"Kiddo."

"...sir?"

" - we talked about the religion thing. It's not fair to your friends."

"It is so in Heaven is no a saying about God, or any other god. It is saying what all who are obedient and good build. I did not need priests, to know what is in Heaven, I see it sundark every place."

"I don't think I'm a very obedient person really," Lucy says. "I think building heaven on earth sounds lovely though."

Perhaps it will be less awkward if she does get the waffles and then she can bury her face in them rather than having whatever conversation they're about to have. If Iomedae says girls should be obedient she is going to start a fistfight in a Waffle House. 

"Lucy gunning hard for Understatement of the Century Awards." 

"America pretty good building Heaven on earth! Steel, lots of food. In Heaven no wars except with Hell....maybe in Heaven wars that are camping events? I do not know."

Haley has identified a section of the table which has not yet been shown pictures of her kitten!

"Lucy look at him! He is so precious!!" 

She can in fact be distracted from her moral fervor by kittens. "Oh my god that cat is so cute - Iomedae you have to look at this cat."

Haley wants to pass her phone around so EVERYONE sees pictures of the incredibly cute fluffy tabby rescue kitten. It has one ear mostly missing but its eyes are full of irrepressible mischief. There is a video of the kitten climbing up Haley's leg and nesting inside the mug that hangs from her belt via her mug frog, which Haley declares an example of "POCKET KITTEN". 

"Such smol bean! Much more dangerous than pocket sand!" 

"Oh how sweet," Nicole says somewhat absentmindedly.

She is quietly wondering if the deal with Iomedae is something more angelic than fey, or something... time travel? 

Sometimes Spike is strange in a way that rhymes with the way that Iomedae is strange. And a visitor from the Lost City might be as lost as Iomedae seems to be, if one was somehow transported through time.

If anyone is using time travel to drop fifteen-year-olds from the ancient past into the present, they are going to need to immediately confiscate the relevant time machines, and.... that just sounds like a gigantic impending headache. 

The cat looks like a cat. Iomedae has seen cats before. They are useful to have around because they eat rodents. Domestication is a great triumph of civilization but this doesn't inspire her to make noises at pictures of animals. 

Probably this is a safer subject than foreign policy, though. "A good cat," she agrees, and eats her steak and eggs. 

"I want to stop school and do SCA order."

"You have to go to school, Iomedae, it's the law. And it's really important! It's how you'll get a good job when you're grown."

"Anyway, I think practice is only twice a week, because everyone else has school. Or jobs."

"That is not enough swording practice. Should practice every day."

"Well, get your homework done on time every day and I'll practice with you."

But he's terrible at swordfighting. She cannot say that. "Thank you sir."

She is not worse off than before she'd found an order that would train her. She is so much better off than before she found an order that would train her. It does not make sense to be more upset now than she was before she found the order at all. But - but it feels like all of the confusions might be resolvable, like the world might actually start making sense, like the thing Aroden told her to do is in reach. And they want her to spend all the sunlight hours every day in a noisy classroom while people say things she can't understand at all. And maybe it's not because they don't understand what holy warriors are, but because they understand and think that they are evil, only that doesn't make any sense -

"All right, sweetheart, take a shower after practice and then go to bed, we were out pretty late!"

Iomedae is also not wildly enthusiastic about America's intense cold indoor rainstorms but she will endure the intense cold indoor rainstorm, and then go to her room and put the blankets on the floor and kneel and pray. 

Aroden,

May I have the strength required for your service.

(She pauses there for a moment, because she is not feeling very strong, and if it showed up at once it'd help with formulating the rest of the prayer. It doesn't, not really, but she's shivering less from the shower as she starts to dry, and that helps.)

You do not have many representatives here who have the power of your representatives in Taldor, do you. I don't know why. If it is because in this place they have your teachings wrong, please show me how to correct them. If it is for some other reason, please strip me of Your powers, if in ignorance of that reason I am acting wrongly or unlawfully. If you will not do this - help me show Lucy, and Sir Gabriel, what a paladin is. Help me be strong and know my strength, and be wise and know my weaknesses, and be generous and good and help me not betray you through my confusion -

I think that you should be doing more in America. They are what Scripture said that civilization one day would be. It is not Axis built in the Material, I don't think, but it is closer than Taldor, and Taldor reaches to become it, and I think that when it is time to destroy the evil afterlives we will need America, and need the Americans, though they are a confusing people. Look after Robert and Jenny, please. They are honorable people in the pursuit of the good, obeying the rules that their civilization has taught them, and I do not understand those rules but all that is done lawfully and honorably to build a better world is in your service; reward them for it, and protect them - please - if the course you have in mind for me places them in danger -

Lucy thinks that I should not have stabbed Martin, or at least that a fully grown holy warrior would not have, because he might have died. I think that it is probably good if people who do what Martin did expect they might die of it. Which is not that it is good that he die, exactly, because he'll probably go to the Abyss, but - but I think that fewer people go to the Abyss if everybody knows that if they try to rape a woman they will die? Which means that maybe the biggest problem is actually that I did not effectively enough threaten Martin, except threatening people with a sword is an evil thing to do if they don't trust that you are a holy warrior and will only use it rightly....so probably I should have asked some other people if Martin understood that I would stab him if he tried to rape me, and what they recommended, and I didn't ask them because it seemed slanderous to accuse Martin of any such thing before it happened and - maybe I should have done that differently but I don't see a piece I was obviously missing, anyway...I think that you agree with me because you did not strip me of my powers but perhaps it is more complicated than that. Help me see all the pieces, please, so that I do not neglect any of them when I act. Countenance no evil from me.

And end the evil afterlives, as quickly as possible, hopefully tomorrow.

"I do not know what her deal is but I can say she's categorically not fey, and not fey-raised either, at least not any of the local fey groups." 

Cináed's tall form is folded awkwardly into one corner of Baroness Elynor and Baron Rees' couch, a plastic bowl of crisps perched in his lap. They have all come out to the baronage's house, which is somewhat out of town, because everyone collectively decided that Nicole's apartment was way too fancy and (though Nicole would never say anything negative about cleanup to any of them) they are all extremely stressed about getting crumbs on her perfect carpet.

"I can check if you really need me to but - I think it's the wrong tree to be barking up." 

"And time travel? What are our thoughts on time travel?" 

"After I thought about it more, I realised it didn't make any sense. You said she told you she's from Ujue, in Menador, in Taldor. It might be plausible that there is some tiny historical village called Ujue that we've never heard of, or even a historical region that we modernly pronounce differently so we're not understanding what she means by Menador, but I don't think we're likely to be missing all three levels. I think if there was an entire historical country called Taldor we would know. I guess the only way it could be true is if it got.... hidden, the way Atlantis was hidden." 

"Could that have happened? Is that the kind of thing we can go ask Spike about?"