"Yes, what can I do for you?" She doesn't recognize this woman, though that's not proof they haven't met; it's been a bit of a haze of names and faces and somehow she's now chairing two committees.

"I'm Laia Solandra, chosen of Shelyn, but more importantly for this conversation I'm also an actress, and I've been doing readings of pamphlets and news on the temple steps for people who don't read or can't afford the pamphlets themselves or just like to see a more curated selection. I thought your speech was terrifically stirring and wondered if you'd want to reiterate it there."

"Aww thank you! That's really good of you. It was a theatre group that started the rebellion in Pezzack, you know. People can say a lot on a stage.

 I...want to check with Feliu before I do that. He was worried that if everyone in Westcrown heard the speech they'd think the church of Iomedae wanted them to go murder all the nearby tieflings right now, even though I definitely didn't say that. I might work with him on a version that has all the stirring bits but that he's pretty sure isn't a mistake, or at least check if other people think he's wrong about that. Could we do it tomorrow, after I've had time to check?"

"I had heard it was a theater group - we never had trouble like that in Ostenso but it was a really warming thought, that if somebody'd come after me the fans would've been there to protest - anyway I think tomorrow should be fine, sure!"

"Everyone was so outraged, even the people who didn't mutter about the Asmodeans normally. Valeria - she's the leading lady in our theatre - was just lovely, and everyone had seen her in one thing or another, and when she went into hiding even the people who were always loudly backing the regime couldn't find it in themselves to say anything stronger than that this had to be a misunderstanding. - they're touring, now, to do the sequel play. The one that kicked everything off was called Abrogail I, and it's very subtle, doesn't depict the Queen negatively or anything, just the people around her being kind of contemptible and incompetent in funny ways. The sequel - Abrogail II - well, we'd hung all the censors by then."

"I hadn't heard they were touring, I hope they come through Ostenso and I can see it myself! Maybe we'll do a run of our own if the appetite's not run out by the time they've got to be on their way and - hm, I'm a bit old for Abrogail II and a bit young for Abrogail I but I could be a young Rugatonn, don't you think?"

"Oh, I think the imagination's very powerful, you could do all three. Rugatonn's got some good lines, though. Where do you read the pamphlets? I should attend that, I can't read and I don't want to always impose on Blai for everything."

"Temple of Shelyn! It's at the intersection of what's now Seventh and Songbird - nobody was changing all the devilish street names so Songbird Gabriel went out with a paintbrush and did it himself all up and down the street and nobody's complained yet."

"Great! I am probably going to be staying here late tonight, I need help writing up the report from Judiciary and I don't want to impose on the people at the Iomedaen temple as they're all so busy, but tomorrow I'll come by. Which pamphlet did people like best, so far?"

"I think of the ones I'm not deliberately making seem silly because they're silly, In Defense of the Anarchic Spirit. Though I'm not sure you'd like it, it's a bit down on Iomedae."

"I'll have to ask Blai to read me that one. I like the pamphlets, and the speeches. I like the idea you can - change the world by saying things. Asmodeans can't do that."

"Well, I'm not sure he'd like it either, if he's the other Iomedaean, but I'm sure you'll be able to find a copy."

"Well you shouldn't only read pamphlets you like! Some of the Speeches of the Galtan Revolution were down on Iomedae too. They were wrong about Her - they thought She wasn't willing to do what it took to beat diabolism back, and I think She is - but that's - a whole lot of what Good is, that you don't have to just do whatever makes the nearest powerful person happy, that the censors aren't willing to kill a hundred men to not be laughed at."

"I do mostly only read aloud pamplets I like, unless I think of a comedic angle. To avoid it looking like I'm encouraging people to do things that are actually foolish. And I hold and glance at the pamphlet the entire time, even if I memorize it, so it's clear the words aren't mine however pretty they are."

"That's clever. I asked Feliu - since he said he was worried about my speech - if we had to not give speeches even if they were true, like in the old days, and he said - it matters, if it's a priest of Iomedae saying it or an actor on a stage. The things you do help remind people it's not an order from on high, just something someone said."

"I think a lot of people today are looking very desperately for guidance they can be sure is actually Good and not just somebody slapping a goodness label on whatever's convenient for them, so anytime I've got the bird on," she taps it, "I've got to read from the right script, yep!"

"Oh, do you think so? I kind of think - it's obvious what Good is. No one's going around committing rape and murder and worshipping Norgorber or being in a cult of a lesser power of Hell because they think it's Good. None of the slavers think that actually slavery is recommended by Heaven. People might be confused about which things will actually work to make things better, like whether they can trust that if they report things to the Queen it'll really help, but - 

- the archduchess who said Pezzack shouldn't have rebelled against Asmodeus, you think she was confused about what Good is and not just lying?"

"- well, they might not think those things are Good, but that doesn't mean they know what to do instead, or how to repent and move forward and still feed their children. And I hear a lot of littler problems too, people worried about punishing their kids, or reporting their neighbors for things that are still crimes because they're not sure they were bad enough to want government attention, or people who felt like their special devotion to Iaozrael was the only thing about themselves that they ever liked and they didn't know what else they'd have left... I don't know what exactly the Archduchess meant, I think probably she misunderstood something."

"It seems to me like nobles always - misunderstand things very conveniently, and it's trusting them far too much to call it misunderstanding. But I shouldn't have picked a fight with her about it, that was foolish. 

In Pezzack since we were liberated people hit their children if they're doing something that might get them killed, since getting hit's much less bad than getting killed, and if it won't get them killed then whatever consequences it does have will probably teach them fine."

"I think that will work fine as a plan for a parent who is already doing that or something like it and will sound impossible and complicated to a parent who is doing something that is not at all like that. I'm not a parent myself but I've directed children and if I learned one day that actually it was wrong to - to - make them do warmup exercises that they find embarrassing, I wouldn't know where to go from there and still have the show go on without some serious thought. And some people come to me for help with the serious thought is all."

"Well I'm glad they can do that. I wonder if it'd be worth a play - a comedy, probably - about some well meaning liberated people who get a bunch of terribly confused ideas about what's allowed and what's not and start trying to get by without using one's left foot or without cooking food or without having any savings at all."

"- I don't think I want to make fun of these people."

"Well you'd have to do it right but I'm not imagining something about how they're stupid but about how they are, in fact, stronger for trying to be Good despite being almost entirely wrong about it, because - you've won half the battle by the time you're trying."

"Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow with a great idea for something in this vein but right now I don't see it? I don't think 'you can be Good but you're going to do it stupidly and people will make fun of you for that and half the things you'd think to try won't even help' is a good message."

"I'm not a playwright, but I think - any thing that people are doing, stories about the ways they're doing it right half by accident and wrong half by accident are good. It can't be mean-spirited, but people like seeing stories about the things they don't understand and about the process of stumbling into understanding them."