Does Parmida have a preference over coastal villages? He'd like this village, he thinks, it's a half-day's travel from the city, so he could sell his magic items to shops in town until he thinks of something else, but also it's...quiet. Out of the way. 

Parmida really prefers cities to coastal villages but will somewhat irritably agree that this village is lovely.

Well, if nothing else happens for the next six months then he'll consider moving back to the city and just giving any followers of Nethys a wide berth. 

So they settle into their lives in a tiny fishing village. His wife asks him to look for a midwife, from the city if necessary. Also, if he would like her to not die, there should be a cleric close enough to call. It would be understandable, she says kind of coldly, if the mysterious thing is more important than that.

He arranges her a midwife. And a cleric (from any temple but Nethys is fine) to be on hand, also visiting from the city if there aren't any in the village, which would be unsurprising.

Apologizing more is not going to buy him anything, at this point. He works on making magic items to sell in the city. 

It's not an awful labor, as these things go, which means she is only crying out in pain for about five hours. He is not supposed to go in. It's bad luck, says the midwife, and Parmida is mostly glaring whenever she sees him anyway. 

It's a baby girl, which Parmida is apologetic about until she is healed; them she remembers she's mad at her husband and stops being apologetic about it. 

Magic items sell for less than in Sothis, but their costs of living are lower, too. 

He regrets never getting Delay Pain - it's a second-level spell, he was a bit more careful with his purchases and copying there. He is not at all upset about having a daughter. It seems like a reasonable mix, really, one boy one girl.

...Considering their longer term options, he thinks they should go somewhere that's better for women than Osirion. Cheliax is a terrible place to be raising a family right now, though, what with the war. And Rahadoum is still in the midst of their civil war too. He mentions to Parmida a few weeks after the girl's birth, when she seems in a better mood than average, that they should try to end up living somewhere where women are respected and have rights and can make their own decisions and all that. Maybe it's unclear if that life is actually better on net for all women but he's very certain it will end up being better for their daughter, who is after all probably going to resemble them in some ways. 

This wins him his first smile since they left their life in Sothis. Though she turns her face to try to hide it. 

She proposes calling the girl Zahra, which adapts acceptably into the languages of many of the places they might end up living. 

She can help with magic items as long as they can hire somebody to wake with the baby in the night; otherwise she'll be too tired to prepare spells, for a while. 

They can definitely hire a wet nurse for Zahra; it's more than worth it for the additional magic items.

He's surprised by how much he likes holding his daughter. You wouldn't think that an infant would be very interesting. 

He makes weekly trips into town. Brings back flowers and little gifts for Parmida and the children. Looks at jewelry; he bought her jewelry back in Sothis, once they could afford it, but he promised her magic jewelry and he should get her some. At this point, given his skill with making magic items, he can probably just do it himself once he finds a suitable necklace or something. 

He skims surface thoughts as well as asking about rumours of the surrounding world. 

There are refugees here from Lirgen and Yamada, and some from the war in Rahadoum. (The refugees from Rahadoum skirt the temple of Sarenrae; one of them is thinking loudly that it's the gods who caused this whole damned mess and they should all follow Aroden, in his opinion.) 

The magic shops have pearls of power and a brooch of shielding and an amulet of protection and a ring of sustenance and a shawl of life-keeping and sleeves of many garments and, going up a little in price range, a Periapt of Health, which provides immunity to all disease, or a silver raven figurine of wondrous power.

Oh, she would love the sleeves of many garments. He frowns at it, though, the construction is really quite simple and he could make it himself - and do a better job than whoever made this one. He examines the Periapt of Health and considers it for later purchase. 

A few weeks later, after an entirely nonsuspicious if slightly more intense than usual series of nights spent at his workbench, he presents his wife with a wrapped package. 

She raises her eyebrows at him and opens it.

Sleeves of many garments, handmade by her husband! Also a new necklace, which isn't magical and is just pretty. 

She tries them on. Experiments a little bit. Smiles at him and does not turn her face away.

"'m still mad. Just so you know."

He smiles back, ducks his head. "I would be concerned about your standards, if a small gift like this meant you were no longer mad! I care about your happiness, is all, and - am trying to show it better." 

Zahra learns how to pull on his nose and his hair, and how to say 'dada' and 'ama' and 'gaga' and 'aba', and how to put everything in the house in her mouth. Saba, after a few months of sulking, makes some local friends, goes out fishing with them.

Parmida worries about them. "People can die, you know, at sea."

       "People can die lots of ways," Saba says. "And I'm old enough, now -"

"There are lots of things you can only do in this world, little one. Don't you want to be a father, someday -"

       "Dunno."

"You want to be a great wizard?"

       "Dunno."

"You miss Sothis?"

       "Yeah."

"There's no Sothis in Axis."

He snorts and stomps off.

He wants Saba to be able to see his friends. It seems important. He researches whether there are any magic items that can protect against drowning, or first-level spells that Saba could master. 

Water breathing is third level; a necklace of adaptation instead works off Alter Self, which is second level, but it'd still be 4500gp in materials costs. Parmida will be slightly less worried if he'll just cast his shield spell on the boy before he goes off; then he might drown but at least he won't hit his head and have no chance at swimming to safety. (She can cast it too but hers lasts three hours; his now lasts six, or he can see how with a little bit of research he ought to be able to stabilize it in a second-level slot to make it last twelve.)

That seems like a reasonable level of caution for now; he'll cast the six-hour version until he's finished researching the other version.

If Saba masters second-level spells, he can learn Whispering Wind, which will let him call for help if something happens to their boat and he can't swim all the way back to shore. It's probably a good time for him to give it another try, anyway, it's been years. 

He will continue his magic lessons, though he doesn't seem to learn as well as he did surrounded by the other children. 

(Meanwhile back in Sothis Nefreti Clepati marches into the school and tells everyone they are now paying tuition to her and teaches them very diligently and converts her former tutor's bedroom to a shrine and in 4620 has his house torn down to build the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye, the grandest temple to Nethys on the face of Golarion, but that is another story).

The next time he's in Mereb the rumors are all about Cheliax. The civil war might be at last coming to an end, after eight bloody and horrible years. The Treaty of Egorian has been signed; Queen Abrogail Thrune has ascended to power. 

Asmodeus is backing her. Quite openly; the gods haven't relearned subtlety. Her armies were supplied by Hell and supplemented with devils; the slaves of Hell labored for the generous gifts she bestowed upon the populace in the festival of her ascension; the barrage of calamities that the Good churches suffered in the last year of the war speak to work even more direct than that. The people of Cheliax are obliged to worship Asmodeus, though they may acknowledge some other deities once they've paid him his due respects; the children will be educated in the temples of the church of Asmodeus. Or killed; that's legal, now. It is legal and encouraged to enter into pacts with devils for magical power. Everyone's doing it. 

People are kind of shaken.

He had, on this trip, just been considering that it's been an uneventful few months and it doesn't look like Nethys has learned of his continued existence, informed the other gods, and sent them after him, and maybe they could move back to town now. 

...He comes back silent and distant, barely says a word of greeting before heading straight to the bedroom, shutting the door, and sitting down with his head in his hands to weep. I was not fast enough. 

It's - not irreparable, even now, empires can be toppled, he has to remind himself of that. But he had been...ten years, maybe, away from having the kind of power he would need to step onto the gods' battlefields and help out the Good churches in a civil war. He's a lot longer than ten years away from what he'll need to directly fight Asmodeus, now consolidating his power. 

His worried (and maybe also somewhat angry? what's going to have to happen now) wife brings dinner. 

He doesn't eat it. He does think to reassure her, absently, that of course they're not going to drop everything and move somewhere else, why would that help.