Belrun is so close to getting this damned flu strain to calm down in this one egg. She copies the change across to a few more eggs' worth, iterates, writes everything down, and Fetches the egg that is getting scary into her pot of simmering water before it makes a break for it. It's getting on toward dark and if she keeps working she's going to have to do it by candlelight, and she doesn't like that - it's already too easy to bump into things when she can see them. She calls it a day and closes up the lab for the night and heads out to walk over to the university cafeteria. It's a nice evening, and it's Flatbread Night, and she's in a generally good mood.
Belrun feels oddly light as she goes back to her room to get a blanket and explain to her father some of the broad strokes of what the fuck just happened, and then she finds Amshalan again.
Vanyel is waiting on the path when she comes out, sort of hugging himself, wearing his own blanket over his shoulders. "All right, let's go I guess."
And at some point she finds herself standing in a snowstorm next to a lot of mages in an army.
Leareth, fifty yards ahead, immediately turns back to look, squinting at the line of people she's in.
"...Belrun?" He looks doubtful for a moment and then lights up and starts running in her direction. "Belrun!" He reaches her and pulls her into his arms, lifting her off the ground. "Belrun, I am so incredibly glad to see you - are you all right, is everything–"
"It worked!" Vanyel shouts in triumph from the distance, and starts running toward their position.
"It has been a ridiculously eventful few days but I'm all right and I love you hi!!!"
Leareth doesn't even try to speak more until Vanyel has caught up, just holds Belrun tightly.
Vanyel casts a heat-spell and, glancing sideways, makes a mage-barrier that blocks the worst of the wind. He makes a chair for himself. Casts a nervous look at Leareth. "We, er, should - explain some news... Belrun?"
"Yeah, uh, ridiculous events have... occurred. There's... not really a gentle order to present this in that doesn't kind of bury the lede. Uh, you have to share me now, nobody was listening to me and it seemed like a good idea at the time to get a Companion so I did. On purpose. She's great, I like her."
Leareth knocks over the chair he was starting to build in a burst of accidental magic that turns it back into powder.
"What?"
"She waited till I asked for her. And then she was like 'are you sure that's a good idea'. She didn't jump on me and do it without permission. I think it'll be fine, and I am way more credible to the Heralds now."
"I am still very concerned about the part where Companions have mind-affecting magic and are also the creations of a god who we have no reason to think is on our side."
She whispers in his ear. "Don't tell Van yet, things're delicate with Yfandes, but the god mind control took about fifteen minutes to shatter once we started talking about it post-Choice."
"Are you - you truly - I cannot..." Leareth stops trying to say words for a minute and just hugs her again. "I am very impressed," he whispers in her ear. "I wondered if something such as that was possible, but - I did not think a Companion would be on board to actually do it... You are rather incredible, Belrun."
Vanyel waits patiently and without any noticeable suspicion regarding their conversation. (From his perspective, they have a lot of catching up to do and it makes sense that some of it would be private.)
"Yes I am!" she agrees. "Anyway, her name is Amshalan, she's lovely, it turns out she doesn't remember much about being a human except while doing - weird Foresight stuff I don't fully remember - damn I forgot her original name, that's going to bug me - anyway between then and now she was another Companion, belonged to somebody named Lancir -"
"Oh did she take you to the blue place too, Yfandes did for–" The last part hits him. "Wait, what? That can't be right."
"- can't it? I suppose I could have misremembered but that wasn't in the blue place, she told me that in normal Mindspeech."
"Maybe there were two Lancirs in our history? That'd be very weird, it's not a common name, but - well, I knew a Lancir and he was bonded to Taver, the last Groveborn, he was Queen's Own to Elspeth."
"He was Taver's Chosen right after Lancir, King's Own to Randi for four, five years, then Taver died and he got - his old Companion - oh."
"Ouch okay that explains it. I mean, or it's a different Lancir or I got the name wrong, but uh."