So they can go put his face on a monkey and stuff it full of Gifts.

Honestly that is even creepier than it being Belrun's face! Leareth cheerfully helps her out with the Gifts, though, and then considers what sort of artifact he wants to use as a base for his spell. 

"If you don't want to be another book maybe you could be one of those crystals you do mage stuff with."

"That feels more thematically appropriate, and I could easily wear it on me if I wished - though I might prefer to keep it somewhere safe instead, given that I may wish to reserve the option of calling Final Strike without risking damaging it. I will go look at my collection of them, you can come help me choose if you wish." 

"Sure!" She will inspect his collection very thoughtfully.

"What do you think of this one?" It's a roughly cylindrical piece of polished onyx about the size of Leareth's thumb, with a hole through one side to string it on a necklace. 

"I think it wants a nice chain but it's a good choice."

"I will use it then. I only need you at the end of the day, for the monkey part; I would not mind if you wished to watch mine as well, but I imagine the lab might need you for some backlog after all of yesterday." 

"They probably do." Smooch. "I will go help them out."

There are a lot of hurried final preparations happening in the lab, trying to get the full number of giant microbe vats both 'fed' and moved into position to be dumped through a lot of Gates around Haven. 

Then she will be happily busy all day long.

Leareth calls her just before supper. :Done, ready for the monkey attachment: 

:Coming!: And she nips over to coax his monkey into position.

The uncanny Leareth-lookalike monkey is also tempted by peanuts, and Leareth finishes the linkage faster this time, practice making it easier.

Nothing explodes. Leareth checks it very carefully and seems satisfied. He takes a deep breath and sort of flops against Belrun's shoulder. "Well. Did that." 

"Weight off my mind," she says fervently.

"Hopefully it will not matter anytime soon, but - I am very relieved." He hugs her tightly. 

Hug.

"Three more days left and then we are doing this." 

"Why that timing exactly?"

"I mean, if there were a specific reason to delay we could - and we might end up doing so if something goes wrong in the preparation, we are not committed to it. But that is when I think everything should be ready to transport, and I do not feel inclined to delay without reason." 

"Makes sense. I don't have a reason or anything, just - curious. Are they evacuating the area for it?"

"Once we start Gating in, not before - it will still take a while so there will be time for the Heralds to handle it, Vanyel has a plan laid out for them. It will make it very obvious that something major is about to happen so I did not want to do it too much in advance. I am planning to randomize the exact time we head over in case that makes Foresight murkier." 

"What methods of randomization aren't themselves Foreseeable?"

"This is kind of hard to test, but as far as I can tell, rolling a dice or flipping a coin are not Foreseeable until the moment they happen." 

"What if you weight the dice?"