Nod. :Melody suggested I bounce to him what it feels like, and let him decide for himself if it would present an operational constraint.: Which would have been a lot more confusing if he hadn't also picked up on Blai's particular usage of that phrase in his internal vernacular. 

:Make sure you mention the upsides, too. To be balanced about it. He ought to know how convenient we are.: 

:I'll, er, make sure to do that.: Aaaaaargh. 

Also he's managed to finish processing the rest of what Seldasen Seldan said earlier, but it's way too late to object that Leareth isn't his archmage, bringing it up would just be really awkward at this point. 

He'll slip into the dining hall and look for Blai. 

Blai has his book and his empty plate and is looking at the book.

Vanyel will go over, stand awkwardly for a moment, and clear his throat. 

:- hello! I didn't realize you were in Haven yet.:

:I just got here.: Give or take a couple of minutes to take care of necessities and five minutes of unnecessary gossip. 

He takes a deep breath; it's not exactly necessary when he's using Mindspeech but it's still grounding. :I - thank you. For everything you've done in Haven. It must have been really frustrating, but - I do think it made a difference, I think us showing up in Waymeet would have gone worse if we hadn't known what was happening here. Valdemar owes you a lot, and - I don't know if anyone else has actually said so or if they're too embarrassed.: 

He glances around, finds a chair, and sits down heavily. 

Stef sits as well and nods to Blai. 

:I'm glad I was able to help. Has anyone told you that if I can get the right scroll on Golarion - or hire a higher-circle cleric - there are spells that resurrect the dead -:

:Your Com– er, I know he's not your Companion yet, but Seldan mentioned.: Stiffly. :Speaking of that, er. Melody thought I should...show you what it feels like to - what happened to - do you actually want me to do that?: His Mindspeech is fragmented; he keeps not being able to make himself finish the sentence. 

:It makes a difference to whether I just need to save up to carry a scroll of Breath of Life or do something more elaborate than that, if nothing else.:

Nod. 

Vanyel isn't a mage right now, but he's still a Projective Empath, and if anything it's been taking an ongoing effort of will to not project the emptiness everywhere. 

(Pause to nudge aside the moment of bitter envy, almost anger, of course Blai's world has some instant magic solution. But Blai doesn't deserve pettiness from Vanyel and Vanyel is not going to let himself project stupid feelings that aren't his problem at him.) 

This is what it feels like when your Companion dies. 

There's the aspect that feels like it should really be a fatal injury, except purely mental – half of his mind bleeding out forever into the nothing, and knowing he won't actually die of it, even though if he did it would stop. There's the way that his thoughts keep running into metaphorically walls or stumbling off cliffs or into pits, places where a mental action would complete effortlessly if Yfandes were there and...can't, anymore. 

There's also the mundane grief, no different from how it would hurt if, say, Savil died. Yfandes wasn't just glued to his soul; she was his closest friend, across twenty years. But that part is in the background; Vanyel knows how to lose people and gently set the pain of it aside for more pressing matters. The part where there's a gaping chasm in his mind is a lot harder to ignore.

It's mostly not getting in the way of taking actions, though it may or may not be relevant there that Vanyel has so many years of practice. 

Wow, that's pretty bad.

Blai is a third circle Worldwound veteran. He has, on more than one occasion, needed to heal himself mid-combat, gutted by a glabrezu claw or eaten away by vescavors. It's - weird, to face the prospect of somebody dying as urgent in the same way, but - he does think he could read a Breath of Life scroll, if he had to.

:Thank you for the demonstration.:

Vanyel puts his shields back and tucks his feelings back away where they belong. (He had to be very careful not to project all of that at everyone in the hall.) 

:...I should mention the good parts, too, because - it's worth it. It was worth it even when I - thought - I couldn't ever get her back. It's...:

How in the world to convey this to Blai, who Vanyel has noticed does not seem to go around enjoying feelings of intimacy with other people. 

:...it's like that spell you use a lot. The one that makes you a little better at whatever it is you're trying to do right then. It's - your Companion is always there, and - when you forgot to do something and you know you forgot it but not what it was, they remember it for you - when you're trying to figure out how to say something so it's not rude, they have a suggestion right there - they remember that word on the tip of your tongue for you - they keep track of your schedule...: Shrug. :And of course they give you advise on hard decisions, but - that's not even the part I mostly miss, you can get advice from friends, but your friends can't, just, make every moment of every day a little bit easier like that.: 

Blai doesn't have any friends though.

:I'm concerned about what will happen when I reach the afterlife. I think I could cast from a scroll or probably even make travel arrangements to a church of Abadar to call in an insurance policy if necessary, but there's no such obvious action to take if I appear in Axis thus - separated.:

Vanyel is not reading Blai's mind and so cannot pick up on that thought and find it incredibly sad. 

:...I don't know. Since we don't have afterlives, it's - usually Companions die when their Herald does, though not the Groveborn - the kind of Companion that Rolan is, who can go on and Choose a different Herald next - and not instantly unless it was because they were both killed at once in the same fight or something. I suppose it would be simpler if everyone went to the same afterlife but there are a lot of them and I don't know what alignment Seldan is. I - could you leave Seldan with instructions on getting you back, if you die? I don't know how scrolls work, probably he couldn't cast a spell that way, but if he just has to go to a church and ask them for help...: 

:That won't work once I've died of old age. In addition to being very expensive before that. I'm actually not even sure how I'll afford the Breath of Life scroll and I'm just assuming that the Valdemaran government can probably afford the one you need which costs five times the amount.:

:I'm...guessing...that if you died of old age and were in an afterlife, you just wouldn't be bonded anymore? Rather than having a broken Companion-bond, I - when people here die and then are reincarnated, they don't come back with a broken bond even if they were previously bonded to someone, they just have the - underlying compatibility for it.:

Please please please don't ask him how he knows this it's so awkward. 

:I think the kind of Groveborn Companion that Rolan is just doesn't die of old age. Other Companions do age but their lifespan seems to be longer than a human's, I've never heard of someone's Companion dying of old age before they did. So probably you should just...ask Seldan? I've never heard of a Companion objecting to the fact that their Herald will eventually die of old age but - if you're still around, just stuck in an afterlife, he might want to know how to track you down there?: 

:Also expensive but not as much as any of the spells that call for diamonds, at least.: He pockets his book, stands, and looks for where to put his plate.

:In that bucket on the table over there.: Seldan has been hanging back from the conversation itself, but can still track what Blai is doing enough to notice when he's looking for something.

Vanyel stands up as well.  

:Good luck: he says, which doesn't quite feel like the right thing to say but he can't think of what would be and Yfandes is NOT there to help him out.

:Thank you.:

He puts his plate where Seldan tells him to and comes out of the dining hall.

:I think that if I save up for a scroll of Breath of Life I'll be able to cast it if you go down,: he tells Seldan. :However in the longer term I am unsure what will happen when I make my way to the afterlife. I'm probably bound for Axis and it is possible to just travel there but it would be - highly irregular and perhaps supernaturally illegal - to take up residence while not yourself dead and Judged for the destination.:

Who's going to stop him, the afterlife Guard ...they might, actually, he should not be assuming he understands what any of those foreign concepts mean or what the stakes are here, and also sarcasm will not help. 

:I won't say I understand, I probably don't yet, other world and everything. But - it's not relevant to my decision. It's not as though it's news to me that humans die eventually, and it's not as though it's worse than that if you're just - elsewhere.: 

That being said, the afterlife Guard would absolutely have to arrest him if they wanted to drag him away from his Chosen. Or, well, they could try. He can't forbid them from trying. They, however, also can't stop him from stomping on their faces about it. 

(He keeps this part to himself. It would be a weird level of intensity to bring into the conversation given that the bond isn't two-way yet and Blai might still say no to it.) 

:If nothing else the fact that Axis goes out of its way to be possible to visit should make it possible to - reestablish the connection if that turns out to be necessary for either of us to function. Given... money. I don't have a stable occupation at the moment.:

:Doesn't the archmage need your help to contact your world, and isn't he very motivated to do that? He should pay you for the service, if it's worth that much to him. And then you can get paid by people from your world for access to this one.: