:We were having a stressful conversation and I - may have been stupid - I forgot that Vanyel has had a worse time than I have - I was talking about my bright ideas for making something Valdemar could trade for food before - people starved - and not restraining my own emotions while I was doing that.  The last thing that happened was Vanyel asked Lissa the date, and Lissa told him, though I doubt that's what did it.  Now Vanyel's gone mentally quiet and physically motionless, frozen up like a... complicated information manipulation device that's been given bad instructions.  I don't suppose there's such a thing as a Mindspeech technique that takes a quick peek to see if anything bad is happening inside somebody's head, versus their suddenly needing a quiet five minutes but predictably being fine after that?:

:We were having a stressful conversation and I - may have been stupid - I forgot that Vanyel has had a worse time than I have - I was talking about my bright ideas for making something Valdemar could trade for food before - people starved - and not restraining my own emotions while I was doing that.  The last thing that happened was Vanyel asked Lissa the date, and Lissa told him, though I doubt that's what did it.  Now Vanyel's gone mentally quiet and physically quiet, frozen up like a... complicated information manipulation device that's been given bad instructions.  I don't suppose there's such a thing as a Mindspeech technique that takes a quick peek to see if anything bad is happening inside somebody's head, versus their suddenly needing a quiet five minutes but predictably being fine after that?:

:We were having a stressful conversation and I - may have been stupid - I forgot that Vanyel has had a worse time than I have - I was talking about my bright ideas for making something Valdemar could trade for food before - people starved - and not restraining my own emotions while I was doing that.  The last thing that happened was Vanyel asked Lissa the date, and Lissa told him, Lissa said the time of year is relevant somehow but didn't say how.  Now Vanyel's gone mentally quiet and physically quiet, frozen up like a... complicated information manipulation device that's been given bad instructions.  I don't suppose there's such a thing as a Mindspeech technique that takes a quick peek to see if anything bad is happening inside somebody's head, versus their suddenly needing a quiet five minutes but predictably being fine after that?: