:Further complicated by my unwillingness to go near a Heartstone, I imagine:

:This is all extremely complicated and only seems to become more so with time: Going by the overtones, Rolan is very tired of this. 

:I'd apologize but I don't feel particularly responsible for the situation. Can I ask for more of the details of your conversation with the Shadowgod? I imagine you'd rather not do it a whole lot so it seems prudent to get out of it everything we can:

Long pause. 

:It is going to be difficult to convey because it was largely not in words, but - if you and Amshalan come out here, I can attempt it: 

What is up with his preference for meetings to be in person. Whatever. She meets up with Amshalan and goes out to where Rolan's at.

Rolan is standing in the field near the inn, his blue eyes piercing. 

:If you both come into full mind-rapport with me, I can show you. It will be easier if we are touching. I - will warn you that it is very disorienting for humans, generally, to observe memories that took place mostly in Foresight: 

Amshalan seems slightly weirded out, but she sidles up next to Rolan. 

:Can I invite Leareth? In case we all retain different bits -:

:Of course: 

:Hey, Leareth, do you want to see what Rolan's conversation with Shadowgod was like?:

:Oh. Yes, I suppose I had better: His mindvoice feels a little anxious, but resolute. 

"I'll go get him." She goes and gets him.

Leareth is regaining his stamina, but very slowly, so he's grateful for Belrun's help to get outside. 

"Now we are all here."

And Rolan looks into their eyes, one by one, and - there's a sudden sense of twisting, falling, and then all of them are halfway still in the field, and halfway somewhere else. A blue place, strung with threads of silver. 

Belrun remembers how hard it was to retain things last time she was here - she can remember them better, now, but she's about to need to remember new things - she concentrates, ready to spin mnemonics and drill things into place as best she can -

:This is our past:

And Rolan spins them around and pulls them deeper into those twisting tangled threads. There's an especially bright thread, joining and twining with one that drives especially straight, through and against the weave of the others, and then they head toward a different, denser part of the pattern. There's a thickening tangle, a point where the pattern is so snarled that there's almost no way forward - but then it twists sideways and opens again. 

- and then an obstacle comes almost from out of nowhere, and the straight-line thread is snipped, the one twined with it trailing off the edge of the pattern. 

The straight thread pops up again shortly later, rejoins the other one, but at a distance from the denser weave this time. When it draws closer again, it does so more gradually, at a shallower 'angle'.

It's getting close and then there's a new, sudden snarl, almost swampy in the lack of clarity, and the dense-woven part of the pattern is bent around itself in a corner and almost everything ahead of it is a wall of illegible dark. 

:What does that - mean - does it make more sense to you than to me? -:

:I believe that bright thread represents you - your life path and history. The other one is Leareth, and this area is the Heralds, and Valdemar. The part where it is very snarled was likely during your first interactions with the Heralds, in Haven - and the discontinuity in Leareth's thread is his death and reincarnation, I assume. And the recent tangle is...our current mess: 

:Okay, it makes more sense looking at it that way: She tries to get a closer look at the current mess.

It's really unclear! The part ahead isn't just dim, it's also very, very hazy. 

:Leareth has a tendency to make the future unclear to Foresight: Rolan sends. :I am under the impression that the gods dislike this. The Shadowgod seems to think it is to Their advantage at this time, however: 

There are approximately two paths that actually make headway, though both vanish into fog before any definite conclusion. One is straighter, but also narrower, and the haze encroaches on it sooner. The other has a very jagged zigzag elbow in it, and some paths that shred off of that and trail into nothing, but past the bend it goes further before disappearing into noise. 

:Huh.

Can you tell without knowing what the default plan is if one of those is it?:

:My interpretation is that this one: he mentally indicates the straighter one, :is pushing to retain Randi as King, and the odd-looking one is the odd-sounding concept of selecting you. But I am not a god who can interpret Foresight perfectly - in fact, I am not sure even They can map it to exact events: 

That seems important; she tries to remember it, echoes it to Amshalan and Leareth. :What process makes the... value judgment about whether something is dark or bright?:

:I am not certain. Perhaps the gods, or perhaps some - process that underlies Them and Their existence, but is itself a deeper part of reality. Or perhaps those two things are not meaningfully different. You must remember that I can see somewhat further than mortals, but - not by that much, not like the gods can: