But then Aziza will hear the song about how Vanyel sent Abyssal demons into Karse which he’s certain Shelyn doesn’t approve of at all

Perspective, Vanyel tells himself firmly. It was a long time ago, and things are different now, and it doesn’t actually matter.

:Aziza, do you sing or play anything?: he asks her. :I - Leareth used to ask to hear songs I’d learned, when we were stuck in the Foresight dream and out of other things to talk about. I think it’ll be a good distraction, he likes music, and - I do have to go, soon, but my Companion thought he might warm up to you pretty quickly if he sees we - get along - and if you didn’t mind sitting around for a while after to sing things…:

It would feel like a very rude imposition to put on anyone else, but - it does feel different when Aziza was asking for advice on approaching Leareth totally unprompted. He hopes she doesn’t mind. (Her brother might mind but he can hang out too and be grouchy…)

:I sing! It's not my focus, you're quite likely better than me, but I sing and I would love to come sing with you:

She and her brother can come figure out where they're at. He stands in the doorway grouchily.

"Hello Leareth! I'm Songbird Aziza."

:She’s the cleric of Shelyn who volunteered on short notice to come through the first Gate: Vanyel explains. 

…The important part is that Vanyel is clearly relaxed around her, and - Leareth is going to provisionally just rely on Vanyel’s character judgement, because Vanyel is much less an…excessively trusting…sort of person than many of the Heralds. And is probably right that in Golarion, someone being empowered by a particular god can communicate a lot about them, and so can volunteering their aid to another world.

He nods to Aziza.

It would be very silly to pretend the song isn’t about him, Vanyel thinks, given that it has his literal name in it in almost every stanza, and for any other song he would translate the lyrics for her so it would be petty not to for this one just because it’s embarrassing.

He is in fact a quite good singer. (To Vanyel, of course, it’s mostly salient that Stef is better.) He translates the lyrics for Aziza in Mindspeech. The overtones do become a bit wooden on “For Vanyel calls the lightning down and smites him to the earth!” and moreso on

Now Vanyel frees the demons and Nedran screams with fear
He sets them on the Karsites who first had brought them here
He sets them on the Karsites, and on the Karsite land
They look down on Lord Nedran and they do not stay their hand

(It wasn’t - like that - he had no control over the demons at the point when they killed the Karsite party, he had just killed the blackrobe priest-mage who'd summoned them and they were unbound and in seconds they would have gone after the Hardornen civilians instead - the story makes it sound like it was a moment of tactical genius and appropriate dramatic irony, sending the demons back into Karse, but it was only that he couldn’t figure out how to banish them, or he would have done that instead, the only thing he could think of in the moment was to point them in a direction that wasn’t ‘further into Hardorn’ or ‘straight at Valdemar’ - he doesn’t say anything, it would feel like making excuses -)

Aziza dances along a little, when she has the rhythm, though she doesn't try to pronounce the foreign words, just hums slightly to the chorus.

:Was that very awful?: she asks, at the end. :- if it wasn't that's fine, demons are pretty bad, but - most clerics of any god stay first circle all our lives but this is more true of Shelynites than practically everybody, we're not a very martial sort:

Vanyel’s brain briefly starts trying to list in order all of the very many incidents of the Karsite war that were more awful than the confrontation that led to that song. 

:It - wasn’t like in the song: he manages. :Bards always embellish. …It was very awful.:

How about he sings some of the heavily embellished songs about Valdemar’s ancient history next, rather than waiting for Leareth to remember that other songs about them exist. Most of them are just not very good qua music, anyway, the only other one than Vanyel can admit has merit as art is Shadow Stalker and he’s never actually tried to sing it and isn’t sure he can without having some kind of horrible flashback and probably crying and it would just be bad all around.

(What are some of Aziza’s favorite songs from Golarion?) 

(Hugs for Vanyel on account of it having been very awful.)

She will sing her favorite Crystalhue song since it's winter here! It's very long and the chorus is all the colors with a lot of intermediate shades added to oblige the rhymes into place. There's verses about the feasting and about giving a token to your crush and about weddings performed on the day of the festival and about the colorful patchwork coats and dyed hair streaks and about the dancing and about forgiveness and about the craft fair and about the Zonzon doll who brings all the colors and tasty smells and apologies and cute stories and music down, down, down the river to the darkest place, but not so dark that sharp eyes can't see (insert chorus with all the colors here).

(Vanyel...had really, really needed a hug, actually, even if he feels weird about it because of the part where he hasn't bathed in almost two weeks.) 

What a nice cheerful fun song that’s in no way about a war! He picks up the tune enough halfway through to hum quietly along and then to do a bit of harmony (still just crooning 'ooh' because there's no way he's learning words in a foreign language phonetically that quickly even if the chorus repeats). 

Yfandes can get the meanings clearly enough to translate for Leareth in Mindspeech. 

Leareth is actually the one who asks, after the song is done. :What does the part about the doll mean?: Some sort of holiday tradition, he thinks, but there's...subtext, unless it's actually very obvious and he just can't think. 

"Shelyn has a brother. He used to be Dou-Bral, the chaotic good god of the same things She's about, but He ventured into the Dark Tapestry and met something there that changed him and now He is Zon-Kuthon, the Lawful Evil god of darkness and pain. But He's still Her brother. And we help Her reach out to him with the dolls, although I don't know if He really has a room full of everybody's dolls from every year somewhere in His realm."

That's a thing that can happen????????????

It really is very alarming that apparently there are...things...out there that can, what, invert a god's alignment? And it's not a great time to be throwing alarming new facts at Leareth! Vanyel could have predicted the reaction if he'd been thinking about it, though he also wasn't expecting how alarming the backstory to that tradition would end up being. 

:Leareth, are you all right?: 

Leareth is definitely not all right and he is fairly sure that means it would be lying to tell Vanyel 'yes' even if he wants Vanyel not to be worried? ...Plausibly Vanyel mostly just wants to make sure that Leareth is capable of responding to questions. 

It's clearly not the time to...try to do productive reasoning...about the new information that that thing is possible (!!!????) but Leareth is having trouble actually following that reasoning to the point of...thinking about something else instead. 

:...I think it would help to hear a song about something else: he manages. 

Sorry! She didn't really have a good sense of exactly how alarming this point of theology would be to people who had never been exposed to a normal concentration of Golarion Bullshit! Aziza can come up with a lighter song. This one is about sunrises over various skylines and landscapes.

(It's better than the first idea that jumped into Vanyel's head, which was is 'My Lady's Eyes', a trite love ballad which has the sole redeeming feature of not having enough content to be upsetting. ...And a very pretty instrumental part, admittedly, but Vanyel's lute hasn't arrived yet and he doubts he could pull it off right now. The only reason he even knows it well enough to sing from memory on the fly is that his mother loves it, which he feels says a lot about the song's quality. Most of the songs Vanyel knows by heart are...maudlin, Aziza seems to have a way more cheerful repertoire.) 

Leareth can in fact be soothed, or at least distracted, by a pretty song about sunrises and landscapes. 

Vanyel does eventually think of a few more songs he knows that aren't incredibly depressing. His lute arrives with a mildly aggrieved-looking Healing trainee and he embarrasses himself only moderately in the process of discovering that he can play as long as he simplifies it down to just strumming chords with no fancy fingerings. 

And they are granted almost half a candlemark to take turns playing before Savil makes her way out of the meeting and starts looking for Vanyel. 

:Van, ke'chara, are you - I don't want to push, if you're not - actually ready - but Rolan said you ought to be out of the House of Healing...?: 

It was inevitable. 

Savil's mindvoice sounds so tired. Vanyel abruptly goes from the background feeling slightly hurt that she never visited the House of Healing, at least not while he was awake to remember it, to remembering how much she must have been taking on to cover for both of them and feeling awful about that. 

:You need me for Web-work? I can meet you there in five minutes.: 

He waits for the end of Aziza's current song, and then gets Leareth's attention. :I've been summoned to help Savil with the Web. I think Aziza can stay and keep you company, she's assigned to be on-call at the House of Healing right now but that just means waiting around in case we need channels.: 

"Mm-hm, I'm happy to stay and sing some more or chat or whatever!"

That does, actually, seem better than being alone - or if not exactly alone, with Sera, who's deeply asleep enough that she hasn't even stirred through all the singing going on. 

:All right: Leareth says. Smiling at Aziza is beyond him but he manages to nod. 

Vanyel does not hug Leareth goodbye because they aren't hugging friends and he doubts it would help. (He also doesn't try to get another hug from Aziza because he feels weird about the grouchy brother and also the unbathedness. Savil will probably hug him even if he's disgusting, he thinks.) 

He heads out. 

:...If you are going to sing then do you mind if I read your surface thoughts to understand words of the song?: Leareth asks Aziza. :Yfandes was translating before.: