The guest room is underground and windowless, though well-lit with the lampstones and so thoroughly curtained that it actually takes a few minutes to verify there are no windows.

"It's safer," says the woman who showed her to the room. "And we can't get you a bath up in a tower room."

"Makes sense."

They bring actual buckets of hot water for the bath. 

Which reminds her that she needed to talk engineering with someone at some point. Specializing in engineering was an efficient use of magic, interesting, and a good way to act orthoganally enough to her sister as not to be rendered redundant; she's glad of it now.

About an hour later there's a knock on the door. 

She's much cleaner and dry and wearing the provided clothes and she looks a lot more cheerful. Her hair's still loose; if there's any reason for it not to be she has no idea.

"Hello. You all right? I thought we could go through the meditations together before dinner."

"I'm much improved." There was a subtle tension before that's gone now. "That sounds like an excellent idea."

"All right. Your lead."

Meditation is much like the last time, although she makes a special point of emphasizing to herself that people dying is a bad thing even if the consequences of leaving them alive are much worse.

A women opens the door as they're working. She looks startled, then frowns, and starts to back out. 

"Lady Hareth," he says, "come in, you're not interrupting. Illia's abilities extend to most of the diseases that afflict Men, and she can teach them."

"I might ask you or another of your species to act as a relay, if I'm going to be teaching other humans; I still haven't figured out how to explain it verbally."

"You can't pick up osanwë the way you picked up our eyesight? But I'd be happy to." 

The woman is still standing in the doorway, and still scowling. He sighs. "She's from a floating magical city with different customs, I promise not to bother you privately. Do sit down."

"I picked up your eyesight by copying the physical structure. As far as I can tell copying osanwë would be mind magic, which--I think I've explained that it's a big deal that my sister could do mind magic to herself."

To the woman she says "I'm not having sex with him. It turns out his species can't have sex without getting magically married, and anyway--" she stops herself from saying the Elves think of me as a child because this woman probably isn't much older than her by Elf standards "--I wouldn't agree and have the ability to defend my own 'virtue'."

She sits down, uncomfortably. Fingon shakes his head. "As far as I understand it, everyone can pick this up, and after a few years of pracitce can cure diseases."

"Curing diseases is one of the easiest aspects of healing magic. Where I'm from it's all but unheard of for someone to die of illness."

At that she genuinely smiles. "It's very common here. And starvation? Drought?"

"Less common than I imagine they would be without magic, but not unheard of."

"How is this taught? Will the Elves be teaching it?"

"Right now I'm the only one who knows it well enough to teach it, unless my sister's around somewhere. Elves might help me transmit relevant sensations but it'll mostly be me teaching at least to start with."

Now she's warming up to the idea. "I think people'd be very eager to try that. The risks are that it affects your temperament?"

"Uh, also it hurts. Kind of a lot, depending on what exactly you're doing. But yes."

"Burying your children hurts too."

"I expected it would be worth it. I just don't think the pain should be a surprise."

"How many people can you teach in a setting? Does it matter if they're not literate?"

Fingon stands. "Messenger arrived," he says quietly. "I'll be back shortly."