Sulen is engaged in the human equivalent of rolling over and showing Sasha their belly. She doesn't like it. She's expecting them to push back, and if they aren't doing so now, that just means they'll act in some weirder and more subtle way, later. But Sasha doesn't have the fucking time for hypothetical problems when there are so many present ones to deal with, so she'll just have to keep moving.
"I'll give you the short version, then, and you can read the letter at your leisure." Sitting here while Sulen read it would be excruciating for both of them, anyway. "Quill's people are making a major push into the mid-800s, during the wars with the Lanterners. Ashari wants us to pretend to join them, through a rift to the Lanterner stronghold of Autumn Pyre. We'd exit in 852, right around the time of a major battle. We're supposed to report to someone named Flute, one of Quill's people, who's posing as an arms dealer, and try to figure out what's going on."
Sasha activates a display screen, so they can both build a to-do list. "I'm going to send out a short briefing to everyone once we're done here, and schedule a general meeting for this evening. You and I will need to talk to Virmad, since he's from that time period, and might know about Lanterner culture. I wanted your input on a specific question, though. How much should we tell the others about the mission responsibilities involving Quill? Specifically, what do we say to Seyli and the foxes? I'm not sure whether to give them a complete briefing, or claim we're part of an auditing team. Or we could not say anything at all. I don't think it's practical to keep foxes truly in the dark, but it might be safer for them not to know officially."
[Minor question: does the h*-archate count centuries the way we do? That is, would they say "ninth century"?]
Re: human resources
"I'll give you the short version, then, and you can read the letter at your leisure." Sitting here while Sulen read it would be excruciating for both of them, anyway. "Quill's people are making a major push into the mid-800s, during the wars with the Lanterners. Ashari wants us to pretend to join them, through a rift to the Lanterner stronghold of Autumn Pyre. We'd exit in 852, right around the time of a major battle. We're supposed to report to someone named Flute, one of Quill's people, who's posing as an arms dealer, and try to figure out what's going on."
Sasha activates a display screen, so they can both build a to-do list. "I'm going to send out a short briefing to everyone once we're done here, and schedule a general meeting for this evening. You and I will need to talk to Virmad, since he's from that time period, and might know about Lanterner culture. I wanted your input on a specific question, though. How much should we tell the others about the mission responsibilities involving Quill? Specifically, what do we say to Seyli and the foxes? I'm not sure whether to give them a complete briefing, or claim we're part of an auditing team. Or we could not say anything at all. I don't think it's practical to keep foxes truly in the dark, but it might be safer for them not to know officially."
[Minor question: does the h*-archate count centuries the way we do? That is, would they say "ninth century"?]