"Right. Well, what are Deep Ones like, otherwise? They must have fairly different traditions, if they don't die of old age." 

"Yeah! And they live underwater, mostly--they're amphibious but mostly they only live on the surface when they've got human loved ones to be with. They have beautiful underwater cities made of living coral, and they prize children and childhood even more than humans do because you've got forever to be an adult but childhood is fleeting. They're--cautious but optimistic, they're wary about strange humans but if you approach them in good faith they'll welcome you. They have beautiful music; some compositions are marked by how many centuries the composer has spent improving it. They see every death as a tragedy and were delighted when a wandering band of resurrectionists showed up even though they don't have all that many dead people. They abhor violence except in self-defense. They value gold less because it's rare and pretty and more because it just doesn't corrode. They're not very prone to accepting something as good enough when it can be improved."

"They sound incredible," Vanyel says wistfully. "I wish I could..." He trails off. "Do you know any of their music?" 

"Mhm! Most of it sounds better underwater but sometimes they compose stuff to be sung on land and that's disproportionately what I learned which is convenient. And the song I sang this morning came through Deep One traditions even though it started out with the shoggoths--shoggoths are another species that live mostly underwater, the Deep Ones have a lot of interaction with them. They don't do the Deep One thing of creating commingled communities with humans on the surface so most of what I know about them I learned from the Deep Ones," she adds for the benefit of those who did not get a crash course on the existence of shoggoths this morning. "Their language is really pretty, it sounds like," she produces a series of clicks and piping. "Does anyone have any specific requests for Deep One music? They categorize their music really differently from humans!"

"...What kinds of categories?" Vanyel wishes he could hear what music sung underwater is like, too, but it's not like he can go to Lucy's world. "I think I'd want to hear something - happy - right now." 

"Like, humans categorize their songs into what the songs are for, sort of, like their categories are 'songs composed recently to appeal to modern tastes' and 'songs composed in this one broad style that is different from that' and 'songs people sing on ships to coordinate work' and 'songs slaves sang back when there were slaves which contained encoded instructions to escape from slavery' and 'traditional songs' and Deep Ones categorize songs into story-songs and feelings-songs and aspect-of-reality songs and so on, like, a song about things that make you happy would be a feelings-song and so would a song about a thing that happened that doesn't go into much detail about what specifically happened but goes into a lot of detail about how you feel about it, but if instead it goes into a lot of detail about what happened and has a narrative structure it'd be a story-song, but a song about, like, how awesome summer is would be an aspect-of-reality song."

That's all very interesting. "Is there a particular song about how awesome summer is? That sounds nice." 

"There is!" 

She launches into it. It's incredibly melodically complicated, and frequently returns to themes like bright sunlight on skin: awesome and sitting in the shade of a tree laden with unripe fruits with your lover's head in your lap, or the coolness of evening after a hot day, each time varied slightly to emphasize different aspects or possible aspects of the experience. 

...As recently as a few days ago some of those lines would have been pretty upsetting, and it's still sort of raw and Vanyel cuddles up against Tylendel, but it's also...nice. Summer is coming to an end, here in Haven, but there's going to be another year, another summer - lots of summers - and Tylendel will be there, and - and maybe the world isn't safe, maybe something else will happen to 'Lendel, it's not impossible – but Lucy is here, she's not going anywhere, she can eat wyrsa – and he knows, he's starting to actually believe it deep in his bones, that if anything does happen anyway, she'll bring his lifebonded back again.

"That's really beautiful," he manages at the end. 

"Thanks! --Oh, hey, 'Lendel, something that came up with Lancir that Van knows and you and Gala don't and it might be helpful, I'm super badass and when I landed in the Pelagirs I got attacked by a pack of wyrsa and I ate them."

Tylendel has no idea how to respond, so he just blinks at her. 

"Only I didn't eat them all to start off with, I saved some for later, and that attracted a basilisk. Which I would have tried harder not to kill if I had known how ecologically important they are. And then Van and Savil and Yfandes and Kellan and Moondance and Starwind tracked the basilisk to where I had left most of its corpse and then tracked me to Wilbur's and my campsite. And that's how we met!"

Tylendel looks over at Vanyel with a sort of disbelieving 'really???' look.

"She did!" Vanyel confirms. "We were pretty, um, alarmed at first, but then she and Wilbur were friendly, and then I was - upset - and she was really comforting, and the part about her being able to bring back dead people came up..." 

"It does occasionally occur to me to giggle over how much, when you were tracking down a mysterious basilisk-eating monster, you were not expecting me."

"They really must not have been!" Donni bursts out laughing. 

She giggles, and then her smile changes, less amused, more soft. 

"I'm really glad it was you guys that found us, though. I'm sure things would have been alright in the end any which way, but--this is much better than alright."

Vanyel isn't at all sure that it would have been all right otherwise, actually, but he doesn't say anything. 

Well, not yet it wouldn't, but she's planning to resurrect everyone, she'd've gotten to Tylendel eventually. "I mean--not just for you guys--I'm happier than I can remember being for a very long time."

"Are we really that nice?" Donni quips. 

"You're people my age who know what I am and accept it without blinking. Do you know when the last time I had friends my age was? Literally never. Plus, due to circumstances, I ended up telling both Van and 'Lendel my deepest darkest secret literally the same day I met each of them and they both accepted that. That means a lot to me."

Tylendel does not say what he's thinking, which is that it would be pretty inconsistent of him to judge Lucy over that when he killed fifty people and also she brought him back from the dead and this is the only reason that Vanyel is even sort of okay. 

He didn't eat any of them, though. 

"And--yeah. I like you guys a lot. I'm--really happy I'm here, with you, instead of somewhere else with some other people. I'm sure hypothetical other-me is also very fond of her people, but," shrug. "I still think I'm better off than her."

Aww. Savil finds that very touching. 

Also it's time for lunch. Vanyel seems to be in a contemplative mood and is mostly ignoring his food. 

Maybe if Lucy stares at his food intently enough she can spontaneously develop telekinesis and bring to food to his mouth. 

...

Nope, that was kind of a dumb idea anyway. She attempts to give Tylendel a Meaningful Look.