Taver holds himself unnaturally still, not even breathing. 

:What do you mean: 

"What I mean, is that Cam has given us every reason to help him and take his side, and Vkandis' response was to try to murder one of my best friends." Tran isn't shouting anymore. His voice is coldly level. "He used Karis. Broke her in the process. All to get rid of someone whose first act here was to feed starving people! Which the Karsites' precious Sunlord never even tried to do!" 

Taver moves, but only to draw a breath and shift his weight. 

:Perhaps He did. The gods work in ways that are obscure to us, I think: 

A pause.

:...You have helped the King wage war, Chosen. Your own hands are not exactly free of blood: 

Okay that is just not fair. It hurts - and, worse, it's clearly meant to sting. It's the first time Taver has ever spoken that way to him. The most painful part is that, as far as Tran can tell, Taver doesn't even seem angry. His mindvoice is toneless, and oddly disjointed, but calm.

Cruel words said in the passion of rage would be so much easier to forgive. 

"Maybe." Tran takes a slow deep breath, willing his eyes to stop burning and his throat to allow words. "I, I'm willing to forgive some amount of working in mysterious ways, I guess. But murdering Vanyel in his own bedroom crossed a line. I'm done, all right? As far as I'm concerned, Vkandis bloody Sunlord declared a goddamned war Himself the moment He put that dagger in Karis' hand." 

Taver bows his head, but says nothing. It's a cold sort of silence. No emotion at all is making its way across their bond. 

...Their public argument, or at least the one side of it which is audible to non-Mindspeakers, has attracted something of an audience. Two gardeners, now, and a couple of servants who were bringing clean linens to the Heralds' wing and stopped ten yards away on the path Tran is currently occupying. They look simultaneously curious and mortified. 

Yfandes and the other two Companions with her are still behind the adjacent building. It felt rude to approach openly; Taver would usually know anyway, he can effortlessly track all the Companions in Haven, but he seems incredibly distracted. Enough that he's not even trying to directionally shield his Mindspeech, and all the Companions within a hundred yards can pick up on it. 

Delian is almost vibrating with tension. And anger. Taver is hurting Tantras. ....Which is within his rights, Tran is Taver's now, not Delian's, but it still fills him with impotent rage. He is just, barely, managing to hold himself still, because storming in and kicking the Groveborn in the head is unlikely to improve matters right now. 

Companions can pick up on unshielded Mindspeech - and so can small children with fledging Mindspeech and limited skill at shielding. 

Jisa was on the way back after her lessons, to see Uncle Van at the House of Healing and maybe have lunch with him. Now she's frozen behind a rosebush, close enough that she can make out the words that Herald Tantras is yelling. She wasn't trying to eavesdrop, it's just that Taver was being SO LOUD. 

She doesn't understand most of what they're fighting about? Something to do with Karis? 

...Taver thinks it might be a good idea to send Cam away. 

The thought fills Jisa with terror. And, on its heels, anger. Taver is being WRONG and STUPID and she's MAD at him. She wants to throw a mud pie at his FACE. Ten mud pies. It would be so satisfying to see his shiny white coat all muddy. 

If she throws a mud pie at the Monarch's Own Companion, she'll get in so much trouble with her mama and papa. Probably she would get in trouble just for eavesdropping, and she should go? 

She doesn't, though. Instead she creeps closer, concealed behind the row of rosebushes up against the building. There's not much space between them and the bricks; thorns catch on her dress, tearing it. Which she's going to get in trouble for too. Right now, she doesn't care. 

And then she's close enough that the new kind of seeing comes into focus, too; it's not Taver's thoughts that she's reading, she would get in so much trouble for doing that and besides he's very shielded, but there's...something. She can't help seeing it. 

Maybe just because she's thinking about rosebushes, it...sort of looks like a garden? It's blurry and confusing and hard to make out details, and she doesn't know what it means...she stretches her senses out... 

She still doesn't know what it means but she's still pretty sure it's not supposed to look like that and something is REALLY BADLY WRONG. 

She can see the bond between Taver and Herald Tantras. It's sort of metaphorically like a bridge? 

- and, also metaphorically, right now it looks as though some invisible giant's hand is grabbing onto the part of Taver where it's anchored, and pulling. The bridge is pretty strong! It looks like it should hold up fine to storms and wind! But nothing could be built strong enough to hold up to the incredible forces trying to rip apart Taver's mind-garden. 

Taver isn't moving. Or breathing. His chest trembles slightly from the sheer effort of just holding still; it looks as though the slightest movement or effort, even speaking, even taking a breath, would be the final push that would rip the bridge apart. 

Aaaaaaaaaaah this is very very bad this is not good she has to fix it but she doesn't know how and her not-Thoughtsensing is wavering in and out with the force of her panic - which also means she can't even try to use Empathy to calm Taver down in case that would help - 

Jisa tries. She tries really hard to get herself under control enough that she can figure out what to do. Or tell a grownup. She should tell a grownup. She should Mindspeak Mama and tell her it's an EMERGENCY and she needs HELP.

The problem is that right now she's stuck and can't do anything except stare in horror. 

Tran waits. Yelling at his Companion won't help and also there's the humiliating matter of their current audience. 

Finally, though, he's out of patience. Taver is just standing there. Has been for over a minute. 

:Are you just going to stand there all day?: he snaps out, in private Mindspeech this time. 

Tran is belatedly realizing that Taver hasn't just been silent for a minute, he also hasn't visibly breathed in that time. And he's shaking noticeably. And his blue eyes don't seem to be...seeing...anything in front of him. 

Maybe something is actually wrong. 

:...Are you all right?: he asks, tentatively. He takes a step closer. :I'm sorry if I–: 

For some reason, in the end, sympathy and kindness is what shatters the fragile holding pattern. 

She was too slow and she wasn't brave enough and now it's too late. 

For a fraction of a second, Jisa isn't sure which part of Taver is going to break first. There's some sort of frame holding a lot of the plants, and the invisible giant's hands are pulling on that as well as on the bridge, and it looks for a moment as though it's almost on the verge of snapping - 

- but the bridge is what breaks first.

It's the worst thing she's ever seen. Because she can see how much of Taver's mind is shredded in the backlash. And because what it does to Herald Tantras is even worse. 

Jisa screams. 

Tran doesn't scream. He just whimpers, barely audibly. It feels like all the breath was knocked from his lungs, and screaming would require being able to draw in a breath past the clenched agony in his chest. 

In the first moment, all he feels is pain, still too raw and unformed to call grief or anything else. Pain, and cold, and nothing matters anymore - 

Taver sank to his knees on the grass, when it happened. 

He rises again now. Paws at the gravel path, then lifts his head. 

:I am sorry, but - I do not know you. You are - not - my Chosen: 

And he bows his head again, and turns, and walks slowly and wearily away. 

Around him, the rest of the tableau is frozen, as though time is on pause. There's no sound except, inexplicably, a child's high-pitched scream, despite the fact that there's no sign of said child. 

Wind rustles in the rosebushes. 

...He isn't a Herald anymore. He failed. He must have made some awful mistake, and maybe he'll never know what it was, and it doesn't matter because he is nothing and no one and nothing he does will ever matter again.

The thought is agonizing, almost unbearable, and yet there's relief in it, too. He's so damned tired. And cold. He's sent too many men and women to their deaths, gambled wrong too many times with the lives of his fellow Heralds, and he can't take it back and he can't ever have the life he did a decade ago and so it doesn't matter, does it. 

Would anyone actually stop him, if he lay down right here in the gravel and dirt, and went to sleep and never woke up? 

(He half-wishes, for a moment, that he were a mage, that he could make an end to this here and now in a fiery blaze. But he's exhausted, and still has enough of himself to remember the consequences when Tylendel did that exact thing. The scars on his body are an eternal reminder of the price that others paid for that ending.) 

He sags to the ground. 

One of the maids watching with an armful of clean sheets is realizing, belatedly, that...probably someone ought to get help? She's not a Healer, she has no idea why the King's Own just collapsed, but the House of Healing isn't far away. 

She drops her sheets and runs. 

Jisa is finally out of breath for screaming, her throat raw. The initial jolt of panic is fading and leaving her limp with exhaustion. 

...Get a grownup. She was going to get a grownup. Unfortunately she fell down in her shock, and now she's very tangled up in the thorns and can't really move without poking herself worse. 

She has Mindspeech, though. She's never tried talking to Mama more than a hundred yards away, but maybe if she tries really really really really hard -

It feels like the one time when she was five and climbed a tree too high and then lost her foothold and was stuck hanging from just her arms, legs swinging wildly, shoulders half pulled out of their sockets; well, it feels like that except metaphorically and in her head. 

But she can reach Mama's mind over at the House of Healing. 

:Mama help please come right now!!!: 

:What?: In the middle of bathing a patient is not the best time for panicked Mindspeech interruptions, and Shavri accidentally drops the basin of dirty soapy water she's holding and spills it all over the floor and her own feet. 

No time to worry about that. :I'm coming, Jisa, I'll be right there - are you in danger -: 

Her metaphorical-arms feel like they're on fire. But Mama is starting to get closer now. 

:No. Herald Tantras is. Taver hurt him and now he, he -: 

She doesn't have words to describe what's wrong with Herald Tantras' garden.