"I mean, yes, of course. It's...not really done...for Companions to talk back to anyone but their Herald, though? I mean, they make exceptions sometimes, Yfandes has, but rarely." Shrug. "I guess I never thought about whether that was weird. It's just...how things are. So I didn't think to be confused or curious." 

Well, Companions are new to me and there are weirder species out there but it does seem like everybody she can talk to relates to the situation in a way she finds unhelpful.

“...It does seem like that.”

So it might make sense to start thinking about how much the done thing is working for her and how, where it isn't, she could do something else instead.

“That makes sense. I, um, don’t know what the something else would be though.”

Well, you said she's made exceptions, she could make more of those?

"I mean, sure, she could. The one she made before was talking to my sister, though, who...isn't here...and, er, isn't very good with people anyway." 

Also in the ideal case probably she'd have friends who weren't more connected to you than to her.

"I don't know that Yfandes, er, knows how to go about making friends with peo– with, um, humans, who aren't already my friends." Vanyel scowls. "Also I'm not that happy with the idea of her telling someone I don't know all about me. Honestly I don't really like her talking to other Companions but that is sort of how things work." He shrugs. "It'd be fine if she talked to you. But that might be weird? I wish there were two of you." 

It's usually not done for a single therapist to see people with a close outside relationship separately because it could create conflict of interest but relationship therapy is separately a thing and also I have bent that general sort of rule in the past due to my own scarcity. I'd need to think about it.

Nod. "...Sorry I forgot what the other things were on your list." 

That's fine, I wrote it down. Lucid dreaming, general giant hole issues.

"Lucid dreaming, right." Vanyel seems relieved. "The book I read was mostly about Foresight, it just mentioned lucid dreaming as a technique for gaining more control of Foresight visions, to get more specific information from them – er, I assume usually not the way mine works. Anyway, the main practice they suggested was forming a habit of asking myself a lot during the day whether I was dreaming, and it suggested some ways that a lot of people's dreams aren't like reality you can check. Trying to find writing and read it was one. Um, I stopped actually practicing once the Foresight dream thing happened, though." He stops and looks at her expectantly. 

Yeah, that's my first line suggestion too. Text, ripples in water, numbers of countable objects.

"Right." Vanyel goes silent for a while.

"...And then what?" he says finally. "I mean, if I'm having a nightmare and I realize it. If I just try to wake up – um, which doesn't work from the Foresight dream, but maybe normal dreams are different – then I'm still awake in the middle of the night." 

Many people can take control of a dream when they know it's a dream, but that does separately take practice.

Vanyel nods but doesn't seem especially reassured. He gnaws his lip for a while. 

"I...don't know that being able to control it would help," he says finally. "I mean, the really bad nightmares are where T-Tylendel," he falters only slightly on the name, "is still alive, and there's some version of the wyrsa part or the Krebain part happening, and...I mean, I know how that ends. Changing it something else wouldn't change the thing that actually happened." 

That's true. Whatever part you dreamed before you took control would still be something you experienced. And control can come by degrees, so you might be able to rearrange the elements of the dream that were already there, but not whisk it all away and spend the dream having a picnic instead, at least not immediately. It would be much more convenient if my nightmare fix stuck. Nightmares are unfortunately very stubborn, so it won't.

Nod. "Maybe I can practice lucid dreaming, and when your thing wears off I can try and see if it helps, and if it's still really bad I can ask you to put it back and try again when that one wears off?" Vanyel doesn't want to be dependent on Bella being around to block his nightmares forever, but she's here now and not having nightmares is so nice. 

Yup, that's the standard. It could take a lot of tries but that's okay.

Relieved smile. “Um, right. That sounds good.” Then the smile fades. “Hole related things. Er, do you have suggestions or - or questions, or ideas, or anything? I‘ve got nothing, except that it’s still bad.” He seems sheepish about it, like if he were trying harder he would have ideas by now.

Do you think it's healing on its own over time even a little bit? I haven't been here long enough to know.

“I don’t know! I was mostly trying to ignore it as hard as I could!” Then Vanyel stops, actually considers it for a moment. “I think - maybe - it’s not going away or anything, but the...edges, I don’t know if that’s the right word, are getting stronger? I am a lot better at coping with it than I was two years ago. At the start...I don’t know, nothing worked, I couldn’t think about anything else or want to do anything or really have any good emotions. It’s not like that now.”

What is it like now?

"It's like–" he stops. "I should actually try to think about it. It's probably different than it was a week ago." 

Silence for a while. 

"...It's sort of like having a broken arm?" Vanyel ventures finally. "It doesn't really get in the way of doing things with my other arm or my legs, metaphorically, but it's just there, hurting. Sort of quietly adding badness to everything. I can still be happy but there's a bit of badness in the background, I can't be completely happy. I can get really focused on something but it's more tiring than it would be if I wasn't having to ignore the fact that it hurts. Sometimes it just hurts more, like if I had a broken arm and I jarred it – sometimes it's because I thought about it, sometimes it just seems to be random or because I'm really tired. Does that make sense?"