...And she lands in a heap, half on what seems to be gravel and half on grass, under bright morning sun. 

Nearby, someone yelps, and the air crackles. "Ack – what – where did you come from?" 

There's a very alarmed-looking boy dressed completely in white with a vaguely medieval-looking style tunic, standing on the gravel path, staring at her, hands raised and shedding sparks. He looks about eighteen, except that his black hair is occasionally threaded with white. 

I'm sorry, it was an accident.

"That doesn't explain anything, how did you get here, you weren't – you came out of nowhere and I'm sure that wasn't a Gate–" He cuts off, staring at her even harder. "...That wasn't Mindspeech. What are you?" He's starting to look more curious than alarmed, though. 

Please just - can I have a minute to catch my breath - I'm not here to do anything to you or anything.

He takes a few steps back. "Oh, um, sorry, of course." And then he hovers silently, looking like someone trying not to obviously stare or otherwise be obtrusive in any way, and mostly failing. 

She takes a few deep breaths.

She brushes herself off, sits up and hugs her knees and rubs at one eye. She's wearing weirdly pretty ivory robes with red and pale yellow embroidery all over them, and a lot of jewelry. Her hair's divided with alarming precision into four sections and braided to her scalp, and all four braids twist into a bun at the nape of her neck.

Sorry, what were your questions again?

Unfortunately he’s already half-forgotten, too busy staring at the strange woman who just appeared from nowhere and without any sign from his Othersenses, not that he was paying much attention.

”Er, how you got here and where from,” he says with strained poise. “And how you’re talking to me.” He’s peering at her robes. “You don’t look like you’re from here - are you a Sunpriest, er, Sunpriestess, I thought that wasn’t allowed...” He trails off awkwardly. 

I don't know what a sunpriest is. I got here in a magical accident. I'm talking to you with subtle arts but I'm not reading anything but what you're saying.

"Magical accident – are you a mage?" It would be rude to probe to check. "Where are you from? Also, er, what's your name? I'm Vanyel." 

(Behind him, a large white horse with somewhat alarmingly large and front-facing blue eyes canters up. Vanyel reaches back without looking and rests a hand on the horse's mane.) 

Someone else was doing the magic. Uh, I'm from a country called the Magisterian Imperium but it doesn't seem likely you've heard of it, and my name is Bella.

Vanyel shuffles his feet awkwardly for a minute. He hasn't, in fact, heard of the Magisterian Imperium. "I, um, need to be somewhere," he says finally, "I'm running late, but – do you need help getting home or something?" He doesn't want to just leave her here.

I can't go home. Uh, if you want to - direct me someplace I can sell some of the jewelry I can get a room and figure things out from there I guess.

He stares at her with consternation. There's probably some sort of protocol for this. "I, er, I'm sorry about that. If you come with me I can ask my friend Tran?" Even if there isn't a protocol, he feels bad about making someone who just got stranded in a magical accident sell their own jewelry to get a place to stay. 

Sure. Thank you. She gets up, seems to expect to fall, doesn't, makes a small thoughtful exhalation through her nose about that.

Vanyel leads her down the path, past some decorative gardens in planters, and up to a very old-looking stone building. The white mare trails a few steps behind, occasionally aiming looks at her, and then parts ways with them when they head inside. 

A man in his twenties, dark hair pulled into a bun at the nape of his neck and also wearing all-white, is standing outside an open doorway. 

"Tran!" Vanyel calls out. "Sorry I'm late. I have a question, um, I ran into Bella here on the path, she said she got here in some kind of spell-accident and can't go home." Then his eyes go slightly out of focus, and the other man's do as well. "Can we get her a guest-room in the Palace or something?" he adds. 

The other man frowns for a minute. "Probably?" He turns to her and smiles, reassuringly. "Miss, if you don't mind waiting here until... Never mind, Taver says Lancir's in meetings until tonight but that we can sort something out in the meantime. It'd be simpler if you can sit in here with us for about half a candlemark, though, so we can hit the relay first." 

I don't mind waiting.

Vanyel pulls out a chair for her, and then he and the other man sit down at the oak table (which looks handmade), and they both close their eyes, look very focused, and go silent. 

She waits in silence for a bit. Eventually looks at her watch, goes "huh" very softly, and then looks around for objects more interesting than her own accessories to practice telekinesis with.

The room contains two more unused chairs around the table, a bookcase with some leather-bound books on it and an inkwell on top, an end table with some empty teacups and saucers on it, and a tiny potted plant on the windowsill. 

Oh well. She takes off a couple rings and practices; when the locals open their eyes she'll be making them spin around each other in midair at high speed.

The two of them go on for about half an hour, not speaking at all (at least not out loud), though occasionally one of them flips a page in the book open in front of them. 

Vanyel is the first one to turn around. "...Oh! Do you have Fetching?" 

The rings halt. I have subtle arts and telekinesis is a thing I can do with it. They slide back onto her hands. I don't know how much that's like what you're referring to.

"The same power you use for, um, not-Mindspeech – the way you're talking to me? I don't think that sounds like anything I've heard of." 

Yeah. Some people are just like this where I'm from but not every plane is the same.

Vanyel jumps out of his chair. "...Wait what you're from a different plane?" He doesn't know much about extraplanar mechanics, but she doesn't look like an elemental or an Abyssal demon. 

Think so.

"Well," Tran says, "this just got a lot more interesting." His eyes slide out of focus again. "Apparently, interesting enough that Lancir's happy to use it as an excuse to skip some tedious meeting with Lord Kathar. Bella, if you'd like to come with us, I think we can sort out something for you." 

Sort out something for me like -

"Somewhere to sleep tonight, for a start," Tran says brightly. "I mean, if you want. I'm sure Savil and the other Herald-Mages would love to ask you some questions, but that's not an obligation." 

It'd be nice to know where I'm going to sleep tonight. Thank you. I can answer some questions but I could use a little time - and some paper to write on - the circumstances of my magical accident were not, um -

"No, of course, we understand," Vanyel says quickly, with a smile that's meant to be reassuring. (He's very sympathetic to anyone asking for paper). "It's got to be a really weird accident, I haven't ever heard of it happening before." 

I don't think it's common. But it's with a different magic system.

Vanyel opens his mouth to ask, gets stuck because he has at least five questions at once, and then closes it because he just told her it could wait. He beckons for her to follow them instead. What other basic hospitality is he forgetting? "Er, are you hungry or thirsty? I don't know how long it'll take to find you a room but we can get you food." 

I could have a snack but not a meal right now. Water would be good.

"I've passed it on," Trans says cheerfully before Vanyel can speak. "Asked for breakfast for you too, Van, reckon you forgot again." He leads them down a narrow, twisty, not especially well-lit corridor. 

Vanyel is silent for a while and then glances back at her, giving into curiosity. "What else does your power do?" 

Um, the telepathy can do a lot of stuff but I don't do any of it to people if they don't want me to. Uh, unless they have made binding magical oaths that interfere with them forming preferences. I don't know if you have those here.

"What? Gods, no." That isn't an idea he likes at all. Also he has a lot of questions, but he's trying really hard to be polite about that and wait. "I mean, not that I know of, I don't know that it's impossible and it is possible to put compulsions on people with magic here." 

I guess the wording of the exception would cover that if it came up with someone I was seeing as a patient or something, then.

Vanyel isn't sure he follows, but they're about to reach Lancir's office so he doesn't say anything. 

Lancir is sitting by himself in a small, crowded office with papers on most of the near-at-hand surfaces. He's much older, past sixty, with piercing blue eyes, and also clad in the same style of white tunic. 

He looks busy and harried, but he immediately sets down what he's working on and rises; he's already cleared three chairs for them. "Bella, correct? I heard that you landed here by accident and you come from a place called the Magisterian Imperium, possibly in another plane. Welcome to Valdemar. I'm Herald-Mage Lancir, the Monarch's Own to Queen Elspeth." He smiles warmly. "Go on, sit. We'll keep it short today – I mainly wanted to meet you, and find out if you have any special requirements when it comes to finding you a guest room."

She sits. Bella's correct, thank you.

He sits back in his chair. "Hmm. Bella, we obviously don't have an established protocol for this, since getting visitors from other planes isn't exactly an everyday occurrence here. I imagine you'd like some time to get settled before we ask you our top thousand questions, but if you're up for it, can you give me the short version of what happened now? What kind of place you're from – it's certainly news to us that there are other planes with humans living in them – and how your power works, and what sort of magic landed you here with us?" 

(There's a discreet knock on the standing-ajar door. Tran rises, answers it, and accepts a tray with a jug of water, cups, and a couple of covered plates from a teenaged boy dressed in a blue official-looking uniform, nodding to him and then shutting the door fully. He looks around, awkwardly clears a spot for it by stacking two leather folders of paper on top of each other, and then pours Bella a cup of water from the jug on it and passes it to her, along with a plate that holds a bit of bread and cheese.) 

She takes the cup with her hands, not her telekinesis. I'm from a plane we call the Material Plane. It has humans and a lot of other species of sapients too. I walked into the wrong classroom on the first day of term and fell into something some other students were doing. I assume they were wizards, that's one of the kinds of spellcaster on the Material Plane, but didn't have a chance to ask.

It didn't send me here, I went somewhere else and spent nearly two decades there and a lot of stuff happened and then they tried to send me back. They sent me back to the same place and same time I came from - so there was still a magical accident to fall into - and that landed me here.

My power isn't considered technically magic because magic that detects other magic doesn't register it, which is why it's called subtle arts, but that's a pretty academic distinction to most people.
I can - I don't have to and usually don't beyond talking to people and identifying who they are like I would by recognizing their faces, except at more range and through stuff, but I can - sense and interact with people's minds, and I was going to school for therapy and did a bit of practice in the world I was living in before since they didn't have any subtle artists and one who hadn't finished school was better than nothing. I'd at least landed with some textbooks.

“How fascinating.” He’s giving her an intent look. “I would like to hear more details, but perhaps not now. Do you still have those textbooks?”

No. Didn't have them on me the second time. All I have now is what I'm wearing. I have read them several times by this point, though.

Vanyel is giving her a weirdly uncomfortable look. 

"Hmm." Lancir is silent for a bit. "Well, this is a topic of professional interest for me, so maybe we can talk later tonight or tomorrow once you've had some rest. Tran can set you up with a change of clothes–" a brief pause and his eyes go unfocused again, "–oh, and I think you had requested paper? We can do that as well. Is there anything else you need to be comfortable for tonight?" 

Well, something to write on the paper with. Please. Uh, the embroidery on this robe is pretty delicate if anyone was thinking of washing it, I don't know your laundry situation.

Lancir chuckles. "Of course, that's included. We do have a Palace laundry – Tran, can you make sure the special instructions get passed on?" He pulls out a drawer beside his desk and digs through yet more papers. "Good, we've got some rooms in the east wing open. Any preference for morning or afternoon sun?" 

Afternoon.

"Good, good." He pores over the paper some more. "Tran, third room on the left is free." He's starting to sound harried again. "Vanyel, I appreciate your bringing this to my attention. Don't forget to come see me tomorrow." 

Vanyel makes a face. "I'm not going to forget." 

Uh, what time is it, locally?

"Midmorning," Lancir says. "Should be a couple candlemarks until the noon bell. Tran or Vanyel can show you where to get lunch." 

Okay.

"Any other questions? Anything you think we should know now, as opposed to tonight or tomorrow?" 

Um. I suppose if the reason that time hadn't passed in my native plane when I returned to it is that Arda, where I'd been living, has time passing very quickly relative to other planes, then it's possible one of my friends will be here looking for me any minute after centuries of subjective time has elapsed, so keep an eye out for that I suppose. He'd have pointy ears, black hair, and I guess if centuries go by he'll get really really tall.

Lancir stares at her for a while. 

"You just added a dozen more questions to my list for later," he says finally. "Thanks for the warning, I suppose. Doesn't sound like he'd arrive with hostile intent? We'll look out, anyway. Will he be able to communicate mentally the way you can, or no?" 

Wouldn't be hostile. They're all telepathic there actually, though they don't have abilities as generic as mine. Their telepathy respects a sufficiently clear distinction in others' minds of 'private thoughts' versus 'public thoughts' and they can also try not to listen for people who don't have that practiced to perfection yet. Also he'd learn your language in about an hour if you let him.

"Fascinating..." He shakes his head. "Sounds like it's not a risk to us if he does turn up, so I can wait on hearing more. I'll try to clear some backlog today and free up tomorrow for a more, er, thorough conversation. If anything comes up or if you think of something else, hmm – can you use your mind-communication at a distance? You're welcome to poke one of us. Actually, I think Vanyel's open today, so he can be your point of contact, if that works for you." 

I have about a hundred yards for that purpose.

Vanyel shifts his weight in the chair. "I, um, can stay that close to the wing, I guess." 

People will be alarmed if I just ask directions?

"Heralds, no, and they'll be able to give directions. Any of the Companions can relay to Yfandes and she could let Vanyel know." He frowns. "Probably you ought to avoid using your mind-communication with anyone who's not a Herald for now. Over here, Mindspeakers generally don't communicate with un-Gifted people – most of us can't, actually, it takes an unusually strong Gift. So the other guests staying in that wing might be rather startled." 

I could probably memorize a spoken phrase?

Lancir thinks for a moment. "'I need to speak to a Herald or Companion'," he quotes finally, speaking slowly and deliberately. "That ought to work and there'll be someone nearby." 

She repeats it carefully.

"It'll do." Lancir shuffles his papers again. "If that's all, I really do have a lot to do today. Vanyel, Tran – I'm available if something urgent comes up, but otherwise let's discuss tomorrow. Van, if you don't mind letting your aunt know about this?" 

Tran rises. "Let's go, then. It's not too far." 

Bella follows Tran.

They go outside and follow a different gravel path, past some more ornamental gardens. 

"Oh!" Tran says suddenly. "Van, I meant to tell you before but you completely distracted me – there's a party tonight. Celebrating Mardic and Donni's mission. You should come!" He glances back at Bella. "You can come too if you want, reckon everyone would think it'd be very exciting." 

Vanyel squirms. "I, er, I'll think about it." He gives her a mildly concerned look. "Bella, you shouldn't feel like you have to go. It'll probably be loud and everybody will get drunk, um, Heralds do that a lot." 

I'm not really in a mood to have a party but I wish whoever those people are well.

Vanyel looks like someone who also doesn't want to have a party and wishes he had a better excuse not to.

"This must be pretty different from your world?" he says, as Tran leads them left at a fork in the path toward another long, low, ancient-looking stone building. "I mean, er, probably it's really different from both of the worlds you've been in." 

Yeah. I'll tell you all about it later if you want I just - I'm really stressed out and I need to decompress as soon as possible.

Vanyel nods, looks embarrassed, and goes quiet. 

They reach the stone building and Tran leads them through a set of heavy oak doors and down to the third room on the left. It's unlocked. The room itself is small and quite dark, until Tran goes and pulls open the curtains. There's a bed with quilted covers, a bedside table with a drawer and a space underneath for storage, a wardrobe, a little desk and chair, and a corner with a washbasin and chamberpot. Everything looks handmade. 

The desk has an inkwell and pen, and a folded paper on it; when Tran unfolds it and offers it to her, it proves to be a simple map. "Common bathhouse is that way," he says, pointing it out on the map. "This wing doesn't have any running water, sorry, it's one of the older buildings. If you want hot water here to wash up, or if you want your clothes washed, you can call for one of the servants, use this bell-cord. You can ask for food to be brought here as well, but the common dining-hall is over here."

He pauses, peering at her. "I'll come back with more paper, and some clothes that should be roughly your size – we can get your measurements later, guessing you'd rather not be bothered any more today." He opens one of the desk drawers and takes out a key. "You can lock it from either side of the door with this. Er, if you want to read or write after dark, candles and flint-and-steel kit with tinder are in the bedside table drawer. Extra blankets in the wardrobe. Anything else you need for today?" 

I don't know how to light a candle with flint and steel.

"Oh. Right." Tran looks blank for a moment. "I mean, I can show you, but I guess it's fiddly if you've never done it before. Um, you can call for someone if you need it? Should be at least ten candlemarks of daylight left anyway." 

"She can't really communicate with servants aside from asking for a Herald," Vanyel says, shuffling his feet. "Bella, someone should light a lantern by the outside door when it gets dark, you could go stick your candle in there if you want it lit and don't want to talk to anyone." 

Okay, thank you.

“All good, then?” Tran starts to turn to go. “Should be a little paper in the desk drawer but I’ll bring more soon.”

Vanyel gives her another odd look, a mix of curiosity and concern, and then ducks out into the hall.

Thank you.

She sits down and takes out the paper but waits to be alone to write.

Tran nods and shuts the door and she can hear his footsteps departing.

She cries and she writes and she cries more and she tries to write very cramped, doesn't know how pricey paper and ink are here, but she has a lot to process.

Maybe half an hour later, there’s a polite knock. “It’s Tran. Can I come in or should I leave the things at the door?”

You can come in.

Tran nudges the door open with his elbow; his arms are very laden. If he notices that she's been crying, he doesn't say anything about it. "Here, I brought you some food, it's nearly lunchtime." Covered tray and earthenware jug plus cup go on the bedside table. "Wasn't sure if there are foods you can't eat so it's a variety. Clothes are in here, it's some of my friend Katha's outfits for sparring so the fit should be forgiving." Canvas bag slides off his shoulder onto the bed.

"And paper. I wasn't sure if you'd prefer a bound book or looseleaf so there's both. Don't worry too much about how much you use – you should see how much paper Van goes through." Maybe he's noticed her attempts at tiny handwriting. Box of paper goes next to her on the desk. "Good?" 

Yes, thank you.

He leaves her alone again. 

She picks at the food a bit, finishes the bits she likes, writes a little bigger for the rest of the afternoon.

Eventually the sun starts to get low in the sky, and then there are footsteps in the hall again. "Bella?" It's Vanyel this time, a bit muffled through the door. "I, er, came to see if you wanted supper or anything, and I can light your candles if you want?" 

Fortunately the muffling doesn't matter at all since she doesn't even speak the language. Supper would be good. Should I be, like, coming out to eat where people can see me and ask me stuff now that I've calmed down more?

Vanyel opens the door. "Do you want to? I mean, honestly, everyone's going to be at the party soon, and I think Lancir has things to catch up on. My aunt has a lot of questions about magic where you're from, though – if you wanted, you could come have dinner with us in her suite?" 

That sounds fine.

Vanyel nods and then fidgets and waits. 

Is this now or later -?

“Soon? Um, we don’t have food there yet but I don’t know that it makes sense for me to come back in a candlemark to get you. Although I can do that if you prefer.”

I can come now if that's convenient.

Vanyels nods and fidgets some more and waits for her at the door. 

She gets up and goes over.

Vanyel smiles and then ducks his head and leads her back out through the door. More gravel path. There's an ornamental fountain and a statue of a man. Off in the distance is a wide green meadow; there are more of the white horses in it, and a cluster of white foals playing. There's a grove of trees at the end of the field, and a belltower beside it. 

"Um, this way," he says, leading her up to a much newer-looking building in a slightly different but still vaguely-medieval style. He stops at a particular door, but doesn't knock; his eyes just go unfocused and then, seconds later, a silver-haired woman also dressed in white opens the door. 

"Welcome," she says. "I'm Herald-Mage Savil. Vanyel's aunt. I hear you're a newcomer to Valdemar – to our entire world, actually?" She holds the door wide for both of them, and smiles crookedly. "I hope you're not finding it too much of a letdown." 

Um, the one I was living in most recently is a hard act to follow but the people have been hospitable here.

"Glad to hear it. You've spoken with Tran and Lancir, no? Poor Lance probably wishes we'd stop throwing hospitality duty on him, the gods know he's got enough on his plate." Savil ushers her toward a sitting area. "Table or sofa, your choice." The table is tiny – Savil's suite has two doors leading off it, presumably bedrooms, but the main area is even more cramped than Bella's guest room. 

Not waiting for an answer, Savil heads over to a sort of sideboard-table along the wall. "Care for a drink? Wine, water, tea? I was about to call for supper but once Van Mindspoke me, I thought I'd wait to ask what foods you like." 

I'm not picky but don't like alcohol unless it's cooked off in something. She takes water.

Savil pours wine for Vanyel and herself, and then takes the large overstuffed armchair opposite the sofa. "So. Hard act to follow, you say? What was it like? Different magic from ours and everything?" 

Yes. Magic music and magic jewelry. I'm not a good enough singer for reliable effects and would have needed to belong to their species for the jewelry. This isn't the only reason she isn't going to try it but it'll do. It was beautiful there. I can show you if you want.

"Oh, can you? How?"

(Vanyel is giving her an equally baffled look.) 

My telepathy can do pictures.

"Hmm!" Savil shares an impressed look with Vanyel. "Yes, then, I'm sure we'd like to see." 

She shows them the city of Tirion at Telperion's peak, silver light limning graceful buildings each crowing about a different architectural inspiration, the palace rising above them all with impossible columns lifting impossible arches, Elves going to and fro in clothes like hers with faces prettier than seems fair, the parks and planters full of strange plants in flower or fruit.

There are appropriate oohs and ahhs. 

At some point, Vanyel gets a weird expression, Savil catches his eye, and he goes and curls up at her feet with his head on her knee. Neither of them says anything to interrupt, though, until she's done. 

"It's beautiful," he breathes. "The people there look different from you?" 

They're Elves. That's who lives there, there weren't any humans besides me. Are you okay?

He gives her a blank look. "I'm fine. Um, is there magic or something that makes the arches work? They don't look like they should." 

When the Elves wanted an effect they didn't know how to achieve by engineering they'd sometimes get their gods to prop things up.

Savil laughs. "I'd say that's cheating, but our entire Kingdom is based on a similar principle so I can't. Interesting. What else did the gods get up to?" 

I'm not a very unbiased source on that right now.

They kicked me out.

"How rude." 

Vanyel scrambles up. "That's horrible! Why?" He freezes. "I, um, you don't have to answer that." 

Things there are very - slow - and they didn't like me doing things at, uh, human speed. They couldn't keep up.

"Hmm." Savil strokes the tip of her nose. "Do the gods in that world communicate with humans?" 

I was the only human. They talk to people in general all the time, though, especially the little gods but including the big ones.

"Right, Elves. And, interesting. Things aren't like that over here. What's the difference between the little gods and the big gods?" 

"What are Elves like?" Vanyel jumps in. "They're...slower to do things?"

Well, most of them. I was friends with a fast one.

The Elves are tall and pretty and they need everything around them to be pretty and they sing a lot and they're all telepathic and so - good. I never heard of a bad Elf. Petty rumormongering sometimes, or confusion about what was best, but they didn't hurt each other.

Vanyel perks up with an interested look when she mentions singing. 

Savil looks surprised, then thoughtful. "How do they manage that? The being good part, I mean. We have a setup here that's meant to help the people in charge be good," for some reason she pauses to pat Vanyel's shoulder reassuringly, "but, er, it's not frictionless. Are Elves all just born that way?" 

I think so. They age a lot slower than humans so the long childhoods might help but even little Elves are very gentle and thoughtful compared to comparably sized humans. What's your setup?

"Well, we have Companions – those are the white horses you must've seen around, outside. The first King of Valdemar was a refugee from an Empire that was a very bad place at the time, might still be for all I know, and he tried to make everything different, but I guess he was worried that at some point one of his descendants would be corrupt or rule badly. So he prayed to every single god whose name he knew for a miracle."

She frowns. "They don't answer prayers like that often, but they did this time. The Companions are intelligent – and also telepathic, actually – and they go out and find youngsters with, er, good hearts and leadership potential. Generally magical Gifts as well. Anyone Chosen by a Companion is called a Herald and we wear white. The monarch is always a Herald, and there's about a hundred of the rest of us." 

She pauses, and her words become a little rote. "We play a lot of roles. Messengers, spies, information-gatherers, judges, peace-keepers… Most Heralds spend their time on circuit within some area of the Kingdom, riding around resolving legal disputes, supporting the Guard, and acting as representatives of the Crown. If there’s a war, we fight. Our Companions are meant to ensure that we don't become corrupt, and to act as a visible sign to everyone else that we're trustworthy." She shrugs. "Most Heralds are – trustworthy enough, I mean – and most citizens of Valdemar do trust us. But we're not perfect. Occasionally we can be imperfect in ways a lot worse than petty gossip." 

How do they tell who has a good heart?

"You know, I'm not exactly sure how it works. I mean, once they're bonded to us they can read our minds, but before that I think it's a sort of Foresight. That's a Gift we have that can tell the future. Hmm – I'll ask Kellan." She closes her eyes for a minute. "He says it's something like that, yes. They just feel it. It's a part of the 'miracle' that the god or gods involved set up." 

"I wasn't exactly a good person when I was Chosen," Vanyel says tightly. "I try to be now." 

Savil smacks his shoulder. "I don't know what you're talking about." 

Okay.

"It's pretty strange," Vanyel says, a little more animated. "There are some other things in other kingdoms that are almost as weird. Rethwellan, er, they're southwest of us, they have a magic sword that selects the heir to the throne. Hardorn has – actually Rethwellan has as well, I think, on top of the sword – anyway, they have a religion that worships the Earth-Father and the priests can do some kind of magical binding between the ruler and the land, which in theory means that they can't act to harm it. I don't know if Karse has that but they have a god who apparently intervenes a lot." 

He stops, blinks, and deflates slightly. "Sorry if that was boring. I, um, do the gods in the Elves' world do anything like that? What about in the world you're from originally?" 

Um, I don't think they're controlling Elf politics like that. Gods in Materia also mostly don't.

"How does your magic work?" Savil says after a moment. "Lancir seemed to find it very intriguing but I haven't heard much." 

My telepathy and telekinesis are not technically magic according to the definition of my home society, it's called subtle arts. Uh, what do you mean how does it work - it gets better with practice? Some people are born with some subtle arts and most people aren't? Some people can also use it to control fire but I can't. At the time I originally had the magical accident I was in school to learn therapy.

"They have school for that?" Savil glances at Vanyel, who is stubbornly staring at the floor, and rubs her nose again. "Better with practice and some people are born with but most aren't is how it is here as well." 

There are a lot of kinds of magic there, some anyone can learn if they're bright enough or devout enough or something. And a lot of species of people. It's a really complicated place, Arda was simpler.

"You said you helped the people in the other world, er, Arda, with your mag– with your subtle arts?" Vanyel says, cautiously. "They don't have that even though they have telepathy?" 

Their telepathy only reads surface thoughts that aren't being hidden, and sends meanings and sense data. It's communicative but it wouldn't really have a therapeutic application. Uh, one of the Valar sort of tried to do therapy - he's the god of the dead and considers part of that to be healing dead people's traumas and personal flaws-in-his-opinion before he puts them back to life - but he was so bad at it, he mostly just made people forget things and turned them straight if they weren't straight before. I got permission to let people un-forget things, from one of the other Valar, and did a lot of that for ones who wanted to remember.

Vanyel is staring ahead with an increasingly frozen look. 

At 'turned them straight' Savil nearly spits out her drink, but she waits for Bella to finish. 

"That's certainly an interesting type of meddling," she says dryly. She reaches to squeeze Vanyel's shoulder again. "Not that I'd be shocked if the gods of our world have that, er, specific prejudice, but they're less obvious about it." She smiles tightly. "And I do see why Lancir is intrigued. We've got a similar division here, actually. The Mindspeech that Van and I have is closer to what you're describing with the Elves. Lancir is a Mindhealer as well, which is a separate Gift; it's absurdly rare and I'm not actually sure how it works, but I gather he can See different things as well as affect them in deeper ways. Van, you might know more?" 

Vanyel squirms. "Um, not really. He can See structures and patterns of thinking, I guess?" He looks like someone who doesn't want to be discussing this topic at all. 

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?”

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." 

I'm pretty sure you can't read either of these languages. I drink tea sometimes. You look really tired, were you up early?

"Um. Kind of, yes." He shrugs. "I'm fine." 

I can do a thing that can wake people up a bit if you want. You don't want to overuse it or substitute it for sleep but since there aren't any other subtle artists around you can't really run between six of us overdosing.

Vanyel thinks about it for a while. "Yes. Please. If you don't mind." 

We call it a coffee-thing. There he goes.

Vanyel is now definitely awake! It's not exactly the same or as good as having had a full night's sleep, but he doesn't get a really good night's sleep very often anyway so he barely remembers the feeling. This is pretty good. 

"Did you sleep well?" he asks. 

Acceptably considering, I guess.

Vanyel nods and pours tea for her and then squirms for a bit. 

"I'm sorry," he offers suddenly. "That you got kicked out of Arda. It sounds like a really nice world." He swallows. "Better than this one." 

It'd be hard to find a nicer one, probably. If you're really short on Mindhealers I can probably set up a practice somewhere and support myself usefully, it could be worse.

"We're even more short of Mindhealers than of mages. If you want to stay then I think everyone would be delighted." He shrugs. "I mean, you don't have to stay in Haven if you don't want to. Or in Valdemar at all. We wouldn't force you. But you wouldn't have any trouble supporting yourself and you could help a lot of people." 

He drinks his tea in silence for a bit, looking like he very much wants to ask some other question but isn't sure how. 

I don't have any particular reason to be anywhere else in this plane besides here, and if most people besides Heralds and Companions won't like telepathy here seems good.

"Mmm. I mean, Healers are also comfortable with it, a lot of them are Mindspeakers. That's probably where you would get set up if you wanted to work here, since you aren't a Herald. The Healers are nice. I have a friend who's a trainee over there."

That'd make sense, sure.

He fidgets and glances at the window. "I should go soon. I have a meeting, with Lancir. Probably right before your meeting. Tran's going to come help you find the way?" 

Yeah. I could probably find it again but I can't tell time.

"Oh. Right. I could... Actually that's probably one of those things that takes way longer to explain that I think." Vanyel shrugs. "I usually ask my Companion when I want to know what time it is anyway. We have time-candles but they're only accurate to within a few minutes on the candlemark. There's the bell, it rings a certain number of times depending on when in the day. And there are lots of sundials on the Palace grounds and they get adjusted based on the time of year. I can explain it more later if you want, or someone else could." 

He gulps the rest of his tea and escapes. 

Huh.

She writes, while she's waiting for Tantras.

Tran arrives a few hours later, at a time that is pretty plausibly about an hour to noon. "Bella! Good morning. You had breakfast? Excellent." He seems to be in a rush. "Come, this way." 

Fortunately her boots still work, so she can keep up with him.

They make it to Lancir's office without incident. He looks less harried this morning, and smiles warmly at her. "Bella. Thank you for coming. Settled in all right? I'm curious how you're finding everything so far." He slides a teapot toward her. "Tea?" 

No thank you, had some with breakfast. Everyone's been very hospitable.

"That's good. You spoke to Savil last night, no? As I'm sure she mentioned, Valdemar is traditionally a safe haven for anyone who needs it, to the extent that we can be – it's why King Valdemar called his capital 'Haven'. So you'd be welcome here no matter what, if you wished to stay. However, I'm sure she also mentioned why we're especially excited about having someone with your particular talents." 

Lancir sits back, and refills his own teacup. "It's especially of interest to me because, among my many other roles, I have the Mindhealing Gift, which is probably our world's closest analogue to what your subtle arts can do. There are, I understand, a total of six of us including myself currently in Valdemar. It's been obvious for a while that we need more resources in that direction, so if you're willing to help, that would mean a lot." 

Oh, you're a therapist!

"...I suppose so, yes." He shrugs. "It's less of an institution here than what you describe in your world. Mainly I play that role for Heralds when it comes up, since I'm already familiar with, well, a lot of the reasons why our lives are the way they are. I guess it goes with the rest of the role of Queen's Own – I'm Elspeth's right hand and her closest friend in some ways, but I'm also responsible for keeping an eye on her Heralds, making sure everyone is managing. Easier at some times than others. Sometimes I find myself wishing there were six of me." 

In Arda since there was only the one of me, once they realized it was a useful practice some people were thinking of trying to take up a purely mundane version.

"...I wish that was possible but I'm not sure how it would work. It's a brilliant idea if it does, though. Did the world you came from have schools for a mundane equivalent as well, or just for the subtle arts version?" He shakes his head. "Gods, I wish you'd gotten the books across somehow. I try to imagine writing a book about what I do, and I can't think how I'd describe it in a way that would come across."

Subtle arts isn't uncommon in Materia, so a therapist career is in fact gated on it there, but it seemed like it might work in a population without that option. A lot of it is just talking, even if the arts effects are more dramatic when they're called for. I can try to write down what I remember from the books.

"That would be incredibly valuable to us, I think. I've already alerted Healers' and asked them to hunt down their nearest Mindhealer to talk with you – I think they're out on circuit. Since they're not here yet, though, I'll jump to the front of the line for sharing ideas with you. I haven't had nearly as many opportunities as I'd prefer to ask advice, much less ask someone who has books on it." 

He frowns, thinking. "Hmm. I guess I do plenty of work that isn't actively using my Gift, and even some without my Sight. Feels hard to manage entirely without, though." 

Well, some things would be impossible, yes. Though maybe you can do things with magic I can't do at all and vice-versa, so we could fill each other in that way.

"Hmm. That's a good idea. I'll try to start." He's silent for a while, rubbing his chin. "Well, I can See the...structure, I guess, of people's minds. Kind of how the various patterns fit together. It's different for everyone, but for me it's like a metaphorical house. Rooms, doors, windows, pillars, all that. I can look at it overall or I can try to go in closer and See more details in a given area. It's all pretty abstract, though, so to interpret it, helps a lot to ask questions." 

He starts doodling absently around the edges of what looks like a handwritten accounting report with some corrections in red ink. "Then, I can push and move things around. I've caught up with other Mindhealers a couple of times, enough to get on the same page with terminology – two of the main techniques are called blocks and redirects. A redirect is a single thread of thought that I can...bake in deeper, I guess...with my Gift, usually to try to replace some other thought that's harming the person. So if a patient has problems feeling guilty in a certain kind of situation, say, I can remind them in a session to be gentle with themselves, and if I want I can push with my Gift to make it stick, so they'll keep remembering it in the relevant times and places." 

"Blocks are more... Hmm, so if there's an entire region of thoughts that's bad, often it's a kind of loop that someone will get stuck in, that'll show up in my Sight. And I can sort of...put a wall around it. It's not an impermeable wall, minds don't work that way, but it'll often keep them from wandering there by accident. Not sure how to describe it any better than that." 

He sits back again. "Is that anything like what your subtle arts do?" 

Those both sound similar to things I can do, yes. I wound up seeing in Arda a lot of effects downstream of people having been tortured and enslaved by an evil god so most of my experience is with panic attacks, nightmares, flashbacks.

"That sounds awful!" Lancir almost knocks over his tea. "Savil said your world sounded perfect, but...gods." He makes a face. "Literally. Sorry. Anyway, I see some amount of that too, for different reasons obviously, although probably the most common thing I have to address is people feeling horrifically guilty for screwing up in a mission or circuit and people being harmed as a result." 

He straightens the papers on his desk. "Anyway, were you able to figure out anything that worked really well? I've got one patient in particular I could use your advice with, for those sorts of issues and other things. Basically, something really bad happened to him, and... I don't know. It doesn't seem like putting in blocks around it is enough, or even the right tactic to be taking, but I don't know what else to do." 

The evil god is in prison now and that was pretty much it for bad stuff.

Uh, some people like to forget outright, I don't know if you can do that? I also have a thing where I can run somebody through a memory with all the interesting content and feelings elided till the mind stops making a fuss about it, like if you're flashing back to the time the orc chased you to the edge of a cliff and you broke your leg, you give it an overlay of "the time nothing in particular caused you for no reason in particular to be nowhere in particular and then nothing in particular happened".

"Huh!" Lancir puts his hands up behind his head. "Fascinating. No, I can't make people outright forget, at least not without breaking a lot of other things in the process – closest I can come in practice is making it so memories don't come up very often. The second thing... Hmm. I can't do that with my Gift alone, possibly if I had Projective Empathy as well – or Bardic – I could do something similar but I don't think it'd be as fine-grained."

He gets out a bit of paper and scribbles something. "Out of curiosity, how much can you see the patient's responses during, in real time? One of the really irritating parts is that I'm not a strong Thoughtsenser, so if I'm seeing someone who shields well by default, I get the overall shape but none of the specifics of what they're thinking." 

I can follow quite a lot but usually I make do with just an affect read - that's receptive empathy, I'm not sure what category that falls under for you guys. The exact timing of the changes matters more than the verbal details, usually, I can ask the patient to produce verbal details if they matter but it's often hard to remember timing from inside.

"...That's the same thing for us but it's a separate Gift, usually comes with projective Empathy but not always, and I don't have it either." He looks vaguely envious. "Thoughtsensing alone does give some overtones that convey affect. I think I agree with you on exact timing of changes mattering; I can generally pick that up but it's intuition as much as anything else. Or I can prod a bit with my Gift and see what kind of response it causes, figure out what's going on." 

Prod a bit? Prod what?

Lancir gets a weird cross-eyed look. 

"...I don't know how to explain it without you also having my kind of Sight," he says finally. "The...relationships between parts? Feelings and thoughts and beliefs and the core things that a person cares about, there's a structure there, links – which I see as the rooms of a house, or as various metaphorical interior decorations if I go in really close. And my best understanding of what my Gift does is just make it all a little softer, more malleable, so it can be moved around a little rather than staying fixed." He shrugs. "I can also use my Gift without moving anything around myself – I just make it easier for the patient to think a different thought instead of the one they would've had the last fifty times." 

Do you have this sense reflexively? If you wanted you could, uh, show me a room in your house.

"What do you... Oh, do you mean can I turn my Sight on myself and then have you read that? Clever, and yes. Give me a moment. I'll need to partially take down my shields, I assume. Let me just check the room shields are up... Good." He closes his eyes, his expression flattening. "Go ahead and look." 

Bella will see a brief glimpse of something that does in fact look sort of like a house, though in a bizarre metaphorical and dreamlike way – a cottage-like dwelling, square and single-storeyed with a thatch-style roof and simple windows on either side of an oak door standing open – and then the view ducks inside, there's a narrow entry-hall with tapestries, one end has something like a desk, there are three doors along it. Two have curtained doorways, one has a heavy door and very obvious lock. 

The view swoops through one of the curtained doorways. More tapestries on the walls, though the pictures they depict keep shifting – there are maps, pastoral scenes of fields, other images that seem to be mid-battle, old men seated in curved rows in a stadium-like room, people in white in a smaller meeting-room, all of them half-sketched, more evocative than detailed. 

There's a table. It holds books, and jars, and a sheathed dagger, and various other items. 

I call this my strategy-and-tactics room, Lancir thinks, the words floating up clearly but not quite projecting. It's the part of me that's engaged for most of my work as the Queen's Own, or my past work when I was a Herald-Mage on circuit. 

A point of bright light nudges at the dagger, and something echoes through the room. One of the tapestries becomes brighter while others dim. The books on the table seem to...sink, or become smaller, while several of the jars shine brighter. 

That is what I mean by pushing with my Gift, Lancir thinks. I am going to stop doing it now because it's quite distracting to demonstrate on myself in the middle of a conversation. 

Wow, that's really different - I have telepathic senses but they don't resolve into anything this literal.

Lancir shrugs. "I could wish it was easier to interpret. If I'm looking at someone who isn't me, it can be pretty non-obvious what the things I'm Seeing mean. Hmm – can you describe more what yours is like?" 

More synaesthetic. Things that smell like colors or whatever. But that's more a matter of learning how a given person is - similar structures won't smell blue between people - so between people the generalizable navigational skills are to a significant extent about ignoring all that confusing sensory stuff and maintaining a clear focus on what I'm trying to learn or do without going 'wait, that sounded like chocolate, what's that all about'. And then with practice across people I can make it resolve into more useful images and feelings.

“Huh. That’s how I’ve heard strong Receptive Empaths describe what it’s like to sense emotions. Complete with the fact that subtler things they can pick up on are different between people, I guess because people relate to their own emotions differently or something, I don’t know. Only it sounds like it’s all one Gift or equivalent for you, sensing thought and emotion and structure?” He smiles a little. “Convenient. What does it feel like when you try to change something?”

Well, it depends what, obviously. It's not just of a piece with my other telepathic stuff, it's also ultimately the same as my telekinesis, so it feels a lot like using that, but I suppose that doesn't explain much for your purposes... Imagine tying complicated knots in the dark at arm's length with a mix of various kinds of yarn, cooked pasta, wire, shoelaces, etcetera.

Lancir laughs. “Goodness. I sympathize - I mean, the specifics are different for me, obviously, but that feeling of being in the dark...” He makes a face. “Gods, especially with Vanyel. Mostly because getting him to talk about what’s going on with him is like pulling teeth, so I’m left playing guesswork at what’s going to help.”

“...Do you have any advice? I’ve been frustrated about this for the last year but there aren’t exactly any other Mindhealers around I can ask, given our shortage. I mean, I can talk to Savil but I can’t expect her to have really useful thoughts. People aren’t her strength to begin with.”

Okay just - stop. Don't - what the fuck do you think you're doing?

“What?” He looks blankly at her.

What you do if you are having trouble with a patient is you say TO THE PATIENT that you would like to try referring them to someone else and is that okay with them. If you're really at your wit's end, quit. You do not go behind their back and ask total strangers and their aunts and gods know who else about how to deal with them. What the fuck. Do you think. You're doing.

He mostly just looks confused. 

"What, is that a rule where you're from or something? Can't see that it'd work here – I don't know who'd I refer him to, like I said most of the others are on circuit at any given moment, not to mention the matter of it being within the Heraldic Circle, things come up that're sensitive for Kingdom security. It's my responsibility to make things work out and I try to do that however I can. I certainly can't quit and leave it to chance; this is really important for, um, reasons that have to do with Kingdom security that I actually can't tell you."

He looks mildly offended. "I wouldn't tell a random stranger about it! You're basically a Mindhealer too, obviously you're going to be responsible about it."

I got here yesterday! You don't know me! More importantly Vanyel doesn't know me! Even if you got his okay to complain about him to me, you didn't do the work of making it clearly that and not just you deciding privacy is imaginary because you don't like your job! Subtle arts talent is not correlated with being judicious with information and if I had claimed they were you'd have no way to be sure I wasn't lying. I haven't even mentioned yet the confidentiality oath I took so you weren't going off that. Even if you knew for a fact I would never act inappropriately with something you told me, or tell anyone else, your patients still have a perfect right that I, as, myself, a person, not be told. When somebody can't think straight without help they may find it necessary to sacrifice some of their privacy to get help with that. This is a real and difficult sacrifice and it is a disgrace to make it any worse than it has to be by letting any information escape that privileged relationship. I am ashamed of you.

Now Lancir looks startled. And defensive. He opens his mouth to speak, stops, closes it, scowls down at his desk. 

"...All right, fine, I don't know you all that well – I sort of slid into assuming you were as responsible as one of our Healers. Who, incidentally, do have the chance to ask each other about patients and I've been wishing I had that for the last thirty years. My bad." He doesn't look very sorry, though. 

He puts his hands on the desk. "However, you're not from here and I am – I'm asking you for advice because you do come from a world that has any kind of institutional expertise whatsoever, I want that advice, but you really don't have to be rude about it and I do want you to try to understand the constraints we were operating under until just now when you showed up." 

I don't know exactly what personnel circumstances have gone into making it so you're the only Mindhealer in town. Perhaps they are very dire. If you need to complain you anonymize. You flip a coin for gender, change every detail you can while retaining the substance of what you're venting about, and you tell people who don't know and won't meet the patient in terms such that if they heard you they wouldn't recognize themselves. I'm going to inform Vanyel that this happened, incidentally, he deserves to know that he can't expect you to keep things confidential until and unless he decides some new commitment on your part is credible.

Anyway, that's part of my institutional expertise. Until something with tentacles literally eats your brain for your secrets you don't let any privileged information escape with narrow exceptions for patient-prompted confirmations and denials or defending yourself against slander. Also important is that you minimize social and power relationships with your patients, and especially you don't have sex with them. You try to avoid treating people who are going to talk to you about each other or who are socially close to your own friends or family, though that one's hit hardest by a personnel shortage. You avoid conflicts of interest where you are incentivized - not just actually going to as far as you know, incentivized - to derive out-of-scope benefit from treating a patient. You get consent, uncoerced unpressured per-occasion, every single time you do anything more invasive than talk. If you do any such things you warn about all the risks of side effects. I'm suspecting based on your Kingdom security remark among others that some of this is going to be difficult for you.

Lancir looks nonplussed more than anything else. He sits back and rubs his forehead. 

"A minute, just – trying to get my head around your thinking here..." He fidgets with the accounting-report. "I don't know, that all sounds like a way of thinking that's not about the Heralds at all. For one, in a way we kind of are each other's family, and the whole way my role as Monarch's Own works is that I'm second-in-command of the Kingdom and also I'm responsible for all the Heralds' wellbeing–" he spins to glare in a random directly, "Taver could you pick literally any other time to give me an earful about how she's got a point? If you're so clever you could've said something thirty years ago, damn it." 

He grimaces, turning back to her. "Sorry. My Companion – I'm not a very strong Mindspeaker so I can't answer silently. Anyway, um, I guess I don't always like my job, and sometimes I wish it could be someone else's, but this is the deal I got handed." He taps his fingertips to the desk as though counting her points. "...Oh. Why per-occasion consent? It's not like it's any surprise that I'm going to use it sometimes, and if I stop to ask then I lose the right moment for it. Everything would take ten times as long and maybe you've got that kind of time but I generally don't." 

...you're second in command of the kingdom, you all use each other as surrogate family, and you go around unsurprisingly sticking yourself into people's heads based on information they probably filter for you because you will tell strangers and their relatives. And your horse. This doesn't seem kind of bad to you? What if someone just doesn't like you? What if you intimidate them? What if they want to go slower and you're in too much of a tearing hurry? What if they care a lot about losing your good regard?

He's quiet for a pretty long time. 

"...You know," he murmurs finally, "this probably isn't how I'd set things up if I were doing it from first principles. I just inherited things being this way. I do have concerns sometimes that people are intimidated or care a lot about my good regard or are just embarrassed. Never knew what to do about it." He shrugs. "Although I don't think it's an issue that I tell Taver. It's expected that we tell our Companions just about everything. They might talk to each other about it but that doesn't mean it's got any chance of leaking to another Herald, they're very good about that." 

Again, Companions themselves are people that it would be absolutely reasonable not to want told, especially if it winds up being all of them and not just yours.

"Hmff." Lancir doesn't look like he particularly believes her, but he lets it slide. "I'll...consider your points," he says stiffly. "Some of them might be workable here and worth trying. Er, are there any rules you haven't covered in the extensive list so far?" 

I have the rules memorized for use in practice, not so much in list form. I suppose I could pretend you're my new patient and demonstrate an intake interview.

Lancir looks like he wants to roll his eyes but doesn't, quite. "Sure, you could do that." 

Here's the spiel I was giving the Elves edited a little for context.

What are your therapeutic goals you're most interested in working on?

Lancir is taking notes. He’s having some trouble keeping up, even in shorthand.

“Damn,” he says mildly, dragging a hand over his face. “I should’ve asked you to do it under a first level Truth spell - uh, for reference, that does nothing to you, only shows externally if you’re lying, I think your subtle arts could verify that. Anyway, you’re right and I was being unjustifiedly trusting before, but if this is your oath, then...gods, I’d be willing to have any of the Heralds who wanted see you, issues of Kingdom security or not. You have no idea how many headaches that would fix for me.”

I can repeat it under a lie detection if you want. If that works on telepathy.

“It should work fine. In our world it’s pretty damned hard to lie at all in Mindspeech, but yours could well be different.” His eyes go unfocused for about fifteen seconds. “There, it’s on. Can you sense anything?”

I can't use subtle arts to detect magic. I could probably find it if I were looking at you to see that you're performing whatever action was involved but not to find it directly.

I have taken an oath of confidentiality. I will never reveal information that I gain in my professional capacity as a therapist to third parties without patient request except as necessary to counteract slander of myself.

"..Well, I didn't think you were lying but now I'm extra sure. Truth Spell works normally on you as per everything I can tell." He frowns. "Hmm – maybe tell a lie now so I can check that it's not just failing to pick up intent at all?" 

My name is Emily.

"...No, it went out there, so I'm pretty sure it does work normally." Lancir is still looking a bit irritated, and defensive, but he folds his hands over the desk. "Good. I, hmm... For what it's worth, I am fairly convinced that your way is better than ours, if not that I could or should have been doing things differently before this. So. Still stands that I'm really glad to have you here, and I hope you are willing to help us out even if we're a bit, er, barbaric by the standards of where you come from." 

For whatever it's worth I'm sure you have Materia beat in lots of ways, it just had solid social tech around the one thing.

"I guess we'll have to see what you notice when you've been here longer." He sighs, heavily. "Well. Taver seems to think that I owe Vanyel an apology, which I suppose I brought on myself. Should we go do that?" He stops, thinks, rubs his chin again. "I mean, unless you'd been thinking you would inform him without me there so, I don't know, so he can react without worrying about my judging him or something." 

I don't have a particular guideline for that. We can do that now if he's likely to be free.

Lancir’s expression goes flat for a moment. “Taver thinks he should be, yes.”

You all stop making facial expressions when you talk to your Companions.

“Huh! That’s true, and good noticing.” His lips twitch. “Some of us are sneakier than others. I’ve been told I’d make a very bad spy because I can’t hide it at all.”

Elves you can barely tell unless they're talking to a dozen people.

Lancir freezes midway through standing up. “...They can do that? Gods! I mean, I think Taver can do that with other Companions, but he’s, er, specially built for it. Us mere mortals certainly can’t.”

Well, the Elves are specially built for it, I guess. I can't load up on threads like that but I don't think I go blank when I'm asking a quick question of someone not in the room.

“Hmm. That is interesting.” He shoves some of the papers into a drawers and locks it, then waves his hand vaguely in midair. “There, wards are up, we can go if you want.”

She steps out of the room and accompanies him to find Vanyel.

Vanyel is in his room, yawning again and trying without that much success to review some notes. He jumps up when he senses someone coming, and already has the door open before either of them can knock. 

“Bella! What are you doing here?” He shoots a self-conscious glance in Lancir’s direction before looking back to her. “I, um, wanted to come find you after your meeting to ask if you could do the coffee-thing again?”

Not more than once a day. If you're an insomniac I can put you to sleep tonight?

“You can do that too?” He looks simultaneously impressed and dubious. “I’ll think about it, I guess. Why are you both here?”

Lancir owes you an apology.

Lancir clears his thread. 

"I, er, asked Bella for advice about you," he says stiffly. "Thought she could be a valuable resource." 

(Vanyel's expression goes wooden, but up to this point he doesn't look surprised.) 

"And," Lancir says, reluctantly, "she informed me that by her world's standards that's very inappropriate – that I should have asked you specifically for permission, and absent that assumed that anything you told me was to be completely confidential from everyone. I'm still figuring out whether her full oath of secrecy is workable given our circumstances, but I'm leaning toward thinking that I erred much too far in the other direction. So I guess I retroactively apologize for the times I asked Savil questions about you or told her anything related to what we'd talked about." 

He glances sideways at Bella, with the look of someone silently asking whether he's done the thing yet and can stop. 

Vanyel just looks stunned. "Bella, what? Really?" 

Yes really! Your mind belongs to you and you should have absolute control over who sees what of it. I would think he should also apologize for leaking to Taver, not just me and Savil, but he seems to think that in fact went without saying.

"No, I mean, that's all right, I wouldn't expect him not to tell his Companion things." Vanyel seems very distracted. He nods to Lancir, not quite meeting his eyes. "Thank you for apologizing. Bella, I, um... Can I have ten minutes to think and then, um, speak with you privately?" 

Sure. Do you want me to wait here?

"I can come find you at your guest room if that's better for you, but waiting here would be fine." 

I'll be here.

She sits.

Vanyel closes his door firmly and locks it and then runs to his room. :'Fandes, can you tell me when it's been five minutes, please?: 

He's going to hide under his covers and cry for exactly five minutes, and then there should still be enough minutes afterward that Bella shouldn't be able to tell if he washes his face. He's tested this. Kind of extensively. 

Lancir shuffles his feet. "Should I go? I've got another meeting in half a candlemark anyway. Um, I will think about what you said." 

I appreciate that. This isn't a therapy session you have coming up, is it?

"No, er, this one is supposed to be telling Queen Elspeth all the interesting things I learned about your magic." He sighs. "Instead I suppose I'll be telling her how we possibly need to rehaul our entire system and you think I'm bad at my job." 

I hope that goes over all right.

He shrugs. "It'll be fine, I think. Elspeth and I go way back. Just want to make sure I explain your philosophy right and don't miss any important pieces. I suppose she may want to talk to you later, if you're up for that." 

That should be all right - probably - I have some lingering anxiety about royalty from my home plane but hopefully she's not the execution-happy kind of queen.

"Hmm. I don't think you need to worry about that. There have been executions in her reign, but rarely, and we do have a justice system that it goes through. You seem careful and ethical and very much not like someone who's going to break our Laws accidentally or on purpose." 

He turns to go. 

I don't know what they are! she points out. Someone might want to get around to telling me.

"...Er, if you can wait eight minutes or so, Vanyel should have the book." 

Can't read the language. I guess I can ask him to read it to me.

"Hmm, I'll have Taver pass a message to Tran to check back with you about it later tonight..." pause "...done. It's very convenient that your subtle arts let you talk to us, but it's too bad they don't help you read. Did you eventually learn to read the local language in Arda?" 

I was there for nearly twenty years! I'm fluent. Also writing was invented while I was there so I read and write Quenya better than most native speakers.

Lancir gives her several shades of baffled look. "...All right, I'm going to ask you later when I have lots of time how exactly a world as advanced as that one didn't have writing until the last twenty years." 

Sure.

Lancir goes. Exactly ten minutes later, Vanyel's door opens. "Bella, are you still – oh, you are here." He hesitates for a while, gnawing his lip and looking like he badly wants to ask a question, and then looks past her and blurts out, "...wait if you were in Arda for twenty years why do you look like you're still my age?" Eyes go to floor. "I don't know if that's offensive, sorry." 

It's not offensive. Elves don't age and thought it was a pretty horrific concept and the Valar agreed to slow down my aging as much as they could. I don't know if it will keep working here. I'm in my thirties somewhere, it's hard to know precisely because the days and years were different lengths. I guess I also don't know how long yours are here. I was nineteen, are you nineteen?

"I'm eighteen. Elves don't age? Do they still– I guess they must die, there's a god of the dead." He kicks at the doorframe. "I, um, that wasn't the thing I wanted to ask about and I should just ask before I decide to pretend I wasn't going to..." And then he doesn't say anything. 

They can die of accident or violence. There used to be more violence, on the other continents, when there was an evil god active there. There are still leftovers from that time around but the Elves who still live there are mostly all right day to day. And no one's ever died in Valinor, though one could if one bothered a dinosaur or something. ...What were you going to ask?

Vanyel stares down at his slippers. "...Would it be all right if I wanted to have you as my Mindhealer instead of Lancir? Or therapist, I mean, whatever the right word is. I, um, I wasn't going to ask because you didn't know and it was – I don't..." He trails off, shrugs. "But you do know anyway. I can't undo that even if Lancir apologized. And, um, I...do have pretty bad problems and I would like to not. If it's possible. Lancir's Gift only helps a bit but yours is different and maybe it would help more, and you had training, and I...just..." Vanyel looks like he wants to sink into the floor. 

I don't know much, I didn't let him get very far. Uh, and my training cut off abruptly though I think I manage all right. If you want me I certainly have room in my schedule - though, I don't know if you paid Lancir or if he has some other setup, in Valinor they didn't use money but I think here you do.

"...I think the way it worked with Lancir is that we're both Heralds and the Kingdom pays for our living expenses and it didn't really matter. I can definitely pay you if you're worried about having enough money here, though." He glances up and down the hallway. "Do you want to come in? I, um, don't really want to talk about it out here, and I could make you tea or something." 

No more tea for me today, thanks. In she steps.

Vanyel closes the door. "Thank you for not letting Lancir get very far, I think? I mean, maybe that's silly if I'm going to tell you anyway, but...I don't know, I still would sort of prefer if I told you myself." 

As soon as he said your name I was just sort of waiting to see if the next thing he said was catching himself slipping up and apologizing profusely and when it wasn't I told him off. I don't know what it is that's weighing on you but you don't have to tell me today, it would be very reasonable what with me being a new person to wait longer, get used to me, think it over. Also there's an intake process I usually start with.

"All right." Vanyel goes and fills a cup of water from a jug and then holds out his hand and closes his eyes; five seconds later the water is steaming. He goes and digs in a jar of dried leaves to throw some in. 

"I probably want to think about it?" he says finally. "That sounds like a good idea. If you're going to stay than probably you'll have room in your schedule still in a few days? I'm still really curious how your subtle arts work, though. Just because it's interesting." 

Sure, ask away.

He looks around, pulls out his desk chair and makes a questioning gesture that probably means 'do you want to sit here', and then sits on the desk. "First, how does it work that you have telekinesis and the not-Mindspeech thing? Are those coming from the same ability or different ones?" 

Same thing. Some people get pyrokinesis, too. All three are ways someone born with subtle arts may be able to focus their mind to achieve an effect but the telepathy's the most common.

"Pyrokinesis would be like this?" He produces a little tongue of flame, a few inches above his palm. 

Yes, or what you did with the tea, if they were particularly good at it.

"Oh, interesting. Those are actually different Gifts that I'm using. Or, I mean, I could..." The flame winks out. A few seconds later, a ball of fire of a bluer shade appears above them. "That's with mage-gift, which is how I heated the water. The other one is Firestarting, which is kind of my stupidest Gift honestly, I have it really weakly and I have a very strong mage-gift, the only advantage of Firestarting is that it's a bit more energy-efficient."

He disposes of the second flame-ball as well. "How much weight can you lift with your telekinesis? Do you have to be able to see what you're moving?" 

I can't lift much, and that's after years of practicing it in my spare time to improve it. I don't drop something if I lose sight of it, but I don't get tactile feedback and if I'm visualizing it incorrectly I can't pick it up or make it do anything. I use it to braid my hair and turn pages and stuff.

"Huh. Do people have different, hmm, ratios of strength between different talents here? I mean, are there some people who would also have telekinesis and telepathy but their telekinesis would be stronger than yours is and their telepathy weaker?" 

Oh, yes. There are subtle artists who have only pyrokinesis, or very weak telepathy and enough teekay to wreck buildings; and there are telepaths who are bad at fiddly little therapy stuff and good at combat arts, or bad at defense and good at reading memories; and some subtle artists are born incontinent in some or all of their powers, which is as bad as it sounds; and all the combinations you can think of.

"...What are telepathy combat arts?" 

I can knock people unconscious, if they're not shielded, but if I got in a fight with another telepath subtle artist it'd turn into this whole psychic combat thing? I'm not especially good at that, I have good natural defense but a specialist would wreck me.

Vanyel gives her a cross-eyed look. "Um. What happens if they win? Do you just die, or something else?" 

That would depend on whether they were trying to kill me.

"If they weren't?" He's frowning. "I can knock people out, hells, I can kill people with Mindspeech – it's really horrible, I wish I couldn't, I did it by accident the first time because I have stupidly powerful Gifts – but it doesn't sound like the thing you're talking about. Even if I was fighting another strong Mindspeaker only using Mindspeech for some reason, I think we'd just whack at each others' shields until one of them came down and then they'd get knocked out and maybe die." 

I'm not really an expert and everything I remember is from a long time ago and half of it was from fiction. My strategy was going to be not getting into any fights.

"That's fair." Vanyel sips his tea for a moment. "Are people in your world born with powers already active? You said some people are born with them...not controlled?" 

Yeah, they usually get it figured out sooner or later if they don't burn their house down or something but some incontinent mindreaders wind up with a lot of attitude about it.

"It's nice that most people don't have that, though?" Vanyel shrugs. "Here, people get Gifts as kids, and usually they're kind of uncontrolled. Mine were...worse than average. Also I have a lot of them. It was pretty inconvenient for everyone." 

That does sound inconvenient. I don't know anything about what the process of controlling Gifts is like; with subtle arts it's sort of like learning not to - fidget. But I wasn't born fidgety so I don't have personal experience.

"Mainly I had to learn how to shield." Vanyel squirms a bit; it doesn't seem to be the world's most comfortable topic for him, but he still seems interested. "Then I wasn't doing things by accident all the time. Then I had to learn how to actually do things on purpose in a controlled way. Until I'd done that I would still do uncontrolled things if I was startled." He plays with the rim of his teacup. "Most people have an easier time because their Gifts awaken slowly, so they're not that strong at first and they have a chance to get used to it." 

That sounds really scary.

"It wasn't great." 

Do you want me to give you the therapy intake spiel now or is this just making conversation?

"...Sorry, what? Oh." He re-focuses on her. "Um, yes, I think I want that." 

She repeats the speech she gave Lancir.

Vanyel listens, gets a speculative expression when she hits 'am not perfect at absolute information-theoretic insulation against very curious people good at using very tiny clues', and then is silent for a while.

"That's very...thorough," he says finally. "They have compulsions in your world too? Um, I wonder if a Mindhealer here could fix things you did – or if you could fix things they did, I don't know if it's just a different kind of magic though. Anyway. I'm...supposed to think of goals now? I probably need a minute to do that." 

They have compulsions in my world but therapists aren't usually first line to deal with them; I picked up that exception in Arda after talking it over with Elves, who can make inviolable oaths. It's possible another Mindhealer could fix or at least route around things I did. Take all the time you need.

He frowns into space for a while, retrieves a scrap of paper from his desk and turns it over, looks at it, then looks helplessly at her. "Er, what kind of goals am I supposed to have? I...haven't done this before." 

Uh, as a jumping-off point if not a rigid template, what was Lancir - uh, did he not even tell you whatever it was he was driving at?

"There were specific things sometimes? Like when I left Haven by myself on a mission the first time, and he wanted to talk through it and make sure I would...be all right and not do anything stupid. Um, and then afterward we talked about how my risk assessment is off. A lot of it was just trying to make it so I could do more of my duties and not, um, get upset by as many things."

He fidgets with the sleeve of his tunic. "I'm trying to remember what he said the first time, when I got back to Haven. He said..." Vanyel twists away from her to face the wall. "I guess he said he wanted to make sure I was...still alive in twenty years...because I'm really powerful and they need me. And...a bad thing happened to me...and most people it happens to don't survive." 

Okay, uh, I'm not going to be approaching this from a perspective of wanting to be able to point you at a greater number and variety of responsibilities. That's in tension with generally getting you more comfortable in your head. It's not that a generally happier and more mentally organized you won't be able to do more things but it will tend to be discouraging if you feel like you're obliged to immediately spend down any slack you build up. Also, one of the mistakes Lancir was making was mixing his position of authority and responsibility with his therapeutic role; you're not supposed to do that, because it incentivizes... are you okay?

Vanyel is staring at her like he can't quite parse any of what she's just said. 

"I, um, I just..." He pulls his knees in to his chest. "I don't – I can't – can I talk to you in Mindspeech it's easier." 

Go right ahead.