Well, contrived scenarios are a thing that apparently happens to Leareth with some frequency.  Which is not a happy thought, but Karal is entirely in agreement about wanting to have as many tools as possible to deal with that.

"Had a fight for control of the body - on my side that involves pushing it to move even if I'm not intending it or really thinking about it.  Which doesn't let me do a whole lot of things and I don't think I can extend it very far, but it's something."  He shrugs, still a little pleased.

"Also why weren't you reading my thoughts? You should do that more often."

Nayoki laughs. "I suppose I should! I am just not in the habit of doing it with Leareth without a good reason, I think." 

...Leareth is now vaguely wondering if it would be possible to learn to shield only himself against Thoughtsensing. Obviously if they're leaving the facility they'll want to back that up with a shield-talisman, which would cover both of them, and Leareth suspects he's always going to feel more relaxed when he's shielded even if there's no specific reason for it. But while they're in a secure location and among trusted allies, there's no reason Karal has to be. 

It would be a lot easier to figure out how to do this if they had a Thoughtsensing Gift themselves, but Leareth is still going to start half-involuntarily poking at the problem. 

Oh, what a good idea.  And not unrelated to their current project of figuring out what things and in what ways can apply to just one of them instead of both, really.

Although for this experiment it might be useful if you let her read us both?  I bet there are useful things she could see.

Does Leareth want to keep going with compulsion experiments, or poke at the shielding question for a while?  Either seems a good thing.

They should do some more compulsion-experiments while they have Nayoki here, probably. And, sure, Leareth will unshield entirely for now. You are welcome to remind me in future if you notice I am shielding out of habit and think it might be valuable for some reason if someone were able to read our thoughts, he tells Karal. 

They can try the same compulsion the other way around, with Karal initially in control of the body! Leareth is also not able to brute-force it, but again, Nayoki can see that the compulsion's block on their mind isn't completely thorough. Leareth doesn't get anywhere with Karal's specific method - probably because nothing he does with the body is more instinctive than stillness, at this point - but he's eventually able to find an odd, twisty state of mind where he's not thinking of it as directly 'trying to move', and not exactly 'fighting Karal for control' either, but as something more like 'puppeting the body, which is Karal's'. It's limited in almost the opposite ways that Karal's trick was - he can move in most ways, but only quite clumsily, in order to maintain the right state of mind he has to think of everything on the level of 'tensing this particular muscle' rather than 'trying to reach for something.' 

The 'awkwardly puppeting the body, which is Karal's' process, even more than the first compulsion Leareth put on him (the later ones turned out much easier to deal with, being for a purpose and therefore giving him a thing to do), is something Karal would have found borderline unbearable before he decided to be Leareth's, but can relax into now that he is.  (Although just physically being that awkward is still a bizarre and uncomfortable feeling.)  It does make sense that it'd work, and it seems very useful.  He's glad they're doing this.  It's making Leareth safer, which is reason enough - but more than that, it's something that wouldn't be possible (he thinks) if he was dead.  It's making it tangibly true that his existence is useful for something - yes, he knows, it's very probably useful for a lot more things, and things that are more likely to come up, but this is more direct and incontrovertible than all the questions of different viewpoints and social skills and ability to relax.  He likes it.

Are there any other things people do with magic that might have unusual results on someone with two minds and souls?  Does Thoughtsensing always see both of them, or is it like compulsions in that it might just affect one depending on exactly how it's targeted?  Hmm, they should also probably test a compulsion that does just land on one of them, to see how those work and whether they'll end up as straightforwardly defeated by taking control as he imagines.  (It's just an incredibly satisfying thought, that this might ever happen.)  For that matter, if someone did intend to specifically target Leareth but Karal was in control, would anything even happen?

Nayoki is happy to run more tests! 

Deliberately targeted compulsions: do straightforwardly only affect the one of them she's targeting! This seems to work even if she's not so much actively trying to exclude one of them and is just aiming based on trying to hit "Leareth" or "Karal". 

Action-blocking compulsions of their Gifts: even when thrown carelessly and aiming at 'that person over there' rather than Leareth or Karal, these are a bit easier for the one of them who wasn't in charge at the start to work around. Leareth can reliably access their mage-gift around the compulsion and cast only slightly clumsily by doing a mental motion similar to pretending it's concert-work with another person; Nayoki's theory is that this works better than 'puppeting Karal's body' because concert-work, including in a teaching context where he would go in and walking a student through a particular magical technique, is something Leareth has spent thousands of candlemarks on and has actual reflexes around.

Karal is going to struggle to do anything with the mage-gift while Leareth is compulsioned, just because he doesn't know how to do very much in general, but he could probably manage uncontrolled magic in an emergency, which might be helpful by itself in some scenarios. He can access receptive Empathy very reliably, and instinctive bursts of projective Empathy somewhat less reliably, via a similar strategy to how he was able to move in instinctive ways when "fighting" Leareth for control.  

Thoughtsensing: by default does pick up that there are two of them, though it's actually quite hard to read both of them at once in any detail, in a similar way to how it would be hard to focus your eyes simultaneously on the sill of a window and the distant view of mountains through it; she tends to jump her focus back and forth instead. It's easy to target one of them at a time with Mindspeech, though if she Mindspeaks Karal then Leareth will automatically notice, and vice versa is probably also true now that Leareth is keeping his thoughts open to Karal by default. 

Mindhealing Sight is mostly just very weird. The metaphorical loaves of bread representing their minds are distinct in their metaphorical color, texture, crumb, et cetera, but also quite closely intertwined. If she's looking up close, she has to focus on one of them, but she can't make sense of the gestalt at all unless she's focusing on both. 

She's maybe interested in testing set-commands, but is not going to assume either one of them is okay with that just because the compulsions were fine, they feel quite different and are in some ways a lot more invasive. And of course it's far less likely to ever come up in a fight, Mindhealers are rare. 

Oh that's excellent!  Gifts are more likely to be useful than movement anyway, so that being easier is great news.  (And it means Karal really should learn more magic, just in case. And apparently specifically learn Concert-work, which sounds like the kind of thing he'll like.) 

He does need set-commands explained to him - huh, what a strange and dangerous thing to exist - but doesn't find them more instinctively objectionable than compulsions, and thinks Nayoki should try it just for the potentially interesting information about what their minds are doing on that level.

(Another thing he's curious about is whether he could win a fight for control with Leareth if Leareth were compulsioned to fight him (via one of those thoroughly self-protecting compulsions, which he imagines might end up causing that?) rather than doing it because he wants to and putting all his creativity into it.  But that's a pretty involved and possibly risky test, and he has no idea if it's at all likely that someone would compulsion them that thoroughly without realizing there were two of them.  It's just... something that comes up in his mind because he'd find it very satisfying if it was ever a useful thing to do.  It's a little embarrassing, in the "listened to too many heroic tales as a child" sort of way.  Probably he would win, in any case, and probably there's no good reason to check.) 

(Leareth is having trouble thinking of a scenario where that would come up, and he also doubts whether a self-protecting compulsion not to do something would force him to fight Karal, even if Karal were doing the banned thing. ...A positive compulsion to do something he would normally not endorse doing might force him to try to take over the body in order to accomplish the compelled goal? And it's not theoretically impossible that someone could land one on him selectively while not realizing there were two of them, if Leareth were controlling the body at the time. It's still a risky and involved test, for a scenario that's unlikely to come up, but Leareth would be willing to consider ways to test it at some point, probably.) 

Set-commands! 

...It turns out Nayoki cannot actually set-command only one of them not to move, even if she's aiming for that. It's fairly obvious to her Mindhealing-Sight why – the pathway's she's blocking are at a 'lower' level than intentions, somewhere between the mental and the physical, and both Karal and Leareth are accessing the same pathways. She could probably block only one of them by doing more fine-detail Mindhealing blocks, but it would take half a candlemark and most of the utility of set-commands is that they're fast. 

The set-command not to move is also more thorough, and does result in falling over. Nayoki looks apologetic and, once it's clear that it's definitely affecting both of them in a way they're not going to be able to get around, starts working on unpicking it. Which is a much slower process than placing it was, and involves some weird visual distortions and a feeling a bit like the inside of their head is melting. 

Leareth is staying calm about it, because he trusts Nayoki, but he is not enjoying this at all. 

(The compelled-fight question seems vanishingly unlikely to be decision-relevant, now that he thinks about it that way.  So they probably just shouldn't, and if it ever comes up they'll know then.)

Karal does not quite mentally apologize, since Leareth wouldn't have agreed to this if he didn't endorse it, but his emotions are somewhere in that direction.  He does instinctively try to take on as much perceiving the experience as he can, although he doesn't actually know if that results in Leareth having to deal with any less of it.  It's not pleasant, but he doesn't mind it the way Leareth clearly does.  Possibly just focusing on what it feels like to not mind it will help?  It's a good calm emotional state for Leareth to exist next to, in any case.

Also, Nayoki is terrifying.  Karal does not feel in the least terrified, to be clear - he likes her and Leareth trusts her and so there's no actual worry in his mind at all - but as a matter of objective fact, the ability to do something this thorough this fast, and in a way that's both very uncommon and slow to undo even for someone with the very uncommon ability, is an incredibly scary asset.  Leareth is, well, lucky is almost certainly not the right word, Karal expects this had much more to do with competence and planning than luck, but the result is surprisingly impressive even so.

Nayoki is terrifying! This is an actively reassuring thought, since Nayoki is on his side and it's not just by luck, and it's a good distraction from having Mindhealing done to them. Leareth isn't sure if he finds it this unpleasant because of some specific past experience - which he obviously wouldn't remember in its particulars, but subconscious associations stick better - or if it's just because he knows intellectually that Mindhealing is a lot more terrifying than compulsions.

About five minutes later, Nayoki has the last of it out and Karal will be able to stand up if he wants. (Leareth is letting him have full control, since he's mostly been trying to pull back from all the physical sensations of having a body.) 

Subconscious associations from experiences you can't even remember sound like a uniquely unpleasant problem to have!  He imagines having something like what happened to him earlier today and not knowing why - what an awful thought.

Ah, he meant to talk to Nayoki about that anyway.  She may have noticed it in his thoughts anyway, or not, but either way she's busy and he waits until she's done.  (And until he's had time to stand up and move enough to feel sure that everything's fine.  It is, except that his brain feels tired, which seems fair enough after all the melting.)  Afterward seems like a reasonable enough moment though.  He mentally explains the strange panic earlier.  "I'm not sure if we should do anything about this, or what - I don't think I would react like that in a situation where it would be dangerous," he's pretty sure it only affected him like that because he was relaxed and not expecting sudden pain, "but you might have useful thoughts?"

He feels all right about it now - it was a horribly unpleasant experience, but not a wrong one, given the horrible thing that did in fact happen.  If it's a strange way for his mind to grieve when it can't manage a better way, he'd be inclined to let it - if the main factor was how he felt about it, which it isn't, for multiple reasons.

Nayoki nods. "It sounds unpleasant but - not very surprising as a reaction. It feels risky to bet on it not happening if you were somewhere less safe than here, but - honestly, neither of you should be leaving the north for several weeks anyway, Leareth is also still quite impaired." Fondly. "It seems likely you will run into more things that set it off, but I expect it to get less bad each time, eventually to the point where it would not be a problem even in a dangerous situation. If it keeps happening and seems to be getting worse, tell me and I can try to do a Mindhealing redirect, but that is not really my area of expertise." 

Pause. "- I am quite sure it would be safe to give you control of the body, assuming you are somewhere in this facility and not in a dangerous situation, and it seems like that would help. Leareth might find it unpleasant but he should be considerate of your feelings too." 

He gives her a wry smile at that last idea.  "Leareth should be as considerate of my feelings as it suits him.  But in any case I hate unpleasant things happening to him and will feel better if I can avoid it."  And it might be better if one of them isn't having the experience of being viscerally upset?  Well, they can figure that out between them. 

"If you think it'll get better, that sounds right to me too - and you're right that we have time."  That's really the important part.  "Hopefully we won't need you to do strange Mindhealing things."  It doesn't sound like something that would let him heal, whatever it is - although of course sometimes other things are more important.

"I think you would disprefer it. It is a less thorough solution than working through the problem yourself, and it does have drawbacks, it can distort your emotional reactions in general and sometimes affect reflexes that you want to have in working order. Leareth did ask me to do something similar once - he was jumpy after a particular mission went badly, and needed to be present for an unrelated time-sensitive diplomatic meeting where it was more important not to set anything on fire if startled. But he wanted it undone again as soon as he was back from the meeting." 

Wow. Leareth doesn't remember that at all. It sounds perfectly plausible though. 

(He's glad that Nayoki is thinking about Karal's feelings, and even being a little indignant at the prospect that Leareth might not be considerate enough. He doesn't think they should do anything differently in this case - though if it does happen again, it might be worth trying once, on the off chance that maybe Leareth won't actually find it unpleasant. But mostly he's appreciative that Nayoki is - running a process that would catch if Leareth was making a mistake in some other case, since he's not entirely confident that Karal would even notice, let alone make a fuss, if Leareth were making the wrong tradeoff in some other situation.) 

Again there's a flash of instinctive protectiveness at the thought of something that awful happening to Leareth.  He is... not going to be able to protect him from from all awful things... (He couldn't before, and oh, there's the looming sea of grief, but this is not the moment for thinking about it and it will wait...) but of course he feels this way. 

...And more so given what happened before, he realizes.  Ah, hell.  That, too, he will need to stop feeling so sharply.  Leareth's main goal isn't not being hurt, and so Karal will sometimes need to watch it happen.

And given that, yes, of course something like that happened, and of course Leareth took the quick solution and wanted it gone afterward because it made his reflexes worse.  Although Karal wonders what sort of sensitive diplomatic talks Leareth has been having.  Presumably they'll get to that, catching up on everything in order.

(Ah - yes, of course Leareth likes his people arguing with him.  He's a very strange person, but the ways in which he's strange are starting to make sense to Karal, and he's immensely fond of that particular one.  He can... try to be like that, but yes, he's not sure he'll be very good at it.)

...Well, all of that is their internal conversation, which Nayoki can probably still see, but it still doesn't seem polite or a good use of her time. 

"I think that's all we wanted for now, then."  He manages a smile, rather sad, but friendly - he does value her input and just her entire existence, that's obvious enough.  "Is there anything else you want to talk about, while we're here?"  She'd have said something already if there was anything important, he knows, but sometimes it's worth asking, in case of things less clear than that.

Karal is very sweet and very correct about all his Leareth-related feelings, and gets a warm smile. 

"I have nothing urgent. Though I do enjoy speaking with both of you even about non-urgent things. Now would be a reasonable time for me to take a break for supper, if you are hungry?" 

That gets her a proper smile back.  "That sounds great."  He likes talking to her too.  She seems like she must be Leareth levels of busy, so he didn't think he should be taking up her time with idle conversation, but he's glad she's taking meal breaks that aren't at her desk.  She does seem like the sort of person who would, unlike Leareth, not have trouble remembering to take proper breaks.

Also, if they're going to eat in the dining hall, presumably Leareth is going to start shielding again, so if she wants to talk to both of them they'll have to alternate and Karal can watch people's reactions to that.  It seems like a good way to get everyone used to the two of them being one person, by letting them watch a conversation with Nayoki who's already used to it and friendly with them both.

"Mm, what am I curious about that isn't going to make overly serious dinner conversation...  Were you already with Leareth when all these northern bases were getting set up? How long has all this been here?"

They can go to the dining hall. 

"I was here when this base was built! The one you saw before is a little older. About half of all the facilities we have in the north are from the last ten years, and nine-tenths are from the last fifty years, but some are significantly older. - I would ask Leareth how far back the oldest go, except I am not sure he remembers either." 

Leareth is amused. I think the longest-standing active research base has been running for about a century. Though there might have been records caches here before that which I repurposed. 

(He's been shielding - both of them, since he hasn't figured out the trick to shield only himself yet - but not very hard, and even without actual projective Mindspeech, he can sort of push that particular thought out where Nayoki can see it if she's looking.) 

Huh, can Karal push thoughts outside the shields too, now that he's realized it's possible?  Or is it a more technical skill than he can pick up just from seeing it done?  Of course he might as well talk to Nayoki out loud, since he's the one who can right now, but if he wants to say something to Leareth that's part of the conversation with Nayoki rather than private, it'd feel odd to talk out loud.

That's so long.  (People must have lived out their entire lives at this work and died here.  He wonders where they bury them.)  Was all of that your previous life, or more than one?

He realizes he doesn't know what previous Leareth looked like, which is oddly disorienting.  Of course neither of them know what Ma'ar looked like, which is a different and deeper sort of wrongness - but he feels odd about not knowing what the person everyone here was used to looked like. 

... Oh, Mindspeech can share images, can't it?  He thinks it can.  "Also, I know there's no real point, but can you show me what Leareth used to look like?"  He could have just asked Leareth, but on second thought he's not at all sure Leareth remembers, and even if he does, Nayoki's view of him feels more real, somehow.

The current round of build-up in the north, which has been accelerating over the last fifteen years or so as he started to ramp up for the invasion plan but which began more like fifty years ago, was all a single lifetime, Leareth thinks. (He should have had at least another fifty years in that body, enough to see everything through to the next stage of the plan, but, well.) He's fairly sure that some of the research facilities were ones he started in the incarnation before that one, but he definitely can't remember any details right now. 

(He's confident Karal will be able to learn how to selectively shield some thoughts but not others, in time, but it's much less intuitive to do when they don't have native Thoughtsensing and are using mage-gift for shields. They can practice later tonight, maybe.

Leareth indeed does not remember what he looked like before, though he thinks he was dark-haired.)