Brightstar starts to answer, then glances at Melody. 

She nods. 

Brightstar turns back to Azabel, his eyes distant yet blazing. :Herald Vanyel is my father by blood. I...had dreams, before this. My  Goddess wished me to be here in Haven. To help with the war: 

:Were the dreams any more specific than that, or only that?:

Shrug. 

Are the gears - or the magnets - twitching when he talks -

There's a lot of movement in the damaged/detached gears when he mentions Vanyel. The probably-primal-anger part of his mind surges stronger when he talks about the war. 

Whatever the magnets are doing, it's subtle and in the background, but - maybe more distinct when he mentions the dreams? 

:Do you mind if I nudge some parts of your mind, not to change anything lastingly but to see how the nudges propagate, how they feel for you...?:

:You can do that if you want: 

She - looks where the damaged driveshaft is supposed to hook up - recalls how much the separated gears spun when he talked about his father -

- gives the clockwork on the end of the destroyed connection a little spin -

Brightstar goes rigid. Stares at her in shocked silence for a long moment - 

- and then bursts into tears. 

...yay? oh no?? She looks at Melody.

Melody's eyebrow twitches. :He does that sometimes. I reckon it's promising for him ending up in a mood to talk, at least: 

The gears that make up Brightstar's mind are wobbling wildly, spinning without making contact, pouring his will and emotions pointlessly into nothing... 

The remaining intact gearshaft jiggles as well, and then finds purchase. 

Brightstar's hand clenches down on the bedrail. The wood splinters slightly under his fingers.

:I wish him DEAD: he snarls. :I want him to die screaming at my hand while I watch. It will– it will not...fix it...I cannot bring them back...but it is the only thing I might still give them: 

:He's running entirely on anger, nothing else is hooked up how it should be. I could - sweep it all closer together but it'd be clumsy, I didn't see it intact...:

:Hmm - that matches what I'm seeing, I think. Have you dealt with a similar situation before? I'm...a little concerned that nudging him in most directions will end up worse, he's got so little underlying stability right now: 

:Nothing very like, no, I'm not confident enough to try much right now:

Before Melody can answer, Brightstar lunges to grab the cup of water on the table beside his bed, and flings it at the wall, where it shatters and sprays water everywhere. 

Melody winces. :...I would lean toward not intervening and waiting to see, except he keeps doing...things like that...: 

:And he's a mage to boot, that could get worse than a broken glass! I wonder if - your metaphor would make it easy enough to find where everything belongs that I could click it together, which seems maybe harder with yours?:

:Oh! Combining our Sight, you mean, to try to get the advantages of both? ...Sure, I'd be willing to give it a try. Though it'll be easier if I can get him to calm down first: 

She starts speaking to Brightstar, out loud; the language sounds half-familiar, some of the phonemes recognizable from Tantaran, but not quite enough that Azabel can understand anything. 

Aza waits, looking concernedly at lonely gears and loose springs, trying to figure out what will be the most high priority stuff to put back.

Brightstar gradually calms, and goes back to hugging himself and rocking from side to side, weeping silently. 

The damage is so extensive, it's hard to pick out any parts as especially broken, but the greatest disruption is in two main places. One of them wiggles and sways every time he refers to his parents' deaths, or to Vanyel; the other is harder to interpret, and has substantially more of the bizarre hidden-magnets effect going on. 

:Er, how do you want to do this - should I just share my Sight with you...?: 

:Yeah, I'm used to mage-concert-work and not Mindhealing-concert-work but it should be applicable: