Savil is silent for a long moment. :I don't know. That question - hasn't seemed this relevant before. But I'm sure that with Yfandes, we can figure something out that - does right by him...: 

:Okay. ... How much of the government is, uh. Made up of non-Heralds? And how old's the average age for when people are Chosen?:

:There's a Council of nobles who aren't Heralds, about a dozen total, to represent various regions. And the deans of Healers' and Bardic also attend Council meetings. On a local level, landholders and town mayors aren't Heralds; there are only about a hundred and fifty Heralds, total, so most of us ride circuits and handle legal dispute appeals that need a Truth Spell and such, and respond to emergencies: Pause. :I think the average age of Choosing is thirteen. Van's old for it: 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa a thirteen year old is not old enough to be set in their permanent life choices, she wasn't set in her primary profession as a mesmer until she was Van's age. That didn't even set her in any career paths, that just permanently set what magic she could use! If someone had asked her at the age of thirteen what she wanted to be when she grew up she'd have gotten something she'd have been unsatisfied with later, she thinks she wanted to be an ice elementalist or something. Nobody is even asking these kids it just happens and bam they are stuck on a career path to serve the state!

She doesn't send this, and in fact what she's sending over the mind-link has gotten quite a bit less vibrant and detailed, but her expression probably gets across her horror anyway. Okay, uh, tactics. Freaking out about the age thing is probably not going to get her anywhere, pick something else. Efficiency, yes, efficiency she can do without screaming Your entire government is founded on a combination of emotional blackmail, fastlining children into working for the state, and fucking mind control so that the sacrificial grown up child-pawns don't snap from the pressure! That would not get her anywhere useful.

:So I worry: sends Vetareh, carefully, :that your system is overstressing your Heralds. Not just Van, I mean. All of you. Do you have clerks that, that write letters to council members for you, that handle bureaucratic paperwork, that fuss with where your guests are being housed? People whose jobs it is to make the jobs of the really important vital people as streamlined and efficient as possible?:

:I mean, we do have clerks. Lancir has a dedicated secretary and he offered me one years ago but I didn't like the young woman who was assigned to it first and I sort of dropped it. Honestly, I could stand to delegate more, but delegating is frustrating: 

:I don't think it should be a load-bearing part of your governmental system that all Heralds should be able to delegate. For context, I was sworn to the King of Orr, before - before. Generally what happened is people were given responsibility of things that they were suited for? Instead of having this whole mess of work that needs to be done, and is the responsibility of Heralds to sort out with no one else already designated to help: Gods, no wonder the way they've handled her as their guest has been a shitshow, no wonder Lissa needed another guest to lead her to her brother. It's actually just chaos with everybody desperately trying to keep their heads above the ever rising workload. :You can have a non-Herald person whose job it is to just make sure Heralds get clerks they actually get along with, or that there's enough jobs for the amount of work there is, or people whose job it is to go to meetings and summarize them for the people that have less time to sit through annoying politicking:

:To be clear, you landed on us at an especially bad time - normally the mess of work is a lot more manageable. We were dealing with a political nightmare out at the Frelennye lands even before the, um, bit you turned up for: Sigh. :I have been wondering for years if there's a better way to make this work. Reckon it was easier at the Founding, when Valdemar was scarcely more than Haven and some farmland. We've grown a lot as a kingdom, though. Especially in the last forty years, Elspeth pushed through a bunch of peaceful annexations north and west: 

It occurs to her that Savil is probably not actually the person to go to in order to make this happen. Probably she needs to ambush the queen. With examples and more of an idea of what precisely is going on here in this damnable country. (Or she could leave. She's tempted to leave. What a fucking mess of a system. Thirteen year olds conscripted and indoctrinated into disentangling the headache of politics and governing and delegation.)

:Okay, well. I was never on the bureaucratic side of running Orr, I was a researcher with a side hobby of fixing messes. But I bet I can offer some examples of how to restructure things so they're a bit - kinder - to the people trying to run the country: Pause. :Though I maybe shouldn't try to overhaul your entire governmental structure, uh, the. Day after I got here:

:- Possibly not. Though the fact that you considered trying it makes me like you even more than I did already: 

Vetareh snorts.

:Thanks. I'm the worst when it comes to being drawn into reorganizing things. Just, the worst. Made all of my coworkers irritated with me, actually:

But she will withhold her urge to take their government away from them and fix it for them in favor of, uh. Considering perhaps. Not doing that. And leaving to go elsewhere. Because not every problem is hers, and also she was crying about fifteen minutes ago and that's a sign that maybe she should keep her goals realistic.

If Savil is picking up on the edges of those thoughts, she doesn't say anything. Just smiles, tiredly, and keeps rubbing Tylendel's back. 

Tylendel is now fast asleep. 

Yfandes whickers faintly and turns to nuzzle Vetareh, softly. 

Vetareh pats Yfandes gently, then goes to fidgeting with her mane.

:Hey, um. Yfandes? What would you do if Van didn't want to be a Herald at all?:

:I don't know. I'm waiting for him to be lucid so we can talk about it: There's an undercurrent of simmering frustration in her mindvoice, even anger. :This is just - so goddamned unfair to him, you know? I would have waited to Choose him, let him think about it first, but I'm the only one who can help contain his Gifts right now, he would be hurting himself and other people a lot more otherwise: 

Vetareh can feel the sincerity, there, and she relaxes. Okay, so, a lot of this system is still extremely messed up, but best quadruped Yfandes is still, in fact, the best quadruped. She can have pets.

:Oh. Good:

And along with that, she relaxes enough to send the added context of 'I'm so glad I don't have to fight you on it,' along with how, uh, actually Vetareh probably would have picked a fight and/or helped Van run off into the wilderness or something if he decided that, actually, he wanted none of this.

Yfandes sends warmth and gratitude and glad-to-have-your-company. It's lonelier than she's used to, being stuck in a shielded Work Room, though at least she has Gala. 

:These really aren't the circumstances under which I hoped I'd Choose: she sends, finally. :It's the happiest day of your life, is what all the adults said to me when I was a foal: 

:And instead yours involves getting crammed in a Work Room with a bunch of grumpy humans and a Chosen who's got more power than control and isn't lucid enough for any of it. Gods, I'm so sorry: Pet, pet, pet. She's glad to be hanging out with Yfandes, too. She likes Yfandes, a bunch. (She's so glad she doesn't have to fight her for Van's welfare, that would have sucked so much, it'd be the right thing to do but still!)

:They really need to set this place up better for quadrupeds. Also for Heralds. I'm kind of frustrated with how it doesn't seem like Heralds get much of a choice in what they do, and how they just. Get dumped with apparently most of the responsibility for making sure the country doesn't go down in flames? It's not good for people:

:...No. It's - hmm. I do think the rest of Valdemar is better off than most of our neighbours, for it? Even Rethwellan, I've heard, is more prosperous in some ways, but massively less - egalitarian, I suppose, in others. Even the poorest citizens of Valdemar trust the Heralds' legal system to serve them fairly, and that matters. But - there aren't enough Heralds to divide up the burden we're carrying and make it reasonable. I suspect that's been true for a while now: 

:Hmm. What's the Choosing criteria, and what's the reason for having everything be so Herald-centric? ... Savil mentioned the average age was, uh. Around thirteen:

:The reason for it is that the first King of Valdemar, who had fled a corrupt authoritarian empire to the east, prayed to all of the gods for a miracle so that he could ensure his country stayed in good hands and remained well-governed after his death. And the Companions are what he got. The choosing criteria are - good ethics, someone who can grow up to be a motivated, competent leader, and often Gifts, though around one-fifth of Heralds are minimally Gifted and only have Mindspeech with their Companions. The age of Choosing is mostly because there's a long training period, I think? Most trainees do five years of apprenticeship. Also, it's around the age at which Gifts awaken, and it's not great for children in remote areas to be dealing with that on their own and getting into bad habits without proper teaching: 

:Hm. Okay. That explains some of the quirks, though this is really not how my world's gods would have done things. Are there Gifted kids that get passed over? What happens with their training?:

:Healers and Bards usually aren't Chosen, and train at their respective Collegia. And there are lots of Mindspeakers around, usually weaker - there's a theory that Companions tend to strengthen Gifts a lot in our Chosen - but they'll often apprentice to the Healer in the nearest village that has one, learn shields that way, and Mindspeech on its own is fairly intuitive and not generally dangerous. I think it used to be more common for children with weaker mage-gifts to not get Chosen, and they'd end up apprenticed to the nearest person with any Gift, and then a Herald on circuit would give them some lessons. But we haven't seen so much mage-gift in the last century, for some reason: 

:Hm. That's interesting. Also the sort of long-term thing that really needs to get looked into before it becomes a huge problem down the line: Also like it's absolutely the kind of weird, niche, useful problem Vetareh absolutely wants to solve and has an actual specialty in. :Are Gifts just randomly distributed, or is there some kind of pattern to it?:

:They run in families, though with some randomness, like any other trait. And Gifts can be in potential but stay inactive, so you'll get multiple generations and then suddenly an active Gift pops up apparently from nowhere: