"It is somewhat like that, yes. The magic that outsiders can learn is far, far simpler than what gods do, but it is - directly touching the raw underlying structure, is the best way I can think of to explain. Whereas human magic always feels to me as though it is entirely made of awkward workarounds for the fact that we cannot directly hold the true magic." 

Aaaaaaaah she wants to directly hold the true magic, now that she knows that, this is TERRIBLY UNFAIR. 

"Huh. - thank you, your majesty."

"You are very welcome. In any case, I will work on this further and of course keep both of you updated. In the meantime, after we finish this meeting, you would be welcome to peruse my list of spells at fourth-circle and below, and if you wish to copy some I am happy to oblige."  

Wow???? - probably it just makes sense for the ruler of Cheliax to want to do Mhalir cheap favors. 

"Thank you very much."

"You are very welcome! Anyway. Mhalir, you wanted to hear about the status of things in Cheliax?" 

"Yes." 

So Aroden spends the next hour talking through the current state of Cheliax. 

His biggest challenge is trying to restore Cheliax's infrastructure, which was hit very hard by the war and was also substantially run through the church of Asmodeus, which for the obvious reasons Aroden wants nothing to do with. He's allowed other churches to build temples in Cheliax; Iomedae's church in particular is heavily represented. Funding was an issue, of course; Cheliax's social services were heavily subsidized by Hell, no other country on Golarion would have been wealthy enough to provide a comparable education and childcare setup.

The Andalites, however, are a lot richer even than Asmodeus' Cheliax, and getting their agreement to help hasn't been trivial, but he's been able to make the argument that he also has advanced technology, in the form of arcane magic and especially magic items, and rather than sharing their tech, the Andalites can trade it. There's also the case that, in a poverty-stricken Cheliax, people are a lot more likely to sign up as eventual voluntary Controllers in order to feed their families. The Andalites don't like this idea at all. They can provide quite a lot in the way of sanitation and basic medicine, eradicating childhood diseases in a scalable non-cleric-requiring way with vaccines. 

(Aroden doesn't seem to feel at all bad or awkward about taking advantage of the Andalites' aversion to Yeerks in this way.) 

He's offering Atonements to anyone who wants one, though there's a waiting list; they can get diamonds from the Andalites and are only bottlenecked on clerics who can cast the spell, and Iomedae is willing to provide as many of those as She can spare. It's less of a priority to keep people from ending up in Hell, given that the outer circles of Hell now belong to the side of Good anyway, but he nonetheless thinks it's important to - give people a clear line to draw, a way to think of themselves differently in the new Cheliax, to feel like they're making a fresh start. 

The locals are, of course, very wary of his administration, and there are resistance movements in some areas. He can't blame their leaders. It was a messy, awful war. It's going to take a long time before people are comfortable with him. 

Carissa manages to not-feel sympathy for the doomed insurgents so successfully it doesn't even rise to her conscious attention. She asks about repatriation for everyone who fled the country and might reconsider now if they were sure they'd be allowed to resume their lives.

Anyone affiliated with the church of Asmodeus is not wanted in Cheliax, unless they're willing to renounce Asmodeus and opt for an Atonement. Everyone else is welcome back; this includes people who were soldiers in Cheliax's army, though wizards in particular need to go through a longer vetting process, including some questions under truth spell, to make sure they're not reentering the country for purposes of sabotage. There are programs to get people re-housed whose homes and/or farms were destroyed in the fighting; he's aware that a lot of people are very suspicious and avoiding any contact with his government, but he's not, in fact, using any of the social services programs to disappear people. 

He could require them to show up for some things. They'd be more scared at first but once nothing bad happened they'd probably be more cooperative, and tell their friends. She doesn't suggest it; he's presumably thought through the tradeoffs plenty. It's not her business anyway, really. 

She and Mhalir have similar instincts about how to hold their body right now; it should be still and not have feelings.

Mhalir does make some of the comments that Carissa isn't voicing. 

Aroden has thought of most of them, and seems to find a few interesting, and certainly doesn't seem offended by Mhalir bringing them up.

His body language is a bit like Mhalir's, in general, though he's more expressive, but in the moments between gestures or expressions, he's always still and level. 

Eventually they've gone over a summary of everything, and Aroden excuses himself, he has another commitment after this. "Carissa, if you wish to wait a little bit here, I will send someone over with the spell list for you." 

"Thank you, your majesty."

He nods to them and heads out, briskly. 

A few minutes later a servant arrives with a book for them. It's not an actual spellbook, it looks more like Aroden's personal notes on spells, but it's fairly detailed and readable. 

She will be polite and reasonable and not at all GLEEFUL that Aroden wants - whatever he wants from Mhalir, it wasn't clear from his notes - enough to give her HIS NOTES ON MAGIC. And she will copy everything.

Mhalir also isn't sure what Aroden wants from him - or whether he wants anything specific at all, as opposed to being inclined to share his resources with Mhalir when it's very easy for him to do so, because Mhalir is a (very very young and inexperienced) version of him and Aroden therefore expects him to make good use of having resources. He hopes it's the latter, but even having been in Aroden's head, it's hard to tell. 

He's content to stay until Carissa is done copying spells. It seems valuable. His own thoughts are wandering. Wondering how Aroden feels about the slow painful work of putting his country's pieces back together. Mhalir thinks it would hurt a lot, if it were him, but Aroden must be - better at this, in some obscure way that lets him go on, century after century, millennium after millennium. 

Eventually she finishes and gives the book back to a servant and they can head out.

Mhalir flies the shuttle back to Absalom, over Cheliax - from high enough, the devastation isn't nearly so obvious - and then over water.

He's otherwise quiet in her head. 

Carissa is not-wanting to check if her family is dead and not-wanting to check in on the people she liked in her unit - they're probably also dead, things got ugly at the Worldwound - and not-caring about this. She is glad it's Aroden. He - has the right to her people isn't quite the right way to think about it but there's something there.

Her new magic is really cool. She's excited about it. She wants to build something they can use with the Andalites' morph.

Mhalir doesn't really like it when Carissa does the not-wanting and not-thinking motions, but it's not the time to address it, so he keeps that feeling to himself. 

<I wonder if Aroden - finds it hard, being himself> he muses vaguely, as they get resettled in their apartment in Absalom. <I would find it hard to be him, I think, but he has been doing it for such a very long time.> 

You mean you'd find it hard to rule a country and be a bit a god? Or - something not that.

<That, and - also something broader. I would find it hard to be eight thousand years old and to have - lost, so thoroughly, he had to start over from so little, and he had been so powerful before. I cannot even imagine it.> 

....yeah. I think I'd just - give up and go try to be some different shape that didn't get into important fights.

<And he did not give up. He did bide his time preparing, but he picked so many fights.> Pause. <He was terrified. Of interacting with gods. I remember that, from being in his head. I think he was very traumatized from his murder at Their hands. But - when he heard about the Yeerk-Andalite war, he still immediately went to Iomedae and to Nefreti for aid. Even though he was scared. I...am not sure I could have done that.> 

I wouldn't have bothered. On account of them being different peoples on different planets and not her problem. ...well, if Aroden hadn't helped probably Asmodeus would've gotten his hands on a spaceship somehow, and then he could've conquered all the other finite afterlives trivially...maybe there was in fact no safe way through, once contact happened.