"Ooh, what is that, it smells amazing!" Lissa peers and sniffs at the peanut butter oatmeal. "I think I want some too. In a minute. I'll bring this out to him." 

She carries the food out the back door, and is gone for a while. 

When she comes back, she heads right for Cam and hugs him again. "I'm sorry you're getting dragged into all of this. Disasters have a habit of following Van around." 

"I don't blame him for it at all."

"I know. 'Cause you're..." Lissa frowns, stares out at the explosions. "Sorry, I'm no good at words for this. What I'm wanting to say is... Because you're good?" Her face scrunches. "That's...not exactly it. I know you don't think you are. I bet a lot of people don't. You destroyed a planet and killed a lot of people, and that's...real, but, just, I... Damn it, I'm too sober to talk about this. I'm going to go ask Bar for another couple of drinks and then maybe I can say the thing I mean."

"Uh, I'm not sure I'd actually say that I don't think I'm good, I'd say that I don't have any business expecting other people to think so."

"...I'm glad? I wasn't sure." Lissa marches over to Bar. "Can I get some kind of liquor I can drink fast? Two of them, actually." 

SHOTS.

Shots! Lissa tosses back one and then the other and then puts down the coins she owns. "Oof. Perfect. Thank you, Bar, you're wonderful."

She marches back over to Cam. "Where was I? Right. I mean, I think... No one has any business expecting other people to think they're good? That's not how it works, it's a thing other people get to decide..."

She shakes her head, grimacing. "That's not even the thing I wanted to say. I – you made a choice, right? You did an awful monstrous thing because it was the only way you could see to make an even worse thing stop, and no one else was going to do it – no one else could do it – and now that's...a thing you've done, forever." She yanks at her braid. "Damn it, I'm so bad at saying it, I'm sorry. What I meant, is..."

She steps back, paces back and forth in a tight square. "All right, so, two years ago we were at war with Karse. And they put me in charge of leading an invading force through a Gate to take back Sunhame for Karis – er, we had an alliance with the rightful heir to the throne, there'd been a coup over there but she escaped alive. And I led my people in there and...and we killed kids, the Karsite priesthood was desperate, they'd been recruiting children with untrained mage-gift and teaching them just enough blood-magic to set my men on fire, and they, no, I killed them. That moral responsibility is on me. Kids who were just trying to defend their city. And we took Sunhame and ended the war and...and it's prevented tens of thousands of deaths that would've happened in the last two years, not just soldiers, all the commonfolk who were starving because our soldiers or their soldiers drove them off their land on the front. And that's worth it. But it's still...a thing I did. I don't think it was a mistake. I'm proud that I helped end a war. And I feel like a monster for it." 

Lissa turns on the spot and faces Cam and clasps her hands behind her back. "I'm not claiming to get it. I probably don't get it. What you had to do, what you chose to do, is – it's so much bigger than a petty little border war in a backward kingdom. But...I think I can understand a little. My old commander said... He said anyone in a position like mine needs to have a bit of the butcherer in them, has to have the spine to weigh up some numbers and decide it's worth it and then order other people pay the price in blood. Sometimes you'll make mistakes, but sometimes you won't, sometimes it'll have been right and worth it and still monstrous. And...he said it's important, to carry that. To remember that it's not just numbers. To remember that you, personally, bear responsibility for the deaths of real people, who had names and lives and futures, and now they don't anymore. He said being able to keep both sides in mind – that it was worth it, and still monstrous – is how you keep from becoming a monster." 

Shrug. "I actually have no idea if he's right, that a part of you needs to feel awful forever about having done that or else you'll forget the cost was real. I do wish I knew how to, I don't know, get you to put it down for half a candlemark sometime and just be a person. Who deserves to exist and be happy just like all the people you saved from being tortured by an evil god. But I don't know how to do that. I don't even know how to do it for Van. Or for myself, except by getting so drunk I don't remember it the next day. I don't know if any of that was the thing I meant to say, even. Just... I'm trying to get it. That's all." 

"The people the evil god got to don't want to exist at this point. He's very thorough. I killed a bunch of people in order to get even more people than that also killed. Also end a war, that part's less ambiguous."

"...I'm sorry. That's..." she frowns, clearly trying to find a suitable word, and seems to give up, "bad. I'd offer to lend you some of our Mindhealers in case that'd help but I have no idea if it would and also we have like five total. Er, six if you count my friend's daughter but she's eight."

Shrug. "Personally, I'd think them having the option to not exist if they don't want to is better than being tortured forever, but... It sounds pretty awful. All of it. I'm sorry." 

"Versions of them from pre-capture exist but I could have done that anyway. I don't like the sound of 'Mindhealers' at all, especially not if they're eight."

"Versions of them from..." Lissa tugs on her braid again. "The entire brain chip copying people thing makes my head hurt. Anyway, I...think I'll stop saying things because clearly I can't say the right things at all. Um, can I give you a hug, though?" 

"Sure."

Hug!

Hug. "I do appreciate it."

"I'm glad." Lissa hugs him for a while – wing hugs are awesome – and then lets go and steps back. 

"...Oh, I feel those shots. Bar, that's really good stuff." She's steady on her feet and speaking clearly, doesn't look drunk aside from the high colour in her cheeks and, well, the chattiness. "This is awkward, now I'm the perfect level of drunk to go pick a fight in a tavern or kiss a cute boy so I feel better about my life for thirty seconds, and I don't suppose I can do either of those things. If you're not a fan of dancing I assume you don't like sparring either."

"I do not, sorry."

Lissa thinks for a moment. "I'll ask Bar for a meal," she decides. "Then I'll be sober sooner. In the meantime... If you feel like playing music I'd definitely dance to it by myself and, I don't know, if you like music then maybe both of us get to have fun that way?" 

"Sure, I can play something." He takes up his violin and sets up his computer for sheet music purposes and plays.

Lissa asks Bar for food – and to please include some of whatever the nice-smelling porridge thing was that Van got – and a pint of water, and she eats and drinks quickly, standing up and sort of swaying in a half-dancing way, and then she dances. She's reasonably graceful, even if a lot of her solo dance moves sort of look like fighting. 

She's still going when Vanyel comes back in. Vanyel pauses near the door, pointing a questioning look in Cam's direction. 

Cam comes to the end of a phrase. "Hey Vanyel, how are you doing?"

Vanyel walks over. "I'm fine–" he stops himself, "well, I'm not totally fine, but I can manage. I, er, cleared the air on some things with 'Fandes, and we're on the same page now, so that's better." 

He shakes his head. "Gods, all this should feel like a bigger deal than it does. I've spent the last, oh, thirteen years of my life with all this uncertainty on whether I'm actually going to die stopping Leareth or not, and...all of a sudden nearly all of my expectations are on 'not', and I have no idea how that's going to change things in Valdemar, I've only gotten as far as thinking about your problem. Which is actually a way, way, way bigger deal than my dead lifebonded currently being a twelve-year-old Bardic student who's best friends with my nephew. Or my Companion storming off, honestly. And you've just been coping, this whole time, and - I'm sorry I can't cope as well and I've been such a disaster at you, but," deep breath, "I'm feeling pretty ready to take on meeting Leareth. Probably I should read some of the materials he sent you, though, or maybe you can give me a summary?" 

"I had, uh, prep time? It took five days to - get to Valinor. So I used them. Uh, summary, he wants to build a god - he didn't set up his notes to be a class on the subject, they're mostly notes to himself, so I have some questions about his moral philosophy in a few places, and about his plan for his god to negotiate with other gods presupposes a lot of facts about gods that I'm not sure are warranted assumptions, but except insofar as he hasn't personally solved ethics he seems on the up and up."

Nod. "I, um... Does it seem like he knows that he hasn't personally solved ethics? I'm not sure how much it's a deciding factor for the immediate thing, but I'd be...more nervous...if it seems like he thinks he knows the right answers." 

"He seems to think that the god will solve ethics the rest of the way, which is... sure something."