"Clearly I need your advice on this situation. Would taking her to Aktun count as a nice date, do you think? I could show her the Museum of Measurement, it is very excellent, and take her on the trolleys and for lunch at a fancy restaurant - do you think she would like that?" 

"I haven't met the girl!"

That's fair enough. "Maybe after she comes for dinner and you have had the chance to meet her, I can ask you again? And I will get her a ring, I suppose. Where does one buy nice rings?" 

"Does she already wear a magic one on each hand?"

Leareth thinks back. "No, she did not have magic rings on either hand. Just tiny magic swords as hatpins." 

"Huh! I'd expect someone who's good at magic items to be well enough off for two. Uh, I think you have to decide what to get her but she'll probably read something into how much you spent."

It's not like he has a particular shortage of money. "What would be a generous amount to spend? Is it traditional for the ring to also be magical, I would quite like to get her something that was useful as well as pretty." 

"I'm not Chelish, I'm not sure what's normal here. In Osirion rich people get magic wedding jewelry but the wedding jewelry is more important in Osirion because it's the only thing the wife owns in her own right. Papa went into debt at a jeweler's for Mama and then she sold it during the famine to get him a spell that restores flesh on a corpse so they and baby Saba didn't starve."

"I suppose I could ask the jeweller when I go to try to buy one. Though then it seems likely they will try to overcharge me." 

"So read their mind until they stop trying that."

"You are certainly Aroden's daughter! I hope someday I will be lucky enough to have a daughter like you."

He should probably ask Khemet too, for activities in Aktun that are more romantic than trolleys. He found the trolleys romantic but he's unusual. Leareth spends the rest of the time before the appointed dinner thinking about what sort of magic jewellery he ought to get her, and being kind of nervous. 

Carissa goes back to her apartment and finds out the landlord rented it out again when she left town even though she'd paid up a month in advance. She hadn't left anything important there but she's still in a bad mood about it. She tries to think in a public park instead. 

She would like Leareth to be less nervous. He never seemed nervous when she was spying on him. She is a bit confused by it, and a bit -

- all of her feelings are silly but probably not listening to them still won't work -

- in the version of this in her head he was pleased, and already had a ring, and - and wanted her, and that would have been nice. It is also kind of silly, it's not like he knows her yet - in the version of this in her head he said that he wanted to get to know her better and then kissed her. This is in itself really trivial but it's probably indicative of something that's not really trivial. That's still worth doing, obviously, but - it will be missing something that would have been nice. 

That's okay. She is mature and responsible and careful and can take care of herself and she doesn't need him to figure this out on any timeline or in fact at all. 

She goes and finds a new apartment and this leaves her with very little budget for a dress for dinner but she has a former classmate in the city she can complain to, and then ask to borrow one from, and she'll have to do her hair herself but, well, who is she kidding, he won't even notice probably. 

Leareth is weirdly tempted to try to invite Khemet, just so he can look at Carissa and (non)-magically tell what she wants and then inform Leareth of this via Telepathic Bond, but based on their earlier conversation that isn't going to help Carissa's feelings at all, and it's also sort of silly. He can manage. 

He pays slightly more attention than usual to selecting what he's wearing, and he's there to greet her when she returns to the palace, and show her the way to Aroden and Parmida's rooms.

"Would you like a hug?" he asks her. Khemet would just be able to tell by looking at her. Maybe Leareth should get magic items of enhancing-reading-people. He can't read her mind because of her shielding, and - possibly that's the sort of thing that one's wife would be offended by anyway, at least doing it without asking. 

" - sure." Hug. "I had a frustrating day, my landlord let someone else move into my apartment when I left for Vigil even though I'd paid up for the month."

"Wow. Is that a common occurrence here? One would think it would hit him for Law." 

"It has never happened to me before but in Corentyn I mostly rented nicer places, and knew the landlords. I will go threaten him for my money back tomorrow but I didn't feel like it today. How was your day -"

"It was not nearly that frustrating. I thought about - I would like to take you on a proper date, at some point, if you would like that." He offers her his arm to walk over to Aroden's suite; he's seen couples doing that in the street, he thinks. 

She takes his arm. "That sounds nice. I haven't travelled, except to Vigil and the Worldwound."

"Well, I will try to think of something appropriately exciting. Would you prefer I tell you once I have ideas or for it to be a surprise?" 

"I like surprises if they are well-executed."

"I can generally execute projects such as military campaigns rather well, I think, so I will have to see if that transfers to dates."

He walks her to Aroden's rooms, making conversation by asking her what Corentyn was like. 

Aroden greets her warmly, and not with much formality. "Welcome back! Delightful to see you again. He ushers her in. "Parmida you met before. This is my daughter Zahra." 

Corentyn's a big port city. It was badly damaged during the civil war a century ago and all national investment in fixing it has been focused on the fortresses, and on the port, so the city's downtown is still badly damaged and there aren't big nice public works to speak of like in Egorian. But it was a pretty safe place in another way, you weren't terribly likely to come to anyone's attention and the schools were good and people from all over the world would pass through the Arch of Triumph - the Arch of Aroden, she corrects herself nervously, it was returned a month ago to the name the rest of the world knows it by and the name it had in Cheliax a long time ago.

"Your majesty," she says, and nods to Parmida and Zahra. "It's good to see you again. I hope everything's been going smoothly."

(Leareth doesn't seem bothered at all by her referring to the Arch of Aroden by its name under Asmodeus; internally he's a tiny bit bothered, but not at all because he thinks she misspoke, just because it's a reminder of the century during which Aroden had lost.) 

"Yes, thank you. There remains a great deal of work to be done but it is mostly proceeding according to plan."

He hopes Parmida can tell if Carissa is still nervous, because he can't.