Those look like thoroughly-disciplined children. It takes a lot to get them to sit still at that age - they're on their best behaviour, of course, for the guests, but at the same time they're going to be overexcited about it. Maybe the more disruptive (or less clever) students were asked to stay home today. 

Lissa oohs and aahs appropriately at the wizard's shop. Asks a lot of questions. (Flirts with the guide – just using her eyes, everything she actually says is perfectly professional, but she's otherwise not exactly subtle.) 

...And, yes, she would love to taste some of the world's best wines! Amazing! 

The guide seems to have noticed the being flirted with. He's being somewhat more restrained back, but not hiding the having noticed. The wizard isn't a very powerful one, but there are advantages to being the only wizard in a small town; you can live comfortably doing everyone healing and mending and washing. 

Well, Lissa can be patient on the flirting front. They'll be here for days, after all. 

She sips the wine - which is in fact VERY good - and perhaps lets herself appear slightly more buzzed from it than she really is (which is 'barely at all'; Lissa can drink men twice her size under the table). She's animated and curious and visibly impressed with nearly everything they look at. 

A couple of times she tests snapping at people again, to see if they're also jumpy. And she watches, and quietly tallies up her observations in the back of her mind. 

They're mostly jumpy, except the diplomats.

The church service is the following morning. The sermon is about childbirth. Childbirth is excruciatingly painful. It's so even for nobles; there's no way around it with magic. Yet it's very rare for people, surveyed a year later, to say that the pain of childbirth is a consideration for them in deciding whether to have more children, or that they would pay money to have avoided it. This is unlike many other kinds of serious surgery - an amputation, say. The sermon is a reflection on what makes pain particularly bad, and what makes us particularly equipped to cope with it, and what other kinds of suffering vary wildly depending on how you feel about them and what you get out of them.

Siri thinks that this...isn't an unreasonable message, overall? It's a good point, that - experiencing suffering doesn't always mean that it's not worth it? 

Though she's not sure it's true - she's pretty sure her mother, in fact, stopped having children after three because she was tired of the misery of pregnancy and childbirth - and was lucky enough to know a Healer and have access to the contraceptive herbs, which don't work perfectly but Healers don't mind terminating early pregnancies, if you're lucky enough to know one. 

Lissa is unimpressed! And kind of dubious! 

She raises her hand at the end and tries to catch someone's eye, in hopes that questions are allowed. 

"- yes?"

"Does your world not have, er, painkilling drugs? Because I hear that helps a lot - not all of them are safe for the baby, for women having babies, but some are. If you don't have any good ones then maybe that's something we should share with you." 

"We don't have drugs that are safe for the baby, most that help at all slow the progression of labor and increase the chance it's born dead"

"- Oh, right, your world also doesn't have Healers with Sight, who can keep an eye on the baby. Not that all women in Valdemar can have that, obviously. But - right, we do have some painkillers, and teas to help the mother relax - not the strongest ones, but we know they're safe at least - and also Healers have some tricks. ...Also do you have the contraceptive herb? In Valdemar I know lots of women who decided to stop having babies because pregnancy was too miserable, and they had the option, but - if you didn't have the option, which I know not everyone in Valdemar does even now, then I think it's harder to think about what you want, right?" 

"Maybe we can talk more once the services have concluded about how importing sorcerous bloodlines from your world might change ours."

"- Oh, sorry, right. Later." 

Lissa makes an apologetic face, but in fact feels approximately not at ALL sheepish about being slightly rude at some other world's religious service. 

(Younger Lissa also lacked any qualms about being rude to their household priest, which is one of the reasons she was eventually gently discouraged/kicked out from attending those services, too.) 

(...Lissa is, on some level, being deliberately obtuse here. And the underlying thing is that, while that service, in itself, was pretty understandable, she knows that Cheliax is going to be showing the Valdemaran delegates their best front, the best possible presentation, and...reading between the lines...the less charitable interpretation of why they would choose to emphasize this particular aspect, is– she's not even sure what. Something.) 

She waits until it's over and everyone is filing out, but then looks around for someone to talk to.

Siri has no way of checking in with Lissa, since Lissa isn't a Mindspeaker, so she just hovers nervously. 

One of the priests comes over. "You had thoughts about what sorts of medical interventions are possible with Healing sorcerers?"

"Yes, that. I mean, I'm not a Healer, but...I think maybe one of the most useful things about Valdemar having them, is that Healers can see what's going on in bodies? You know, the same way mages - or wizards, I think? - can see what's going on when someone is doing magic?" 

"That's such a useful ability! And it lets them determine which medications are safe during pregnancy?"

"It means they can watch the whole way through labor! And -" what was the conversation she had with Van a year or two ago, they were both very tired at the time and she was also drunk...

"- So, hmm, there's a thing where - if you don't have Sight then you don't know when a baby died before it was born, or why, right? And so you, er, you - need a lot of examples. Before you can figure out what the actual pattern is? And Healers can...figure things out with a lot fewer cases. Because they can see everything, and they can tell when a baby actually just died because the umbilical cord strangled it or whatnot. Does that make sense?" 

"Yes, it does. It seems incredibly useful. I don't suppose we can hire away some Healers right away?"

"Maybe! I don't know much about the staffing with the Healers' Collegium in Valdemar, but I'm sure you could talk about appropriate rates to pay them for their work." 

"Of course we'd want to pay them well! They'd be helping us tremendously."

Lissa smiles brightly back. 

(It is a smile that takes a great deal of willpower. She is increasingly uncomfortable, but it's approximately never been helpful to her interests for her to show that, and so she has quite a lot of practice.)

"Good to know! It's very exciting to hear about ways that Valdemar can work with Cheliax!" 

(She looks around for their guide, in order to make Notable Eye Contact with him.) 

He's happy to take her on to meetings with more people, if she doesn't have further questions here. "You're not a fan of religion?"

....Okay. Think. What's a good response to that. 

She still can't think of one so she might as well just say what she actually thinks. 

"- No, not really? Our family used to worship at the temple of Astera, but that's not really me, you know? She's the goddess of - the stars, and scholarship, and - things like that. ...A lot of the Heralds go to the temple of Kernos, who's - His domain is more...fighting to save your country, whatever. But I never heard of that helping them with anything. And I'd rather just spend that time practicing whatever I need to practice." 

"That's very reasonable. I've never been particularly religious either. It does, definitely, help with some things, but practicing maths helps with many things too and I've never gotten around to that either. I do think it's important that people get the choice."

"Yes, I think it's important that people get opportunities to...do what's right for them? I mean, I know a bit of maths - when my mentors in the Guard thought it was worth it, I was willing to try - but I definitely don't know as much as my brother." 

Pause. 

"...I had to fight to be able to choose. I knew from when I was little that I wanted to fight in the Guard, but - my father thought it wasn't proper, for a girl to do that..." Sigh. "And I guess, eventually he realized I'd never be a lady the way he wanted, and so he let it go. But - I hope I can, well, make it so girls in the future don't have to - struggle against so much..." 

(Lissa does not, in fact, feel especially vulnerable about this particular backstory, at this point. She's drunkenly argued it with a number of people at numerous points. But - she's curious how the expression of apparent-openness will make her guide react. She's watching very closely.)