Nod. "So Aroden chose her when she was human. But He is Neutral and She is Good, so they must not be - exactly the same sort of person. Have you talked to her?"

"Once, She recommended Leareth to me after I got caught spying on him. ...also I think She tried to talk to me once before that but I thought I was being delusional and tried to make her go away. I think...you know how Leareth is about being-credible about keeping treaties and not lying to people, Iomedae is also into being-credible in that way about not torturing people or killing innocents or whatever, and sees it as kind of the same thing. Including that She'd throw it away if it were important enough, I think, though I don't know what important-enough is when you're a god."

Nod. "Did Leareth ever pray and talk to Her?" He shakes his head. "He read as Evil when he arrived, here, right - I am not actually sure what I ping as but presumably the same, would She even be capable of talking to me given that...?"

"...I don't actually know. I was neutral before She talked to me. I think Leareth has talked to Her sometimes but possibly also once he was neutral... I don't know if you are evil, though I don't have the spell prepared to check right this second. Leareth was, uh, actively raising an army to invade Valdemar for the god-plan, whereas you've been out exploring. And Leareth killed someone for his body, and you, uh, haven't done that."

"Huh. I...have before. The reason I did not this time is - not because I am a different sort of person from your Leareth, it is just that Ekunde's reaction to - being possessed by his immortal mage ancestor spirit - was to think this was incredibly cool and start asking me questions about magic." 

"I know. But alignment mostly doesn't judge hypotheticals and I'm not sure it's tracking your past lives. It's not - very sophisticated. I think if you actually die the trial is moreso."

"Mmm." He takes a deep breath. "I am...still not sure what to actually think about, to pray to Her." 

"Hmmm. Uh, there's the standard prayers, I guess probably they're the standard for a reason, you take a weapon and set it in front of you and think - about what you're trying to achieve, and who all is beside you in trying to achieve it, and what will be different, in the world, once you've won..."

Nod. "I still - find it very hard to imagine...having won. It feels not very possible or - real. But I can try that, I suppose." 

"I tend to go for 'we'll have the stupid treaty negotiated and ships will spend less time held up in port' not 'we will have solved all of the problems in the universe' personally."

Tadesse nods again, heavily. "That does seem easier. Thank you, I will - go try it, and see if Aroden is right that talking to Her is at all helpful." 

"Good luck."

Tadesse trudges back to his room, accepts a hug from Ayodele who's sitting with a reading primer - she's trying to learn to read Taldane - and then goes to his room and lies down on his bed, closing his eyes. 

C'mon, you should do it. I'm so curious. 

Fine. 

He - thinks about the stars, the distant fog-tinged memory of Urtho's Tower against the sky. The hope that flavours the memory still feels alien, like it belonged to someone else, but at least he can notice its presence now, there's more there than tired dull resignation at the looming weight of indefinite future ahead.

He thinks about Aroden, fighting so hard, becoming a literal god, spending another four thousand years fighting Asmodeus and other enemies equally powerful - losing, dying - coming back, with nothing, in a cold damp cottage amidst the devastated remains of the country he loved and had tried to save - starting over, a century of slow measured grinding effort, taking the fight to Asmodeus' Cheliax and winning it and ascending again... Iomedae was His paladin, once, a long time ago. She must have missed him so much... 

(He mostly feels tired and sad, still, but Leareth moved past that, eventually, and he's starting to believe that he can too.) 

I want to speak with you, he thinks. 

And there's the now-familiar sense of falling, of being held afloat in the scouring waves of something he could not even safely try to understand -

- and a muddy battlefield, somewhere, with Golarion's moon hanging in the sky, and a woman with short dark hair and piercing eyes and muddy armor. 

He looks around for a moment, and then at her, and then down at the ground. "Iomedae. Aroden thought..." He doesn't really know what Aroden thought, actually, but maybe Aroden would've found it easier to explain to Iomedae since they're both gods, and presumably Iomedae can see everything about him too, and figure it out Herself. 

"That you are lonely, and tired, and have turned your strength towards bearing the world with little left over to change it, at least for now."

"I think people keep - expecting it would be easier to bear, now, because I know about Golarion and have better options. I am...not sure why that is not how I feel. Maybe it is just habit but it seems like a stupid habit."  

"Did it seem, before, like if you did save Velgarth then your work would be over?"

"Yes, I think so. I - rarely thought about it, or at least my notes rarely mention that I thought about it, but...yes. It feels very exhausting to imagine how many worlds there must be." 

"The task might not be finite at all. The right pace for it is different than the right pace for a task that would have ended."

"Yes, that seems right. I suppose Aroden already knew that, Leareth told me he explored thousands of other worlds when He was a young god." 

"He did. On Golarion they wondered why He'd left, but He was checking - whether there might be more levers somewhere else, or problems more cheaply solved - and there were some, and He solved them, and He came back. When I was a human I was very angry, that the Good gods didn't seem to be doing anything - and in some cases my complaints were just correct but in some cases - Aroden was doing things. There are just very many things to do."

Nod. "How - do you bear that? ...Or is it advice that would not work for me anyway because you need to be a god."