It is about time to start heading everyone towards the dining hall and that's as good an opening as any. "While probably we should be petitioning Lastwall more pointedly, the thing which initially moved me to propose this particular dinner was that I do not think we are employing each other as well as we could be.

I am going to be very blunt on the Lord Marshal's advice. The people in this room are sufficient to win most votes if we are coordinating and while we do not agree on everything we agree on a great many things, and there are a great many more that only half of us care about. We can trade favors. 

Trade and Travel is abolishing travel passes, which are technically already abolished but I think still in effect in half the country somehow. Judiciary is likely to shortly contemplate the Code Cyprian, which I know is of great importance to many of my allies, and is drafting a proposal to let the nobility provisionally appoint bailiffs to replace the Reclamation once acclaimed as adequate by the paladins, which also seems fairly important. The floor is probably going to be arguing about torturous executions all day tomorrow, perhaps with a break to argue about public executions. Family wants to define marriage and fine bastards. I would like us to discuss these topics tonight so as not to surprise each other on the floor. The Mansion outdid itself; we have twelve courses; I expect we can get through everything of great importance and I think we ought to. 

I also hope you will forgive me my seating arrangements, which were diligently done a day in advance with reference to the protocols of three different countries and two different time periods before the Lord Marshal proposed marriage to me and obliged their last-minute rearranging." It's true and also a very convenient excuse for there being absolutely no satisfactory arrangement for a crowd of this character.

....she is probably not supposed to sit with everyone? The duchess has actually been letting her talk almost completely freely with only one firm nudge to shut up so far, which was itself a nudge and not an order or a dismissal, and people do keep acknowledging her as a useful piece for winning votes, but - no, no way. 

She's not immediately sure what that means she is supposed to do. Is she supposed to just leave? Is she allowed to just leave?? Is she supposed to stand off to the side in case someone needs her to talk about votes??

The dining room is aping the style of old Arodenite temples, ceiling that appears to open to the night sky and walls covered in detailed mosaics and glossy glass table at which there are fancy place settings with namecards. The food is Vudrani today. Variety is the spice of life.


(Korva's place card is among the paladins, who seemed unlikely to feel slighted about this or act slighted if they did, and near Count Ardiaca and his date because Carlota knows Count Ardiaca finds her useful to talk to and won't take it as an insult.)

She's slightly insulted but isn't going to show it.

Wow that smells amazing. Oh, and this is a fancy noble dinner party in a Mansion and it would probably be fine to actually say that out loud rather than implicitly casting aspersions on the host's priorities. "It smells delicious."

Korva cannot see her place card. This would require being closer to the table than she is, in the manner of someone who expects that they are supposed to sit down. 

"Thank you! It is a favorite cuisine of mine and you largely can't get it here in Cheliax, even though I'm told it is from Golarion in origin."

Maybe the girl dressed like she's a city nobody can't read. "Next to the lady knight," she says, and doesn't add idiot, because she doesn't need to.

He's glad to have more people to talk to near him! The third most important factor for a sentient being's value is whether they can contribute useful ideas and also he likes insightful people.

Aw, she doesn't sit by her favorite non-Kintargan so far. Should have gotten the first dress rush ordered. Only partially so someone thought about where it came from.

"It really does. I suppose there's no chef to compliment in a mansion, which seems a shame." She's a little annoyed she doesn't recognize the cuisine but suppresses it.

"There is, after a fashion, but it'd be difficult to convey your compliments. I asked the caster to imitate a specific restaurant I used to like."

"I suppose it's unlikely I'll ever be in Axis to visit it. We'll have to settle for complimenting your good taste."

...oh. 

Korva will sit down, then, and force herself to attempt to look like someone who is not dying inside, and try not to think about the fact that she hasn't changed or properly repaired her clothes in a year and a half. (She has cleaned them, at least. Thank you, Zara.)

"Why, Archduchess, you'll only have to stay where you are until we've built Axis here." Carlota is at her ✧˖° fiancé ✧˖°'s side and positioned so she can both hear Count Ardiaca who is consistently interesting and the archdukes who are going to be careful not to be too interesting but whose noncommittal murmurs are very important.

The conversation is more political than usual at the dinner table but at least not tedious. The drinks are very good. The proposal to abolish travel passes is not controversial.

The conversation about bastards is slightly so.

"Men not marrying is a product of Asmodeanism but men not being faithful in marriage is....a human universal as far as I can tell."

It cannot possibly be harder to be faithful to your spouse than to spend a decade as a celibate paladin, but admittedly most people are not celibate paladins.

Antonio doesn't understand why being faithful in marriage is desirable. It's probably a Good thing, so he's listening very attentively.

Llei keeps feeling like he's not supposed to admit to only sleeping with his wife, and then remembering that he is not, in fact, only sleeping with his wife anymore. 

"The family committee's first suggested set of vows does not have men promise fidelity, though I know Sir Goes was concerned about that."

"I don't think you want a promise more than half of people won't keep, you're keeping them out of Axis that way. Obviously you can still hold it up as aspirational, and try to discourage it other ways as with the bastardry penalties."

There is something unaesthetic about expecting less of men specifically because as a class they are less able to meet the standard. It's infantilizing. But she has a point.

"There was more discussion of what female fidelity should be understood to consist of, really, especially if the vows are to constitute a legal minimum. ...there are definitely some number of married women in Cheliax today whose contracts explicitly negotiated getting to sleep with other men, and I am not immediately sure how to respond to that."

"That's - interesting? - what situation would give rise to those contracts, are the husbands in these examples known to be sterile, or...?"

"The women are much more powerful or influential, I assume?"

"In general, yes, the man is the subordinate partner. More rarely, neither party cares, and the marriage is for reasons not especially related to producing children."