:I know what he looks like. ...if you think it'll help, teach me to shield:

Felicity outlines the technique. It's a state of mind, more than anything, a mental posture. It helps that she can Mindtouch Sufya; words are generally inadequate for this kind of work.

By the time they're done, they're approaching the Workroom that has become Vanyel's cell.

Savil pokes her head out.

"Who's this?" she asks dully.

"Sufya. New Herald-Trainee, I know, what timing. Says she's been having some kind of not-Foresight dream about your nephew since she can remember, and more recently she got on a horse and headed over because she knew he was hurting."

"What?"

"Said what I said - speaking of which, she doesn't speak much Valdemaran, not sure where she's from but she's no local. Anyway, you know how I feel about gods, but they don't send potential Heralds dreams for no reason, and she's pretty insistent, so I thought we might as well see what she can do for the lad."

"...you talk too damned fast, Felicity."

Savil turns to Sufya. :Sufya, is it? What exactly do you intend to do here? Van's... important to me, and I don't want to take any chances he'll be hurt:

:I won't properly know, not until I see him. But I've got something, a Gift that can help - I think it can help. I haven't, um, practiced with it, I just See with it, it feels too dangerous to just practice... but Vanyel's suffering. Letting him suffer isn't taking a chance that he'll be hurt, it's a guarantee:

"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?: