"I would. --Actually if the dream doesn't have me explicitly sent away too, or there, I'm sort of confused where I'm supposed to be, like, obviously I am super on board with averting this, but like, it's supposed to be a coherent entire possible future, right, in this hypothetical I have to be somewhere."

"I don't understand it," Vanyel murmures. "...I think we should try to learn more things about how Foresight works. I know sometimes visions can be partly metaphorical – this one seems pretty concrete, but maybe it wouldn't show all the details. Although Lucy is a pretty important strategic element." 

"That makes sense. I wish I knew any reliable divinations from my magic system, but no. I mean, I've heard of unreliable ones, but it's not like there's a coherent organized school anywhere, just individual sorcerers and whatever they can cobble together. I've got what my grandfather could cobble and what my teacher could cobble and that contains some really great stuff, don't get me wrong, but it's still cobbled. Oh well, I can still help with research, even if I don't have nearly as much background context on this world's magic as I might like."

Vanyel nods. "...Honestly I have no idea how Foresight works. Savil can probably help too." He closes his eyes, leans his head against Tylendel's shoulder. "When I told her about it, she - made a promise. That I wouldn't have to handle it alone." 

"You won't," she agrees. "Neither of us is going anywhere."

"I know. I'm so glad." Vanyel squeezes Lucy's hand again. "...It'll be fine. Right? Whatever happens. If we've got you. And we're not - being stupid about it." He makes a face. "The dream is stupid. It happens in at least ten years - my hair is all silver - and we're clearly not ready at all, it was just me and Tylendel there and – huh. You'd figure I would at least think about you in it, even if you're somewhere else. I don't get it." 

"This is very weird," she agrees. "Clearly there's something we're missing about it...have you had the dream since you met me? Maybe you did think about me but you didn't have the context to realize it was me you were thinking about and forgot?"

"No, I haven't had it since you arrived. I guess I'll have to see." Vanyel turns his head to look at Tylendel. "Anyway, I think that's all the big things I meant to tell you." And the telling of it was weirdly exhausting. He really just wants to close his eyes and be held and – oh, right. "Lucy, could you sing again?" 

"Yeah, of course." 

She starts singing a story-song about the founding of the Innsmouth Deep One community, when a sea-captain named Obed Marsh made contact with some Deep Ones off the coast using a small magic ritual and invited them to come, trading surfacer knowledge for good fishing hauls for the community and deep-sea gold, about the Deep Ones coming on land to meet their new neighbors, about the young people of Innsmouth swimming out to the reef to talk to their new friends in their own place, about pretty deep-sea girls and handsome young deep-sea men flirting with and marrying their land counterparts, about sharing ways of life and learning new songs and dances and ways that the world can be. 

About people from completely different worlds finding joy and laughter and fellowship together. 

It's a beautiful song and Vanyel stars picking up enough of the tune to hum along, but he's getting increasingly drowsy. He keeps humming surprisingly far into 'half-asleep' territory, but by the end of the song he's entirely dozed off. 

:Awww. We will definitely have to wake him up to eat at some point, more's the pity.:

Tylendel strokes Vanyel's hair. :Does he always take this many naps? I don't remember him needing so much sleep, before: 

:Heeee wasn't sleeping very well while you were gone, I think he's playing catch-up.:

:Oh. I guess that makes sense. Hopefully he'll catch up on eating too at some point: 

:Yep. He is going to get enough food if I have to start cooking everything in copious amounts of animal fat again.:

:Oh, were you doing that before? Sounds delicious: Tylendel doesn't think he's going to be able to sleep during the day, but he doesn't mind lying here for a good while, even if the arm that's under Vanyel is starting to fall asleep. 

:It was pretty good! He was having trouble making himself eat tough trail rations, so I thought, aha, this will make them both easier to chew and more calorie-dense, and then the deliciousness was a pleasant side effect.:

:Oh, Van was like that before too - if you make food annoying in any way, he just won't bother: 

:It's hard to imagine being that blase about food, from my perspective, but of course he has very different trauma than I do. Aaaaand possibly there are more instincts for avoiding food when you're not feeling well when you are...capable of being poisoned...that hadn't occurred to me until just now but, uh, I eat wyrsa and used to freak out my mom by scarfing down poisonous mushrooms, so.:

:Huh. That makes sense. I sort of understand the food thing better now. I don't get an upset stomach when I'm stressed like Van does - why is that a thing, anyway - but after...Staven...I was really ill from backlash, because when he died I panicked and sort of had a magical fit, wrecked the entire grove I'd been sitting in with Van. Anyway, I felt awful for days, and it was Van's turn to try to make me eat and I was so irritated about it, I just wanted him to go away: He leans in to kiss Vanyel's forehead. :He didn't, though, he made sure I ate enough to get better: 

:I...think...it's a thing because stress is a kind of fear and if you're afraid then you might have to run away from something that wants to eat you and if you're running away from something that eats you getting away is more important than having food in your own stomach and a full stomach could slow you down? That's, like, twenty percent medical knowledge eighty percent vague speculation, though, so don't put too much faith in it.: Pause. :He's pretty great, isn't he. The first time we met the disposal of the various bits of horrible creatures I hadn't eaten yet was under discussion and I explained that I wasn't going to let anything go to waste because I hate it when things die for no reason and he was like "yeah that's pretty bad" and he's just--so good.:

:That sounds like Van: Tylendel smiles softly, but then it fades. :It upsets me so much, when I remember that he spent most of his life in a place where nobody saw how good he was, because - he wasn't the kind of good they wanted. Except his sister. I haven't met her but from what he said, she's really great: 

:I don't know anything about his family except that his father is awful but it upsets me too. I--my childhood was pretty not great by most people's standards but at least I could trust my family to be good to me and--thinking about him not getting that makes me angry. I don't anger easily and I don't like it.:

:It makes me angry too: Tylendel takes a few deliberate breaths. :I...probably shouldn't get angry right now: 

:Yyyyyeah probably not. Um. Tell me what he's said about his sister?: