I can do that too but for subtle artists it's a pretty smooth continuum with our equivalent of mindspeech, and being able to block each other out, and stuff. Though with individual talents. I have naturally really good shields, that's how I was noticed to have subtle arts, somebody noticed they couldn't read me.

"Oh, that is interesting. I wonder if..." Savil pauses for a while. "May I try reading you, to test if your shields are effective against our Thoughtsensing? I assume yes since your mind-communication works here, but it'd be interesting to see if they feel different. I wouldn't try for more than half a second or so, and it's all right if you'd prefer I not." 

Wait for me to say when.

When.

"Well. I certainly can't get through." Savil smiles at her. "That's a very good shield. Feels a little different from one of ours but I'd be stuck to say how." She frowns for a moment. "Wonder if you can get through our shields with your subtle arts. Feel free to try mine, I'm not thinking about anything sensitive." 

All right -

I think your shield might be technically magic in the way that mine is not technically magic, it feels more like what I remember of probing people under mental protection spells than other subtle artists, but it works fine.

"That's really interesting!" Vanyel sits up straight again and actually makes eye contact. "You said that the Elves could block surface thoughts. What did their shields feel like to you – like magic, or like subtle arts, or something else?" 

Oh, uh, nothing, actually. They don't have defense, they just have really polite offense, as it were. I could use the osanwë protocol since everyone else was doing it, but there was nothing actually preventing me from reading Elves' private thoughts, it was just a bunch of metaphors they were all used to using to distinguish.

"What's the osanwë protocol? We have formal Mindspeech protocols among the Heralds – there is an element where everyone agrees to ignore stray thoughts that obviously weren't meant to be public, but it does also rely on the fact that Mindspeakers can shield." 

I just mean that I read people's publicly marked thoughts even though I wouldn't do that in a population that didn't intend to mark any thoughts public, and I learned to avoid what people were marking private even though it didn't hedge me out, and I used shields instead of a privacy metaphor for myself but I put thoughts in public in the same approximate format they were using, especially senses, they like to look through each other's eyes and hear through each other's ears sometimes - they have much better sensory acuity though, they mostly used mine for novelty or in one case there was a blind one.

"Huh!" Vanyel leans forward, animated again. "We only really do sense-sharing with our Companions – actually, hmm, I guess in full rapport concert-work we would sort of be sharing magical senses, but Heralds don't actually do that much, it's a Tayledras thing. Um, sorry, those are a different people in our world that Savil's friends with, they have a lot more Mindspeakers and mages than Valdemar does. Er, relative to population anyway, there's also a lot fewer people total in a Vale." Pause for breath. "You mentioned mental protection spells as being different from subtle arts. That's something from your original world? How does that kind of magic work?"

Um, I'm not sure it's a good idea to get into that.

He deflates again, cheeks turning slightly pink. "Oh. All right. Sorry." 

Savil strokes his hair. "What sorts of things did you do with your subtle arts training to help the Elves, other than unblocking memories?" she asks a beat later. "This is more Lancir's territory, I guess, but I am pretty curious about the training you had before you ended up in Arda." 

I had training in doing arts and being careful and undoing things I'd done, but I didn't have therapeutic training at the time, I'd been just about to start. I taught myself out of textbooks when I heard that the queen of the Noldor, my bunch of Elves, was wasting away with what looked like postpartum depression to me based on publicly available information. I can't tell you anything about specific patient treatment or conditions based on privileged knowledge from doing therapy with them. Uh, it's public knowledge in Valinor now that she moved out of the magic healing garden back into the capital city to make public appearances, has produced new tapestries for display, and can be seen ice skating and stuff these days.

Another speculative look. “I understand not being able to share specifics, of course.”

There’s a polite knock on the door (which nonetheless causes Vanyel to jump a little).

Savil gets up and answers it, returning with a covered tray. “All right, let’s relocate to the table.” She gathers three plates and some utensils from the sideboard. “Bella, you pick what you want first.” There’s a still-warm loaf of crusty bread, a wedge of cheese, what looks like fish in creamy sauce, roasted carrots, and a pile of limp cooked greens. 

Bella takes about a third of everything, it all looks pretty good. Winds up dipping the greens in the fish sauce and putting the cheese on the bread. Thank you.

Savil brings more water for Bella and wine for herself and Vanyel, and they eat in silence for a while. (Vanyel picks at his food and mostly stares at the window.)

”So, do you have any questions about our world and magic?” Savil says finally. “We’ve mostly been asking about yours.”

It's sounded like Companions are divinely magical as a species but humans with magic are just born that way with some selection from a bunch of possible abilities, is that right?

“That’s right. People can have what we call true magic, or mage-gift - Van and I are both mages - and then there are a number of specific Gifts that we tend to refer to as mind-magic, although not all affect minds. Mindspeech is one. Empathy is separate; I’m a Mindspeaker but not an Empath, for example. Farsight sees things at a distance. Fetching is approximately like your telekinesis, except strong Fetchers can also instantaneously move objects from one place to another without crossing the space in between. Foresight is a weird one, it gives visions of the future - tends to be either short or long range, not both for a single person. Firestarting is what it sounds like. We’ve also got Healers. And Bardic Gift is like projective Empathy but specifically with music. Healers’ and Bardic each have their own Collegium here in Haven, for training students. People with other Gifts generally tend to be Chosen and become Heralds, especially mages, though that’s not a universal rule.”

She pauses to chow down on the remains of her fish. 

”Most people don’t have any Gifts,” she goes on. “And no one is born with active Gifts - they’ll just have the potential, and sometimes the potential Gift will awaken around adolescence, but often not. We don’t really understand what causes Gifts to activate or not. Unfortunately, because we’re always short of mages.”

Short of them for what purpose?

Savil is quiet for a while, frowning. 

“The other Gifts are all very useful,” she says finally, “honestly we could do with about twice as many Mindspeakers too, but...mage-gift is the most generally applicable, especially for border security but in terms of local maintenance as well. The Palace meeting-rooms are all shielded against Thoughtsensing as well as against magical probes and scrying, for example - other kingdoms also have Thoughtsensers and they make excellent spies, we’re on good terms with all our neighbors right now but that’s not always been the case. Mages can lay wards to detect intruders as well, and offensive trap-spells if we see fit. Shields against physical attacks as well; Lance is a strong enough mage to shield Queen Elspeth when she makes public appearances, for example. That’s not to mention all the routine stuff, like demolishing old buildings or paving roads, which can be done without magic but a mage can do it in a tenth the time. And, gods, all that is just in peacetime.”

That makes sense.

Food is eaten in silence for a while.

Rather abruptly, Vanyel pushes his chair back and stands. “I’m going to bed,” he says stiffly. “Bella, um, it was nice to meet you.” He heads for the door without looking at her or Savil.

Goodnight.

Savil looks like she maybe wants to follow him, but doesn’t.

“He doesn’t mean to be rude,” she says finally. “I, er, anyway... What were we talking about before?”