No response. 

"Ironically that would have been almost precisely Urtho's mistake. Taking an eager would-be ally and insisting he could not possibly be cooperated with until it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm not actually sure that we've averted the worst of it. We can't cooperate with the Star-Eyed, now, and that's a very costly loss."

"I do not think it so unreasonable of Her to declare that someone who has done such great wrongs as him ought not be supplied with resources and given a country to rule," Starwind says tightly. 

Vanyel opens his mouth and then closes it again. 

"To say so, of course not!! 'The Tayledras oppose installing Leareth as Aroden's heir and insist he pick somebody else' is the kind of thing allied countries say to each other all of the time! It might've gone fine!"

"There is no chance at all that he would have listened." 

Moondance, still sobbing, abruptly pulls away from Starwind. 

Vanyel hesitates for a second or two, and then goes to hug him. 

"Starwind, I think that's an oversimplification of the situation. He would have taken it into account; Aroden does try to cultivate allies, he's - had more of a chance to have that be rewarded instead of punished. Which is exactly the chance we want to give Leareth, now. He's a very, hmm - he's very sane, he's going to respond to what works." 

"He will never respect any limitations." 

Vanyel is dangerously close to losing his temper. He forces himself to take a deep breath. "First off I don't even think that's true. He - made promises to me, about Valdemar, when we spoke in our dreams, and he kept them - he confirmed later under Truth Spell that he never lied to me. Secondly, I don't know, good for him? Hunger is bad and disease is bad and death is bad and as far as I can tell he IS just the only person in the entire history of Velgarth who's actually said that the status quo is unacceptable and needs to change! And all it ever earned him personally was the gods trying to murder him all the time, but he kept trying anyway!" 

Starwind doesn't seem to know how to respond. He looks away from Vanyel's gaze. 

"Aroden was a lawful neutral god who managed to negotiate the noninterference of more than twenty other gods, some of them Evil and lots of them Good, for his planned manifestation on Golarion. He has a bunch of allies, he's compromised on a bunch of fronts for them. He'd want to know what the Star-Eyed was offering for it, but - gods, She'd have paid so much less than She's paid now."

"We failed Her." 

"It is possible to fail someone by obeying them in a mistake you could have corrected them in. But I'm not clear on how much you could've corrected Her in it."

Moondance, who has just calmed down a little, starts sobbing uncontrollably again. 

"Moondance, ashke, can you stop that?" Starwind sounds worried and also frustrated. "This is not - you are not..." He doesn't seem to know how to finish the sentence. 

"Starwind–" Savil grimaces, also apparently lost for words, and eventually just goes to sit next to him and put her arm around his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I - know it's hard that he's so upset and you're getting backwash from it, just - I think he needs to grieve?" 

"You're not a monster," Vanyel says, finishing Starwind's sentence for him. He strokes Moondance's hair. "You were trying really hard to do the right thing, and you messed up, and it had a lot of consequences, but - that doesn't make you irredeemable, and it doesn't mean you don't deserve to exist and have good things..." 

"Starwind," Vanyel says, a bit wearily. "I still don't feel like we've clarified whether you - think what you did was wrong. And we kind of have to know that, to - know whether you're still a threat, I'm sorry, just..." 

"We ought not have done it in the pharaoh's palace. ...If Her orders had been to try, if the cost was acceptable, and not - to accomplish it at any cost - then we would have done it at the Worldwound. That would have been less costly to your allies." 

:We should not have done it once we knew more: Moondance sends, his mindvoice devoid of all expression. :She was WRONG - why can you not see that...: 

"Do it whatever the cost is - the kind of order that should never be given, I think. It's - much more reasonable for people to disagree on what cost would have been acceptable than on the fact that there exists some cost that would not have been."

Starwind is silent for a very long time, making various faces. 

"- Leareth has some good qualities," he admits finally. Very grudgingly. "And - has done some good in the world, as well as evil."