Belrun is so close to getting this damned flu strain to calm down in this one egg. She copies the change across to a few more eggs' worth, iterates, writes everything down, and Fetches the egg that is getting scary into her pot of simmering water before it makes a break for it. It's getting on toward dark and if she keeps working she's going to have to do it by candlelight, and she doesn't like that - it's already too easy to bump into things when she can see them. She calls it a day and closes up the lab for the night and heads out to walk over to the university cafeteria. It's a nice evening, and it's Flatbread Night, and she's in a generally good mood.
Amshalan carries her back over and drops her off right outside the door. :Goodnight, Belrun. I'm really proud of everything you've done today. Sleep well - oh, and if you're having difficulty because you miss Leareth, do feel free to come to my stall anytime, I won't mind: A speculative glance back at Belrun. :I wonder if Leareth could build us accommodations where I could actually fit. Though I suppose you'll want to share a bed with Leareth again and perhaps you don't want your Companion watching from nearby:
:You're very snuggly but I would rather be in bed with him and not supervised when this is again possible - also had to Heal a crick in my neck when I did sleep over with you. But maybe hallways and doorframes don't have to be so oppressive:
:Makes sense. I would love to live somewhere I could just wander around - I wonder how much of why we haven't rebuilt the core wing here isn't just that it'd be inconvenient, but that it'd make it really obvious to the Council and such that Companions are people? And for some reason the current system seems to steer away from that. Anyway. Goodnight!:
In the morning, shortly after someone brings her breakfast, Shavri arrives. "Morning! Sleep all right?"
"Yes! Savil dropped off the message yesterday, checked this morning and got a reply. He wants to collect you from a spot by the northern border, not the same one as the message-drop location, but Savil can Gate you there. In a bit. This is kind of a lot of Gating for her and she's taking a nap right now. Vanyel would offer to do it if we told him so we haven't told him."
"I should get packing then! Thank you for everything - and Savil too - and Vanyel for his, uh, counterfactual self-sacrifice -"
"You're welcome! I'm going to miss having you around, honestly, I wish we'd gotten more of a chance to talk Healing research; maybe we could exchange letters later...?"
"Sure, why not? I brought all my eggs with me up north, and they shouldn't have had much time to deteriorate since I left, I'll be picking right up and can send you copies of my papers in addition to U Petras."
"Amazing! And Leareth should be able to set you up with lots of resources for that, I assume. Anyway, he's also going to arrange to send over an actual diplomatic team, although not at the same time, he wrote in the letter that if a god wants to interfere with that he'd prefer it not involve interfering with your pickup too. You can pack up, and anyone who wants to say goodbye will probably swing by in the next couple of candlemarks, if that's all right?"
Then over the course of the morning, quite a few people will swing by! One of them is Tantras. "Er, Belrun?"
He clasps his hand behind his back and looks her in the eye, though he seems stiff and uncomfortable about it.
"I wanted to say some things. I'm still pretty concerned that Leareth's values don't line up with what I think is right. And I'm not going to back down on that just because he's extremely powerful and Valdemar probably wouldn't win the war if we had one, especially not if he's got Vanyel onto his side. But - it does seem like the sensible thing at this point is to talk about our differences, even though that's also - something that concerned me, going into this, I objected to the talks happening at all on the grounds that it seemed like an obvious try at manipulating us. But at this point I think you're working in good faith, and if that's true of you then - probably it's true of Leareth." A rueful half-smile. "And I think glaring at you probably didn't help things, so, I apologize for that."
"You're welcome. I, er, good luck with everything, and I respect your courage here." He nods to her, still rather stiffly, and escapes.
Belrun resumes packing. :Amshalan, do you have any stuff? Presumably not the amount and kind of stuff a human would have but if you do have stuff I want to bring it - I don't know if saddles are shared or not -: