The Songbird nods, wide-eyed. "Your kind of healing asks so much of you. More time and more involvement."

...That's really true, isn't. It's a difference Shavri hadn't fully thought through. She's probably spent three-quarters of the...two hundred and forty? candlemarks in the last ten days, in this goddamned room. That's - Shavri can definitely do mental math right now - whatever. 

:I couldn't really afford to have feelings about it at the time: she says. :I mean - Leareth died, after everyone threw everything they had at getting him out - and I would have really appreciated a chance to have some feelings about that at the time, you know? But all I remember thinking is, what a waste of a Cure spell. Really wished later that night that we still had it.: Shrug. :And then - ten days of that - trying to get by to another dawn - I guess the second day was good, we had all these channels, but then of course we couldn't justify keeping anyone if we didn't really truly need them, with Iftel - so Karis and Joshel...:

Shrug. :I mostly can't think of anything I'd do differently. Try Stabilize on Leareth first, maybe, but I don't know if it not working actually means nothing would work and - it just happened really fast - I thought in the middle a few times that we should have kept our eye on the bigger picture, allocated a few more spells to helping the research go faster and not just healing - could've done a Minor Prophecy on Brightstar - but I don't know. I kind of feel like the Shadow-Lover's god was angling for - the cheapest possible intervention, and that means that whatever we did it would've been just barely in time?: 

Another shrug. She's really not managing to be very coherent, is she. :I was just - the whole time, I had to do the most ruthless triage. And, I mean, it worked. We made it, with nothing to spare. Letting Nayoki go on the second day was the right call, it was her idea, she was the only person who wouldn't take someone else they were soulbonded to with them, and - we had just, just barely, enough to make it - it was so fucking close I still can't believe the timing - Blai said Iomedae was the god of triage and She's broke so She couldn't have - and I don't even want - but if She could've just fucking given me Stabilize then I wouldn't have had to ask Van, he's so devastated about it and it's completely predictable and my fault, it was the stupidest plan, I still can't believe I - you know, having just seen abundant evidence of why giving people with blood-poisoning a terrifyingly strong stimulant is a really, really bad plan, to be like 'oh I know, I will fix the outcome of my first bad plan by doing the exact same thing again to someone else who's dying slightly more slowly - and I still. can't. think. of what else I should have done instead...: 

She's not crying. That might also be one of the things that got broken, Shavri thinks dully. 

:Stef's happy about it: she adds, tonelessly. :Makes Luminary Khayr sound incredibly heroic in the song he's going to write about it. I just - I cannot describe how angry I'm going to be if we somehow learn that the Shadow-Lover's god steered for exactly this to happen because a better fucking song makes the interworld contact go just that little bit more smoothly - it'd be exactly like Them to do that and not even, not even realize, that it hurt people, because They can't see that...: 

Nod nod. "Even if someone blunders into you by complete accident it can still hurt you terribly. Even if it's an accident and you wind up getting along great with them afterward you could wind up with a broken nose and someone should see that, even if it's not them."

The analogy being drawn to the...Shadow-Lover's god, she assumes? ...is such an absurd one that Shavri starts laughing - silently, she's not going to be so gauche as to wake any sleeping patients with it - and there are maybe a couple of tears in her eyes. 

...There's still the - other part. And she really, really does want to talk about it. Maybe she needs to talk about it or she's going to just be - stuck like this, half insane. And it's not like she learned this particular set of facts about Blai's history in a context where he was her patient, that would make it a lot more unambiguously not okay to tell someone - though she would tell a fellow Healer, and the Shelynite cleric isn't not that...? 

:Kinda want to tell you something but it's - sort of personal?: she sends. :For one of the patients. It's - related to why I'm so bothered about this, but - I don't feel right turning it into gossip - can you keep it to yourself? It really– it's not especially relevant in the present, I'm pretty sure of that now.: 

"I can keep it quiet. My brother'll let me be alone with you in another room, if you want, since you're a woman."

:What, are you no–: Shavri. Shavri. None of your goddamned business. :I - okay. I'd like that. I - it really doesn't seem like they're about to need a channel in here on three seconds' notice.: To Nuvia, :- hey, we're slipping out for a moment. Mindspeak me if you need us.: 

    (Nuvia has no objections and if anything seems faintly relieved about something.) 

There's a room next door with no one in it, and a couple of cots that can serve as chairs. Shavri sits. She's hesitating again, now.

"I'm Songbird Aziza, I don't know if anyone introduced us all," the Songbird adds.

:- Probably at some point when I was completely failing to pay attention.: Shavri manages a little smile, closer to a real one this time. :I'm glad to meet you, Songbird Aziza.: 

She wrings her hands in her lap. :...Select Blai is Chelish. Before - very recently, I think? I’m not sure on the timeline of all the things that happened with the archmages and Cheliax - but before that happened he was a cleric of Asmodeus.:

Great big eyes. "Oh wow. That is an enormous victory for Good and I am so glad Iomedae was able to catch him."

Shavri isn’t sure what response she was expecting but it wasn’t that, and she’s -

:Yes. Absolutely. And we were so, so lucky -

- can I hug you? Is that all right? I - just - I don’t know why that was the thing but I think this is the first positive emotion I’ve had in ten days and it’s wanting to hug you.:

"Of course," says Aziza, flinging her arms open.

Hug!

Wow. Shavri had perhaps very very badly been needing that. (It’s not that she hasn’t had any hugs in ten days, but somehow the hugs from Randi and occasionally Jisa are just not quite the same thing.)

Songbird Aziza is great at hugs.

So so good at hugs.

Shavri doesn’t pull back from the hug - she is maybe not going to do that on her own initiative for a while - but she does eventually go on.

:So you know how sometimes when people are very sick with a fever, they get confused about where they are or what year it is, that sort of thing? Well. Blai gets confused about who his god is.:

"- oh no, did anything come of that -"

:I, what– Shit. You know, it had somehow at no point during this entire saga occurred to me that a possible outcome of this was Asmodeus paying attention to us! ...I don't think so? I haven't noticed anything and - he really wasn't very coherent - we did conclusively determine that casting spells from Iomedae works just fine if you're under the impression that you're currently a cleric of Asmodeus. I was mostly able to time the Remove Diseases and such so he was sort of vaguely oriented at dawn, but this morning - I didn't want to take the risk with praying for spells even if it would be kind of fascinating to know if that even works - and we really, really needed them - thus the terrible idea stimulant plan. Which I would say backfired horribly except I think by some insane coincidence of perfect timing I got away with it.: 

She shivers slightly. 

:No, it wasn't - the awful part is just. That apparently when I'm in - triage mode - I am reminiscent of Asmodean seminary instructors! I really, really did not need to know that! ...and the worst part is, in the moment I was almost grateful that was a thing - I think I bought us most of a candlemark keeping him bloody breathing on his own by hurting him until he woke up and then yelling at him in Mindspeech, it was - motivating - and I was just, I'll take anything I can get if it buys me fifteen more minutes for the Gate - I don't think anyone else I know could've survived what he did. I feel like I owe him an apology but he barely remembers it and it'd be - awkward and weird - he's Chelish, he would just be bemused and maybe a bit offended that I thought his feelings about anything should matter at all next to tactical goals...: 

"I've never actually met a Chelish person. They haven't been liberated for long and not many got out. So you knowing him is definitely better than me knowing stereotypes. What do you think he needs?"

What a good question that was somehow not quite the one Shavri was trying to ask herself at any point this afternoon!

:...A Breath of Life scroll in case anything happens to his Companion, that was definitely weighing on him, it would mean a lot if we made that happen sooner though I really can't blame Joshel for not having it at top of mind, I'd forgotten until just now. Having the progressive damage problem actually fixed, obviously, I'm kind of still mad we got all this backup, I wouldn't have dared to hope that fourteen of you would come on such short notice, and it still couldn't be actually fixed right away.: Shrug. :...I think he'll be all right? I think this isn't nearly the worst thing he's been through. And it's really good that he has Seldan, this would have been impossible without that and it's, just - it's good. But, honestly, I think I'm more messed up over how this m–: no it wasn't this morning, she's slept since then, hasn't she?, :-how yesterday went than he is, I feel so stupid saying it like that but...: 

Shrug. :I could stand to apologize to Seldan, probably, he had to watch it and he does remember it all and I bet he would appreciate it and not just find it mortifying, but - I'm half expecting him to say something like 'well maybe if you'd tried a bit harder he wouldn't have had the chance to briefly die', that was - well. It really scared him, obviously.:

"Cicerone Raad was very efficient about getting us all rounded up. I think we're all grateful to be able to help but it'll feel that little bit realer when the stronger clerics get that mystery spell to fix them for good. It does sound so important that he has Seldan; I think going by stereotypes I'd be worried that a Chelish person wouldn't have friends at all, let alone ones on the planet they just got stranded on."

:...Mm, there's definitely - a lot of us feel warmly toward him and invested in him coming out of this alright, obviously, he's just - he's done so many things for us that he didn't in any way need to do, and he's also just a perfectly pleasant person who gets along with everyone fine. But it doesn't - I don't know how to...do the friendship thing? with him? It usually takes two people to be friends with each other? And - especially now, I feel like I'm going to spend the next few months having random intrusive thoughts of 'remember that time you were trying to keep him conscious so he wouldn't stop breathing and he was thinking how it was very merciful of you not to break all the joints in his body' and I have no idea how to be - normal - about that, you know?: 

It's still such a good hug. Shavri is finally starting to feel like maybe she's been clinging to this person she just met for long enough that it's weird, but she can't bring herself to stop. 

:- Maybe Van can befriend him. He's good at that when he's not having an awful time like recently. He managed to befriend Leareth and from what I've heard that man is remarkably - reminiscent of some of Blai's Chelishness - despite not even being from the same world.: 

"...is Leareth okay? Apart from being dead for the next few hours, I mean."

That...is also a pretty good question...that Shavri had not even close to considered. In fact, her first knee-jerk response is mostly "I have no idea but that sounds like his problem?"

:...Not sure?: she temporizes. :He's two thousand years old, he's had a lot of practice at - landing on his feet, I guess - but it was a pretty stressful series of events, and I guess this is the first time our world's gods successfully wrecked his immortality contingency and then exploded an entire country to kill him in hopes it'd be permanent this time. ...Uh, if you'd like the entire explanation of Leareth as a person, I'm happy to fill you in: it feels much less like a private personal matter than Blai's history, for some reason, :but it might take a while and we should maybe do it back in the room.: 

"I just meant because - Chelish people aren't like that because of how okay they are, generally, not even just specific to this month." She will let Shavri go and go back to the sickroom.

:Mm. ...Thank you for the hug. I needed it.: 

And they go back. (No one seems to have deteriorated all that much! Yay!) 

Shavri is trying to poke at what, exactly, she found reminiscent. It's not like they've ever actually met and had a conversation, it's all through Vanyel. 

:...I think it's only some parts that remind me of Blai, not everything: she muses. :According to Van he definitely has the thing where he's really hard to read, and - at least a lot of the not treating his own emotions as very important unless they're a constraint, in which case he handles that so he can get back to work? ...That's interpretation on my side, I don't think Vanyel's ever seen him upset except very briefly when they got the Minor Prophecy of Brightstar wrecking his immortality. I do get the impression he mostly doesn't have friends, and he sounds very - I wouldn't even know how to go about doing the friendship thing.: 

Oh right and she skipped the actual Explanation Of Leareth's Deal, which is kind of relevant background. 

:He's immortal, two thousand years old, survived the Cataclysm that nearly destroyed the continent about that long ago. He's - we weren't sure for a very long time, given the whole 'wanting to invade our country' part and the fact that Vanyel did not at all think he would be able to catch Leareth out if Leareth was persuasively lying about everything - but I think we're now taking him at his word that he wants to - fix a lot of problems our world has - and he eventually concluded that our world's gods were more or less preventing him from making progress, because They're - scared of change? I'm not sure. I have recently become a lot more sympathetic to his viewpoint on the gods being a serious problem, given Their recent behavior - I think all the Heralds are feeling that way, it's not just Iftel, there were a ton of fairly horrible manipulative interventions in the last two and a half weeks or so. ...The thing Leareth specifically wanted to do about it was conquer our kingdom in order to eventually kill ten million people for blood-magic to power creating a better god. Which is horrible, obviously, but - I think it's become rapidly obvious that he's dropping that whole plan now that we have interworld contact. ...Abadar likes him, I'm told, and expressed interest in taking his soul off the Shadow-Lover's hands.: A pause. :He's a complicated person. Clearly. But Van really cares about him. They spent twenty years speaking in a shared lucid Foresight dream for some unclear godplot reason and now they're friends.:  

"Well, we certainly mustn't let him murder ten million people but having a friend who doesn't want him to do that is really the best way to change his mind if you ask me."