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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"Ostenso was the largest city at all nearby from where I grew up, but I've never been all the way to the city proper. Is it much like Westcrown?

- and what've you been useful doing?"

She'd misjudged Eloi's age, he'd looked a bit younger to her. At eleven he didn't need anyone looking after him and could be trusted with some looking after if he'd had practice.

Eloi Font

"I run errands and stuff, like I went and got Nera so Laia could keep paying attention to speeches and stuff."

"That's helpful of you. This one is a bit too small to be helpful yet, and if anything is rather the opposite. I've been trying to keep him quiet enough during speeches, has he been distracting you both?"

"I don't know that I've found him specifically distracting; there are quite often adults chattering no less loudly."

"That's good to hear! Though he's certainly been distracting to me - makes the long days even longer, to have a little one wanting things. I've been thinking about finding someone to look after him, but I haven't been sure how to hire for that in a big city like this one."

"I don't know either. The orphanages are dreadful, it makes me glad I have no memory of being in one."

Hrm, this isn’t being very useful. She’d ask if Laia is on any committees but she seemed to not want to talk about convention business. Or spiritual counseling, so maybe she doesn’t want to talk about religion either? But she’s not even sure what else to even try to talk about. Jofre was so much easier to talk to.

Well, she’ll push her luck with more convention business and if she’s not getting anywhere she’ll get on her way.

“That’s what I’ve heard also, about the orphanages - do you know if any committees are working on something to help with that? I’m not sure what committee it’d be.”

"There's a committee on the family but I don't know if they touch it, since orphanages are somewhat the lack of a family."

She nods at that.

She's a little annoyed, but it's not like she hasn't had the kind of days where she's not giving people conversation handles and they can either interrogate her or leave her along. The Songbird probably wants to be left alone or at least sit in silence.

Should she just leave? But the park is nice and the baby is exploring happily. She'll at least wait until he crawls back towards her or starts crying. Or if she spots another delegate - she's not sure how many more she'll be able to find just wandering around at random.

She puzzles over the bodyguard question.

She doesn't really want a bodyguard for herself, she'd be anxious with someone following her around even if they're there to keep her safe. That's not quite right, she'd maybe like it if it was someone who felt safe like Jofre following her around. Maybe if she talked to them first and see how well she got along?

Could she get a bodyguard and then have the bodyguard take the baby out of the convention hall if he started wailing, so she wasn't missing some speeches? Maybe she can ask whomever is in charge of arranging bodyguards if she can get childcare that way. The archmages probably checked if they're trustworthy better than she could.

Why is doing things so hard. Her brain feels fuzzy. Today has been too many things. Probably she can find people in Trade and Travel to talk to in the morning or during breaks, though she'll keep trying tonight. Soon. Whenever she summons the motivation to get up again.

She doesn't say anything for a few minutes.

Laia fans herself, sighing and watching the trees toss in the wind.

Eloi Font

"If you don't need me for anything I might go back to the temple and see if Gabriel'll let me help with the mural."

"Go ahead, dear."

Off he goes.

She's curious. Is it terribly rude? It doesn't matter, she can be rude if she chooses to be. And she's curious and Laia is a Songbird and won't do anything terribly evil even if she does horribly offend her.

"Is he yours?"

"Oh! No. I don't have any. He tells anyone who asks 'she's not my mother, she's my director - I wrote and directed a children's play with a bunch of children in it, and he was one of them, and when I needed to go to the convention he wanted to join me."

"Do you mostly direct plays, or mostly act in them, or both? I've never seen a play before - I guess I can't now, until the convention straightens the censorship laws out?"

"I mostly act in them, I've only relatively recently branched out into writing and directing. I'm not sure the Queen's actually made the bill into a decree yet but it's certainly not the ideal time to buy tickets." Sigh.

“Oh, was it only the slavery one that took effect right away? Either way, I hope something bringing plays back passes soon - you’ll have my vote.”

"I'm not totally sure how the slavery one was meant to work, honestly. The Decree might have been premature, maybe we'll find out tomorrow that a dozen people've been arrested for it... Thank you!"

The slavery one maybe hadn’t gone into effect right away? She thought they’d announced it.

She’d gone out of the room the moment the count was announced, the little one’d been crying in the lead up to the vote but she couldn’t miss that one so she’d waited until she knew it passed.

And then there’d been a Decree about it so it seemed pretty clearly resolved?

“Oh. That’s disappointing to hear about slavery, I must have misunderstood things. Why do you think it might have been premature?”

She gets up, her baby is a bit away and is maybe starting to cry. He’s gotten some dirt in his eye?

"It's also possible I misunderstood things? There are so many things, to misunderstand, in there, and there's not a rehearsal... I think that fellow who ran out to do the decree was just very excited about it."

She retrieves the baby, brushes the dirt off of him as best she can.

“Yeah, there’s been rather a lot to follow, hasn’t there been. I hope I get better at it, though today was better than last week for me. I’m going to head off, go see about finding someone to look after my little one tomorrow. I’m also looking for some members of Trade and Travel, if you know where any might be about?”

She describes the Condesa, but can’t remember any useful details about anyone else on the committee.

"I haven't seen her since the end of the floor session, sorry."

Maybe she should have asked Laia about what committees she’s on, if she’s on any. But it hadn’t really fit in the conversation flow, and she probably shouldn’t try to to join a bunch of committees today just because she has more energy, she’ll probably be tireder again tomorrow.

“I hope you have a restful remainder of your evening, Songbird. Good gods go with you.”