"Huh? It is? What were you gonna say?"

"Insurance fraud. Premeditated arson."

"What?"

Waist squeeze.

"Setting you up for controlled demolition."

"You mean the 'spiritual undeath' thing? Isn't that supposed to have already happened?" Katie would probably feel a little threatened but it's hard to when a rotund woman is squeezing her.

"—Sex?"

She runs her hand up and rubs her thumb over Katie's boob, just to make sure they're both experiencing the same thing.

"Is that an independent question or an answer to my previous question?" She is, but she still wants to have the ambiguity resolved.

"Answer to your previous question."

"So like, is what you mean that you want me to be bigger so it feels better when you fuck me rough? I'm stupid and bad at metaphors, we don't even have insurance in the River Kingdoms."

Internal sigh.

"If you know about insurance from books, surely you know how the average female couple in Cheliax works. Or have none of their books reached you since the coup?"

"Cheliax has enough literature about that for there to be an average??? What are the Good gods even doing that they have that and the rest of the world doesn't?"

". . . What have you ended up with the impression that 'Good' is . . .?"

"What are any gods that aren't Asmodeus or Rovagug doing, then?"

"The Paradise gods are the only ones that care about female-female relationships as such, and that's not even one of the main things they care about."

"Sad!!!! Why is Asmodeus funding books about them, then?"

"Asmodeus isn't. Far fucking from it. You're that literate but not familiar with the Queen's whole deal?"

"Wait, was that not progaganda??? Do she and Queen Galfrey really secretly meet up in the Palace of the Forthbringer to do it while the Pharaoh watches?" 

"That's a joke, right?"

"Books say a lot of stuff when you don't have censorship laws. When you're literate and live in the River Kingdoms for long enough, you learn to disregard basically anything you read about the personal lives of royals."

"How would censorship laws help?"

"Because like, in fancy civilized places with fancy civilized governments, your king has alliances with other kings that he wants to maintain, and letting his subjects go around talking about how those other kings all fuck goats and are secretly disguised drow and/or members of the opposite sex makes that a lot more difficult."

"Members of the opposite—like in either—"

"You know what, whatever."

"As far as I understand it, Queen Abrogail II is vaguely though not overtly of the persuasion that her attraction to men as well as women is unfortunate. She's got this whole weird thing going on where if you read between the lines she's only on board with Asmodeanism up to the exact point where Strength, or having a penis, is supposed to have any role in what it means to have rightful power over somebody. Which means she agrees that all mate-bonding is hierarchical slavery, she just disagrees that due to her anatomy she has been assigned the role of a slave. Sothis's most feeble-minded, drooling inbred street rat can see Asmodeus has set her up to sacrifice as a lesson to uppity women, which of course means she knows that too, and has some kind of brilliantly-hidden counter-strategy in mind. Anyone's guess whether she's outsmarted Asmodeus, but probably not since she's such a firebrand she doesn't listen to her advisors.

Anyway, she seems to recognize the utility of encouraging same-sex romance for carving Cheliax's religion into her particular form of 'Asmodeanism'. Though I don't know if it's a valid inference that any such entertainment coming out of Cheliax is necessarily state-funded. People write about what is in fashion, and about how they themselves are actually living."

"Damn. Maybe one day when we're higher level we can try converting her. So what is the average lesbian relationship in Cheliax like, then?"