Okay, see you later!

She decides to check on Sayshen on her way back to her research.

Sayshen is ambling about in the Companions' Field. :Hello, Bella: she sends, when she sees her approaching. 

Hey. I just wanted to follow up and see how you're doing after the thing.

Sayshen wanders up. :Well, it's certainly been an adjustment: Her mindvoice has almost the same quiet equanimity as before, but there's a new edge to it. :Finishing all those thoughts that I couldn't think over all these years. Feelings I couldn't feel before. Realizing that I've got every right to be angry, actually. About all of it. Losing my Chosen. Not even being allowed to be upset about it. Watching him - change - and not being allowed to mind: 

She ducks her head. :I still love him – we're not properly bonded anymore, but I suppose during the time we had I came to love him on his own merits, bond or no, and - I still do, even if I don't necessarily like what being King's Own forced him to grow into. I'm not sure that he still loves me. He certainly doesn't need me. Nobody does. I had the thought that I could, oh, arrange to fall and break my neck, and it'd look like an accident and it's not like anyone would actually care: 

She takes a few steps. :But, I thought about it and decided I like existing. It's...still a pretty good world, and if a lot of things feel fundamentally meaningless all of a sudden, well, they might've been that way all along. All we can do is try to muddle through it: 

That seems like a pretty good recovery from what must have been a sharp shock.

Sayshen tosses her mane. :Definitely wasn't how I expected the day to go, when I woke up that morning. But I don't regret it: She scuffs at the grass with a hoof. :Need to figure out what to do with myself, now: 

When I figure out how to controllably travel to other planes you can come if you want.

:Huh!: Sayshen gives her a long, thoughtful look. :I might take you up on that. I'm...really, really bored. I guess noticing that is another thought I couldn't finish, before: 

Why couldn't you even notice you were bored?

:...I'm not sure. Maybe because it implied a - not liking what happened. Or, maybe I could notice, but I couldn't want it to be different and think about how to make that happen?: Saysen kicks at a clod of dirt. :In hindsight I'm pretty mad about that part. Feels like, I don't know, I should have a right to just think what I think and feel what I feel? That's my me: 

That is absolutely your you. Is there any way for Companions to, like, read books or something?

:Hmm. It's a little awkward but I could probably figure something out. The stablehands know we're people, they help us with things that normal horses wouldn't do. I can't get into the library itself to find books I want, though: 

I can get you books sometimes. I'm trying to crunch-time a research project right now but if you knew what you had in mind I could do it pretty fast.

:Hmm - not right now but I'll give it a think?: 

Knock on my shields when you have a book in mind? Ideally around a mealtime, I break to eat anyway.

:I can do that: 

Later!

And she returns to her work.

The interruptions are minimal. Healers' has an unusually heavy patient load for her that night, but given the speed of healing, that's likely to mean it takes twenty minutes instead of fifteen. 

Vanyel Mindtouches her shortly after supper (from which he was absent at the dining hall). :Got a draft letter. I can read it out to you this way now, or do it before I go to sleep, either works: 

Now's good. Did you skip dinner?

:...I might've lost track of time. Went for a ride with 'Fandes: 

Is there a good way for you to get a late dinner?

:The kitchen's always open even when the dining hall isn't set up for mealtime, I could go in and bug them to get food. Or, I guess I could call a page and get food brought to my room, but I hate doing that just because I was absentminded: 

(Vanyel has skipped quite a lot of meals in the past due to forgetting what time it was.) 

Well, either of those is better than just not eating.

:...All right, I'll do one of them: The mental equivalent of a sigh. :I'm really not hungry, but that always happens when there's something stressful going on in my life, I know I have to eat anyway: