Leareth takes a bit to look over his notes and be pleased by Vanyel's suggestions, and then goes back to his own work, swinging by in the afternoon to see how Belrun's getting on with her monkeys. 

She's making sure the monkeys will still associate with each other - they're social animals and she doesn't want them to all reject each other and die of grief because they couldn't adjust to the changes - but making notes about how she wants to change their feet now that the posture and wing changes have left them less prone to climbing anyway.

Leareth wonders if the trick that helped the adult mice learn to use their wings could also help monkeys adjust more easily to bodily changes. He's also curious if they're actually doing any flying yet. 

"I haven't seen them at it but they might just want more space than this to try it, and I haven't tried putting food out of reach either. I'm actually a little worried about making monkeys smarter, though."

"That is fair. Does it actually have the effect of making them smarter? I would not expect an extremely targeted application of it to do so, but I suppose we do not really understand how monkeys recognize each other's faces." 

"I don't know if it makes them globally or permanently smarter but I also have misgivings about temporarily making a monkey smarter, you know?"

"Hmm. I mean, you do eventually have to modify their brains so that we can put you in there, no? I suppose the book suggested a way of doing it that would not in practice make the monkey smarter, because they would not be able to use the additional brain. Or something. I would need to study the field again in more detail to be entirely sure how that works." 

"Yeah, I'm not really sure how to manage it without making the monkey as smart as I am."

"Well, I am sure with time you can figure something out." 

Leareth goes back to his own slightly-less-mad-science research. 

A week later Leareth's diplomatic team sends a message up north. King Randale is interesting in organizing a meeting with the full Council as well as the Senior Circle. Outside of Haven. This is going to take some time to arrange, to get the Council on board with traveling to the secondary location for reasons that have not yet been fully explained to them, but he thinks it's pretty feasible. 

Should Belrun and possibly Leareth show up?

King Randale is hoping they will! Ideally both of them though he's not necessarily expecting that. 

"If you are going," Leareth says, "I think that I might as well go. It is unclear at this point if you are any less the gods' target than I am, and if we are both there, I can defend us better." 

"I'd rather not be far from you but we should only go if you think it's safe."

"I will take a few days to consider it, but I think it could be made safe, if we have preparation time and I can set up a ridiculous overkill level of precautions." 

"Which might be necessary!" Sigh.

Leareth hugs her. "I know. I am tired of it also." 

"You're probably more tired of it since it's happened more times but I'm pretty tired of it." Sigh. "What does ridiculous overkill look like?"

"Well, I am going to spend at least a day considering the details, but - involvement in selecting the location and setting it up with permanent wards and shielding, and permission to bring a significant number of guards including mages, who will also check everyone who is attending for magical weapons. Also the usual protective artifacts, of course. Ideally, no one present on the inside will be able to threaten us, and anyone attacking from the outside will need to break through enough defences that I will have time to Gate us out." 

"What about that problem you had with the vrondi, will that be an issue - for you or the mage entourage -"

"It is definitely possible to shield against it or pacify the vrondi about it, since the Herald-Mages are not disturbed by it. Part of the permission to bring guards will include asking them to work with me on that; I can likely figure it out without their help, now that I have observed it, but I think it would not be reassuring to them if I were showing off that I can route around their main defences. I also expect they may wish me not to be defended in this way, which is fine; I am not going to be especially impaired in my magic use by being watched, and in the scenario where everything goes right I should not need to use magic at all." 

"You use magic all the time just casually, but I guess if vrondi staring at you doesn't bug you..."

"I am capable of not using magic by accident. It might be reassuring to them if I am willing to make all of my magic use clearly detectable by their security system. Maybe they do not need that additional reassurance of my good faith, though, I will see what they say." 

Nod nod. Hug.

Leareth hugs her back, and then heads off to work on a proposal for security measures that he can send back to Haven.