Normally, when you're doing spiritual counseling, you can simply ask what someone came to you to talk about – but Cambra did not so much come here as get dragged in by circumstances, so it is not in fact very clear what they should be doing.  It wouldn't be fair to ask him the kinds of difficult questions that usually come standard with the job, even if Marcus might hope he will find himself wanting to talk about some of them.

"So, did the thing about not really lying with my face make sense? Or do you think it's messed up that paladins can do any of that at all? Now I'm a bit worried that I'll get myself into some bizarre confidentiality situation that'll prohibit me from ever making faces again, and I'd really hate that."

"... Or if you just want to swear at me or anything first, you can do that, you know. I think sometimes it helps."

He snorts quietly at the last sentence, and shakes his head.

"...if you can do the dream thing, how come you don't do it all the time, 'stead of going around smiling at everyone like that?"

Confused frown.  "I think it'd be... pretty unpleasant and disorienting... to feel like all my life happened in a dream and doesn't matter, if that's what you mean?"

"...guess that's not what I mean really.  'S just- you take getting used to."

"Yeah, I can only imagine."  And he's so stuck on the smiling...  "Think you're getting anywhere?"

"...yeah."

"Oh good.  D'you have any questions, to make more sense of me?"

"Mmm, how'd you get paladined, 's there, like, seminary but Good an' for sword guys?  Or was it a surprise?"

"Pretty much a surprise. Not that I wasn't hoping for it, a little, but probably half the kids in Mendev do. I came here to volunteer because it was the easiest Worldwound border to get to from home, fought for a while, and apparently well enough that Iomedae approved."  There's that slightly glowing happy expression again.  "...Then I had a bit of a hard time finding a paladin order I liked, and spent a couple of weeks learning the rules before coming back to the front."

"They do have a proper paladin school in Lastwall, and I'd love to go there someday and learn how to do all this properly, but... s'more important to keep the demons out than to be proper about it."

"Was it a- a thing you did, could y'tell, like the Learned exploding?  Or did you just wake up one day and could smite?"

"Nothing big that I could tell. Just, it was sometime soon after it all stopped feeling like a strange new adventure to me and started feeling like just... obviously the thing I'm doing with my life."

"Wasn't exactly that I just woke up and could smite, though. It... felt like something, the first dawn. Like the Goddess looking at me for a moment." He's making one of those faces that don't correspond to any sane human combination of feelings Cambra's ever seen.

"...huh."  It's pretty clear Cambra doesn't really know what to make of that face, but he's not looking away.

"So s'kind of like... you gave yourself to Her, and then you could tell when She accepted?"

A soft surprised smile. "That is a fair description. I wasn't... doing it on purpose... but yes."

Nod.  "And you were Lawful Good already, 's not like clerics."

"I was, it couldn't have happened otherwise. It could be that I wasn't in the past and She had to wait for my alignment to meet Hers, though I don't really think so."

"...Uh, how not like clerics?"

"They don't have to match exactly?"

"Right, they don't, I just misunderstood what you meant."

Nod.

".....I think I do have a question, actually."

"As many as you like."  Calm patience.

He does look away, at that, shifts to rest his back against the bedpost and studies the wall at the far end of the bunk.

"Ventura offed himself.  Morning they all got dropped."

"D'you think- that was enough chaos to get him Abbadon?"

Oh. 

(Then he will look away too, not so far that he can't see his face at all, but enough to leave him some space.)

"I... have no way to know. Suicide is usually counted Evil more than Chaotic, though I suppose under the circumstances it was a desertion as well. If he was thinking clearly at all, he could have found some oaths to break, to make sure."

Tiny shrug.

"Dunno if he was going for it.  Didn't leave a note or nothing."

Quietly, after a moment:  "Would you have wanted him to?"

His fingers tighten on his knee, just slightly, although his posture doesn't change.   "Fuck if I know."  Marcus can barely catch an undercurrent of suppressed viciousness in his tone.  

"You could tell me about some things he'd done, if you think it might help at all."