:It was so exhausting. It says a lot, you know, when even the war here was on average less exhausting than five years of peacetime in my world before it: 

I think Quendi just couldn't function under the conditions that you endured in Valdemar. We'd die. So we - have everything built around people needing a lot more time for singing and sculpting and so forth than that.

:During the war with Karse I was alone on the border for - years, really. Just me and Yfandes and a tent. Everything was ruins, the war had been going on for years already. Burnt-out forests, destroyed towns. Corpses. All my things were always filthy, I was cold all the time in winter – I had magic but I was always so, so tired. Got woken up by alarms on the wards multiple times every night. At one point I was the only strong mage on the entire Border for a year. I was fighting battles from a hundred miles away: 

He shrugs, helplessly. :Honestly, it almost did kill me. Multiple times. But I guess I'm stubborn: The Shadow-Lover even more so. :I kept feeling very pampered, here, and - like you didn't think you were doing anything special. Back home it's always felt like I needed...more...than most people. Here it never has: 

That sounds awful. I'm so sorry. I - hope it never happens again.

I don't think you need more than most people. I think you keep going when you're not getting what you need, more than most people.

:My Companion says that’s definitely true. I guess it never felt like I had much choice? I spent so long trying to - to become the person Valdemar needed me to be, I guess. I think me at fifteen would barely recognize me now:

Well. You're everything any world could possibly need you to be. 

Vanyel smiles, sadly. Dabs at his eyes with his sleeve. :You just had to say that and make me all emotional. Anyway, I should go to bed. Maybe have some water first, I - had kind of a lot to drink: 

- do humans not have the trick where you stop letting the alcohol affect your brain -

:What? No. I mean, you can - sort of concentrate and snap out of it a bit, but not really: 

Your gods did you very unjustly. He has someone bring them water. 

Vanyel thanks him, drinks some. :I am really sorry about tonight. I'll ask Dara tomorrow how it, er, went: 

I really think it's we who owe you an apology. Shrug. I can't get you one from everyone else, but.

:Mmm: Vanyel finishes his water, gets up. :Goodnight, Maitimo: 

Good night.

And he goes back in and socializes and tries to do some damage control until Leareth is ready to sleep.

Leareth has escaped back to his room, but is still awake, reading, doesn't seem to be in a huge rush to sleep. 

He goes in and - he can't ask Leareth for advice, he's not even sure he could've asked Leareth-before-all-this for advice, but he abruptly doesn't want to keep this face on. 

He goes over to the window and stares out of it and tries to figure out which face he is going to put on instead and settles for - sad, and tired. What he was with Vanyel.

Leareth notices. Puts down his book. "Is something troubling you?" 

"- at the party. Stef kissed Vanyel and now everyone's upset. Vanyel's hard to get mad at because he's always apologizing so abjectly already -"

"Stef...? Right, the Bard. I - am sorry, that sounds very stressful. I cannot imagine Vanyel intended it to happen." 

"No, he didn't. - though he wants Stef. Really really obviously. I'd think it was very cute, if there was a bit more of a cultural understanding that even forgetting the lifebonds humans are different. And people would get over it with Vanyel, right, but them getting over it wouldn't be very fun for Vanyel, probably, and Findekáno points out it'd be even worse for Stef, who's - if he were an Elf I'd say he looks forty."

"That sounds very difficult." Leareth sighs. "Vanyel suffered enough for - this fact about himself, that he did not choose and cannot change, in Velgarth. It is better with the Heralds, I think, they are very understanding. I had hoped he would not need encounter it again."

He frowns slightly. "Starwind and Moondance are lifebonded, I believe. Are people going to find that very scandalous? I doubt it will bother them but I am not sure anybody thought to warn them." 

"The lifebonds - fit into a more familiar framework. It's like marriage, and if marriage were possible between two men then people'd consider that a very encouraging sign that it wasn't a horrible thing to do and was in fact intended."

"Vanyel was lifebonded, before. To a man. Does that not transfer at all?" Leareth lets out his breath. "...I suppose it might instead run into the taboo around re-marriage. Though a very major reason humans lack that taboo is that death is - not reversible in the current order of things. It is often customary to wait, to grieve appropriately – I think it would be frowned up to remarry before a year had passed, in most cultures – but Vanyel has waited so, so long." 

"Quendi remarried, in the Outer Lands, before we knew that our dead were meant to be returned to us. I don't think people are going around with the considered opinion that Vanyel ought to be waiting until we resurrect his husband, in the fashion that they'd think that if it were a young woman, I think they're just - disgusted and uncareful about the details."

Nod. "Many human cultures would react the same way. Your people are not unique in this reaction. But - I know you wish it were different, and I imagine you feel stuck in changing it. I am sorry."