- what, how - ? 

It doesn't actually matter, how or why Melody was able to piece it together. She was Vanyel's ally and if she wanted to kill Leareth she would have done it candlemarks ago and, taking those two facts combined, it's enough that Leareth has already decided to tentatively trust her. 

"Yes." 

"I'm sorry I didn't–" 

"You could have said something!" Tran snarls at Leareth, at the same time. "I - we were talking just a few candlemarks ago - you, if you knew, why didn't you–" 

"I - Melody - why...?" 

- and, apparently, instead of saying any more words, Jisa is going to collapse against Melody's shoulder and burst into tears.

(At this point, she's a long way past even feeling embarrassed about this.)

Melody hugs Jisa, and tries to make eye contact with the Boston crew in the dim light and make an apologetic face. 

:....Er, sorry, I'm meant to be translating but apparently Leareth or I or both of us should've communicated better with Jisa and Tran earlier. Anyway. We....have confirmation that Herald Vanyel - er, sorry, I'm not actually sure if anyone explained to you who that is? - anyway he was a war hero for Valdemar and–: 

Deep breaths. She can do this. 

:- and, sorry, I can't - talk about that more yet. But he....sacrificed his life to save Haven when the gods were trying to destroy the whole city to kill Leareth. And - I - we, just got confirmation - I'd guessed but I didn't know - that, that he....became a god: 

Pause. 

:- Er, I'm also not sure if anyone explained this, but that was Leareth's plan. To make a new god, a god that cared about humans, who could - play in the gods' stupid games and win: 

He didn't like the gods. So he made a new god. To protect him from the other gods. 

Marcy takes several seconds reminding herself that he's two thousand years old and this world doesn't work like hers and that this probably isn't on the same level of totally braindead as 'I'm going to make a magical creature to protect me from the mals'. 

"Has that ever been attempted before?"

:...Not successfully? And as far as I know, not at all: 

Leareth, after what feels like quite a long time waiting for the talking that hurts his head and the Mindspeech-y silences to finish, interjects. 

"- I have a message to convey. From your ally Annisa." 

Melody has no idea what that means but she can relay it verbatim in Mindspeech. 

??????

!!!!!!!

"You--spoke to Annisa? She's dead!"

Melody is going to put off processing those words or having any feelings about them until LATER. 

She reads Marcy's mind, picks up the meaning of her foreign words, quietly murmurs a translation to Leareth. 

"...Yes. I know. I - am sorry..." 

Leareth trails off. It felt like there was something to say, there, but he can't find the right emotions, let alone the right words. 

"Her message was," and he quotes it from memory. 

"Have Leareth tell Boston that I have arranged an alliance with a god who wants to bring modern medicine to Velgarth and might need to fight some other worse gods about this, like the ones who tied Prometheus to a rock, where Leareth is Prometheus, and they should heal up his liver metaphorically speaking and keep him safe and I'll be back as soon as I can, possibly in the form of a horse because this magic system is incredibly bizarre, and they should start thinking about how one would fight an evil god. There will not be any doubt about whether that message is really from me."

Wow that's a very high-context-sounding message! Hopefully the Boston kids can make more sense of it than Melody can! 

She translates it into Mindspeech for them. 

That's absolutely Annisa. There's no possible way it could not be Annisa. Even if someone had been reading all their minds since they got here. 

She whispers to the others anyway, checks that none of them remembered that poem since they arrived. None of them did. She is, somehow, not surprised. There's Annisa and there are people who aren't Annisa and that message was from the former.

She's not going to say 'But she's dead' again like an idiot. The first three responses her brain suggests are all 'but she's dead' but eventually she gets past that to:

"How? Can you--get her back--"

Leareth....should be relieved, probably. Glad even. Boston believed him. They're not hostile, or angry; they seem cooperative even. 

- mostly he just feels incredibly, overwhelmingly tired, in a way that isn't just about the backlash, or the fact that he's still intensely nauseated and having to use his mouth to talk is deeply unpleasant. 

"Vanyel...thought that probably yes, but...it is complicated - as the message mentioned - and also costly for him. It would be easier for him if your presence were causing less Foresight noise, so - he hoped that opening communications with you, via me, would help with the resource constraints." 

(And people are dying, right now, in the north, and if the entity that used to be Vanyel were less tightly bound then it could fix that. Leareth is painfully aware of this. And even more agonizingly aware of why he can't afford to make hasty choices, when it comes to doing those checks and loosening those chains.) 

Melody translates. 

:...And, er, for reference, we think that the gods in this world mostly see the world at all through Foresight? So - I guess you all being here, and from another world, is making the future less predictable and more chaotic? And that's going to be clouding things for all the gods, not just Vanyel: 

If the new god saved Annisa's life (brain? soul?) and she vouches for them then that's good enough for the rest of the squad.

"How do we reduce our foresight noise? If there are actions we can take to help Annisa or help the god that's protecting Annisa we want to do them."

Melody has no idea how reducing Foresight noise works. She does, however, think that these kids are excellent and she's feeling a lot of fondness toward them already. 

She translates for Leareth, without any other comment. 

Answering that requires having a thought. As many as several thoughts, even. Leareth is determined to do this, but it's going to take him a little while. 

"...I think - part of Vanyel's difficulty is that - gods perceive the world from a - very different angle than human senses?" 

(Was that sentence grammatical. Leareth's current problem is that by the time he manages to make his mouth produce sounds, this takes so much concentration that he forgets the beginning of his sentence well before he gets to the end of it.) 

"I - so, it would help if he...knew more of your decision process? What your goals are, what your reasoning is. Also, to - the extent that you are willing to precommit to things," and that they can be trusted to keep their sworn word, but actually, having met Annisa, Leareth is not especially in doubt about that, "- that will make things clearer. ...Though it will make things clearer for all the other gods, as well. Whereas Vanyel having privileged information on - who you are - is an asymmetrical advantage." 

She has had both sleep and good news since the last time someone asked her to produce their entire decision procedure and now she could maybe do it. But she should ask before launching into it; the man looks like he just graduated on a cocktail of six potions and meth and also it's not clear if Vanyel is currently listening. "Do you want a long speech on who we are and how we make decisions right now?" 

Leareth opens his mouth to answer, and then stops, and takes a breath, and actually tries to consider it. 

"I...think yes? It - seems that many things have gone wrong, lately, because - information was not shared early enough. Due to inconveniences such as...the fact that I am very tired currently. I - am not sure exactly what failures this would protect against, but - I would feel better, knowing more about you, and - knowing that you know I know, and - have seen my reaction to it, which might also be informative..." 

Leareth has no idea if he's succeeding at making sense, right now. 

Melody can do her best to translate the most coherent version of that! 

"- oh, also, Melody - or Jisa, someone - can you take notes?" Leareth is very aware that his memory retention is going to be worse than usual, right now, and it still seems probably correct to get the explanation sooner rather than later, but he wants some kind of reference to review later, and he's definitely not up for making that himself.