Leareth is almost too tired to dream at all. The dreams that do come are fragmented and abstract, mostly full of the raw feeling of - disorientation, knowing that he's missing something but not what, math that doesn't work which is apparently a specific type of stress dream Leareth has and is accompanied by surprisingly intense distress and confusion given the lack of any accompanying images or narrative. 

He wakes up still feeling deeply drained, his thoughts almost gluey. ‘Orient to his immediate surroundings’ still works fine - and is reassuring, he’s where he expects to be and behind shields - but it becomes clear a fraction of a second later that there’s usually a second step, there, something like retrieving and focusing on the current priorities, and normally that would help clear some of the fog but there’s…nothing there, when he reaches for it.

(Karal will wake up with the god-touched feeling almost entirely gone.)

Karal watches Leareth orient, another now familiar and reassuring routine, and then... not. 

Oh.

That, too, makes sense.  He wonders in how many other ways Leareth has built all of himself around the single all-important goal, how many more times he'll have to watch him reach for something more instinctively than breathing and not find it.  (It hurts, and someday it'll be over.)

Gently:  Vkandis asked that you talk to one of the flying things.  I think we should, if it wouldn't be too hard.  Karal made no promises on Leareth's behalf, but he would still like his gratitude and good faith to mean something.  And - it seems important, maybe, to show the gods that this is often true of mortals, when They're first learning about the possibility of communication and trade.

There will be days, likely very many of them, when the right thing to do will be not to offer Leareth a direction.  But Karal suspects they should do whatever things to do are left, first, even if none of them are urgent the way everything used to be.

Oh. 

It takes Leareth a few moments to think of a response. ...Well, he supposes it's not like it can do any harm, now, and so the reflex to wonder what plot Vkandis is aiming for is misplaced - even if Vkandis did intend the usual kind of convoluted godplot working against Leareth's interests, it wouldn't matter now, and - he thinks probably He doesn't, and wasn't approaching the interaction that way at all. 

He still wonders if Vkandis communicated why He wanted that.

(A quiet background thought: Leareth thinks that Ma'ar would probably have adapted to this fine, or at least without a lot of fairly pointless angst about it? And he's not entirely sure what he thinks was different, or - whether he could be that person again. It doesn't help that he barely remembers being that person.) 

It makes sense to Karal that Ma'ar would've adapted to a new life much more easily.  He was still, in many if not all senses, a normal human, with the sort of goal normal great people sometimes have, not an immortal mage shaped purely to accomplish something impossible.  He must have had some normal human things he wanted from life - he expected to succeed in a single lifetime, and wouldn't have had the time or motivation to pare away everything unnecessary about himself.

Karal wonders how Matteir would have done.  That might be... a shorter distance, and easier to remember...  But ultimately Leareth should be himself, not someone from many lifetimes ago, and Karal thinks he will manage that.

Yes, Karal really did not get the impression Vkandis intended any convoluted godplots.  He seemed to be genuinely trying to be straightforward, and Karal isn't sure He was even capable of lying.  But in any case, Sing would not let itself be used for a convoluted godplot (a harmful one, at any rate), so talking to It would be a rather self-defeating way to start.

Vkandis wanted to... (accessing the memory is strangely hard, his recovered mind needing to half push itself back into the strange talking-to-a-god shape... Maybe we should take notes before I lose more of the details...) wanted Sing to make sure that Leareth wouldn't do anything awful, like another Cataclysm, and wanted Sing to have more information so that It could help the gods see the future without Foresight?  He thinks that was most of it, and they seemed like reasonable things to want.  (It makes some sense of the way the gods were about Leareth, if They mostly think of him as the cause of the Cataclysm.  Although They still should have done better.)

Karal himself is increasingly curious how much information Sing already had about them, while they were still trying not to draw too much attention.  The gods had talked to It about Leareth, and thought They weren't being taken seriously - what did It think, really?

(It does seem worth taking notes on the godencounter sooner rather than later, though Leareth worries that pushing too hard to remember its details is itself a little destabilizing and Karal should take note of that and be careful.)

Leareth really doesn’t think he’s likely to cause another Cataclysm, especially now, but it’s understandable on the gods’ part to want stronger reassurance of that, in a form They can understand better. Leareth definitely understands and is sympathetic to that. And it makes sense that Sing might be better placed to made sense of humans, including Leareth, and then translate that for Vkandis’ benefit. 

Does he want to talk to the flying things? ...Not…really…it feels unpleasant and stressful, in a way where that feeling resists being looked at too hard, and Leareth reaches for the engrained mental motion to look at it anyway but it doesn’t quite go through. He's just - tired. It feels hard and he's low on whatever reserve of motivation and oomph usually lets him go ahead and do the hard thing regardless. 

(It’s definitely unpleasant and stressful to consider how much Sing already knows about him, but this is less surprising; it's the shape of his familiar paranoia about more powerful entities knowing anything about him.) 

Karal's muted shock only comes a moment later, as he notices Leareth's strange inaction and has to deliberately look at the last few seconds' thoughts to understand what happened.  He saw Leareth decide the idea made sense, so his mind simply skipped ahead in full confidence that it would happen, and then instead it... didn't.  There's a moment of simple incomprehension, staring at the mental space where something isn't, before he manages to make sense of what he was doing and why he feels like the ground disappeared under his feet between one step and the next.

... It's not strange at all, of course, as a human reaction to an unwanted task.  It's just that... Leareth has never seemed human in that way before.

Maybe it's good news, that he can be.

But Karal wishes... what?  That it wasn't such an an abrupt change, maybe.  (That he could have something stable in this still new and strange life, when the entire world is changing around them.  It's a pointlessly distressed thought, so quiet it's barely there.)

Can I talk to it?  That might do well enough.  He doesn't mean immediately, they should probably... eat something first, that's an important part of being human in a non-emergency situation... but overall, does Leareth just not want to do it himself, or would having to be there for it be too much?  (And what is Karal going to do if Leareth just... doesn't agree to do any things... No, he's too off-balance for that to be a trustworthy thought and he's not following it any further.)

And then it takes Leareth a few seconds to properly parse Karal's reaction - there's a flinch, he didn't mean to make this harder for Karal, there's a note of apology and then a sense of - rotating it in his head, maybe - trying on whether he can use that, the fact that Karal needs or at least would benefit from Leareth being at all capable of decisiveness, as some kind of motivational anchor... 

I can do it. He just needs longer to sit with the idea, he thinks, until it seems less horrible, which might take a few minutes or might take a day but he doesn't think it'll take longer than that.

 ...Part of what's going on, he thinks, is that he does need rest, not just sleep. That's not new, he doesn't think, it's just that Karal hasn't actually seen him recovering after an emergency situation is resolved. Normally he would orient to it differently, by budgeting out time where "recovering from the emergency" was his highest priority, but he's pretty sure that finding it more difficult than usual to push himself to do tasks that aren't time-sensitive on the level of minutes is something he's experienced before. 

That's definitely not all of what's going on, because normally he wouldn't be miserable while he was focused on resting, or at least he could notice that he was and decide to stop that because it does the opposite of help? And - maybe it's less that he can't find that mental motion, actually, and more that he's looking at it, considering it, and for some reason not actually feeling like doing it, which is on one level weird because it's not as though he enjoys sitting here doing nothing except being distressed, but on another level it's - he knows it wasn't costless, deciding not to experience an emotion because it didn't help accomplish his goals? And he's been doing that for - a very very long time - 

Karal instantly mirrors the flinch-and-apology: he didn't mean to make Leareth feel like he had to do anything, he just-- wasn't expecting that specific disconnect, he'll be all right about it now that he knows, he - or they - will figure it out, Leareth shouldn't need to worry about him--

- Deep breath.  All right, perhaps they should both let themselves be a little more human, and lean on each other in this odd way, instead of apologizing for needing to.

Yes, it's not the need for recovery that Karal found so unsettling, it was the... lack of the feeling of intentionality behind it?  The lack of feeling like the inaction was a deliberate part of some larger plan - but of course it's not, because-- what larger plan, now.

And so he thinks Leareth is right, that he should not continue paying the costs to not experience unhelpful emotions.  Karal cannot actually explain why being miserable is sometimes the right way to feel, but it's obvious in all his experience.  It's how emotions work, that you need to have all of them.  Karal still doesn't really understand how Leareth managed to be who he is, for so long, but it does seem that he can - and maybe has to - stop, now.

Well.  Yes, there's no hurry.  They can rest here a while longer, eat something, maybe go for a long walk.  But also he could do the talking, if that would make it easier, although maybe it wouldn't.  Does Leareth know what would help, or should Karal just make guesses and go with them?  Sometimes it's easier, not to have to make all the small decisions.

...It would definitely make it easier if Karal did whatever steps were actually needed to cause a conversation with one of Sing's flying-things agents to happen? Having the conversation itself might be fine once it's already the thing that's happening, or - if it's hard, having Karal willing to take over and consult Leareth's thoughts to answer questions does make it feel less daunting. 

Eating something would be good. A walk also sounds good; Leareth will find out if at some point sitting with the prospect of a future stressful conversation becomes more unpleasant than just having the conversation and having it be done. 

(Leareth does not immediately take any steps toward either of those things.) 

Karal is, at least at the moment, feeling happier and more grounded if he can take simple physical actions toward things, so that works out well. 

He will, leaving clear mental space for Leareth to object/comment at each step but not at all pushing him to do so, wash his face and change into a fresh shirt, and then make his way to one of the meal halls and assemble something reasonable to eat, mostly sitting quietly (it's not exactly difficult to look tired and abstracted enough that people will mostly leave him be) and watching how everyone else here is dealing with all the upheaval.  They're all good and competent people and he has no doubt that they will do reasonable things and adapt fine, so this isn't a high-stakes thing, he's just curious - and it makes him feel better, to be surrounded by people who are dealing with the same thing he is.

The dining area is emptier than usual, partly because a randomly-timed long nap in the middle of the day means that it’s not actually a standard mealtime. The staff who are around are - quiet and pensive, mostly, though one young woman is writing notes and keeps randomly beaming to herself and giggling. One low-voiced conversation switches to Mindspeech when Karal comes in, after the participants make eye contact with Karal and exchange nods. Everyone seems to be giving them space — which the exception of Kalira, the bird-obsessed young daughter of two of the math researchers, who tears in very excited at one point and runs around singing an off-key nursery song with the words changed to be about herons laying eggs.

Kalira is very good. (Last time Karal went on a walk, he found a couple of interesting bird feathers for her.)  And Karal is quite fond of everyone else too, even if he doesn't remember all their names yet.

He eats slowly and does a good job of relaxing in the familiar space.  Eventually goes back to their room, and - he feels grounded enough to write down the god-conversation memories, now, before they fade any further.  It feels strange again, and for longer, leaving him with a touch of that odd feeling as if his thoughts were all slightly singed at the edges, but he's careful and takes his time and manages to get everything.  It was such a short conversation, really, for how long it felt.

Leareth was right about it leaving him a little more scattered again, but not nearly as badly as the first time around, and mostly he just really wants to - be outside, walk on the ground, see the normal horizon, feel himself move.  He'll find Nayoki, or whoever else is currently in charge of normal things happening, to tell them they'll be out walking for maybe an hour.  (If it's Nayoki, he'll collect a hug, and maybe a Mindhealing-Sight checkup, but he doesn't think anything is wrong in any ways beyond the normal expected ones.)

And then they can pick a direction in the endless flat expanse and walk, and let the movement in the cold air help make their body feel alive and useful, and not make any decisions whatsoever for a long while.

(He wonders, after a while, if there are any of the flying things out here.  Maybe it'd be better not to think about that, but it's not as if he can hide his thoughts from Leareth, or as if it would be a good idea to.  In any case, the thought of them doesn't worry him at all any more - he's vaguely curious, if anything.  It makes it easier, to imagine them as - a specific physical thing, that one might or might not see in a specific place, rather than as a confusing abstract change in the entire world.)

There are no obviously visible flying things, at least.

(Leareth isn’t closely attending to Karal’s thoughts anyway. He’s paying attention to the sensory experience of their body even though he’s not in control, and when that doesn’t quite fully occupy his attention, he settles on also solving math puzzles in his head.)

There aren't.  Karal likewise focuses on his senses, and only occasionally peeks at one of the math puzzles, less to see if it'll make any more sense than the last one (it almost certainly won't), and more to watch Leareth's thoughts moving fascinatingly quickly.

They walk back in the evening, Karal feeling not exactly pleasantly tired (it would take a much longer hike for their body to feel that way), but pleasantly embodied, at least.  And now they can stretch out in one of the library armchairs, appreciate the warm air and maybe drink some tea, and think about what's next. 

Karal would be inclined to ask one of Leareth's people to find them a flying thing and Gate it here, so they can have the conversation comfortably and won't have it still hanging over their head tomorrow, but - first, what do Leareth's thoughts look like right now, does he seem any less miserable or anxious?  And second, explicit wordless question, both about that specific plan and about the higher-up level of whether Karal should be doing more or less directly consulting Leareth on what happens next?

Leareth does seem noticeably less stressed now; not really happier, and there are definitely still fragmentary lines of thought that he keeps steering away from back to thinking about math because he expects it to be painful and doesn't feel ready yet, but his mood is more one of tired sadness than fear or anxiety. 

- there's a flinch at the concept of bringing one of the flying things here specifically. When Leareth prods at it, he gets something like 'worry at the prospect of the flying things knowing where he sleeps' which is, on the one hand, almost certainly pointless - it's not like they couldn't easily track him down whatever he does - but it also wouldn't be particularly hard to Gate to a different location, where they can also be comfortable, and then talk to one of them there? 

Leareth is - not fine with that as a plan, exactly, but endorses Karal carrying it out. He appreciates that Karal checked, but to be clear he doesn't feel that Karal needs to check with him about smaller plans for what happens next, like when to eat. It feels easier not to have to think about that, right now. 

Leareth is so incredibly entitled to not be happy, and to not be ready to think about difficult things, for however long he needs to.  But Karal is glad that he's less anxious along with it.  (A long time of sadness can be good for people, but a long time of fear basically never is, he thinks.)  And he's very glad he's here and can make it easier for Leareth to deal with all this.

Karal hasn't had enough time to learn how to do Gates himself, but he can find one of the mage-researchers he knows, and ask him to Gate them to one of the smaller outlying underground bases (or Leareth can do that, of course, but Karal will default to plans that don't require Leareth to do things), and then to find a flying thing and ask it if it would like to also be Gated there to talk to them.  ...If it asks why, it's as a favor to Vkandis Who asked for this conversation to happen, although Karal expects probably the flying things are capable of figuring out that sort of thing among themselves.

Leareth is in favor of someone else Gating for them. The kind of exhausted he is right now isn't really about physical fatigue, and Gating fifty miles isn't even especially tiring, but it still seems better not to have any additional reason to feel tired when they're going into this. 

(He does have the quiet thought that one thing they have plenty of now is time, and if Karal would like spending some of that time learning more advanced magic than it made sense for him to take the time to master before, that sounds like - as pleasant an activity as anything does right now.) 

Nayoki wants to come. She's doing kind of a lot of other things but none of them are urgent, now, and she's not sure if either Karal or Leareth will want her there for the conversation itself, but she does want to be sure that she'll be available for Leareth afterward, given that it's probably not going to be an easy conversation for him even if he ends up letting Karal take the lead. 

She's done rather too many Gates already today, so she doesn't do that part, but she can accompany them to the other facility with one of the other mages, and then have someone else scry for a conveniently located and not-currently-occupied flying thing – they're pretty sure at this point that the flying things instantaneously share information with "Sing" and so it doesn't especially matter which of them they talk to – and raise a Gate so she can go over and politely explain that she spoke to one of them before, but had not at that point mentioned that she works for a powerful mage called Leareth. Who wants to speak to one of the flying things now, and would prefer they come to him if that's convenient? 

"I can do that. Will you show me where?" says the flying thing.

She can do that! 

Where is very far north and very underground but is otherwise a quite nice little base, with stone walls layered with magical protections. 

...Leareth is inclined to let Karal take the lead for at least the start of the conversation. He's not actually panicking, but the blank-wall-in-his-mind feeling is back. 

Nayoki is welcome to stay and listen, he'd just rather have a two-way conversation than a three-way one, unless something important comes up.

Karal sends Leareth a mental hug, and nods to the flying thing, calmly enough.  He's not worried that it'll do anything harmful, although both stressful and simply confusing seem like possibilities.

"Hello. Can I ask you what you already know about me, first? It'll be easier to have the conversation with context, and... I'm just curious."  They spent so much time - no, not that much time, but so much energy - worrying about what Sing knew, and it doesn't really matter now, but the story will feel more complete in his mind if he knows whether they could've ever managed to hide anything.

He's not really pretending to be Leareth in any meaningful sense, but he did use the singular rather than the plural just to see what it would make of it.  And maybe out of an instinctive, if rather irrational, protective desire to keep Leareth out of this at least for the first sentence.

"I have some hearsay from various gods and a little pieced together from rumors and physical evidence. I should mention that I am not, actually, Sing. Direct contact between humans and superintelligences can be corrosive to the humans' felt sense of agency and self-other boundaries. I am close enough for most purposes and do communicate very frequently with Sing but I am a sub-entity, not the entire thing."

...Sing caring about that in particular implies a fascinating set of priorities, honestly, which Leareth - he supposes he hadn't thought about the tradeoff the same way for his god, because direct contact with full Velgarth gods is bad for humans in other ways, so you want human-facing avatars anyway, and because Velgarth gods in general seem to be inherently more limited than...whatever Sing is... It says good things about Sing's priorities, he thinks? 

(He doesn't interrupt.)

Karal mostly notices that it's being evasive, which is surprising given how informative it got Vkandis to be.  Maybe it's just a different sort of difficult to talk to?  But yes, it is interesting that it cares about - well, some not-entirely-clear thing that Leareth can explain to him afterward, or can jump in and talk to it about if he feels like it.  Karal is curious, but not urgently so, and he'll take both their words on it being a problem worth avoiding.  He wants to know what the flying thing itself is, too, but "close enough for most purposes" is enough of an answer that he can't figure out a specific question other than "would it matter if you died", which is really not the sort of question you can ask in your first conversation.

"That's... probably for the best, yes.  I talked to Vkandis today, and it was a valuable experience but not a pleasant one."

"So - what do you want from this conversation, if anything?  I can guess what the hearsay was," a wry smile, "and Vkandis asked for us to talk to you so you can make sure we don't cause any disasters. We aren't going to, but - were you actually worried about that in the first place?"