:I have a suspicion that the servants might be assuming I am his boyfriend: Leareth tells Fazil. :Is that something that will - cause difficulties - if not corrected, or should I just leave it alone. You would think the fact that we are trying to resurrect his lifebonded would be a strong hint I am not!: 

What problems would it cause?

:I have no idea, here. In my world many people are bothered or disgusted by relationships with people of the same sex: 

He looks very sincerely baffled. What are you supposed to ...do? Just be completely alone until you get married?

Leareth blinks at him for a moment. 

:...I think Osirion has very different cultural assumptions, here. It sounds as though I do not need to worry about any particular negative effects to this assumption: 

I should expect not! Unless you're counting 'the servants probably won't solicit you' and even then, having a boyfriend isn't very much evidence about how that'd go over.

(Servants bring breakfast out to the beach.)

Leareth keeps an eye on Vanyel and tries to make sure he's actually eating. He doesn't think he's especially good at this, but Vanyel must be very lonely, right now, and Leareth is the only one local to this world who he's known longer than a couple weeks, so maybe it makes sense that he finds Leareth's presence comforting even though Leareth doesn't think of himself as a very reassuring person. 

:I am coming to suspect that the cultural expectations around relationships here are even more different than what I had surmised: he sends to Fazil. :Perhaps you had better fill me in on what the usual practices are, here - both for marriage and before it: 

In Osirion men typically take a first wife at around thirty and women typically marry at about twenty. That is because a man is expected to be established enough to support and provide for his wife and their children, and also not to be a reckless idiot, and men in their twenties often do not qualify. This is less true on farms, where if a family has enough land a man is often perfectly well established at twenty-five and if they don't have enough land he never will be and probably goes off to the city to make his fortune. 

Most adventurers are men in their twenties. They typically settle down around thirty. Mahdi and I were going to retire this wet season, but then all these things happened and conquering Cheliax and restoring Aroden or wherever this is headed is obviously a higher priority.

Decent men will not pursue women before marriage, because that's an awful thing to do to someone. No one else would marry her, afterwards, and often her family would kick her out. Men sleep with each other, or don't, but it's not marked. If you tried talking about the category of men who have sex with other men it'd make about as much sense as talking about the category of men who roll their sleeves up. I - understand it to be the case that women do the same thing, though I don't actually know what they do, in any specific detail. 

Some men take a second wife. I personally think that in most cases where they do, they ought not to. It makes sense to take a second wife if you can afford it and your first is infertile, or if she won't have you at all and has moved across the country to live in a nunnery or something, but I think people do it when they should instead be investing that energy in fixing their first marriage. - my father married his brother's wife when his brother died, and it made things difficult for our family in some ways that I think could have been prevented. He - liked his second wife better, and there wasn't enough food, so he stopped feeding us - and it's very reasonable to say that this was a personal failing of my father in particular but it's one that I think he was in some ways encouraged in? - that's a bit beside the point. 

The palace doesn't work like that. The way the palace works is - well, frankly, it bothers me, and I wouldn't let a daughter or sister of mine anywhere near it. But Abadar wants lots of heirs to choose from. I guess that makes even more sense in light of the fact that that's all he's doing, choosing. The pharaoh has a harem and his relatives have smaller ones and then there's lots of - they used to be slaves, I think they draw a salary now but I don't know how cosmetic that is - who the pharaoh didn't want, or who got too old to have children, also about, as staff. They're -

- in Osirion a woman will not be alone in a room with a man, if he can't have her. The staff here has not avoided being alone in a room with any of us. I really think you shouldn't and I can argue that at length if you don't follow why but they will be operating under the understanding that you may if you'd like.

Leareth listens closely, absorbing it as much as he can while still keeping half his attention on Vanyel (who is really not going to notice one way or another if Leareth is slightly distracted.) 

:Noted. I am uninterested in romantic pursuits with any of the staff here, so as long as they are not going to press, that is fine: Being assumed to be in a relationship with Vanyel is sort of a bonus, in that sense.

:For context, in my world - well, countries vary, some keep men and women separate in the way you describe, most have greater concern about a woman's 'virtue' than a man's. Valdemaran customs certainly frown on women having partners before marriage. The Heralds, I understand, have an entirely different culture amongst themselves, since the women fight alongside the men in a role not too dissimilar from your adventurers, and usually do not marry at all, but that is unusual. Valdemar certainly does not try to prevent same-sex relationships in the same way, but - it attracts disapproval, anywhere from mild gossip to parents disowning their child over it. In Rethwellan, a neighbouring country, it is actually considered a crime punishable by death, though I am not sure how thoroughly that is enforced in practice: 

Vanyel mentioned the adventurers. It seemed sad to me, a culture where no one marries or bears children, but we have celibate religious orders and I guess it's sort of in the same spirit. I can't - really wrap my head around why anyone would care what men or women do with one another. Is that a teaching from their gods?

:Some religious orders claim it, although I would be surprised if our gods actually cared, it is not the sort of thing that they would usually care about. Honestly, it has always been rather baffling to me as well: 

Well if they were in our world I'd worry a lot that having a unsustainable sexual prohibition like that will end with half their population needlessly in the Maelstrom but I guess I do not have to worry about that in specific.

:No. It does seem that your alignment and afterlife systems change the incentives substantially, here: 

Mahdi, once he's prepared spells for the day, goes to the mountain valley in Andoran where he left Yfandes.

Yfandes is still there. She's sort of pacing back and forth. 

Hey. Uh, we were wondering if there would be magic we could do that would - be helpful. Let you think for yourself about this. 

Yfandes goes still for a long time. 

(It sounds - dangerous. And terrifying. And she's too distracted to even spare the question much attention.) 

Can you describe the thing that's happening or anything.

:I - just - I have to go back - but I can't - but I have to...:

Yeah. I'm sorry.

He waits a little while in case she comes up with anything else.

Yfandes is having a pretty hard time coming up with anything else.

:You can - ask me questions: she manages finally. :It - won't - make it worse: Her Mindspeech is disjointed, as though she keeps half losing her train of thought in the middle of a sentence. 

The problem is Van thinking about making a new god?

Flinch. 

:It - maybe - but upstream of that too? I couldn't - I can't - everything around that, can't think about it. Even though - he needs me: She's feeling quite a lot of self-loathing about it. 

It would be good if you could think about it? he asks cautiously.