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An adventuring party recruited from Osirion teleports into Azir on the 8th of Desnus. Rahadoum's recruiting contact in Osirion wrote ahead to note they were expected. Couple of guys he's known a long time - a wizard, a ranger - and a new guy, sorcerer, probably to replace the cleric they usually travel with. They spend two days in Azir getting oriented and head out to the front. The ranger wears an unusually high quality amulet of Nondetection; the sorcerer wears a headband for intelligence, which is a bit unusual as sorcerers usually don't need it to cast, but some variants do; they are otherwise unremarkable. Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, no reading, which could mean neutral or 'hiding it'. They work quickly and effectively, manage resources reasonably well, get recommended to higher-ups for a closer look on that account.
"- Showing off could be rather fun. And - yes, I think give yourself time on the last thing. You do have the advantage of arcane magic, I do not have any of that." He's not sure what to do about the jealousy, romantic jealousy still doesn't quite make sense to him, but he's glad to know about it. "Anyway, I think that was all my specific questions - would you like to switch now?"
Leareth lets go of Thoughtsensing, takes a deep breath, checks the shielding on his room one more time, and - drops his personal shields.
It's a lot easier to do it now than it would have been before. He is, in fact, far more comfortable than he was before they started this.
He's feeling a lot of fondness for Carissa, right now. 'Protective' isn't quite the word for it, because the last thing he wants to do is build walls she can be safe behind. A lot of people need that, he thinks, in the someday-future where everything is fixed, but - it would be importantly underusing Carissa's capabilities, not letting her be her full self and grow into what she can become, if his primary motivation were to keep her safe.
He's musing on what it took, to create a Leareth out of the raw material of a teenage Ma'ar, eighteen hundred years ago in the awfulness of pre-Mage-Wars Predain. And Urtho was an important component of that, he thinks. Urtho saw him and wanted to give him something better than that, but what he wanted was to put tools in Ma'ar's hands and teach him how to use them. (And he regretted that, later, and fought a war against his former student, but importantly he doesn't seem to regret it now.)
The thing he wants with Carissa is a lot more than just that, he's not looking for a student here; in a lot of ways she isn't his equal yet, gods, she's in her twenties, but in some other important ways she is, and - that's the kind of negative space he wants to leave for her, anyway, he wants her to want that and reach for it and unfold all the parts of herself that had to be small and unassuming and not draw Asmodeus' attention, before -
- he's in pain. Wishing he had been faster, somehow, because he can shape the future but not the past, he can't undo that Cheliax was under Asmodeus' reign for almost a century, and - now there's even more to come back from, to get to the place where they finally win, Asmodeus is stronger and has more souls in his grasp, that's part of the cost Aroden paid for every day he chose to wait. It was the right call, Leareth thinks, trying and failing would have been so much worse and so Aroden had to wait until winning was as overdetermined as possible, but - it still hurts to look at, a hurt tangled up in a thousand other regrets, costs he paid, sometimes for no reason because he bet and lost. And normally he keeps that folded up, out of the way, it doesn't help him win faster to dwell on the pain of losing, but - right now it feels important to let Carissa witness it.
...he's trying not to think about Khemet too much because that won't help, but he can't help remembering when Khemet took him to Aktun, and noticed that what he needed was to be held while he cried, and - that was important, he wouldn't have thought to look for that before, it's felt out of reach for so long. Because he, too, had in a way been carving off parts of himself, cutting off some of his wants, the ones that would only make carrying out his mission harder. It feels like a different kind of tragic from what Carissa was gesturing at before; it's the tragedy of limited resources, of deciding not to save to raise a dead baby because sending her surviving sibling to school matters more. (It's the tragedy of his long-ago baby sister in Predain, killed at birth because too many of their livestock had died the past winter and they couldn't feed another mouth; that's one of only a handful of memories he's kept from his original childhood as Ma'ar.)
It feels like maybe he needs to let himself grow in a new direction too, in order for things with Carissa to be better than all right, and it makes sense to now and he wants it but it's still - hard, and even a little scary.
She leans against him. She has - no idea how to comfort people, she isn't sure she's ever even tried it, but - but it makes sense in the abstract, that people would want comfort if there was anyone they could trust to be that close to - even people who are very very strong - maybe them more, for the same reasons being a prisoner was more terrifying once there was the hope that she could still survive -
Leareth leans his head on her shoulder. Notices that this is, itself, an example of how he's suddenly having all sorts of new emotions now that there's space in his life for them to feel productive, not because they help him directly achieve his goals in the outside world, but because he can get hugs and reassurance about them, and feel closer to people as a result, and that in itself is good - the same way raising a dead baby is good, he thinks, and he made a straightforward resource tradeoff not to have it for a long time, but he's in a new environment where different things makes sense. He suspects that unfolding that part of himself and his desires, again, might help him be more ally-shaped to others, the thing Iomedae was trying to gesture at in their conversations -
- he remembers Iomedae holding him while he wept, and how he felt like a small child again in Her arms, and how much that seemed to help... This is probably not normally how people relate to gods, but, well, he's unusual.
Leareth remembers being in his room, feeling lonely, even though he had literally just seen Khemet and it was very unreasonable to go back to Sothis and make the pharaoh neglect his wives because he didn't want to sleep alone. He never used to feel lonely. Maybe he was anyway.
Does Carissa have questions? (It's probably going to be easier not to end up repeatedly thinking about Khemet and making her jealous if he has somewhere else to put his mind.)
"I'm not sure if I do...
...asked Vanyel what you were like when you were angry and he said he'd never seen it."
Leareth chuckles despite himself. "It is impossible to be angry with Vanyel. He is so earnestly trying to do the right thing all the time. I have been rather angry with Asmodeus..." He frowns. "As a data point, Aroden was furious about my murder, and apparently quite scary, Parmida was worried that if he stormed into the pharaoh's palace in that mood it would start a war. Which implies I am capable of being angry in a frightening way."
"Yes, he is."
Aroden feels protective of everyone in the entire world, of course, and especially protective of some key strategically-important people - the same kind of feeling Leareth has toward Vanyel - but it does seem like a different thing. Maybe it's just the same as how Leareth is invested in existing, how even as a young man the thought of dying forever was such a yawning gulf of horror that he built four different precautions against it - and then kept the one that survived the Mage Wars even though it was the horrible version that killed teenagers - partly because he was pretty sure he could make that tradeoff worthwhile, but also he desperately didn't want to die...
He remembers (in the dizzying way of godmemories) Abadar explaining how Aroden took three weeks to die, as a god, and nearly tore the world apart in the process, because even once he had clearly lost he couldn't help but fight against dissolution, pulling the shreds of himself back together over and over and over, until his former allies decided they had to put him down before he unwittingly killed all of his own people.
Maybe most people fight back less hard than that, against the world's attempts to crush them, and - it's not always good for the world, how frantically a Leareth's pattern wants to survive.
(Never to give up - never to die - to return over and over - no matter the cost - no matter how long it takes -)
(And then the Star-Eyed ripped away his immortality, because he let down his guard and helped Her people as a friend - he's so scared - but it's going to be all right, because Aroden exists here, and Khemet, and Vanyel, and with them on his side it's all right if he sometimes extends his trust and is wrong and needs to be hauled back from the river of souls - he can afford to gamble for the upside of that trust - but it's still terrifying...)
Hug.
She has some kind of feeling about the storms and attendant famine being caused by Aroden, accidentally, but -
- it's not a fault, to be desperate not to die. Even in her old worldview it wasn't.
"I want to - help keep you safe - but I think I might need some time, first, trying not being quite as scared even though it's less safe - maybe the same thing you need there -"
That makes sense. Neither of them is starting from a great place, Leareth muses, in terms of emotional vulnerability feeling allowed - it's maybe inconvenient that apparently he needs that to be sexually interested in someone, apparently Carissa doesn't or she would never have wanted anyone that way ever, he hadn't realized that -
- okay for fuck's sake why is he thinking about the concept of tying people up or being tied up in magic-free demiplanes - his thoughts now have that plus a note of apology about it - hmm, the concept of him and Carissa both being in the demiplane where only divine magic works is intriguing, it rules out his most useful capabilities - also hers, though, she has fewer cleric levels than wizard levels. Allowing only arcane magic would solidly give her the upper hand...why is he still thinking about this subject, sorry Carissa, probably normal people don't find that sexy at all...
" - it's got to be, like, the most common kink if you don't count 'lingerie'. I mean, demiplanes don't usually feature in it because most people do not have demiplanes - do you have a demiplane -"
...Huh. Maybe it's not that weird, then. "I do not have my own demiplane although I could obtain one if I asked Aroden for help. Abadar owes me a favour, though, I was badly injured helping Him fight the Star-Eyed and could have been permanently damaged from it so He feels bad - I might ask Him for an operations building in Aktun that also includes some rooms where only my magic works."
Leareth feels like this is justifiable because it's not like he only wants it for sex purposes, Aroden uses his demiplane for all sorts of reasons, like kidnapping and questioning people, or keeping private records where he's confident no one else can get through even a simple magic lock...
Giggle. "If you wanted to have a secret demiplane for kidnapping and questioning people and you wanted to also take me there for sex that would, in fact, be really hot."
"Aww, would it?" Leareth smiles. "I am glad you think that instead of finding it extremely weird and unsettling. I think I would like that. At some point. Quite possibly by the time I even have the option."
He runs a hand lightly over her hair. "What else do you think is hot? I am - still discovering this area."
"You're hot when you're being a little bit scary. When I got caught - if it'd been you instead of Aroden, I think it would have been - Aroden's just scary. And also really old. - I am aware you are also old but you don't look it. I like being told what to do if it doesn't feel like it's because I'm - interchangeable. I think I'd like - trying to stop you, even though I'd probably lose - or specifically because I'd probably lose - but we'd have to talk it out in advance so someone doesn't get hurt for real -"
...Okay that does sound kind of hot. “I - think I like when there is - a bit of a fight. Though, yes, we would have to talk about it first.” In hindsight Khemet should possibly have asked before casting Hold Person on Leareth, though the shock had been kind of thrilling in itself and also Khemet can basically read minds, apparently, where that sort of thing is concerned.
”...I might also enjoy there being a handicap such that you could win,” he admits. “If my magic were blocked and you had yours, that would be - well, scary, but I think in a way I could find quite satisfying. I am not sure why, but...”
"Well, if I'm into it where you win I suppose it makes sense that you would be into it where I'd win. I don't - know how I would feel about that. I could try it, though."
"...I mean, to be clear, I also like winning. Quite a lot, apparently." It's - surprisingly pleasing, discovering that Carissa gets the thing that he's feeling, here. It's still such a confusing feeling to have.
"I think I had noticed this about you. I am not very switchy but I'm also not very experienced and I would bet I could find something in that genre that was fun."
"Mmm. I am getting the impression that at the very least you are more experienced than I am."
...He is vaguely musing in the back of his mind on whether Khemet and Carissa teaming up could squarely beat him in a fair fight and then do whatever they liked to him - he nudges that line of thought aside.
"Anyway, I think we could figure something out that we would both like." Squeeze. "Is there anything else you wanted to ask me about?"
"I have to confess, I am a little distracted too." He glances over at her, without letting go of her. "Was this helpful for you? I think I found it very helpful."
