"I -"

Savil pauses to collect herself. :There is not actually a dichotomy between letting my nephew suffer and allowing you to practice your untested Mind-Gift on him, no matter how dire the situation may seem:

:I don't mean to undercut you, but I'm going to undercut you; isn't there? Has anything else we've tried worked? Do we have any other bright ideas?:

:...I can't... hurt him again:

:If I hurt him, I swear I'll find a way to fix it. But - I can't leave him as he is:

:I really do think she's got a chance. And... I don't think we have a shot without her:

:Fine. I'll... hold his hand, while you work:

:Thank you. I think that'll help:

Sufya hurries into the room. Vanyel is on a bare mattress on the floor, and she tries not to judge them for it. She wrenches open her Sight, and -

- it doesn't look good.

Before, when she Saw him, she Saw the impressions of another mannequin, holding his together, holding it up. She still Sees something, but - it's an absence. Like the dead man, a void where she knows something should be. Every place where it should be touching Vanyel, his covering has been flayed away, leaving cotton batting and sawdust drizzling into nothingness.

Parts of the absence have been - patched - by the addition of something else. A Companion-bond, like her own. It's not quite right, though; the shining white is too fine, too bright, and right now its presence against the open wound is less of a patch and more of a constant reminder that what should be there is gone forever.

That's not touching the physical pain coloring the mindscape like a bloodred sunrise, or the longer-term damage of isolation that she can just barely perceive around the edge of the wrongness, or for that matter the fog of drugs keeping him unconscious.

Felicity said he looks like death. He doesn't, really, not to her Sight. When you're dead, the pain is over.

:Astirian, have you ever... been extremely confident that you could do something... and then realized, after staking a great deal on the assumption that you could do that thing, that you had absolutely no idea where to start?:

:Not that I can recall, but I'm familiar with the principle. Stay calm? Do what you can?:

She reaches out and takes Vanyel's hand.

His eyes don't open. There's a pulse of dull, exhausted pain through his mindscape.

She sees the pain pulsing through him, and it makes her... angry?

He shouldn't be hurting. He shouldn't have to suffer mind and body, soul and flesh - the least he deserves is to be able to focus on the pain that matters. She squints her mind's eye - where's the pain coming from?

...if she looks very closely, and remembers how it's her mind and she can see through whatever she likes... there are hollow channels running through his mannequin like the veins of his true body. But they're scorched. Not even - they're charred, not licked by flame but consumed by it. The wood is black and crumbling.

Uh.

She's... not sure what to do there.

:Miss Felicity?:

:Gods, girl, just call me Felicity, you sound like a child - what is it?:

Sufya flushes. :Sorry. Um. Felicity, I see - something - do you think you can help me interpret -:

:I can try. Toss over the image?:

She does so. :I just - don't know what to do here, really?:

Felicity goes very quiet for a moment.

:Are you Mage-gifted?:

:No. They tested me when I was young, and I didn't have even the potential. My - my father said it all went to my fingers. For sewing:

:I ask because those are clearly his Gift-channels, and... I've never heard of those being visible to anything except Mage-Sight before... Not important. Is there anything you can do within your Sight that seems like it might help?:

She dives back in and... looks, for a while.

Is there something she can do? She's never done... well, anything. She just sees things.

But. If she were going to do something, she could try... gently, gently wrapping him in a blanket. The softest blanket she can imagine, and the warmest. (She thinks for a moment, absurdly, of a ghost-song she heard as a child - wouldn't you get chilly with no skin on?)

Vanyel stiffens in bed. Then, slowly, he relaxes back into sleep. (It looks deeper, to her Sight.)

He's also crying in his sleep, but that's hopefully alright?