"I can't turn off my sight, but I can choose where I direct it. You can choose whether or not I should read your mind, and when, and rescind or grant this as you wish."

That's a lot of choices.

"Yes, sir."

Damjen resists the urge to sigh.

"Is there something you wanted to talk about?"

Kandrad doesn't know what upsetting thing to talk about.

"No."

"Would you rather that I left? Or that you not have this conversation at this time, or ever?" Hopefully not, but, it is his prerogative. In a regular therapist setting, anyway.

"Talking is fine."

He's unsure whether to interpret that as 'good' or 'tolerable'. He might not have much of a choice, actually. Maybe his handlers will get upset at him for refusing. Damjen is obligated to write a report about Kandrad and his mental state after each session, so...it's plausible.

He will try to carry the conversation forward.

"I've been doing a lot of nature watching recently. It's very interesting to look at things with my sight. But you're a smoke-flow mage, right? I don't know what it's like to experience things with those senses."

Something about what Damjen said must have upset the guards, since they suddenly become noisy.

"You upset them," he says, matter-of-factly.

Them??? Who is 'them'??? Oh.

Right, talking about the outside is fraught since he's kept in here. That was stupid of him.

Perfunctorily, he says, "I'm sorry."

He feels the guards close themselves off with their flow.

Kandrad is silent.

This is going abysmally.

He decides to ask questions instead.

"What do you typically do, day-to-day?"

"I eat, use the chamber pot, then it depends. Sometimes they have me read things. Typically, I train. I go to the training center and they have me do different things, like make puppets or armor or flow braiding or other things. Sometimes they have me write things about what I read, or how the training went. Then, I eat, use the chamber pot, clean myself, and go to sleep."

"What do you typically read? Can you tell me?"

Well, he can. But he's getting kind of tired of talking.

"Is it fine if you just read my mind about it?"

"Yes. And, of course, you can tell me whenever if you want me to stop."

He remembers.

He can think about a bunch of the stuff he's read, weighted towards ones he thinks are interesting or are recent. There's the illustrated book of flow katas that Grandpa used as reference. He really likes the wilderness and survivalism manuals. A book of call-and-response protocol for identification. Geometry problems.

"I see. Do you want me to talk about books I've read?"

He wouldn't mind.

He talks about  a series he recently read where there are sometimes portals to an alternate world with fairies. The fairies have magic that allows, among other things, the conjuration of precious materials like gold. A child's mother travels to the alternate world to learn this, and they become rich, but one day, the mother's child doesn't return, because they were kidnapped. The way the fairies work is that if they learn your name, or if you eat food they made, you fall under their control, and they can command you to do things. The story then talks about the child's journey in rescuing their mother.

His wilderness and survival manuals did not talk about fairy portals! Though he's not at risk of having his mother get kidnapped, because he doesn't have a mother.

"The story isn't real, by the way. It's fiction. It's a made up story someone wrote for fun, to entertain others."

Oh. He didn't know there was such a thing.

Maybe he can arrange for Kandrad to get fiction books. His cell doesn't have any books in it. He's not sure why. Is it like, a risk? Is he going to tear out the pages with his flow and give everyone papercuts? He would have thought he would have been able to keep the books for reference.

Kandrad thinks hearing about made up stories sounds fun.