Savil frees herself an even more inundated chair from the corner. She gives Deskyl a piercing look. 

"Something like that," Lancir says slowly. "And - help there could do a lot of good." He pauses, rubs his chin. "Would knowing more of the details here be something that went into your decision, whether to stay or not?" 

:Hold on a minute.:

Love, what's going on?

    I'm not supposed to encourage people to do unnecessary things for me.

Deskyl sighs. Okay. How do you feel about it? Personally, I mean?

    I don't want to be an inconvenience.

You aren't. Here - she lifts the pile of papers off the chair telekinetically and settles it carefully on the same stack the others went on. Sit.

DZ sits.

And we can talk about this later. Remind me, please.

    Okay.

:I try not to hassle her about having unusual preferences,: she sends to Savil. :It's a complicated situation.:

:I'm starting to get that sense: 

Lancir waits for her. 

:I expect I'm going to care about different details than you do, but yes, it'll matter - I want to know what I'm doing, by staying.:

"I understand. And how about you, DZ?" Lancir turns to face the droid. "Is there any question that you need answered, to be comfortable living here forever, that hasn't come up yet?"

(He's guessing that DZ is going to follow whatever decision Deskyl makes, but it is possible she has different questions. And it's also a way to stall while he figures out how to phrase his next question to Deskyl, which is basically 'convince me that I can trust you' but probably better to word it differently.) 

"I'll have to think about that, sir."

Deskyl seems a little surprised. Proud of you.

"Well, you do that and then tell me, please. I know we're not, er, exactly set up as a place for droids to live, and I imagine you have some needs that humans don't. Right now our Healers can't do anything for you if you get injured, for one, if injuries are something that can happen for you." 

He turns back to Deskyl. "Anyway. I'd...like to be upfront with you. It does seem only fair, that you know what you're getting into by staying. So far you've been nothing but helpful, and ideally we can work out something where it's beneficial to both sides to have you stick around. That being said, I also want to know what we're getting into. This is an unusual situation and we're all still a bit off balance. I'd feel more comfortable if I knew more about your world and background, and - what you're hoping for going forward, in general, that you might or might not decide you can accomplish by staying here." 

Deskyl leans back in her chair and gives him an assessing look.

:I trust that the Force has put me somewhere I won't regret being, and right now I'm most interested in figuring out why - why here, why now, why like that - it would have been just as easy for us to appear here, or in the wilderness, or on some farm somewhere, and instead we appeared at exactly the right time and place to see your rising-star Herald in action. I don't know exactly what that means - I do have some guesses - but I want to stay long enough to find out, and I expect it to benefit him, too.:

:You're probably thinking that that doesn't answer the question of whether I'm an ally of the Heralds and your kingdom more broadly, and you're right, it doesn't - I don't intend to come into conflict with you, and I do like you, but I'm not particularly inclined to be pinned down like that. In particular I'm not going to be part of your command structure in any sense; Sith outrank any non-Sith, and I'm not interested in being responsible for a country.: She considers. :I do expect to end up friendly - the fact that I arrived before the battle rather than after it suggests that my combat skills matter, and if I was going to end up wanting to fight you, the Force would have put me in a more favorable place for it.:

Lancir is thinking that it's not the most reassuring speech he could have gotten, but it's also not the least – and it does ring as honest. He'll take honest. If he were being really cautious he might ask her to repeat it under Truth Spell, but he doesn't think that level of paranoia is actually warranted. 

"I understand," he says. "If you do stay, you want it to be on your own terms. Which - might take some adjustment for us, it's not really a situation with any precedent, but I can work with it. One last question. Is there any possibility that someone else from your world might follow you here with hostile intent?" 

:Impossible, I think. Sith can't generally teleport at all; we do sometimes manifest abilities under enough pressure, which is what happened with me, but it's rare and unreliable, and nobody would care that much about tracking me down.:

Lancir nods. 

"If you don't mind," he says slowly, "could you tell me a little more about what did happen to you?" 

:I don't have many details; the attacks interfered with my memory. It was -: she sighs. :My master had me taken, and I was brought back a few days later near death. Four times, with a few months between; the droid was assigned to me after the first one. She says I wasn't expected to survive it at all. I don't know why it happened; violence between Sith is common but my master and I had a good working relationship right up until he decided to kill me.:

"...I'm sorry to hear that happened to you." Lancir is silent for a bit, licking his lips.

(Internally, he's - kind of horrified, but also he believes her that her arrival here was approximately at random, and that there isn't much reason to believe anybody will come after her, so that part of it ought not be a problem for Valdemar. He's...wondering about the impact it might have had on her, mentally and emotionally – it definitely explains the obvious damage that he wasn't deliberately trying to probe but couldn't help noticing because she isn't shielding at all – but offering his help as a Mindhealer seems fraught, he'll leave it alone.) 

"Is there anything our Healers can do to help?" he says instead. 

:I'd have to know more about how they work to say. I do expect to recover completely or at least close to it with time; Sith are resilient that way.:

"That's very good to hear." Lancir sits back in his chair, crosses his hands in his lap. "Anyway. I'm going to give you some more details of our situation – note that this is not public information, given the fact that you're not in our chain of command I can't order you to keep it secret but I'll trust you to use your discretion." 

She nods and gestures for him to continue.

Lancir frowns a bit, he can't tell for sure but from the feel of her mind she's getting tired. Well, he can be quick. "Vanyel, as you've noticed, has an exceptionally powerful mage-gift, as well as an unusual number of additional Gifts. The circumstances were - unusual. He also has a recurring dream of what appears to be a war – or, at least, himself facing off against a mage leading an army, headed toward Valdemar – which we suspect is a Foresight vision of a true future. We don't know when, likely at least a decade, but...we have reason to suspect that Vanyel's skill as a mage, and the support we can give him, could make a critical difference to our country's future." 

:Sounds like the sort of situation you might want a Sith for. Do you know anything about who or where?:

"Somewhere in the north. A mage who calls himself Leareth, which means 'darkness' in Tayledras. That's all we– Oh! Actually, Vanyel recently confirmed he can Farsee the pass when he's up at the northern border, so it's within his range from there, which lines up with a range called the Ice Walls Mountains. However, that's more than two hundred miles north of our current border, through a lot of wilderness, so we haven't scoped it out at this point." 

She chuckles at the translated name, and signs something to DZ.

:We'll look into it, then. Anything else?:

Lancir hesitates for a moment before saying "No, that's all." 

(He's thinking quite clearly that the whole lifebond aspect probably is relevant, but it's not per se related to Deskyl's combat abilities, and it's also something that Vanyel ought to be the one to decide to share.) 

:All right. I expect to have some preliminary drawings for your woodworker in the next few days, if you can arrange for my droid to know where to bring them.: She stands to go.