Samora's face shines with pride and affection. "Oh no, if I tell you half the things I love about my people I'll wear out your patience. My homeland Lastwall is Iomedae's country, that she founded before she ascended, and the government works closely with the church. It's the only country I know whose people see themselves as having a mission that we're all working on together. Our army holds part of the Worldwound border, and we keep the arch-necromancer Tar-Baphon sealed away, and we contain the Orcs in Belkzen, and we advance the Inheritor's interests in a bunch of other things and deal honorably with all other nations, and our people live well and reach Heaven. We can't do everything we ought to be doing, but we are doing everything we can."

Oh she is so good and so happy.  Marc is filled with reflected happiness for a long moment, until it's tempered with the contrast to his own life.

"It sounds a wonderful place."  A softer smile, and then a sigh.  "I wish I could love my own country half so uncomplicatedly.  I do love it, but... twice in my life, most of the honorable men of Gorhaut were led by evil to attack our neighbor and to murder women and children, and-- it's not really that I don't understand why Corannos lets us do these things, but... I hope we can keep it from happening again, and I am not sure."

(He does not think, consciously, that this is really rather a lot to tell someone, unasked, in a conversation that started on a different and cheerful topic.  He wouldn't have said these things yesterday, and wouldn't have thought of it consciously then either – but it's very clear, by now, that she's the sort of person who would want to hear, and who will react well to anything she's told.)

"I'm sorry that happened to them. One of the greatest injustices of the world is that some people face worse temptations and pressures than others."

Oh.

Oh, even knowing she would react well he did not expect that.  Perhaps he should have, but... it's been increasingly clear today that he doesn't know what truly good places are like, and maybe he knows as little about people who grow up in them.

It takes a moment before he manages to say anything.

"You are not making it easy not to look at you with awe in my eyes."  But he shakes his head a little and smiles at her like she's a real person.  "But I think I know what you'll say already – that you were lucky, to be shaped by your country and your goddess into someone who would say that.  Still... Thank you.  You can't know how much it means to me, to hear a stranger say that they were still worth something."  There are tears in his voice, and he's not particularly trying to hide it.