Most recently what mages do around here. Defense and infrastructure mostly?

"Hmm, right." Savil still seems distracted. "And then there's wartime, of course. I haven't lived through any wars myself, Elspeth is called the Peacemaker for a reason, but every single time we disproportionately lose mages and it takes decades to rebuild our numbers." She shakes her head. "Sorry. Probably not interesting to you. Er, what's been your favourite thing about Haven so far?" 

Uh, I liked how when presented with a displaced person from another plane you got me a room and fed me.

Savil smiles; she seems genuinely delighted by it. "Good! Valdemar gets a lot of refugees, and we try our best to handle that well. Reckon we don't always succeed, it's hard, but you're an easy case. It especially helps that you can get around the language barrier. And you're polite and friendly; you did a good job not startling Van any more than necessary, by the way. We get displaced people coming in from bad situations, sometimes, and it's completely not their fault of course but they're not always as, er, nice as you." 

Well, this is my second time.

"That's fair. I don't even know what I would do if I walked into someone else's Work Room and suddenly found myself in this Arda place. Scream a lot, probably. What was it like for you – um, if you don't mind talking about it?" 

Landed in a storeroom in the palace, where the prince, yea high, was hiding. When I found out it was a palace I thought I'd try to sneak out, I didn't want to run into anyone assuming I'd snuck in. But they were pretty bewildered by the idea of detaining or harming anyone who turned up in the palace by accident. So when I did talk to some adults they gave me a guest room to use till they could build me a house.

"Huh! Sounds like they've got us beat for hospitality – building you your own house? Or is that just very cheap for them for some reason?" 

They have no material scarcity of anything. They don't have to work. Most of them do but they don't need to pick things that'll make money, it's a gift economy. I wandered around looking at houses and found elements I liked and complimented their designers and most of them offered to work on my house and the construction wound up involving some Maiar to do heavy lifting.

Savil whistles.

“That,” she says finally, “is extremely unfair. I can believe their gods do that. Wonder why ours can’t be bothered.”

Materian ones don't either.

“Hmff.” Savil rolls her eyes ceilingward. “That’s more...normal...to me, at least. What do the Materian gods get up to, then?”

She seems a bit uncomfortable about the topic, but curious as well.

They give out some divine magic. It's good for healing and dealing with undead creature attacks among other things. Uh, they don't like it when people say their names wrong or otherwise offend them and they'll smite people for it. Some of them have particular species that they keep a close eye on.

"Particular species! Odd. I don't think any of the gods of our world are like that, although they tend to be regional. I've heard of divine Healing happening in our world but only very rarely. What are undead creatures? I don't know that we have that." 

Remains of people or animals affected by magic that animates them which are usually hostile to the living.

Savil shudders. "Ugh. I'm very glad we don't have that." She pauses, frowns, strokes the tip of her nose again. "...I mean, I suppose you could. Wouldn't be any more efficient than trying to direct a stick with magic, though, so no one bothers."

She sits back in her chair and stretches. "Goodness, it's getting late. I ought to be in my bed soon, lessons to teach in the morning. Would you like me to walk you back to your wing?" 

I'd appreciate that.

Savil gets up and ushers Bella to the door.

Meanwhile, a silent conversation is happening across the wall of a room several doors down. 

:Seriously: Yfandes sends, standing outside Vanyel's window with her coat glowing white in the moonlight. :Please consider talking to her about it? She's got a different kind of Gift from Lancir, and she has...all right, not exactly training, but experience based on some existing school of practice, anyway: 

:No: Vanyel sends, stubbornly. :She's so clever and interesting and – and I want her to think I'm worth being friends with. I don't want to tell her about my stupid problems: He shoves the curtains shut. :Goodnight, 'Fandes. I'm going to sleep: 

When Bella reaches her room, she finds another of the youngsters in pale-blue uniform waiting outside, looking very bored. The girl perks up when she sees her, though. "You're Bella, right? Message from King's Own Lancir. He wants to meet you tomorrow for a debrief. A candlemark before the noon bell. Herald Tantras will come find you and show you the way. Is that all right?" 

She nods. She doesn't know how to tell local time. Her watch thinks it's coming up on Telperion's peak.

It's full dark. She doesn't trouble with the candle and goes to bed.

In the morning, shortly after sunrise, there's a very tentative knock on the door. It isn't Tran yet, though; it's Vanyel. 

"Bella? I, um, got breakfast for you. If you want it." 

Thanks. You can come in.

Vanyel nudges the door open, presumably with magic of some kind because his arms are very full. They are dark circles under his eyes. He also looks quite freshly bathed, hair still wet. 

"I brought tea, er, I don't know if you drink tea..." He puts down a tea tray and a separate food tray on the nearest surface he can find, which is the clear area on the desk – he spots her notes and scrupulously looks away from them. "Oh, sorry – if you want to keep working on things, I can go."