"He might have followup questions. It's surprising that you don't."

"Oh, I do, I just don't want to ask anything you'd be uncomfortable answering. I expect he won't either."

"- my comfort is again not particularly material to what I ought to do."

"If there's things you think we ought to know you're certainly welcome to tell us. I am a bit concerned that... well, no, it'd come up either way. You may want to talk to a Lawful counselor about this at some point," she refocuses, "just to get some help with your own emotional relationship to it. But I don't think it'll matter whether that happens before or after this."

"...my emotional relationship to - your priorities confuse me far too much for me to attempt to adopt them as my own."

"If someone from my congregation felt obligated to share something like this, my first guess at what was going on would be that they felt guilty, and maybe that they were trying to punish themselves, and that if they didn't speak to someone and get it sorted out they'd keep making questionable decisions about it until someone got hurt. Your situation is more complicated than that, and it does make sense to tell Raafi some things that would normally be private, but it's possible for both reasons to apply to the situation, and I'm not sure they don't."

"I'm not authorized to punish anyone for things right now, let alone myself!"

"...it's not usually a conscious choice. ...I'm beginning to think I should invite you back for some classes."

"Classes?"

"You seem confused about some things I consider foundational - not things specific to our church, things I'd expect anyone to know. About emotions, mostly, but there might be more I haven't noticed yet."

"You have... classes. About emotions."

"We do," she nods. "I'd want to start you at the very beginning, but most people still have something to learn about them."

"I can't say it sounds like the kind of thing my Church would advise me to spend time on if they were in a position to advise me, let alone command me."

"I'd be surprised if they didn't appreciate you knowing at least the basics; understanding how other people's emotions work is important for being Good to them even if you don't care about your own."

"This is not an assertion I have ever heard anyone make or so much as allude to in my entire life before this moment and I doubt that can be entirely chalked up to my background except insofar as my background is on the planet of Golarion."

"That's surprising. It is more of a focus for us than for most churches but I don't know of any that disagree."

"I am eager to be corrected by my seniors in Iomedae's church but do not expect that I can find this correction here. It's not an operational constraint except in the sense already resolved about the dropped spells."

"Well, the offer is open if you find yourself without anything better to do with your time. Should I get Raafi now, or is there something else still to talk about?"

He is the only wielder of Scrivener's Chant on the planet! He will never have nothing better to do! "You can get him now."

"We'll want the bench, you can have the chair."

She gets Raafi and sits on one end of the bench, patting it to indicate that he should sit next to her; she puts her arm around his shoulders when he does, and he leans comfortably against her. "So, first, he's fine - he can tell you about it later if he chooses to but I don't expect him to. Second, I don't appreciate you bringing him when he didn't actually want to come-"

Raafi makes a small confused noise, and she stops midsentence. "I thought he did? We were - he wanted me to start him off, and the Pelorians wouldn't let me do it because he hadn't seen them before. I'm sorry," he directs at Blai.

"I think we had a miscommunication, I don't think you did anything wrong."

"It sounds like it. But-"

    "I should be more careful," Raafi speaks along with her. "I will."

"Good." She reaches up to gently scritch the back of his head for a moment, then gives his shoulders a squeeze. "The last thing is pretty heavy, are you in a good space for it right now?"

    "Yeah, I'm all right."

"The country Select Blai grew up in... well, there are times when a war is worth it. Hell had had it, until recently."

"Oh no. Are you - of course you're not - it does make sense - I'm so sorry that happened to you."

He was not aware that being present for this conversation was also going to involve being witness to public displays of affection. He stares at the sleeve cuff of his new shirt.

"It gets worse, sweetheart."