:He feels like this is his fault: Yfandes tells Tarinda. She seems frustrated. :I wish he'd stop but I don't know what else to say at this point: 

"- somebody using you as a murder weapon doesn't make it something you did. Kilchas'll tell you himself once Sing gets him back, I bet."

"Mmm." Vanyel doesn't seem totally convinced but he manages a watery smile. "I'm glad we'll probably get him back, if we - succeed at this." 

"Good as new," says Tarinda.

Nod. 

"Vanyel," Leareth says, once it's been a little while, "once are you are feeling able, I think it would be good for you to write a note for them in Haven. They are taking your, well, technically-kidnapped status rather well, but they are still quite shaken by yesterday's events." 

"Of course. I should apologize–"

:GAH: Yfandes sends at Tarinda, while butting Vanyel in the stomach - very gently, he's still in fragile condition after all. :When is he going to stop apologizing for the Star-Eyed nearly killing him in Her plot to murder you: 

:Would you like me to ask him?:

:Doubt that'll help, knowing him it'll just add a layer of something else to feel bad about: She nuzzles his cheek instead. 

Tarinda pats his arm.

"You really do not owe anyone an apology and they will agree on that," Leareth says. "I will bring you paper for whenever you feel up to it. It is not a huge rush. Are you feeling better otherwise?" 

"Yes. I probably shouldn't do magic for a while, still, but the headache is starting to go away now." 

"I am glad. You should eat something." 

Is Leareth of all people being a mother-hen at him? Vanyel can't help but smirking slightly, even if nothing else about the situation is funny. 

"Van, since you're retaining stuff a little better now, is it okay if I go after lunch?"

"Hmm? Yes, that's fine." 

"I'm gonna get underway on Sing," she explains.

"Good." 

She eats lunch. She heads out to start work. She hums a lot.

Leareth's packet of notes isn't very polished and lacks formal textbook features such as an index or page numbers or a clear organization schema, but it does have lots of information on gods, clearly marked with how confident he is in each assessment.

Confident claims: the gods are very large, powerful beings that exist across a number of planes, possibly all of the planes. They have a certain ability to perceive reality, though not from the same angle or at the same level of granularity as mortal beings do, and correspondingly they have fairly different mind-setups and concepts; this leads to the predictable communication difficulties when They deign to talk to mortals, which isn't usually.

Slightly less confident inferences: one of the gods' primary ways of perceiving the world is direct Foresight; they See the various possible paths of the future, and implicitly know what nudges will affect it, the same way humans know how to navigate a crowded room just from vision. This is likely one of the roots of their dislike for rapid change.

The gods' actual values are both hard to infer, since their actions are often very indirect and sometimes not noticeable as interventions at all, and even when they are it's not always possible to tell which god did something and they rarely claim credit. They do seem to care somewhat about human lives - the Star-Eyed was willing to perform what must have been a very costly miracle to make land habitable for her people after the Cataclysm, albeit in exchange for a permanently binding pact with all their descendants - but they're clearly not optimizing for human happiness, or else, well, the world would look pretty different from how it does now. 

Probably the biggest single obstacle to useful cooperation between gods and mortals is the communication gap. Gods are cryptic. Some of this is inherent in the kind of being they are, vast and alien, but not all of it, Leareth thinks that if you build a god with the minimal crypticness possible then it would be a lot better. 

Tarinda flips through it so Page will have it loaded and be able to pop up relevant bits as necessary without processing it very deeply.

Her work area is ready for her to start using it, though she won't have literally all the materials she requested for another couple of days. 

Leareth at some point comes in with another of the mages he works with, both of them looking at a design he's drawn up for an electricity-producing artifact that can be powered by a mage every so often and then release the stored energies at a steady rate. 

Tarinda nods at them, resumes inventorying and organizing her new stuff.