:Sure did notice! All right, in here: 

They arrive at an office, knock on the door, and are told to come in. A man in his sixties or even older is sitting in front of a very messy desk; he rises to greet her. "Queen's Own Lancir, please to meet you." 

"This is Vetareh," Kilchas says brightly. "The one who rescued Savil's youngsters." He switches to Mindspeech. :She doesn't speak Valdemaran, so we should talk this way: 

Lancir nods. Smiles at her. :We're very grateful to you. Have a seat?: He's not a strong Mindspeaker but can manage if they're in the same room. 

She gives a lovely formal bow, then takes her seat and smiles back at him.

:Happy to help/it'd have been personally irritating and offensive if I didn't/I feel perhaps 20% responsible for the mess and so I am driven to help clean it up/I am also not willing to tolerate a teenager dying and/or suffering a bunch, because I am not a monster: she sends, cheerfully.

Lancir nods, seriously. :We appreciate it. Can you tell me where you're from, and how you ended up falling on top of them at such an opportune moment?: 

Oh boy. Well, she knew this was coming, so she has her answer prepared and separated from as much emotional context as possible so she can send it without too much trouble.

:I'm from a world called Tyria, and a country called Orr. I really doubt you've heard of either because of basic probability, but I will be delighted if you tell me you have. Through a magical accident I was then stranded in the Mists (plane-between-planes/world-soup that other planes are made from) for an unknowable amount of time. When Tylendel was making his (kind of unstable?) Gate, it passed through the Mists/plane-between-planes in its search for (second location, where they are now). I did (impression of using magic to make a very small tear in the forming passage) so I could enter the Gate and pass through to the only exit that had already been made and thereby escape the Mists. (Fuck the Mists.) Probably her meddling made the Gate even more unstable than it already was, and has led to (Vanyel's weird situation), which she is very sorry about/feels some measure of personal responsibility for and will therefore do everything in her power to help him in particular:

Most of that feels very planned out and somewhat detached. The most emotion-overtones that come through is for the phrase 'Fuck the Mists,' which even after the air of detachment and dissociation with the whole rehearsed explanation comes through with extremely strong sincerity. She hates it so much.

She pauses, then adds in a detached, clinical sort of mind-tone, :Which is actually rather convenient, because I'm pretty sure Orr blew itself up and sank into the sea after I left:

Lancir is, unsurprisingly, so concerned about - well, most elements of this situation, but especially Vetareh's apparent emotional state. 

:I'm sorry to hear about everything that happened to you, and, er, to your homeland: he says when she's done. :Does that mean you intend to stick around here?: 

:Sort of. I’m not attached to staying in (this country/town/organized establishment in particular), but traveling between worlds is (so difficult even gods have trouble with it), so. Yes, I’m staying around, if you don’t mind: And also if they do, fuck them, she’ll go running off to (the wilderness/wherever the people that have a problem with her are not in charge) to go find the biggest, most interesting chaotic mess of unstable magic available and see about fixing that for funsies. Also safety and the good of the world and whatnot, but. Mostly funsies. She likes efficiency, she doesn’t see why the thing she wants to do can’t also benefit the world and people at large while she’s doing it.

:I would,: she admits, with a strong pang of sorrow and longing, :spend some of my time and energy trying to figure out if my soul is going to go to (Grenth, the god of death/The Underworld/the place where all of her loved ones are) after I die, and if not, how to one day go where I belong: But no rush, it’s a difficult task and there’s a lot of emotions attached to the whole thing, and she thinks it’d be smart to try to be more... okay, first. Before trying her next impossible task.

:Oh: Lancir doesn't immediately know what to say. :I'm sorry. If you think magic research is what's needed, I'm sure Savil would be willing to help you, she's very skilled and she knows a bit about other planes: 

:I’d appreciate that very much. But it’s not an immediate project to start tomorrow, I both do not want to die anytime soon (gods, it’s be such a letdown after making it through the Mists) and don’t feel, uh. Ready. To deal with problems that hit that close to my (emotional core/heart/part of my soul that feels emotional things): She’s so not okay, and very conscientious about not making it worse.

:That makes sense: Lancir leans forwardly slightly, holding her gaze. :It sounds like you went through some awful experiences, and - have some recovery and processing to do, now that you're somewhere safe. If that's something you would accept help with, it's - an area of mine, I have Mindhealing Gift and I've helped a lot of the other Heralds through traumatic experiences: 

She stares at him. It takes her a bit to reply.

:... So what do you mean by help, because the direction of your implication is using Mindhealing Gift to cut out the pieces of me you find inconvenient/think I find inconvenient, which would be so much worse (no that's not very charitable he means well, be nice) help me cope, and...: She's having trouble putting her precise feelings into words. She definitely is not going to let him do any Mindhealing to her at all, but she wants to tell him why because she thinks the structure of his premise is fundamentally incorrect, and incorrect in a way that's going to fucking hurt someone. She's scared, but not personally, if he tried to mess with her mind at all she's absolutely certain she could stop him. Instead she's worried about, about clumsy hands, well meaning and anxious to help but also breaking things they don't understand.

:Help is fine, I welcome and appreciate help. In general. I mean no, uh, disrespect towards your intentions or even abilities with Mindhealing? But offering (mind magic) to heal trauma sounds as, uh. Horrifying? Extreme? As offering to help saw off a limb for a broken bone. Maybe called for in very dire circumstances, but...: Not casually. Not offered to a stranger. Not offered to a stranger that he barely knows who is functioning just fine, because she's hurting? Yes? Of course she's hurting? Of course she's traumatized?? That means everything's working fine, and furthermore what the fuck kind of healing can heal a mind, they don't have a set shape to adhere to like bodies do, that's not how they work they're like intricate jeweled glass puzzle boxes that shift over time and they should adhere to what the owner wants above all else and—

She takes a deep breath, and she cuts that off.

:Sorry. No, thank you:

Lancir looks startled and confused for a moment, but he takes it gracefully enough. :Of course. It's entirely up to you, and - it sounds like you know what you need in order to cope. Though I'm also here if you just wanted to talk - often that's what people need most, in my past experience - but if what you need most is some time alone to process, that's also fine and makes sense and we can make sure you have privacy and aren't disturbed: 

He shifts back a little in his chair. :I do wonder if we're operating from different definitions of 'mind magic' here; the kind you know of might be more powerful than ours. The sort of work I do is mostly small nudges, and often temporary - for example, if someone panics every time they see a dog, because of a traumatic dog-related experience, and that's causing them distress and they want it to happen less, I can nudge that pathway and redirect the association there into something more neutral: 

She's fidgeting with her sleeve, frowning a little and looking very focused. She's not looking directly at him, but it's not out of avoiding his gaze, she just has something else that concerns her, off in the distance.

:I suspect that mine is more powerful and more blatantly dangerous/uncontrollable/something-like-alive than yours, but one of the most fundamental lessons (mesmers/mindworkers/the thing that I am) learn is that even small nudges can have very, very large impacts? That staying your hand is often the best thing you can do, even if it seems like it'd be such a minor and easy change that'd be for the better. And that if someone is dealing with, in your example, a traumatic dog-related experience, that's causing them distress and they want it to happen less, it's, it's better for the mind's overall safety/development to try other things first? Having the person look at drawings of dogs, then illusions of dogs, then meeting small dogs from a far distance away and on and on. Going down the painstakingly slow path of recovery step by step and - and learning how to cope if there is a new trauma and no mindhealer present to make the fear go away. And you are taking something fundamentally important away from someone if you just. Make it stop because it's inconvenient distressing. Sometimes even if they want you to. Like (physical therapy) for a gravely injured limb, in a way.

:And certainly, I can imagine things that would make such measures - an, an acceptable cost, if dogs are somehow utterly inescapable and the person can't leave their house to go to the market, or speak to any any friends, or let anyone inside their house, for fear that a dog might show up at any time. But that's very extreme? You are taking away the mind's ability to heal itself if you do it for it, and you will probably also do it wrong because minds don't really have a right shape, just, just. Shapes that people want from them. So I found your ease of offering this option to me, as a first option, as a plus to talk to you first about my problems, to be, hm. Fundamentally having the wrong intentions in mind when it comes to helping people. Wanting someone to be okay over wanting someone to get better. The destination is important, but often so is the journey, especially when someone in pain can't properly see their best destination point from where they are. Does that make sense?:

Lancir looks thoughtful. He mulls over it for a minute. 

:It makes sense: he sends finally. :I - do think we may be coming at this from fairly different angles. I agree that Mindhealing interventions should only be considered when someone is unable to handle it on their own, and that it always carries some risk, but - there's also pragmatics, right, if someone would need a year to slowly heal on their own, and they're critically important to the Kingdom - which all Heralds are - then it can matter a lot, helping them cope sooner:  

:Okay, granted, getting into that kind of (Grenth/bloody-minded efficiency) calculations, meddling in a person's mind to help them save hundreds is ultimately worth it. I agree, even if I'd find it (uncomfortable/distasteful/not the kind of thing I could trust myself, or probably anyone, to do right). But I also think in that case it's also very important to ask if that person is really as critically important as that sort of level of seriousness implies. If you're building a system off of - I don't know how many Heralds there are, but it doesn't seem like there are a lot, proportional to the size of a Kingdom? - a small group of people being able to serve, and needing to be able to serve, and every single one of them needs to carve out pieces of themselves for the good of all, because there's no better way to keep people alive, then maybe that system itself is flawed. Fundamentally for asking that of the people that serve it, and structurally, too. It's balancing it directly on a small group of people being able to cope sooner:

Lancir looks startled again, and defensiveness flashes in his eyes for a moment, but he takes a breath and lets it out and his expression smoothes. 

:It certainly does ask a lot from all of us, being a Herald. One...could question that system, and whether it's fair to ask that of anyone. Ultimately, it's the one the gods gave King Valdemar when he asked for a miracle, and it seems to work better than what most of our neighbours have, and - it is what it is, I guess. Personally, it's a sacrifice I'm honoured to make, and I think most of us feel that way: 

:Well, that's your choice to make, and I respect you and everyone else who makes it. But I think a system that pressures people to be self sacrificing as part of its go-to methodology is fundamentally flawed. Maybe it's the least flawed systems can be, even, it's not like Orr was perfect either. But I think it's important that it be acknowledged as flawed, and that people in charge of the system's direction should try to work towards finding something better. With less points of failure. It should be an expectation for people to fail sometimes:

Vetareh seems to have cheered up immensely over the course of this debate. She looks and sounds like she's having fun, now.

Lancir seems pleased to notice that, even though this is a very weird conversation to be having and he's not sure how to feel about her attitude toward Heralds. 

:I think you've answered most of my questions: he sends finally. :We're happy to have you here and we owe you a lot, for - Gala and Tylendel, and also helping Vanyel last night - so of course we'll give you a place to stay and food, and we're not going to ask any more from you until and if you want to offer: 

:Thank you for having me, and I appreciate your hospitality very much. I'll probably want to (help/meddle) because I'm easily bored and an incorrigible (meddler/person that wants to make things better), but I'm likely going to need a little while before I can do it on command again instead of just... on my whims:

He can detect the faintest hint of her latest meddling whim, which is approximately: she thinks there's something that could be improved with how this place handles people/guests, but she doesn't have enough of a feel for it yet to actually propose what she thinks is inefficient/wrong and how it could be made better. And directly bringing it to his attention now is, well, she's actually doing that right now, but also she wants to go investigate and come to her own conclusions. She has a very useful completely foreign perspective, and they only get so many chances to have that! It'd be a shame to waste it.

:Makes sense. Do, er, please keep someone in the loop if you're wanting to help out with something, so we don't step on each other's toes, but I can understand wanting to have something to do with yourself: 

:What do you think I'm doing now?: she sends, a little wryly. Which one of them scheduled this meeting, hmm? She's being good and keeping the people in charge in the loop as best she can, okay, she feels like she's earned credit for that.

:Fair enough: He smiles at her. :Thank you. Any final questions?: 

:Did you find debating with me about mind-magic ethics and the efficiency and morality of government structures particularly draining? I had fun and might want to do it again, but I think only if you enjoyed it/found it useful and/or really need it because I think you're doing something very obviously bad (which I expect you to appreciate being told politely but directly to your face, from my read of you):