:Up to you.:

Then Vanyel will sit cross-legged on the floor. Almost unconsciously, he sits close enough to Deskyl's chair that he can sort of lean his head against her knee as he eats. 

She's not going to pet him, that seems like asking for trouble, but she will radiate a sense of amusement and how cute she finds this.

:So, I've decided I'm going to stay,: she says, once he's settled into eating.

:I'm really glad!: Vanyel glances up at her briefly and then keeps poking at his food. He is eating it, but not very enthusiastically or quickly. :Er, what made you decide?:

:I was already pretty sure I was going to, at least for a while. But - I don't like standing by while people are hurting. I'm especially fed up with doing it in cases like this one. So I'm not going to.:

Vanyel doesn't know how to feel about the prospect of her staying because he's a disaster as opposed to because she likes Valdemar – especially because it isn't at all clear to him that she can do anything about it, it's not like other people haven't tried – but he's happy about the her-staying part. "Mmm," he says. 

That gets him a pat on the shoulder. :I'm not saying I think I can fix it. Maybe, eventually, I have more tricks than you've seen and I'm good at coming up with new ones. But even if all I can do is help you get through it, I want to. It's enough to be worth staying for.:

"...All right." Vanyel nods. "And - it did help, the calming thing you did." 

"Mmhmm." :And that one's easy - I'll work on range and stuff with it, but just having it on at all is trivial. I know some things about what's going on with you that I think it'd help you to hear about, too; I'd like you to think about who else you'd like to know about that.:

"...What?" Vanyel frowns, not quite following. "Um, Savil, it seems good for her to know things probably." She's always known all of it, from the beginning. 

:Sure.:

:I don't want to go over too much of it twice, but - what happened earlier is something we call a panic attack; your body thought you were in danger and reacted appropriately to that. There's patterns to it; doing very much about them is hard, but knowing what's happening and why makes it feel a little less like everything's out of control.:

"Oh. Huh." Vanyel nods. "It makes it hard to think, and usually it takes me ages to calm down if it's as bad as earlier – I hate it." 

:Yeah. That's pretty normal for this kind of thing. D'you want to see if your aunt is free, and I'll explain it now?:

"Sure, let me ask 'Fandes – oh, by the way, she wants to thank you for, um, earlier. And she's really happy you're going to stay." Pause. "She'll be finished her meetings in half a candlemark and Kellan says she was planning to come see me then anyway."

:Sounds good. Can Yfandes listen in, or should we do something to include her?:

"She can listen in fine through me, if I tell her when Savil gets here." Vanyel absently sets down his plate. At least half of the food is still on it. 

:All right. You're not hungry?:

"Huh?" Vanyel glances down at his plate. "Oh. Um, I guess when I have a lot of - feelings about something - I'm not really hungry for the rest of the day." He makes a face. "Yfandes says I skipped lunch and I need to eat it anyway." 

:Yep. And you'll feel better if you do, too. Is there anything you find easier to get yourself to eat?:

"I don't know? Maybe plain bread. Or sometimes the kitchen does greens in creamy sauce and that's really good so I eat lots of it. This food is fine, though, I just wasn't paying attention." He retrieves the plate and keeps eating. 

:Sure. It's okay to do things the easy way, though. Everybody has resource limits; it's bad strategy to waste energy on things that aren't important.:

"Mmm." Mouth full, Vanyel switches to Mindspeech. :I think Savil must go ask the kitchen to make my favourite food specially, sometimes, if she knows I'm having a bad day she'll invite me for dinner and it's always something delicious: 

:Smart woman. Do they generally take requests?:

:I don't know, I've never tried it. I guess Savil's pretty high-ranking, maybe they're more likely to accommodate her: 

:Plausible. I'll ask her. What else do you like?: