Quiet sigh. :You know, I'm never sure. Sometimes yes, sometimes he runs away if you try. If he hasn't run off already, though, he doesn't mind you being here: A surprised half-smile. :Means he trusts you a fair bit, which is interesting: 

:...I told him about the time I accidentally killed someone because I didn't know things about how I worked.:

That earns her a startled look, then a slow nod. :...Actually, knowing Van, I could see that being surprisingly - not comforting, wrong word, but...might help him feel like you understand. Like you could understand: She swipes at her nose, irritably. :I don't know, I'm no good at talking about these things: 

She sits down, and sort of leans sideways until her shoulder just touches Vanyel's, and waits. Eventually he pulls closer to her, and she puts her arm around his shoulders. 

:The someone was my mom. I love her. I miss her. I haven't been able to bring her back because the resurrection magic needs someone's ashes and she--there wasn't even that much left. Maybe I'll find another way someday. I hope so. But meanwhile I miss her.:

:...I'm sorry: Savil blinks. :That's awful. I'm sorry: This seems to be approximately her entire repertoire for comforting words. 

:It was six years ago, now. I'm mostly okay. But the fact that she's dead is not and never will be. I'm going to figure out a way to fix it someday. But even if I couldn't, I--some things aren't acceptable. And a lot of people accept them anyway because they can't change them.But that's not more virtuous. I wouldn't be a bad person for not being one of them.:

Savil takes a while to parse that. 

Then she closes her eyes. :No. I agree. Some things aren't acceptable. And it's not more virtuous to try to accept them anyway: She squeezes Vanyel more tightly.

:Someday everyone who ever existed is gonna get to be okay. And maybe I can't pull that off but I'm never going to stop trying.:

Savil is not going cry she is definitely not going to cry, nope nope. 

:That's...brave of you: she manages. 

:I dunno if it is. I don't like people being dead and/or not okay. Trying to make the world the way you want it to be isn't bravery, is it, it's just sense. Things don't happen without people making them that way, so you have to pursue what you want. Besides, it's not like I have much to be scared of. Besides people hating me, I mean, but that's not really more likely if I try to help them, is it? ...It's not, right?:

:...I mean, it's all a matter of how you define it, isn't it?: Savil sends, looking softly into the distance. :Way I see it, sure, it's sense, but...it can still be hard, right? It can still be decades of working, and – and sometimes people hating you, and having to go back in again and again and again, even when it's the last thing you want to do. I don't know. Maybe you're...more straightforward inside than me, but I care about Valdemar and it's still a struggle to get out of bed some days. And to me courage is doing it anyway: 

:Okay, that's fair. But I want it enough. I know I do.: 

:Also, since I don't have to sleep more than a few hours a month, I get to skip the getting out of bed in the morning step, I bet that helps.:

:Goodness. I'm jealous. And–: Savil reaches out to touch her shoulder, :I believe you. I can see it in you: 

This is the point at which Vanyel uncurls slightly and lifts his head. 

:Lucy, how–:  He swallows, scrubs at his face. :How does...it work...the bringing back the dead? Do you think. There's any chance. It would work here in this world?: He sounds like he can't actually bring himself to believe that it could possibly work, here, or that she's telling the truth, or - there's something in the way, like a locked door that he can only rattle but can't quite open. 

:I think so! I mean I don't see why it wouldn't. You take a body and render it to ash, or if they're already cremated you take the ash, and then you do some complicated magic chemistry--alchemy--to it, and it turns colors, and then you say an incantation and the ash turns into smoke and the smoke turns into an alive person. Who is naked, so it's best to have clothes on hand.:

He turns away, hiding his face in Savil's tunic. :So if there wasn't any kind of remains then it wouldn't work: Utter lack of surprise, nothing but resignation there. 

:...Yes. But it's kind of hard to not have any remains at all and I can cheat pretty hard. Did the person you're sad about get eaten too? I could try something to track down whatever ate them, maybe I could use its remains, that wouldn't normally work but I cheat SO HARD.:

Vanyel makes a startled choking sound and then hides his face again. 

:Not, um, eaten: Savil clarifies. :Kind of...vaporized. Turned into, er, a very large fireball. Magic thing: 

:Oh.: Thoughtful pause. :That sounds harder but I can probably work with that. How big an explosion? Is anyone going to be perturbed if I wander around the affected area bleeding ichor on exploded stuff?:

Savil starts to reflexively shake her head, that doesn't sound like it would go over at all, but...then she stops, and looks down at Vanyel huddled in her arms, and looks back at Lucy. 

:I don't know: she sends, and raises her chin, :but we can ask. Although, um, this happened nine months ago now. It'll have grown over some. Initial explosion hit an area about a mile across in total, I think. Should be easy to find, it'll be the part that's all black glass underneath. Forest fire around it didn't burn nearly as hot: 

:Ooh, what if I just dug up the black glass, probably I could work with that.:

:Maybe. Though it probably isn't, um, mostly him, I imagine it'd be the dirt and rocks that were underneath. And...er, there's some wyrsa in there. Is that a problem?: 

:I don't even have to cheat to deal with that! There are explicit steps in the process for distilling the essential materials out of a cruft of soil and stuff! It sort of assumes there's a higher corpse-to-cruft ratio than I think we have here but I can just adjust for that no problem.:

:Huh. Good to know: Savil falls silent.