You caught a pretty significant break when you got magic armour and a magic sword and also magic powers, you realise? 

There's plenty of people around the king you want to overthrow, who grew up just wanting to catch a fucking break, and it's not that they're evil - it's just that if they mess up this cushy job they've got working with the king, they're going straight back to lives of grinding misery and poverty and not being able to feed their sick kids. You'd tell them to listen to the voice in their hearts that knows what is wrong, and speak up whenever the king makes an unjust law, no matter the consequences. They don't have magic armour or magic swords or healing magic. 

Sure. Yes. I get it. I already get the path you're leading down.

I'm going to object that I wouldn't say everyone has to do that, because sometimes there really are practical reasons that you can't just smite evil on sight all the time and always refrain from any compromise with sin - it's specifically paladins who are called upon to do that, because someone ought to actually check whether it's true that all the compromising was necessary or whether it was just an excuse and it was avoidable the whole time if we just tried harder, not everyone, just someone, and paladins are the someone. And then you're going to point out that I took that deal, I get the magic sword and the paladin powers and in exchange I have to actually do the constant striving, I had a choice of multiple kinds of catching a break and I chose the kind where I get power to deal with my problems, not an absence of problems. And then I'm going to get in touch with my holy light and remember how cool it is that I can shine magic light out of my fingertips, and I'll feel all motivated and inspired and shit, and I'm going to stay up late writing that letter home, and I'm going to get up early and go check on whether all the guards had safe watches and all the kids in camp slept well, and I'm going to go double check the supply chains and teach another class on parrying and then go bless the food in the kitchens because it makes the soldiers feel better to see their holy commander do that, except guess what, I'm not going to do any of that BECAUSE I'M SO FUCKING TIRED AND I WANT TO PUT MY HEAD UNDER A BLANKET FOR A BIT NOW THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND GO AWAY

You're just about the last person I'd expect to put her head under a blanket and hide from her problems. 

Well that's just the thing, isn't it? I'm not hiding from my problems. I don't have any problems right now. I'm leading a glorious and very successful crusade against all injustice and oppression everywhere and tomorrow we have a light march through pleasant countryside and that seems like a GREAT TIME TO TAKE A DAY TO SMELL SOME ROSES. I'm hiding from the ASSHOLE in my HEAD and it isn't WORKING so if you would kindly SHUT UP 

When all those people warned you that you were going to burn out if you carried on this way, did you imagine that meant you'd go down in a big fiery blaze of glory and burn to ashes? Like one day you'd just push yourself so hard on the battlefield you'd drop dead from sheer exertion and it'd all be very honourable?

That's not what your doom looks like. 

Burning out means one day you deserve to catch a fucking break so you put your head under a blanket and the next morning you sleep in until your lieutenants start wondering why you're missing morning meeting. And they don't find you tragically beautifully sacrificed and bury you with holy honours, they just lose a little respect for you because you overslept. And you feel awkward about it and maybe that means you don't want to do your rounds tomorrow night.

There's no burning. It's a terrible phrase, really. 

You can't argue with metaphysics. It's very unfair that you can't take a nice break and have a picnic lunch tomorrow. It sucks to be you, honestly. If you could organise a picnic because you genuinely believe the rest is the thing your army most needs in order to get the morale boost that lets them succeed when they reach the capital, you'd be just fine. If you stop for a picnic because you're fresh out of the ability to care about the people in the king's dungeons more than you care about a sandwich, and you know damned well what you're doing, you're not even trying to lie to yourself about which this is.... you know how hard it is for you to Fall by accident, and how very easy it is for you to Fall by choice, with your oath written how it is. 

The oath is the oath, Lucia. 

It's very easy to choose to give up nice things when you don't have any nice things. 

I am so so so so close to having a nice thing and I would like to have it please. 

But I can't do that, right?

If I'm having a slow day and a picnic tomorrow because it's the best thing for the morale and success chances of the army then I can have that. It's not like I don't enjoy my life. I love healing people, I love training with the sword, I love exploring the world and constantly learning, there's nothing I don't love about being a paladin. I'm allowed to love what I do. 

I just can't tell you to fuck off and let me have my picnic in peace because I want a damned picnic and that's a good enough reason.

I have to never stop trying. 

I can't trust myself enough that... even if I was going to do the nice thing tomorrow anyway, now I'm second guessing myself, I don't know how to know that I'm not lying to myself about my motivations...

I hate you.

OK I guess I'm going to go slay a lich now. 

what

no

do not do that

Hello, this is your actual god speaking, with my actual divine intervention power, to tell you that if you go to sleep because you're obeying a direct command from your god then it's very virtuous to do that. 

Yeah that sounds like exactly the kind of lie I'd tell myself if I just really wanted to make up an excuse for why I should get to do exactly the thing I want right now, which is go to sleep, and not do the difficult thing, which is sneak out of camp in the middle of the night and go kill a lich and get back before the army wakes up in the morning. 

Excuses, excuses, the whole world is so full of excuses and compromises and justifications, reasons why it's okay to not try or not care or not rebel.

I'm a paladin. Nobody's tested the question of whether you can kill a lich and also overthrow a king in the same week, and a paladin is someone crazy enough to test it, right? Am I even supposed to be able to resist it? Shouldn't it burn my soul to know that every day I don't slay a lich, it's probably out there killing or hurting innocent people? Shouldn't that little precious pure moral butterfly in my heart be wilting or something? Maybe I'm a hero! Maybe I'm a fool! I'm going to go slay a lich! Goodnight, annoying voice in my head! 

Lucia, that isn't a good idea.

Who cares! I'm gonna Fall anyway! Death before dishonour! Where did I put my vambraces and why can't I ever find them? 

You're not listening. This is not a good idea. 

Sending a paladin to her death, purely because you're annoyed at me and personally don't want to experience dishonour, is a sin. 

I'm not doing it purely because I'm mad at you, I'm doing it because the lich is hurting a lot of people and it needs to die. 

....maybe that was lying to myself. 

Lucia isn't fast enough, isn't aware enough, isn't prepared enough. The knife hits her right between the shoulder blades. 

When an invisible creature attacks, their invisibility shatters. She turns round and sees shards of nothingness flying past her field of view and - smashing out from that empty space in the air like a rock through a stained-glass window - a rogue in leather armour hurling another dagger at her.

She has one pauldron on. She ducks and shrugs the shoulder in front of her and prays she isn't just deflecting the knife into her heart.

There's no time for her scourging light, but she has most of her healing pool left, so she lays hands on herself and pours her entire stock of healing light out and hopes the assassin doesn't have a third dagger ready.