"Aye."

Everyone is voting for it and most of them are scary but the normal priest voted for it too. "Aye."

"Aye, I guess."

"Can we phrase it something like - 'great are the depredations that the people of Ravounel have suffered at the hands of monsters from the forest, but it is our duty to approach this convention with hope and mercy in our hearts as Iomedae teaches, and so to hope that Ravounel's great cruelties were intended to be visited against the Asmodeans, and to appoint a representative for the purpose of ascertaining if this is so, and if the end of these depredations can be negotiated peacefully'?

I don't want to make any recommendation to the floor that ignores the great harms we're discussing. It's fine to be merciful but it's different from just pretending there's nothing to forgive."

"That's a mighty fancy way to put anything and it doesn't sit right in my head. How's about for short we say something like, seeing as how it's hard and dangerous to live near the edge of the forest," he does mostly mean for the regular folks who live there but he also says it in a way that could mean somebody inside too, so Feather won't explode, "and this forest does happen to have a council, so we are told, we recommend sending a diplomat to talk to that council, hoping that they will see the benefits of becoming better neighbors by and by."

"I think that makes us sound foolish and naive. But if you throw in the bit about it being our duty to have mercy and hope then we're not being foolish, we're being Good." Being Good is when you're foolish with the reward of Heaven for it.

"All right, I don't mind saying we've got a duty to have mercy and hope."

"Then I'm in favor of the motion also and it's unanimous."

"...should we also have a motion that it's bad for monsters to eat people?"

"is there supposed to be a bit in a constitution where it just lists things that are bad? Closest thing I can think of is the Rights Committee and that's about what the government can do to you, not what a gnoll can do to you."

"You can make it illegal to eat humans outside the forests, but I assumed that's already the law? What does saying that it's bad do on top of that?" Feather knows by now that when most Chelish say 'people' they really mean other humans. ('Monsters' she's given up on.)

Taís does not have any idea what sort of thing goes in a constitution and looks like she's rather regretting having spoken up at all.

"Anyhow. Third, motion that for much the same reasons, the Crown send somebody to check if Barrowood has some kind of council or something like it too, so that it'd take to a diplomat also."

"The findings of this committee don't have to all go directly in the constitution and I think it's certainly one of the findings of this committee that many people live in terror of the monsters that come out of the forest, and many die of being eaten by those monsters, and our hope by this recommendations is that that will change, whatever it takes. I don't see why not to send that to the floor too, our honored druid delegates agree that it's a terrible thing that people keep being eaten."

What a fucking bitch.

"Yeah, all right." He's not even going to quibble with the wording on that one.

She smiles encouragingly at Tais. "I suspect the resolution against monsters eating people will be unanimous too, of course, but just to check - all in favor? Aye."

"Aye?"

"Aye to not eating humans in Cheliax." Agreeing on that will hopefully stop Eulàlia from triumphantly telling everyone the druids wanted to keep eating humans, and it's not like it has a chance of not passing. 

...Why is she kidding herself, Eulàlia is totally going to tell people that, she'll just lie about it.

"Empty statements save no lives. You are wasting time that could be used on measures of substance. But the damage is done, so aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

“Aye.”

"I am opposed to monsters eating people. Everyone is. Why are we even having this conversation."

"Because Delegate Seguer want social dominance."