This makes it really hard to aim arrows! Someone shoves Vanyel to the ground, he can't even tell which of the scouts it is - they can't even get a message out to call for help - he can still hear the thud of a spear, the swish of a blade aimed blindly–

- a sensation like a sudden cold wind that stops just as abruptly, claws slashing, cries of pain -

And someone grabs him, he's not sure who, maybe Starwind, maybe one of the others, scoops him up and runs - Vanyel is already pretty sure this isn't going to work, the panic is fading into an oddly peaceful resignation, like he felt once in the ice dream, one irrecoverable mistake and they've already lost–

The cold wind keeps up with them, and then some gryphons catch up too. 

And then there is pain, but only briefly before there's nothing at all. 

(Cold wind darts back towards the main group, some of which might've noticed their magic working again. Before it abruptly stops working, again.)

Someone is shouting at him but the words slide past Moondance's ears–

–someone is shouting at him in Mindspeech, now, :stop it is a trap you must not–:

But Moondance k'Treva is not currently in a place where those words are anything near as real as the screaming panic that fills his mind, StarwindStarwindStarwind, he can barely feel him at all now and he hasn't been able to reach him with Mindspeech even though they should be in range but for a brief, awful, soul-shattering moment he could feel Starwind's pain through the lifebond, and - lifebond - their minds are tied together in a place outside material reality - he knows where he is–

Moondance is a Healing-Adept who has spent the last three decades fighting Pelagirs monsters, he's fast, and versatile - he doesn't need a threshold for a Gate, anymore, he got some ideas talking to Vanyel and to Maitimo on their visit to Arda, the kinds of Gate that Leareth could do...

He flings up a Gate-threshold on the usual archway, and anchors the other end on Starwind, he doesn't need any clearer of a destination than that, he tells the Gate-spell that it needs to be under Starwind, his shay'kreth'ashke, Starwind is there and he needs to be here–

And a broken body falls through the Gate. 

–with his arms still loosely around a smaller figure, Vanyel isn't conscious, isn't moving or breathing, he lands in a heap on the flagstones of the courtyard, there's already blood everywhere–

Moondance yanks down the Gate in a fraction of a second, the others catch up, Moondance screams in Mindspeech to the entire Vale, :need a Healer NOW: and pulls Starwind's limp form into his arms.

 - elsewhere, a furious scream - YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE PERMITTED THAT -

- they're dead, it's fine - 

- THE ELF WAS DEAD - 

- they're more dead than that, it's fine -

Nothing hurts.

Vanyel opens his eyes to formless white.

"Herald Vanyel." 

Oh, gods, this again. Vanyel can't muster much emotion about it.

"Do I still have a choice," he says flatly. He doubts it. The fight that this was all about, originally, never ended up happening at all, and all of that is half a decade old at this point. Not to mention he can't imagine the gryphons left enough of his body intact for him to have anywhere to go back to. 

"Do you wish to?" 

"Um, obviously?" Vanyel stops. "Actually, hmm. I have no idea what information you're allowed to give me this time around, but - it might be better for the war for me to be dead, than Sauron's prisoner."

If that even is the Maia's name, after what just happened he is no longer inclined to trust anything Maitimo just told him - damn it, he would swear Maitimo wasn't under any compulsions, his thinking was too obviously himself, which means that - all of that was his own choice... The betrayal stings, but distantly, it's not just physical pain he can't feel in the Shadow-Lover's realm. 

"You are not. That is information you must have." 

"Huh." Vanyel looks around, sits down on a piece of white mist slightly denser than the rest. "...Is it better for Valdemar if I go back?" 

The Shadow-Lover bows his head, blue eyes somehow still visible even though his face is, as always, hidden in the shadow of his cloak. "That, I do not know. What I can see of the future is - limited, now. There is an alien force at work." A soft sound, almost a sigh. "If you do go back, you may, again, regret it in the short run, and your power to act will be limited." 

"Sauron messed me up pretty badly, huh? I'm surprised he would've left the body," bodies? but he can't think about that right now, "rather than, I don't know, burning it just to be thorough." 

"There are generally more options open when one is alive rather than dead." 

"That's true. Also - oh, gods, Stef." He must be panicking right now. Vanyel remembers how it felt from his end when Stef was just non-critically injured. "I have to go back. Even if there's no hope of helping with the war, I - I can't do that to him." 

Respectful silence. The Shadow-Lover has no further information to add, it seems. 

"I'm going back," Vanyel says quietly. "But - not yet. I have a lot of thinking to do and this is the best place for it. And...whatever you can tell me, would be helpful." 

"I am not going to conceal anything from you, Herald Vanyel. The time for that is done. This entire world is in danger, and - Vkandis Sunlord is making a terrible mistake, but I do not think He is likely to realize this in time to make any difference."