“Oh! If you can - I think that’d work. Although, um, if you have any suggestions for not screaming at someone even if you’re really pissed off with them...”

"Uh, mentally award yourself points for restraining yelly impulses?"

“Sure, I can try that.” Only mild dubiousness. Lissa is ready for a remotely piloted shuttle ride in the weird space-warped backyard anytime Cam is ready to provide it.

He can make a shuttle and send it up and watch it from his computer and supervise Vanyel.

Supervising Vanyel: takes very little effort, really, since he's thoroughly asleep. 

Lissa is getting a ride in a flying shuttle! If everything wasn't terrible then this would be awesome, actually – all right, fine, it's still kind of awesome – oh! Is that a white Yfandes-shape way way way below her...? 

Cam steers Yfandesward.

Yfandes definitely hears the shuttle coming. She doesn't stir or look up, though; she's curled up nose-to-tail in the grass under a tall tree. 

The shuttle lands as close as it can, which isn't that close because the tree cover's pretty dense.

Lissa jumps out as soon as the shuttle's down and jogs over to Yfandes, who still doesn't move. She kneels. Yfandes stays put. 

...

About ten minutes later, Lissa runs back to the shuttle and clambers in. "...Cam, hmm, I forgot to ask if you can hear me from here?" 

"I can, yes."

Lissa curls up and leans her forehead on the window of the shuttle and is silent for a moment, trembling. 

"Well, I don't know if this is good news but it's not bad news. I think it's not one modification – there's two. Sort of like two of your Arda unbreakable oaths. One is an...ethics sort of thing, I don't know exactly what but it's the part reacting badly about the god. And the other is the Herald-bond. And they're actively in conflict now. Neither of them is a thing she's got a choice about the normal way – um, there is an out, she could decide to break the bond and resolve it that way – and probably die, it sounds like, it's not something the Companion usually survives either – but she's not. That's why she ran off. She doesn't want to repudiate him and part of her was flailing to do it instinctively and so she just...got herself away from the question long enough to think. And she's having this horrible fight with herself, none of her wants to leave Van except the stupid first oath, I was sort of...trying to mediate it, I guess, for a while, listening and holding onto what each 'side' was trying to say. The ethics part isn't very words, she described it like wanting to spit out bad hay. And she's telling it no over and over and, and trying to ask what it really wants, and it doesn't know, and it's...she's stuck and she eventually snapped at me for distracting her and I was scared of making it worse so I left. I don't know if one will break or if she'll be stuck like that forever and if one does break I don't know which would go first. But...I know which one she's trying to break." 

"Yeah, that... doesn't sound like something we can improve on by bothering her."

"I should probably just come back. And we can try to wait it out. Is Van still asleep?" 

"Yes."

"...Just a minute, I'm going to run out and tell her that I'm heading back and that we're keeping an eye on Van as long as she needs, um, I don't think saying that will break anything, she mentioned him a lot." 

Lissa runs out and talks to Yfandes for a few seconds and then runs back. "Ready." 

Shuttle drops her off at the back door of the infinitely tall, infinitely wide building.

It's a kind of alarming way for a building to be that she somehow didn't notice on the way out, probably because she was very distracted.

Lissa shrugs and goes in – and runs to Cam and flings her arms around him. "Thank you so much for helping me do that." 

He reflexively hugs back with both arms and both wings, and blinks at her. "You're welcome."

Being hugged by someone with wings is really nice, actually, especially when said person has been looking very huggable at her for days, and Lissa stays hugging him until she remembers to feel awkward. 

"...Um, and thank you for keeping an eye on my brother," he's still peacefully out, thank the gods, "and, sorry about messing up actually working on your problem." She steps back and finds a spot to sit. "What did you think of reading Leareth's notes? I don't know if you'd actually want to talk to him again until we've sorted this out somehow, but, curious which way you're leaning, I guess." 

"I think... that I at least want to see if I can straightforwardly replace blood magic stuff with mindless bodies. And that will entail having more of a conversation about the rest of the stuff."

"Huh, I don't think I know enough about magic to have any guesses if it would or not. I think he said he'd help you with your thing whether or not you helped him, though?" 

"Uh, yes, but really replacing his power source would be more like helping all the people he'd otherwise murder."

"...That's fair. Van will be really pleased if you can solve that part – not sure if he'd decide he had to fight Leareth over it otherwise, but he'd be happier either way." 

"Exactly."