Savil nods briskly. "That was more productive than I expected, actually!" 

"...was it?"

"I think so? I'm not sure what my expectation actually was, but, you said a lot of things and now we can hopefully go off and mull on it some." 

"All right. I'll see you all later, then, thank you."

Savil walks her back to her room. "Thank you for, er, all the effort you're putting in. I'm sorry about the dream thing, that's really inconvenient." 

"Thank you."

And Savil heads off, her expression pensive. 

Belrun has lunch. And starts another letter.

Shavri comes back just as she's finishing. "Belrun? Would now be a good time to chat a bit with Van and I?" 

"Yeah." She sets down her pen.

Vanyel sits. "Savil says you were talking about gods, earlier. I..." Wince. "This is the topic Yfandes isn't speaking to me over, but since she's already not speaking to me, and Shavri doesn't have a Companion, we thought - maybe it'd be more productive to get into it in depth with just us." 

"Oh - yeah. Apparently Rolan was in a mood about it, we wrapped up to let that simmer down. Anywhere in particular you want to start? I don't know how much they relayed."

"Not that much, Savil finds it hard to talk about. You were trying to use hypothetical examples - one of them was about Vkandis...?" 

"It didn't wind up being very hypothetical, I just described a lot of observable Vkandis behavior while referring to him as, quote, 'a normal human person'."

"I feel like Vkandis' behaviour would be very confusing if he were a normal human person. Especially the possessing people! Did framing it that way help at all?" 

"If you call Herald Tantras missing who I was talking about and describing the observable Vkandis behavior as 'evil' a form of helping, yes?"

Vanyel laughs despite himself. "I wish I'd seen his face when he realized! He must've been being very dense about it, but - I think that happens when he's in a very fraught conversation." 

"He went on to explain that we expect gods to do mysterious godly things, and I said there's a difference between expectation as in that which is unsurprising and expectation as in that which meets standards."

"...Right, I see that. I'm very used to being a pawn in the gods' plans, it doesn't surprise me when they - use people - but it doesn't mean I'm happy about it or would prefer the world that way." 

"I'm lifebonded to the King, who is dying of a mysterious disease," Shavri says dully. "Lifebonds are something the gods do. I'm not sure what they wanted out of this one but - it's pretty terrible for me. It's not that I don't love Randi, just..." 

"He's - were you supposed to tell me that, it seems like sensitive information."

"I mean, in theory, but we're pretty damned sure Leareth knows. Honestly I had wondered if it was somehow his fault although leaning against it at this point." 

"Does everyone just kind of figure everything bad that happens is probably Leareth's fault around here -"

"I mean, when we're being paranoid we pretty much have to ask the question? Given, er, some of the bad things we have confirmation he was involved in. I'm fairly sure he didn't cause Darvi's death, in the end, but I spent a month investigating it just in case he could have. It was a very convenient accident for his goals, you know." 

"I haven't asked him if he's been engineering the deaths of Valdemaran royalty, and I guess he may have been, but - anything the gods can get you to blame him for is a way they can use you to kill him for them and they, too, often manifest in convenient accidents."