"It's really not fair that all we know about Fharlanghn is this one thing, maybe the worst thing."

"The PR company thinks it will go badly if we try to bring up anything else before this is taken care of."

"That may be true, though the P stands for public and it might sometimes make sense to make private disclosures that wouldn't be good to advertise widely. Still, I don't know that it would have helped much with Luiz. Luiz is angry and frightened for our planet. He sees Fharlanghn as an enemy by default. Trying to, uh, humanize - I hope that translates acceptably - him will seem invalidating. I worry Raafi is running into a lot of that, people seeing him as invalidating their reactions to the situation."

"I'm not sure how he's spending his time, except that he seems to be taking every opportunity to spend it offworld; I don't think he's taken on anything that demands he interact with the public."

"I'd probably do that too in his shoes. What are your goals here and now?"

"We need to be able to handle the Ganymede daeva without depending on Shining One's intervention. Whether that means reinstating the GCP, or figuring out how to handle it ourselves, or some third thing."

"The GCP is actually still in operation. For whatever reason, not all the prisoners left. They're suffering some financial problems and attrition but could probably turn it around given the opportunity to do so. Do you have a preliminary idea what that would take?"

"Not in very much detail, we'd need Raafi for that. I know Fharlanghn forbids holding people permanently without some other option - exile is the common one in our world and the spell Shining One is developing is basically that - but I don't know what he does and doesn't tolerate in temporary situations, or how temporary 'temporary' is. There's a very good chance he leaves it up to cleric judgement within certain guidelines."

"I can talk to Raafi if he'll come back but I would like more of a plan than Luiz had, given how that went. It makes sense that you don't conceptualize yourselves as, uh, that you don't conceptualize yourselves the same way we would relative to the situation of gods nonnegotiably refusing to tolerate certain things. I think it'd help a lot with the inferential gap if there were a habit of, well, recognizing that as a big ask, even though it isn't you who's doing the asking, or even your god who's doing the asking, or something anybody involved can change. We're not powerful enough to just refuse to tolerate him right back, of course. But I think that makes it more, not less, difficult to come to terms with, that feeling of being powerless here? And it would mean a lot if that were acknowledged more."

"...I think I need a more concrete example of what you're looking for."

"So as far as I know you personally haven't come to daggers drawn with anybody, and this advice is therefore not specifically for you, but maybe you can help get it to people who do need it. But if I were in Raafi's position and talking to someone like Luiz I think I'd want to be liberally using a lot of reassurances about how this is the only thing Fharlanghn wants, it's not going to escalate, concessions here aren't going to put Revelation in a bad position later because there is no later, Fharlanghn's a single-issue god and not a conquering imperial power, even if more gods who want more things show up they will be negotiated with separately and probably don't even compare notes with him - if that's true, anyway. And I'd make sure, every time someone's hackles were up, that I made it really, repetitively, ad nauseum clear I understood that within the perspective of Revelation this is the worst thing that's happened in... hm... seventy years, maybe a hundred. That whatever blessings it's packaged with it's still something that's being forced on the ordinary people of the world, and some of them are going to come off really badly for it and get hurt or killed or even just scared, and that isn't okay, and it would have been better if it had been our choice and happened within frameworks we accept, which don't include special treatment for gods. I think it's probably not obvious to Luiz that Raafi feels that way. If he does. It'd be really hard to say convincingly while, ah, allergic to criticizing Fharlanghn."

"I really doubt I can get him to hit that tone, yes. I do think most of that is true, though. Fharlanghn's clerics sometimes hold a grudge but he doesn't, that's usually fairly obvious in gods, and I've heard of him reprimanding them for taking that kind of thing too far. He doesn't want an empire; if he did he'd have one already. He doesn't share information with other gods in a formal way that I know of, but I'm least sure of that one, especially here."

"From Raafi - it might be the best I can realistically do to just - let him be the bad guy. I don't think he is, he's had every opportunity to let this explode in our faces if he really wanted to and he hasn't taken any of them, but if any hint of being on Fharlanhgn's side is going to make him come across that way, I think we're going to have to deal with that."

"A trouble with being the bad guy is sometimes people have watched a lot of movies where somebody delivers a really scathing line of dialogue to the bad guy and then they win. He'll wind up getting provoked more that way, I think."

Zanel makes a baffled, thoughtful face. "That seems like some of what was happening, yes. I don't know what to do, then. Handle both sides separately, I guess."

"That might work. I've done things like that before, it's a lot of juggling and it's hard to make sure nothing gets garbled but sometimes you can make it so nobody has to talk to anyone who doesn't seem like their friend."

He nods. "I'll see what I can do. Is Luiz the best one to talk to about this, in the future?"

"He's the Secretary of Defense; it's his job to manage executive branch relations with the military and advise Melo on military topics. I'm not sure whether what you're looking for is something he has expertise on as part of that job description. You can go directly to Melo, you can talk to me."

"Okay. I think if you're willing, I'll find Raafi and bring him to talk to you, and we can go to Melo if need be. And we'll start looking for another cleric of Fharlanghn now, just in case."

"Do you think Raafi should have longer to cool down?"

"I don't expect to find him before he's ready to be found. I won't worry until it's been a day or two."

"Okay. Are there... scriptures of Fharlanghn's I could read, or anything like that, as cultural background?"

"We don't have a way to bring books to this world yet, but you can talk to the librarians through one of the spare magic mirrors."

"And... have them read me a book? That sounds... hm, I'm not sure that would work as well."

"Or answer questions, or have a scribe turn the pages while you read one. I know it's not ideal. The other option would be to ask Raafi to bring you something."

"That'd postpone our meeting but it might be worth it anyway, if there are such books and they'd help me understand him."