Bad Valar? That'd do it. He brings out some sandwiches.

Yeah, although we don't call them Valar. Thank you! Sandwich om nom.

Oh? What do you call them?

Gods. And there are other things on about the same tier that are also not as nice as the Valar.

That sounds worrying. What were you...doing, just staying away when the ground shook and not going out alone?

No, there's a whole civilization! Lots of them, actually, many different species of people. You just have to avoid attracting attention, doing experiments, or going near anything dangerous. Most people can avoid most of it if they just live quiet lives.

I don't mind a quiet life. I'd mind one lived in fear.

There's kind of - degrees of living in fear. I don't think most of it impinges on most people's minds most of the time.

He takes a sandwich. All right. Well, welcome.

Thanks!

And they make small talk until Rúmil returns with a sheep and a bag packed with carefully-wrapped glassware. Mahtan's thank-you for the idea, Bella.

He's welcome, of course. Headache?

It's not too bad. But he steps closer.

You do have to actually invite me to fix it. Them's the rules.

Please fix my headache, Bella. Are there problems with unethical practitioners of the subtle arts?

She fixes his headache. Yes, but those aren't the people the rules are for; the rules are to prevent misunderstandings. People who mess around in others' heads aren't going to be deterred by professional guidelines.

That makes sense. It seems like a skillset that could be used very terribly if one didn't have ethics.

Yeah. And some people aren't born with good control...

The Enemy could do things like that. Well, tamper with memories, tamper with senses, tamper with emotions, give you experiences you weren't really having.

The most common thing for a subtle artist to not be able to stop doing is reading minds, not actually doing anything to them, but that's bad enough. It'd be a really rare one who could do something complicated like a hallucination and couldn't stop doing it.

What do you do about people who can't stop reading minds?

I block them; I have a natural talent for it and don't have to be trying. I can block them out for other people who are around too. But mostly they're just - encouraged to learn to stop that. If they can.

Well. I suppose it'd be unkind to just exile them to a city where no one minded.

Most people mind less than I do - well, less than I hypothetically would. What I object to is that they aren't required to, like, wear a hat or anything to display that they're incontinent mindreaders.

He raises an eyebrow. Wouldn't that make it worse? My thoughts if I thought they were being read would be ones I'd be far less comfortable having read than the thoughts I have most of the time.