"Huh. I will add that to the list under 'important facts about Cheliax under Asmodeus that I had completely failed to notice.' Osirion takes its customs absurdly seriously, so I was somewhat correcting for that, I suppose I thought since Asmodeus is also Lawful..." Shrug. "Apparently I am Lawful in a very rare way, based on my own internal standards and not the laws of a given place - I have broken so many laws in my life - but I learned it was affecting other people's Law when I ignored their customs so I tried harder at it."

"That's sweet of you. The norms around relationships here were mostly aimed at - not encouraging them to be too deep or trusting, as that's a kind of putting someone above Asmodeus - and then both lots of abortions and lots of babies are good for Asmodeus, right, since the one is Evil and the other is more Chelish people who can be soldiers for the grand plan." Now this conversation is not hot which is tragic but he should probably know this.

"That makes sense. Asmodeus was - reasonably clever and strategic at accomplishing His goals, one cannot deny that." Leareth looks thoughtful. "Abadar gets along much better with Him than he does with the Star-Eyed Goddess or Vkandis, in Velgarth. Asmodeus actually teamed up and helped us steal Her superweapons. I think it is the Lawful aspect; He is the kind of entity one can negotiate agreements with. - I still do not want Him to achieve His goals, of course, since He wants to torture people and I am firmly against that." 

"I noticed. It's - useful to be trustworthy, even if you're also very terrible? Asmodeus helped seal away Rovagug, and if He were lawless then maybe the other gods wouldn't have been able to cooperate even for that."

"Mmm." Leareth leans against her. He has some sort of feeling-of-wanting but isn't sure what it's for.

"I could stay here today. I bet your bed's nicer."

...Leareth would like that. "Seems likely, and it would save me a Gate in the morning. You could come do a survey of my bed and judge its merits yourself?"

"If you can't trust a man about the merits of his bed, what can you trust," she says, but she will follow him.

Leareth didn't put much effort into selecting his bed, and it's not especially extraordinary in any way, but it's big enough to fit two people fairly comfortably, and the mattress and sheets are high-quality. 

His bedroom also has a skylight, the one feature he had an opinion about, and right now the stars are visible through it. 

Ooooh. 

She's going to take her dress off and hang it up neatly so it will mostly suffice for tomorrow.

- Surprisingly distracting. What is she wearing underneath her dress? 

Very minimal white underdress thing. It looks scratchy. She pats the dress as she hangs it so it won't crease wrong. Turns around and raises an eyebrow at him.

Leareth looks back at her. (Whaaat is he supposed to do now–?) After a moment he raises an eyebrow back, and sits down on the side of the bed, patting the spot next to him to indicate she can join him if she wants to. 

Sure. "...are you nervous - I'm sorry - it's just, you're so very scary and focused, most of the time -"

"...I am a little nervous. This is - well, most of the time I can be in control of a situation by having powerful magic and a number of contingency-plans, and - I know what I am doing and what the success criteria are - this feels very different." He tries to smile. "It is not necessarily a bad feeling, but it is an unusual one, for me." 

Lean. "I guess I feel like I shouldn't just - tell you - because I don't actually know what you want -"

He wishes she somehow did, it would be simpler. "I think...right now I want to put some extra wards on the room, which is very silly but it will help me relax, and then I want to hold you and cuddle, and - maybe then I will figure out something else I want." 

"All right." 

So Leareth does that. 

He stretches out on the bed with Carissa next to him, his arms around her, and breathes in the smell of her hair, and tries to just - let go of everything else, his sense of his surroundings and his plans and resources, and focus on where he is now. 

It's surprisingly hard. 

She relaxes into him, kind of, and -

- he mentioned that he wanted to take things slowly, it's not new information, it's just kind of weird and disorienting when the way it works out is a bunch of interactions that are almost according to script but then suddenly aren't. This is a very trivial complaint and she's not that upset about it. 

Trying to communicate went pretty well, last time. 

"How are you doing?"

"...Good, I think. Happy you are here. - Having trouble keeping my full attention on this, I am worrying about security on the permanent Gate network instead. Sorry. Your hair smells nice." 

"What's wrong with security on the permanent Gate network?"

"Hmm." Leareth spends a moment shuffling through the bits that have been aimlessly drifting in his thoughts, finding the beginning of the thread. "There is a tradeoff between making it convenient and secure. And various countries may wish to make it differently - for example, Osirion is not very worried about security on the Sothis side for their interplanar Gate to Axis, since the other side is under Abadar's control, but then they will also be linked to Egorian, and I am trying to decide if it is worth pushing the pharaoh to restrict how many wizards have the spell to activate it..." 

He can explain more of his not-very-organized thoughts on this if Carissa seems interested. 

If it's what is on his mind, sure. 

After a bit it's less the thing on his mind.

Leareth is pretty sure his feelings are not this confusing with Khemet, it's kind of frustrating, but– "I think I want to kiss you."