:Can you sound Yfandes out on it -

- also the mind control didn't come back overnight, right, you didn't specify and I don't know how resilient it is, maybe people break it every few years and then it just comes back -:

:We're probably going to have to help Leareth fight the gods, to fix this: Pause. :Nope. Didn't come back. I don't think it's the sort of thing that will? It was - really well engineered, I suppose would be the word, it'd never break under normal circumstances - but once I came at it from exactly the right angle, it was actually sort of brittle: 

:Oh good, that would have gotten really tiresome as a morning routine. I don't want to risk waking Van, he slept worse than I did, but if he and Yfandes are up I'd like to go figure out how to ride:

:Just a moment... Yes, they're up. Van has a hard time sleeping in even when he's slept horribly. Yfandes says he's probably going to, um, have a bad day. I suggested they need to talk things out now and...Yfandes at least is willing to give that a try:

:They can't really avoid it in the long run but if they can wait till after I talk to Randi it'd probably be better received:

:...Hmm. I don't think they can be in each other's presence until after they've fixed it. Yfandes is having a much harder time than I was with, er, not whacking the repudiation lever by accident, she can manage it but only by avoiding Van. So we could spend time with one of them but not both: 

:Oh dear. I'd really like to do this in the right order, where we, like, responsibly tell people that there's this risk they can't move forward without taking but good news they'll be a second proof of concept on it being possible to come out on the other end all right if they do it just so. ...but on the other hand they're so sad and I already feel kind of bad about not keeping them up for it last night:

:They're so sad! I don't know what makes sense here, honestly: 

:...I'll get my dad and whoever's with him today to get horses:

She's out with the guards a bit later.

Amshalan trots toward her, mane dancing in the breeze, exuding delight. She's all saddled up and ready for riding. 

With liberal use of Fetching Belrun can haul herself into the saddle.

Her father looks pretty bewildered.

:You're doing great!: Amshalan encourages her. :Here - if you're nervous about falling the saddle has a belt, but also Companions are very smooth to ride and we won't go very fast yet, I think you'll be fine: 

:I can soften the fall if I fall:

:Perfect: Then they can meander around the Palace grounds, Amshalan keeping to a walk at first but then trying a trot. She's very tempted to head for one of the easier obstacle courses but probably they had better ease into it. 

It's surreal, but - nice. :I had the dream last night and while I was catching Leareth up I noticed I'd forgotten your original name, that you told me in the blue place, and while presumably you aren't attached to it this is bugging me:

:Mmm. It would've been similar to my name as a Companion, with some alteration. Likely at least two hundred years ago. I wish I remembered any events we could use to narrow down the timing, but you could potentially just go down the Herald rosters, they'll be in the Archives. I think I would recognize it if I heard it: 

:Maybe I will, presumably we could look up more stuff from there once we had the name.

Van was confused at first when I mentioned your last Herald's name but, uh, then we figured that out:

:Oh? I - feel like I ought to remember why, but the memories are sort of hard to access even when I have them? Vanyel, Vanyel, what did I...: 

:Uh, he said that couldn't be right because Taver was Lancir's Companion, and - I said 'remind me what Tantras's Companion situation is' -:

:........oh: 

:That must have sucked so much! I doubt he'd be stupid enough to try but if Rolan attempts human-theft can I tell him to go fuck himself before he gets that far?:

:If you want, I guess! To be fair to Taver, I think there were very solid strategic reasons for - what he did. And I knew them at the time. It still would've sucked, of course. And I bet the worst part is that I couldn't even notice that fully, because of the mind control: 

:Ew:

:I know! ...Wonder if I had an easier time of, er, breaking it, because I'd been near the edges of it so often. I remember noticing that I seem to think a little differently from most Companions, this time around: