She looks like this is not remotely how she expected taking a day to be together to work. He can definitely make her breakfast. And then maybe they could cuddle?

He makes her breakfast! A more generous portion than usual, and he asks her what she wants it to taste like. And then, yes, they can cuddle while Saba amuses himself. 

This is nice. Is there anything else she would like? 

She's, uh, new at this. She thinks she could manage anything he wanted? It was really sweet of him to make her breakfast and hold her.

...Huh? He's genuinely confused. This is her day, not his. He wants her to be happy, or as close to happy as they can get when the world is still kind of awful around them. He's sorry that he doesn't just know how but he can't read her mind (yet). 

By be together did he not actually mean anything about marital relations at all.

He actually has to take a second to puzzle over what she means by that, they are spending time together being married and focusing on their relationship, but– ohhhh. No, he actually didn't mean that. He's...sort of forgotten about that entirely.

(Fortunately his host body seems to come equipped with some idea of how sex works, which is better than having no idea and attempting to re-derive it from scratch and god-angle knowledge, gods are not especially well-placed to pleasure human women.) 

"We probably should not," he says quietly, holding her. "We would need to arrange contraception and that costs money, and–" he peers into her eyes, frowns, wishes he could read her mind because most of the time she's a very sensible, legible person but sometimes he swears he doesn't understand her at all. "And, do you want to?" 

" - well, I wouldn't really say I want to or don't want to or anything? I thought you'd want to. Eventually. Once you'd had enough time, and once it wasn't a terrible time for a baby. And it's been some time and it's not a terrible time for a baby and so when you said -" Shrug. Embarrassed shrug. 

"...I mean, I would really not say it is a good time for a baby, but - it would not be disastrous now." He lets out his breath. "We should - try to talk about this." Even though he has no idea how to approach it in a way that doesn't feel like he's some sort of half-human-half-elephant tromping around on her feelings.

"I...told you, before, that my head was not really set up for - kissing, or - other activities that come after kissing. I think every day about how clever and sensible you are and how lucky I am to have you and how proud of you I am. I love you, and I want to see your face and hug you and tell you about what is on my mind and hear what you are thinking. And maybe that means I would also like kissing you but my mind has not - made that leap, yet. I suppose that marital relationships is - something that presumably makes some couples very happy. I would very much like to make you happy. It...is not obvious to me what women like, here, and people are different from each other, so you would have to tell me what gives you pleasure, if we - wanted to try. And you might need to be patient with me while I learn it. But - it is certainly not something you owe me. You are very good to me and I am happy with you already, and - to me, that is a very small part of what marriage is." 

...that was a longer speech than he'd intended at the start, and he should give her a turn now. 

"- you're a very strange man, you know.

In Osirion I think it is more of a part of what marriage is than speeches about love. And it is something I owe you when you would like it, I don't think there are very many people who would make promises like you've made and consider themselves owed nothing off that. But if it is not important to you then that would defeat - most of the point, really."

He smiles a little. "I know I am very strange; I - tried to explain that, at the beginning, but perhaps I failed to convey how odd I am. I - think I do feel owed some things, though I would not have put it in those terms. You are my partner and there are so many fewer things that I worry about now, because I know you will competently handle them. That is what is important to me. If neither of us really wants - marital relations - then I think we can leave the matter alone. I do still wish to know what would make you happy, though." 

"I think I will be happy when we're rich. But in the meantime - this is nice."

"I am glad." Snuggle. "And - we will be rich somewhat sooner, if we work very very hard, but - perhaps not soon. So we cannot work too hard, if it will make you miserable in the interim." It doesn't make him miserable - or, at least, not going as fast as he can would bring its own flavour of misery. 

He will cook all of her meals and do all the household work and they can go for a walk and try to find something pretty to look at. If there are flowers, he'll pick her some; he has some vague, distant intuition that humans often like flowers. 

Some rich people have some flowers but you're not really supposed to pick them. The plants that grow unaided in Osirion are not flowering ones, mostly, and anyways have been eaten.

She does seem more relaxed by the end of the day.

He asks her if she would feel happier, and more like their life was nice now, if they tried to make their house prettier. 

...probably the thing that would improve her quality of life most is not having to clean other peoples' houses which are nicer. But maybe.

That makes sense. He thinks they can afford to set aside that part of their earning scheme, now. Especially since he's planning to cast his new spell the next day, confirm that it works (and what exactly it does, it's some sort of illusion but he isn't quite sure what the difference will map to yet), and then, after that, go back to the other wizards and ask if they want it now. 

His wife had been under the impression he knew what the new spell would do! How does he know it won't blow up in his face if spells often do and he doesn't know what it does?

It's hard to explain, he just has a sense of the magic? He can hold the shape of it in his mind and see that it's stable. He - has unusually good intuitions for this, he says, it seems to just be how his mind works, and so even though most wizards invent spells half by trial and error and it's a risky process, he's very sure that this one is safe. And he can tell most of what it does from the shape, just not entirely. (Gods don't see magic from the same vantage point, and he can only hold a small cross-section of those memories in his head when he thinks about the spell.) 

She wishes him well and has Saba out of the room when he tries it. It is, as he expected, an illusion spell with more scaffolding the Minor Image - instead of filling forty cubic feet but needing him to do all the detail work it envelops him, and uses his appearance as a base he can make modifications from. It will make for a pretty good disguise-spell with a few weeks of practice figuring out which alterations to his nose or eyes or apparent height don't leave him looking weird and inhuman. 

Neat! He's pretty pleased with his discovery, and calls Parmida back in to show her. And then entertains Saba for the duration that he can hold the spell, by doing all sorts of silly things to his face and body. It's good practice and he likes hearing Saba laugh. 

The next day he prepares it again, twice, his third spell is still Restore Corpse most days. He goes to see his wizard acquaintances, says he's gotten a more specific and maybe quite useful variant on the basic illusion, demonstrates, and asks if they would like to buy it off him now, or trade in kind for a first-level spell in their own spellbooks. 

Some of them have heard of that spell and know people who can cast it! They're impressed that his reckless magic experimentation worked out, and some of them will trade. Does he want the ability to store his spellbook on the Ethereal Plane? The ability to feel like he's had a night's sleep while he stayed awake, as long as he didn't do anything strenuous (or use magic)?

He would definitely like to be able to store his spellbook on the Ethereal Plane! (The fact that all his progress would be lost if someone stole it is definitely salient to him, possibly because of how he obtained this spellbook in the first place.) He just copies it into his notes for now, though, since he's pretty sure no one in their neighbourhood is going to try to steal it from his special shirt pocket. 

He'll take down notes on the sleep-replacing spell too, if it's being offered, he's not sure he wants it as badly since he's doing magic basically every day but at least he can look at the spellform, maybe get something out of it the next time he can afford a day to cast his intelligence-boosting spell and slam through some research insights. 

Ideally he's find a wizard who'll give him actual money, too, rather than spells that will just cost him more money in ink before they do him good. He keeps going around, and will offer a cheaper price than the other people who have it. 

In that case he can get a couple of gold for letting people copy it. He'd get more in ordinary times, but these are difficult times.

He gives the gold to Parmida. "You earned this," he says seriously. "By helping me save for the second-level spell, so I could research this successfully. I think you should spend it on whatever will make your life - our lives - easier to endure. And next month we can start saving for the Ethereal Plane spell." 

How is the rest of the city doing? 

Food is still far too expensive and most people are still far too thin but it's distinctly getting better, now. The upcoming harvest - two years and three months after the death of Aroden - might almost be a normal one. The Empire of Kelesh is drafting people, for its internal struggles far away, and even worse it's drafting grain, but Sothis doesn't seem to be about to erupt in disaster.

In Cheliax people say the gods are meddling in the civil war, much more blatantly - much more clumsily - than can traditionally be expected from them. An earthquake affected the course of a battle. One keep is being relentlessly struck by lightning. One claimant to the throne was assassinated by devils in broad daylight; another was vaporized by a paladin of Iomedae who says she had a sudden vision (and six new paladin levels with it).