"...I think that's what I meant," Vanyel agrees. "But you said it better. I don't - it feels like it might not take very much, to make things worse again." Pause. "Yfandes agrees. So...I guess if I start having free time and I'm not wasting it being miserable, I can do, I don't know, fun things. Like practice the elf song!" He lights up again. "It's so pretty. I wanted to check again with you that I'm saying the Quenya words properly, though, that part is way harder than getting the notes right." 

Sure. Let's do that outside of these sessions, though, correcting your accent doesn't need to be particularly private.

Vanyel agrees that this makes sense. 

I'm a little curious about how you seem to be contrasting fun and usefulness. The song could be useful; if it works it does healing. Does that make it less fun?

"...No?" He stops to think about it. "If anything it's better, I mean, it makes it feel worth doing. I don't think I'd even mind if I got it working and then Lancir wanted me to heal people a lot. I like singing." 

Do you like any of the other things that are part of your usual task rotation, or could be if your reliability were up?

Vanyel does not seem to have ever asked himself that question before, and has to take a while to think about it. 

"I don't like any of it as much as I like singing," he admits finally. "I guess doing magic is fun sometimes, but the routine work is really repetitive. It's less boring to do with Savil but it usually doesn't make sense to try to have both of us free at the same time, and it goes faster in concert but not twice as fast. I like doing Farsight checks except for the part where I push it too hard and get a headache half the time – they're not in the normal rotation, I just get called in for urgent things sometimes. I, um, I guess lessons are all right? If I'm having a good day. I used to hate them most of the time because the trainees are loud and keeping them on task is stressful, and I don't feel very qualified for it."

He shrugs. "I think not feeling like I'm any good at something makes it a lot less enjoyable, because then I'm stressed the whole time that I'll mess up." 

I think it's common to prefer things that you are or feel good at, and common to prefer to have company. What's making the Farsight checks push too far?

“That I’m checking places far away? I have a pretty good range and then I can boost it further with node-energy, that’s why they ask me.”

They know it causes headaches, that's a known tradeoff?

"I mean, obviously people know pushing Gifts hard causes headaches in general." Vanyel looks sheepish. "I might, um, not usually say anything about it." 

They might call you in less if they had full information. You're useful for lots of things, and if some applications make you worse at others that might be information they'd want, to say nothing of headaches being unpleasant.

Shrug. "I can still do things with a headache, if they're not magic, or a different kind of magic." 

Doesn't having a headache make you worse at everything?

"Does it?" Vanyel doesn't seem to have ever considered this point. 

I'm worse at everything with a headache! They're distracting and put me in a bad mood!

"But I–" Vanyel breaks off, shakes his head irritably. "All right, fine, Yfandes thinks that having a headache obviously puts me in a bad mood and she's not sure how I managed to miss this fact." 

You could check! You live in a science world and have this luxury! You could attempt to do, like, math problems or something more analogous to your usual work tasks if there is such a thing, with and without a headache.

"I guess...?" Vanyel seems dubious. "I'll do that." 

Good! And even if you don't wind up with fewer headaches because you're too irreplaceable or something, it suggests things about how you should order or time headache-inducing tasks if you have that flexibility, if the headache will make you worse at whatever comes after.

"I mean, I don't get to time emergency Farsight checks, they're emergencies. But, um, I could probably try to do that more in general." It seems like the concept of deliberately trying to rearrange his own schedule instead of just doing it in the order presented hasn't occurred to him before either. 

Sure, you can't time emergencies, but it'd tell you whether to postpone anything that comes after them.

"I guess I could maybe do that. If it's just me doing mage-work then I'm not really letting someone down if I do it later than I planned to. As long as I still do it. I just...feel guilty about it anyway." 

How come?

"I, um, I guess it feels like if I were better at things I wouldn't have to put them off like that."