Then Mahli takes Lintalai to Neselthia's temple.

He pauses outside, in case Lintalai wants to make an offering.

...what else is around as an offering, maybe she can take inspiration.

In Neselthia's offering bowl, there are:

Coins in several denominations

A palm-sized wooden horse, painted blue

A golden ring, inlaid with blue gemstone

A blue and green piece of fabric

A paintbrush with blue and yellow dried paint

...Lintalai pulls out a strand of her hair and coils it up and places it.

The bowl cannot express any thoughts or feelings about this offering, because it is a bowl.

Mahli can do those things, though.

"She appreciates your offering."

He leads Lintalai inside.

The temple is relatively unoccupied. One of the same priests from her last visit greets her, and gestures to the woman next to her.

"Lintalai, this is the priest of Usir who you wished to speak to. Kelna Barleybluff. Kelna, this is Lintalai."

"Hello, it's nice to meet you!"

"Lintalai of no family name. You'll want to acquire a last name- possibly more than one- for the types who'd find that off-putting, since you're a politically-motivated sort. As I hear it, anyway. Is that about right? Politics and civilization are interests of yours? If so, you've come to the right plane."

"I decided Arcadia would be a good job name, and job names are what we do in Anitam. And yes."

She smiles brightly.

"Oh, that's brilliant. Lintalai Arcadia- everyone will love that. So a little birdie told me that you have questions about life and death, corpses and undead, things like that. Where do you want to start?"

"I want to know how those things interact with soulless people - like me, but maybe other people from Amenta too, I'm not sure."

"No one on Arcadia has heard much about soulless people- that kind of knowledge is more useful on the Prime, so we export it even when it does land in our laps. I can give you an overview of how Usir's priests work with deenthill, and why we avoid daannaes, when so many other priests and gods treat it like it's something sacred."

"Yes please, what are those things?"

After a moment of brief confusion about which things, Kelna clarifies:

"Deenthill is the destructive energy that- causes aging, that recycles old matter to be used for new purposes, fights off infection and infestation, and suppresses change. Daannaes is the creative energy that enables birth, that sustains the living, that replaces old matter with new matter, and causes mutations. Usir teaches, against many gods, that we need a balance of both for people (and other parts of nature, but especially people) to flourish."

"That makes sense, both of those lists have good and bad things on them."

"I think so. The reason it's controversial is that some find the undead disgusting, and some ways of creating the undead are unethical- it's a societal taboo. Apparently, Amentans may have an additional prejudice because they're unclean, which isn't how anyone in Arcadia would put it- they'd more likely say 'unholy', or 'chaotic', or 'evil'."

The priestess looks disapproving.

"If you didn't emphasize the undead so much, people would suspect Usir's priests far less."

"Caring for the dead is the point- even here, where there are so few truly dead."

"Dead bodies are unclean so Amentans won't want to touch them, or things they've touched. But they approve of fighting off infections and infestations, that's important."

"Oh, I see. Yeah, that's not too different- how does Amenta take care of corpses? Do you cremate or bury them? Exposure presumably wouldn't work..."

"Burial used to be common, and the land used for that is still not usable for other things so some places continue to bury people there until it's full, but cremation is typical."

Nod.

"Is discussing the topic enough to make people uncomfortable?"

She has a wordless exchange with Nue, purely through glances.

"You seem fine, but you're also remarkably mature for your age."

"I'm not the same species, I just look like it. Most Amentans would be uncomfortable talking about it without a lot of euphemisms and stuff."

-nod.

"Would you say we should be treating this as a moral judgment which we need to appease by showing that we're not evil? A purity standard we can satisfy by showing that we're not letting anything get unclean? Does even the concept of deenthill pose a threat because of the association with- moving towards death? It's not a force of death, but some people do think of it that way, especially in the Prime, where death by aging is inevitable even for people who avoid all other kinds."