making up for lost time | Glowfic Constellation

Once Desnia exits the Iomedaen temple, she finds a secluded place to sit and nurse her baby.

She doesn’t tremble on the outside even a little bit.

She’s… not sure how she feels about that conversation?

She feels relieved and terrified and confused all at once.

She thinks she managed to keep up a coherent face that didn’t involve her gratuitously misrepresenting herself. Which is better than conversations sometimes go. That’s more important than usual if she’s going to be here for a while and running into the same people again and again instead of just skipping town whenever she decides the things that she's told different people have gotten too inconsistent.

As for takeaways from the conversation… she believes very deeply the ability of people to make better choices when they have better options. If he had renounced Asmodeus, if he had chosen Iomedae - then even the most evil people can always choose something better than who they’ve been - and she is gladdened by their so choosing - but he hadn’t done either.

The answer to the question that she was most interested in was clear: she does not need to be afraid of him right now, not while he is still a cleric of Iomedae. And he wouldn’t choose to stop. Because he doesn’t… believe in choices? Because of his vision of Law? She doesn’t really understand why, but it fits together.

She doesn’t understand Iomedae all that well, but as far as she knows gods don’t change their minds about their clerics often.

She squishes the thought that when she’s not looking maybe Iomedae will decleric him and Asmodeus will recleric him and then he would Maledict her.

Her breathing continues to be steady.

The conversation was in some ways unsatisfying but it wasn’t dangerous to her. She is good at telling the difference. Most things since the war have been unsatisfying, but many fewer have been dangerous.

Is the part of her that wants to constantly keep casting Detect Fiendish Presence back to its usual level instead of the frantically distracting level that it had been after the speech indicating that a priest of Asmodeus was in the convention hall with her? Not quite, but close enough. She casts it again anyway, because she wants to and she can.

He cannot currently Maledict her, he has never Maledicted anyone, the dominant strategic consideration involved in him or anyone Maledicting her is never going to be how distressed by the prospect she is so it was not a horrible strategic mistake to reveal some distress about it.

It only matters if threatening to Maledict her gets anyone anything closer to what they want and it won’t - she knows for a fact that no matter how much pain she’s in sheer spite will keep her going even if she can’t anymore care about anything else.

She… doesn’t actually want to replay the entire conversation in her head and see what bits she thinks she could have done better.

She wants to start making up for not having engaged with the convention, can she find anyone around? Talking to people individually feels more approachable than at the convention.

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"Oh, that's real pretty the way you said that, that makes me want to spend time being in a boat more than before -

- Are you the same way about caves as you are about buildings, or is that different?"

"I haven't tried caves much. I think they'd probably be all right, down in the earth? Not sure."

"I think Desna's more about - change and seeing new places - so buildings are fine for me for a while, it's just that I don't like it if I'm in any one place for too long, especially if I'm doing the same thing over and over again.

Is there a place that you go to to be closer to Gozreh when you're in Westcrown? Even outside, sometimes I want more sky and all this is making me want to climb onto a rooftop, if you know one that wouldn't be too tricky a climb with my little one in a sling."

"I don't know how good you are at climbing! I was sleeping on a roof, for a while, but then they started making it pour buckets all night and that's too much even for me to sleep through, so I started renting a berth on some random sloop. We could climb the convention hall if you're up for it, it's got enough decorations to be grabbable."

"I'm more used to trees and rock scambles and things like that, but I reckon I can make it up.

- how many problems do you think they'll give us if they catch us climbing it, I'm not used to cities at all and never had much call to climb the buildings in smaller places."

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's not illegal because right now most things aren't and we'd've noticed if the convention had made it illegal. I guess that doesn't mean nobody'd yell."

"I'm not worried about yelling all, so that sounds like it's alright then."

She starts adjusting her sling and wrapping her baby up snuggly. He coos at her. She boops his nose.

"How old's the baby?" he asks, starting to haul himself up the wall.

"Ten months or thereabouts." She follows nimbly.

"'s got a cute nose." Climb climb climb.

She's not quite as good of a climber as him, at least when slightly unbalanced by the baby, but she doesn't have any particularly close calls. He'll just need to wait on her a bit or else he'll get a ways ahead.

"Would you like to hold him when we're at the top?"

"Isn't there some trick to holding a baby? I haven't got it."

"Oh, it's not hard at all, especially at his age. When they're littler you need to watch the neck and they're more delicate, but he's big enough that there's not much too it. Just don't drop him.

- He might start fussing at you but if he does don't worry about it, he's been less fussy than usual just now, I think I he likes the climb too."

"Oh, if he's past the tricky age why not." He reaches the top and offers a hand down.

She grabs the hand and hauls herself up to the rooftop. Unwraps the baby and passes him over.

Now Jofre has a baby; he's holding him under the armpits, letting his legs dangle. "Heavier than he looks, isn't he! What'd'ya call him?"

"Oh, scoop him a little more like this, he'll like that better - I guess there's maybe there's a little trick to it, I grew up with little brothers and I guess I forgot learning it. Did you have any brothers or sisters?"

"He doesn't have his real name yet, my family waited on those until they're a little older so I've just been calling him nicknames. Isn't that right, little spark? I've been thinking about Ignasi as his real name, lately."

Scoop. Noseboop. "I had a baby brother around when I ran away from home but I haven't looked my folks up to see if he's still around. Not sure I remember how I'd find the place if I wanted to."

She looks a bit baffled at the last. "Were you really little when you ran away?"

"I was ten. I tried a couple times before that but they caught me."

"Oh, that's not so little that I would've forgotten my way home, I think. But I'm good at directions like that. I didn't leave until I was a bit older though."

She also boops her baby.

"Ten is about how old my littlest brother was, when he asked to come with me when I came back to visit. Wish I'd taken him."

"Couldn't take school, or some other reason?"

"Watched my first execution, I guess? My family helped people get out to Andoran sometimes, we were near the border and up in the hills, so it was easy to send me along. And when I made it to Andoran I - realized I wanted to help more people out and I was useful on the trip, so I kept doing that for a while. People and messages.

- My family was still there the first time I made it back, but not the second."

She reaches for her baby back.

Talking about this is making her want to hold her baby close.

Baby is handed over. "I meant why your brother wanted to go."