"That's really cool! What are your favorites?"

“My favorite is about an Andoren cleric of Desna and a Mammoth Lord who get stranded in hostile territory at the Worldwound.”

Tetula is going to demand plot summaries.

The two of them are summoned into the middle of a demon camp through unclear demon magic and the part of the magic keeping them helpless is interfered with by a miracle from Desna, who both protagonists venerate, before the demons can kidnap anyone else, and the two of them break out of the magic circle and wreck the summoning setup before fleeing into the wilderness of the Worldwound, attempting to navigate back to the correct side of the Wardstones while dealing with periodic demon attacks and also a generally hostile environment.

Some of the demons who attack are trying to get revenge for the thwarted magic thing but a lot of them are just, demons, in the Worldwound, as you do. The two of them become closer over their journey until finally, within sight of the Wardstone barrier, the cleric falls into an Abyssal rift and the Mammoth Lord has to choose between definitely being able to get to safety or risking everything to rescue her.

He picks the latter, obviously, saving her from a setup where the demons had put her in a deeply skimpy outfit in which to sacrifice her to a demon lord. Once all the demons are dead they consummate their relationship right there in the abyss, before returning through the rift, making it to the correct side of the barrier, and getting married.

The Mammoth Lord is used to an environment where it is much colder, so he spends the overwhelming majority of the book shirtless and sweaty; the author likes to linger over descriptions of how glistening and chiseled his torso is. Also at least one of them usually gets injured in any given demon attack and there’s a lot of tenderhorny wound care.

Thea might need to keep a closer eye on which of Nuria's romance novels are suitable reading material for her students.  But then again, the Sisterhood of Eiseth always said the urge to claim your desires motivated willpower and strength?  And Irori's teachings suggest temperance, but don't strongly command it directly?

Tetula is an enthusiastic audience who gasps and exclaims at all the right points.

“It was the first one I ever read, and the only one for a long time. It’s why I wanted so badly to get into romance novel smuggling.”

"Does Desna like romance novels?"

“—Well, she must, I know I’m not the only Desnan involved. Calistria too, actually.”

"You know, the Chaotic gods are a lot less scary than I was led to believe."

“Well, I wouldn’t want to meet a demon lord. But yeah it turns out the thing that really matters is good versus evil, instead of law versus chaos.”

Thea's not sure if she believes that.  She hasn't met any Calistrans or Gorumites yet, maybe they would feel more similar than different?  Or maybe law and chaos matter more the further you are from goodness?  Still, she doesn't interrupt yet, it seems Tetula is appreciating Nuria's advice and counsel.

“Like, I’m chaotic, but I really respect this monastery, and I’d probably get along fine with a paladin! But like I said a demon lord would be bad.”

Thea appreciates the complement!

"For my part, I was always told that chaos lacked the discipline and diligence to become strong and good lacked the will to claim its desires.  But Nuria made it to second circle pursing her desire for goodness and romance.  And you, Tetula, seem to be diligently seeking to understand your God's will.  So I'm not really sure what alignment even means in an absolute sense, other than in the most blatant cases.  I'm Thea, by the way, I didn't want to interrupt your conversation earlier."

"I think I have a sense of what they mean but I don't think I understand it well enough to put it into words...or, rather, since I'm still relatively uneducated on the point, I expect that whatever words I picked would turn out to be wrong later on after I learned more. Like, I don't mean to knock romance novels as a window into Not Cheliax, but I feel like no matter what your source is, if you only have one angle, you're going to be wrong about some complicated things." 

"I think Chaos means you get to do what you want instead of what other people want you to do. And Good means-- not having to be afraid anymore."

"That's definitely a feature of Good! But Good is much bigger than that. Good is about--being kind to other people, even when it doesn't get you anything. And--for me, right now, I'm not making claims about the fundamental nature of Law versus Chaos, but--Lawful Good is about building systems for people to be kind to each other, and Chaotic Good is about being kind to people even when there aren't any systems for it and nobody is going to thank you or maybe even notice."

"I guess I think about kindness as-- being the sort of person that other people don't have to be afraid of."

"That's true. Although--sometimes, people not having to be afraid of you doesn't mean they aren't afraid of you, and you have to roll with that." 

"If you can't roll with people being afraid of you then maybe it makes sense for them to be afraid of you."

People being afraid of you is extremely useful, Thea does not say.  It might be bad for some forms of teaching and learning, and both Tetula and Nuria seems to think it is non-good, and Thea is trying to be Lawful Neutral, like her God, so she should at least learn to moderate how much she intimidates people.

So she'll just continue to listen.

"I think that probably depends on what not rolling with it looks like? Like, if someone is afraid of you, so you're unkind to them or pushy on the issue or anything, then yeah, but like--if halflings are consistently afraid of you, so you just try to avoid halflings, then the halflings don't get the benefit of whatever you would have done instead but I don't think it makes sense to say that they should be more scared of you because of that." 

"I guess I was thinking of avoiding them as a kind of rolling with it?"

“I think it’s sort of rolling away from it. And like also Neutral and not active Good?”

Maybe Tetula is confused about Good again. She often is.

"I guess-- leaving people alone when they want to be left alone feels like..." She trails off, because she doesn't want to finish the sentence with "what her dream-lover would do."