Iomedae did not say he would love her (she would not have believed Iomedae if She had). Iomedae said he was worthy of her, and she'd be safer with him than anywhere else, and that it'd be good for the world. It seems very much like a foolish little girl's mistake, to decide that this means he will love her. She doesn't need it, to take on this thing ahead of them.

Is she capable of it? She has no idea. She is pretty sure she is capable of loving him. Might fall into it by accident, even. She is pretty sure she can get the illusion-theatres sorted and plan the wedding and - hold him and confess her fears and do stupid-in-the-dangerous-worlds things like that. Maybe it'll work. Reaching for it still feels ridiculous. 

She trusts him to be - trying. She trusts herself to be trying. She trusts that sometimes it'll be enough and sometimes it won't, and that they won't stop trying. That seems like - probably not what love is, but -

Maybe that's what falling in love is like, for people like them, competently working together and confessing their fears to each other and trying, knowing that trying, in itself, sometimes will and sometimes won't be enough. 

Also Leareth is forming an opinion that being in love with someone is what makes him want sexual relations with them, which is maybe backward from the order a lot of people have, but when (and it feels like a when, not an if) he does straightforwardly and spontaneously want that with her, that's probably what it means. 

That's such an odd way for a person to be! Kind of a nice thought, though, that when he's ready to have that it won't just be that he understands her thoroughly enough to let down his guard around her but that he will - 'love' still feels like a bit of a fake concept - he'll be building a story with her, where they can rely on each other forever. 

She feels abruptly exhausted. Snuggles him again, rather than come up with more things to say or think.

"Maybe a good time for you to sleep, then." He's very pleased that by next week they'll have the same bedtime again. 

She nods sleepily. She sleeps. She has vague sex dreams, some of them nice and some of them awful ("nice" and "awful" are background facts about them, not apparently connected to the things happening), and a dream of Iomedae watching her and saying that She thought she could handle this, and a dream about waking up in Hell and Asmodeus laughing at her, for thinking any of this was real...

Leareth, having looked up the kind of crystal in question, designs a spell plus raw materials that he thinks should replicate the 'extra-fiery' stones for the ring. It still needs more power than he can manage alone, but he doesn't need to sleep for another hour or two and Vanyel also has a Ring of Sustenance, so Leareth leaves Carissa sleeping in his bed (with some reluctance) and slips out to find Vanyel and explain it to him. 

Vanyel is in fact still up, and thinks this plan is adorable, but doesn't have the energy to try it tonight, he usually tires himself out by the end of the normal day and spends his extra six hours a night once everyone else is asleep reading books. He has an entire world's worth of scholarship to catch up on, after all. 

Leareth talks to him a little, but isn't sure how to bring up any of what still feels hanging-unresolved with Carissa, or whether Carissa would mind that, so he heads back and lies down in the bed with her before he's actually very sleepy. Enjoys being close to her until he eventually falls asleep. 

She wakes up next to him and this time does not decide to lie perfectly still until he wakes, she has to spend longer on spell preparation in the morning than he does and there's a lot to do. She rolls quietly out of bed to start preparing her wizard spells.

Leareth wakes up at dawn. Sees her busy preparing spells, and doesn't disturb her, just gets up and prays for his and then checks their list of tasks for today.

"Maybe a stationery store first?" he says once they're both finished with spells. "And then talk to Taver about nobles to contact for the wedding invite list - meet with Aroden about the illusion-performers - go back to Absalom - go back to Sothis... Am I missing things, I am probably missing things." 

"If we're bouncing around the world anyway we should book flowers and buy fireworks in Absalom, probably, since everyone here's already booked - have we told the staff -"

"I think Aroden said he would tell his staff - or have Parmida do it, maybe, he seemed not to really need another project on his plate. Maybe we should go see him first to coordinate on that." 

"Sounds good."

So they do that. 

Leareth is a bit worried that Carissa will be terrified around Aroden because he's intimidating, but maybe wedding logistics will override that? 

Aroden did manage to inform his staff, some of whom are Chelish, even, and worked in the palace before, but this morning they were asking him about various decisions regarding food and flowers, and worries that everywhere is booked out for Signing Day, and he honestly has very little idea on any of it, except that if they're using his demiplane anyway they don't need 200 days in it and so can maybe draw up a list of various service-providers who could provide their services by then if they had access to time dilation? If that's reasonable? 

That seems reasonable and she was also thinking they could book in Absalom, where they're headed anyway for the illusion-theatres proposal, and Gate everything over.

Oh, that's clever. And they should talk about the illusion-performers and what decisions she needs from him in order to get a proposal to them, he talked to Parmida last night and has some notes... 

Carissa seems only minimally intimidated so that's something. 

After that meeting they can finish writing up a proposal and then go talk to Taver (who's also intimidating for many people but less so than Aroden) and go to a stationery shop either here or in Absalom, and then fireworks and flowers and grab lunch in there somewhere... 

It's pretty relentless. That in itself is fine, Leareth is used to it, it's not nearly as hectic as the one-week deadline Aroden gave him for getting his entire army and all his mages to Golarion. He's less a fan of the part where he can't lean on past contingency-planning almost at all, due to having made zero plans for 'and this is what I will do if I need to have a huge state wedding in a fortnight', and juggling unfamiliar customs... 

And when they're in Sothis anyway he should talk to the pharaoh about how one actually books a cute little apartment in Aktun, presumably it's a bit easier to do thirteen days in advance, and he doesn't think they need the top floor or anything, just being in Abadar's divine realm is enough for him. 

There's a currency exchange; exchange rates are very very steep, because the material world doesn't make a lot of things Axis wants, and he's going to have sticker shock. But Khemet can recommend him the person he uses himself for booking requests in Aktun.

Does Axis maybe want rare books from Velgarth that Leareth has in various records caches and hasn't bothered trying to bring across yet but can, because if they do he could sell them those. 

Axis would probably be delighted about that though Abadar's probably copied them into the vault already.

Another thing to add to the list. 

Leareth warns Khemet that it's going to be an extremely busy week and he hopes to visit at least once during it, if only so he doesn't explode from too many flower-related decisions, but in general he won't have a lot of free time.

- oh, and does Khemet think he could pull off attending the wedding, or is it too complicated with security to be worth it? 

He does not usually attend foreign state events for security reasons but he could probably make this one work, if it's important to Leareth.

Leareth isn't sure this is where he wants to assign his limited ability to ask Khemet for costly things that are important to him - he doesn't know how important it should be to him, the state wedding part that is, obviously Carissa herself is going to be very important to him. 

Honestly Leareth is probably going to be too busy to actually talk to him for more than ten seconds at the wedding, though he could in principle feed him advice through the telepathic bond and maybe that's worth it. 

"I'm - glad she's important to you. I think marriages work a lot better that way."