:Of course! Oh, and Savil has books on magical theory as well. I think it'll be helpful for you to study some of those even if you're too tired to practice: 

She stops so she can twist her neck around and look him in the eye. :Though you could use some other leisure activities. If you work on learning the language – or let Starwind put it directly into your mind with Mindspeech, he can do that – you can start making friends with some of the other youngsters out here. Find you some more hobbies. What sorts of things did you used to do for fun?: 

"I could get an entire language dropped in my head? That sounds fantastic. Way easier than learning Rethwellani out of books. Things I did for fun, uh, reading mostly, and birdwatching and looking at plants." None of which his father had approved of, but getting his father's approval had always seemed too unrealistic to be worth dropping everything else for. "Oh, I bet if I learn the language I can learn more about the plants and animals here, and what the Tayledras are doing with the land."

:You can! I can think of several scouts and Healers who would be happy to show you plants and animals. There are some beautiful birds here in the Vale. And I bet Moondance likes to talk about his work as a Healing-Adept: 

"Moondance's work does sound interesting. It's not quite like anything anyone in Valdemar can do, is it?"

:No. I'm not sure how his Gifts work – he's an Adept-potential mage and has an equivalently strong Healing-Gift, but there's...something more to it, I think. And then of course there's the lore. No one in Valdemar would know the techniques to use that combination the way he does. But I don't know the details. Want to find him tonight and ask?: 

"Definitely." 

And over dinner that evening he asks Moondance, "So, I've been curious about what being a Healing-Adept is like. Valdemar doesn't have any, and I'd never heard of it before."

Moondance smiles; he seems quite pleased to be asked. 

"How much do you know about our people's calling, here in the Pelagirs?" he asks. 

"I know you're called by the Star-Eyed to fix the problems with the land, the changecreatures and stuff, and that you expect it to take a bunch of generations. But I don't know if you're trying to put it back how it was before the Mage Wars or if you're aiming for some other specific state."

A soft look. "Many, many generations. Our work has lasted almost two millennia. And, there is no putting it back to how it was. We can only restore it to a state where, eventually, people may safely live and build in it again."

A pause.

"The Changecreatures, the twisted plant life – all of it is the result of wild magic that still fills this land, which was left as residue by the weapon that caused the Cataclysm. Much of the Tayledras work is to secure the land – to keep out those who ought not be here, to protect innocent farmers who live near our borders, to shoo Changecreatures deeper into the Pelagirs wilderness. We prefer not to kill them, even the worst of them; it is not their fault that they are Changed, we must simply send them further so that we can reopen these lands to humans and others. That is so much of what scouts do. What I do, however, works directly with the wild magic itself. I am a Healing-Adept; I Heal the land itself with my Gifts, not only people." 

"Wow. I know regular Healing works by speeding up and improving what the body can do on its own; is what you do to the land something similar, or is it more like pulling the wild magic out directly, or . . .?"

Moondance grins. He seems to enjoy the questions. "That is a simplification of how Healing works, though close enough in practice. One could argue that the most important part of a Healer's Gift is the Sight – the ability to directly perceive natural processes in the body, both at a high level and in closer detail. Once a Healer knows to interpret this Sight, they can nudge these processes – either speed or slow, or even nudge into motion something that the body was not already doing, but for which it has the capacity." 

He stops for a while, lips moving silently in thought. 

"The land, of course," he says finally, "is not a person. An ordinary Healer would look and see nothing with their Sight. A mage can See energy-flows – when you are more trained, I might take you outside the Vale, and show you the difference between the tamed magic inside the Vale and the residue outside. However, an ordinary mage, even a very powerful one, does not possess all of the Sight I need to do my work. Nor does a Healer. There is...something more, that means I am a Healing-Adept. I do See the life within the land in a way not so dissimilar to how I See the life in your body."

A brief shiver. "And, just as a Healer not trained to shield will feel ill when their patients do, I am very sensitive to 'illness' in the land. I can shield, but I must be open in order to make full use of my Gifts. This is one reason why my work is so difficult, and why you may sometimes find me tired and snappish when I return to the Vale. In any case, one might say that my Sight is the most important part. Once I can know what is wrong, both the larger picture and the fine details, there are techniques I can learn to repair the damage. Those techniques are among the lore that the Star-Eyed granted our people in the early days. It is difficult to describe them more without your sharing my Sight, but," he hesitates, "if at some point you are curious, perhaps you might accompany me one day, and watch my mind as I work?" 

"I would love to, if it wouldn't bother you to have me there while you're doing the hard parts. The senses that come with Gifts are the most interesting part, to me."

(He wishes he could have watched 'Lendel with his new Sight, wishes they could have shared emotions more thoroughly with Empathy on top of the Lifebond. Every new interesting thing is a thing they'll never get to talk about. Now Abras is staring wistfully into space.)

Moondance probably notices his expression, and starts describing in detail a particular example of his past work – cleaning up a gnarly tangle of Pelagirs magic from a former basilisk nest, after he and the scouts had gently relocated the basilisk in question and her babies. 

Basilisks are actually a created species from before the Mage Wars; they're ugly, stinky, stupid, and constantly ravenous, and they're extremely dangerous to humans, including mages, due to their innate compulsion-magic. Their gaze hypnotizes and freezes any animals and people they lay eyes on, and it doesn't matter that they move slowly. The Tayledras never kill them unless there's no choice, though; they're an important part of the ecosystem, they're mainly scavengers and are the only animal that will eat the corpses of other magical creatures like colddrakes (and wyrsa, but Moondance doesn't mention this). The best option is just to herd them deeper into the Pelagirs.

From Moondance's voice, he doesn't find basilisks disturbing; there's almost a fondness there. And he's a good storyteller. It's maybe not the most cheerful topic but it is distracting. 

Abras is successfully distracted! Basilisks sound pretty unnerving, honestly, what with the compulsion magic. And also the eating people, but mostly the compulsion magic. Still, it's good that Moondance appreciates them. Abras is generally fond of most animals (Moondance may or may not have noticed him preferring plant foods over meat when the choice was available), and who knows, maybe he could learn to tolerate basilisks too if he got used to them enough.

He listens attentively until the story is done, then asks, "It makes sense that you'd be careful not to kill them, but doesn't pushing all the creatures into less space just lead to some of them starving anyway? I guess it would still be fewer than if you killed some."

Moondance smiles. "You are compassionate of heart, Abras. And correct. This is somewhat inevitable, and will become more so as the remaining land shrinks. I do not think that even the most dangerous of creatures deserve to be eradicated, and so we do leave areas untouched for them – but the wild magic is harmful to the world, and removing it does result in a land that is hospitable to us and not to them. Which is unfair in a sense." 

"I mean, I agree that people are more important--though I don't know if I could explain why. What does it mean that the wild magic is harmful to the world? Is it something more than just 'inhospitable to people'?"

Moondance nods. "It is hard to explain, but...magical has a natural cycle, the same way that water does. It is not perfectly analogous, and even I do not understand the processes, but...just as water falls as rain, feeds plants and animals, traces its path to the ocean in rivers, and eventually evaporates to return to the clouds and begin again, magic does something similar. Except that the chaotic magic left behind by the Cataclysm does not behave this way – nor does blood-magic, though I will not speak of that more now. Imagine if the lakes and rivers of a land had become poisoned, and that same poison changed the water to be sticky, to cling to itself and draw even more of the surrounding water in, never rejoining the clouds. That is what the wild magic does." 

"Huh. Good thing you're cleaning it up, then." The mention of things being hard to explain jogs his memory. "Oh, say, I just remembered--Yfandes said you could use magic to teach me the Tayledras language all at once?"

A smile. "Of course! Not I, but Starwind knows the technique. It will be very draining and give you a mild headache afterward, so best to do in the evening – now would be fine if you wished?" 

"Now would be great. Also, is that another rare Gift sort of thing, or just hard to learn?" 

"It requires an unusually strong Mindspeech Gift, and, yes, many years of practice. I have only been in k'Treva for ten years," a flicker of something dark in his expression, "and I have not prioritized it." Moondance tilts his head at Abras. "You would be able to learn it if you wished, I imagine, your Gift is strong enough, but it is a major undertaking." 

"I could? That . . . sounds really neat, but there are probably other things I ought to prioritize first. I should ask Savil for a medium-term lesson plan at some point, I have no idea what she expects me to learn by when."

"I think perhaps she has not gotten that far ahead either," Moondance confesses. "And your Gifts are unusual, both in strength and number. There is no standard lesson plan. Still, it would be well to build one." 

And he can go find Starwind, who can do the trick to give Abras the Tayledras language. It's not instant, he has to lie still in trance for about half a candlemark, and he does feel exhausted and headachy afterward, but he can speak Tayledras!

Lying still in trance is a great opportunity to not think about Tylendel being DEAD, do not, focus, but afterwards he can speak Tayledras! And possibly between the exhaustion and the being able to introspect on all his new vocabulary and see how Tayledras words for things have subtly different connotations, he will be able to fall asleep without another opportunity to not think about Tylendel being DEAD.

And then: 

He's standing in the mouth of a pass carved by dark magic, looking out at a snow-swept waste. And an army. And the mage at its head, clad in black, looking at him–