"That itched," she says, squirming. "Well, I'm glad those haven't been troubling me - can you imagine if my Thoughtsensing had started acting up, I'd have been mortified, I'd have insisted on standing in the exact center of the nearest field of carrots until I could make it stop -"

"Sorry. ...Do you want to train at least the projective Mindspeech part of it? It is very useful - to have conversations without being overheard or in parallel to spoken ones, or to communicate at a distance." 

"Uh. Maybe. Does this involve not shielding constantly, by any chance."

"I think that most protocols between Mindspeakers involve opening your shields exactly enough to project a single stream of verbal thoughts. Some Mindspeakers have a greater tendency than others to leak some thoughts accidentally, but I imagine you would have excellent control there. It does, technically, involve shielding slightly less." 

"It's probably useful enough I should do it anyway."

"Would it be more or less uncomfortable for you to practice with me, rather than an instructor we might find?" 

"I can probably just sign up for a university tutor and get along all right? I don't know how many demands you have on your time. You would be more comfortable to practice with than a total stranger."

"I am not incredibly busy on a day to day basis and also I...want to see you and do things with you. I would enjoy doing almost any kind of Gift-work with you, I think, if it were something you also enjoyed." Why is he blushing, what is the point of that supposed to be. 

"Then you can teach me. ...why aren't you busy? Do you not like being busy, I do."

"I prefer not being too busy to think. I do end up using all of my time, but I minimize the number of mandatory scheduled commitments unless they are very important. Also, at least in this stage, I ought to have slightly more room to delegate than I have been taking." 

"I suppose it's useful to have the slack even if this isn't what you were planning on using it for."

"I had planned it that way mostly because I have been expecting the gods to throw various schemes in my direction because they notice I am planning something major, even if they are not sure what. They have in fact gotten surprisingly creative over the last few decades, but - this is a new one."

He smiles despite himself. "Honestly, I am hopeful it could be a much more enjoyable redirection of my time than previous ones, even if it is not at all what I was planning. Perhaps the gods are hoping simply to distract me with - nice things - since distracting me with wars and such was not very effective." 

"You don't think they're, uh, setting up a longer-term means of incapacitating you?"

"It does seem like the default theory, there. I need to think more about - what the sensible precautions are to take." Sigh. "...I am also considering whether they wish to sabotage my plans by, for example, making me intrinsically unwilling to use mind-control magic, and then sneaking in something through that vulnerability. Or perhaps they intend to do both in sequence? It is very frustrating to try to predict what gods are up to." 

"I gotta say, from a perspective of being very protective of my mental sovereignty, it's disturbing to consider that I could have been... designed specifically to elicit that trait."

"Yes." Leareth ducks his head. "I am sorry." 

"It's not your fault, and anyway I do like how I am."

"I also like how you are! Even if we have different feelings about metaphorical cashews." 

Giggle.

Leareth hugs her without thinking. "...You are so distractingly adorable when you giggle like that." 

"Thank you. That would be an amusing godly plot, wouldn't it, 'ha-ha let's glue him to a person with a cute laugh and he'll never get anything done' -" She leans right into the hug very cozily.

Perhaps he will just have to accept not getting anything done for the next five minutes, at least. 

"...All right, we ought to go find you a shield-talisman and an emergency contact method, and then I can Gate us back to town," he says finally. 

She nuzzles his shoulder but then stands up and stretches. "Okay."

Leareth digs up the inventory list for this particular cache, and finds a crate of artifacts, and gets Belrun a shield-talisman necklace and a bracelet that she can use to call for help by sliding two beads together (the bracelet is set up so this won't happen accidentally), without having to actually do magic to it. The only message she can communicate is 'come here right now', but it'll do until she has some Mindspeech training. 

She tucks the necklace under her shirt and decides it's probably okay if the bracelet is visible, and takes his arm so she can follow him through the Gate without tripping.