:Survive because Valdemar needed him,: Thellim says.  There's respect in her Mindspeech, inextricably intertwined with horror.  Thellim can't think of a single person so vital to her own Civilization that they wouldn't retire to cryonic suspension and the hope of future healing, with that level of injury, without losing respect for that.

Thellim was trying to not know all this yet.  But this is exactly the sort of thing where somebody would look at that huge void and think that it was the missing partner instead of dangling connections, remembered pain, if somebody had told them too early what to think.  She'll just try to blank the knowledge out of her mind and see from first principles.

:A lifebond would have to be much more than a romantic entanglement to do this kind of damage.  Something like Mindspeech but much deeper.  Yfandes, are you okay with - talking about this subject - or should we be looking for an expert on lifebonds?:

:Survived because Valdemar needed him,: Thellim says.  There's respect in her Mindspeech, inextricably intertwined with horror.  Thellim can't think of a single person so vital to her own Civilization that they wouldn't retire to cryonic suspension and the hope of future healing, with that level of injury, without losing respect for that.

Thellim was trying to not know all this yet.  But this is exactly the sort of thing where somebody would look at that huge void and think that it was the missing partner instead of dangling connections, remembered pain, if somebody had told them too early what to think.  She'll just try to blank the knowledge out of her mind and see from first principles.

:A lifebond would have to be much more than a romantic entanglement to do this kind of damage.  Something like Mindspeech but much deeper.  Yfandes, are you okay with - talking about this subject - or should we be looking for an expert on lifebonds?:

:Survived because Valdemar needed him,: Thellim says.  There's respect in her Mindspeech, inextricably intertwined with horror.  Thellim can't think of a single person so vital to her own Civilization that they wouldn't retire to cryonic suspension and the hope of future healing, with that level of injury.

Thellim was trying to not know all this yet.  But this is exactly the sort of thing where somebody would look at that huge void and think that it was the missing partner instead of dangling connections, remembered pain, if somebody had told them too early what to think.  She'll just try to blank the knowledge out of her mind and see from first principles.

:A lifebond would have to be much more than a romantic entanglement to do this kind of damage.  Something like Mindspeech but much deeper.  Yfandes, are you okay with - talking about this subject - or should we be looking for an expert on lifebonds?: