"I'm glad." Lancir smiles warmly at him. "You did really well – I'm aware this is a lot more work for you than it is for me. Why don't you take a minute to get settled, and then we'll test the link, see if it's strong enough." 

"Okay." He tries to find some sort of emotional neutral ground between the calming memory and everything being awful. If he's even capable of a state like that anymore.

"All right, let's try this." Lancir looks him in the eye. "I'm not going to use my Gift this time, just observe. And, I'm sorry, I do need you to try to set off the painful feeling again, since that's where the loop should start." 

Well, that's as easy as falling off a tightrope into a pit.

Lancir doesn't interrupt him with any prompts this time, just watches and waits. 

Abras is watching himself being miserable. He's not sure what he's supposed to do now. He tries thinking about the calming memory, which involves fighting off the worry that he's going to taint it with miserable-ness.

Nope, nothing happens – he's still miserable.

"Notice and name what you are feeling right now," Lancir reminds him finally. 

"I am aware that I feel very sad," he says in a quiet monotone.

"Hmm. Can you decide whether you want to be less sad, right now? If you do want to be less sad, think about your calm scene now." 

Being less sad when nothing is going to improve seems a bit stupid, but he needs to test the thing, right, so he tries thinking about the calm scene again.

And this time it’s there, still bright and clear in his memory, pulling him in. Stars and Yfandes and quiet peace. 

The room goes melty just long enough for him to notice and then it’s gone. “Sorry I didn’t warn you,” Lancir says, “didn’t realize it was going to need reinforcing so badly. How’re you holding up?”

He's not sure he trusts his introspection right now, or his understanding of what that question even means with so much going on, so he goes for the practical answer. "I feel like I could do things if I had things to be doing? Maybe not anything that required a lot of cleverness." It feels a bit like everything is very far away, including his own emotions.

Lancir nods. "You look pretty tired – can't blame you, lad, the work I do takes a lot out of you. I think we're almost done. Good news is, now that it's in at all, that new pathway we laid in shows up to my Sight, so I can use my Gift to strengthen it a little more without your needing to do most of the work. Five more minutes and then we can wrap up, sound good?" 

"Yeah, okay." He had been kind of hoping they were done now, but he's not going to complain about five more minutes.

"Sorry, I know it's a lot at once – I'll be efficient. About to use my Gift. You can think about whatever you like." Room goes swimmy again. Abras can't directly tell what Lancir is doing, except that once in a while he gets random flashes of emotion. 

"...And that's it," Lancir says, probably less than five minutes later. "Good work. Thank you for bearing with me. You'd better go get some rest now." 

He knows what Lancir is doing, because he said, but the random flashes of emotion still make him twitchy. At least constant background despair is predictable. 

"Okay. Thanks for all the help." He leaves, runs around the building his room is in a couple times to get his body something like as tired as his brain, then falls into bed. And wakes up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep anymore and as hungry as someone who skipped lunch and slept through dinner.

:...Chosen?: Yfandes sends, half-awake. :What's the matter, love?: 

:Oh no, did I wake you up too?: He sends from where he's lying in bed, wondering if there's anywhere he can get food at this hour without waking anyone up or taking anything he isn't supposed to. :I'm sorry. Everything's fine, just messed up my sleep patterns.:

:It's fine. I was a bit worried about you so I left a link open while I slept: She sends affection and reassurance. :Kitchen has a room that's open all night – you're not the only Herald who wants a midnight snack sometimes. Here: She shows him through her eyes. :I should've reminded you to eat before you went to sleep, but you were so tired: 

:Thanks! And don't worry about it. Good luck getting back to sleep.: He goes and gets some food, then takes a walk around the area. Everything is blessedly unfamiliar in the dark, and while he can't get himself to be sleepy again he can at least watch the sunrise over the river, then go back to his rooms and read a bit before it's time to do the mindspeech relay.

Tran is, again, happy to see him, and has a cup of tea waiting. "...You all right?" he says as he hands it over. "You've got bags under your eyes." 

"I'm, uh, trying not to become nocturnal and doing a bad job of it. Sorry for running out on you yesterday."

"No, it's fine, I'm sorry for - what happened. Um, anyway, let's get started." Tran flips the book open. "You want north or south today?"