Wingsong doesn't know what to make of that, so he shrugs and keeps going. 

:The Tayledras people have a pact with the Star-Eyed Goddess, who saved our ancestors after the Cataclysm. She gave us powerful magic - the Heartstones, the techniques that Healing-Adepts use - and in return, our people's duty is to cleanse the lands of magical residue, so that people can safely live in them again. ...And to keep outsiders away, in the meantime, because the beasts of the Pelagirs are very dangerous, and can be harnessed by bandits and dark mages for ill purposes.: 

"Oh, is that what's weird about the mana rivers - are there mana rivers that aren't icky elsewhere?"

:Yes! Everywhere outside the Pelagirs is safe, assuming you are powerful enough to touch them at all. And there is quite a lot of the continent that is no longer Pelagirs.: He looks pleased with himself and proud about, even though it was basically all his ancestors' work and not his own. 

"Is having taken some of the icky mana going to be bad for me - it was better than not having any in the middle of the spooky forest and a spirit cleanse got most of it but not all."

:Only once is not very bad but I can have a look, if you want, I know magic that fully cleanses it. ...I will not have to read your mind in order to look: he clarifies quickly. :Healing-Sight is different.: 

"Okay, go ahead then."

He looks.

:...That is not too bad - I think it will be fine on its own if you wait a few days, our bodies have some resilience to it - but I can also put it right for you. It will feel weird but I promise it does not involve reading your mind.: 

"- yeah, okay."

It indeed feels weird and sort of like someone is touching her insides! It doesn't hurt but it's almost faintly ticklish. At least the insides being touched are definitely nowhere near the inside of her head. 

Wow she doesn't like that but she will try to hold still in case that's important.

It takes a couple of minutes, and then Wingsong backs off with his Gift, and also leans away and lifts his hands to make it obvious he's doing that. :Done. I hope that feels better?: 

"I think so. Is there some trick to doing it right?"

:Probably? But I only know the way to do it that uses the Healing-Adept Gifts and I think you do it a different way. And I have never tried to teach it before without concert work.: Or, well, technically he's never tried to teach it to anyone else at ALL, because when or why would he have done that, but his own lessons were done entirely via sense-sharing and close concert work. :I can try to explain but many magical techniques are very difficult to convey in words.: 

"Could you show me?"

Surely he did just show her, by doing it? ...Maybe she means demonstrate on someone else. Probably she means that, she did seem to find it very distracting and maybe she couldn't pay enough attention to watch him at the same time. 

:I can find a volunteer who needs to be cleansed and you can watch while I do it with them? I am not sure how your Sight works.: 

"I mean show me taking the mana, the icky kind."

:- Oh. Right.: An embarrassed smile. :We would have to leave the Vale for that, and it is - less safe outside.: 

(And the adults are UNREASONABLY protective of him and don't like him doing it unless he has both a very necessary reason and an escort.)

"Even just like, two steps? So you could hop right back in if anything twitched?"

He hadn't ever really thought about it before. :I suppose if all I wanted to do was tap a ley-line or node - and if you can see that even if the source is far away - that might work?: 

"I think I'll be able to see it with my spell up - at least whatever you do with it when the mana gets to you."

Nod. :We can try that if you want, then. Now?: 

"Now works for me."

Then they can head toward the edge of the Vale, at least once Wingsong (somewhat grumpily) informs one of the other Adepts why and then has to repeat twice that he's perfectly capable of defending himself and also they won't be going far and it shouldn't take more than a minute. 

...His grumpiness is probably showing and he feels bad about it. :Sorry: he sends. :I have to try to not upset the clan elders, they are worried about my safety since I am the only Healing-Adept.:

(If you can even call them 'elders'. Most of the actual clan elders are dead. He doesn't really feel like having that conversation though.)

"What is a Healing-Adept?" Bella asks, following him out to the edge.

He seems much happier about this question, and looks genuinely engaged and happy to answer as they head down the path towards the edge of the Vale. 

:I suppose a Healing-Adept is someone who has the right Gifts to learn the techniques that our Goddess granted us to cleanse the land. - Though it is also a title, given to someone who has mastered those techniques. It involves mage-gift, of course, and also Healing - not necessarily the kind that can Heal people as well, though I can - and some other thing, that means I can sense the land around me as though it is a part of my own body.:

Frown. :...It does make us more vulnerable - it means I am more affected by damage to the land, and so for me that is part of what I need to learn to account for. I hear it is easier for those who do not have...that sense...but I am not sure what the difference is.: