"I'll be fine, I'm not given to recreational strolls. Should I meet people?"

"Yes, that would probably be good. I can introduce you to Nayoki - she is the Mindhealer I spoke of before."

"And she will keep her Sight to herself, right?"

"She generally does unless it is actually relevant for research purposes, but I made it particularly clear in this case, yes." 

"All right then, I will be pleased to meet her."

Leareth nods and leads her down a long hallway to an area that looks sort of like a cafeteria, clearly in between mealtimes since no food is out on the table at one end. A couple of people are sitting at tables, reading. 

One of them stands up. "Welcome! You are Belrun, yes?" The woman has much darker skin than any skin tone common in Valdemar or Rethwellan, almost completely black; her hair is very short, hugging her head like wool, but is white, and her eyes are dark blue. 

"Yes, that's me, it's nice to meet you."

"I know it a surprise, and - not something you ask," Nayoki says, in not-very-fluent Valdemaran. "But I very happy, that Leareth lifebonded. I think he very happy too?" 

"It has its pleasant aspects."

Nayoki bobs her head. "Well, you need anything, you say. Glad I meet you!"

Leareth introduces Belrun to a few others around the cafeteria - mostly they're scholars working on magical research elements of the god creation. Some more people arrive to greet her. There seem to be about a dozen personnel around and working right now. 

She writes down all their names and makes small talk and in one case gets pleasantly sidetracked on discussing how you go about monitoring a baby god for errors.

Leareth gets into what is presumably a work-related conversation with another person for a bit, switching back and forth from out loud to private Mindspeech, and he takes down some notes. 

And then a matronly-looking woman who looks to be in her sixties comes in pushing a cart of food. She starts speaking in a language Belrun doesn't recognize, then switches to accented Valdemaran. "Look at that, everyone's here! Oh - Master Leareth, you're back! And you must be Belrun. I'm Maddi. I'm the mother here, that's my job. Are you hungry?" 

"I could eat. Your job description is 'mother'?"

"Not literally, no," Maddi says more seriously. "I'm the clerk and administrative person, I keep things organized logistically speaking, but most of the people here are mage-scholars and they do things like forget to eat unless I go drag them out of the library at suppertime." 

"I see. It's nice to meet you."

"Lovely to meet you too!" She starts laying out food. 

Belrun dishes herself some and sits next to Leareth and attempts to get used to the place.

It kind of has the feel of one of the university dining halls, except smaller and the people are on average older and the conversations happening around her very quickly end up inscrutably technical. 

It seems like Leareth doesn't visit that often, because people have a lot of random questions or requests for him lined up. He answers all of them politely and slipping back to the same calm neutral expression he had with Vanyel. 

What kinds of things are people asking him?

A lot of them are speaking a language she doesn't know, mostly it sounds like the same language, Leareth mentions that it's the most common dialect spoken by the locals up north. Some very obscure questions about magic; lots of requests for particular materials or records or sometimes personnel movements; one person wants permission to travel to Rethwellan, actually. (Leareth says no for now, things are up in the air, ask again in a fortnight.) 

She amuses herself by trying to pick out words in the unfamiliar language till she's done eating and excuses herself to do some writing.