Leareth chuckles. "An excellent question! I suspect that it has happened for a single god to go by several names. As to whether Vkandis is six gods in a trench coat - well, it is difficult to say exactly what it means for gods to exist as individuals, since they are very different sorts of being from people and in particular are larger. The Shin'a'in lore says that their Goddess has multiple facets which can be prayed to separately for different needs. This is mostly hearsay because I am not Shin'a'in – on the two occasions I ended up in Shin'a'in bodies, once was by accident and I got murdered within a week, and the second time I decided it was wiser to leave the Plains immediately before the Goddess could notice. Interestingly, it seemed the blood-pact did not apply to me once I had taken over a body." 

"What would have happened if it had applied to you, how is that enforced?"

"I am not sure to what extent it is enforced on the level of every single person born to a community, since I think occasionally Shin'a'in and even sometimes Tayledras do leave their community and make their way elsewhere. However, it seems likely that the Star-Eyed can send a leshy'a Kal'enedral, or spirit warrior avatar, to speak individually to any of Her people; at the very least she can do it with some and they do not have to be mages or priests, since there are documented instances where they were neither. She can give them premonitions. There is at least one recorded occasion where She directly possessed a Swordsworn in order to work a very obvious miracle, but that happens very, very rarely. Also, on a more mundane level, the Shin'a'in and Tayledras are both tightly-knit, fairly isolated communities, and most children growing up in such a place will not end up with a desire to leave. She did not send any spirit warriors after me when I fled the Plains on the second round, though." 

"Okay." She writes that down, bits of it in different sections according to her organizational system, and continues marching through Leareth's understanding of history, trying to derive relatively original conclusions about divine territories and powers and limits and attribution and beginnings and endings and infighting and alliances. It's a lot of evidence to sift through and they're not done before she assembles sandwiches for lunch and has to go teach microbio (it's about tiny-parts-of-creatures dividing in two) and resume.

Leareth can accompany her to the class again. He's even more fascinated this time and adds to his notes from the previous class. In addition to the material being novel and interesting, he finds Belrun a very compelling presenter, though he's not exactly unbiased on the topic. 

(He has to keep making sure to stay focused on the content rather than drift into thinking about how Belrun is very clever and he wants to snuggle her about it, he doesn't want to distract her through the lifebond.) 

She does occasionally glance at him with amusement but mostly manages to get through her lesson on how the tiny parts squish themselves around the middle and then are two of them.

Does Belrun want to check on her eggs afterward before heading back to talk about gods some more? 

Yes, but it can be pretty fast, she doesn't have a new egg delivery today.

Then Leareth will wait while she does a quick check and then walk back holding hands with her. 

Holding hands is NICE.

And then they can finish going through his notes on the patterns of divine behavior.

Eventually - tucked back into the guest room so Rana doesn't wonder what they're so into theology for - Belrun says, "So I think I follow along with you pretty well on most of this but I think you may be overconfident about the attribution of various motives to various gods. I don't have a better single model but I think you're more attached to this one than you should be, there's not just a lot of difficulty in the first place in identifying who if anyone did any given thing and why, there's also a motive for a god that is against you to mislead you into thinking that's not exceptional on their part so you don't concentrate your defense in their direction specifically."

That earns her a surprised, thoughtful look. "Hmm. You...could be right. Although it does seem to be the case that none of the gods are actively in favour of my existence and work, or else they would be intervening in helpful ways. I think I would be capable of noticing suspiciously lucky coincidences, not merely suspiciously unlucky ones–"

He stops. "Oh. The dream with Vanyel - the part where we can speak to one another - could be interpreted as an intervention actively in my favour. Or not. It is unclear how it will eventually end; it could also be a bet on some gods' part that I would try to befriend him - which I did - and in the process give him knowledge and resources that would increase his odds of successfully defeating me if he were to choose that option." 

"I could also be an intervention in your favor? I mean, or not, but nothing's tried to murder me yet. It's not the friendliest shape of intervention but it might be intended helpfully. Also some help might take the form of no-selling or averting the usual unlucky coincidences, which would be much subtler."

"Hmm. I will have to think on that further." Leareth smiles. "You are quite good at causing me to reconsider questions I have perhaps not reviewed in too long." 

"Happy to help." She leans on him.

He puts his arm around her. "Any other questions for now?" 

"Not today but I want a map of the presumptive god-territories to look at eventually. Not for any specific reason, just to have a visual."

"I ought to be able to do that, though it does involve guesswork." 

"Yeah, that's fine." Nuzzle.

Snuggle. "Bed?" 

"Mm-hm." Bed ensues.

The next morning, Leareth watches Belrun with a thoughtful expression as they get breakfast. 

"Now seems to be a good time to cover some - final context - and then my actual current plan," he says. "Although it would be easiest if there is a good long block of time free for it; what is your schedule for today?" 

"I have my morning classes again but not microbio today, and I can skip them and get notes from Kamie or somebody to copy, they just won't be as good as mine."

“It seems probably worth having somewhat worse notes in order to have that discussion sooner, but I suppose it is up to you.”

"I can skip. Though that decision is at least seven percent wanting to snuggle you all day and I really hope that whole phenomenon calms down or accepts partitioning or something after a week or three."

“Perhaps the gods’ plan with this is simply that I cannot do the particular work that annoys them most while snuggling you. Certainly it would crimp any scheme to invade Valdemar. Though I am hoping not to do that anyway at this point.”