"I don't blame Tran for saying that sounds evil if you imagine a person doing it! It'd just be so...power-hungry, I guess? Megalomaniac? It does feel less like that if I think of it being a god. Maybe just because, I don't know, 'wanting to be as powerful as a god' seems less weird if you literally are one. But I don't know if that's right. Do you think the gods actually do have motives of wanting more control and influence?" 

"I think it's hard to disentangle that from them wanting to be able to predict the future since for a god those may be the same thing. But effectively many of the more legible god actions bend in that direction."

"Hmm." 

"Savil said you were talking to one of the Companions?" Vanyel says. "Because you think the Companions are one of the main reasons we can't just - talk about this and have everything on the table including peaceful options. Which I can't really disagree with, given, you know." A vague handwave, his lips tugging into a bitter half-smile. "How's that been going?" 

"She's nice - I don't know if you've met her, I suppose you probably haven't since humans usually don't talk to Companions besides their own? Her name is Amshalan and she confirmed Leareth's theory that Companions are reincarnated but apparently they don't have as much memory fidelity as Leareth thought."

"Huh! I wonder if Yfandes... I guess it's hard for me to ask her right now but you could. A few times I've sort of - seen her as a human? Like an illusion or a dream. Anyway, how much memory fidelity did Leareth think they had and how much do they actually have?" 

"He thought it was pretty good, like, a useful proof of concept for people being theoretically recoverable in full - and Amshalan remembers being a different Companion before but barely remembers being a human before that; when prompted she said she remembered eating cake."

"Wow. Why was he wondering if people were– oh. Does he want to bring back..." Vanyel trails off and makes a pained face. 

"Is that even possible? If you're a human, I mean. Apparently gods can do it sort of. If they stick people in horse bodies, which seems inconvenient but maybe it's not a requirement, who knows." 

"Well, we don't know how it's done, or whether people's personalities and memories are stored outside the case where the gods want to reuse them for something specific later, or whether the horse body part is obligatory but that one seems unlikely to me."

Vanyel is still and silent, his expression closed-off. 

"You know, I'm surprised that Leareth thinks invading us and having an empire is going to help," Shavri says. "If his problem is actually just gods." 

"I am not supposed to explain that part. He's had an empire before, I imagine he picked up some facts about what having one is useful for."

Vanyel blinks. Exchanges a thoughtful look with Shavri. Neither of them says anything, though. 

"It's the Eastern Empire if you're wondering but he isn't really involved there any more."

"Right. That's one of the things I suspected - I can't remember if he confirmed it to me but we talked about books written by scholars there, who I assumed were secretly him. A shocking number of old books about a wide range of topics are secretly him." 

"They might not all be secretly him, but probably some of them, sure."

Nod. "He's very impressive. ...He wants to personally fight the gods. Doesn't he. I know you can't confirm or deny it, but that's sort of the only thing that makes sense given his - priorities... No wonder he thinks the Companions are a barrier to any kind of peaceful resolution here." 

"I think the gods started it. Personally I think there's a significant chance that only most of them want to murder him - a god not wanting to murder you just looks like you not dying some of the time, pretty much, it'd be easy to miss - but since some of those have in fact done it he's understandably cautious."

"Yes, it rather does seem like the gods started it, doesn't it." Sigh. "He probably doesn't actually feel this way, but if I were in his shoes, I'd just be...so tired, at this point. Trying to fight the gods for thousands of years sounds incredibly draining, especially if the things They oppose include magic book-copying and democracy of all things." 

"It's pretty - tiring, yeah, though I don't know if he's actually tired, he's had a while to work on being set up for the long haul. He was lonely. I guess he is again now."

"Mmm. I - do feel bad about that, yanking you away from him." Vanyel looks down. The silence stretches out. 

"It's not really your fault."

"Mmm." Vanyel seems unconvinced. 

"Van thinks everything is his fault," Shavri mutters. "You'll get used to i– gah!" She's suddenly on her feet, almost knocking her chair over. "Oh gods."