Vanyel leans his head on her shoulder, shivering. 

"I have no idea what Randi's going to do," he says finally. "He came and asked me a lot of questions, when I woke up, but - no one's talking to me, this was the worst time for it, everyone trusts me even less now." 

"We're not really sure what's up either, I was hoping you'd be able to tell us more but I guess just being on location doesn't keep you out of the dark. Leareth wrote them a letter..."

"When? I didn't hear anything about that." 

"It was... four? Five? Days ago."

"It ought definitely to have arrived by four days ago," Leareth confirms. "And the return message would be much faster, since I am willing to put more extensive resources into that. We have not received a reply. It is possible one was sent within the last day, but...if they declined to answer within a day of receiving it, I suspect it is because they do not wish to open communications with me, rather than simply needing more time to think." 

Vanyel lifts his head, nods. "My sense from Randi talking to me is - well, they're not thinking diplomatic relations at this point. They don't trust you at all. I think they didn't even believe me about you, Belrun? Or, I mean, Randi asked me under Truth Spell so he must know I'm being honest, but I think he thinks Leareth was just lying to try to get me to trust him more." 

"...what, is the idea that I'm an illusion? My name's Belrun Sujana. I left the University of Petras five days ago so we wouldn't have to Gate so much all the time to manage affairs. I can include a letter in my own handwriting with Leareth's next, to send with somebody to the Dean of Research, if you want to follow up on that, read my papers."

"I don't know what he thinks! Because no one's talking to me. I think– I get the sense no one is thinking, actually, that it's just - panicking and assuming I've given Leareth all Valdemar's secrets and he's going to attack next week. Maybe they'll start calming down soon." He does not sound hopeful about this, though. 

"I hope so. I'll do the letter, if it'll maybe help, that's cheap enough."

"You might as well. And maybe you can tell me a bunch of verifiable facts now, I don't know, things that the dean there would know but very few other people would? I - don't really want to talk to Randi about the dream happening again, I'm sure they'd have just blocked it if that was possible without permanently destroying my Foresight Gift, but I really should tell him the update." 

"I don't have a lot of unpublished private information between myself and the Dean, we had a purely professional relationship. Uh, the dean can direct you to my mother? I guess? He knows that I got lifebonded, I told him I might have to leave suddenly, he tried to convince Leareth to move there instead. If you also send someone to my mother she... can tell you I talk in my sleep? But I don't know who else might know that such as former roommates because I myself did not know till Leareth told me... like, what are you looking for, here?"

"Honestly I have no idea! I guess mostly wanting to show Randi more reasons to think you're a real person from a place with a background and not Leareth somehow getting one of his colleagues into the dream to pretend to be lifebonded. I can't think why he'd do that even, it'd be a weird and excessively elaborate sort of ruse." 

"I will write a letter to the Dean at U Petras entitling the bearer of the message to lots of my background. I don't think I can offer to come in person if it's this - flaily, given all the givens, that would require serious and very thoughtful setup."

"Gods, no, you shouldn't come in person right now!" Vanyel looks alarmed. "I mean, probably it'd be fine, Heralds aren't bad people, but - I have no idea what's happening except that it's very tense." He frowns. "You'd consider coming otherwise, though? That's - really brave." 

"I have actually due to a dumb joke I made to Leareth a few weeks back given thought to the conditions under which I'd be willing to go as a hostage but 'also I must be reminded that Heralds aren't bad people' is not one of them. Actually, considering that a top hypothesis for why we're lifebonded is that it might be a more persistent method of crippling Leareth if somebody killed me instead of him, surrounding myself with people who answer to Companions who answer to a worryingly anonymous god or several is a strike against. - I was trying to be relatively sensitive about that guess but it doesn't seem like the time to omit information solely based on vague guesses about where you may be touchy, sorry. Uh, anyway, I'd want signs of consensus-driven decisionmaking that includes some non-Heralds, among other things. Also the Groveborn in particular not having disproportionate say over whether I live or die because that would give me so many nightmares you have no idea."

Vanyel nods along as though memorizing everything she's saying. 

"I understand," he says quietly. "I - think that's the problem? With me and Yfandes, I mean. I shouldn't've kept pushing on the Tayledras thing, probably, I knew she was - weird about that sort of thing, she has been for years, just, I was really upset about it and it's not like I could talk to anyone else..." 

"Yeah. It sucks from many angles all at the same time. I'm sorry."

Vanyel is silent for a while.

"All right," he says. "I'll convey what we talked about here, and say to expect the message, and - I don't have a lot of bargaining power with the Heralds right now but I can try to convey the part about consensus decision making including non-Heralds. And, I mean, I think everyone's got to know that going to war with Leareth is a terrible idea, right? And that means it's a good idea to de-escalate if you're giving us that option." 

"I consider myself generally anti-war even when I'm not psychically glued to one of the participants!"

"Reasonable! War is bad." Vanyel drags a hand over his face. "I'm probably telling you a stupid number of things and if Randi knew he would definitely scream at me, just..." From his voice it's clear that he's very, very close to crying. 

Squeeze.

"...Thank you," Vanyel says softly. 

"I apologize for...all of this," Leareth says quietly. "I do not think I could easily have foreseen it or that sharing the information we did was wrong in expectation, but - I recognize that you are in a very bad situation and I am responsible." 

"Mmm," Vanyel murmurs. "I think you're responsible for a lot of bad things but...not this one, actually." 

Leareth nods and then is silent for a while. 

The sky starts to come apart.