Oh my god that drawing is giving me feels, aaaaaaaaaaah. Poor Van. Poor Jisa. Yeah, I think no one has tried to explain it to her, because people think she isn't old enough and how would you even start that conversation with a seven-year-old. (And maybe Shavri firmly tells her *not* to ask Van about it, because she thinks he wouldn't want to talk about it, but it comes up later anyway?)

(Jisa would be well positioned to be the first to notice when Van & Stef end up lifebonded, which could be veeeeeery interesting. I am not totally sure how lifebonds work but my vague model is that they aren't properly lifebonded yet at this point?)

Stef is so great. My model of his ethics is that he's extremely pragmatic about it, and considers very few moral rules to be "real" – and Vanyel has ended up at a similar point, from a different starting position and for different reasons.