"Okay."

"Would you go back, if you could? Or had you not thought about it."

"Go back to - oh, no, absolutely not. Dropping His clerics when we're no longer of use is exactly the kind of thing He might do but if I ever think Iomedae's released me to go back to Him I've been enchanted."

She grins approvingly at the start, but then looks a little more serious when he finishes. "That's not quite what I meant - you could leave Her, right, if you chose to? If you had reliable information that Hell would have you back, same as before, if you did, what would you do?

"I think that would be illegal - I mean, I suppose I'm not in Cheliax right now but I did mean to go back - not illegal to renounce Her, I mean, but to belong to Him -"

"We wouldn't exactly be thrilled about it either," she nods. "But that's not what I meant either - it generally feels good to people, figuring out how to be Good. Not to everyone, but most of the time, people like it, and wouldn't go back because they wouldn't want to, just themselves. That might not be the case for you - Neutral is a perfectly respectable alignment - but if it is, it's worth knowing about yourself."

"...most parts of my life are not and should not be decided according to whether they feel pleasant to me." Maybe if he says this enough different ways she will remember it for more than five minutes.

She considers this for a moment. "Tell me more about that?"

"...there is usually something more important going on. Obviously I need to maintain myself to the point that I will not become suddenly unreliable in an emergency but I have a guideline for that and it's to have fun at least once a month, it's not to - neglect efficiently allocating the rest of my effort and time according to what will get the most resources to the places they most need to go."

"Liking things is, in a sense, a resource you can use. It's easier to focus on doing something you like than something you don't."

"I don't know where you got the idea that I never like things."

"I understand that you do, you just don't seem to want to acknowledge it in most cases."

"In most cases it is not important."

"We're not going to agree on that." She's not angry or frustrated about it at all, though.

"Yes, so I'm not sure why it keeps coming up."

"I expect he's going to be at least twenty minutes, if there's something else you'd like to be doing."

"Do you play chess?"

That gets him a smile. "I don't, but Luxuriant Tani does; I'll go get her."

She's back quickly with a younger woman and a heavy chess board with a drawer underneath for the pieces. "Blai, this is Luxuriant Tani; Tani, Select Blai."

    "Nice to meet you; what ruleset do you like?"

"I have a book of a bunch I haven't gotten the chance to try yet!" He pulls it out and picks one.

She's quite good at chess, and happy to play as many games as he has time for. Katrianne goes off to take care of some chores, in the meantime.

He has time until Raafi gets back to spirit him away to the next thing!

Raafi shows up again about half an hour later, still looking a bit pensive. He doesn't interrupt the game and won't stick around longer than it takes to see that Katrianne isn't in the room unless Blai speaks to him when he looks in.

Blai looks up but doesn't speak first.

He comes back a few minutes later with Katrianne. "Are you close to the end of the game?"

    "I think just a few more minutes," Tani reports.

"You haven't cornered me quite yet." He's losing this one though.