:You're welcome. Any questions before I go?: 

:I don't think so:

Melody bobs her head and slips out. 

A Healing-trainee brings lunch around a candlemark later. (Leareth is still asleep). 

Belrun eats hers, then nudges him a bit.

Leareth makes a frustrated sleepy sound and tries to roll away from her, and then startles fully awake, goes through about five seconds of frantically checking his surroundings with mage-sight and Thoughtsensing, but recognizes her faster this time and relaxes. "...Still in Haven, right?" 

"Right. Melody came in while you were napping - you've been asleep since breakfast and it's lunch now - and showed me what the lifebonds are up to, which is, uh, being holes with threads of whatever it is the threads are a metaphor for waving around in the hole trying to grab each other. Also you're in a bad way but you'll be better with your notes, I expect." She pushes lunch at him.

He starts eating without additional coaxing, switches to Mindspeech while his mouth is full. :I am sure my mind looks extremely horrifying. I know I can manage that part fine, I have done it dozens of times. For the lifebond - is that good? What did she think would happen after this point?: 

:She pretty much agrees with me that it's just you being too young at the moment -: She wrote it down and can read it to him while he eats.

:I suppose it would probably help with the hole to have a partial lifebond and it would be less weird and uncomfortable than having a full one: He sets down his fork. "I really cannot eat any more right now." 

"I'm pretty sure they're calibrating the serving sizes for how much you need, but if you want to try again in half a candlemark that should be okay."

"Mmm, all right." He puts the plate on the bedside table and flops back. Turns his head to look at her. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm just kind of telling myself what I've been telling myself for weeks. It hurts but the hurt is lying. Like - like a phantom limb, except in this case it's just that my shoulder hasn't wised up to the fact that actually my arm is right there in, uh, acceptable health, and thinks I have for some reason stuck it in a pot of boiling water."

"That is certainly a vivid metaphor." He stretches out his hand toward hers. "I am sorry. I mean in the sense that I wish it had not happened, not that I think it was my fault; I think we were a reasonable amount of careful, I could have reduced the danger to myself by staying behind but that would only have made it more dangerous for you. But - I do not approve of things that hurt you. I particularly do not approve of gods who hurt you!" 

She squeezes his hand. "Two of your least favorite things, combined, yep. It was really blatant, and nearish Iftel, but wyrsa are actually a Pelagirs thing, it might have been two of them collaborating."

"I do not like that idea." He frowns. "Though - it is odd, that it seems to perhaps have backfired?" 

"I did actually think about that - I think maybe Amshalan was hard to see coming? Like, of things one might predict in the ordinary fashion, 'Belrun lets a Companion Choose her' has to be pretty slim odds. And it had only been a couple of days since that, so the plan may have already been set up when I did it."

"It is not always very productive to try to guess the motives of gods, but - how contingent do you think it was? Did it depend, for example, on Amshalan's specific traits?" Leareth sits up again, slightly more animated. "Because that gives the impression of a different god's intervention. And that god might have had extra information, here." 

"I guess it depended on her specific traits? Not very much - I didn't specify 'you and only you may Choose me if that's a thing you can do now', I said 'if somebody's waiting for me now would be a good time' or something like that - but I did say that having talked to Amshalan in particular in the time leading up to that moment and gotten kind of used to her and less squirrely about Companions as a concept through her."

Nod. "She seems to be an unusually good match for you in particular, as Companions go, no?"  

"Yes. I think that's normal, for them to be sorted for compatibility. Uh, the thing that stands out to me as unusual was that she was so recently reincarnated - Vanyel knew her last Chosen before he died, and also she'd had him stolen out from under her - uh, on top of her, I guess? - by Taver, and had some practice beating her head against the mind control from that, which made things go more smoothly after the Choosing."

"Oh. Interesting. I assume that is nonstandard for Companions?" He makes a face. "I do not actually remember, this is so inconvenient." 

"You didn't actually meet Amshalan, you like, heard about her secondhand and saw her for a few seconds, so no big loss there, you can just meet her when you're ready to get out of bed. But yeah, they usually have bigger gaps between incarnations, I think, and of course most don't even have an opportunity - so to speak - to have their Herald stolen."

Leareth nods. "I think I could get out of bed now, if it were helpful to meet her, but I suppose I will meet her anyway if we are going to Gate out tonight." 

"Yeah. No rush. Uh, right before I left Haven last time I'd talked to Rolan, the current Groveborn, about maybe talking to his boss - so to speak - and apparently he's still dithering about that."