At which point Tintin's arm falls to his side, and his thighs press together, and he collapses to his knees.

     "What in the Hells was that?" the dog is asking, and Tintin does not respond because he is too busy being absolutely exhausted, and having a very quiet panic attack, and trying not to dampen his breeches because fuck, that was hot and that should not have been hot.

          "What just happened?" the village elder asks, finally opening her door.

This time Tintin manages, "Get - Madame Felicity. Lesser Restoration. Please."

           The elder nods and jogs off. Tintin's head hits the dirt in front of him, and his eyes close, and he falls unconscious to the sound of a dog yelling at him very loudly.

Zarhan is alarmed, but with his Tintin unconscious there's not much he can do about it. After a moment, he reluctantly douses his flames. He's feeling—not exactly sleepy, not the way Tintin gets sleepy, but something close. He did a lot of Things and now it feels like a good idea to do Less Things for a bit.

He wakes up a few minutes later, feeling much better.

"Thank you, Madame Felicity," he says from the dirt, then wrenches himself back to a sitting position.

"Your life has somehow managed to get even weirder since the last time I saw you," she observes. "Try harder not to die."

She nods to the dog, then retreats back to her temple.

Oh good, Tintin is okay. This is very important.

Zarhan is still SO SUSPICIOUS of that dog, though. He showed up suddenly and said some hard-to-understand things and then a bunch of little bitey creatures attacked and it sounded like it was all his fault!! Distrust.

     The dog is pacing back and forth in a remarkably undoglike way, not that Zarhan can particularly tell. "I... would like to apologize," he says, clearly reluctantly. "I failed in my duty towards you by leading those creatures to you."

"Your duty towards me?" Tintin asks, a bit sharply.

     "Well. Yes. Let's start from the beginning. I'm a harbinger archon. You, Androvel Tinuvian-"

"Tintin," Tintin corrects him. "Please."

     "Alright. You, Tintin, are... well placed to have an impact on the world. We won't say that you will save the world, because - at some point someone bigger would get involved, you know? But you will have an impact. The forces of Heaven saw this, and they sent me to make you a paladin."

Tintin digests this. "I don't... follow rules," he says slowly. "I'm actually very bad at it. I'm more of the Arcadia type than the Heaven type. Are you sure you have the right man?"

     "It's not strictly necessary to be a paragon of Law and Good," the dog says. "We would obviously prefer if you did, but - we care more that you do the right thing."

Tintin ruminates further.

Then he sighs.

"I guess you do have the right man," he says unhappily. "What do I have to do?"

Why does he have to do anything?? Why is he listening to the dog?? The dog got him attacked by little bitey creatures!

"Um. Zarhan, I-"

     The dog's ears perk up and he looks around. "Zarhan?"

"My sword. He's intelligent, but he doesn't - know a lot of things yet."

     "I was not briefed on this," the dog mutters. "Why was I not briefed on this."

"Complain to your superiors," Tintin recommends. "Zarhan... can you look at, um, a concept that I point out to you in my mind?"

He thinks so?

Tintin attempts to outline a concept.

Some things are important. Tintin is important to Zarhan. Zarhan is important to Tintin. Also important to Tintin: a lot of other people. Most of the people that exist, actually. There are not exceptions, per se. There are people whose actions have made them predictably dangerous to be around, or people who metaphysically cannot be redeemed, and while those people shouldn't suffer unduly, it is difficult or impossible to accommodate their preferences alongside anyone else's. These are the people Tintin kills. He does not feel good about it. He does not do it because he wants to. He does it because it makes other people safer, because it helps them more than it hurts who he is killing, because it is something that someone has to do and he is someone in a position to do it.

The dog ("What is your name?" he asks. "Milou," the dog responds distractedly.), Milou, has told him that he is in a position to help a great many people. That it is important to the world. Tintin wants to help people. Tintin cannot, realistically, not help people.

Laced through this grand concept are lesser concepts. One: he is not angry with Milou for getting him attacked by little bitey creatures, because if he had not fought them, then the dog would have died, and Tintin considers it his responsibility to protect... everyone? Everyone. Including annoying little dog-archons. Two: an archon is a creature of ultimate Good. And ultimate Law, but that's less relevant. Three: Tintin loves Zarhan very much and it is important to him that Zarhan understand why Tintin cares about others, because if Zarhan does not understand this then Tintin worries about whether Zarhan can understand him at all.

...it is hard to think about things this way because... it feels like it comes from a world that is so much... bigger than Zarhan is used to? Up until very recently, Zarhan's world was not much longer than his blade. He isn't sure he understands... what it is to be a person, separately from what it is to be himself and what it is to be Tintin. He definitely doesn't understand what it is to be a creature of ultimate Good; it sounds like it has something to do with the way Tintin wants to help people, but he can't figure out what the pieces of the ideas are or where they fit together.

He is... angry with Milou because... he was very very scared for his Tintin when the little biting creatures attacked, and if he hadn't somehow managed to take control of Tintin's body and kill the swarm, he isn't sure Tintin would have been able to get through the fight without being poisoned to death by little creature bites, and that would be the worst thing in the world, and the first thing he ever saw Milou do was show up and be incomprehensible and bring the little bitey creatures and—not act the way that Zarhan thinks he would act, if he somehow got separated from his Tintin and a swarm of such creatures was following him back—it would be the first thing he would want to say, to warn him about those! Milou made so many sounds that were not about the little biting creatures before he mentioned them and he did not sound upset that he had brought them here and he did not sound like warning Tintin about them was the most important thing! It feels like a mistake to trust someone who could be SO WRONG about what the most important thing is. It feels like a mistake to trust someone who says so many words that are hard to understand when he could INSTEAD be saying the words that mean that a swarm of little biting creatures is about to attack.

...he doesn't want Milou dead, though. He maybe wishes he had figured out how to use Tintin's voice to yell at him, but he doesn't want him dead. He is glad that saving Tintin from the swarm saved Milou too.

"Zarhan raises an interesting point," Tintin says to Milou, "which is that you might have warned me earlier about the swarm. Instead of getting snippy about terminology."

     "I'm sorry about that too," Milou sniffs, "but - I didn't think you were going to have so much trouble with them."

"There were dozens of them!"

     "I had perhaps given myself an elevated impression of your potency."

"Alright, well... don't. I am a swordsman. A good swordsman, but I'm not Cayden Cailean."

     "And thank Heaven for that."

That's... better. Maybe. Milou is still strange and hard to understand but at least it's possible to tell him he made a mistake. Zarhan reluctantly concedes that it would be acceptable to pat him.

Well, no objections from this corner. Tintin pets Milou, and scratches him behind the ears.

     Milou shakes himself vigorously and delightedly. "-ahem, right. You asked what you must do. I regret to say that, being only a minor functionary, I do not know the exact details. I know that you are opposed by both Hell and the Abyss, and that you will have an influence on more than one major conflict. I may sometimes be granted an augury, telling us to go in a certain direction or to investigate something, but most of the time we will be wandering on our own initiative, adventuring and helping people as we can. Any questions?"

Tintin caresses Zarhan's pommel thoughtfully. "...not really. It sounds... fun, really."

Will there be stabbing? Zarhan likes stabbing.

"There is very likely to be stabbing," Tintin says.

    "...I think I heard him that time," Milou comments. "I suppose that means the empathic bond is settling into place."

"Oh, excellent! Zarhan, Milou, Milou, Zarhan. I cannot make you friends, but I can hope that you will be, because I like you both."

Oh! It might be nice to have more than one friend.

"I cannot recommend it highly enough! So, Milou - have you any divine guidance, or shall I simply set off towards the nearest city to seek my fortune?"

     "The latter," Milou says. "And I'll try to get you up to speed on your new powers along the way."

"-new powers?" Tintin asks.

     "You are a paladin. That means you channel the power of Heaven. My job - or part of it - is to guide you in the use of that power."

Tintin beams. "I had thought that - this was more of an honorary arrangement."

     "No, you're an actual paladin. We're already sticking our necks out, and Heaven doesn't work in half measures."

Powers? Powers seem good! Powers would probably help if there were more bitey creature attacks.