She sits in her designated chair. Her father pats her on the shoulder when he takes up his position next to her.

"Hello everyone."

"Let's get some introductions in. Everyone, this is Belrun. Belrun, thank you again for being willing to come out here like this. I know that's a really big thing, and - I've known enough lifebonded people, it can't be very comfortable being separated." 

"It's not. We've done it before but not for more than a couple of candlemarks."

"Mmm. Anyway. Herald Tantras you've met." Savil glances over. "Shavri?" 

A tired-looking woman in green Healers' robes leans forward in her chair. "I'm Healer Shavri. King Randale's lifebonded. Your research is very impressive." 

"Thank you."

She is introduced to several other Heralds. Joshel is the Seneschal's Herald; he looks appallingly young for the position and kind of nervous but greets her politely. Keiran is the Lord Marshal's Herald, and seems pretty calm about all of this. Kilchas is another Herald-Mage on the Senior Circle and seems more curious than anything else. Katha is also on the senior Circle and doesn't explain her role. 

Tran is still watching her with a moderately hostile expression. 

She has no idea what his problem is but maybe he just takes invasions really personally, that wouldn't be that unreasonable. "So, uh, do you have questions - it's okay to first-level-Truth-spell me but if it's really unpleasant I might want to hold it down to asserting I haven't lied to you after the rest of the conversation? Which I assume is good enough but I don't actually know how it works. - is Vanyel not here on purpose, I haven't seen him -"

"It should be fairly obvious," Herald Tantras says dryly. "He hasn't exactly been proving his trustworthiness, lately." 

Shavri gives him a look but doesn't say anything. 

"...okay, I guess that's your prerogative. Is it all right for me to talk to him at some point or should I just wait for one of the dreams to catch up with him?"

"Of course you can meet with him," Savil says. "We'll arrange a time." 

Faintly mutinous look. 

Sandra gives Kilchas an unhappy, worried look. 

"So did you have questions -"

Everyone stares at her in awkward silence for thirty seconds. 

"All right, people, come on," Savil says finally, rubbing her chin. She sounds frustrated. "We've got her here, now, we talked about this." Sigh. "Belrun, to start. What can you tell us about what outcome Leareth is hoping for, here, by sending you?" 

"Uh, costly signal of good faith. Deescalation. Higher-throughput lower-latency communication you can verify with your truth spell."

Savil nods, and then looks around, with a very 'help me out here, guys' look. Shavri is looking down at her lap, hands twisted together. 

"...Let's start with what we know," she says finally. "Leareth was planning to invade Valdemar. We've known that for a while, thanks to Van's Foresight dream. Leareth claims this is for the greater good and has been trying to convince Vanyel of that fact. For some reason, our previous Groveborn was convinced that it was good for these conversations to keep happening, and that Vanyel ought not tell anyone. Belrun, my understanding is that you got yanked into this very abruptly and you don't otherwise seem like the sort of person who would sign up to join a ruthless mastermind sort of person like Leareth. What's your impression on the doing-this-for-the-greater-good aspect?" 

Silent glower. 

Shavri looks at Tantras, who glances up and then seems to make an effort to smooth his expression back to neutral. 

"First of all, I want to clarify that we can't overinterpret the dream. I take a lot of notes, I have a notebook on me in the dream, and it has contents, and they're not in my idiom at all; there may be other dream features that are misleading, picked out years in advance for reasons which later became obsolete. That having been said, it's true that Leareth has made preparations applicable to an invasion and with that in mind. The reasons aren't part of what I'm ready to disclose but there is a compelling greater-good logic underlying it of which I have been informed even though I wouldn't expect it to land well with most people, particularly people invested in the continuity of Valdemar as a sovereign entity."

Savil gives her an uneasy look. "That - isn't exactly the most reassuring statement. Also I notice you didn't specify whether he's still planning an invasion." 

"I mean, he's not going to do it right now. He hasn't categorically ruled it out for eternity but that's sort of not in his repertoire under most circumstances, categorically ruling things out for eternity."

Everyone is awkwardly silent again. 

"Belrun, I'm sorry," Shavri says finally, eyes still fixed on her clasped hands. "We know you're not really here to negotiate as Leareth's spokesperson, the goal is just to - calm things down a bit. Get it to the point where maybe we can actually open talks with Leareth. The issue right now is - well, mostly that we're scared to engage with him at all? It seems like with Vanyel he was very, very convincing, and from Vanyel's notes a lot of it seems like clever manipulation, and...just, we're pretty nervous about talking to someone who's had two thousand years of practice being persuasive. Because probably he can out-argue us even if he's wrong."