"Can you - help explain what I was missing?" 

"I can try? It's complicated and I don't know exactly which parts you're missing and how but I can try - do you have questions for me to start with -"

Ma'ar frowns for a while. 

"- I guess now that I think about it, I'm not actually confused that - most people are partial that way?" he says finally. "But it seemed like it was more - offputting to you, than I'd've predicted?" 

"I was sort of - uh - I don't actually know if you actually implied this let alone whether you meant to but I experienced an implication that being emotionally partial would make me worse at large-scale decisionmaking?"

"Oh. I - get that, I think. Sorry." Ma'ar shakes his head. "I don't think it'd make you worse at it, really. But...i think that's because you're self-aware about it? And careful, and - if you were Queen you wouldn't put, I don't know, your mother first ahead of your kingdom, right? But - I think a lot of people would, or wouldn't even know if they were doing that..." 

"Have you actually observed monarchs doing this or are you guessing?"

"I mean, I don't personally know any monarchs, but - I think I've seen people do that in general. I...feel like Urtho was doing something partial to do with the gryphons - not exactly the same sort of thing but it feels related." 

"How's it feel related?"

"...I think he felt like the gryphons were his, or like he was the parent of all of them, or something? And he - wasn't asking himself if he was actually making the right choices for them, just - doing what felt right?" 

"That wasn't about feeling partial to the gryphons, I think? It seemed more like he was trying to see them as a species instead of as a few hundred people."

Shrug. "Maybe I'm wrong to compare it, I don't know. I - think it would make me worse at making decisions if I had more - partial feelings about things. But I might just be weird." 

"How would it make you worse at it?"

"I think I'd be - sad and distracted and it'd be harder to think about priorities? And it'd be - tempting to want the world to be a certain way, instead of trying to understand how it actually is?"

"...do you not want the world a certain way?"

"- I mean, I do, I want lots of things to be different." Ma'ar frowns, rubs his eyes. "I - feel like I don't know how to explain the thing I mean. Maybe it doesn't actually make sense." 

"That happens to me sometimes too, when I write out something and then the dependencies are all screwy and it falls apart."

"I haven't tried writing it all out before. Maybe I should." 

"I like it but most people don't so I assume most people don't find it works that well for them."

"I think it helps me think through things, but I don't do it very often for feelings I'm having." 

"Do you want me to try to bounce you my Mindhealing-Sight of you?"

"Sure, all right." 

"I dunno how much it'll actually help shed light here but you're very distinctive..." She focuses into the particular view of his gyroscopic system. Tries to pass it to him across Mindspeech.

The gyroscope-like part hasn't changed much, since she last looked, though the outer surfaces of his mind have, the fight-or-flight triggers almost entirely overwritten and reorganized into the main structure. 

"- I guess it's more - self-contained, than most people probably are?" he ventures. 

"It's self-stabilizing. You don't - have somebody you habitually go to about your feelings - so you arranged not to need one, and self-correct instead. But it means you're not getting regular close contact with how other people are and vice-versa."

Ma'ar nods. "Do you think I'd - make better decisions, if I were talking to people more about that sort of thing?"