:They spent the last candlemark or so having a fight that kept escalating and escalating, apparently? I asked Yfandes what she thought happened, since - she and Van might've been having a similar issue, it sounds like? And Van just backed off way sooner because he would get too upset. Dara - wanted to talk Rolan into passing a message to the Companion-god, or at least to check the Web-Foresight if it would work, or AT LEAST tell her why it was a bad idea, and - he wouldn't - and she wouldn't leave it alone... And I think it surprised him a lot, it - wasn't a thing he decided to do, consciously, it's like he just snapped all of a sudden. I'm sorry. If we'd known this was the sort of thing that could happen we'd have - I don't know, someone would've done something different. I hope so, at least: 

:- are you saying he repudiated her by accident, or should I be chalking this up to her making too much progress and the god deciding to do it for him?:

:...I - don't know: Amshalan seems very shaken. :I don't think it was direct divine intervention? But, you know, if a god was - making us - and had certain goals: she's saying the words in a manner reminiscent of how someone might try to catch a spider without actually looking at it except just barely from the corner of their eye, :it'd make sense, right? To have there be a - mechanism - for if someone was - going in a direction - that They wouldn't want...: Nervous prancing. 

:Now I kind of wonder if you're a collaborative project - Companions in general I mean - and the gods got along seven hundred years ago and now they don't:

:Huh! I hadn't thought of... I mean, the whole reason we don't know which god it was is that King Valdemar is said to have prayed to all of the ones he knew of: 

:Yeah.

I don't want to - break anything you're using to think, over there, and it makes it kind of hard to talk, because everything I can think to talk about is - maybe too related to whatever made Rolan snap - and you don't have a Herald to snap at but that just means it doesn't cascade, not that it would work out for you personally - anyway you can just, like, run off if it's making you uncomfortable, right, you aren't stuck with me for all eternity, it's just that if I don't figure something out then it gets ugly:

Amshalan doesn't answer immediately. 

:I'm here by my own choice: she sends finally, sounding quite firm and also like she's leaving out quite a lot, the overtones with her Mindspeech are - complicated. 

:I guess that's got to be good enough. Gods. So to speak. There are so many reasons I'm not a Herald it's almost funny, you know, but I didn't expect to be so unHeraldic that I couldn't even talk to them!:

:–oh, what are the so many reasons? I know the one is that you don't like mind-magic and had nightmares about our very existence, but...: 

:I mean, there's that. Which led me to leave the country when I was too young to get Chosen till I was too old to get Chosen, unless someone had made a very special exception. I'm a Healer, usually Companions don't choose Healers, there's a separate pipeline for those. I'd make an appallingly bad Herald - there's the asking annoying questions part, which apparently is even worse than I'd previously understood, but also I'm too clumsy for much of the circuit and military work that's customary, and unpatriotic in general and specifically not patriotic about Valdemar, and have issues with authority.

It's not that I had nightmares about Companions existing at all, see, it's, I think very highly of myself, and when I was a kid I took 'Companions choose good people' as - referring to the same standards I held myself to? My mother thought it was weird I'd even think one would want me, we didn't know I was Gifted at all yet and practically all Heralds are, and I told her 'anyone would want me, I'm great', but that's not really the thing getting filtered for, is it? Dara's great. Dara's still great even if Rolan had some kind of freakout about how great she was being:

:......: 

(It’s a weirdly meaning-ridden silence, even if it’s not at all clear what the meaning is.)

:I kinda wanna give Dara a hug but presumably there's no way that's happening:

:I wish you could! She really deserves and needs a hug! And it’s not like talking to you is likely to mess things up any more than already happened. Unfortunately it’s not exactly up to me who’s allowed to see her:

:Who's it up to? Does she have family here or... teachers or what?:

:Family, not here and I think not - usefully - at all. First thing I asked Rolan. Her mother was raising her alone and is apparently a bit, er, simple. Most of the teachers who know her at all well are Heralds:

I am going to write in this letter to Leareth about this and ask if he's got enough in petty cash to give the poor girl a scholarship somewhere and she can be an astronomer or a librarian or whatever she wants away from all this crap, if they don't decide to - lock her up for thinking thoughts.

:That's very kind of you. And - of him, if he agrees, which I honestly predict he would:

:I will tell him that I incurred an unexpected financial expense in the course of my diplomatic detachment on his behalf. I suppose it might get to be out of scope if I needed to get tuition money together for a hundred like her but I doubt they'll let it spread any farther, they'll probably send me home. Even if I have a brilliant idea who's going to hold still and listen to it now? Besides you, you're great, I just don't know that you listening gives a way to stop the war:

:...Aww, I'm rather touched: Amshalan tosses her head so the braid sparkles. :I do wish I could help. This entire thing feels - it's hard for me to think about too - but it seems like from the outside it has to look very stupid, you know?: 

:It's kind of too horrible to look stupid? Like... I can see where it would be almost funny, if it were funny, but it's just actually not, like one of those curly dogs with a ridiculous haircut and also it's on fire:

A spurt of mental laughter. :–oh no, you're right, it's too horrible to be funny, just - that mental image...: 

Snort. :Yes, exactly:

:Anyway. I really hope people aren't going to panic enough to not deliver a letter for you, that would be - really self-sabotaging here - but if Savil won't Gate, I - could take it for you. It'd take longer, but we are magic, I could run all the way to the border in three days. Maybe two, if I literally didn't stop: 

:That's really kind of you but - he won't be expecting that, I'm not sure he'd interpret it right:

:Fair enough: Mental sigh.