"I know. I will confess I was terrified of it, the first time - I waited too long, I think." 

"Because you didn't want to kind of stop existing?"

“I like existing! Existing is very important to me. I suppose that is why I had so many immortality safeguards that one of them lasted through even my death as a god.”

"Some people who like existing try fewer ridiculous things that make them gods as enemies!"

“Yes, yes, that part is entirely on me. The trouble is that I also like the world not containing stupid problems, and since some of the gods are themselves problems, this is rather in tension with having no enemies among them. It is rather unfortunate.”

"Zahra," says Parmida, "I think I would like your father all to myself for a little while."

"Moooom," says Zahra. "You don't have to tell me."

"I can't make you not notice, honey, your shielding is too good." They're beaming at each other. Parmida takes his hand.

He squeezes her fingers. "I missed you." 

"I missed you too." And she pulls him out of the parlor and kisses him. 

He slips his arms around her and kisses her back. It's really, really good to see her again.

At some point they ought to go back to Cheliax, but right now he's not inclined to leave this house for a while. 

She is not going to let him get away that easily! Late that evening, maybe, after they've had some time together and also a proper family dinner and also a crystal-ball call with Saba.

All of those things are wonderful and he's not at all impatient to leave, if only because he left Leareth in charge and Leareth is perfectly competent to handle anything that should realistically come up. 

He recounts some of their particularly clever moments to Saba with great delight, even though probably everyone has heard by now. 

Saba feels more personal investment in Cheliax than Parmida and Zahra do and wants more details of his exploits even though he has indeed heard lots about them by now. There is a rush on real estate in Axis right now, in the abandoned area that was Aroden's domain; Saba thinks Aroden should slip him some insider information so he can time the rush well.

Well, he's happy to keep giving Saba all the same updates he gives the rest of the family, and maybe soon he'll have a better sense of what timing he's likely to pick for the Starstone, right now things are still up in the air. 

Eventually even Saba has enough accounts of the war and Parmida, who goes to bed early these days, is looking tired.

Aroden will contentedly stay a bit longer and snuggle her until she's asleep, and then slip out to return to his work, since he isn't going to be sleeping for many hours yet. And in the morning maybe he can come collect her to visit Egorian, and Zahra too if she's interested in coming? 

She'd love to!

Then Aroden will be back in time to snuggle Parmida again as she wakes up, and have breakfast together, because of course they can't go off without a nice breakfast first, and then he puts on his Aroden face again, with an apology to Parmida because it's understandably weird for your husband to suddenly look completely different, and Teleports all of them to Egorian. 

They walk around for a bit, wave to the locals and answer questions if anyone approaches him - he sort of hopes having his wife on his arm will make him more approachable - and after that they join Leareth for lunch. 

Parmida is going to Alter Self herself younger, too, if they're doing that, it'll just be weird if people think he's going around with his mother on his arm or something. (Zahra does not do this, and accordingly looks four decades older than either of them.)

People look confused and curious and think all kinds of interesting things but still mostly don't approach him.

Oh well. They'll get there eventually, he hopes. 

Leareth meets them at the palace, which Aroden has taken over because everyone seemed to expect him to, and they sit down in a nice dining room. 

"You must be Parmida," he greets Aroden's wife. "He thinks highly of you, thus I can already predict I will too. And - Zahra?" 

"So I'm told," the elderly woman, who is knitting, says. "Aroden says that you are him, from his carefree and foolish youth."

Both of them have pretty good local shields but neither of them are blocking him at all. Parmida is thinking that the palace is very nice and it's too bad history didn't take a slightly different turn in such a fashion that they could live here and rule Cheliax, and that Leareth does look terribly lonely, and underhugged, and underfed, and she'll have to see what she can do to fix it. Zahra is thinking that there's absolutely no way either of them ever had a carefree and foolish youth, like, probably not even when they were literally five years old.

(What does being underhugged even look like, is there some characteristic look she's picking up on, does she know a lot of hugged and not-hugged people to compare...) 

He sits down with them, makes light conversation. Appreciates their family banter a surprising amount. Aroden looks happy, here, which is pleasing. 

Aroden's family teases him and talks about Cheliax and the palace and the war and the future.

Parmida notices that Aroden looks happy here, too, and it makes her happy. When Aroden is underhugged he is - carefully not tense, because being tense gives you headaches and backaches, his posture good, his expression neutral, his movements unexpressive, and her theory is that when the experience of being physically embodied isn't pleasant and safe and good, he backs away from it, stops being fully in his body at all, maintains it with the dissociated precision with which he maintains other tools he could replace only at great expense...and when he's had enough hugs, he is fully present. Leareth is a little different because Leareth isn't a god with dysphoria about having a body at all but there's still an edge of similarity she's catching here. 

Huh. Interesting. Leareth isn't sure he's ever considered whether being physically embodied is pleasant and safe and good - well, usually it hasn't felt safe, because of the part where gods kept trying to murder him, maybe that's related. 

"Leareth," Aroden says eventually over dessert, smiling, relaxed, "I do still think we ought to find you a wife."