"Thank you."

They leave her alone for a couple of candlemarks. 

Later that afternoon, Savil comes back. "Belrun? Ready to join us for another meeting? We'll have Dara in this one, Rolan thinks that's a good idea." 

"Yes, now is fine." She sets down her pen.

"We're using a meeting room again, if that's all right."

Savil waits for her to be out the door and then leads her, walking nice and slowly, back to the older core wing, and to the same very comfortable room. It's less crowded this time. Herald Tantras is there, and Keiran and Joshel, and a very young-looking girl with light brown hair cut short, bright blue eyes, and freckles everywhere. 

The girl stands, bobs her head. "I'm Dara," she says with anxious politeness. "Pleased to meet you." She sits down again, a slate in her lap and chalk in her hand. 

"It's nice to meet you too."

"Let's get started," Savil says after a few beats of silence. "We've gone back and discussed everything from the earlier meeting. I think the avenues we see forward here are - one, can Rolan negotiate on behalf of the relevant god or gods. Two, can we help come up with a plan to avert or mitigate the second Cataclysm that will satisfy Leareth. Three, are there reasons Valdemar would actually be very hard to take over that Leareth isn't considering. Belrun, what do you think?" 

Tran does not say anything but he glares. 

Dara gives him a look that is both nervous and kind of baffled. 

"Four, present a case not necessarily based in the difficulty of conquering Valdemar to prefer another alternative, except it's hard to evaluate those without knowing what the alternatives are intended to progress toward and Leareth and I'd need more confidence in how you'd take that information."

Dara nods seriously and writes something on her slate. 

"Belrun, is there one you would prefer to start with?" 

"First thing sounds like it has the most - uninvestigated potential - but I notice we aren't meeting in a room with space for any Companions."

Dara fidgets with her slate. "Rolan's listening in through me. He's - not saying much yet. If he does I'll relay it. Er, he's been kind of cagey about this entire thing though, but he approved of me coming to the meeting." 

"I guess it would be hypocritical of me to criticize keeping secrets at this stage of the proceedings but that doesn't make me very optimistic about option one."

Nobody else looks very optimistic either. 

"Option two," Savil says, sounding very tired all of a sudden. "It's kind of limited by the fact that none of us can expect to be around in a few centuries, but Van and I aren't exactly slouches with magic. And we've got the Tayledras to call on." 

"- it doesn't have to be a plan you'd personally be present to implement. One Leareth can carry out that doesn't happen to involve invading Valdemar would work fine. Also I don't think it's necessarily a feature of Cataclysm-averting plans that they be timed exactly for the Cataclysm."

"Right, that makes sense. Hmm. Vanyel is going to be the best person for having ideas about it but he's - not doing that well right now, I'm sure you noticed." 

"He might appreciate being looped in anyway."

"Right, that makes se–"

"Can we please stop looking for places to loop Vanyel in?" Tantras snaps. "We know he's compromised. Right?" 

Dara makes a very quiet startled squeaking sound but says nothing. 

"...do you have a way to prevent the dreams, or are you just deciding that you exclusively want him to get information from Leareth going forward?"

It doesn't seem like Tantras has a good answer to this, because he just glowers at the wall. 

"I think we ought to loop Vanyel in on the Cataclysm part in particular," Savil says. "We shouldn't let him have final say over our decisions, but magical research on this aspect is different."