Shavri hates everything about her entire life that has, apparently, brought her to this point. 

"- He didn't want to destroy it," she manages, finally. "The Proto, I mean. ...Neither did I, but that was mostly - just pragmatic? I couldn't, it was already too strong, the only way to keep the patients alive was to talk to it. But he.... I don't know. It felt different." 

"So he wanted our entire world to get eaten by an alien parasite?" 

"No!" 

Shavri kind of wants to cry from sheer frustration but she won't. She can do this. 

"- He's not evil," she manages, finally, when her throat is willing to let sounds through again. "He's - complicated - but not evil." 

Savil looks tired and frustrated and not at all like someone who believes her. 

They ask her more questions, after a while. 

She's so tired and so frustrated and everything hurts but she does her best to answer anyway. 

Eventually, it feels like an eternity later, there's a long pause in the interrogation - just like so many others before it - and then the Queen stands up. 

"I think we're done here. Jay...?" 

It doesn't feel like anything from Shavri's perspective, having the Truth Spell removed, but that's what he's doing. 

Apparently she's being dismissed? 

Shavri trails out of the room after Herald Jaysen, staring at the floor, feeling like at any second one of them is going to grab her and shake her. 

She desperately wants to talk to Vanyel, and at the same time she really really doesn't. Also it's late and it seems plausible he's asleep by now? At least, if he were being responsible he would be, which is - dubious - but she doesn't want to discourage responsibility. Also she's very tired and a coward. 

One of the other Healers is looking after Jisa for her, and Randi is - somewhere, apparently she sort of blanked out their last conversation - and it feels like she's spent the last two days straight surrounded by people who WANT things from her. To the point that breastfeeding her baby daughter this morning hurt because that was just another shape of obligation. 

Shavri finds herself pausing on the path through the gardens, alone, halfway to the Healers' rooms (where she's desperately hoping that Randi isn't.) 

The moon is about half full. She stares up at it. Tries to gauge whether it looks unusual, yet. 

Not yet.

Well. She's done her duty here, right? The Heralds know what to look for. It's in their hands, now. 

(This doesn't really make her feel any better.) 

She probably ought to go find Randi. She doesn't, though.

She collects her daughter, and snuggles and bounces Jisa in her new baby carrier while she paces her room, alone. After a couple of minutes, she starts crying uncontrollably. Which upsets Jisa, inconveniently. 

Elsewhere, a young man is also pacing - outside, by the riverbank - and also in tears. 

:Van?: A tentative Mindtouch. :Do you want to talk about it, love?: 

:No. I don't know. What's there even to talk about: 

A soothing yet faintly exasperated mental sigh. :Your feelings? Which you're clearly having: 

Vanyel kicks at a clod of dirt. 

:Fine. If you want me to talk to Lancir tomorrow I guess I can. Please just leave me alone. I'm not going to jump in the goddamned river or anything: 

:I'm not worried about that, love. I know you:

Yfandes paces her own circle, half a mile away, through grass that glimmers moist with dew under moonlight. 

:I'm here for you, all right? If you need to be alone right now, I understand, just - I'm still here, whenever you need company instead: 

Vanyel sends wordless acknowledgement and then shields her out and flomps down to sit beside the river. Watches moonlight catch on eddies in the rapids. 

She's so much better than he deserves, and it hurts– no. Something hurts but it isn't, quite, that. 

Leareth is up there, somewhere. Dying. He's probably scared. Imagining it sort of breaks Vanyel's brain. 

Elsewhere, Herald-Mage Kilchas climbs the astronomy tower, and sets up his best telescope, and studies the sky. 

Nothing different, so far. But they wouldn't be able to see the ship from here, not even with the best telescope in the world. It's too small and too far away.

"You're allowed to grieve for him," Lancir says, quietly. 

It's the next day. Nothing much has changed, including the Moon. 

"We don't know that he's dead." 

Lancir just looks at him, in that level piercing way. 

"He'll probably come back, right? Even if he doesn't make it?"