real progress there and couldn't focus on anything else.

...Yes, that seems - not false. 

With the addition that Leareth thinks it was a trap for a lot more people than just him. For so long, the Empire was the top center of trade and scholarship left on the continent, at least east of the mountains blocking off the Haighlei Empire. (Which Karal may not have heard of at all, their only real contact with the rest of the continent is by sea trade with the southern coastal countries like Acabarrin and Velvar. They have... different problems from the Empire, but he wouldn't say it's a good place to live.) Anyway. The Empire was, might still be, a highly efficient mechanism for snatching up everyone born there with talent and ambition - and plenty of people not born there but seeking better opportunities - and turning their efforts toward strengthening and reinforcing that self-perpetuating system, rather than toward anything new. 

He doesn't think the expansions into Oris or Isk were justified on world-improving grounds, no. The Empire was very good at claiming, and half-convincing many of its best people, that its conquests were for genuine humanitarian reasons - that everywhere else in the world was poor and stagnant, kept that way by hostile gods, and that people deserved better, that spreading the (admittedly excellent) infrastructure and education system of the Empire would improve their children's lives. But Oris was doing fine by itself, and its people clearly didn't want or choose to trade their freedom and their right to worship their ancestral gods for better aqueducts and permanent Gates. Separately, there were arguments that it was a threat to the Empire's borders and stability, but even that wasn't, really, enough reason for a war. Leareth suspects the real reason is just, simply, that it served various political interests. 

...Isk, he thinks, genuinely had abysmal quality of life for the (relatively few) people living there, but it's not clear how much the Empire was even able to improve on that, given all the problems, and again it feels obvious that the real reason was the Empire's hunger for land and resources and the exchange of political favors. 

It didn't work. But - it didn't entirely not work, either - 

(- for the first time, a flicker of something closer to a real memory - still hazy and impersonal, but there's a flicker of the great shining canal-Gates, permanent thresholds with a power supply far beyond what any single mage could wield, glowing vibrantly to mage-sight, a hundred tons of grain and other goods sliding through on a barge and instantly two hundred miles away, somewhere that needed them - the Empire more or less didn't have famines, at least not before Leareth moved on and the Empire almost certainly slipped into new depths of corruption, because it was so easy to send food from one place to another, it didn't call for unusual heroism or altruism or brilliant problem-solving on the part of anyone for it to happen -) 

- it was a trap, and he's glad to be free of it. But there's a reason why it was a trap that held him for six hundred years. Even a thousand years later, nowhere else in the continent, maybe nowhere else in the whole world, has canal-Gates. And Leareth does, actually, miss living somewhere where mundane petty problems like a failed harvest were so simple to solve. 

Leareth is curious to find out what his next incarnation wrote about deciding not to return to the Empire, what his diagnosis was of it at the time, but - in a moment, he's going to finish absorbing this first.