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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."
Leareth, worried, spends a couple of minutes trying to get a more coherent explanation out of Vanyel, and then Mindspeaks Belrun. :Are you busy? Vanyel is very upset about something and I could use your advice for how to reassure him:
:I can delegate the rest of this to Dara, one sec:
She turns up a minute later.
Vanyel is perched stiffly on the edge of a chair in Leareth and Belrun's living room after Leareth invited him in. He looks stressed and miserable.
"Vanyel, should I explain it?" Leareth waits for Vanyel's nod. "Vanyel says that the Shadowgod informed him he has a lifebonded - future lifebonded, rather, if he consents to it. His lifebonded is a thirteen-year-old Bardic trainee, Stefen, who I think you may have met? The young man with the Wild Gift he wanted to sell you?"
"He's my nephew's roommate!" Vanyel looks so incredibly embarrassed and pained.
"- oh that's my fault, I was asking the Shadowgod about lifebonds and told Them that it would, uh, be better to warn people. - it's not my fault that you have a potential lifebond to your nephew's roommate but it is my fault you found out this way."
"It's kind of hard to avoid him! I'll have to stop going to Medren's recitals..." Vanyel brings a palm to his forehead. "Gods, this explains why he was so - hero-worshippy about me, the time I rescued him from the river after he, um, found out about the Lord Taving scandal that turned into the blood-magic scandal– um, for context, one of the other Bardic trainees whose friend was related to Lord Taving guessed he'd been snooping and pushed him in the river about it."
"Wow, poor kid! I'm not even sure you need the incipient lifebond to explain being hero-worshippy over that. Anyway, uh, we know empirically that it can't kick in all the way till you find him sexually attractive and if that's still uncomfortably young you can - travel or something? Next time I'm in Petras I will go back to the university library, check that book I read which had the best known estimates of how much exposure's safe."
Vanyel nods. Rubs his eyes. "I, um, I really wish I didn't know, actually. I can't unthink it now."
"I'm sorry. Uh, I'm not actually sure what policy the Shadowgod should have instead, though, like, if he got to be fifteen or whatever and you were still going to recitals unawares that doesn't seem obviously better -"
"That would be really awkward!" Vanyel makes a face. "I - I think it wouldn't hurt so much if not for..." No need to finish that sentence. "So probably most people who find out won't be as upset. I, just - it feels so unfair."
"Yeah, I'm sorry. The Shadowgod might - know more, or have advice on avoiding him, or something, I think it's getting a little better at using our concepts - I don't know if telling you what I'd be interrogating Them about under the circumstances would help."
"Uh, if I were you I'd want to make sure that, say, your original lifebonded is not within your lifetime going to appear as a Companion with a suspiciously similar name, because that seems like it'd be worse. I'd want to know - in fact, now that it's occurred to me I want to know anyway - what if anything it's like to be a soul-in-storage. Hm, I'd also want to know if any interventions brought Stef to Haven and if so whose and why? I have on my to-do list when things are a little calmed down asking about giving Companions more of their memories back, sort of by way of asking if those memories exist, and if they do exist I am planning to ask about maybe getting some people back not with four legs, not that it doesn't seem to mostly work out for 'em."
Vanyel nods, a little distractedly. "Mmm, thank you." (Honestly he doesn't want to think about any of those questions right now, but they are good ones that he probably needs to think about at some point no matter how uncomfortable it is.)
"Do you want me to ask for you and give you - some of that information, all of it -"
She hugs him and when he's gone off again she nudges Shadowgod. :I don't know if you know this, but it's awkward for people to be in lifebonding situations when they're very young, especially if the other party is significantly older. It's probably for the best that Vanyel has warning about Stef but it's possible Stef should be an exception for the next three or four years to the rule about letting the principals know.
I have some questions:
Stefen has not come to speak with me and is unlikely to, so he does not know. I am not sure what policy change here would result in the problem you are noting not recurring in future?
:I'm not sure either, so I don't think the general policy should change, but I thought you might like to know about the results.
Is Tylendel liable to be a Companion in the future?:
