Awww. Delightful. Leareth approves of being kissed for challenging impressive things he did in the past, even if this is a sort of unfair metric because he's had so much more past than Khemet has. 

If there's time for more before Leareth has to retire with a horrible headache he'll fit in some more, too.

There's time for a little more. Leareth kind of wishes that he could ask Khemet to stay and hold him and that would help, but unfortunately it really wouldn't, being touched is the last thing he feels like when he's in that much pain and, even worse, Khemet might make noise.

He lies awake and miserable for the requisite six hours, filled with determination to get Abadar the specs for building Himself an aspect that can talk like a person, and eventually he falls asleep and wakes up rested and only a little cranky about his unpleasant evening depriving him of pleasant activities with Khemet. He prepares his spells and then checks if Khemet is available so he can say goodbye before heading back to Cheliax, since after that he probably won't be back here for another week. 

He can say goodbye and wish him good luck with the finding a wife. Or three, though they don't do so much of that in Avistan.

That sounds exhausting. For him at least, it might be less exhausting for the poor wives, given the list of responsibilities a royal wife would have according to Parmida. He'll start with trying to find one, though. 

He Gates back. Spends a while catching up on his day to day work, and then puts extra wards on his room and sits down to try and pray to Iomedae. 

It takes longer.

And then the first part is the same, like falling, but it resolves quite suddenly into sitting comfortably in a - castle, or something. There's a window. A sharp-eyed dark-haired Chelish woman is sitting across from him. 

"Leareth," she says, and watches him.

"Iomedae. Thank you for answering me." Leareth tries to smile warmly. He's a little tense, even though Aroden trusts Iomedae and that should be approximately good as already trusting Her himself. "Abadar was right, you do seem to be better at this. And Aroden speaks very highly of you, you know." 

"You barely had enough of a concept of me to pray to me," she says, smiling. She does not look upset about this. "Perhaps Aroden doesn't say enough, or is inaccurately complimentary."

Leareth smiles a little. "I am unsurprised. He has not said very much, in terms of total content. He trusts you, he said that - which is high praise, coming from him - but, I think perhaps there is history between you that he cannot easily convey to me, and so even though we are in some ways the same pattern, I suppose I will have to get to know you myself." 

"I am the Lawful Good god of defeating evil. I was Aroden's herald, once. I command the forces of Heaven in the war that began before life on Golarion. I think that you came here today to speak of lighter matters, but we can speak of that war, if you wish."

"I came here with a somewhat silly question, actually, and do not wish to take more of your attention than necessary, though I would not mind hearing more of your history. So - Aroden thinks that I need a Chelish wife, since I am to inherit Cheliax when he ascends again, and Khemet suggested I ask Abadar and you for advice on - unusually interesting and talented women in Cheliax, whom I would get along with, since you have the ability to assess if a person is aligned with you." 

She leans back and frowns consideringly. "What is important to you, in a wife?"

It's a difficult question. "That they be competent to carry out the myriad duties that apparently fall on a monarch's wife, and to be my cultural translator and window into people's thoughts and feelings that they would not tell me directly. That they be someone whose opinions and insights I respect, who will catch things I would not otherwise - someone whose alliance would make both of us stronger. And...Aroden and Parmida feel I need someone with whom I can let down my guard. Which is difficult, for me, and I am not sure what allows for it. Currently the people I trust most in that way are Aroden, for the obvious reason, and Khemet, and I am not even sure what makes that work." 

"Hmmmm."

She considers this a while. "I will see what I can do."

"Thank you. I deeply appreciate it; I know it is a somewhat frivolous request." 

"There is nothing frivolous about securing Cheliax's future. Or yours." She's frowning. "You are new to believing that virtue might serve you; that's not a small thing, I think."

"...I suppose I am dubious of the entire framing that divides possible actions into 'virtuous' and 'not' instead of 'strategic' and 'unstrategic'. But - it is true that I am operating in a different context one, namely one where it seems possible to have true allies without all my attempts to do so being used against me. And that does change things. I am curious what you have to say on this." 

"We have to win," she says softly. "We have to win, and winning one day sooner would be a thing so momentous nothing in history could be compared to it. If anyone does not understand that then they'll have nothing to say - especially to you! about what Good is. But there's a concept that came naturally, the one Abadar recognized in you - that there are habits that make it possible to extend you offers, habits that make it possible to have you in the room - things that you'd do even when they are momentarily not strategic, I think, like telling the truth to a probable enemy - 

- because you're choosing a pattern, not just a single result of a single conversation, and understand that better than most humans do.

And there's a similar thing with being a good person. Keeping your word is one kind of being possible to cooperate with. When Vanyel Ashkevron found himself here in a strange world he rushed to shield a hundred villagers from a dragon, without the slightest idea what a dragon was, and that is another kind of being possible to cooperate with. To, where you can, be on their side, the people who live by the river growing food - these specific ones, not their great-great-great grandchildren. It is not a kind of being possible to cooperate with I'd expect you to choose every time, in every world. But sometimes the universe will give you that opening, to be Vanyel's ally, to be the sort of person everyone like him recognizes as one of ours."

"...It used to hurt," Leareth says, slowly, hesitantly. "Every time that I weighed up what would - mean being possible to cooperate with, in that way - and what would work, and had to trade the former to get the latter. And then I suppose I decided it did not help anything, to anguish over it every time, and so I - stopped. I think...Vanyel has done things he wished he did not have to, but I imagine it still hurts him, and - that affects his choices, on the margin if not always. I am not sure if that is the only way I could be more the shape he is." 

"Oh, child." And she steps across the room and takes his hand. "Good isn't about hurting, but it does hurt. And maybe you were weaker for your hurt, maybe your pain made it harder for you to do what must be done - but there is hurt that leaves us stronger. There is hurt that does not need to fall silent, because it is not getting in the way. I do not think that all of Vanyel's pain is dragging him in the wrong direction on the margin, and I would lessen it but I would not advise him to discard it. And this is not because there is anything I would not compromise to see us win."

Maybe she has a point, because there's some sort of pain Leareth is feeling now that he's not at all tempted to fold away. 

"I think - it makes a significant difference, whether one has allies who are - witnessing the same tragedies and - feeling the same things," Leareth manages, eventually. "And - there was no point pining for it when it seemed forever out of reach, but - I want so badly to live in the world where I can have that. I felt so alone, in Velgarth, and I am so tired of it." 

The conversation is having an odd effect on him, Leareth thinks. He feels like a child again - as though remembering some distant hazy past he's nearly forgotten - and she reminds him of Urtho, a little, only with the key difference that she's really and truly trying to win. Because that was the part that Urtho never understood, he thought trying to win was ambition and ambition was dangerous, and - if instead of someone like Urtho it had been someone like Iomedae, trying to teach him what virtue meant, then he can't imagine what else could have been different. 

She abstracts away the motion that ought to have been necessary between standing there holding his hand and sitting on the couch with him tucked into her arms, his head resting on her shoulder. 

"We are given so little," she says, "and the world takes so much. But you have this, now, you work side by side with Vanyel and you have the chance to live in a world where people like you are possible to cooperate with - possible to trust - possible to love - take it, be good to it, forever is such a long time but for as long as you can -"

"I will try." And now, again, he finds himself fighting not to cry, but for a completely different reason. For the fact that if he had met her as a human, he suspects it would have taken him about thirty seconds to decide that it was worth almost anything to have her on his side - and a world that contains more than a handful of people like that is one where he would have ended up a different shape all along, not one that necessarily hurt less to be but one that meant carving away less of himself -

- and this is probably the category of thing people refer to as a 'religious experience', it's bizarre, Iomedae is terrifyingly good at it. At making him feel very small and young and yet not alone.

(Some quiet voice in him is noting this, that it's a lot of uncharacteristic emotions for him at once, and deciding to hold back final judgement on it and propagating any changes in his thinking until he's not having the mind-altering experience of talking to a god, but for now he doesn't mind it, it seems like something he can afford right now and it's...kind of nice, actually, in a way he would never ever ever have thought to look for.) 

She holds him for a long time, and then eventually she departs and he is alone in his head. He does not have a headache.

The lack of headache is very nice, but he's still drained in some other way, and stays where he is for a while, lost in thought. Mostly trying to figure out why the conversation with Iomedae made him so emotional, where's it coming from. 

He's still confused about it but eventually goes back to his other responsibilities, he can poke at it later.