Well, that makes her next question very obvious.

:Do Heralds often have children?:

:...Not that often, no: 

:I see: She’s polite enough to not send ‘Well there is at least some of your problem, then,’ but she does think it.

:So how do Gifts, uh, work? I've seen bits and pieces of it, and they clearly come in different flavors and strengths, but they can be inactive? I think I probably just need someone to explain them as if to a layman that cannot see magic:

:There are a number of different Gifts, and also each Gift can be weaker or stronger, or only in potential. All children are born with just potential Gifts - they sometimes awaken at puberty and sometimes not, we don't know what causes it. Mage-gift is the most general, it can be trained to do a lot of different things. Mindspeech is another...: 

Yfandes goes down the list of Velgarth Gifts. 

There are a lot of different Gifts, and apparently some of them are unique to a specific person, which is very interesting. Further confusing the point is that when Gifts awaken, some of them will awaken, but not necessarily others. Training and practice with them will tend to make the specific practiced Gifts stronger, but it's not immediately obvious why that is.

:So do they all tend to awaken at the same time, or are there multiple awakenings going on?: wonders Vetareh, taking notes on the many types of Gift in illusionary violet letters floating in the air in neat little rows. This isn't very good for keeping notes long-term, but it's good for writing things down when she doesn't have any paper available. And hey, it was one of the skills she practiced while she was stuck in the (fucking) Mists, so she might as well make casual use of it.

:It's sometimes a little staggered but usually all within a single year, if there are multiple active Gifts. Occasionally a child will have one Gift active for a few years and then Mindspeech awakens once they're Chosen, probably because we Mindspeak them all the time and it prompts it: 

:That's interesting. Has anyone tried checking people for potential Mindspeech gifts, and then Mindspeaking at them for a month or two regularly to see if that wakes it up? I'm wondering if it's a mechanism of Companions or not:

:I don't know. Checking for potential Gifts is somewhat difficult so it's not routinely done out in the general population: 

:Hm. Okay. ...Yeah, I’m absolutely going to investigate this, it’s such a weird fiddly problem with lots of variables confounding things. It looks like it’ll be great fun: Also very useful, too.

:Ooh, good luck!: 

:Thanks! Though I wonder how it might work with my world’s system. Our magical professions are willfully chosen. It’d be nice if someone could have both:

:It does seem like a good idea for children to be able to pick if they want Gifts and/or to be Chosen: She nuzzles a bit at Vanyel, very gently so as not to wake him. 

:Quite. On a couple of different axes, it sounds like children that have Gifts don't have a lot of space to decline being Chosen if they want to learn how to use their Gifts constructively:

Not to mention the age at which the kids are Chosen. That's not even getting into what's probably going on economically, she bets there is a massive wealth disparity between those with magic and those without. She can imagine going the magical quadruped route would be much more appealing than, uh, what even would the non-magical options be? Farming? Eugh. Running off with the magical quadruped to learn magic sounds much better. Especially for children that still think 'adventure' means 'excitement' instead of 'bad food, lots of unpleasant walking, answering the call of nature in a hole at best, and the risk of being eaten by giant spiders.'

Yfandes picks up on a bit of that. :Nearly every child in Valdemar thinks being a Herald is the most glamorous, romantic, impressive thing one could do with one's life. It's - not all wrong, I don't think. The camaraderie just in itself is a wonderful thing to have. But...no, how can a thirteen-year-old understand what running the government of a country is like: 

:Pretty much. I’d rather the choice to work in government or not come later, even if the Choosing can’t because Gifts are often dangerous and the kid needs help and support with it. You can have pro-social camaraderie without everyone working in the same organization for the state. I mean, if nothing else, having educated and curious people poking at weird problems will help you not have (obvious things like ‘Heralds don’t tend to have children, and therefore there are statistically less Gifted children in the pool’):

:Hmm. That - could work, I suppose, especially if there were somehow more Heralds: 

:Also more delegation of tasks and more awareness of what tasks you want to use your god-chosen paragons of virtue actually for. Keeping your judges honest, yes. Helping your guests find their rooms... probably not:

:I think there is maybe a broader pattern, here, of - Heralds are chosen - and molded, to an extent - fairly hard to be helpful people, and they have a tendency to jump onto any problem where they can be helpful? And I guess there's particular temptation to jump in for the pleasant nice ones, instead of the ones that involve a lot of challenging work: 

:True, and I’m not against Heralds being generally helpful even when it’s not perfectly efficient, or telling them to stop, precisely, it’s just...: she hums thoughtfully, then sends the whole thought bundle in a neat package.

So there’s this thing, where a person can get handed a lot of very reasonable tasks. All of the tasks are trivial enough to do in isolation, some even fun and fulfilling. The problem arises when there’s no end to tasks, when there isn’t a way for things to happen without the helpful person being present. When the helpful person doesn’t have any real designated time off where they don’t have to be helpful. Where they can decide things are not their problem, and they don’t have to worry about it. Because, yes, it’s very great to have helpful people looking for openings, but does literally any of them ever get all that much time off? Will things definitely be okay if they stop for a bit?

:Most Heralds can cover for each other, so they do get vacations and time off to see their families and such. I...do think we don't have the best system for very exceptional Heralds, though, like Savil, or people in important roles like Lancir: 

:Ah, I see. That makes it a bit better? But I'm still not happy with it. I don't like the choice between 'Become Herald and serve the state (at age thirteen) without a lot of intrinsic backup' and 'Don't do that and (live in poverty/without magic)':

:It's not really fair, is it: Mental sigh. 

:It's really not! And if it's ultimately improving life for the citizens of (this country; she doesn't actually know its name) overall then, yeah it's worth it mathematically, but. That doesn't mean there's not room for improvement, and it doesn't mean the system itself should be leaned on as much as it seems to be:

:Mmm. Country is called Valdemar: Yfandes nuzzles at her; the overtones are both of agreement and deep exhaustion, changing an eight-hundred-year-old system seems hard. 

Pet pet pet pet. :Sorry. I'm mostly just thinking out loud and trying to get context for the interesting problem I'm chewing on. Thank you for listening and providing context/a native perspective:

It's less impossible than her last difficult problem! There are actual ways to leverage her knowledge and skills to get things she wants! Amazing.