It feels vaguely familiar, if not recognizable as any specific thing.  He'll let Marian know when he sees her, but he assumes that just that she wants to know about every minor problem he notices doesn't make it an alarm-button situation.

In the meantime he can... close his eyes for a while and see if that helps?  It wouldn't normally occur to him, but he can already imagine Marian explaining to him that when she asked him to tell her when things felt worse she also meant that he should try to avoid that happening.  And it'll probably be easier on Leareth that way.

It does seem to help a little. (Leareth is still trying to drift unless Karal actively pokes him.)

Also he is pretty likely to fall asleep. 

Good!  He is not so convinced of the usefulness of trying to memorize all the healing-artifacts that he wouldn't prefer sleep if he's managed to get himself tired enough for it.

And they find themselves in an expanse of snow, facing a pass carved impossibly through a mountain. 

A man is standing at the mouth of the pass. Lean, tattered Heralds' Whites, silver hair and eyes over hollowed cheeks. His expression is...exhausted, empty. Haunted. 

He takes a few steps forward, and then - stops - and does a visible double take. 

Leareth tries to speak and runs facefirst into the compulsion and the fact that his thoughts are still too slow and gluey to navigate around it easily. (Though Karal will notice that their head does feel somewhat less foggy here. There's a chilly yet almost peaceful clarity here, the discomfort of their body a long way away.) 

...Leareth cannot easily finish any thoughts yet until he manages to find a direction sideways enough from the stupid compulsion but his affect is very apologetic and he feels stupid for not thinking of this sooner. 

Karal doesn't really know he's dreaming, at first.  He can feel Leareth in his head, and - god, why are they somehow stuck in this horrible pointless war again, it's not worth it, he doesn't want to be here--

--he doesn't want Leareth to be here, he promised to keep him safe--

That thought is enough to make him wrench the body's control from Leareth in one jarring shove, without taking the time for a warning or an apologetic thought, because they're helpless when Leareth can't do anything and they cannot be that here.

He tries to draw his sword and there isn't one - he nearly snarls in frustration at whoever's fault this is - that man is a Herald-Mage and he cannot have Leareth too--

He is still himself enough that he notices, after drawing one of the daggers but before throwing it, that the Valdemaran does not at all look as if he wants to fight him.  He's not going to try to kill a man who is looking at him like that.

... He does not immediately know what to do instead.

- Vanyel steps back,  failing to hide the startled baffled alarm from his face. 

(He's so confused! It feels unfair! The dream has always started out exactly the same, for over a decade, and right now it feels like it's the one remaining constant in his life. Except now, suddenly, he's faced with someone dressed like Leareth, standing in the spot Leareth normally does, and the body language in the first fraction of a second seemed like Leareth, but - the face is not Leareth's and the man just drew a dagger and seemed about to throw it before he froze -) 

- that is Herald-Mage Vanyel they have a shared Foresight dream Leareth is so sorry this is happening right now - 

That is--

God, why, of all people... 

(A flash of pain on his face, and when he opens his eyes again he's no longer looking at the Valdemaran at all.)

He really could have guessed, he was just trying not to think about it, because there was a threat to focus on - and now there isn't, he can tell Leareth isn't scared...

He abruptly sits down in the snow.  He still can't bring himself to let go of the knife.

"I'm sorry, I... didn't know it was a dream..."  Which is not the most reassuring thing to say, given how it implies that if it wasn't a dream he might still be trying to kill him, but he cannot do better than that right now.

He should... explain anything at all about what's happening, the man must be so confused... but with no immediate threat it's suddenly so hard to do anything except think about how much he doesn't want to be here.

"Who are you and what did you do to Leareth." 

...That wasn't what Vanyel meant to say and he didn't know he was going to say it until the words were already out of his mouth - he immediately feels awful, whoever the non-Leareth person is, he didn't know and - looks miserable - 

Strangely enough, that gets him to let go of the knife.

"He's all right. Well, not really, but..."  God, he really can't manage to do anything sensibly.  (In his defense nothing makes sense.)  But he shouldn't just tell this man everything without checking - Leareth, should he know about us--

There are of course many other things he'd like Leareth's help to decide whether he should say anything about, but Leareth can barely do anything right now, so he'll have to think through some of it himself, unless he should just - not say anything...  That seems like a bad idea, the man (Karal's mind is trying so hard to shy away from thinking about who it is, and he lets it, now that he has something more important to think about again) clearly cares about Leareth and Karal doesn't want to sit here and refuse to reassure him.  (That's not true. Part of him very much does. It would still be the wrong thing to do.)  But what he can say is not very reassuring, and less so when he can't even prove any of it.

...It seems like it's too late for Vanyel to not know about - them. (Based on his initial reaction of surprise, even before Karal had seized control, Leareth suspects there was a visually obvious change.) 

It's - not the case that Leareth trusts Vanyel. They're enemies. But - it might be possible to be something else - 

(Leareth's thoughts here are not very coherent. Every time he tries to organize the relevant information in his mind for Karal, he runs into the compulsion again, so he's going to have to get it in confused fragments instead.) 

...Vanyel crosses the snow to them, so they're not awkwardly shouting across a twenty-yard gap. 

(Among other things, he's reminding himself that it's a dream. Being attacked with a dagger in a dream will not actually harm him.) 

He clears his throat. "I realize you don't - owe me an explanation - but, um. I am really confused." 

(The confused fragments will do.  Really, if all that Leareth can give Karal is his emotional reactions to whatever he's about to say, that might be enough, now that he's had a moment to think about the problem.)

Karal doesn't exactly like being any closer, but it's true that it's the sensible thing to do.  He looks resigned, if not really less miserable, at the man's approach, keeps his hands well away from the knife, and still doesn't look at him.

(Why must he be kind.  It would feel so much easier if he wasn't.)

He sighs.  "I know.  Everything is just... really confusing."  He takes another breath, tries to arrange the story in some sort of sensible order.  "Leareth - had multiple lives, did you know that? So - he died, I don't know how, and then - came back in my head. This was... god, a few days ago?"  The Butcher was there, he should know how many days it's been.  He is not going to say that.

(Knowing how many days it's been would imply that Vanyel is capable of keeping track of time. Everything blends together, lately, the battles and the grey skies and the rainswept border that feels empty and lonely except for when he has the bad luck to run into a Karsite patrol.) 

...That answers one of his questions.

"- I assumed he killed the person whose body he took," he hears himself say. (Well, he hadn't been entirely sure how the whole thing worked at all, but the dates when some of the scholars he's identified as past-Leareth lived and died would imply that he doesn't come back as a baby, and there's one obvious way for that to work.)

"I think he usually does. He told me he might, early on, and... hasn't said otherwise, I suppose, but I'd be surprised if he still expects to, by now."  He pushes fondness and equanimity at Leareth, who should not spend his limited energy on thinking about that decision right now.

"...So you'll probably see me again."  Not a thought that makes Karal happy, but... at least it means that whatever he's feeling, he'll have time to deal with it. It doesn't need to all be now.  "How often does this happen?"

Whyyyyyyyy is this the thing that's happening. 

"At least every few months."

Why isn't Leareth talking??? 'He's all right,' the stranger said, then 'well, not really' and Vanyel has no idea what that could possibly mean. He feels like he really should be able to think of a way to ask but instead he's just. Standing here. 

The man wants to know what's happening with Leareth - of course he does, and he's right to.  Karal should lay the story out logically in his head, calmly explain the things he can and avoid the things he shouldn't, the way he knows Leareth would...  The thought is unbearable.  And he doesn't even think it would work - they're not going to make sense to each other until the one thing that isn't about Leareth at all is out in the open.

So he turns to look up at the Butcher in White, and... god, his eyes look haunted.  Karal's are little better, he suspects, in this moment.

He had meant to-- start somewhere that would make any sense-- but instead what comes out is:  "I thought it would be easier to hate you."

He struggles to find the next sentence, but he does have to get to a useful explanation at some point.  "We've spent the last years on the opposite sides of battlefields.  If you were wondering why I'm... like this about you.  I'll explain the rest, it was just... hard to talk to you, when you didn't know."  He's not sure it'll be any less hard now, but... differently, at least.

They're right to hate him, but they cannot possibly hate him as much as Vanyel hates himself

How Vanyel feels about this (which is mortified, and ashamed, and wishing he could disappear into a snowbank, and - at the same time there's an itchy restless anger and he wants to scream that they're the ones who wanted their stupid war, not him) - how Vanyel feels is really not the point. 

He should not antagonize the person who's sharing a body with Leareth. He should think of the right thing to say. He doesn't know if there is a right thing to say. 

...Also he's now managed to consciously notice that the man does not seem incredibly comfortable in Rethwellani, which is what they've been speaking. 

He switches to Karsite; he's fluent enough, at this point. 

"I wish I could say I'm sorry. I'm...not...sorry, that I - tried to defend my side. But - I know you personally probably didn't choose to start the war either. I - wish it hadn't happened." 

It's impossible to hate him, really, when he uses Karal's own language, and tries so hard to say the right things, and clearly means them.

And it only makes looking at him hurt more.

"So do I."  That, at least, is simple.  "It just... doesn't make this easier, after-- everything."  For neither of them, clearly.  "But... I didn't know, that you hated it so much."

... And that is enough of quite this much painful honesty.  He looks away again, tears in his eyes.  "Well.  My name is Karal, I'm nobody particularly important, and no, I didn't personally choose to start the war."

Vanyel is also feeling like that was enough of...something...and would be delighted to change the topic. 

He nods, stiffly. "Right. And then Leareth showed up, I guess, and you...decided you might as well work for him?"

...That came out a lot more barbed than he had meant it to. 

Ah, so they both wish they could hate each other.  Fair enough, he supposes. 

"If you like."  That comes out a little barbed too, and not because he didn't mean it that way.

He straightens up, still sitting in the snow, and goes back to looking away at an angle that just keeps the Valdemaran in his peripheral vision.

"So I hope you don't expect me to go over everything else that happened.  But," he sighs, his voice losing its bite, "now we're wounded and sick from it," not something you'd usually want to tell an enemy, but if Herald-Mage Vanyel wants to search for them on the battlefields of Karse he is welcome to it, and he does want to leave the man with some explanation of what's wrong.  "Leareth is taking it much worse than I am, and has more complicated problems on top of that, so he can't talk to you."

"... I realize I can't prove any of that."  There's an obvious alternative explanation, from Vanyel's perspective.  Karal isn't sure whether from Vanyel's perspective a stranger keeping his previous powerful enemy prisoner would be better or worse.  He gets the impression that Vanyel isn't sure either, and not just for the obvious reason.

Leareth, can you... think of anything...  Assuming Leareth even wants Vanyel to believe the things Karal says.  Karal has no idea what Leareth's goals or plans are here - he just... started doing what seemed reasonable to him, because he's been in the habit of that, and only belatedly realizes that it might not be the best habit for whatever in the world this is.

What. 

(Of course Karal can't prove any of his claims, but...Vanyel is not really focused on doubting that particular claim. It seems fairly absurd that a random Karsite soldier could manage to hold Leareth prisoner, even - maybe especially - if Leareth is literally sharing his body.) 

Vanyel is definitely making - faces - but all he says out loud is, "I see." 

Trying to think on purpose still doesn't really work but Leareth can have reactions. 

...Karal and Vanyel ought to be able to get along, they're - people who would admire one another, if they weren't on opposite sides of a tragic pointless wasteful war. (That he would have thought about intervening in, but it's actually very difficult to productive intervene in foreign wars, especially when his organization is not itself - yet - a country with a recognized international diplomatic presence.) 

It - changes a lot of things, that they're in another world. (A world without magic, maybe, definitely one with the kind of advanced technology that the Velgarth gods haven't allowed here.). He runs into the mental walls again when he tries to reason through what that might imply for how it makes sense to approach this strange prolonged negotiation with Vanyel, but - it changes things. 

.....He trusts Karal. He doesn't really have a choice but to let Karal do what he thinks makes the most sense here, and this is very stressful, but - Leareth trusts him, and - there are things Karal is much better at than him, strategies open to him that Leareth wouldn't have thought to consider.