" ....are you all stupid?" She flinches, even though they're probably too Good to even slap her about it. "Of fucking course She'll - the thing She is interested in is under what range of circumstances people will be loyal to Her. Leareth said the gods mostly operate through prophecy. So She's looking at - in all possible futures, are you loyal? And it's only worth keeping people alive if they are loyal in a very big and particularly valuable range of possible futures, otherwise you pick someone else who is worth keeping alive in more futures!!!! Anything at all that affects the range of futures in which I am the most useful of the Star-Eyed'd mortals affects the odds that I get to live!!! How can you people possibly live in a world with gods and not think about this??"

Melody blinks and makes a couple of odd facial expressions, figuring out where to start on responding to...all that. 

"Keeping people alive - you mean in an afterlife, I'm guessing? Not that She'll literally decide to murder you for thinking the wrong thing?" 

"I'm talking about afterlives. If your gods are anything like ours it's a resource expenditure to murder living people, especially ones rich enough they can't just catch cholera, and not worth it unless they're especially troublesome."

"...I suppose it makes sense that if you spent your whole life taking for granted that you'd have that, it would seem like the most important thing? I think it's maybe - hard for us to absorb that. Here - I don't know, some temples talk about the Havens like it's a real place, and I guess some people find that comforting, but it's - it's just different. It's not something you can know for sure, or check - it never occurred to me to plan my life around it..." 

She shrugs. "I guess Leareth went out and made sure in his own way that he'd keep existing. Most people aren't Leareth." 

"It makes sense that you would destroy the most important thing in the world so casually if you have a society-wide impairment in noticing that anyone might want it. I think Good societies tend to have society-wide impairments in noticing people might want things because Good is all about other people and doesn't allow for having interests or trying to defend them. I am extremely unsurprised that at an extreme this results in mass suicide no one gives a shit about. Your society is horrifying. Congratulations."

Melody is thinking that Vanyel in particular has a personal impairment in noticing that other people might value continued existence more than they value 'not making the world worse.' This would be unhelpful to say and also incredibly privacy-violating, so she shoves the thought down. 

"And that's what Leareth wants to fix? By making a god?" 

"I guess so. He also objects to your gods not allowing wealth? I don't know what's up with that, Asmodeus allows wealth. Do you know what the Star-Eyed dislikes about it."

"- What? I have no idea - is that a thing? I guess I never paid much attention. The Star-Eyed seems to mostly just care about the Pelagirs getting decontaminated and about - whatever it is that's going on with the Dhorisha Plains, I'm not clear on why the Shin'a'in are guarding them or who they're guarding them from. I guess maybe neither of those missions benefits from wealth? Though the Tayledras do have awfully nice lives, at least based on what Vanyel's said about his visits to the Vale." 

"Well, Leareth seemed pretty sure of it." She is now regretting not going with him. She doesn't really think he could have accomplished his insane mission but at least he would, if robbing Carissa of an afterlife, have been aware that this was the worst possible thing you could do to someone.

Melody is, again, lost for anything to say. 

"I'm sorry," she goes with, quietly. "...You know, you're young, you're not likely to die anytime soon - it's possible the information-security concern won't matter at all in ten years, and we might be able to just send you back to Cheliax. If you still wanted that, then." 

Thanks to the being born yesterday and the brain damage Carissa finds this very plausible and reassuring.

Everything about interacting with Carissa makes Melody feel like she's pulling the wings off baby birds. She is, apparently, incredibly badly suited to interrogating prisoners of war and even worse at reassuring them. 

"I do find myself even more curious about talking to Leareth, once he's up for it," she says. "He's - a very unusual man, isn't he?" 

"Well, he's immortal and thousands of years old." And he cares about cows but she's going to stop talking about that around Good people. It'd be a hilarious story if she ever talks to a normal person again.

"...You know, it's interesting, that. In a way he sounds more - well, good - than just about anyone I've ever met. And then there's all the murder. It's...confusing." 

"...why?"

"Because, you know, usually caring about people makes it really upsetting to murder them?" 

"That sounds really inconvenient."

"I suppose so. But - I think most people who do feel that way wouldn't want to change it about themselves." 

Sounds like why Good people never get anything done. She does not say that.

Melody is at this point running out of both things to keep saying, and also the emotional energy to deal with literally everything about this conversation. 

She stands up. "Do you need anything? ...I suppose you don't need food or water but we can get you some if you want." 

"Are there...not any hungry people in this kingdom."

"- There are some? But we, er, try to take decent care of our prisoners of war and normally that'd involve food."

Mostly Melody said it because it felt too awkward to leave without saying something. 

"Well, I'm not an expert on Good but it seems more Good to give the food to people who need it than to give it to people who don't so you can feel good about yourself."

Sounds like what Vanyel would say, Melody thinks. She doesn't say that, just shrugs and leaves before she can put her foot in it even further. 

A couple rooms away down the hall, Vanyel hovers by Leareth's bedside. Ostensibly he's here to add additional shielding against Farsight and Fetching and other Gifts, but mostly he's worrying. 

He finishes the current block of shielding and takes a break.

"Any change?" he asks Gemma, for about the fifth time.