"Oh. Of course."

She puts everything back except the book on Kyonin. 

"Thank you."

She heads back to her room to alternate between recreational study of elves and work on the homework that her husband has assigned her. Probably won't be able to focus on it for more than a couple hours, but she might as well try.

Then she can learn about the proud history of ancient Osirion. And about elves.

Yaaay.

What does this book about the proud history of Osirion have to say about the Pharaohs.

Histories of Osirion are just histories of the adventures of their pharaohs, apparently. The first pharaoh of Osirion was Azghaad; most of the relics of his rule have been lost to history, as he ruled in -3472 AR, but a piece of his tomb is in Sothis, in the temple of Nethys. The country was unified under the Four Pharaohs of Ascension, powerful men who tore apart half the empire in war and then agreed to a pact that bound their destinies together so they could stop the infighting. At the time, Osirion encompassed Katapesh, Thuvia, Geb and Rahadoum. The country was ruled from Tumen, a now-lost city; Sothis became the capital later.

There are a lot of pharaohs. The book details their adventures in a fair amount of detail. There are no women mentioned in it anywhere.

Well.

She reads. She tries to imagine that she's a student in Cheliax, still, that the book has no relation to her and that she can put it down at any time and go home to Kanir and Asmodia.

How long is it? 

200 pages.

She finishes it before anyone comes with lunch, then, and then reads about elves some more while she waits for more food.

Zakiya brings lunch. "There's a temple of Erastil in Sothis that does marriage counseling. There's not a temple of Shelyn."

"Thank you. I'm sure there's one in Absalom. I can - talk to the pharaoh about it tonight and see if we can send for people from both, that's - balanced, right, and we'll also be asking Fazil for advice, and he's a man and a cleric of Abadar. That's - getting advice from lots of sources, that's responsible, right?"

"I don't know what kind of problem you're trying to solve?"

" - yeah.

"Uh. When my husband touches me right now it gives me panic attacks about half the time. So. That's not great. And more broadly we're just - having a really hard time talking."

"Oh no, I'm sorry."

"Yeah.

"I have two weeks to figure something out, and then, uh, we try his plan. So. - I don't know how soon we can reasonably send for someone from a temple of Shelyn in Absalom, does getting someone within a week sound impossible - "

"Probably not? We can send a messager today, I don't know how fast they'll come...have you tried being drunk, some people find that helps..." 

"No? I've never even been drunk, don't wanna end up doing it all the time. And also that just sounds - really depressing.

"We're gonna look into healing stuff, too. There's - we weren't able to do penetrative stuff before because it hurts. Really really hurts. I've had my legs broken and I still think it's horrible. And - he was patient about it before, okay, because he was very very good, and we were still able to do some things, and they were important to me, and - anyway. He's not patient anymore. So.

"Do you - think it would be inappropriate to write a letter to be sent to a temple of Shelyn today, right now, if he already said getting clerics of Shelyn is okay - "

"No, I think that's okay."

"Okay. I'm gonna write a letter. Do I have - paper and ink, somewhere - "

"I can get some."

"Thank you. You're really helpful, Zakiya, I really appreciate everything you're doing."

" - course. It's my job."

"Yeah, just - don't have any friends anymore. And I know I need a bunch of stuff. So. Thanks."

"Are there friends we should invite here to visit?"

"No. Like, I have acquaintances, in the Deep Plane, but - they should stay where it's safer."