"Well, the way you'd be most useful to us is if you helped us figure out what the Azanis are planning so we can surprise them and avoid ambushes, so we'd want you at the front for that. Unless you have other magic up your sleeve that would be better?"

I have magic songs. For healing and sleep and looking like the same species as the baby and stuff.

He wonders if that means the baby is adopted and then shuts that line of thinking down as probably rude.

"Healing also sounds useful. And... how does the sleep song work?"

She's not adopted, I'm a transitional species. The song works by... me singing it and people going to sleep? I can leave people out so I don't fall asleep myself in the middle of a verse.

So she can just about handle herself, assuming she can sing them to sleep faster than the Azanis can shoot her. It's unfortunate that they probably can't keep the baby in the capital.

"So it sounds like there are a lot of different ways you could leverage your magic powers here. The best you could do is sneak into Azan and read the king's mind, but that would probably be dangerous. It would be... safer to heal soldiers. Safer still to stay here and heal people in town, assuming we can win." If they lose then she should probably run if she can and otherwise die, the Azanis do take slaves and they maim them. There are rumors they don't take civilians as slaves, but there are also rumors they might want civilians for human sacrifices.

I don't mind healing soldiers, she says after some consideration.

"That sounds extremely useful. We'll have to... figure out who can be allowed near a mind-reader - is there a way to stop you, by the way?"

Yeah but I think it takes a while to learn.

"Maybe you could start teaching us on the way and in a while we'll know. It seems important." She probably can't be convinced to do this to help them protect themselves from her but maybe other people have the same ability and he expects she could want to protect Sesat from those people.

I don't think anybody else is coming.

She's sort of making this difficult and he's not sure if it's on purpose - anything she says might be a lie but if she claimed to explain how to keep their thoughts secret then people would have the option to act like they believe her, whereas this way there's not much room to avoid pushing back without looking cowardly. She's acting like she's going to make a bid for the throne or at least refuse to be subject to any hierarchy, and that makes sense but wow does he ever not want that. This line of thought is quick and only partly conscious, and as he notices himself thinking about it he sets it aside because thinking about it while she's reading his mind is obviously pointless.

"Right. Well. You can come help us win the war and then, I guess, find somewhere for your garden - maybe you can take the land for it from Azan," he suggests, which would put her at least as far from the capital as she is now and very far from Leopard Hill. "What arrangements should we make for the baby in the mean time?" He expects this question to be fraught but it's not like they can just have a baby with them.

(Teru and Valan, without access to the thoughts she's reacting to, are confused. Teru generates a few hypotheses, one of them correct, and is concerned; Valan refuses to think too much or be concerned near a mind-reader.)

I'm not going to give her to somebody else!

"Do you think you can keep her safe at the front?"

I've never been to one before.

If she'd said she was sure he'd have bought it, given all the magic. But absent a compelling reason to think otherwise, he really thinks they should not take the baby there. He thinks she should agree with that much, even though she will definitely not want to agree to the usual setup.

"Hm. Is the range for the healing the same as for the mind-reading?"

...I guess that depends on how well you hear? - okay you don't hear too well so it's much closer range.

"I think maybe at this point we should stop and reassess - I only knew about the mind-reading when I suggested getting involved in the war, but healing is valuable everywhere." Maybe less so in Azan where they maim people! That would be convenient if true so she's going to avoid entertaining any counterarguments. "Maybe it makes more sense for - I forgot to ask your name, sorry, I'm Teru - "

I never earned a name. In Angband you have to earn them.

Like how slaves don't have names? Except the bar is clearly higher, since this person is, well, realistically only not going to rule Sesat because her ambitions are so small. Maybe they just really object to taking names away, so they don't name babies just in case? She hopes it's not a problem that people here have names by default.

"Huh. Uh, I think it might make more sense for you to move to somewhere that isn't a city, maybe on the coast, and work as a doctor for whoever will come to you, and reassess if we actually seem to be losing. Given that you want to keep the baby with you and we have other spies and don't have other magic healers."

Okay, that sounds fine. Is it a long walk?

"Yes." Mora could do it in a day but Teru might not and would rather not try. She's assuming their immigrant is faster than her, since she's taller, but not that much faster, since she at least sort of looks human. "Walking isn't the only way to get there, if you can ride a horse or if you want to be carried. I can arrange that and you can pay me back for it later?"

Okay, thank you! I think I could figure out a horse.

"I can go get one - " how much might the stranger be offended by the implication that she'd have a reason to want to be left alone with the soldiers (Teru is not sure exactly how much token resistance women in Angband are supposed to put up about safeguarding their virtue and it could easily be more than anyone in Sesat bothers with) and how much might she be offended by the implication that she couldn't just put them to sleep if she were bothered? It's hard to even begin to guess. " - as soon as you and Mora have worked out how someone can get in touch with you if they need you after all, and then I can show you the way." Escort the stranger so she stays far from the capital the whole time, that is.

Beka doesn't really know how to engage with those thoughts! Okay. Is this far enough away that I won't be able to hear if Mora thinks at me?

"Well, we have a minimum for your range but I don't think we're very clear on the maximum. Where are the furthest people you can hear right now?"

(Ten miles to the south there are people on their way to the capital, nearly there; the city itself isn't quite in range but it's close. Ten miles to the north is in Iral; there's a restaurant with a view of the ocean, where people who don't care very much about the answer are taking bets on how long the war between Sesat and Azan will last. Ten miles to the west is out in the ocean and no ship happens to be right there right now. Ten miles to the east is a nondescript farm in Iral near its border with Sesat where people are thinking about their work and their romantic drama and not about where exactly they are.)