" - wait, were you previously thinking you might not stick around?"

- wow, he should possibly not have emphasized that part so much, this is really embarrassing now. 

:Van, honestly. You should tell her. Leareth knows: 

:Fine, but it's your fault if she doesn't want my advice anymore: 

"I. Um. Might've tried to kill myself a few times, when I was younger. And - wanted to a lot more times. It's complicated." 

"Ah, okay. Here that doesn't even help with anything."

"I was informed. Also that it's Evil apparently which just seems unfair, it's - it's not hurting anyone but yourself and I feel like that shouldn't count." 

"The Chelish understanding of how sorting people works is that Pharasma just wants souls out of her way, which is why abortion and murder and suicide are such a big deal even though objectively they're sometimes just sending someone somewhere else that might be more able to use them. But I don't know if any of that is actually true, lots of Asmodean education is but lots isn't."

"I'm not sure I'd even expect your death god's sorting process to line up with my personal opinions on ethics." Shrug. "I've sure killed a lot of people but apparently I still read strongly Good. I guess mostly in cases that were - at least moderately clear-cut, choosing the least bad option among a lot of bad ones? One of the things I feel worst about is sneaking past the Border to assassinate one of Karse's mages, who - was probably a decent person, just fighting for his kingdom like I was fighting for mine. But also he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of our people." Shiver. "Just like I'm responsible for the deaths of thousands of theirs. And I couldn't just make the war stop - I could only fight for Valdemar, not Karse - so I did that, and I don't know if it was the right thing to do, feels like if the world were sane I wouldn't've had to, but - also it might've been on the best path to ending the war when we did." 

“I guess it seems - definitely okay to me, to do the thing that wins, assuming you’re right about what you’re fighting for.”

"Mmm. I think Leareth would say so. And, I mean, Karse did start the war, and - were doing worse things than us, in fighting it, I think the world where Valdemar won it was better than the one where they conquered us. It just. Didn't feel good, mostly." 

Nod. “I’m sorry.”

"I don't, um, know if that helps answer your question at all, sorry." 

“I think it does, a little? I have - more possible answers, at least, and a sense of which questions feel confusing to me. So thank you.”

"Mmm." Vanyel nods. "Happy to answer other questions. Er, is there anything you'd want to know about Leareth? I - don't know that much about his personal life, at least not from before Golarion, but we've known each other for ten years. - I did spent most of that thinking I was probably going to die fighting him, um, he was my destined enemy in a Foresight dream but then we had conversations about philosophy in it, my life is really weird like that." 

“Wow. Um. Does he take it well when people argue with him, is he good with kids, what’s he like angry...”

"I've never really seen him get angry. At least not in a losing-his-temper way. I've seen him frustrated or just sort of offended at the state of the world being awful, like with Asmodeus, but - not angry at a specific person he thought had wronged him. I screamed at him at least once for - a thing that happened which wasn't even mostly his fault, and he just calmly agreed it was reasonable of me to be mad. He takes it great when people argue with him, I did it all the time, he - doesn't get defensive like most people, about being criticized? He's just very calm and level about it. Never seen him with kids and it makes a weird mental image but I don't think he'd be bad with them." 

Nod. "Would you marry him? If it otherwise made sense?"

Vanyel does not quite manage to suppress a snort. "I am baffled what circumstances could cause that to make sense, but - I guess I wouldn't be opposed?" Also, damn it, he manages to go a decade without ever asking himself the question of whether Leareth is attractive and now he can't un-ask it and it's distracting. 

"Cool. Thank you. I might have more questions eventually? Do you just hang out here saving everybody from Hell, how do I make appointments."

"I'm nearly always in that Work Room if you want to just come find me. Or you could send a note for me to Aroden's staff and schedule a time, I guess. People wanting to make appointments with me hasn't come up much." 

"Really? Well done, I would expect to be getting bothered constantly. I will do that if I think of more Leareth questions."

"All right! It was lovely meeting you. I hope, er, things go well with you and him." 

Now he's feeling some pangs of pointless jealousy. Probably because she prompted him to think about hypothetical marriage to Leareth and now he's lonely. 

She goes home. 

She spends the next day enchanting a very boring dagger again and pointlessly fretting that Leareth will read her mind and decide that actually she's terrible, which Iomedae is competent to have foreseen, probably, even if the gods don't have foresight. And maybe daydreaming, a little, that he will instead fall in love with her, which is stupid, marriages that are not in stories do not involve love. 

In the evening she heads over.

Leareth seems quite pleased to see her again, and hugs her. 

He also has some gold for her! Lots, in fact. Aroden, who's in fact hired adventurers for not-dissimilar work back in Rahadoum, thought that 10,000gp was around the bounty he would have needed to put out to attract someone of her calibre into throwing real creativity at the problem - and making themselves expensive niche magic items to slip through the palace security. So he thinks that would be a very reasonable fee, although in exchange Aroden would like to have some more conversations with her about all the things she noticed. 

- wow. All right. It's barely possible that's actually a reasonable price and not charity. She hugs him a lot. 

"Thank you."