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This is the wrong building. She could have sworn the RA said "take a left at Emily, first on your right", and Bella did exactly that, and here she is and the rooms in this place don't even seem to be numbered, it's all letters and names. She's not going to find Intro to Subtle Therapy in Room 206 like that. Maybe the RA meant take a left after Emily, not before Emily? Maybe she was supposed to go the other way around the quad and approach Emily from the other direction? She's going to be late.
Bella tries to get out of the letter-named-rooms building to go ask Emily for directions, but that's not a stairwell after all, and there's someone shouting at her not to come in and she flinches back and clonks her elbow on the door and boots or no boots she's down and she -
- is falling -
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subtly_artistic
I know you will. Does the pressure make it harder for you to do a good job?
subtly_artistic
There'd be pressure no matter who I was working on. Most people have families who want them well again, most people have friends likewise, and even if I were working on someone who was totally alone in the world they'd still matter. So, compared to what?
Compared to if I stopped telling you things that might make the situation seem more dire.
None come to mind, I just would rather know if I should avoid burdening you with them.
subtly_artistic
...I don't know how to give a comprehensive account of things that might be therapeutically important so if you think of anything you should probably tell me in case.
Noted. Ah, would you benefit from a profile of the patient, and what happened, and what's been tried?
subtly_artistic
Yes; usually I'd get that from her but if she's as out of it as she sounds it may be all I can do to get basic consent from her.
She's not out of it. Quite alert, just - she doesn't want to be alive, and we all know it.
She and Finwë met by Cuivienen but did not marry for a hundred years, until they were safely here. She developed the art of embroidery, and is astonishingly gifted at it; she designed and sewed most of the tapestries in the palace. She was known for speaking quickly, moving quickly, being very stubborn. It was a difficult pregnancy and after the birth she was drained, and it was as if there was a shadow on her. She grew more and more tired, she gave up most of her hobbies because she found no joy in them, she tried really hard for Fëanáro and Finwë but there, too, something was missing. She said the strength that should have borne many children had gone into Fëanáro and she'd have no others, and she and the King fought over that.
Eventually they came to Lórien, and that seemed to help at first, a little, but it quickly got worse. Nothing brings a smile to her face, nothing makes her happy, she sleeps all the time when they're not visiting.
She and Finwë met by Cuivienen but did not marry for a hundred years, until they were safely here. She developed the art of embroidery, and is astonishingly gifted at it; she designed and sewed most of the tapestries in the palace. She was known for speaking quickly, moving quickly, being very stubborn. It was a difficult pregnancy and after the birth she was drained, and it was as if there was a shadow on her. She grew more and more tired, she gave up most of her hobbies because she found no joy in them, she tried really hard for Fëanáro and Finwë but there, too, something was missing. She said the strength that should have borne many children had gone into Fëanáro and she'd have no others, and she and the King fought over that.
Eventually they came to Lórien, and that seemed to help at first, a little, but it quickly got worse. Nothing brings a smile to her face, nothing makes her happy, she sleeps all the time when they're not visiting.
subtly_artistic
...Just to be sure, is the strength of many children actually plausible for your species or is she making things up?
Not impossible, given how children are created, but not something we've ever heard of. I expect she was reporting what it felt like.
subtly_artistic
Nod. What's been tried, besides bringing her to Lórien? What are Lórien's properties?
Lots of people've tried speaking with her. We've tried wine and plants that make you happy and things like that. Lórien is the Vala of dreams and his gardens have healing properties. I don't understand the Valar and he's a particularly incomprehensible one, but he can make her dreams peaceful and sustain her body when she isn't eating.
subtly_artistic
That's something, at least... what's particularly incomprehensible about him?
Aulë would like us to see him as a sort of familiar mentor. That's what he chose his manifestation and mannerisms from. He'd like us to feel awed and curious. He doesn't always manage it, because everything is so new, but he's trying. Vána wants us to see her as carefree and childlike. She chose her form for that. She wants us to feel rejuvenated and hopeful.
Lórien looks different through every pair of eyes I've seen him through. I think he desires to inspire - wisdom? security? tranquility? But those are different, and not obviously paired. I think it might be a Vala-emotion we don't experience. He's trying with Miriel, and he's done much, but he's the Vala of dreams, I'm not sure this is his domain rather than a domain he took on because it was needed. Am I making sense?
Lórien looks different through every pair of eyes I've seen him through. I think he desires to inspire - wisdom? security? tranquility? But those are different, and not obviously paired. I think it might be a Vala-emotion we don't experience. He's trying with Miriel, and he's done much, but he's the Vala of dreams, I'm not sure this is his domain rather than a domain he took on because it was needed. Am I making sense?
subtly_artistic
More or less. How did the Valar wind up associated with their domains to begin with?
It might be the other way around: the Valar are embodiments of the domains. I don't think they selected them, in any event. There's a lot they've tried to explain to us and run into language and conceptual barriers.
subtly_artistic
At home I had something of a specialty of explaining my species and culture to foreign students. I wonder if any of that skill is applicable to talking to Valar, once I can do it without feeling like a vaguely nauseated bug.
He chuckles. Probably. I assume that with time, everyone will get better at identifying where there are assumptions we aren't noticing.
In your society, the different, ah, species, live together?
subtly_artistic
In most places, there's a clear majority. Almost all of the students at my school are humans like me. But sometimes someone will study in a place dominated by another species, because there are specific opportunities in that place that they want, or to see more of the world. I just interacted with a disproportionate number of nonhumans because I got a reputation as being the right person to ask questions that would have seemed silly to most humans.
What's an example of a question that'd seem silly to most humans?
subtly_artistic
'What's a doily'. 'What are surnames for'. Assorted sex questions.