She is slower than the mirror-faced snake, and for some reason it is choosing to chase her, and she is not in dense enough forest to lose it by going up a tree or between a couple too narrowly spaced for it. So it catches her before emergency services can turn up.
And then she is somewhere else, in a not particularly attractive room next to a person who looks sort of off somehow.
"Excuse me," she says, taking a step out of his personal space.
"Well, if they'll take over doing that here it'd be very convenient. What are their teachings?"
" - like, what do they tell their followers to do, what kinds of people do they select as their clerics. Abadar teaches that trade is good and that people ought to be responsible as far as possible for their own affairs and that it's important not to steal or present yourself defiantly to authority and that war is wrong and that you ought to work with people despite ideological disagreements as far as they're capable of cooperation. Whereas, say, Shelyn would say that art and music and beauty are important and that you should believe in everyone and love your enemies and so on. They wouldn't necessarily disagree but there are differences in emphasis at minimum, and of course some gods do disagree."
"They mostly don't go in for that sort of thing more than anyone else does? I could list their opinions but I could just as well list the opinions of random Dwarves I have met. Dwarves teach that trade is good, they're very emphatic about it. Uh, the Valar used to be a bit more opinionated but they were basing much of that on things Eru told them which turned out to have been for stupid Eru reasons, and now they use more consensus-building approaches."
"I think your gods are working on a different model than ours. It sounds convenient but it makes it seem less likely that they're just the same sort of entity but from farther away."
"Well, if they're not the same sort then probably Eru didn't make yours."
"No. Well, I suppose unless Eru took it into his head. I don't think I'd like it very much, they're a bit psychologically odd and some of it seems necessary to interface with their powers."
"The pharaoh is chosen by Abadar and some people say the pharaoh just becomes an aspect of Abadar, as much of him as a magically-enhanced human can be. That's inaccurate. But he did change, quite a lot."
"Much more reserved. More patient, less inclined to joke, or ask for reassurance, or explain himself, or ask for help. More lawful, which makes sense. He used to talk to everyone, all the time, I don't think he spent a waking moment alone."
" - more inclined to follow a process or to use established principles and procedures for decisionmaking, more respectful of authority and precedent, more concerned with being predictable."
"Fëanáro has seven. They're called Nelyafinwë Maitimo, Canafinwë Macalaurë, Turkafinwë Tyelcormo, Morifinwë Carnistir, Curufinwë Atarinkë, Pityafinwë Ambarussa, and Telufinwë Ambarussa. Youngest two are a pair of identical twins."
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