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When Vanyel is ready for the mad science tour, he shows him the monkeys. "They're monkeys," she feels it necessary to clarify. "I know they look very human at this point, because the whole point of them is that I'm going to move into one if I ever die, but they're not people, and I have forbidden the staff to name them. I could move into one now if I had to but I'd like to get one actually looking like me in particular first, and I want to stick more Gifts into them, I got Fetching out of some Changesquirrels but further work is needed." She shows him the mice, too. "Do you suppose Jisa'd like a winged mouse? What's her favorite color?" She shows him all her microbiology eggs. "That's a flu sample from the recent plague! I remembered to take one. Those there are other flus. The white eggs have more-alive microbes and the brown eggs have less-alive kinds - there's a cold one of the staff mages had a few months ago, there's food poisoning, there's the most common kind from healthy intestines - you could get your Sight this fine, you know, I don't do heavy Healing-Gift use apart from Sight for this work."
:Ooh: A sort of anticipatory mental wiggle. :You’re really great. I mean, I know you’re aware of that already:
:It's still nice to hear! Maybe Shadowgod Foresight can tell me if I'll screw up or not when I feel ready to try it:
:That’s a good idea. Oh, by the way, just to warn you, Tran is on his way to look for you and demand wedding planning opinions:
Tran arrives shortly later. He’s humming cheerfully and presents it more as a request than a demand. He’s particularly concerned about arranging to feed all the guests at the public party, they’re expecting thousands of people to turn out and it’ll look very un-royal for the food to be mostly pease.
"I agree that would not look very royal. I was thinking that there can't be many fewer fish in the river than usual, so hopefully by then some people will be done putting their houses back together and fishing again, but it'll need to be day-of anyway. I think Leareth would prefer if that were the main meat on the table, he'd rather nobody kill a cow for us or what have you. We can also make another grocery trip somewhere unaffected, the one we're getting in tomorrow wasn't budgeted with this in mind. You know who you should probably talk to is my mother, she knows what I like and I think it's pretty likely she'll come through the next Gate from Petras."
“Ah, excellent. What’s the best way to get in touch with her?”
"- well, you could wait around the designated Gate location at two candlemarks before noon tomorrow."
"Sure, I can do that." He takes a moment to tell Delian so he can get a reminder. "What about decor, flowers, you and Leareth have any thoughts on that? Entertainment for the crowds, too, traditionally you'd have Bards perform at a state wedding but I know you don't fancy Bards?"
"I would be moderately surprised if Leareth had any flower opinions. I like lilies and dahlias but I'm not picky, any flower that isn't the basic daisy shape is fine and I will not put up much of a fuss if all you can find is daisies or asters or something. I do not fancy Bard Gift use, I have nothing against music that happens to be performed by a Bard who is not at that moment using it to creep into my skull."
"Noted, I'll ask Breda if she can set up a fully Gift-free recital. Is Leareth going to be willing to do the traditional parade with you? I know he's been leery in the past about being very conspicuous in front of a crowd, but maybe he's less anxious about it now that the local god is on your side?"
:- Let me think a moment: Leareth thinks. :I...think it is probably fine, but I would find the entire thing very very nervewracking if I was in front of a large crowd and also not reading anyone's mind:
:We can skip it if you want. This is even though there's Shadowgod on our side now?:
:I suppose I can speak with the Shadowgod about it. I...am not entirely sure my paranoia here is rational, given the changed circumstances, but I have spent thousands of years training particular reflexes and it is not trivial to shift that:
"It'd be nice to work around the parade thing, it'd stress him out and I understand that weddings are stressful by default to most people already."
"Mmm, all right. Figure he'll get more relaxed about it after a while, though? I get it that the gods were constantly trying to murder him before, but it shouldn't be the case here."
"I think getting more comfortable with the Shadowgod - assuming Shadowgod continues to present a comforting set of behaviors, anyway - will do a lot of the work, but it might be a while, he's two thousand."
"Fair enough. Any other wedding-related preferences I should take into account? ...My assumption here is that both of you would prefer not having to sign off on every detail."
"Yeah, I don't feel like micromanaging it is a good use of time, but I would rather not be surprised, if that makes sense? But having Delian ask Amshalan is fine, asking my mom is fine, both of them probably have good estimates of what would be unpleasantly startling and what would be nice to have."
"Good to know - and I suppose if either of them isn't sure they can always check with you at that point. I think we can get it all sorted out fine."
"Yup. Thank you so much for your work here, it's really helping with all the juggling."
Near the end of that day, Dara reaches out to tap on Belrun's shields.