"Depends which things, a lot of it was things I don't know a whit about, but go ahead."

"The priestess of Iomedae with that long speech was talking about how — most of us have done evil things and need to repent, but most of us aren't really evil — and it made me realize that I don't... know... which things are evil. I know what was normal back home, but— some people are saying that things that were normal there are really evil—"

"...Erastil doesn't talk much. I'm going to be giving you guesses, just, guesses belonging to somebody Erastil thinks has it about right probably. But if that'll do I can talk on it, sure. You have specific things in mind?"

She really, really doesn't want to answer that, but she doesn't know how else she's supposed to find out.

"...if the harvest is really bad one year, and you have a baby, and if you try to take care of all of them probably your whole family will die, what are you supposed to do?"

"A lot of the time, sorry to say, the best thing to do is - to be prepared - which isn't good advice once you're having an emergency. But some things I'd want prepared, if that happened in my family, would be - neighbors with different crops, who I've fed in good years and might help me now I'm having a bad one. Good marriages and families for my older kids, my siblings, my in-laws, so some of the little ones who can just barely make themselves useful but are eating and growing a lot could go live with their brothers or sisters or cousins for a while. Savings everybody knew better than to drink up or gamble away. A familiarity with who in the nearest market town could use an apprentice, or whether the baron or the duke or somebody needs a soldier, to get another stomach out of the house. An understanding with my wife that if we don't have any of those things we'd better work on catching up hard enough so we fall into bed too tired to do anything but sleep for a while.

"If you don't have any of that, yeah, maybe you give the baby to the forest or the river and pray for it all the rest of your life."

"...and if you don't have any of that, and you have to — give up your baby — the noblewoman said you'd go to Hell for it—"

"Pharasma's not Good. She's not going to help you take care of the baby and might not have any problem condemning you for not doing it anyway. I've got no problem saying she might be in the wrong about that, but - I'd start having a problem saying such a thing if I thought people weren't doing their absolute best to keep all those babies safe at home where they belong, looked after by their own people and not Pharasma's servants who don't understand. It's not all right, to put yourself in a position where you won't do right by your family, and it doesn't make it right if someone else also isn't doing right by Her creations. You've got to do your best to be a better parent than Pharasma."

Her oldest had been too young to become a soldier and certainly too young to get married — but she could have fed her neighbors, if that was a thing people did, or she and her husband could have waited until things were looking better—

"...and if you did something like that, what are you supposed to do? Are you just— doomed—"

"Doomed, I don't think so. Years left to make up for it in. But working uphill for certain. And you've gotta pray for that baby, girl. You might be the only person who knows its name to ask after it."

"...Silvestre."

She swallows.

"Are there other things that — maybe I think they're normal, but they're actually really bad?"

"Talk me through a year at home for you. A bad one, maybe."

"Well, if it's a bad year, there's not enough food, so we're going hungry and trying to figure out how to make it work. Probably we get into arguments about it sometimes. Probably the younger kids don't totally understand why there isn't enough food, even when I try to tell them. Probably we get sick, and if things are bad enough maybe not all of us get better.

Apart from that— I mean, it depends on the season. We plant the crops, we till the fields, we harvest them. I don't think any of that is evil? The children who are old enough help, and we teach the ones who aren't old enough so that they'll be able to help when they're older. I spin, and I teach the girls to spin — or, I guess Marga's old enough that she doesn't need to be taught anymore. And we get water, and chop wood, and cook dinner, and do all the other things you need to do to survive. ...I guess some people think it's wrong to chop wood but I don't know what else we'd do.

My oldest is just about old enough to get married, but probably if everyone was having a bad year no one would want to get their marriage started off like that, and if it was just us then anyone he might marry would rather go with someone else. ...I'm hoping he'll marry one of the Serra twins, but he's got his heart set on Valèria, but I don't know if it'd be evil to put my foot down or evil not to. There's nothing wrong with her, or anything.

Every morning I pray to Erastil, and every night I pray to — Iomedae, now, and I pray to Pharasma when someone's born or someone dies, and if I really need something from another god I'll ask them, but I always heard they didn't like to be bothered. Probably in a bad year there'd be more things to bother them for. ...I guess maybe Iomedae also doesn't like to be bothered, I shouldn't assume she's the same as Asmodeus.

Before they shut down the schools we'd have to send our children to school sometimes. A lot of people've been saying that's evil but — I don't think they'd have let us get away with not? But maybe we could have tried harder to avoid it, one of the other people here drawn by lot said that in her village they'd let you keep them home as long as you paid them a big enough fine.

The old priest and his family are still around. I don't know if there's something I should do about that. I didn't — I think a lot of people here really didn't like theirs, but I always thought ours was fine?" She visibly hesitates. "...Sometimes I wish he still had his spells, even though he was getting them from Asmodeus. Things are harder without them. 

When the scary wizard lady showed up to bring me here I tried to run away but it didn't work. That — seems like it could maaybe be evil? She seemed upset that I didn't bring more things with me, I'm trying to think of a way that's evil and I can't but I might be missing something. ...That doesn't happen in a normal year, obviously.

Probably there are lots of things I'm forgetting. There are lots of things that happen in a year." 

"I think most gods like to be bothered. Or that's my impression, anyway.

"I don't think any of that's evil. No evil in the farm and its day to day, that druid Feather is a silly girl who doesn't know how normal folk get by and you shouldn't listen to her till all her notions have been through a few wiser heads. No evil in letting your boy marry someone there's nothing wrong with, nor in overriding him if he's being a fool about a pretty face who'll drive him up the wall in a year. Maybe there would have been some Good in taking more risks to avoid the schools, or set yourself at odds with the priest somehow, but I think no Evil in acknowledging your limits, provided you were doing the best you could to be prepared for all the normal things. Not the archmage sortitioning you, no one's prepared for that.

"I've never been to your village but if I were guessing what it'd need the most, it's a new cleric - maybe you can think of somebody who reminds you of me or another Erastilian, or a Pharasmin, we seem to be having the least trouble repopulating. Encourage them to see if they can get anywhere praying on it. Save up your delegation money, don't spend it all on strange bread with nuts in it from gods know where, and you'll have a nest-egg when you go back, enough to make it comfortable to have your neighbors over to dinner and fix up anything that's been needing repair a long time coming, and next time something you need to be prepared for happens, you will be."

Nod nod.

"Thank you very much for all the help."

"You're welcome. I think you'll do all right."