The turnaround time on letters is too slow for the offer to reach Van in time, so Leareth contacts him with the communication spell and says he intends to Gate over half a dozen mages to help out in Haven. 

That'd be great. 

"Overkill unless something really is lined up to hit while Van's out but I'm so suspicious."

"So am I." 

The arrival of more mages is apparently slightly contentious, but accepted once Rolan makes it clear that their official position here is 'very very grateful.' 

The next day, then, one of Leareth's mages Gates Rolan into the meeting room (while Vanyel is elsewhere), and then can provide period quick updates via communication-spell whenever the meeting takes a break. 

The first update is on Randi getting agreement from the assembled Council on whether they still want Something To Be Different (yes), and whether they still trust the Companions and particularly the Groveborn, standing there looking very intimidating, to have Valdemar's best interests at heart (still yes, though a little grudgingly.) 

"You know, first thing on my list of stuff to do as Queen is strongly recommend to the Companions that they ask first when Choosing if at all possible," she snorts, "that's going to be a fun contrast..."

The proposal for Something Different is announced, emphasizing that Rolan thinks Belrun is, among the pool of Heralds they might consider, unusually well-suited for the role, and that it would result in a convenient alliance with Leareth and his considerable resources. 

One of the lords immediately wants to know if Belrun and Leareth are actually married. 

They are not actually married. She does not mind getting that way if it's preferable but either way is everyone clear that she cannot have children?

Rolan skips over that as a minor detail and goes right on to the proposed plan of each monarch selecting an heir out of all the Heralds, not just their close relations, and adopting them so they can get the requisite training and acculturation as future monarch.

This is, needless to say, contentious. The update after that one is just "half a candlemark of nonstop debate on whether this still counts as a monarchy." Rolan and Randi are both making the case that, if anything, it's more in the spirit of what King Valdemar intended with the Companions; he knew that the offspring of the royal family might not always be suitable leaders. 

Where is Dara lately anyway, have they heard from her recently?

She's not in Haven and Tantras doesn't know where she is, but Leareth's mage can ask around once the meeting is concluded. 

It would be good to know or they have a more complicated heir-once-removed situation on their hands.

Not too unsurprisingly, the extended Council does not get to a point of wanting to pass a final vote during the initial meeting. A lot of questions are asked. They don't like that Belrun mostly grew up in Rethwellan, but they do like that she studied there, the Rethwellani academies are renowned and she must be very clever. She was Chosen late, but that's hardly her fault, on account of having been raised in Rethwellan, which (at least they're so assuming) wasn't her fault either. 

The final meeting update is that the Council does not have any substantive objection and certainly doesn't have a better proposal, but they want time to think. 

That's reasonable of them. She has lots to do in the meantime working on her monkeys.

Her pregnant monkeys are finally about to give birth! 

Oh good. There are more steps - working on monkeys with their own Gifts will be a pain and a half for one thing - but having a breeding population will make mistakes less costly.

One of the female monkeys is pregnant with twins, the other with a singlet. One of the twins comes out deformed - not badly, the little baby boy monkey seems healthy and happy, but his wings are weirdly bent inward and don't straighten. The other two have pretty healthy-looking wings, though they're small for their body size and also don't have any feathers yet, just pink skin with a very slight layer of down, looking sort of scrawny and ridiculous. 

The mice wings were like that too. The monkeys are annoying enough to make new ones of that she'll spare a little time trying to fix the wings. After all the monkeys are recovered from having babies she arranges to have them have some more in the other configuration.

The misshaped wing-bone can be pretty easily set straight, since the monkey is a small baby and its bones are springy and heal fast. 

Leareth does wonder if the bent wing runs in the blood and the monkey's babies will have it too, but he supposes it's worth waiting to see. 

"We can squash the fix into place like we did with the wing graft in the first place and then it should have a decent shot of passing down fine, right?"

"- Oh, yes, that is definitely worth trying." 

Squash. "Is it feasible to immortalize people this way without compromising opsec about exactly how it works?"

"How many people." 

"I don't have a specific population in mind - that seems like a different question?"