"Um. Is this an awkward time to mention that I'm technically Bardic-Gifted? ...I mean, barely." Vanyel holds his thumb and forefinger up, millimetres apart. "Also it doesn't work in the dream anyway, I can do pretend magic here but not mind-affecting things. Also I don't use it really ever. Why don't you like Bards?" 

"Don't like mind control in any form. Also just artistically if my native opinion of some song is that the lyrics are insipid and the tune repetitive someone trying to sell me on it should use technical skill and not just shove me in the brain about it."

Glance at Leareth. "You two must have the most fascinating dinnertime conversations." 

Carefully neutral expression. 

"It's been interesting."

"How about I take another turn with a song." 

Leareth does so, then Vanyel sings a very silly bawdy song that he can barely keep a straight face through, and then the dream-sky starts dissolving. 

"Until we meet again," Leareth says–

–and Belrun will wake up back in bed with him. 

"Mmmrf. That wasn't very restful." She squints out the window to guess the time.

It's still dark out. 

"I am sorry," Leareth says, also sounding groggy. "I would have warned you but I did not expect - that to happen." 

She snuggles up. "Brief me in the morning 'm tired."

"Mmm-hmm." Leareth wraps his arms around her and falls asleep again.

They both sleep pretty late and wake up with sunlight creeping through the curtains. 

Yawn. "Good morning what was that all about."

"Mmm...?" Leareth opens his eyes, sleepily hugs her, sits up. "Probably unsurprisingly, it is a rather long story. I am sorry to drag you into it unexpectedly like that. I have been having that dream for...thirteen years, now? So there is a great deal of context. Roughly, it appears that Vanyel is the gods' Chosen One to fight me, but both of us take some issue with this and have been trying to figure out if there is a better way to resolve it. He does not trust me at all, which is honestly very reasonable on his part, so that has provided difficulty." 

"I have many reactions to that but for some reason my first one was 'you are only allowed to send me to Valdemar as a hostage if I know what's going on'."

That earns her a very startled look. "How would that– oh, as a way to earn more of his trust?" 

"I mean, it'd probably work. But it would be very unpleasant and I don't really want to so I would need to know why."

"I was not at all considering asking you to do that!" The idea makes him feel very scared, which is a strange thing to experience because Leareth isn't scared very often. "I do owe you the full story, though, in any case. Breakfast first?" 

"Rana'll be at work already, I'll get something." She smooches the top of his head and gets a change of clothes out of the drawer reserved for her in the dresser. "There's probably a better way to handle your situation but I don't know so I'm wildly guessing. You're so jumpy about me - do you normally do that deadpan with Vanyel literally all the time, he must be so bewildered -"

"...Yes? Or, well, that is - just the way that I am, normally, I am not used to it requiring effort as it did this time." 

"Pfft." Now she is wearing clothes and can go make oat porridge.

Leareth puts on his clothes from yesterday (he really ought to go buy more sets of clothing if he's going to be in town much longer, he packed lightly.) "Am I really jumpy about you?" he says, following her to the kitchen. 

"I think so? You freak out when I trip, you get spooked when I idly suggest traveling to Valdemar as a gesture of good faith even though I'm right here and have no travel plans..."

"I suppose that would qualify. Is everybody not like that in relationships? I do not want anything bad to happen to you!" 

"I mean, most people aren't lifebonded and don't have immediate feedback on every misstep taken when they're not even around, but also it's kind of an overreaction. I've been assuming it'll calm down. Obviously you don't fall over as often as I do but I think the way I became alarmed when you unwisely got out of bed too early was comparatively restrained."

"...Perhaps. I have been murdered kind of a lot and it is possible I am - more jumpy than most people and more likely to assume danger - as a result." 

"It's also possible I'm calmer because I figure if you get murdered I will putter along for a month or so and then you'll pop up?"