Vanyel actually smiles slightly this time. "I'm glad you are that way? I can tell you if it gets annoying being asked." 

(Most of what he's feeling is tired and sad and a sort of heavy resignation.) 

You are super tired. Do you think you should have that nap now or is there more we should talk about first?

Vanyel thinks. "I want to figure out why it's upsetting when you say I'm already outperforming expectations. I don't think it was the first time you said it. Although, um, sometimes I'm bad at remembering what feelings I was having in the past." 

It seemed to land better last time, yes, which is one reason I tried mentioning it again.

"Um, sorry." Vanyel scrunches up his face. "...I think one part is, it's not like reality cares? It doesn't matter if I have a really good excuse for being useless a bunch of the time, it still costs something. Sometimes people die because I can't go on a mission and another Herald has to go instead who isn't as strong a mage or isn't a Mindspeaker or doesn't have Farsight or whatever. And I know it doesn't help to blame myself for that, it isn't meaningfully my fault, and it's not even really that I feel guilty about it. It's, just, that doesn't mean I'm happy about it? I hate it and I wish it was different."

(There is a hint of guilt/shame in his overall affect, but mostly it's the same sad-tired feeling as before.) 

That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like all that's made really salient to you both because of your power level and your role, and you want to do more, to be able to do more, and endorse thinking of your job as important to do effectively. It doesn't look like you're actually down to zero guilt about it but it's pretty slight.

Nod. Vanyel’s affect shifts toward relief, even gratitude. “That seems right. How I feel about it and why, I mean.”

It's not a traditional part of therapy to hand out magic doodads to lighten your workload but I do wonder if my earcuff would carry mindspeech; it works for me and Elves alike.

It takes Vanyel a few seconds to follow the change in topic. "Oh, you mean over long distances, like for the Mindspeech relay?" 

Yeah! I can't give it away, I need it to develop an interplanar version, but I could loan it out.

"Thank you. I'll tell Tran. I don't know that this actually gets me out of doing the Mindspeech relay, presumably someone has to use it to Mindspeak into, but maybe it'd make it faster or less tiring." 

If people have different ranges, then if the earcuff works at all, it'll let people with really short natural ranges use it hundreds of miles away.

"Oh! Um, if that works that could actually help a lot, then, most of the Heralds in Haven have Mindspeech at all but Tran and I are the only ones with a range of more than a hundred miles, so if I can't do it then he's stuck doing it by himself and I feel terrible." 

I only need it when I'm working on the interplanar version and could do that in the room I saw. Would it be Tran I'd talk to about lending it?

"I think that makes the most sense." 

And you're going to try remembering on your own to ask about sleep help. Also we should probably have a regular schedule of some kind; I'm going to share a secretary with Melody but don't have one yet so we can work that out ourselves.

"Lancir and I used to meet once a week, it was a specific day for a while but it ended up being whenever he could squeeze it in." Frown. "A week feels like a pretty long time to wait, right now. I think I would end up frantically calling you before that, and, um, I would assume you would prefer having a planned time to me frantically calling you in the middle of something else." 

It'd be ideal. I don't have as packed a schedule as Lancir. How long doesn't feel like a long time to wait?

Long pause. "Three days? Um, if that's really unreasonable it could be longer." 

I can do three days. What time?

"I'm going to ask Yfandes just so I don't forget a conflict I have." Pause. "Right after lunch?" 

Sure. She writes this down.

Vanyel nods, starts to get up, then stops. He chews his lip, radiating indecisiveness. 

Something else?

"There's...something I should tell you." He's avoiding her eyes again. "Can we, um, go somewhere more private? We could actually go in the Work Room where my lesson was, it's closest and I know it's not going to be busy."