"Huh, really? I would not have guessed that about him from the report I got." 

"I don't think it's just that it's coming from me, he's also reasonable around his staff. The thing he and Vanyel were doing was - weird in response to a weird situation. I didn't see how it was before I came on the scene but what of it I'm aware of wasn't strongly representative."

"To be fair, I suppose the report I got on Vanyel's side of things wasn't direct and may have lost some subtleties in translation. Especially since a lot of it was via Yfandes while he was unconscious after that idiotic Gate of his..." Her voice softens. "I guess he was pretty scared. And, one doesn't get the sense that he trusts Leareth very far, but he obviously expected the combination of you and Leareth to be more helpful than we would be, which probably indicates some way that we screwed up here." 

"I don't know that I've done that much to earn his good regard, honestly? I, like... hugged him when he was miserable and didn't freak out about the blood magic and I think that's basically it. More helpful at what exactly?"

"...For making him want to kill himself less rather than more?" Shavri winces. "Gods, I didn't mean to say that out loud - I'm sorry, I'm really not any good at this, just, it seems like no one else is going to do the obvious sensible things here..." Her hand goes back to the sword hilt and then jumps away from it when she notices. 

"Ma'am," says Chalan, "may I ask why a Healer wears a sword?"

Shavri freezes, blinking. "Um," she says eventually. "Ummmm. It's...kind of a long story...but she's a magic sword who bonds to people and she tried to bond to my seven-year-old so I convinced her to have me instead. Apparently Leareth knows about this so it's not like it should be a huge state secret, I guess." 

"He's mentioned this sword. It does mind control. Are you... aware of that?"

Shavri makes a face. "It'd be pretty hard to miss, she's very frustrating about it." 

"...and that's okay with you."

"It's a bit inconvenient, but I'm more stubborn than her, she can't make me do things actually against my will. Seems worth it, she gives me useful tips about milkmaids being abused or whatever and in exchange I have to fend her off when she wants me to murder people." 

"...you are aware I have some reason to be concerned about people in my environment having murderous impulses -"

"Gods! I'm really sorry, I can see how that'd sound alarming. She can't hurt women though." 

"My dad is right here and not a woman and if some god thinks it would be funny to see if I can be provoked into involving myself in an altercation -"

"...Fair enough. I can go shove her back in my chest, I've just been wearing her because it helps get through those awful meetings. I - really don't like fights and conflict, it's hard to deal with all this." 

"I'm sorry."

"I'll go put Need away, and then - should I come back? There's probably more useful context to cover. If you want." 

"Yes please."

Shavri is gone for about ten minutes before she comes back, rubbing her eyes and looking twice as exhausted as before. "Ugh, I'm sorry. Where were we?" 

"Context? About Vanyel, seemed like."

"Um, right. Quick summary is that he was already having a very bad time right before this happened, because of the blood-magic trial, and then Yfandes was being mysteriously weird about the most recent conversation and giving him the cold shoulder, and he was - well, kind of falling apart about it, I imagine. It was an awful time for that to happen. You probably saw he was upset, since there was a dream with Leareth at some point during that?" 

"Yeah, there was."

"Anyway, that's a piece. There's something of a divide between people whose main feeling is worried about Vanyel, versus feeling betrayed. Savil is more the first and Tran is - pretty much all the way to the second, so there's tension between them over that. And Randi's feeling caught in the middle." Sigh. "So am I, but that's kind of beside the point, I'm not King." 

"Kind of an... emotional... way to handle policy and personnel. - sorry, you didn't actually ask me."

"I know, right? We're all adults and we should be able to just handle it like we are but - it's a lot to take, very suddenly. And we're scared, right, we've just found out that the dark mage we've been expecting a war with is immortal and two thousand years old and has half-convinced our strongest mage to join his side– Hmm, I guess 'half-convinced' is putting it strongly, Vanyel hasn't actually said that, he just said that a lot of the individual arguments Leareth makes are pretty reasonable. And he doesn't know Leareth's final aims, here, which I'm getting the sense are more complicated than we realized."