Yfandes lifts her head. Blue eyes bore into Carissa. :...I'm sorry if this is insensitive to bring up in front of you?: 

- huh?

At least once they've invaded Cheliax there will be NORMAL PEOPLE around who have NORMAL HUMAN INTERACTIONS.

Leareth still isn't sure how to answer. 

:- Carissa, what do you think - should I tell him the timeline? I am not sure if it will help him rest to know, or if it will be better if he does not: 

I have absolutely no idea! I understand Chelish people! I do not understand him in the slightest!!! 

Sigh. Leareth hadn't really been expecting she would have an answer ready for him, but...still. 

"Nine days," he tells Vanyel, quietly. "And in the interim, I want you to rest and recover. ...Oh, and I am not going to send you back to Valdemar, even if the Heralds ask. Which they have not, actually, done yet, but - it seems clear that you need a break from all of that." 

Vanyel looks like he's maybe about to protest this. 

Leareth sighs again. 

"If you want to leave, well, you are the most powerful mage in the known world, with eight other Gifts; I certainly could not stop you. I am just telling you my intentions, which are to provide a safe harbour for you here, as long as you want it." 

....This is very confusing. 

Only because Vanyel is a completely bizarre alien!!!!! Otherwise it would be literally zero confusing!

"...Anyway," Leareth says finally, "I think that now you ought get some rest, and spend some time catching up with your Companion. Do you need anything else, before we go?" 

Vanyel shakes his head. 

Leareth squeezes his hand again before letting go, and turns to go. Pausing in the doorway, he looks around to see if Ignasi is still nearby to answer questions about what exactly went on with Yfandes over the last day. 

He is! It wasn't much, though. She didn't talk for most of it and then at the end asked how people cope with not knowing the right thing to do. Probably her internal experience was much more complex.

Does Ignasi have any advice to pass on, in terms of what sort of support seemed to help her during the process? 

Company, clover, apples, brushing? He thinks mostly she had to work through it on her own but it was good not to feel alone while she did.

Presumably the other paladin who stayed behind will make sure the Heralds are informed of this, but it's still good to know! Leareth thanks Ignasi, warmly. 

...And now he feels weirdly drained, and sort of wants a BREAK before he moves on to the next item on his personal agenda, which is 'getting to know Zahra better.' 

He tells Nayoki to interrupt him in half a candlemark and remind him that he has work to do, and then reaches for Carissa's hand. :Do you want to go back to your room for a little while and finish our previous conversation?:  

I'd like that.

Leareth walks back to her room with her. Sits down on the bed. 

:You know: he says in Mindspeech, :I think it would be much easier for you to work with my people if half of them did not seem like bizarre aliens to you. I am not sure if there is anything that I can do to help with that?: 

I'm working on it! Nayoki makes sense to me. Rashee makes perfect sense to me except where I'm unfamiliar with her notation. You mostly make sense to me.

:Which parts of me do not yet make sense to you? Is there overlap, with what is confusing about Vanyel?: 

Mostly the thing that doesn't make sense about you is how you engage in all the behavioral correlates of wanting to fuck me but then when we're actually in bed you're, like, unaware that's a thing people do.

No offense.

Leareth is not sure he has any idea how to answer that! So he is, apparently, going to divert it instead. :I - am assuming that is not especially related to what you find confusing about Vanyel: 

I mean, no, because he's gay. The thing that's confusing about Vanyel is that he takes everything someone says as if it's a brilliantly stated and completely true personal insult he should feel bad about, and also he gets embarrassed by people feeling at ease around him and also by people expressing admiration or deference at him, and also by people neutrally stating true facts in his presence. And he wants to stop existing. That's confusing.

Leareth chuckles. :I think you are perhaps somewhat overstating it, but - yes, I too am confused by how much of Vanyel's moment-to-moment social interactions seem to consist of him feeling embarrassed or being convinced he is doing something wrong. ...The wanting to stop existing is because he has a broken lifebond and this means he is in constant agonizing emotional pain all of the time. I think that I would probably still want to exist even under those circumstances but I am not actually sure?: 

Huh, is there a way to feel it to know what it's like?