Nod. 

Tylendel grits his teeth, and concentrates, and opens the bond that links them wide. 

( - Caught in a hurricane - currents of terror and anguish and guilt - rage like molten rock - and behind it the echoing void that Staven left behind - ) 

But over it, hope, and determination. He loves Vanyel so much, and Gala is there, Gala is blazing at his side, he feels her fear and resolve and love almost melded together with his own -

The doorway begins to glow, and Tylendel reaches, desperately, for the Heralds' temple in Haven, hundreds of miles away. Tongues of light flicker from the shining arch, draining both of their strength, power sucked inevitably into the spell's hungry maw, as it searches and searches and searches -

Someone has been trapped in a space between worlds for a very long time.

She sees - something, a ripping tear, a forming bridge, a half formed magical doorway between two places, neither end of which is here. But the path itself comes through here, and that's enough. It's not clear what kind of strange magic this is, but it's obviously her best chance of getting out of here, and possibly her only one. And she very much wants to get out of here. Her plan of escape is not particularly pretty, or well-thought out, but the shape of the whatever-it-is at play is easy to read, as these things go, and that makes it straightforward to leverage to her purposes. That is, getting out of here right this instant.

None of her spells are built for shoving open this tear in just the right sort of way, but she does not technically speaking need them. If she drops her available spells and the protective shields that are woven with them, she can get at the untidy, unstable, and very much alive magic moving through her, and have just a whisper of it rip at the whatever-it-is just enough, bring in the smallest instability so that she could step through and out -

- And then a woman in brightly colored and foreign clothes is shunted through the glowing archway in a tumble. She hits the ground in a graceless heap, takes a half second to verify that she did it that she's out, and then promptly starts giggling like a madwoman.

Tylendel doesn't think that's what Gates are supposed to do at all! Did he do the wrong spell, oh no, and he reaches for Gala–

Which is, unfortunately, all the distraction the wyrsa need. 

Vanyel is fully in Tylendel's mind and he feels Gala die, feels the second void ripped out of his lifebonded's soul - he's no longer aware at all of the woman laughing maniacally on the ground just feet away from them. He tries to scream but the Gate is still up, somehow, draining from him, and all he manages in a whimper. 

"Go," Tylendel is yelling, "go go go–"

Vanyel isn't moving, and the wyrsa are still there outside the cottage, they don't have time. So Tylendel blots out the baffling woman from his awareness, he has no space for it, maybe she's just a hallucination anyway. He hauls Vanyel up by his tunic and drags him to the Gate and shoves him through. 

Falling through darkness - 

When Vanyel opens his eyes, he's sprawled on the other side of the Gate. He feels Tylendel, but faintly, as though from a great distance, even though he can see his lover right there on the other side of the Gate, dragging himself slowly and heavily to his feet. 

Too late, Vanyel realizes with blinding, awful clarity that 'Lendel has no intention of following him through the Gate. He stands with his back to it, as though he's already forgotten it - and the woman is a note of confusion but Tylendel has forgotten her too, his mind has no room for anything but rage. 

Tylendel forms one last intention, and raises his hands to carry it out. 

From her heap on the ground, still cackling, because schooling her reaction requires attention she does not have, Vetareh ruthlessly tries to figure out what's going on. Enemy creatures outside, obviously malicious by the shape of their minds, the wrongness of their souls, and the grating monstrous noises they keep making. Allies (?) of temporary convenience inside here with her, the stabilizing magic doorway blocking the main entrance. The walls of the place look sturdy enough for an emergency, but that hole in the wall does not, and the creatures outside kept busy from finding it by -

- someone that just died.

"Shit," she hisses, in a foreign tongue no one but her will understand. She's suddenly glad she had to release her spells to escape through the magic doorway. She shoves all but one back into place, and in its spot goes her Signet of Resurrection. Her shields and spells and the very important resurrection ability that will get the three squishies their martial defender back begin to settle into place, but that takes time. She's still laughing, half from the terror and thrill, and half from the absurdity of it all. Of course she had to land in a crisis. Of course. Why didn't she expect this?

She notes when the person being used as a door-conduit is shoved through it, and she vaguely hopes they'll be conscientious enough to not close the damn thing in her face before her spells are back and she's of more use than decoration.

Except then the other one doesn't follow, and raises his arms to cast - what the fuck is that, absolutely not!

With barely settled spells and a bubbling panic, she interrupts whatever insane suicide-explosion spell he was in the middle of making. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she notes that he was about to kill them both. Rude. Also stupid, with a method of escape right there. Literally right there! The woman lunges forward to tackle the idiot through the portal. Through the almighty power of momentum, he goes through, and she doesn't. She drops her scepter and reaches with shaking hands to draw the symbol of the Signet of Resurrection, because she feels responsible, okay. This magic portal was already unstable, but it's not like she didn't make it more so, and it's a crisis. You take your damn allies where you can get them and you defend them to the death and beyond, and then you bring them back when they die because you distracted them. That's just being responsible.

The Signet is made, and power flows out of her and to Gala outside. At her corpse, there's a beam of light and a repair of the body and the snatch of a soul, Get back in here, you're not done yet, and brilliant restoration to perfect health. It's impossibly fast. A Resurrection Signet is meant for emergencies, it's built to be fast.

Tylendel falls with a muffled cry, more of confusion than pain, and lands squarely on top of Vanyel. 

Who does not have much in the way of consciousness left, right now. 

Gala lies still for about a second and a half. She's so confused. Just a few seconds ago one of the wyrsa was at her throat, she remembers feeling its teeth rip out her jugular - she remembers bleeding, remembers dying, but she's definitely here, now, alive. 

Some wyrsa are trying to eat her. Not acceptable. Gala scrambles up and snarls at them, nipping, which gets them off her for about another half-second. 

- where's Tylendel - 

Not here. And she recognizes the glow of a completed Gate. The wyrsa are going to realize very soon what's going on...

She darts around the cottage and backs up to get a running start and then - possibly cheating just a teensy bit with Companion-magic - clears the half-crumbled wall easily. 

Who's that–

Gala, carrying too much momentum to react in time, bowls the strange woman over on her leap through the Gate, which she at least manages to time so she clears Vanyel and Tylendel's sprawled forms and lands with all four hooves bunched on the other side, catches herself, canters to a stop. 

:Tylendel, are you–:

Her Chosen doesn't seem very all right at all, but at least he's conscious. Vanyel isn't. 

Vetareh has just long enough to pick her scepter back up and cast two hostile magic spells at the monsters outside to try and buy the now living martial ally time and space. She doesn't feel quite ready to run until everybody is through. Then she realizes that the resurrected person is, uh, some kind of large terrifying quadruped leaping through the hole in the wall, which she was not expecting by the magical-person signature. This thought is interrupted by how she's bowled over and tumbles through the Gate for the second time in the past ten minutes, hissing swears and at least one god's name.

Okay, her martial ally (?) is a giant sapient quadruped. That's. A thing. Irrelevant to her mission, put that aside. Is the suicide-mage going to close the Gate? Actually, no, she doesn't trust the suicide-mage to boil water. He just tried to blow them both up and anyone nearby besides. But the Gate needs to be closed, because it's killing the person-conduit, and it's probably not even possible to close this thing safely anymore. Probably. And if she waits longer it'll just get more unstable and closer to killing him, and the mistake that landed her in her fate worse than death was hesitation at a crisis. Hovering in indecision looking for a perfect solution instead of going for any solution. She doesn't want to make that mistake again.

"I am really very sorry about this," she apologizes from the dirt, wincing. Poor person-conduit. This won't be pretty. She somehow kept hold of her scepter, so it's almost easy to reach out with her hex-breaking spell and - sorry - snap the tether and close the Gate.

Vanyel, jolted up from unconsciousness, screams and writhes on the ground in agony as the Gate-energies, not properly grounded, crash down through him as the shortest path to earth. He runs out of breath, keeps trying to scream anyway, and then mercifully passes out again. 

What, what what what what– 

Tylendel rolls off his lifebonded and tries to hold him still and stop him from hurting himself. "Van, hey, Van, ashke, it's all right..." 

:Gala?: 

:I don't know what happened either, Chosen: Her mindvoice is shaky, but mostly relieved. :Is Van...?: 

:Dunno: Tylendel lifts his head and fixes an accusingly glare at the probably-not-hallucinatory stranger. "What. Did you do to him - what did you do to me...?" 

Naturally, she doesn't understand a word he says. She can tell he's mad at her, though. Well, tough, kiddo.

She raises her eyebrows at him, points at the suicide-mage, and mimes an explosion. You tried to blow yourself up. Then she taps her chest and slices through the air with her fingers. I stopped you. Then she looks at Gala, taps her chest again, and motions to the terrifying quadruped. And I brought her back.

You're fucking welcome, says her sour expression. She mutters a word in her foreign language. ("Teenagers.") He was about to commit explosion suicide and kill them both, he doesn't get to yell at her about how she improperly closed the magic thing!

Oh, great, she doesn't understand him and he doesn't recognize that language at all. Tylendel doesn't have the energy to glare any longer so instead he tries to pull Vanyel into his arms. "Van, wake up, please..." The adrenaline crash is hitting him now and he's definitely about to start crying. 

- aaaaaand yep now he's crying. 

:Do you understand this?: Gala tries to the stranger. 

It's hard to reach the stranger through her strange shields, and there's a pause while she inspects the attempted mind-link for hostile intentions. Then a longer pause as she figures out how to disentangle concepts that can be translated with mind magic, and how to send some back. If she weren't a mesmer, this might be flat out impossible. Since she is a mesmer, and a brilliant one at that, it's just tricky and fiddly and strange.

Then:

:Yes hi I do, sorry about breaking the door-thing,: and then she rapid-fire sends her assessment/self defense that it was the best thing to do in an emergency. The creatures were going to find where the terrifying quadruped went through, the door-thing was killing someone, it started unstable and was getting worse and she did not trust suicide-mage to have the presence of mind or knowledge to disentangle that mess, and if she'd waited it would only be worse. :But I am nonetheless very sorry about that.:

Gala has to spend thirty seconds orienting to all of that, it's massively confusing, and then she bows her head. :No, thank you. We owe you our lives. Do you have Healing, how did you - me...?: 

:Yep, you're welcome. I used a Resurrection Signet.:

After that is a packet of information about what a Resurrection Signet is. In summary, old and powerful magic granted by the gods, approximately powered by a mix of some nonessential parts of the caster's soul and some magical power stored for precisely this purpose. She can't do it again anytime soon, her soul/power source needs to regenerate.

:I'm not a healer, sorry.:

She's vaguely trying to think of whether any of her necromancer abilities might be able to help the poor boy currently suffering over there, but... probably not. She'd definitely need a corpse, and it's not even clear how someone would heal that. He looks fine, physically, which is about all necromancy could feasibly help with. Besides, she's really not much of a necromancer at all.

Gala is just going to leave the necromancy thought-snippet alone because she has no idea what to do with that. 

There are more hoofbeats, blending with a sudden roll of thunder, and then a map leaps down from the back of a different terrifying quadruped. "What's going on– Tylendel? What are you - where's Savil?" 

Tylendel just stares at Jaysen, eyes glazed in shock. 

"Oh, blast it, let me have a look at him." The man folds himself down to the ground and reaches for Van's forehead. "- Hellfires! What happened to him?" 

Another roll of thunder. It starts raining. 

Jaysen lifts his head and fixes his pale eyes on the strange woman. "And who are you?" 

The strange woman stands, grinning, then gives a graceful bow that's downright courtly. Her clothes are a brilliant teal fading into deep violet, of an extremely expensive and foreign (and, uh, quite revealing) make. She holds some kind of golden scepter with a jewel on the end, and she is very, very magic. She's also extremely pretty, almost unnaturally so, with copper red hair twisted up in a complicated bun. Flaws and makeup are for people that don't have illusions, and she does. There is no reason at all for her to not use them for vanity.

She says something wry in her foreign tongue ("I really think I'm not the person you should be talking to, here."), gesturing with a thumb to Gala. Then she looks up at the rain and laughs. Oh, she did it, she's out, she's out, she's free free free and she's so happy she could cry, but that would be inconvenient so instead she's going to twirl and giggle. She's going to be a sobbing wreck when reality catches up to her, but for now the high of adrenaline and untangling a mess is delightful.

Jaysen is giving her a concerned look, but then he shakes his head and bends to scoop up Vanyel, while his Companion briefly convenes with Gala. 

:We're taking Van inside and he needs a Healer: Gala says to her. :Do, um - do you need a Healer? How did you end up on top of us, anyway?: 

It's now raining in earnest. More thunder rolls. 

:No, I'm (physically) fine, thank you.:

Then Gala asks the second question and. That one is hard to answer while twirling, and especially while laughing. She stops both, sort of freezing like an animal catching the scent of a hunter. Damn, what a reasonable question to ask, and how incredibly difficult for her to answer.

There's a pause and a gathering of composure, the feeling of the woman carefully stepping around a large and terrifying beast, but the beast is within her and made from her. But yes, this deserves an answer, and she will give it. Even if it's hard. Then:

:I was stranded between worlds. I used your magic-door to get out.: And then she's moving on from the monster of emotions as quickly as she possibly can, before she sinks to the ground to start sobbing or something, continuing (almost) brightly with, :Thank you kindly for that, it was very convenient and I'm terribly sorry about probably making it more unstable with my entrance. In my defense -: and there's a pause, because her first answer is something like 'I think I suffered enough there, thanks,' partially sent and then cut off because no trauma, not yet, followed by, :I think I made myself quite useful anyway!:

She does not seem entirely fine. 

:Well, do you need a room to stay while you find your footing?: Gala offers. :I'm sorry, we can't give you much of a welcome, given - all this - but we should get you out of the rain at least: 

Oh, she is absolutely not fine, and will not pretend anything else! But she will be functional until she's neatly tucked out of the way so she can fall to pieces where it won't cause any trouble. Speaking of!

:A room would be lovely. Also a pitcher of water, food that will easily withstand being ignored for a while, and privacy for a couple of hours so I can, uh.: She can't quite put it to words. She's not okay, this is obvious to anyone with a brain, yes? She needs to go be not okay for a while and would like to please be alone for that.

Outwardly, she has the slightest of smiles on her face. As she stands like a statue in the pouring rain. Looking at the terrifying quadruped.

:We'll get you a guest room: 

It takes Gala a few minutes of reaching for other Companions, since Jaysen is now striding off with Vanyel in his arms and Tylendel hovering next to him. Eventually a grey-haired man comes out and leads her down a path to an old-looking stone building, and into it, and then shows her a guest-room. It has a bed with an extra wool blanket folded up at the foot, and a small writing desk and a chamber-pot and an unlit candle on the bedside table.

"Someone will be right over with food and water," the man says, gruffly but not unkindly. "Need anything else?" 

:Thank you very much.:

She waits patiently, eyes closed and head upturned towards the sky, enjoying the novelty of being rained on. It's better than the endless tireless walking she'd been doing before, and her clothing's magical shielding is keeping her warm enough. When the man shows up she smiles pleasantly at him and is obligingly led to her guest-room.

When he speaks, she tilts her head and makes an apologetic expression, then says something in her foreign language. ("Did not get any less foreign in the past ten minutes, apologies. Please go away so I can cry now.") She shakes her head and gives a little courtly bow to say Thank you, because he seems like he's trying to be helpful, and really she just wants him to go away. Please go away. That would be great.

:Sorry, people are overwhelmed and keep forgetting: Gala is outside the window of her guest room. :He said food's coming soon. After that we'll let you rest: And she disappears off into the rain, catching up with her Chosen. 

Food and a jug of water arrive with a servant a minute or so later; the woman shows no particular surprise at either Vetareh's appearance or her lack of response, just sets the tray down and bows and leaves the room again. 

And then everything is quiet, except for the rain and thunder outside. 

:It's fine, I understand.: And she does. She's irritated and frazzled and just about out of ability to cope now that there isn't a crisis to hold her together, but that's hardly their problem. It's not fair to take it out on them when they're obviously scrambling after dealing with, uh, whatever it is that she landed on. Especially not when they're doing their best to help her.

She spends the interim investigating her guest room, and thanks the servant with another little bow. The food and water go on the desk where she can easily find them. Then she carefully closes the curtains, locks the door, bundles herself in the woolen blanket, and promptly collapses in bed to freak out.

There will be a lot of crying. She doesn't know how long she held herself together with willpower and practicality and spite, but it was far too long. The relief of it being over is in many ways worse than the moment to moment experience of being trapped in a fate worse than death. All of it was real. She's stranded somewhere very strange with terrifying sapient quadrupeds who talk with their minds. She's so, so far away from home, and getting back was always, always going to be impossible. It just seems so much more so now that she's not in a place that could conceivably get there. Maybe she can't even find her way to Grenth and the Underworld that holds her family's departed souls. Maybe she's just stranded in a new and exciting place, forever. It's an improvement, but maybe not as much of one as she'd like.

A lot of crying occurs. There's also some variety, such as impatiently pacing her guest-room, praying to Grenth to please, please, please find her when she dies, please, she doesn't want her parents to keep not knowing where their daughter's soul is forever, some hand wringing and hair rending, and other assorted dramatic coping mechanisms. She's not okay, she's extremely not okay, but at least she has space to fall apart, which is always the first step of putting oneself back together. It's more than she had before.

When she's properly exhausted herself, she sits down at the desk and miserably drinks a lot of water, then mechanically eats through the now extremely cold and probably stale food. She's not particularly hungry, but who cares. Bodies are made of meat and lies, she will eat something and she doesn't have to like it, but she does have to do it.

Then she sees about picking up her many pieces to put herself back together. Okay. First step is to wash her face and lounge on the bed looking at the ceiling and contemplating her next move. Hm. Well, taking a vacation sounds awful, she wants interesting problems to solve and valuable things to do, long term. Short term, though... She thinks she'd like to drop her previous set of spells and swap out for something else, because she thinks more options are better than her current high level of specialization against magic. The resurrection signet is used up and essentially wasted space, anyway. It's easier to think when she has her entire library of options available to her, when she reminds herself of all of the things she knows and can do. It's easier to feel safe when half of her proverbial magical being isn't devoted to self defense on every known axis. Ironically, she's much less safe this way, but no one ever said feelings were logical.

And that is how the strange woman's stranger shields and brilliant magical signature abruptly cut out without any kind of warning while she sits on the bed and writes notes to herself in floating illusions. Her mind and emotions are laid bare. Mostly she's tired. A little scared, but in an unflappable 'My standards are underground, and it can only be up from here,' kind of way. Enraptured by the problem before her of what spells does she even bring when she's in a strange place she knows nothing about and doesn't even speak the language.

Vanyel sleeps, restlessly, drifting in the shallows somewhere below the distant agonizing pain in his head and in other places that didn't used to exist. 

Tylendel sits huddled by his bedside, holding his hand, rocking silently. 

- tired, scared, but unflappable - nowhere but up from here -

...what is that? Drifting half in a dream, Vanyel reaches for the thoughts that aren't his–

–and wakes up screaming, his head suddenly full of molten-magma agony as he accidentally projects a current of painscaredpanicpanicpanic at the unguarded mind he was unwittingly just trying to read. 

Vetareh falls off of the bed with a half bitten off shriek, flailing in panic that isn't hers. Mental attack, emotional axis, shove spells back into place to get shields back up, any will be better than none. She reaches for the most familiar ones. Those'll do. Her shields coming back up takes time, though, and she spends the interim shivering in a heap on the floor, panicpanicpanic running through her mind and being quite irritating. And then her defenses reform around her and she takes a deep breath and stands up.

So, that was unpleasant.

Where was her attacker? Who was her attacker? Was someone just hovering outside her guest-room waiting to swoop in and, what, cause her uncomfortable but ultimately harmless panic? That doesn't make sense. It would if there were two people attacking her and one wanted an opening, but she would have noticed if people were hanging around outside, planning to menace her. What? She disentangles herself from her heap, then stands and unlocks the door with minimally shaking hands. Cautiously, she peeks outside. Uh, is the place under attack...? No, it. It seems fine. What?

"Van - VanVanVan it's all right wake up you're all right–"

Vanyel is still screaming and convulsing on the bed, oblivious to his surroundings. 

And a white horse gallops across the grounds, compelled by a Call that she couldn't quite pin down until now. 

Gala spends ten seconds trying to reassure and ground her panicking Chosen, and then - deal with the rest, he's probably not the only one panicking right now...

:Are you all right?: she asks Veterah. :I'm really sorry about that. He didn't mean to: 

Vetareh isn't precisely panicking, but she is certainly on high alert, looking for some kind of murderous creature to jump out of the bushes to attempt to maim her.

:No harm done,: which is not the same as all right, but she'd never claimed to be that, okay. What follows is a business-like rapid fire of questions, demanded with a sharpness she'll probably feel a bit bad about later. :Who didn't mean to? That was an accident? That is a terrifying amount of power for an accident, why isn't that happening behind safety shields??"

:Vanyel. We're trying to get shields on him now - he wasn't Gifted before this! We don't know how it happened! - oh, Yfandes thinks it was probably the Gate coming down on him: 

:The? Oh. My fault.: She didn't quite mean to send those next two words, but they sure did get sent, didn't they. Whatever, wallowing in failure is unbecoming and also completely pointless. The rush of guilt and and apologies and defensive arguments are shoved aside in favor of more important things. :Can I help?:

:I don't know–:

Pause. 

:Yfandes wants to know what your capabilities are. You - seem to have different Gifts than what we've seen before: 

:I'm a mesmer -: and then she sends an efficient information packet of what that means. She is an archetype of minds/illusions/concepts, delicate and weird even as delicate and weird casters go, all ephemeral concepts and mind games instead of something more tangible. :I specialize in/am a professor of meta-magic and the interactions between different types of magic, and (back home) I excel at quickly understanding novel magical phenomenon and subverting it when it gets dangerous/deadly.: 'Spellbreaker' is the unique title that His Majesty, King Reza of Orr, gave her, and she's still more than a little proud of having earned it. :I expect I can at least help you understand what's going on.:

Gala is silent for a moment, absorbing the shock of just how weird all of that is. It's kind of bouncing off; it's been a long day and now it's halfway through the night and she's exhausted and overwhelmed and stressed and terrified for her Chosen and his lifebonded. 

A different mind reaches out to answer. :...Can you please? We're - this is really overwhelming and different, we've never seen someone have their Gifts ripped open like this, and I can't even talk to him without hurting him: 

:Absolutely, where is he/where do you need me?: There's an edge of self-recrimination to her mind, at not having picked up that the crisis wasn't actually over, at not having figured out that her skills were useful the minute they could be leveraged. But frankly, she's too damn tired for hand-wringing. There is a problem in front of her, she will help fix it, it's who she is and what she does and it doesn't need to be any more than that.

A nonverbal burst of information conveys the route to Savil's suite, and a flashed image of a glazed door opening onto a garden patio. :He's in Savil's suite, here: 

Vetareh walks as quickly as is feasible without tiring herself out. On the way, she checks to see if the new terrifying quadruped she's talking to is aware of all of the lead up to this situation. :I might very well have the best idea of just what happened in that whole mess, where do our knowledge bases not match up?:

:Um, so - my understanding is that Vanyel and Tylendel - er, the one you stopped from Final Striking - were in a bad spot out there, under attack, and Tylendel was attempting a Gate using Van's life-force to help power it, and then you - arrived through it somehow, before it was even complete?: She is so baffled about that but lets it slide for now. :And then Gala died - 'Lendel, er, took it very badly and was about to do something idiotic - you stopped him, gods, thank you, we owe you so much...: 

She shakes herself. :And then you brought Gala back: also impossible but in the past, not the present emergency, so deal with it later, :and you all got through, and - you saw the Gate was draining Van and took it down? Which may be what ripped open all his potential Gifts. And...then something happened, I'm not sure what, and he tried to project at you, which is the point at which my Call firmed up and I am about to goddamned Choose my Chosen if someone will. Bring. Him. The hells. Outside: 

:I will bring him the hells outside for you,: sends Vetareh, firmly. She likes this terrifying quadruped immediately and rather intensely; she feels they are kindred spirits in this mess. She has no idea what a Chosen is or what Choosing is, but it's clearly important so she's just going to go with it. :All of that's correct, good.: There's some nuance missing, like how there's (? some kind of mind/magical connection?) between suicide-mage Tylendel and Vanyel. But none of that was wrong, which is the very important part.

She reaches the door, stepping around the terrifying quadruped with a small pat on the neck and another reaffirmation of her intentions to get him the hells outside, and then inside she goes.

Vanyel is now awake and sobbing in Tylendel's arms. 

Poor thing. She's very sorry about all of this.

"Vanyel, Tylendel," she says, because while she doesn't speak the language she does know their names, and then she motions with her head out of the door she stands on the threshold of.

And meanwhile, she sends Yfandes her assessment of just what is going on here. Vanyel's (? magic paths? archetype? limbs-of-magic?) look injured and like they're (the magical equivalent of bleeding, maybe?). Energy that the boy doesn't have much control over is flowing out of the injured ?pathways? by his whim, which is causing general mayhem, because wow this kid's magic is (? unprototyped? almost directionless? containing frankly way too many options that she doesn't even know what to do with, for sure!).

Then, there's whether she could do anything. There is absolutely nothing she can do about the injured ?pathways?, she's not a healer and wouldn't even know how to begin to heal that. Mitigating damage, though, that she can probably do. The obvious first idea is to magically exhaust him so he has no power to push out of the ?pathways?, but that's a temporary and imperfect solution. He can still magically thrash about with scraps of power, and it'd still hurt him. It'd be safer for everyone around him, but he'd probably be suffering just as much. Shielded room would be better. The next idea is trickier to implement, but a bit more promising. She could temporarily disrupt the (connection/pathway-to-the-pathway) that lets him touch his ?pathways?. It'll give him less ability to hurt himself, at least, which would likely be a mercy.

Vetareh doesn't have the spells available to do it right now, though. The ones she has at her disposal are (for the most part) too sharp, too full of teeth. Meant to ultimately stop and then kill something. Not likely to help in this situation. She'll need to switch, which will involve her being defenseless and available to be magicked at. That'll probably suck. She'll still do it, obviously, but she should wait to do it until after she's shielded or has a healer on standby or something, rushing off to just do the thing immediately would be dumb.

:Huh, you think you can...block his Gifts? That's probably the best thing we can do for him right now, actually, we just - don't have a way to do it that's not permanent: 

Tylendel looks confusedly at the woman, but eventually, with prompting from Gala as well, tries to haul Vanyel out of bed. 

Vanyel is deadweight and not helping with this process at all. 

Vetareh can help with this process of getting Vanyel the hells outside! She even said she would. Hup, Vanyel, you're going on an adventure. It's such a shame the martial specialists here are all apparently quadrupeds, this is definitely the kind of heavy lifting usually reserved for people that hit things for a living. Squishy caster brigade, go!

:I don't think I can perfectly block his Gifts, actually. The solution I'm thinking of lasts about five seconds. I just can cast it over and over and over: With pauses in between, which she'll cut back as much as possible with a trick she learned from her mother, but still. It's better than nothing at all, she thinks. :There's a spell that works longer, and I'd use that if he were a bit more directed in his power. But he has so many directions he can magically go that I don't think it'd even stop him. Can you get me shielded/protected/have a healer on standby if I get fried by this kid's pyrokinetics or something? I need to swap spells:

Vanyel is now clinging to Yfandes' neck. And shivering. It's still raining hard. 

:Help get him up on my back? We should, um, let me think - we should bring him to a Work Room, except I won't fit inside, goddamn it. We'll bring him to the stables and I'll put my shields on him and Kilchas is on his way, he can take you to a Work Room where you'll be shielded from him while you do your thing: 

:Sounds like a plan:

Squishy caster brigade, round two! Get Vanyel onto the quadruped's back! And presumably keep him there, since he doesn't look up to keeping his balance or reliably holding on by himself.

Tylendel will help keep him on from the other side, but he's swaying and stumbling with exhaustion, so it seems wise for Vetareh to stay close. 

The grey-haired man who brought her to her guest room before meets them outside the stables. :I'm sorry, apparently you don't speak our language: he says to her, this time in Mindspeech. :You need shields?: 

Yeah, Vetareh will babysit Vanyel to make sure he doesn't fall off of his quadruped.

:Yes, please: she replies, and even her magic feels foreign and strange. Her replies are coming in little efficient concept-packages more than a proper mindlink where he actually touches her mind. :I have a temporary fix for Vanyel, to separate his Gifts from his ability to touch them, but I need a safe place to acquire the tools to implement it, and it's not a long term solution. At all.: She then sends a concept-package of what her solution will entail; she'll need to be touching Vanyel, and she'll only partially be able to keep him cut off with extended attention and doing a boring spell over and over and over again like the stubborn madwoman that she really is. He'll average being cut off about nine seconds out of ten, maybe. And only while Vetareh is awake and has the patience to do a very boring thing for what is almost certainly going to be hours at best. Interestingly, energy doesn't seem to factor into her considerations of whether or not she could keep doing this.

:So ultimately I think he needs (a shielded place where he can be with his terrifying/lovely quadruped), and someone that can actually heal his Gifts. Because I can't. Separately he also needs control:

:Fascinating: He starts directing her down another path. :I suppose we should put him in a Work Room, but his Companion wants to be with him, understandably, so I think we'll have to embiggen the door on one of them. I can do that with magic and I guess I'd better go ahead and do it even though it's the middle of the goddamned night: 

She obligingly follows him.

:Yes, please. Thanks: Then she sends a general feeling of camaraderie, of how this is absolutely going to suck for every single person involved, and that she sincerely wishes him (strength/tenacity/being-like-this-god-of-fire-and-war, well known for being the most stubborn bastard her world has ever seen) in his efforts. Yep, middle of the goddamned night, it's raining, she literally just got here, let's go punch the problem's goddamn face in. Proverbially. Keep people safe and not screaming in agony, in practice.

Kilchas slaps her lightly on the shoulder. :I like you already. Here we are: He stops in front of a stone wall and unlocks a heavy wooden door. :This is my Work Room. It's very well shielded, he won't be able to do anything to you in there. Need a candle or anything?: 

She beams at him.

:No, I’m all right, thanks. Go kick some (proverbial) ass:

In she goes! She has a plan for the spells she wants, or at least about half of one. When the door’s closed and she’s properly shielded, she releases her current set of spells and gets to picking a new one. It doesn’t take long, and neither does everything getting settled again.

Back to the stables! In the rain, which has by this point lost just about all of its novelty!

Vanyel is curled up against his Companion, moaning quietly in pain but fairly calm. 

Tylendel is holding Vanyel's hand. He's obviously been crying. He feels terrible about everything and Vanyel is in pain, which is awful, and he can't fix it, and he nearly killed himself and his mind is screaming and flinching away from what that would've done to Vanyel. Gala is trying to comfort him but she's fairly shaken herself and she's not currently very comforting. 

:I'm shielding him: Yfandes informs Vetareh. :He's miserable but as long as it's dark and quiet and no one startles him, he's not too out of control. What's the plan?: 

:I need to be touching him and my imperfect (and very boring/annoying/unpleasant) solution will only last while I’m awake and keeping on top of it. (Visual of Kilchas) is using the time to get a Work Room a door big enough for you, that’s a less kind-to-him but more ultimately stable solution. Nothing for directly healing it, yet. I’m not going to be able to mind-talk while doing this, questions before I start? I can be flagged down to stop at any time, just. Not an idiot that doesn’t tell people what the consequences of her actions are:

She slides carefully next to Vanyel to gently take one of his hands. This will do for physical contact. Now it’s just waiting for an okay from the quadruped.

:Any idea what it'll feel like to him? We should try to tell him what's happening, so he doesn't panic about it. Unfortunately I can't Mindspeak him without hurting his channels, everything's all torn up in his head and he's in a lot of pain: 

She sends precisely what he’ll be feeling, if nothing weird with foreign magic is going on. She knows, because this spell works by doing the thing to herself, and then sympathy impressing it upon someone else. To all of his physical senses, he will feel completely fine. To the magical ones, he’ll feel kind of like he’s kind of bundled in a big cumbersome blanket and unable to move or sense or feel anything but being very hugged/smothered depending on how he takes it. He will be able to feel his energy reserves being present, but not use them for anything. If they’re lucky he might just not be able to feel his channels at all, but it’s hard to say without trying it, and she doesn’t want to bet on it.

There’s probably no way to tell him what this thing is without making it worse. :Sorry: she adds.

:All right. I don't think that's going to scare him any more than what's already going on, and I'll try to reassure him if it does: Yfandes tells Gala so this can be passed on to Tylendel. :You can go ahead: 

There’s some setup, first, the casting of two spells in a specific order so she can copy and cast the main magic cutoff spell multiple times in a row, but then -

She casts Blackout. Together, the both of them are temporarily cut off from magic. To Vanyel, it feels like his channels and the pain associated with them abruptly disappear, along with all of his strange new magic senses. To Vetareh, it feels much the same, but there’s no loss of agonizing pain to go with it. She makes a bit of a face.

...Wow. That's incredible. For a minute all Vanyel can do is lie there, basking in not-being-in-pain. 

"...Mmmwhassat?" he manages finally. 

Tylendel murmurs a not very coherent explanation of what Vetareh is doing. 

"Oh." Vanyel squeezes Tylendel's hand. Blinks. "Mm'so tired..." 

"I know. You got hurt bad. Shh, it's all right, I'm here. You can just sleep." 

"Wh'happened?" 

Tylendel brushes the hair back from Vanyel's clammy forehead. "Lots of things. You got Gifts and you got Chosen and you mustn't do any magic because you're hurt. But she's here to help us. You can just rest." 

None of that makes any sense, but Vanyel is too bleary to care. He settles himself more comfortably against the warm soft body next to him - his Companion, confusion, awe, too much to absorb - and he flees all of it and tries to sink into sleep. 

He’s going to have a hard time of that, because Vetareh cannot actually keep this up forever. Nine seconds out of ten, averaging out, but spells don’t last forever. Even copied twice over, she cannot actually just chain cast this forever. There were always going to be gaps in coverage.

“Heads up,” murmurs Vetareh in her foreign language, wincing. The lack of pain abruptly cuts out, and Vanyel gets to feel agony again.

For about three seconds. Then she gets the complicated chain of spells off, and the pain disappears again.

Ack. Vanyel whimpers and clings to Tylendel, his other hand clenching around Vetareh's fingers hard enough to hurt, and then when it cuts it again he relaxes.

The second gap-in-coverage startles him enough that he projects a bit, or tries to; he doesn't get past Yfandes' shields but she does grunt with the sudden strain of shielding him. 

This is so awful! It's less awful, nine-tenths less awful to be precise, but Vanyel is still intermittently suffering and Tylendel feels so bad. He feels like this is somehow entirely his fault. 

Vetareh thinks it’s like nine tenths his fault, mostly on account of how he tried to solve a problem with explosive suicide and she holds a grudge. She thinks that things would have been much worse if she hadn’t been there. But then, maybe Gala wouldn’t have died, without Vetareh to be distracting, and the three of them would have just gone through the Gate without a care in the world. Or maybe not. She has no way of knowing.

She warns whenever the chain of Blackouts are going to cut off, with a short phrase that quickly gets worn to a monotone. There’s a pattern to it, but it’s one of those quirky overlap of three different mathematical patterns that aren’t immediately obvious upon viewing. But if you sit there and get to feel it each and every time, well.

This was always, always going to suck. It’s also very, very boring.

It sucks a lot less than it did before! Whatever she's doing feels oddly comforting, in addition to blocking the pain, it's like being swaddled tightly and hugged except metaphorically. Vanyel is getting in some moments of rest where he's not in horrible pain and can, very slowly, think through what he knows of his situation. And sneak in some micro-naps. He's so tired. 

A long time later, when it's just a candlemark or two until dawn, Herald Kilchas shows up again. :Work Room's ready for him. Healers want to look at him first, decide if he's strong enough to handle some pain-drugs now, he was too deeply in shock before: 

Another woman is standing behind the Herald. She smiles tightly at Vetareh. 

Vetareh does not get to take any micro-naps. She gets to sit here holding this person’s hand, juggling three spells in a chain over and over and over again until she starts to miss the novelty of the Mists. Not very seriously, but still. So boring. So, so, so boring. She hates it so much. So unspeakably much. Physical torture might actually be preferable. She can’t even make conversation with anyone, or do puzzles in illusions, because all of her magic is smothered and she hates it.

She keeps it up, though. She can probably hold out until the guy who’s fixing the Work Room is done, at least. Then she will be so allowed to sleep. So, so, so allowed. Also she’ll have so many fucking bragging rights, these people don’t even know, she’s going to be so insufferable that they’ll all hate her, except for the part how she’s aggressively amazing at her job. A complicated mix of adoration and loathing. Yes, that sounds fun.

When Kilchas and his friend in green show up, Vetareh perks up quite a bit. She gives Vanyel the long-familiar foreign warning, and then releases his hand and sits up to look at Kilchas and lady friend. She gives a tired smile right back. Yep, that sucked so much. At least she can talk now.

:Sweet, blessed servant of Dwayna’s mercy, thank you. ... but I should keep him covered while we move him. Testing painkillers should be in the Work Room, for safety. I also can’t talk while cutting him off, it cuts off my magic too:

Gemma nods briskly. Turns to someone behind her. :All right, Shavri, give me a hand getting him up?: 

A young girl who looks maaaaaybe twelve or thirteen, with a cascade of dark ringlets trying to escape her hair-tie, slips forward and smiles brightly at Vanyel and Tylendel. "We need you to get on Yfandes again to go somewhere else. It's not very far." 

Mrrghhh owww okay he can do this. He is definitely capable of standing up. ...Maybe with lots of help. Ow ow ow ow. 

Yfandes kneels so Vanyel can more easily be helped onto her back, and then prompts Shavri and Tylendel to each take a side and help him stay on. Gala, in the adjacent stall since this one has no room for her, ambles after them. 

:Thank you SO much for this: Gemma tells Vetareh, emphatically. :It did him good, he's in better shape than he was when I first saw him - the pain was keeping him shocky, he really needed the break from it. You're a miracle worker: 

Vetareh steps over to take Vanyel’s hand and do the damnable, awful, boring, despicable, and overall detestable Blackout spell chain. Because there’s really no reason not to, her vigil is almost fucking over. No reason to fall apart when she can see the end in sight.

She smiles tiredly at lady-in-green, and gives a little nod. Catching all of those foreign concepts without her magic to do it for her is, uh, hard. But she got the gist of it. Probably.

Yfandes conveys them to the newly-modified Work Room, where Kilchas has carefully knocked out several rows of stones both above and on either side of the previous door and then doorframed the new door, which is a very rough installation of boards nailed together but will keep out the elements. 

There's a fold-out cot inside the bare stone room, and Vanyel can be helped down and deposited there. Yfandes indicates to Vetareh that she can stop magic-blocking him now. 

Yesssssss freedom yessssssssssssss. She’s so relieved she might cry. ... like, actually cry. Uh. Hm.

:Yes hello for my fantastic feats of brilliance and also magic, I would like payment of a very particular kind. Somebody fucking hug me that sucked so much. I may or may not cry on the hugger, no promises:

Shavri will totally give her a hug! 

Shavri is performing a very important service and she is getting so so hugged. So hugged. Just, scooped and then hugged.

Vetareh needs a minute to hug and take some long shuddering breaths, and do a little bit of crying. That sucked, that sucked, that sucked, that sucked, aaa!!! That sucked so much!! It was kind of like rehashing all of her still open and bleeding Mist-related traumas all over again, except self inflicted this time, and she doesn't even get to walk around! aaa!!!!!!! Terrible!! Worth it and she'd have regretted it if she didn't stick to it because, well, she's kind of a madwoman sometimes, but terrible!

...

Okay, okay, she's fine. Or, well. She's not, but she's going to go to bed because she is so gods-damned tired. She needs sleep. She gives the little pre-teen/teenager a final squeeze, pulls away to wipe at her eyes and pretend there were no tears at all, to speak of, and then announces:

:If you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed now. Next weird magic problem you all get to solve in-house, I'm not coming out until I'm ready unless your monarch's about to get assassinated or something. Even then, only if I like them, so I'd better get a nice gift basket:

She's kind of joking, but also kind of not. The part about the gift basket is definitely not serious, but everything else: yeah uh, actually just leave her alone this time, she is so tired. So tired. They do not even know how long her day has been. When they find out they're going to be so horrified. So, so horrified. She wants to save the surprise for later, when she's less tired, but: look forward to that, everybody. Longest day award goes to her.

:Sleep well!: Shavri says brightly. :Thank you so much!:

(Shavri does not have the best grasp of sarcasm and is already mentally planning what she's going to put in the gift basket that is definitely getting delivered to Vetareh as soon as this endless night is over and she has time to make it.) 

Vanyel obediently swallows painkillers and then tries to sleep despite the ow ow ow. 

Poor Vanyel, but plausibly he’ll have a better time of it with painkillers than mathematically-predictable-but-still-not-immediately-obvious intervals of agony. Dwayna’s kindness upon you during your recovery, you poor person-conduit, you.

Bed! Bed bed bed bed she does not literally run back to her guest room, but she does cheerfully wave and walk back there very quickly. And then she’s sleeping. She’s so tired. Dumb day, she wants another. Blegh.

Herald Savil Ashkevron would agree that his has been both the longest and the dumbest day she remembers, possibly in her entire life. 

By sunrise, though, she and her poor exhausted mage-students have cleared the forest of wyrsa, and have a drugged, thoroughly tied-up mage in captivity. Savil is pretty sure she's more powerful than Krebain, but has no desire to test it, so it's kind of a relief that he's seriously injured and the Healer on site was willing to give him extra pain drugs with the added bonus of keeping him too groggy to do magic. Oh, plus a captive Evan Leshara, but he's no threat. Anymore. Once he's prevented from using his too-convincing tongue to hire foreign mages and send them on murder and kidnapping missions. 

(Savil is filled with simmering fury. It's the only thing keeping her going at this point.) 

She's very tired, which makes Gating back not the best idea she's ever had, but staying here with their prisoner isn't the best idea either. So she leaves Tantras on site to handle the understandably freaked-out locals, and she raises a Gate back to the Heralds' Temple and practically falls through on her face. 

Mardic helps her up and, while Donni explains the situation to a worried Jaysen, they haul Savil back to her suite. 

No, her bedroom, where are Van and 'Lendel - they're not in their room... 

"They're in your Work Room. Van, er, picked up some Gifts." Jaysen purses his lips about this, faintly disapproving. "Very out of control ones." 

Then Savil is going to go collapse on her face there, with her nephew and her student. She refuses to be dissuaded from this plan. 

Once she's laid eyes on both of them, currently asleep with their Companions taking up most of the spare floorspace, it takes her about thirty seconds to pass out on the narrow strip of available stone floor. 

Today was stupid and it's technically tomorrow, now, but Savil isn't having it. Tomorrow will be after she's slept and it had goddamned better be an improvement. 

Vetareh would say hear, hear if she were listening to Savil's thoughts, and also awake. She's neither, of course. But in theory, Savil has an ally in it not being tomorrow yet, and furthermore tomorrow needing to be better, or else.

When the strange woman wakes up, she grumbles a groan in the back of her throat and takes a minute to tell morning to go away. Eventually, it continues to not go away, and she grumpily sits up. Yeah, she's not social yet. Not at all. However, she should nonetheless get food. Which is a risky proposition and might get her entangled in whatever latest clusterfuck may or may not be happening outside her guest room. Mrggh. Can she be scary enough to get people to leave her alone, even though she's new and interesting and shiny? ... Yes, absolutely. She's still at least half made out of spite. Possibly more. That makes being scary very easy. Okay then.

She drinks the rest of her water, then gets dressed, grabs her dishes, and ventures into the great outside to see about getting fed.

Outside appears to be about noon (she went to bed very late), and soggy, and still occasionally drizzling. 

A lanky teenage girl in exercise clothes is doing some sort of warm-up form exercises with a sword in the garden just outside the hall of guest rooms. She stops. Waves.

"...Do you by any chance know a Vanyel?" she asks after a moment. (The name is, of course, the only part of it that Vetareh will understand.) 

She’s immediately suspicious of this person, but. Okay. She’ll try to be helpful. She guesses. Even though she hates everything and everyone right now.

“Vanyel,” she agrees, nodding. The way she pronounces the name is strange. Then she says a short sentence in an extremely foreign language. (“I continue to be the most foreign.”)

She sure looks foreign. Lissa gamely bobs her head. "Vanyel," she says again, and mimes walking with her fingers over one palm, then makes a questioning face. 

Okay, sure, she can lead this person to Vanyel. She hooks a finger to indicate that this person should follow her, and then turns and starts walking to the Work Room.

She just failed step one of not getting involved, but. Look, she really is just here to get food.

"...Herald-Mage Savil," Lissa says faintly, when they reach the Work Room and a bleary Savil lets them in. "Van...?" 

"Lissa! Gods, girl, what are you even doing here–"

Yfandes shushes them with a mental hiss; Vanyel is currently asleep, entwined with Tylendel on the narrow cot. 

:You look like you just got out of bed and don't really want to be here: she sends privately to Vetareh. :Thanks for finding Van's sister, though - what is she doing here, sorry, not asking you. Did anyone tell you how to find the dining hall?: 

Yfandes is the best, and also her very most favorite.

:I absolutely just got out of bed and really don't want to be here: agrees Vetareh. :But you're welcome. They did not, no. Do your boys (and whoever this new lady is) need food, I will tolerate being a delivery girl in exchange for directions and a sentence in the native language telling them to feed me:

Yfandes cannot actually speak out loud in order to provide said sentence. :This is Lissa: she explains. :Dining hall is this way...: Flash of mental instructions. 

:Lissa: she adds to Vanyel's sister, :be a dear and tell this lifesaving lady how to ask for food, she's not from here: 

Lissa is so baffled on multiple levels, but she looks at Vetareh and carefully enunciates 'can I please have some breakfast'. 

:Don't worry about delivering us food: Yfandes adds to her. :I'll send Lissa for it later. I don't want to wake the boys for it, so might as well not let it get cold and stale: 

:Fair enough! Happy to have found you an opposable thumb minion, this place is set up terribly for you:

She carefully enunciates a slightly butchered version of 'can I please have some breakfast,' then repeats it to make sure she got it right. Upon confirmation that this is intelligible, she nods to herself and gives a little wave to go off to the dining hall. The mesmer hungers.

The dining hall contains some other unfamiliar people in white uniforms who stare at the oddly-dressed stranger. It also contains Herald Jaysen, who nods to her and then goes back to his previous conversation.

There's a table with tureens of food at one end and a stack of plates. A kitchen aide is standing there but it appears to be mostly self-serve. 

She gives a cheerful wave and a brilliant smile to her many onlookers. Hello, everyone, your baffled confusion is immensely cheering to this very strange woman!

Oh, well, if it's self-serve, then she didn't really need to bother with the phrase, did she. Oops. At least she has the phrase if she needs to ask for breakfast later. The kitchen aide also makes returning the plates she'd been carrying around very simple, here you go, kitchen aide, have some plates.

Then she taps the pitcher of water and tilts her head at the kitchen aide. Where does she get more water?

They smile warmly and show her where the water-pump is out back. Attempt to convey via miming that the water is safe to drink without boiling. 

That's sort of a weird concept that they're trying to mime at her, but, okay? She wasn't even going to ask that question.

She refills her pitcher of water, bringing it back over to the food acquisition area to set down on a nearby table. This done, she turns to consider the table of food and plates. Well, it might be kind of tricky to return to her guest room with as much food as she wants to eat and her pitcher of water. It'd be much easier to just eat right here, at these tables. But then someone might try to talk to her, which would be terrible. She already failed step one earlier, with Lissa. Best to take her prizes and leave, then, before anyone else can get the impression that it's okay to ask her questions right now.

Vetareh gets a plate, piles it on with quite a lot of food that needs to be carefully balanced for fear of a food avalanche, then retrieves her pitcher of water and saunters off with her prize. Bye everyone, she's going to go back to not being social. ... She could go not be social in a garden, though. Hmm. It's a bit damp, but her clothing's still keeping her warm and dry enough, and the scenery is pretty enough. Yep, eating out by herself in a pretty garden, that seems to be the way to go.

She finds herself a pretty and out of the way section of garden to have herself a picnic, sitting on the grass in her very fancy clothes and looking utterly unconcerned with getting dirt or grass stains on it.

A friendly gardener arriving to trip the rosebushes smiles at her and bids her a good morning at one point, but doesn't press when she fails to respond. No one else bothers her. 

She waves back and replies to the gardener with a very foreign good afternoon, but yes that's all the conversation she can (or wants to) manage.

Soon enough, her food's finished, and she's left with the decision of what she'd like to do next. Hmmmm. Bath? Bath. Time to see about having a bath! After returning her plates and putting her pitcher back in her guest room, she goes to the nearest person that looks like they're staff and illustrates what she would please like to have with a simple, flat illusion. Stick person with copper hair! Half-oval containing something blue! Stick person goes into the half-oval. Intelligible, yes? Where does she go to have this fabled luxury?

They are politely baffled for a bit and look impressed but not shocked by her illusion, and then nod and smile and start leading her somewhere. 'Somewhere' turns out to be what looks like a communal bathhouse. There's a big copper tank of water being heated over a fire, and it can be piped to one of a few clawfooted bathtubs, or obtained from a spigot in buckets and then poured over herself - there's a depressed area in the floor with a sort of sewer-drain where she can stand and do that. 

Nope, she's doing the bath, not the whatever-overcomplicated-thing that other thing is. She figures out how to make there be a bath soon enough, and has one. It's wonderful. She lets herself soak for much longer than necessary and she's not even a little bit sorry. Then she puts her clothes back on and pins her hair back up and refreshes her vanity illusions and generally feels more like an actual person that exists, now.

Okay! So, now does she want to be social?

... Eeeeeehhhh. Not really? But she probably should explain to some people in charge who she is, and submit to questioning or something. That's the responsible thing to do. Submitting to it early also means that she won't be ambushed by annoyed security that have had enough of her traipsing about like she owns the place without answering questions. So, okay. To, hm. The dining hall, she guesses? To try and find someone that looks like they're in charge of something?

The cheerful grey-haired man is in the dining hall now, and waves to her. :Heya! Did you get some rest?: 

Oh! She recognizes him! She sits across from him at the table, smiling a little.

:Hello! I did, yes. I'm not fully social yet, but I thought I'd submit to questioning about myself and how I do not intend to overthrow your country or kill anyone that doesn't really have it coming, or something:

He narrows his eyes at her, briefly. 

:Well, Gala and Yfandes both think you're all right, so we've been going off that. But - yes, people have some questions. Lancir wanted to speak with you - er, he's Queen's Own to Elspeth: 

:No idea what that means, but sure, I can talk to him:

She then also sends a packet-list of what would get her to kill someone in her current circumstances - mostly she's not? If someone were an uncontainable threat to (the vague impression of 'everyone') that couldn't be reasoned with or sat on, then: yep, she'd kill them, after trying other things first, probably. She was being flippant, it's how she stays sane. Ish. Sane-ish.

That's...kind of concerning...and Kilchas is perhaps going to not touch it with a ten-foot pole for now and let Lancir handle this lady, who's very lovely and helpful but also might be crazy. 

:He's second in command to our ruler: Kilchas translates for her. :Want me to take you to see him?: 

:Yes, please!:

Yeah, Vetareh thinks it's kind of fair to be concerned about her. (Just wait until they learn how long yesterday was!!!!)

Kilchas hums contentedly to himself and waves jovially at various other Heralds as he walks her to the meeting-wing. 

:- Oh, er, so I can introduce you properly: he finally thinks to ask, :you got a name?:

:Oh: she sends, along with the realization that she has not actually... told anyone her name at all since showing up here. She's just been marathoning problem solving. Wow. Uh. Oops.

Then she rattles off, :Vetareh (Her name), Professor and Spellbreaker of the Orrian Crown (Profession/Title):

:Lovely name! I like it. What a fancy title - should I be bowing to you?: 

:Thank you, and no, not really. It boils down to (concept of a professional scholar/researcher) and (single person magical mess cleanup brigade that His Majesty threw at weird magical problems to make them stop it), basically. I was conveniently located next to all of the other (scholar/researchers) and have opinions about messes. You probably noticed:

: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):

:Oh, no, it wasn't especially draining. I wouldn't at all mind doing it again sometime: 

:Great! Then that's all, thank you very much and have a lovely day. I'm going to go enjoy your lovely country:

She stands and gives another little courtly bow, then off she goes, looking quite cheerful.

Lancir smiles to himself as he watches her go, then returns to his work. 

Well after noon, Savil finally drags herself back to consciousness. She sits on the stone and loose hay for a while, blinking, and then sends Lissa to bring her some tea. 

:'Lendel, ke'chara, how's Van?:

Tylendel is cuddled up with Vanyel, stroking his hair. :Don't wake him. Healer just gave him more drugs, but he set the sheet on fire earlier when he was startled: 

:And I slept through that? Gods: 

:Savil, I'm - sorry - for what I–:

:Shhh. 'Lendel, now isn't the time to debrief it. What matters is that it didn't happen, and - we need to focus on Van now: She takes a deep breath. :I need to check his Gifts at some point, apparently Yfandes thinks he has a lot of them, but - it's going to hurt him, if his head is really all torn up the way we think: 

Vetareh takes a bit of time to sun herself out in one of the many gardens, humming half of a snippet of a song to herself as she tries to not think too hard and just focus on the sensations she can feel. In the Mists, sensations were deadened and muted, and everything was often so quiet. It’s really nice to just sit in the middle of a place with actual people. Listening, watching. Not doing anything in particular. She might have sort of been able to do something like this, in one of the small world-shards in the slurry that is the proto-reality of that place, if she’d ever found a looping reality-fragment that was particularly peaceful and filled with people. But, of course, she never did, and never would have if she’d found one, anyway. She was never relaxed enough to ever really stop trying to claw her way back to actual tangible reality. Not to mention, she spent the entirety of her time in the Mists terrified that a demon would come by and eat her soul as a power source, or something. Besides, her senses would have been dulled and she’d feel about the same as if she kept walking and trying to find some way out of the place. Which kind of misses the point.

...

Okay, bored now. Lonely, too, so let’s find something to do. Hm, she could meet new people, try to answer any questions about her new home, maybe try to overcome the language barrier to pick someone up in a bar or something. ... The seems like too much trouble, for not enough payoff, though. And like she’d have to go through the obstacle course of explaining how she’s so weird and foreign. She’d probably have to put up with the discomfort of being pitied, which just does not appeal at all. She craves physical touch, but not enough to go through all of that.

Maybe she can just go talk to someone she already knows, and preferably likes. She liked Kilchas, though she thinks he’s not in much position to just hang out with the weird foreign lady just because she’s lonely. Oh well. Who else. Van’s quadruped, Yfandes, was fantastic and also her favorite ... and she might also be bored and lonely, considering. It would mean stuffing herself in a cramped Work Room with two traumatized teenagers, one of which almost killed her the day before, the other which she might be responsible for helping to magically maim. But yeah, okay. If it’s unpleasant or awkward she can always just leave. But if it’s not she can companionably lean on a, uh, Companion, was what they called them, so that would be appropriate.

She stands, clears the traces of water from the dew of the grass off of herself with a quick brush of magic - not hers, this is a service provided by her clothes - and then ambles off to the Work Room to see about having company.

There are a lot of tired and miserable looking people in there! And a sleeping Vanyel who everyone is carefully not waking. 

:Ooh, welcome back!: Yfandes at least seems delighted to see her. :You look better rested, I'm glad: 

:Hi, thank you, I am! And it's even not an emergency/mess resolution situation: Deep breath. Come on, social anxiety is fake and nobody knows what they're doing. :I decided I could use some company and thought you might too, and I don't mind giving Van breaks while drugs are wearing off or for bathroom breaks or eating, or someone trying to heal his Gifts or something:

The second part of that is sincere, but actually: yeah, Vetareh is totally here to spend time with Yfandes. She's lonely and she liked Yfandes, quite a bit.

:I'll absolutely take you up on having company, if you don't mind the crowdedness in here: Yfandes wriggles over a little closer to Vanyel's side of the cot. :You can squish in here if you don't mind being cozy. And, hmm, Savil actually needed to go have a look and test what Gifts he even has, I can guess mage-gift and Thoughtsensing but there are a lot more. It'll hurt him, though. Figure your spell would block the pain while still letting Savil peek?:

She will totally squish in there and snuggle up. Yay, touching a living being again! Wow, her standards are so terrible, that's really sad!

:I expect it will, since he can't feel them at all while he's got it on him. Not sure if you'd like me to do it now, though, since it looks like he's still asleep and I expect none of us want to wake him. Also, hi, this is Savil?: She looks curiously at Savil.

Savil offers her a not-very-convincing smile over the rim of her teacup. :You're - Vetareh Spellbreaker something or other, right? The one who saved my nephew's life by preventing my trainee from doing something very stupid: 

Vetareh nods. Her own smile is just a tad bit frozen over the reminder that the aforementioned trainee's very stupid thing almost also killed Vetareh herself.

:Yes, I am. (Okay so Savil got it technically right but 'Spellbreaker' is a title, not a second name - it's honestly not a big deal, she is just actually this picky about details all of the time, it's terrible and also super useful, and there is just no way to gracefully socially correct that, especially over mind-speech) Pleasure to meet you, I'm sorry it's in such not-ideal conditions. (Also sorry for the fraction of responsibility she has for Van's current situation, because: very picky about details, did she mention?):

Savil seems undisturbed by the picky-about-details. :Pleasure to meet you too. Yfandes likes you, so I expect we'll get along fine too: 

:Yfandes is lovely (and so practical!! Vetareh loves practicality so much), and I hope so:

Yfandes is so great, Vetareh happily nestles into the quadruped's Companion's side because yay competent allies!

After a few beats of silence, Tylendel clears his throat. :Um, Vetareh?: 

She is put together and self aware enough to not translate or send any hint of her immediate emotional reply to that, which is petty and spiteful and honestly kind of unfair. ("Oh, am I not being ignored now, how exciting. Did you finally realize I'm a person you almost murdered.")

But she does go a little bit still and does not - quite - meet his gaze, in favor of looking carefully at a spot on the wall. Her reply is just a touch cold, even if it's not outright hostile.

:... Yes?:

:I - I'm really sorry: Tylendel tries valiantly to look at her for a second and then his gaze plummets to his lap. :I - nearly did something horrible - that would've killed you too, and, and Van... Thank you. For stopping me: 

He's been rehearsing the words for at least the last couple of candlemarks and this doesn't make it any easier at ALL. 

:Thank you. And you're welcome, I'm glad I did too, you didn't deserve to end there: she replies, carefully, and he can feel that this is sincere, if very carefully controlled and belying some serious anger and pain over the whole affair. There's a pause as she tries to wrestle with her extremely strong emotions.

:... I might need to yell at you about it before I can properly forgive you, I want to be reasonable and forgiving and - and you're just a kid that was in over your head, it would be so pointless/cruel/wasteful to just hold a single averted mistake against you forever. I bet you're beating yourself up so much right now, and making that worse would just not help anything at all. But, um (Oh man she wants to yell at him SO MUCH he has NO IDEA what he almost did to her) ...Yeah:

:I...sort of want to give you some context on this: Savil sends to her, privately. :Not that it excuses what he almost did, but...: 

:I think I’d like context at some point, but maybe not... now?: Because Tylendel is missing context too, right, and if his apology to her for nearly killing her becomes about his feelings instead of hers she’s, uh, she’s probably going to start screaming, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone or constructive at all. :I don’t wish him ill, don’t (endorsedly) want to hurt him, and I don’t want him to wallow in guilt forever, but at some point he needs to (get the fuck over himself/get out of his own head):

She blinks through tears and focuses on the physical to get some kind of distance from feelings that are too raw. Yfandes is very soft, she can begin gently petting her silky white fur, pet pet pet, so soft.

:Yes, of course. ...What a mess: The second part is a not-quite-intended whisper of Mindspeech. Savil goes back to absently rubbing Tylendel's back. 

Yfandes is soft and snuggly and warm and she suggests Vetareh could braid her mane if she likes? 

She’s actually wondering if she should be here at all, maybe actually being crammed in a room with Yfandes and the Had A Shit Day brigade is a bad idea. But snuggles are so nice and she’s actually very lonely, and the prospect of going out to meet new people is so much, and...

Yes, she’ll braid Yfandes’s mane. Yfandes will have the prettiest mane, Vetareh knows this trick that’ll let some of her mane weave through the braid to waterfall freely down her neck, it’ll be gorgeous. Yfandes will make all of the other quadrupeds so jealous and it’ll be great. The fact that Vetareh is quietly crying the whole time is not going to affect the fantastic end result.

Yfandes is pleased and sends her gratitude and reassurance (she wouldn't normally do that for anyone but her Chosen, however, her Chosen is drugged to unconsciousness right now and Vetareh is not and also Yfandes likes her a lot and she clearly needs it.) 

Eventually the most recent dose of argonel starts wearing off and Vanyel stirs, grimacing in pain even before he's awake. 

Tylendel, getting a faceful of pain along the lifebond, winces and grips Vanyel's hand tightly. 

She has by this point in time finished braiding Yfandes’s mane, and has moved on to adding little illusionary flowers to it. While she’s not put together enough to make them look like real flowers, they don’t have to. They can faintly glow in various shades of blue that’ll go well with Yfandes’s eyes and look lovely and ethereal.

When Van stirs, Vetareh looks up from her decorating, then reaches over to touch him and cast Blackout. No complicated spell chain, she’s not in the mood, just a few seconds of not-pain, maybe he might go back to sleep.

He does, on this occasion, settle back to sleep. 

:Unfortunately we ought to let him wake up at some point: Savil tells Vetareh. :Healer says it's important to get fluids into him: 

:Yes, of course. I don’t expect him to stay asleep forever even with blocked pain and while being drugged, it just seems kindest to let him sleep as long as possible. When was the last time he had fluids or food?:

:I don't think we've managed to get food into him since the thing happened. He drank some water, hmm, five or six candlemarks ago: 

Vetareh makes an unhappy mental grumble. She’s not a healer, but even she can tell that this isn’t great. Not anyone’s fault, but not great.

:Okay. Damn. I can keep him cut off for a little while once he’s a bit more awake, and we can use that window to stuff him full of water and - probably some kind of broth? Any calories is better than none at all:

Whoops she’s involved again. She’s not very good at this ‘taking breaks’ business.

:That's a good idea, I can send Lissa to get him some, or ask at Healers' for what we should give him. He was refusing before but maybe he'll be feeling a bit better now: 

Vetareh nods, firmly.

:Do you know what his drug schedule is? Ideally I think we should do this shortly before his next dose, so he’s clear headed enough to follow directions and so that we can let him be once he’s off with (Lyssa/goddess of dreams). We can also take the opportunity to have you check his Gifts, since I’ll be blocking him anyway to (proverbially) shove food down his throat. I don’t know what I’m looking at but he’s got got quite a lot of... something.... going on:

:Gemma had wanted to hold off on giving him more until a candlemark before sunset, though if he's burning it off really fast, they can send someone to check if it's safe to dose him early. We're giving him argonel, which is a somewhat risky drug, it's just the only one strong enough to touch this sort of pain: 

:Okay. Well. Scheduling and balancing that is not my area of expertise, but I don't mind getting pulled in regularly to block him for (short periods of time; half a candlemark/half an hour at most). It's (unpleasant for her/skirting close to her traumas/not the kind of thing she's going to marathon for hours again without 'He's literally dying' reasons) but less so for short bursts for a reason:

:Of course. I think it'd be kindest to him to do a few minutes at a time while we make him eat or drink, or anything else he needs to be awake and lucid for, but we won't ask you for long blocks: Sigh. :I suppose let's try to get him another candlemark of sleep, and then hope to get some nourishment into him along with his next dose of argonel, and I'll test his Gifts then. I don't actually need him awake for it but I'm not sure he would sleep through it even with you blocking: 

:Oh? Why not? What does testing his Gifts involve?:

:Hmm, bit hard to describe to someone who's not a mage, but - going into his head and poking around. I think he'll feel some of the poking even if he can't feel his channels. Though of course I've never tried it, er, under these conditions: 

:Huh. Okay: Mostly she was asking on account of being a massive nerd who is very curious about how all of this weird foreign magic works, but hasn't had time to pin it down to study it in depth because this has been a stressful time. It's been very annoying. :I'll defer to your expertise:

:I suppose if he's drugged he might well sleep through the poking: 

Sigh. Savil watches her nephew sleep. :Poor kid. Never thought he'd end up Chosen, or with Gifts. I...don't think he even wanted it, really: 

:What does being Chosen or having Gifts involve? I assume for Gifts he'd need to train control, and for being Chosen he has Yfandes (the best quadruped) as his friend/cuddle buddy, but I'm missing context on anything that comes with that:

:It means he'll be a Herald. Part of Valdemar's government, and - given his Gifts, likely sent into danger to fight threats to the Kingdom: 

:... Does... he not get a choice in the matter?:

:Same amount of choice we all do, I guess. But - I'd dreamed of being a Herald my whole childhood. Used to pretend I was one, but never thought it'd really happen, it felt like something that didn't happen to people like me - but I was still ecstatic about it, and I think most of us are. Don't know that he'll be: 

:Okay, but - are there cushy bureaucratic jobs while being a Herald? Would he be free to do whatever he wanted when there wasn't something that only he could do? Does he have space to refuse?:

She doesn't send this part, but in the back of her mind she's thinking that this makes her earlier conversation with Lancir way more disturbing, what the fuck.

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: 

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.

Aww, the extent to which she's excited about that is really great. 

Eventually Vanyel starts stirring again. 

:Maybe we send Lissa for some broth now and then let him wake up soon?: 

:Yeah, sounds good:

Lissa is dispatched shortly later, and returns with broth and a junior Healer bringing Vanyel's next dose of pain-drugs. 

The Healer does a quick assessment. :He's doing better, physically, but he does badly need some nourishment sooner or later. Maybe tomorrow he'll be well enough for solid food: 

:We'll see how much we can get into him while I'm blocking him. Any recommendations for food to prioritize stuffing into him? Naively I'd think some kind of meat would be most efficient, but I'm not any kind of healer:

Can they gently wake Vanyel up? Maybe they can have Tylendel do it. Tylendel, will you please gently wake up your boyfriend?

The Healer thinks he'll benefit most from something easy to eat, since he's likely to still feel tired and weak. For his first meal they can make up a sort of egg-custard for him with cream and honey, and if he manages that then yes, well-stewed meat cut into small pieces for him would get lots of nutrition his body needs. 

Tylendel takes a deep breath, and pats his boyfriend's shoulder. "Van? Van, ashke, can you wake up a little...?" 

"Mmm?" Vanyel's eyes flicker open, unfocused at first, then finding Tylendel with visible relief. 

Tylendel squeezes his shoulder. "It's all right, ashke, you're doing fine. You need to try to drink some broth." 

Don't mind the mesmer, she'll just be over here, doing her Blackout chain of spells on Van. Again. Whee. So fun.

Tylendel coaxes broth into Vanyel as fast as humanly possible, while Savil explains to him what she's going to do and that he might or might not notice a weird feeling in his head but it shouldn't hurt him. 

Vanyel would prefer none of this be happening, actually, but he nods his acquiescence to the poking-in-his-head plan. 

So Savil does, and is silent for a couple of minutes. 

Vanyel does feel something, and makes a face, but it indeed doesn't hurt. He lets the Healer give him his dose of drugs, so that it'll start taking effect as soon as possible. 

:Done: Savil says finally. :Whew. Tell you in a minute: "Van, ke'chara," she uses the affectionate term absently, "you can try to sleep now, all right? You have a lot of Gifts, but we can talk about all of that later once you're feeling better." 

Vetareh gives a little nod. She is kind enough to finish up the Blackout chain instead of just stopping immediately when his Gifts are all checked out and when he's got as much broth as possible into him. Next time she's forced to stop, that'll be it, but she can at least give the drugs time to take effect.

Vanyel is still close enough to awareness to grimace and moan when the pain comes back, but the drugs are already kicking in, and with some reassuring hair-stroking from Tylendel and wordless soothing by Yfandes, he goes to sleep within a few minute. 

Hooray! It's a pity that using Blackout on Van means that she wasn't able to see what checking Gifts actually looks like, but oh well. Probably at some point, she'll get to see what that looks like, magically speaking.

:Well, that seemed to work rather well, I think: sends Vetareh, cheerfully. She is polite enough to not immediately shake Savil down for answers on what Gifts he has, but gosh. She's so curious.

:Well: Savil sends after a minute or so of collecting herself. :I have never seen one person with so many Gifts, and his mage-gift is - really, really terrifyingly strong. Much stronger than mine. It's going to be incredibly dangerous until he's trained, and...: She looks worried. :I'm not sure we can train him until he's healed. His channels are a mess in there, no wonder he's hurting so much: 

Vetareh gives a very serious nod, looking a little pained. 'Very powerful' sounds to her like 'likely to be leveraged,' which does not sound like a very good time for Vanyel at all.

:Do you know of anything or anyone that might be able to help heal them faster? If not, the best idea I've got is trying to figure out how to enchant something to dupe my Blackout spell. But I know artificing (the making of objects that are consciously used by a person), not enchanting (the making of objects that are more isolated/made to respond to outside stimuli and make rudimentary decisions on their own), so I think it'd take me a while at best and be untenable at worst. Since if I just followed principles of artificing he'd need to (constantly have it mentally activated), which he couldn't do while asleep even if I did get it to work. Not to mention, trying to interface with a strange foreign magic thing will probably jostle his Gifts/magic at all, which would make artificing actively unhelpful. So I'd need to rederive enchanting complicated enough for an already complicated spell from first principles, which...: Would take decades if she were a genius, even with her understanding of the basic first principles and some of the later logic. Unfortunately Vetareh cannot just arbitrarily solve all problems put in front of her.

Savil is really tired and didn't follow most of that at all! She rubs her eyes. :Um, our Healers can't do much because they can't see channels. I can, but can't do anything about them: 

She's aware she's making a pest of herself, but she doesn't quite care. There is a problem in front of her and she wants to solve it and if other people are tired then they should go to bed.

:There isn't anyone who can do both? Can you, uh - do a closer mind link, letting Healers see through your magical eyes?:

:Er, it's possible but people here aren't as comfy with concert work, the Tayledras do it all the time but–: 

Savil freezes. 

:Oh. Gods. I'm an idiot. I didn't even think... Moondance is a Healing-Adept. That literally means he has both. He...might be able to fix it: Then she droops again. :But they're in the Pelagirs. Hundreds of miles away: 

:You are not an idiot,: thinks Vetareh firmly, with the sincerity that can only really come through over a mind-link, :You are admittedly tired and maybe need some rest to get all of your brain fully functioning, but you are not an idiot. Now. Is that too far to Gate to them, and if so, why? Maybe I with my meta-magic shenanigans can help:

Savil takes a deep breath. :...The first part is that I think strong magic near him will hurt him a lot, right now. But I guess you can Blackout him for it. k'Treva is within my range, just barely - I can make it if I've had a good night's sleep, I think. The third problem is that they'll have moved the Vale and I don't know where the new one is, so I'll have to Gate to near the old one and then use my talisman to call them. In the meantime I'll be very tired and Van will be helpless, and the Pelagirs are pretty dangerous: 

:Does it need to just be the two of you?: She totally wants to come, but admittedly Tylendel is probably a much better bet, considering. Sending the boyfriend with the infirm one, and all. Though Vetareh herself would be useful with Blackout, so, hm...

:Well, I mean, I should bring Tylendel, but he's not fully trained...: Pause. :Oh, are you offering to come?: 

:Yes, if you and they wouldn’t mind, it sounds fascinating! ... and also I could be very useful, with my ability to cut off his magic: But that second part is justification after the fact, not the reason.

:We would appreciate that so much! I know it's a lot to ask, but...: Savil doesn't even seem to be considering that Vetareh is volunteering mostly out of innate curiosity rather than commitment to helping. 

Oh man, stay here and figure out a complicated logistics problem that she doesn't have enough context for and will probably crush lots of toes in trying to solve, or go running off on an adventure to meet a fancy healer? Yeah that's really not a question. She'll be busy no matter which she goes with, but she will pick the one that doesn't involve telling lots of other people she thinks they are dumb. Probably she can just tell Lancir what she thinks about the thing, and give examples of how it worked back in Orr, and maybe someone with actual respect, authority, and understanding of the situation can make that happen.

:It's really not. What are the dangers of the Pelagirs, are we talking dangerous weather, or monsters that will try to slice us to bits, set us on fire, or drive us insane or something? Or something else entirely, I suppose:

:Monsters of various sorts, mostly, though it'll also be cold, it's further north. The wild magic of the land twists the native wildlife. There are Changecreatures that can turn invisible, or have some innate magic - colddrakes can hypnotize other creatures with their eyes...: Savil describes a few other Pelagirs beasties they might encounter. 

She takes notes, then once Savil’s finished, she sends:

:So lots of weird quirky magical one offs that can easily disrupt the unawares, but ultimately all of the monsters will want to kill us by directly menacing us. Okay, I can work with that. With Blackout, even:

Though maybe not both parts of the echo chain, she’ll leave the lesser spell for it by the wayside. It’ll mean the gaps in Van coverage will be a touch longer, but ultimately that’s less important than keeping everyone alive. Also it simplifies the amount of background work she’ll be doing by quite a bit. She starts figuring out which spells she’d like to take, adding more letters to the floating violet notes brigade. Actually, how about she just shrinks the notes on Gifts to tuck on the inside of her sleeve, to clear a bit more room in the air for these new notes to herself for figuring out how she’ll not die in the wilderness.

:How do you do that notes trick?: Savil asks, curious. :Does it last after you're done with the spell?: 

:It does! It takes my attention to make, but it lasts on its own. For a while, anyway, it’ll get dispelled if too much magic is flying around. I imagine making trips back and forth through the shields here would smudge it away eventually. So it’s not particularly permanent, but very convenient. The how I do it is a bit trickier to explain, uh. How much technical detail do you want? It’s not a common mesmer skill, actually, it’s very tedious to train. I just had, uh. Quite a lot of time and boredom, and an absence of any paper:

:I am very curious, but–: stifled yawn, :what I should probably actually do, is trade off with someone and turn in early. If Lancir approves the plan to Gate to k'Treva, I'll want to be rested: 

:Fair enough. I can always explain it later. Go get some sleep, I’ll stick around until whomever you find to replace you shows up?:

:Thank you: Savil pats her shoulder and heads out. 

Eventually a Healing-trainee, the same one as the other night, is sent over to watch Van overnight. :Hi!: 

:Hi! Nice to see you again, hug buddy:

:Nice to see you too! Um, how is everything going here?: 

:We got some broth into Vanyel, the current plan is I show up for when we need to feed him, and use Blackout so he can get food down without being in pain. I'd appreciate a schedule for that so I can plan to be here in advance. Savil also thinks she knows someone that can actually fix the root of the problem, but it's a long ways away and needs energy for the Gate to it. So, I actually think it's going rather well:

:Oh, good! Um, I want to let him get some solid sleep, and also I want you to get some sleep, but I think he'll need more fluids and some of the painkillers in seven, eight candlemarks, so if it's all right you could plan on coming back then?: 

:I also want me to get some sleep! And some sunlight. Seven to eight candlemarks sounds good,: and it’s a good thing her magic is helping her understand lengths of measured time here through translated concept magic, otherwise timekeeping would be much more inconvenient, :and I’ll plan to be back there then:

Yfandes gets a friendly goodbye pat, and then Vetareh tucks away her illusionary notes, and begins the careful process of extracting herself from cuddles. It’s kind of crowded in here.

It is crowded! Yfandes snuffles at her sleeve and then shifts a little to make space for her to edge out. 

She makes it out, sends a burst of affection towards Yfandes, Gala, and Shavri, and then out she goes. First order of business: copy her notes onto paper. Illusion’s better for editing notes to adjust to new information, but really not sturdy enough long-term. Maybe at some point she’ll look into making some kind of enchanted paper, that can just accept illusionary letters and hold onto them, she recalls that was a niche thing back home. That can go on her list of future projects to keep herself entertained. She’s happiest when that list is as long as possible.

Her notes copied, she then sets to personalizing her guest room. She makes a simple and minimalistic illusionary timer, as a way to easily check how much longer she has until she’s off to go be a Blackout bitch caretaking assistant, and sets it on the wall. Temporarily changing the color of fabrics is straightforward, even if she doesn’t quite have the knack of doing anything more complicated than solid and basic color shifts. Still, it’s enough to add more personality and character to an otherwise bland and inoffensive guest room. Then, because the place feels a bit empty, she spends half a candlemark (she’s trying to get used to the local time units) adding illusionary house plants. If she were staying here long term, she’d get real ones, but since she’s going to be leaving in a day or two, fake ones will do.

There’s a part of the wall that would look better if it had a painting on it, and she’s tempted to try and mend her homesickness by making an illusionary painting of some scenic place she remembers of Orr, but. No, no that... No. At some point, yes, preferably before her visual memory of her favorite spots starts to fade any more, but that’s too close to her heart. More time is needed before she can have pictures of a place she can never get back hanging on her walls. Pity she’s not a talented enough illusionist to make accurate portraits of her loved ones from memory, she’d quite like those, even if she’d need to cry quite a lot because of it.

Instead, she adds a little illusionary painting of one of the things she got to see in the Mists; the Jade Sea. Great green ocean waves, transmuted from water to jade in the middle of some kind of storm. It could just be an ocean scene, but for the way that it’s been carved and built into by its inhabitants. Wooden guard towers overlook a settlement set down in the jade like a quarry, with tops of houses and what could plausibly be some kind of market poking out over the edge.

This done, she then has herself a nap. Before she starts getting all teary eyed again, or something.

She’s back at the Work Room a little before the appropriate time, still yawning from residual sleepiness.

Shavri is looking very sleepy and yawning copiously. :Morning: Van and Yfandes are both fast asleep still; Tylendel is draped half between the bed and Gala, holding Van's hand in his sleep. 

:Is it?: The actual time of the world around her hasn't really been at the forefront of her mind, she's been too busy, and she doesn't know how long days are here, or if 'days' are even a concept that translates to this new world. :Well, regardless, hello!:

:Hello!: Shavri smiles at her. :Van had a decent night, slept the whole time. I hope you got some rest?: 

:Yep! And decorated my guest room, I do better when I have a place that feels excessively mine. And ate, should I have brought you something?:

Yawn. :Nah, I can grab something before I go to bed. Are you probably leaving today with Savil?: 

:Probably, yes:

:Aww, then I probably won't see you again for a while. I'm glad I got to meet you!: Hug? 

Hug! :I'm glad to have met you, too!:

This little healer: very cute. Vetareh is charmed.

The little Healer beams at her, and then yawns. :Sorry. I'd better go get some sleep: 

A few minutes later Vanyel stirs, grunting in his sleep. 

:Have a good night:

“Good morning, sunshine!” sing-songs Vetareh, in a language that Vanyel will absolutely not understand. Boop! Have a Blackout, you poor person-conduit, you. She’s not qualified to get drugs into him, but she can industriously see about getting fluids into him! By gently bapping his face with the glass and being so incredibly annoying that drinking to make her go away is more appealing than doing nothing at all.

Her escapades wake Tylendel, who knuckles at his eyes, seems vaguely amused for a moment, and then remembers that she's mad at him and avoids her eyes.

Vanyel is thirsty and also he would like the bapping to stop, and he tries to grip it and drink, but he's not exactly very coordinated right now. 

Tylendel very patiently holds the glass to his lips and helps him sip from it, all while studiously avoiding Vetareh's eyes. 

That’s fine. She wasn’t very attached to getting fluids into Vanyel duty anyway. Tylendel can have it.

... ugh, is he going to be avoiding her gaze like she kicked his puppy for the entirety of the time that she’s here? That’s irritating. Yes, she’s still mad at him, but, ugh, he shouldn't be boring about how he deals with it, okay. This narrative trope is dull and grating and offers little of value to anyone. Wallowing in guilt isn’t even fun to watch.

:Look, my annoyance with you is very emotionally driven and therefore illogical,: sends Vetareh, once Tylendel’s Vanyel has been properly watered and Vetareh can stop spamming Blackout. :I know you’re sorry, I know you didn’t really mean it, I know it was a dumb mistake that you will not be making again, and I know that no real harm was done to me. Putting aside the tricky irrational emotion bits, I consider us square. Please stop acting like I will bite your head off at the first opportunity, I have a little more self control than that:

Tylendel twitches, looking startled and off-balance, but slowly lifts his head and meets her eyes. :I'm sorry. I'll - it's not really - I'll try: It's really not that he's worried she'll shout at him. He wants to curl up and sink into the floor when Savil looks at him, too, and he's not expecting her to shout at all. It's...he doesn't know what. 

     :You found out you have the capacity for stupid decisions you didn't know you were capable of: Gala sends, not unkindly. :It's - there's a lesson to be learned, there, Chosen, but it's not easy: 

Tylendel says nothing, just reaches to squeeze Vanyel's hand. At least Van is all right. He owes Vetareh that - owes her everything, really, and given that, the least he can do is not make her uncomfortable by being sad at her.