"Is there any particular agenda of topics that you're hoping to cover during this visit?" the Herald introduced as Katha says eventually. 

"Um, I don't have it quite that planned out, it depends a lot on what you want to do with me. It wouldn't be violating any of my conditions if you just left me in my room all the time and slept better because Leareth's not likely to attack while you've got me. I'd like to get more on the same page in general but there are various obstacles on both ends to doing that very efficiently."

"Hmm. It's...pretty evident that there are obstacles, I think, but I'm curious what your sense of them is, and whether any of that can be mitigated." 

"You've all got Companions making you very uncomfortable with certain lines of thought via some combination of having shaped you from early adolescence on and being disapproving in your heads and those lines of thought are fairly essential to my and Leareth's points of view, and also I can't exactly just tell you his master plan since that would make a conflict should one occur better targeted against it etcetera."

This, rather predictably, gets uncomfortable looks from all of the Heralds. 

Shavri is the one who eventually speaks. "Would it make more sense to have you meet with just the non-Heralds to try to explain, er, your and Leareth's general point of view?" 

Herald Tantras nearly surges out of his chair. "Are you kidding? That is literally just letting her try to corrupt you too!" 

"I mean, I'd be fine with that but as you can see the Heralds have some issues with not being involved everywhere, the country's rather built around it," Belrun says to Shavri, gesturing at Tran. "I appreciate very much that you're willing to participate but it doesn't seem politically feasible to cut them out when they have 'bad' and 'doesn't pass muster with the Companions' synonymous, see?"

Tense, glaring silence. 

"Honestly," the woman introduced earlier as Herald-Mage Sandra says, "it seems like some of the problem is that this is a very unwieldy size of meeting and we should have a smaller one." 

"...That's probably a good idea." Savil looks very reluctant about it, though.

There's another long silence, with the sorts of looks back and forth that often indicate Mindspeech asides. 

"Savil has the most context on Van's side of this," Shavri says finally. "So I would propose she meets with you tomorrow, Belrun," meaningful glance in Savil's direction, "perhaps with a non-Herald present - myself and maybe Melody as well? She's pretty good at, er, making conversations that would otherwise be very tense and unproductive go better." 

"I'm really not sure that's a plus!" This time, Tran does stand. "And, honestly, I would not put it past Leareth to have some plan where he invades and gets Belrun out safely, so I'm not sure this visit should be as reassuring as you all seem to think." 

"...conversations not being tense and unproductive isn't a plus? Who benefits from conversations being tense and unproductive? - he doesn't to my knowledge have a plan to extract me but I suppose that doesn't prove that much about whether one exists."

Tran just glowers wordlessly at her. 

Shavri looks at him, a Mindspeech-y sort of look, and eventually glances back at Belrun. "I...think...the concern here is that...if the conversation is tense and unproductive because you're relaying Leareth's points which are wrong but very eloquent and convincing, then the tension is doing useful work, there? I think a number of us are worried about - well, basically about it being unsafe to engage, here, because of the persuasiveness thing." She frowns. "I don't think that's a knockdown argument, in my opinion we have to engage in order to have any hope of not ending up at war, and ending up at war seems very bad, just..." 

"We shouldn't negotiate with monsters," Tantras says flatly. "I don't feel like this is complicated." 

"Tran," Savil says sharply, "this is really not helping." 

"Look," Sandra snaps, "can we all just calm down for thirty seconds, please, this is giving me a headache." 

Belrun puts her head in her hands and waits for what she hopes is at least thirty seconds, counting her heartbeats.

"I'm not supernaturally persuasive," she says. "I'm a twenty-two-year-old microbiologist from the University of Petras who picked up an injured stranger and Healed him and took long enough about it that by the time I had a chance to think we were irreversibly lifebonded, and I'm trying to deal with that. You made peace with Karse and Karse actually invaded Valdemar."

"That's exactly what I've been saying," Shavri mutters wearily. 

Savil frowns briefly at her before turning back to Belrun. "I apologize. It's been a stressful few weeks and a lot of us are very tired and snappy. I think the best idea at this point is to call it a night, get some sleep, and meet with a smaller group in the morning." 

"Okay." She stands up, wobbles, reaches for her dad's arm to steady herself.

They head out. 

...A while later, Shavri comes jogging to catch up. "Belrun? May we speak for a bit?" 

"Yeah?"