"Yes, of course."  He didn't exactly volunteer for Chelish patrol babysitting, but he's pretty sure he made a volunteering sort of face before being picked out for it.  Or maybe it was just that predictable that, unlike just about everyone at his home fort, he wouldn't mind the assignment.  (He's been too happy to mind most things, ever since he got a title that means something. He knows it's kind of disconcerting to all the people who are doing this because they have to, rather than because it's the most fulfilling thing they could possibly imagine doing with their lives.)

"We have a room for them, right?  Which one?"  He'll make sure he knows where that is, and then wait at the gate for them.  Technically his assignment is just to accompany them during further travel, but he might as well get everyone else out of having to talk to them, if they're going to look like that about the prospect.

Once the usual checking-for-demons has been handled, the gate guards admit a standard-sized patrol mounted on the local shaggy black ponies, with a flurry of damp spring snow.  The cleric is fairly easy to spot, in a Qadiran-style knotted headscarf and Chelish uniform coat with the insignia carefully picked off, Nethys's divided mask on a leather cord around her neck.  She half-slides off her horse and stays hanging onto its neck for a couple moments, in the general bustle of dismounting and checking in and handing off the mail.

She looks like she needs help--  No, you don't touch a woman wearing a Qadiran headscarf--  The conflicting impulses take half a second to resolve into stepping up next to her and asking "Are you all right, Learned? Do you want to come inside?"  (His accent is very obviously Taldan.  ...Which might not make her comfortable, but he can't exactly do anything about it.)

He is not, in retrospect, sure what sort of cleric he was expecting, given that Asmodeus dropped all of them, but – he would've thought it would still be someone Chelish.  She looks so out of place here.

Do the rest of them look like they're worried about their cleric half falling off her pony, or are they too Chelish for that?  Do the rest of them look all right, for that matter?

The rest of the patrol looks- well, tired but tired like anyone would be after a long day's ride, not swaying on their feet exhausted.  They're not giving off any obvious signs of being worried per se, but if he's looking for it he can tell that one soldier is in easy catching range and the squad leader is keeping half an eye on her from where he's talking with the purser's assistant.  

The cleric takes a bit to realize she's being spoken to, but then glances up at him (she's a full head shorter, dismounted).  " 'M fine.  Where'm I channeling?"  Her Taldane is thickly accented, but not quite Qadiran-sounding- Osirian maybe?

Oh good.  "Indoors!  And after you've sat down and had something warm to eat, unless you're in a hurry.  Nobody's an emergency here."

He would like to see her, and preferably the rest of them, inside before wasting conversation on any other topics, if she's amenable to that.

She nods, and pats her horse a couple of times before handing off the reins and following him in.  "I c'n get m'self too- oh.  But of course in Mendev y' know that, I do apologize."

"My fault – yes, of course you'd rather do it quickly and feel better.  This way, then."  He shows her to a chair next to the channeling podium, and sends a soldier to ring for a channel.  (They do have their own cleric, but there's always going to be something an extra one can help with.)  "It'll only be a minute - and I assume we should wait for your men too?"  It seemed like it to him, but there could be something more complicated going on.

"Mmhmm."  She'll let herself be guided and dig a mug out of her bag to create herself a drink of water while they wait, the squad following in a couple of little clumps as they finish up in the courtyard.  " 'S no trouble t'wait if anyone's some ways out, we're none'f us injured."

People do start showing up rather quickly – some training injuries, someone burned while cooking, a few people with nothing obvious wrong with them, maybe they just have headaches – but there's enough time for the conversational basics he skipped earlier in favor of getting everyone in out of the cold. 

"In the meantime – I'm Marcus Aemine, paladin of Iomedae."  He's been told he near visibly glows when he says that, and is trying not to do so much of that in front of (at least somewhat?) Chelish people, with mixed success.  "I'm supposed to help you interface with the rest of Mendev, since we were told you wanted to travel further than this fort – is that right?"

"Pleased to make your acquaintance.  'M called Khalida."  She gives him a small smile.  " 'n yes, I would far enough south to somewhere that's overland supplies one may purchase- this may be Kenabres, I know not 'f there's smaller towns closer."

Well, she doesn't seem to find Iomedae's name objectionable, so that's good.  "Yours as well, Learned."  He smiles back, and takes a second to detangle her next sentence.  "Some, I think, but it depends on what you're shopping for.  We'll go through them and see, in any case.  Is it just you going, or some or all of the men as well?"

"We've still discussed this- they are cautious, but I think with a paladin I should be well chaperoned, yes?"  She directs this partly at the nearest of her squadmates, who rolls his eyes at her just slightly.  "For myself, I seek mainly ink and such spell supplies as that, but I've requests from several among the fort as well."

He looks a little amused at the eyerolling.  Chelish people aren't turning out that hard to read, at least with a non-Chelish one in the group to get the tone of the situation from.  "In all honesty I wasn't sure how all of you feel about paladins.  But I do intend to take my escort duties seriously, and being guaranteed Lawful can't hurt."

(She looked enough like a wizard, on top of being a Nethysian riding patrol without armor, that he's not surprised about the spell ink.)

"I know not in the general, but- we're all here for the Worldwound, yes?"  She glances around to see if anyone is still trickling in for the channel.  "This is... truly everyone?"

"Yes, we are." That gets a serious nod.

"And I think so, yes.  ...Ah, they have a cleric.  Nearly all Mendevian forts do."  And of course the Chelish ones mostly wouldn't, would they.  "So it's just whoever got injured in the last few hours, and not seriously enough for immediate healing."

"Ah, of course."  She nods and gives him another small smile, quickly counts heads for her squad, and climbs up to the podium.  She closes her eyes briefly and raises her holy symbol...

...it's the barest trickle of positive energy, any less and it wouldn't be perceptible at all, but it's definitely there and it's healing.

And back down to continue the conversation.  "I interrupt myself- I know not how other forts may feel about paladins, but we've come together all from Eleven, that's the one with the Iomedaean commander."

"Oh!  I haven't heard about that.  How did that... happen...?  --Ah, and let's go get you all something warm to eat before I bury you in questions."  He leads the way to the kitchen – it's not a mealtime right now, but they knew they were expecting guests, there should be something.

"I- should think, um-"  She glances at the squad leader as they head for the kitchen.  "Mysterious are the ways of the gods, but certainly there's a great deal of evil to fight here?  He'd been already chosen when my party arrived, I fear, I've only been in the north a few months."

And the squad leader doesn't look like he's nearly as talkative around strangers as the cleric is.  "My congratulations to him, then!  The ways of Iomedae are not usually very mysterious, I think, and of course it makes sense to empower someone committed to the fight against demons, but... you sound like he was an Asmodean before that, not a new arrival like you?"

And they can all get bowls of the leftover stew, though it's not exactly warm, and some bread to go with it.  (Marcus gently reprimands the cook about the stew, which should really be hot, for people they knew would be coming in from all day spent in the cold.  This elicits subdued muttering about Asmodeans and what a waste it is to try to be pleasant to them like they're normal people.  "The Learned is obviously not an Asmodean, and I'd be surprised if most of the men were, at this point."  "You know what I mean. That doesn't count."  "It's never going to start counting if we don't treat them like it could.")

"Mmhmm."  She hesitates, but if there's something else she was going to say she's distracted by their arrival at the food. 

Bread!!!  Monch monch cronch.  (Wow her standards have gotten low.)  She pretends not to notice Aemine's conversation with the cook- the men are obviously not going to complain about something as petty as lukewarm stew, and she looks like enough of a baby already, she's not about to be the only one.  She does discreetly warm hers up a bit with Prestidigitation once they're settled at a table, though.

...right, making conversation.  "And yourself, how did you come here?"  That's probably not rude for a paladin, they're probably all here on purpose?

"I grew up in Taldor, realized everyone I knew was wasting their lives on meaningless nobility status games, and decided to go somewhere I can do something that matters.  It turned out Iomedae approves."  Grin.

"What about you?  You're not at all who I was expecting as a Chelish cleric.  Although I suppose this year all Chelish clerics have to be surprising in some way, really."

"Oh, I'm not myself Chelish- I suppose my poor Taldane makes that clear."  She ducks her head briefly and gives him a small smile.  "I'm from Sothis originally, a few months ago my party were- adventuring in the tombs when a trap went wrong.  I know not what it intended, but it landed us three days north of the border."  It's probably unbefitting for a priestess of the god of knowledge but she's finding herself really reluctant to tell the charming incredibly earnest paladin why they were in the tombs.

"Your Taldane is charming, you just sound like you learned by reading old books."

"Three days north of the border, oof!  What a place to end up.  Of course it could've been worse – three days on the other side of it, for example – but still.  Did you even know where you were?"

She's pretty sure she also has a terrible accent, from the range of snickers if nothing else, but if he's too polite to bring it up she's not going to demur and make him double down. 

"Oh, not at all!  We had Endures up for the desert or we should've been dead, and I'd hidden my spellbook that morning so I could call it to me, or we should have died on the second day, and we had a camel at first but not the Endure to spare for it, but we just walked south, in case of we found the Worldwound or Tian Xia before freezing, but we knew not if we hoped for this rightly."

Oh she absolutely has an accent, but he can understand her fine when she's not muttering in exhaustion, so it's just interesting-sounding.  (It's great how many ways there are for people to not sound Taldan.  Of course the prevailing opinion in Taldor was that any other accent was a sign of inherent inferiority, which is what pushed him pretty far in the opposite direction.)

"Well. I'm glad it all worked out all right, when it so easily could've not.  And – you decided to stay, since you were here already?"

"Well, I hadn't yet been chosen, that was a few days later, but once then it was obvious- in truth, I suspect Nethys may've also affected the trap, so unlikely was it to send us where I should be needed instead of merely killing us?  But of course I'd no idea at the time."

"Oh!  That's very likely, if He only chose you afterward.  Though I can see what you mean about the mysterious ways, now." 

And he really shouldn't be talking only to her, even if she's by far the most talkative one of the bunch, so the next question can be for the rest of the squad.  "And so you ended up with two Good clerics?  ...Or positive-channeling ones, in any case."  Nethys isn't Good, and while Iomedae's people generally are, the ex-Asmodean might be an exception if anyone would.  "I'm glad the gods have been so helpful to you.  How is the fort doing, with everything that's been going on?"

They're perhaps not expecting this- there's half a moment of silent glances negotiating before the one who's apparently been nominated speaks up.  "We're holding.  Artigas's a good commander."  After another beat, he adds, "Sensible."

"I'd say it's best of the forts,"  Khalida volunteers, possibly to fill the silence, "and not merely that it saved my life."

Oh they're so cautious.  It makes sense that they would be, but he wonders what they think about him and the way he isn't at all.

"Yes – I expect I would've heard of it if all the Chelish forts were doing as well as it sounds like you are."

"Which makes me wonder why that is.  And I'm generally so curious about your commander's story, but I... don't get the impression you're much for... telling people things."  He doesn't sound like he's judging them for it, he sounds like he's trying to figure out how to act with them, and would maybe like some help with it.  

"Well, it's not a secret..."  Khalida glances at the impromptu spokesman.

"He said paladins don't lie, so he ain't," he confirms.

She nods, and continues, "But I don't know much further- he, um, had been dropped, as, um, all of them were, and then one day She chose him anew, same circle and all.  But what it was that drew Her attention, he hasn't said, it wasn't, ah, nearly so dramatic as mine."  It's transparent bait for a subject change, but hopefully it's clear it's not a demand for one?

He's not sure what it even is that he ain't lying about!  He doesn't think he's said anything particularly loadbearing?...  Besides being glad of various things going well, which he supposes would tell them he's not secretly ill-disposed to them in some way – even if it doesn't feel to him like something where it's important to know it's definitely true, because why in the world wouldn't it be.

"Wait, you mean he was an Asmodean cleric, before??  That's... ... that's incredibly strange.  Not impossible, even without an alignment change, but... he must be a fascinating sort of person, to match Them both."  He should... well, pray about it, before he sleeps, but presumably Iomedae already knows what's happening and doesn't need any of it to be different, so after that he should write to someone in the Church who'd know more about it – probably Lastwall – and see if they're any less surprised than he is.  Not that he's sure Lastwall will tell him anything, since he's not theirs and they probably don't even know for sure who he is.  (Mendev is an Iomedean country, but it's really not well organized or well supplied at it.)

He'll see if any of them will add something, but since the men let Khalida tell the story despite her not having been there for it, he doesn't really expect them to suddenly start talking. 

"Um.  Yes."  Fuuuuuck they've been here like ten minutes and she's already shocked the nice foreign paladin.  

"Cast Light with his table knife,"  one of the men offers eventually, after it's clear more words aren't happening.  "In the mess, so's no one could doubt it."

Ah, so it is possible to get them to talk!  For the price of making everyone look deeply awkward, so he probably shouldn't keep doing it.

"That must've really been something."  He shakes his head in amazement, trying to imagine what the situation must've felt like.

"So, is he in contact with anyone?  Lastwall, I'd guess?  Well, for all I know he's been talking with the Mendevian Church and it's just that nobody's had reason to tell me anything about it." 

"Mmhmm."  Okay, this is basically small talk again?  Assemble the sentence first.  "I know not who specifically, but he's corresponding with Lastwall, he got the Acts and their fort handbook.  And the insurance adjuster also."

"Oh good."  Well, part small talk and part checking who he can write to if he wants to verify this story and find out how they verified it, because surely it could be some more complicated thing going on, even if he doesn't really expect it to be.

"Well, do you want to tell me your dramatic story?  ...Or you could just finish your food and go rest and make travel plans," apologetic smile.  "I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrogate you, it just sounds like there's been so many interesting things going on over there."

"Oh, I'd not taunt you and then not share, though it's scarcely so dignified.  I, um-" no, strange paladins probably don't want the technical detail- fuck, she's stuck again on what to say instead- hopeful glance at Cambra?

"She exploded,"  he fills in helpfully, and that startles a giggle out of her even as it unsticks her words.  She nods embarrassed confirmation.

"I shan't do it again!  Never fear,"  she waves a hand in front of her as though to physically waft away the prospect of exploding someone else's fort.  "Not before I've my own laboratory, at any rate, I just- I truly did not know one might explode a spell hanging it and not just casting it."

He looks rather alarmed for a moment, but-- clearly she's all right, and it is funny.  He's laughing at her charmingly archaic reassurances a second later.  "Maybe I should back out of this shared travel arrangement!  I didn't know there was an explosion risk!"

"There isn't!  Really!", she protests, but- yes, he's clearly teasing, she offers a sidelong grin in return.  "Did no one warn you I was chosen of Nethys?  And after we came all this way..."

"No one did!  But if all these men were brave enough to risk being near you all day," a more restrained grin for the squad, "then maybe I can gather the courage for it.  They don't look very exploded."

"I may swear to you, I've exploded none but myself! ...and giant scorpions, or uh, medium larger than usual scorpions.  And some crockery when I was small."

"Who of us hasn't?" he replies solemnly. 

"So the average-sized scorpions are safe?"

"Well, average sized scorpions one can, um, I don't know the Taldane-"  she mimes squashing something, "oh, kill with a boot, one needn't use a spell.  And we're big enough they don't look to us as food, they shouldn't attack except startled or, um, cursed, or in one's clothes."

"Stomp," he supplies.  "Well, best of luck to them out here, in any case," grin, gesture out at the surrounding cold landscape through the fort's conspicuous lack of windows. 

"So... you made the exciting discovery that spells can explode when you hang them and not just cast them, and for this new knowledge Nethys gave you a cleric level?"

"Essentially?  I'd hit my head and took myself out, so I know not when precisely He chose me, I was only certain the next dawn."  She makes a bit of a face at this.  "I suppose it possible He approved of cleaning the dishes yet injured as much as experimenting, but one doesn't hear Him called the god of magic and stubbornness."

"Very true.  Well, congratulations to you as well, on the achievement and on making such good use of it."

Small smile.  "I thank you."  Okay no, it's operationally relevant, she has to tell him, what if there's a demon attack and he's expecting her to have a Cure in reserve... okay actually she's not sure what tactical difference one Cure Light would make compared to her channels, but still.  God of Knowledge.  Deep breath.

"I also, um.  It's not a full circle.  I- can't yet hang properly divine spells."

"Huh, strange! I didn't know gods did that.  I suppose Nethys might do all sorts of things just to see how they go."

"Hmm, do you think you're just not quite at a full circle, or might you be some unusual thing that's a bit different from a cleric, the way there are people who are something a bit different from a wizard and have their circles lined up differently?"

"I'm not certain- it's been some months since I got my extra second, so I might have expected my next wizard circle soon?  But Artigas hadn't heard of such a thing either.  I can channel fine, though, and create water and such."

"Which is really the important thing, here."

"...Wait, did you say you're nearly third circle??  That's-- either wildly impressive, not to mention a little concerning," he glances at her squad, wondering if they're also worried about just how much of a tendency to get into dangerous situations their rather young cleric apparently has, "or you're older than you look?"

"'M nineteen," she mutters defensively, and then immediately spoils the effect by reluctantly clarifying, "come end of Sarenith.  I just got started early."

"Wildly impressive it is, then!"  Grin.  "I'm twenty two and I'm only barely a paladin. Well, and a swordsman before that, but still."  Not much of a meaningful comparison in any case, wizards needing more than just risk and practice to be good at what they're doing, but since they're exchanging tactically relevant information. 

Okay, she can't help smiling back at that.  "Well enough, and I'm only barely a cleric, so we're quits there."

Oh good, he did manage to cheer her up about her odd divine spell situation.  "Yes.  So, are we leaving tomorrow morning?  Have you decided who's going where yet, or should I leave you alone so you can talk about it instead of just giving each other meaningful looks?"  If the Chelish men mind his friendly poking fun at them about how quiet they're being, he'll stop, but for now he's hoping he can get them to reply eventually.  Although with how expressionless they are, is he sure he'd know if they minded?  He should ask Khalida when he gets her alone, maybe.

There are indeed some meaningful looks at that!  Just a couple, though.  "Yeah, we'll talk," the squad leader replies.  "Tomorrow's good, I'll get you the final count before then."  That's enough of a signal for the men to start getting up and stacking empty bowls together (completely empty, scraped clean and mopped up with the bread ends), and the leader adds more quietly to him alone,  "The Chosen needs some extra blankets.  You'll see it happens?"

He got actual words!  More than the strictly necessary number of them, even!  He feels like their communication situation is going to work out all right.

...

"The--???  Uh-- That's not--" 

Come on, you can string some diplomatic or at least bloody informative words together... 

"It's really... easy for people to misinterpret... when you call her that."

At least he managed to keep his voice as quiet as the other man's rather than drawing the whole room's attention.

Blink.  Unreadable slight frown.

"Mm.  Like how the commander's a Select now.  Yeah?"

"... Yes, that."  It's a relief they were at least getting that one right.

"Every church has its own title – sometimes multiple ones."  Which, now that he thinks about it, may not have been obvious in a country that outlawed all churches but one.  "For Nethys it's usually Learned, or you can ask her if she prefers something else. But what you call a cleric implies who their god is."  And you really don't want to imply Asmodeus, he doesn't add, because these people are not stupid. 

"Hm."  Slight nod.  "I'll ask."

Nod.  "And I'll get extra blankets for her."

He'll give them... make it half an hour... to talk, before showing up with three more blankets outside the barracks room their patrol was assigned.  (He could've sent someone, but he can just about imagine the variety of possible comments.)  She probably doesn't need them until a more reasonable bedtime, but she did look so exhausted when they arrived.  And tiredness makes you colder, and she barely weighs anything to start with.

There's a card game starting up in the middle of the room and two men spectating while they mend tack; the cleric is perched on a corner bunk, absorbed enough in her reading that she doesn't glance up when the door opens and the squad leader steps out to accept the blankets. 

"I'm sending Ferrer and Cambra with you as far as the last fort before Kenabres proper."  He points out the man currently dealing and the one who'd gotten volunteered as spokesman.  "Rest of the squad'll stay based out of Three till Learned Khalida comes back through."

A nod at the plan, and another at the Learned's updated title.

"That sounds good."  Kenabres is not... a bad place, really... but they're probably right that it wouldn't suit them.

What things should he make sure of in case different places have different ideas of the obvious way for this to work... "They're officially under my command, I take it?"

"Hers.  But she'll listen t'you."

"Has she commanded in combat?"  He didn't get that impression from her, but he could be wrong.  "Not that I expect that to happen to just the four of us, but we should still know."

Snort.  "No."

"You are going with the patrols."  It's almost a question. 

"Of course we are, but – she said she might want to go by some of the smaller towns, to see what there is to buy before Kenabres.  Or something else might happen.  Surely you have command chains of more than one link, in Cheliax.  So – the patrol commander's first, yes, when we're with one, and secondly mine in combat and hers otherwise."  It's not that he expects their well-informed opinions to diverge, although that's not impossible either, it's that he expects her to not know what she's doing and the men to be hindered by trying to decide who to listen to.  "Will that do?"

"Yeah,  that'll do."  A level gaze, not quite challenging, not quite speculative.  "Commander's expecting her back in one piece."

A steady nod.  "I will do my best, but if I'm not in charge then I cannot bring her back if she decides to go elsewhere, and don't want to spend the rest of the year following her if she decides to see all of Mendev first.  Which I do not expect her to do, but – if I give you my word I will keep it, so I want us to be very clear on how far it goes."

"Not asking you to drag her back in chains, she could've left anytime these two months.  Just-"  but at this point Khalida has finally noticed the conversation at the door and is heading over to join them, and whatever he was going to say, he amends it to, "Be careful."

A slight apologetic smile and a serious nod.  "I will."

"Learned."  A nod for her as well.  He's not sure what of their conversation she heard and if she has comments on it.

Return nod;  if she's got opinions, she's keeping them to herself for now.  "I thank you for bringing the blankets.  Do you plan for tomorrow?"

"Yes.  The patrol going out in the morning is happy to leave later than they usually would, to give you time for prayer and breakfast, and we can keep going between forts that way until you want to veer off to a town, if all that sounds reasonable to you?"

"Ah."  Slight wince.  "I, um.  I need also a second hour.  For the wizard spells."  Stop that brain it's nothing to be embarrassed about it is literally how magic works.  "If there's a later patrol it makes sense to go with-"  that makes sense, which sounds stupid, and of course she then gets stuck on something non-stupid to say instead- different sentence.  "But else is good.  Yes."  Fuuuuck she sounds like such an idiot.

Well, now they can be embarrassed together, because he should've really remembered that!  (It's just so much time spent on spells...)  "My apologies, yes, of course.  I think people will be happy to wait a while longer to travel with a cleric."

Nodnod.  Deep breath.

"I've four firsts.  So we needn't ask Endures of the forts.  Then my seconds for emergencies, unless we've need of a Bull's at some time."

"Oh!  We usually just... are cold all day.  I won't say no to magic, but you needn't, if you'd rather keep it for something else."

"Hm..."  She chews on a fingernail, gazing abstracted at nothing.  "I've scarcely used my Sleeps but I mislike going without any, and it sounds that this patrol hasn't its own wizard?  If I keep Sleep in first, that leaves a second free for an extra Glitterdust..."  She glances uncertainly at the squad leader.

     "Make better time if you're not freezing your- toes off, Learned."  A glance at the paladin as he amends whatever body part he was originally going to mention. "But better t'take another day than not make it there."

"...I suppose if the Mendevian forts needn't pack the channels, we could put the horses in them?"

It takes him a moment to parse the last sentence, and he's still not sure how it's related.  "Yes, we do that sometimes.  Keeps them fit."

"And he's right – you should probably have an Endure, Learned, you're Osirian and weigh nothing besides.  But for the rest of us, or me at least, I'd sleep better with an extra Glitterdust.  The whole patrol won't have Endures, so it won't be much difference on time."

"If you're sure...?  We had planned to swap between patrols and stay on the road as long as possible.  And certainly you'll be in the channels too, but it's still..."  She trails off.  Maybe he's from around here, she thought Taldor was on the Inner Sea but she could be wrong and anyway that doesn't mean anything about how far north it goes.  Maybe he's being stoic but you can't argue a man out of that.  And they're right that they should be more worried about demons than frostbite anyway.  "I call 'eyes' for Glitterdust, you'll remember or wish to practice?"  It's the Osiriani word, less because they expect the demons to understand Taldane than because she'd been used to it with Tariq and Omar and didn't want to risk losing her Taldane in combat.

"Yes, I'll be fine, and I'll tell you if I'm not," cheerful nod.  (He is perhaps being a little stoic, but you cannot argue him out of that without being his commanding officer, and he's been here long enough to make good progress on genuinely not minding.)

"I might as well practice just in case, but I figure it'll be straightforward enough – you call an unfamiliar word in combat, there's not a lot of things it could be, right."

"I'll attempt to not swear, then."  Small smile.  "My other best combat spell is Flaming Sphere, not so good against demons but I keep it for such as bears.  I can control it but it does frighten also the horses."

"Oh, so you'd swear in front of a paladin?"  An amused grin at both of them.  (Toes, indeed.)

And she opens her mouth to respond and about three and a half trains of thought collide- did he think I wouldn't and is he reading this as banter or flirting (but he's a paladin) and oh fuck there's more politics here I got too comfortable- and absolutely no words make it out into the air.  After a beat she closes her mouth and covers it with a hand.  Which does absolutely nothing to make her look less like a started rabbit.

The squad leader interjects, almost smoothly, "You should check the maps for the next leg- where does this fort keep them?"

Oh no, what did he do...  Hopefully it's just the sudden foreign language problem rather than him insulting her horribly somehow?

"Ah-- I'm sorry.  Yes, the commander has them, I-- should go ask."  By himself, because proposing showing the fort maps to Chelish soldiers would be not only badly taken but genuinely a bad idea, and probably this man knows that.  (And not that Marcus hasn't looked at the route before leaving for this trip, but this fort's maps are probably different and may have more useful local detail. Assuming the commander will let him see any of them, which is really not a guarantee, in Mendev.)

He will go do that.

Breakfast the next morning passes more or less without incident; the Chelish squad clusters together, making final decisions on who's taking which horses, and the cleric wanders in yawning between her divine and arcane spells, to grab some bread and wander out again.

Marcus clusters with them and watches her with only a polite greeting.  Watches them, too, to get a better feeling for how they interact with each other, rather than trying to join in immediately.

Once she's gone again, he asks the squad leader, a little quietly: "So, uh, did I insult her somehow, yesterday? Or something?"

"Doubt it.  She's got... trouble with Taldane.  Sometimes."  

One of the soldiers further down the table opens his mouth as though to add something and gets an actual full-bore glare from the man across from him. 

Wow, he's so curious about the glaring and there's no possible way to ask.

"Yeah, I noticed. Still better than my Osirian."  

"Anything else I should know?  Besides keep her from freezing and bring her back in one piece."

(Glared-at wisely puts some bread in his mouth instead.)

"She's fine in combat, doesn't happen with incantations- 'f she lost her head she'd never've made it this far."

"Forgets to eat sometimes, y'know how city wizards can get," another man volunteers slowly.  "Not much on the road, but- might remind her once y'get there."

Nods all around.  "Yeah, I can see that. She's got to be more wizard-ish than most of them, to have gotten this far her age, so she has more of their troubles too. Remind her to eat and to look at things that aren't books. Put in a word against exploding, maybe, if it's starting to look likely," bit of a smile.

One man snorts quietly at that, but Cambra shakes his head.  "Nah.  She knows."

Some whispers at the other end of the table resolve to:  "She ain't Abadaran so much.  Grew up there 'n can talk the lingo, is all."  

"Huh, all right.  And... I don't know much about Osirion... does she have that Qadiran thing where you can't touch her?"

This prompts a storm of meaningful looks, and more whispers, some of them heated, until the squad leader clears his throat and the table instantly falls silent.  

"Make like she's your baron's daughter."  One of the older men says finally, and punctuates this with a glower.

A confused look.  "Well, yes, but--" that doesn't answer his question at all... Oh. Oh no.

"That's not what I meant!!"  He looks a little horrified by what he apparently just said – and he's blushing on top of that, damn it.

"I meant, there's a custom in Qadira... I heard there is, anyway..." probably half the things they say about Qadira in Taldor are lies, but he doesn't know which half... "that men can't touch unrelated women, literally, at all, not a touch on the shoulder to keep her from tripping and falling in the street or anything.  That's all I was asking about!"  Are they even going to believe him.  He feels like such an idiot right now.  Half the mess hall is smirking at him.

There is an entire extremely Chelish meaningful looks debate going on.  Some eyebrows are even getting involved. 

The rest of the mess hall finds the flailing baby paladin incredibly funny and is not inclined to be nearly as quiet about it.

"Suuuuure you were!"

       "Boy's some kind of Taldor nobility anyway, for all you know he's been fucking barons' daughters left and right!"

He's just going to sit here and pretend he doesn't exist until someone says something he can reasonably respond to, how about that.

The eyebrows are getting voluble, but a good fraction of the glaring is now directed at the other tables instead of him.  

"We know you're a paladin, boy, y'can ease up," the older man growls at last.  "Y'ain't sinning against Nethys if y'stop her slipping on the ice.  Just- mind she's a priestess."  With a particular glare at the man with the color commentary on barons' daughters. 

Oh it's so strange to have the Chelish soldiers as allies against people who he should in some sense be closer to.  (Not that he knows this fort very well, or has gotten a particularly friendly impression of it.)  But he does like them.  They're strange and closed-down and protective and he thinks they're good people, in a sense that matters, if not the only one.

He gives them a relieved and much less flailing smile, and ignores the Mendevians for the moment.  "Yes, of course.  I meant her no disrespect and am not about to start."

He gets a short nod from the older man, and the squad leader stands.  "All right, you lot, time we saw to the horses."  He does not actually heave a tired sigh.

It's a clear morning, colder than yesterday with a bit of easterly wind, but not too bad. The track south is wide enough for two horses abreast comfortably, so with the Mendevian patrol in their usual order and the two Chelish soldiers silently claiming rearguard, that puts Marcus next to the cleric until their next reshuffle. She offers him a small smile once the horses are settled into their traveling pace. "Good morning, again."  She sits her horse (a placid gelding with one white sock) a little awkwardly, not a complete novice but clearly more used to a different gait, and not born in the saddle to that either.

Oh good, she's not upset with him.  "Good morning!" He smiles back, then watches her curiously for a couple of seconds, distracted.  Why does she hold herself like that... "Oh, right, camels?  What you were used to back home, I mean."

He does ride like he was born in the saddle himself – on a pretty mare not quite the standard Worldwound issue, well-behaved but making it clear she'd be very happy to go faster.

She ducks her head, smile briefly turning sheepish.  "It's so obvious?  And yes, we've horses also in Osirion but camels are better suited to the desert."

... Oh good, she wasn't insulted, but maybe he should be a little more careful about saying whatever pops into his head.  "I don't know if it's that obvious, my family was just very into riding. I tried camels a few times, it's fascinating how different they are. I've never seen a real desert, though."

"It's not so unlike up here in winter, except terribly hot instead of terribly cold- you've seen how the snow blows into, um,"  she mimes mounded drifts, searching for the word, "piles?  Sand does that too, as big as buildings out in the deepest desert."

"Drifts, and with sand I think it's usually dunes?"  He hopes she's not insulted by being supplied with vocabulary! She's a Nethysian, so probably not.  "I think I prefer the cold, but it sounds like a fascinating sight. Do you miss it?"

Evidently not, as she repeats "snow drifts, sand dunes" to herself, and nods firmly.  "I- don't miss the desert.  It was only where the work was.  The city, yes, sometimes.  And the people."  She looks a little surprised by the question, but not like it's unwelcome.

"Ah.  I'm the other way around – I miss the mountains but not the people."  Rueful smile.  

"Ahh."  Small understanding smile.  "What were the mountains like, where you come from?  I'd heard in places with enough rain, they've trees all up the sides?"

"Yes!  Well, trees up to-- it's even called the treeline, that's how obvious and straight it is sometimes.  Dense trees up to a point, then usually grass a ways higher than that, then bare rock where nothing will grow except lichen.  And then snow up on top, year-round on the tallest mountains.  We'd try to climb up there in the summer, bring some down."  He looks very fond of the place, when he talks about it. 

"Even in summer?  That's incredible... we've no snow at all, except we make it of course- what keeps it from melting?  Just the wind?"  

"I don't think it's really the wind but I'm not sure!  Something about the air maybe?  There's definitely something going on with the air.  If you don't live in the mountains and aren't an adventurer, you can't breathe right when you get too high up."  Presumably Nethys knows how it all works.

"Huh!"  This is fascinating and she has so many questions.  "Just everywhere all the time, not choking fog or any such?  And those who live there are unaffected?  Humans, or something different, or all kinds?"

"Everywhere all the time if it's high up enough!  I've never tried carrying a lowland chicken up the mountain to see how it feels about the air, but perhaps I should try it next time," grin.

Giggle.  "They say dwarves can survive deeper underground than humans, I wondered if there might be- opposite dwarves that can live higher up.  Taldor is mostly human also, yes?  Osirion's nearly all human save the coasts, we survive the heat best."

"I have not met any opposite dwarves and wouldn't be sure how to recognize one.  I barely met any of the other races growing up – Taldor is mostly human, yes.  Why, what happens to humans deep underground?  I thought they just got eaten by monsters."

"Hm, I actually don't know?  But I shouldn't expect monsters to think dwarves less tasty, at least not enough to matter, so I doubt it's just that?"

"Maybe there's also something going on with the air?  Sounds like the sort of thing that'd happen underground."  But it doesn't seem like either of them knows anything else useful on this question.  He looks around for a moment, and pats his horse calmingly when she takes this as a possible prelude to running somewhere.

"So, if I may ask, who do you miss from home?  Do they know you're here, with how unexpectedly it happened?"

Khalida's barely parsed the question when she's hit with an unexpected wave of homesickness, oddly not so much for the Broken Crocodile as for her father's house, even farther gone.  She has to turn away for a minute and stare out at the tundra until her eyes stop stinging.  (Wow, fuck, she really viscerally understands now why the soldiers mostly don't talk about their pasts, imagine coming over like this at Eighteen...)  

Focus.  Breathe.  She is not a child and if she can't have one normal conversation without getting stuck she can at least do it without bursting into tears and worrying the paladin and also her remaining squadmates.  ...right, there were two questions.  She can handle answering the second one anyway. 

"No.  They don't."  Breathe.  Assemble the sentence.  "Omar wrote to his landlady.  The ranger of my party.  But it can't have arrived yet."

oh NO.  If he makes her cry, her men are going to stab him in his sleep. 

"I'm sorry," gently.  "For whatever it is that happened."

(His landlady??  That's such a stupid question, he can't say that.)

"... I argued with my father so badly that he told me to never come back.  Wrote to me just to say that he meant it, when I wrote to tell him where I was."

" 'm sorry too,"  she manages.  "For yours."

"I didn't argue.  Just left."

"Thank you," still quietly.

"May have been the right call.  And... I don't know if you want to talk about it.  It helps sometimes."  It probably helps more if it's with someone you didn't only meet yesterday.  But he's having trouble imagining any of the Chelish soldiers being the right person, either.

Shrug, and a quiet laugh that turns into a hiccup.

"I've found myself here, in the end, so I suppose.  Dumbass of me, though.  I'd thought I could make my way as a laundry wizard."

That gets a bit of a smile out of him.  "A laundry wizard, really?  I'm having trouble imagining that."

Tiny smile in return.  "I imagined not how much more I should walk between houses asking after their laundry and how much less I should actually cast it."

"Huh, is there not-- a laundry you can work at, or some other arrangement such that someone who isn't a wizard is doing all the walking and asking?  ...And in Abadar's country, of all places?"

"I did say I was a dumbass at such an age- I'd not yet then thought of a laundry, ours always came to the house.  But to hire out the walking and carrying I'd must pay the child first, and have a place to bring it back to, and I dared not go to the Church for a loan lest they bring me to my father and it were- talked about?"

"Ah.  ... And it being talked about would be the important thing?"

"... Forgive me if I'm prying again."

She doesn't look offended or upset this time, so much as deeply confused by the question.  "...I have sisters."

"Oh. Of course."  Did he... ever think about that, really... No, he didn't, but in the way in which he usually doesn't think about things which don't feel like a meaningful problem, and they aren't.

"So do I.  I don't think their lives will be worse for my father losing some of his respectability, but I can see how this might be different elsewhere.  ... And it probably matters that I'm not a girl."

Tiny nod.  "I know not how it is in Taldor, but-" Deep breath.  Assemble the sentence.  "A not respectable brother is- much less worse for one's husband options than a not respectable sister."

"Yes, that would make a difference.  But also... hmm... you don't have to be respectable to marry, in Taldor, and I think the men who are most insistent on perfect respectability are often the ones you don't want to marry anyway."

"Though I could be wrong.  I've never asked my sisters about it.  Maybe I should."

She frowns at him, trying to parse that out.  "...perhaps we use differently the word?  I should think it the opposite.  Or, hm- I don't know 'insistent'?"

"Insistent is really wanting something and trying to get it."

"So, again, I might be wrong about all this.  But if I imagine I'm a girl... if a man wants to marry me because I obey my father and none in my family have ever done a disrespectable thing, it's because he wants someone who will obey him and never do anything he dislikes.  If a man wants to marry me even though my sister ran away from home, he will probably not worry so much about it if I ever do something that looks suspicious, and he won't mind me, I don't know, reading odd books or wanting to learn some unfeminine thing.  I would rather the second one.  No?"

"Hm- holding all else equal perhaps?  But both are choosing- I don't know the Taldane- suppose there's a man who's strict but predictable, and one who's permissive most of the time but drunk every other Oathday and angry over something he never disliked before, you'd choose which you preferred, and another girl might choose differently.  But a third man who's permissive and predictable you obviously like better than either, and so do all the other girls, and so he has the most choices first?"

"But will your father give you to the one you like best, or to the one who brings him the most advantage, whether he's drunk or strict or any other unfortunate thing?  Maybe that's really what makes our answers different."  A sigh.  He did not quite realize how different other families might be, though it's obvious now that he's thought about it at all.

"Oh- well, yes, in the toy example they are all equal rich, in life this is another- mm, choice among choices?  But... yes, holding all else equal I think most fathers to prefer their daughters happy, even though they more prefer their grandchildren fed."  

She contemplates her horse's ears for a bit, then huffs a quiet laugh.  "Even if he dislikes you but is yet sensible, I think it to his advantage to make at least a tolerable match?  If your husband should abandon you, this reflects also on your family."

"Oh, yes, my sisters will get tolerable matches and their children will be fed, but this is true no matter if my family loses half its status.  And I... don't know if it's true that my father prefers us happy all else being equal, because it never is quite equal, is it.  You're probably right that most fathers do, I just... never really thought about that."  A rueful half-smile. 

"Mm.  ...I'm sorry."

"All else is scarcely ever equal in Sothis either, I don't mean to say it's perfect.  Just- one can't hold the whole question at once in one's head, save Nethys Himself, it's like-" learning a spellform, but that example isn't going to be any use-

"uh.  Eating a pie all at once rather than-" seven hells she definitely knows the Taldane for 'to bite', where did it go... well, it's obvious by now that she got stuck, maybe it's time for some levity anyway... she makes exaggerated teeth-gnashing motions.

He laughs at that (clearly fond rather than mocking).  "Bite?"

"Bite!  Yes!"  She laughs ruefully and covers her face with both hands for a bit.  "I did know that..."

"I thought maybe you only knew complicated words," laughing.

More giggling.  " 'Excuse me, sir, could you tell me the way to the Temple of Abadar?'  ...oh, hm, I mean that actually- did the maps tell which towns may be large enough to have one?  I'd meant to visit in Kenabres, which I expect is the largest, but Cabrera said yesternight the one closest to the Chelish forts may be best suited."

"The commander didn't, uh, let me look at his maps."  Mendev is doing great and important work and is also an awful mess full of people at cross-purposes despite needing each other to survive.  "But from what everyone says, the nearest temple of Abadar may just be the Kenabres one.  Or, well, there may be a chapel with a cleric somewhere else, but not one that can do much of use to you."

"Yes, a moneychanger none know how to find could hardly be doing his work.  Kenabres it is, then."  She looks rather relieved at the prospect.

Huh, he's not sure why.

"Did you want to still see one of the smaller towns for other things you might need, or are we going straight down the fort line to Kenabres?"

"We may well go straight, anything a smaller town may have Kenabres also should.  I'd only thought a smaller town might save time, but if we're definitely to Kenabres it should instead cost it.  ...my former party's there," she adds in explanation, "unless they've been very fortunate or very not fortunate."

"Oh!  I was wondering, when you mentioned them.  They didn't want to stay on the Chelish side with you?"  He looks like he's maybe judging them a little, though he doesn't say it.

"Oh, they did for a time.  But I continued not dead, and they had more to get back to and less reason to stay..."  She shrugs.

To Kenabres?...  A moment's confusion, then he makes sense of it.  "And Kenabres has more adventuring, so they can earn money and level and probably be more useful besides. And you're clearly more useful in the Chelish forts."  A nod.  "And it does seem like the soldiers care about you."  Making it all right to leave her there.

"Yes, exactly- they aim to earn enough for passage back to Sothis, and it's faster in Kenabres."  She nods as well, with a small fond smile.  "I might be the safest one of the whole northern front, at least considering those who at all leave the forts."

Awwwwww.

"You well might be.  I only hope I can keep you as safe while you're here."

"I'm sure of it."  Unbidden, she starts trying to work out if she actually is sure- the patrols are about the same size, but the Mendevians have a lot less reason to keep her in specific alive- on the other hand, if she's downed but not dead the nearest fort will have a real cleric and not just some other wizard's Infernal Healing- stop that it's not the kind of sentence anyone expects to be literally true. 

"Have you been to Kenabres before?  It's on the way north from everywhere else, yes?"

It does actually look like Marcus took it as literally true, was a bit flustered by that level of confidence, and then remembered that people sometimes say politely exaggerated things.  He is very readable in his paladinness.

"Yes, I don't think anyone ends up here without having been to Kenabres unless they're really trying to avoid it.  It's... Well. Honestly it's kind of mess."  He lowers his voice a little, because paladins can't lie but they don't have to make everyone hear the painful things they already very well know.

"...Most of Mendev is kind of a mess.  They're... doing a really difficult and important thing here, and they don't have enough resources or help, and-- now that the Wound is closed, I think we can hold on long enough and they can recover afterward.  I wasn't sure of that, before."

(Khalida's mother had to put in a lot of time when she was small teaching her that polite exaggerations and similar technically-lies have an important communicative purpose, and that if you instead say something that's literally true but unexpected, you will not convey the thing you meant because they'll be trying to figure out why you didn't say 'pleased to meet you'.  She hasn't quite figured out how to square that with 'a cleric of the god of knowledge probably shouldn't lie', especially given how much of her conversational quiver is taken up by memorized scripts and stock phrases, especially especially in Taldane.  Do paladins really go around checking if every sentence is literally true before they say it, how do they ever talk at a normal speed.)

.....oh dear maybe they do actually?  And are used to hearing it from others?  Which means different things are going to be misleading to paladins than to regular people, and if she's in a mixed conversation she's going to have to figure out how to deceive neither of them???

It is probably a bad idea to seize on politics as a safe subject change but better than trying to figure out how to explain and/or apologize without making everything worse.  "I hope you're right- I'd been worried that everyone else might offer even less help now it's closed, but Cheliax's new queen at least seems as committed as ever.  And- many things are easier to bear when one sees an end to them."

He didn't look ongoingly misled, for whatever it's worth!  Maybe it's just that stock polite phrases are different in different places, or another one of the dozens of possible minor social differences between people.

"Yes.  And Cheliax's new queen sounds like a great woman, not that I've heard very much about her here." 

But he didn't really mean to talk about politics, it's just that they are necessary context to explaining what Kenabres is like, and she should really know.  "So, Kenabres... is a confusing place that only half seems like it's... part of a Lawful and functional country."  Not that he'd exactly call Taldor Lawful and functional, but in very different ways.  "I haven't been to the Abadaran temple but I expect it to be full of reasonable and Lawful people, Abadarans very much tending that way no matter what's happening around them.  I would not really assume the same about... most of the other temples, or the nobility, or the random people on the street, or the gate guards.  The Watch that's commanded by a paladin is fine, but there aren't enough of them and I was constantly confused about what is and isn't their job.  There's also an Inquisition, which I've heard is... less fine... although I haven't really interacted with it."  He's starting to feel like he really doesn't know nearly enough about the place to be someone's escort in it.  But of course the problem is that very few people would do better and they are all badly needed elsewhere.

"Just-- you should be careful, and I'm glad you're not going there on your own."

Well, all Khalida knew about Mendev in its entirety before her unexpected trip northwards was 'bargain-bin Lastwall' and 'the Queen is hot', and everything she's learned since then has been Chelish barracks gossip, so he's still got her beat.

"I see, I thank you for the caution.   I'd... certainly hope a shopping trip could avoid interacting with the Inquisition, as well.  And I've, uh, some practice at not being robbed, I'll take care.  I'm likewise certainly glad for the accompaniment, though."

"Forgive me, I don't mean to scare you.  It's not a bad place, and I've been fine in it.  It's just that I understand Osirion to be very Lawful and well-organized, and, well, probably so is Cheliax or at least its forts, in a very different way..."  She's an adventurer, why does he think she doesn't know what the world is like... Probably it's that she looks like she's sixteen years old.  "For all I know you've been to plenty of not very well-managed cities and will have no trouble at all."

She doesn't seem at all offended, at least.  "Oh no, I've only been in Sothis before the forts, and some little way upriver.  It's, mm, that I've been these few years in neighborhoods where the temptation to theft is sometimes great."

"Mm, I suppose even Abadar's country would have those, people being who they are."

"So... I can't exactly ask how the forts compare to Sothis, that's a ridiculous question.  But – what differences were you surprised by, maybe?  I'm always curious about what people are like everywhere."

"So, they say in Avistan women are as- imaginary men?  And it's... not quite like that, but more like that than I thought hearing it.  Perhaps it's that nearly all the women are wizards or cooks, but- one is a wizard who is also a woman, not forever a lady wizard?"

"I, uh, didn't understand the last part at all?  I'm not sure I understood the rest either."  That's not very helpful, he should tell her what he did understand instead of making her explain again when she's already having trouble.  "The women act like men, or are treated like men – not quite, but still a surprising amount, is that right?  I can see why wizards are--" 'less like women' sounds too insulting, and he could say it and include a tangent about what he means, but this conversation is confusing enough already-- "doing something it'd be very normal for a man to do, but I don't see what you mean about the cooks?"

She makes the slightest bit of a face at 'very normal for a man'- ugh, does that mean women wizards are rare elsewhere in Avistan too, she was hoping that was Chelish patriotism.

"Mm, no, I apologize, the cooks and the wizards are separate, the cooks are more normal?  I don't actually know that they're soldiers officially.  I mean more- the martial soldiers are all men, or nearly all?"  She kind of suspects the very few women of being former clerics, but there's been no non-awkward way to ask.  "A woman is not strong, but a man wizard is also not strong; a wizard need not wear armor or draw a longbow so you do not judge him on that, but only on his wizardry."

"Yes," nod, "and the soldiers do need to do these things, so they're nearly all men.  And... which of these is different in Osirion?"  There's clearly something she's trying to gesture at but he really doesn't know what it is.

"It's- women wizards are more rare?  There are some, it's a respectable occupation, but it's- always the first thing one sees."

"It's..." he squints for a moment, trying to think of what she means... "--Ohh. Huh...  I think Mendev and Taldor are both more like Cheliax, then?  Well, Mendev just has very few wizards in the first place, and both here and in Taldor more of them are men, but not enough that it'd be strange, or that you'd think of a woman one differently.  Wizards are just wizards, I think."

Small nod.  "Oh, that's good.  Well, wizards being wizards, not Mendev having fewer.  Do you know why at all?"

"I think part is just education – of course basically nowhere has schools for everyone like I hear of Cheliax, but you can still have more schools or fewer, and Mendev has fewer.  But they also just... don't seem to like wizards very much?  I think maybe it's like old Sarkoris that way."

"That's the country that was here before, yes?"  She nods past him towards the barrier.  "And so its people ran here and Lastwall... I suppose that merely pushes the question to why they didn't."  She chews thoughtfully on her lip for a moment.  "Dislike as- it's not respectable, or dislike as angry in the streets, or some other thing, do you know?"

"That's right.  In old Sarkoris it was angry people in the streets – I think mostly they had witches, who were usually evil, and they confused wizards and sorcerers with them and only trusted clerics.  Different cultural traditions, not a lot of education...  Mendev is pretty far from that, now – it's not even that it's not respectable, really, people respect wizards, but they do distrust them somewhat.  And they're just... not the sort of thing children dream of being, you know?"

She nods thoughtfully, then giggles again.  "Well, I know there are such children, but not what it's like to be one."

"I imagine so," he grins at her. 

"Do you think you'll stay in Avistan, or go back home, after?  The... 'lady wizard'... problem sounds like it'd be uncomfortable."

"Hm.  I... suppose I hadn't thought that far."  She bites back an impulse to say 'oh, it's not that bad', she'd just been complaining about it.  "...it may depend what circle I reach?  I'd thought before I might come here at third or fourth."

"Then you are ahead of schedule and have plenty of time for the decision.  And I hear it said that you should really see Absalom first."

"Oh definitely- I've been wanting to go there forever, they say it has the highest proportion of wizards in the world- and the Starstone, and Morgethai, and Geb's siege engines- they say you could spend a whole human lifetime in the library there and still not read even a fraction of the books..."

Awwwww, she's so enthusiastic about it!  "Maybe you should visit everywhere else first, in case you never leave the library again!"  

"But I think Morgethai's mostly in Andoran?  Ah, I've been assuming it's... religiously impolite... not to correct Nethysians about things like that."  Slightly apologetic face.

"Oh-" she ducks her head a bit and puts a hand over her mouth.  "...I know not if it's religiously, but I should like to tell me if you notice, yes."

"Of course. And--" is there a non-condescending way to say he really doesn't think less of her for not knowing things about countries on a different continent from her own and without having had a politics-focused education or possibly any education whatsoever... "Well, if you sat through all the classes they made me sit through I imagine you'd remember a lot more about them than I did."

"But since you didn't – I think Morgethai lives in Almas where the university is.  A place you'd also probably really enjoy visiting."

Well, presumably any education, she became a wizard somehow... what it may have included beyond wizardry and archaic Taldane is more of an open question. 

She nods and takes a slow breath.  "Well then, if her university isn't in Absalom, perhaps I shan't retire before I can Teleport.  If I'm very lucky there may be an opening on the route between them."  Tiny impish smile.

Marcus's politics-focused education did not involve very much about the technical requirements for becoming a wizard – he does know how it normally goes (his siblings got the beginnings of wizardry education, though he didn't, because it was so obviously not for him), but Khalida really seems like someone who may have spontaneously figured out wizardry from random scraps of information!

"A minute ago you had no plans at all, and now you already know what the best job in the world is!"  Grin.

"Clearly I ought pass the time with Iomedaens more often!  Though if I make it so far, I expect I've had another hundred ideas in the meantime."

"I'm sure you will!  Teleport does seem a wonderful thing to have, though.  I think I'll be a little envious, when you get there."

"Well, you'll have paladin powers by then... I admit I wouldn't trade, though."  Okay, both polite and honest isn't so hard after all- oh oops, it's past time to return the question.  "And yourself?  Where will you go when the finite demons have been fought?"

The finite demons!  What a wonderful thing that is.

"Lastwall!  ... Well.  Maybe Lastwall, or maybe I will find another thing more important than taking the time for it," a wry smile.  (This is most of why he's going to be envious of the Teleport.)  "But I do hope I'll make it there in not too very long."

"Perhaps if you hurry, you might get to their front while they're still fighting the demons, and combine the two?"

"Mm, I could, but... Does the Lastwall front need my help?  It's the one that already has a lot of people just like me.  I'd feel wrong to go there just because I wanted to.  ...I did write them and ask, and was told Mendev was a good place to stay in, but maybe I should write again.  I don't know very much of what's happening everywhere."

"Well, I expect they will eventually?  As there's fewer demons, they'll keep fewer paladins and send more elsewhere."  There's... probably not a polite way to say 'isn't that what Iomedaens always do'.  "I suppose Mendev may also."

It did not... really occur to him... to expect that the Mendev front would stop being a disaster at some point before they run out of demons.  He's still not sure it will, but she does have a point that it's at least possible.

"That is true.  Mendev will probably want to focus on rebuilding rather than sending its people out, but of course Lastwall will not.  You may be right that it'll be a good idea eventually to go there and help, so the more experienced people can go elsewhere."  He looks rather hopeful about the prospect. 

"There's also Cheliax, of course, but I... don't know that I expect it to have the sort of problems I can be of much help with."

"Mm.  Yes.  I-"  She lowers her voice again, not sure if the Chelish soldiers are paying attention (or the Mendevian soldiers a horse-length ahead, for that matter.).  "I don't- know that more paladins are really the help they need, yes."

"What do you think is the thing they need?  ... Besides more healing, clearly, but-- what would make that work well--"

"Sar-" she starts immediately, then pauses to consider.  "I- think Sarenrae, but... not perhaps Sarenrite priests?  Foreign Sarenrite priests especially.  I don't know- something more what I had of Nethys, more like, but He'd hardly choose everyb-"  She cuts herself off and makes a face, muttering something that's definitely not the call for Glitterdust.  "...They haven't all separate verbs also, yes?"

"No, they don't," a soft laugh.

More seriously, still softly:  "What was it that Nethys did right?"

Small wince, and smaller nod.  "I- fear I must apologize about that, but- later."  She chews on the corner of her scarf for a few moments, realizes she's doing it and hurriedly tucks it back into her coat collar.  It's not like it's private, really, or anyway not all that private. 

"It's- He sees everything, yes? Everybody knows that, but I didn't really know it, not before- I did-"  Yeah that's as far as that sentence is getting right now.

He remembers when Iomedae saw him.

(you are not good enough because nobody has ever been good enough, but you are fit for this purpose, you are doing a good thing and should keep doing it)

Of course it wouldn't be the same, but with that starting point he can imagine what 'seeing everything' might feel like, and--  "Oh." 

"I think I can see what you mean.  Or some of it.  But-- we are none of us Nethys."  In many different ways.

"No, we can't be."  She's silent for a while, absently petting her horse's mane.  "People- aim towards Sarenrae, but- I think this is simpler, for a mortal?  To start from loving than from knowing?"

"I think they... go together, usually?  Or it feels like a lie, if they don't."

A sigh.  "I expect it mostly feels like a lie, for Chelish people."

"...oh.  Yes, I think so."

She has to stare out at the tundra again for a while before she's sure she has her voice under control- it sounds so simple and obvious like that.  (How was she such an idiot not to figure it out sooner, no wonder she's only barely wise enough to be a cleric.)  It's probably incredibly obvious anyway and poor Cambra is going to be so concerned but she can at least keep from literally crying in public. 

...knowing it doesn't really help anyone else either way, though, which was what they were talking about in the first place, the people still stuck in Cheliax without even clean water and proper burials and however little healing they were getting.  Right.  Assemble the sentence, breathe.

"Perhaps it should help to have clerics of other gods who do practical cleric things?  Pharasmins for undead, Abadarans for banking?"

Marcus is also concerned!  But she has the right to be upset without being bothered with questions that she rather clearly doesn't want.  (He might still ask, eventually, but on a horse in the middle of a patrol is very obviously not the time.)  He can ride along, and look out at the barrier and the horizon, and do his best not to make her feel like she has to tell him anything.

"Certainly that.  Maybe you're right that it just... doesn't make much sense to want to show them Good, instead of simply the normal human things that aren't Evil."

Small nod.  "Osirion works very hard to get everyone to Axis, but- I think that's more Law as anything?  The soldiers all expect that normal human things trend towards Evil, but I doubt that can be so, everyone says their- former government was working even harder."

"I do expect normal human things can tend one way or the other, depending on what you're used to and what everyone else is doing."  There certainly seem to be many ways for societies to go wrong.  "It's just that... most of the time people settle on ways that tend toward Good, because that is the option that doesn't make everyone miserable and then send them to Hell."

"... Your men do not seem like they're all miserable.  Not that I can read them very well."

"Yes- nor can I often read them, but I'm improving.  Certainly none are all the time miserable.  But... I think it was not safe to seem so, or to seem, um, able to be hurt?"

"Oh.  Of course it wouldn't be."  Maybe he just shouldn't be assuming he has any idea what they're feeling at all...  But it sounds impossible to have any meaningful interactions that way, so maybe not.  Still, he should remember that he might be this oblivious about more than one thing.  This time he stays quiet for a while, trying to arrange it all usefully in his head.

"But... they care about you, and aren't trying very hard to hide it.  That at least seems like a good sign about something, doesn't it?"

"Well, they've been charged to keep me safe.  And I'm evidently valuable, just as the fort gates keep the demons out, it's not weakness to see them locked."  She's quietly glowing, though, her smile a bit impish but mostly genuinely fond and proud. 

"I do think they- take it seriously, to belong to Iomedae now.  They're- they're trying."

"Yes," to the first explanation, his smile reflecting some of her happiness.  That's a very good way for things to be.

And:  "...Belong to Iomedae?  That's not... ah... Why do they think that?"  Is it some horrifying Chelish thing?  He shouldn't say that.  It might well be better than some horrifying Chelish alternative, in any case.

"Oh, um- not truly, not as clerics do?  Just, the paladins won?"

"It wasn't... particularly the paladins, I don't think?..." 

It's not as if the Mendevian forts get very clear news, and he certainly doesn't know what the people of Cheliax are being told about whose they are, but this doesn't sound right.

"Well, mostly the archmages of course- and the High Inquisitor but Abadar's already got a country- and I think maybe Galt?  And Rahadoum but they haven't got any gods at all.  And I think the new Queen's not a paladin but people are saying mostly the remainder of the new government is?"

"Iomedae's already got a country too! And I doubt Rahadoum of all places would be happy to hand Her another one. The Reclamation, of course, and maybe Andoran, though it's not really paladins despite being governed by one..."

He knows so little about the broader political situation. He used to know these things, and disliked them, and suddenly realizes he might like them much better if they felt connected to anything that matters.

"I'd expect it to be mostly the archmages' decision, but... I'd be surprised if what they wanted was for the people of Cheliax to consider themselves Iomedae's. I'd be surprised if it was what She wanted, too, though... less so, maybe." 

If that's what's happening... Then he really should find out, and see where he might do more good. Though someone would've said, surely...  Or maybe not, with how everything is.

"Oh huh, Andoran is governed by a paladin?"  She barely catches herself from saying 'if that's so why hasn't he done anything about the pirates', it's probably super rude to call someplace else's government incompetent even if no one from there is listening. 

"I don't know there to've been any-"  she wrinkles her nose, heaves a frustrated sigh, tries to mime tacking something up on a wall- "...pamphlets but from the government?  About it?  But I mightn't know if there were, even if they made it up to the forts, the war's since a year....  Yet- surely She wants them to not any longer belong to the defeated One?"

"Proclamations?" for the missing word.

"Of course She wants that.  Everyone does.  But most countries don't belong to one god, and... I don't know if it's better that they don't, but it might be?  Most people I know don't think of themselves as belonging to a god unless they chose to, and that... seems better for them, than feeling like it's not their choice to make.  If they want to be Iomedae's, certainly they can, but... do they want to, or do they only feel like they must belong to Someone?"

"Proclamations," she repeats carefully.

"Hmm... I suppose so?  They don't talk about wanting one god or another, but of course not-  I never thought much about it when I was a child, but I suppose I shouldn't have said I belonged to Abadar?  It was my father making me attend services, though, not the government... I suppose he'd perhaps have said so, he's very devout, but the Sarenrites aren't any less Osirian..."

"Osirion sounds a strange place.  But, uh, why would they of course not talk about the different gods?"  He feels increasingly bad at knowing why Chelish people ever do anything, and increasingly like he would very much like to know.

Do Taldane fathers not make their children attend services- not the point.

"It... was illegal?  I doubt it still is, perhaps except the Evil ones, but they should scarcely trust it to be safe right away?"  

"...Ah."  Yes, he supposes that does follow, there are just... so many separate awful things to remember about Cheliax.  "I think Iomedae would want them to know that they can want one god or another, and if they don't know then someone should tell them.  But... I don't know who can tell them, if the government hasn't.  And the government probably has so many other things to deal with."

And he hasn't made sure the new Chelish government isn't doing some insane thing with worship requirements, so he can't swear to them it isn't, and he doesn't think his personal opinions will carry enough weight to matter.

Shrug and tiny nod.  "They haven't even picked a new flag yet."

"...I suppose I may make it more than it is?  Some of the men wished to know of acts of gratitude to Nethys, without I said it first."

A relieved smile. "Oh! That is definitely a good thing. I wonder if they would without the example of a cleric clearly allowed, but... they may just reasonably prefer the gods who have given them any help." 

And knowing that more than one is allowed is most of the important thing, he thinks, at least to start with.

"Oh yes, it was specifically because of Nethys helping, although really Eleven had already the commander, it's the other forts I've been most help to."  She fidgets a bit with the edge of her horse's blanket, then stops herself. 

"And how have the other forts been about it?"

She... makes a face.  "They've not asked, I've not offered.  I think it perhaps relevant that I came to them first as a foreign cleric, not a stranded adventurer?"

"...word did pass around finally that I was honest in offering discounts on spell swaps, I suppose that's a kind of service to Nethys.  Or anyway making it possible to happen."

"Those sound like deeply depressing places."  Well, and of course they would, it's Cheliax.  He doesn't know what he was expecting.  Though maybe it's different if you stay there instead of only visiting.  (Maybe it's worse if you stay there instead of only visiting, for that matter.) 

"I... do think you're probably right, that it matters that you came as... someone vulnerable, and there by accident, not someone who came on purpose to show them how to do things better.  Which is... unfortunately not advice anyone can follow on purpose, so I'm not sure where that leaves us."

"Mm.  You see why I stay, though, yes?"  So what if people think anyone sensible would leave the Wound as soon as they could, let alone the Chelish side.  No one's ever accused her of being sensible. 

"...it should be difficult to run a reading group at the other forts regardless, I might pass there perhaps four hours in a week.  I'm gone from Eleven more time than I'm there as is."

"Of course," at the first question, with the warm kind of smile you give someone doing exactly the same good thing you would do.

"A reading group?  Oh, because Nethys would approve?"

...she has a horrible squirming suspicion that came across way more Iomedaen than she meant it, but she can't quite think how to explain what she did mean.

"Yes- they said everyone's tested for wizardry in the schools, so I thought it unlikely to help trying to teach it myself.  Yet also He's the god of knowledge, so-  reading group."  

He tries to imagine the quiet soldiers sitting over a book. Well, why not, really...

"What sorts of things are you reading?"

"...two romance novels and a book on chess, presently, there's not many choices already at the fort.  I hope to purchase some others in Kenabres."

That gets a laugh from him.  He turns to glance back at the dour Chelish men behind them - "I have to say, I'm trying to imagine them reading romance novels and it's not really working."

She winces a bit.  "I- wouldn't read such normally in mixed company, it's true.  They hold more interest than the chess book, though."

"Most things would, I expect."  He does not read much into her reaction, since he's imagining entirely different sorts of romance novels.  "What books do you want to look for?"

"One foreign romance at the least, if I find any in Taldane, they wished to see how they differ- but mostly not fiction, natural history perhaps?"

"That does seem very Nethysian.  I haven't been taught much natural history, but it does seem like something it'd be easy to make interesting, if the writer was trying.  Geography too maybe?  The sort with a lot of good descriptions of different cities and customs and landscapes, not the one that's mostly about lists of counties and how rich they are.  ... I suppose maybe I really mean travel journals, assuming you can find ones that aren't mostly made up.  Do Nethysian temples keep lists of which books contain real knowledge instead of being mostly made up?"

... Right, there's no reason for her to know the answer any better than he does, but he realizes that a moment after having asked, and taking back your questions makes for awkward conversations. 

"Oh, definitely yes- perhaps history also, that may be more likely to find in Taldane...  I'd never seen such a list, but I suppose the library tenders may share it with one another and not post it on the wall?  I wished mainly to read the math and wizardry books, I expect they have less that problem since a reader would notice if they tried a made up thing themselves."

"Now I'm trying to imagine the sort of person who writes made up math books as a hobby," he laughs.

And they can carry on in roughly that vein until they arrive at the next outpost in early afternoon, the demons along this stretch apparently being quiet today, or just elsewhere.  It's smaller than the one right at the junction between the two stretches of border, but on the same basic plan, there being only so many ways to build a fort in featureless tundra.  Marcus might recognize one of the gate guards from his visit a few days ago.

He waves to that one, but conversations during gate security proceedings are discouraged, and after that they'd all rather go indoors and sit down.

He did get to know enough people at this fort that one of them will join him and the Chelish contingent at the mess table despite knowing who they are. 

Marcus introduces everyone, and then only makes a little bit of a face when the first thing Argil says is:  "Well, good luck with not ending up in Hell! How is that going?"

(Well, it's not as if it's a bad question.)

The two Chelish soldiers are if anything extra unreadable in response, although Khalida winces a bit and gives Cambra a slightly worried glance.  "We don't get much news at the Wound," he offers.  "...they're changing out the money?"

"Oh!"  Khalida perks up at the mention of what is apparently scandalous gossip. "Did you hear about that?"

"Uh. No?... What's the money got to do with anything?"

He will give the cute girl an interested smile if she's going to make that sort of face about it, though.

"So they had paper money- you know how one might have a letter of credit with the bank of Abadar, and exchange it at a different temple, and not have need to carry coin between the two?"  She's perhaps taking the opportunity to carry the conversation and give the guys a moment, but that doesn't mean it's not fascinatingly horrible.  "Except instead of silver it was- I don't know the Taldane- tradable-in-theory for souls!  I thought it was just tavern rumors but it's true, I've seen it."

"So... Instead of taking a letter to an Abadaran bank and getting silver coin for it, you... take one to an Asmodean bank and... get a soul??"  He hadn't thought ahead far enough to be alarmed at the beginning of this sentence, but now he is.  He makes an avert-evil gesture before thinking any more about it.  "What are you supposed to do with that??"  It's probably something horrible.

Marcus looks more quietly horrified, but does not add any questions.  He thinks he can guess something of how it went.

Cambra shakes his head.  "Nah, y'take it to the cobbler and get boots, or whatever.  Wouldn't know what to do with a soul if I got one."

"...Oh.  Okay, I give up, what's the big deal then?  Doesn't seem very evil to get boots."

"Well, it remains trading in souls, even if one trades the right to a hundredth or a thousandth of a soul rather than one soul entire?  So it's technically necromancy.  Or uh, the paper money isn't magic- legally necromancy?"

"Huh. Sounds like cheating, really. Legally necromancy, who ever heard of that! I wouldn't've thought that'd work, but if they're changing it I guess that means it did?"

"I expect it did work.  Because... you could buy a soul out of Hell for it, theoretically, if you had enough, couldn't you?  It'd probably be hard – and suspicious, unless you were going to do something evil with it – but you could.  I think it'd make me a worse person, to go all my life thinking that instead of buying a house for my family I could buy a soul out of Hell, and I'm not."  Gods, what a thing to live with.

(Insofar as he's readable at all, Cambra looks like he's never once thought that and maybe assumes only a paladin would.)

"Well, the new Queen'd have the right of it," puts in Ferrer, "an' the last payroll came in coin.  So it must've done."

(Cambra is probably not wrong, that most people wouldn't think about it – anywhere, let alone in Cheliax.  Marcus doesn't think not thinking about it would make it work any less, but it's hardly going to do anyone good to bring that up now.)

Argil shakes his head at Marcus and catches Cambra's eye.  "Paladins are just like that.  But still, if you're getting proper coin without weird soul fuckery now, that's gotta be for the best."

"Any idea how long it'll take you?"

"...they'll probably send someone around to do sermons once- things're more settled.  So belike we'll know better by then."

"...Yeah, that's fair enough."  He wouldn't have thought it was the sort of complicated thing you needed sermons about, but, well, it sure sounds like they do.  "I hope whoever you get's decent at it.  We had the most boring old priest back home..."

"I think there must be some everywhere- my father would bring us to services every week, I know more about prices than I ever wanted to learn."

"When I was a kid I thought our village priest did executions slow just so's he had more time to talk," Cambra offers.

"That's awful," Argil says, laughing.

"My complaints about sermons were almost never boredom, but, well, paladins," rueful smile.  "Mostly I'd disagree with them about things. There was this Shelynite when I was small who kept going on about how you should spend all of Sunday appreciating the beautiful things in your life and not doing anything..."

"Shelyn is... art?"

"Art, music, beauty, love including the family sort. It doesn't have to be fancy art or expensive beautiful things or anything special – it's normal people making their houses look nicer, girls putting ribbons in their hair, having clothes you like instead of random ugly ones.  I'm not a very Shelynite sort of person, but I do think She's right that it's important to have these things."

"...I am honestly much less sure that it's important to have expensive fancy paintings, but She is a god and I'm not, so perhaps I'm missing something," he laughs.

"Oh, but then how would your neighbors know how rich you are...?"  Khalida murmurs.  "Not to say I haven't expensive tastes of my own, but, um, not so with things one must only look at and not touch."

"I hope you're not under the impression Marcus here doesn't have expensive tastes!" Argil laughs. "He just doesn't realize it until someone points out to him that normal people pay a tenth as much for horses."

Marcus looks good-humoredly embarrassed but doesn't argue.  It is in any case an important service to make it clear to the Chelish people that it's all right to make fun of paladins.

"Well, horses are useful, like spellbooks."  She gives them both a good-natured smirk.  "I did see she was-" she makes the vocabulary constraint face again and drums her fingers briefly on the table- "...she enjoys to go fast?"

"She really does."  Marcus expects to choose a weapon if the Goddess grants him the choice, but it's clear how fond he is of his horse.  "You'd say hot-blooded about an animal, or lively or eager, more generally."  (Argil gives him a bit of a look about the uncharacteristic vocabulary lecture.)

"Can spellbooks be better or worse, besides what spells they have in them?"

"Hot-blooded- is that 'blood' like blood from a wound?"  (Cambra nods.)  "I mean mainly the spells, although one must have good paper to hold them.  But since it's to be so precious anyway, it's- one would have scarce reason to have it not also beautiful?  Like- like embroidery on a sack instead of good linen, to save a twentieth the price of the silk."

"Or like a magic weapon, or even just a very well-made one," he nods.  "I do think Shelyn's right that if you have something important that will already cost you a lot in money or effort, it's worth adding a little more to make it a joy to see and use, if you can."

He wonders what Cambra or Ferrer think about that – but he can neither tell from their expressions nor expect to get a meaningful answer if he asks, so he's just going to say things until something turns out for inscrutable Chelish reasons to be an acceptable topic.  He does not exactly have social strategies that aren't just being very himself.

"Huh, so... it's Good to make things pretty for no reason, just because you can?"  Ferrer ventures, after half a moment.  "That seems... easy."

"...s'pose it makes sense?"  Cambra gives a slight nod in Khalida's direction.   "I seen Guiu's and Taberner's spellbooks, looked about the same from the outside."

"Mm, more or less? It's Good to do easy things that people will enjoy even just a little. Neutral if it's only you enjoying it, I think, though Shelyn would still like it and it's still... a step in the right direction. It wouldn't be Good to miserably do art you personally hate and nobody else will ever see – it's not about it being pretty, it's about someone appreciating it. But Shelyn's opinion is that if you're making something you think is nice and not hurting anyone by it, it's almost certainly making the world better."

He is neither a Shelynite nor good at sermons, but it seems a better start than nothing.

"And... Iomedae don't mind, then?"  He gives a small nod in Marcus's direction that is... possibly meant to indicate his general paladinness.

"No, 'course not.  I'd be surprised if any of the Good gods minded each other's things.  Iomedae tells us to have fun at least once a month, and I bet for some people that's singing or drawing or something."

"...I mostly get my fun by talking to people, but when I'm out of mending to do I sometimes embroider the edges on my clothes."  The hem of his tunic has two rows of little swords along it, even enough but clearly not done by someone with a lot of experience.

"Huh, you do embroidery?  When did you learn?"  She takes a closer glance at his hem, if he's indicating it (to a half-decent Sense Motive visibly reassessing it from 'meh' to 'it's amazing the bear can dance at all').

"...you do embroidery for fun?"  (Oh no that was definitely rude.  Oops.)

Argil cackles at her tone, and Marcus joins him, after a moment to make sure he's not going to be terribly rude in doing so. 

"My little sister taught me when we were children, I think mostly to have someone who was worse at it. It's not so fun that I'd count it for the requirement unless I couldn't find anything better, but the forts can be boring, and I like having something to do with my hands."

Khalida recovers her composure after a moment of her own, giggling softly behind a hand.  "It's no worse than anything if one does it while talking, I suppose, but were I commanded to have fun I certainly shouldn't choose it by itself."

"I don't think about the commandment much, because this," he waves his hand around the table, "is fun and I do it all the time."  Grin.  "But if I had to... do an unpleasant solitary job in a basement for a month, or something...  I expect I could manage with embroidery."

"...even stuck in a basement, I could think of things more fun than that."  Cambra glances at Argil and reconsiders whatever he was about to say.  "What if y'stuck yourself too many times, would She drop you for not enjoying it?"

"You know, that's a good question. I don't think so? Or, hmm, not if I was trying to do what She said and just really couldn't manage. But you're right that there's other things I could do, so if I was just failing to enjoy embroidery and not even trying anything else, She might."

He doesn't sound entirely sure, but he also sounds, to a Chelish ear, oddly unworried about it. Not like he doesn't care, but like he expects things to be fine even if he does get something like this wrong.

He also sounds oddly unworried to Khalida, being dropped would be the worst thing ever, she couldn't stand it.  (Well.  She's already been through one Worst Thing Ever and turned out she could in fact stand it and rebuild.  Still though.  She's pretty sure being dropped would actually be worse.)

"You don't think She'd drop someone for trying and failing?  I heard a cleric might be dropped for breaking their vows even were one vampired into it."

"I would hope She'd drop me if I was controlled by a vampire! Not because I did something wrong but because you don't want a paladin to go around controlled by Evil, that sounds like a disaster to the name of paladins everywhere!  I hope She'd pick me back up afterward," but he does sound troubled by the possibility that She might not.  "...Probably not if it only took a Suggestion to do something evil or break my word, because that shouldn't happen, but if I was Dominated into something then it... wouldn't generally reflect badly on me, unless I was stupid in a way that let it happen, and then maybe She'd have a point..."  He closes his eyes for a moment, smiles in the calm way of someone trying hard to be brave about something and succeeding.  "And then I'd go to Lastwall, and trust them to straighten me out."

Khalida's looking worried but thoughtful for most of this, but she winces just slightly at 'unless I was stupid in a way that let it happen'.

"-She'd pick up folk She dropped again?  They can do that?"  

"Yes, why couldn't They?  If I did something wrong that made me no longer worth Her power, I could fix it, and if I did it right then I should be the sort of person She'd want again."

"... If it was something I did wrong, and not some circumstance I couldn't fix.  I don't think Asmodeus dropped all His clerics because they did something wrong."  How did they get to talking about this.  But maybe they need to.

Cambra doesn't flinch.  (He does go more unreadable for a heartbeat.) 

"Of course, I shouldn't ought to've said 'can', surely She could do so if She chooses."

"Would've had to be some kinda thing they did wrong, all on the same day with no warning,"  Ferrer cuts in.

Oh no.  He nods at Ferrer, distractedly, because Cambra is doing a thing and Marcus hates that he just made that happen.  He's picked up enough about Chelish people that he does instinctively try to restrain his reaction, and halfway manages, but now his words are getting tangled up.  "I'm not going to--" he's not even sure what it is that he's definitely not doing-- "I don't think She cares that you got a word wrong, and I sure don't." 

And he can just keep talking about the actual subject, that's how not making a big deal of things works.  "But yes, it definitely happens that paladins Fall and Atone and are paladins again.  Less often for clerics, I think, but just because clerics have fewer rules to break in the first place."  And he could make some guesses about Asmodeus, but he's not, on second thought, sure the two men want to talk about that at all.  Even he wouldn't, in their place.

Khalida's also noticed that, and is a bit easier to read about it- a little awkward, a little defensive, a little warily tracking how he and Argil react.  She takes a breath and forges back in to pick up the conversation, "Nethys has scarcely any- at least so I've heard, I haven't been to a temple since He chose me.  Perhaps the priests have best estimates they discuss with one another."

(Argil is eating his stew, not very interested in the gods conversation, but not reacting badly to any of it either.  He made a bit of an amused face at Marcus's upset reaction.)

"There's being the right alignment, if not much else.  But I'd also be less sure about Nethys picking someone up afterward.  Not that I think He wouldn't, just-- He's less predictable, and not very comprehensible at all, I think?..."

Unhappy nod.  "He's not impossible to comprehend, He sends visions, but- it's said the more one understands Him, the less one may be understanded by other people?  I've heard Nefreti Clepati can just- talk to Him, without needing a Commune or anything, and also the senior priests must translate her for the junior priests, not even only the laity."

"It's understood, not understanded.  And, ah, that sounds terrifying.  Maybe it's less so for the sorts of people Nethys would choose?"

Shrug.  "I shouldn't call it terrifying, so I suppose so?  Annoying perhaps.  If she couldn't understand other people, that would be much worse, but I don't think that must follow?  And she does have the senior priests to translate her, she doesn't wander in a foreign land."

"I would hate so much for people not to understand me. But yes, maybe that's just me."

"I don't think I'd much like it either, but I figure if wizards cared much about people understanding them, they wouldn't be wizards."

Khalida giggles a bit at that.  "Well, I expect if I had to pick I should pick wizardry, yes.  But I hope I shouldn't have to, most people aren't Nefreti Clepati.  It's as, um-?"  She glances at Ferrer.

"Would y'rather fight an angry ice bear, unarmed an' blindfolded but in full plate, or half a swarm of vescavors, naked but wi' nets an' alchemists fire an' time to set them up?"  he supplies helpfully. 

Marcus laughs, and can't help pausing to think about it.  "...The second one, but I see your point."

"What do you mean the second one??"  Argil shudders.  "Something's horribly wrong with you." 

"No, something's horribly wrong with Chelish proverbs," laughing.

"Oh, it ain't a proverb- last time, we didn't say blindfolded an' the whole squad picked the bear," he adds to Argil.

"I still say there's not such a thing as half a swarm."

"So, it's a swarm with half as many in it, same thing."

"Can't say I've ever tried counting them anyway!"

Khalida finishes wiping up her stew with a last bite of bread.  "I ought channel, do you know when the squad we'll continue south with leaves?"

"Should be soon, a quarter hour maybe?"  They're not pushing the patrols out as quickly as humanly possible, because when you do that people will be dead on their feet when the inevitable emergency hits, but they're not exactly set up for people to get more rest than strictly necessary, either. 

Marcus will go stand in the channel radius, if it's as uncrowded as it usually is, since it might help (with any of a dozen things, depending on which theories you believe, not that he entirely believes any of them) and certainly won't hurt.

Channel:  exists!

Everyone:  feels at least a bit better!

And then it's time to go on.  Marcus says quick cheerful goodbyes to the people he knows here.  Argil waves to the group as they assemble to go out:  "Stay warm! Don't stop to count the vescavors!"

Marcus winds up riding alongside Ferrer for the second leg of the day; he's the shorter and stockier of the two Chelish soldiers, maybe pushing forty while Cambra is around Marcus's own age, and has a large ugly brand on one cheek that Marcus might or might not recognize.  When the wind is in the right direction to catch scraps of conversation from the next pair ahead of them, it sounds like Cambra is working on learning Osiriani, practicing stilted-sounding phrases with Khalida correcting his vowels occasionally. 

Marcus will be quiet for a while.  The Chelish men are generally quieter than he is, and sometimes you need to leave people space so they feel like they can have their own thoughts without you pushing them at every turn.

Then they can ride in, insofar as Ferrer is readable, a companionable silence.

It's not that Marcus is incapable of three hours of companionable silence.  But he will not have all that much time with these people, and he does want to get to know them, so he only lasts less than half an hour. 

"How long've you been at the Worldwound?"

"Going on, mm, seven years now."

"Could be worse," slight nod.  At least he got to have a life before the front, though it may not have been a good one and he probably shouldn't ask. 

"Did it change much?  Before last year, I mean. Or was it just years of always the same thing?"

"Snow an' bad food an' demons.  Only real difference is who's in charge of ye."

"Well.  Feels different now that the demons are gonna run out eventually.  I wasn't here for long enough before that to get used to how they just... weren't going to."  He wishes he had been, for all that it sounds like an awful thing to get used to.

"Huh.  If y'say so."

A surprised glance.  "Ah, which part?"

"The... feeling different?"  A mildly puzzled glance back at him.  "Maybe it's different on this front."

"Ohh."  His best guess was that Ferrer just didn't really believe the Worldwound was closed – a shocking concept which Marcus quickly realized wouldn't even be very unreasonable of him, given the situation, but would be so fraught to talk about – but it sounds like he simply doesn't feel it makes much difference.  It takes a moment's thought to see why he might feel that way.

"Or maybe I'm being a paladin again."  A rueful smile. "It's not that my life's any different now, really, it's that... I came here to do this, and so I feel better knowing that it'll get done.  And you did not," a glance at the brand, with no judgment in his expression, "particularly come here to do this."

"An' odds are I die here, whether it's done after or not."  (Yeah, he caught that glance.)  He doesn't seem at all bothered about this fact; his tone might be a tiny bit challenging, if anything.  "...less'n the new Queen gets real thorough with pardons, I suppose."

"I would think she will."  He sounds unselfconsciously confident about that one – it's the Good thing to do and the politically sensible one. 

"She has enough work cut out for her that I figure it'll take her a while to get to that, but if you've been here seven years, you may well hold on long enough."

"Not like I'm in a hurry.  And I'm at the only fort with two whole clerics left, besides."

"That you are!  I wonder what you all did, to get that lucky."

"Well, Artigas was different even before- everything."

"He would've had to be!  I can't imagine it's easy to hit Neutral as an Asmodean cleric.  I'm surprised it was allowed."

"I wouldn't know about any o' that.  ...the man breathes Law, though."

"I am so tempted to see if I can wrangle a reason to go up to your fort and meet him."

"You the healing kind of paladin?  That's a thing, yeah?"

"Not yet, sadly – and not soon, from what I hear of the Goddess's budget.  If I was, I'd hardly need more reason than that."

"Huh."  Ferrer contemplates this for a bit.

Marcus lets him think, in case it yields any words, but picks up the subject when it doesn't.  "Think it'd be some kind of disaster, if I went anyway?"

"Nah, folk're holding to the treaty."

"Yes, but..."  He's not sure how to explain it.  "I may Fall if I get angry and yell at someone, or enable something evil because it would've been hard to stop and I couldn't bring myself to put in the effort, or any of a dozen things like that.  I don't think it's against the treaty to put paladins in difficult situations."

"Huh.  Well, I don't know from paladins, but we've had'em come through before and they weren't Fallen when they left."

"...yell at someone?  Really?"

"Well.  If I willingly commit a single evil act.  There are ways to yell at someone that are certainly evil, and ways that I'm pretty sure aren't, and I am not exactly going to try it and find out where the line is.  But I know it's there somewhere."

Does Ferrer look like this makes any sense to him at all?  It'd be hard to blame him if it didn't.

He seems to be taking a while to digest it, but eventually says, "...always figured that was just rumor.  The single Evil act thing."

"Well.  I'd say maybe it is and it's just that nobody's told me," which would be wrong but admittedly funny, "but it's pretty clear in the Acts."

"Impressive there's paladins at all, really.  ...Artigas has a copy of the Acts, now.  Doesn't do sermons, though."

A rueful nod at the first comment. 

"Huh, why not?"

Shrug.

"Never did before, either, he made Ventura do 'em."

Yeah, that was a stupid question.  Chelish forts do not sound like places where you'd have enough personal conversations with your commander to know why he is or isn't doing something.

"Right, and back then everyone was required to be Asmodean so someone had to do the sermons, but now that's not how it works.  And maybe he wants to be very obvious about that."  Maybe because if he did start giving Iomedaean sermons, everyone would just relate to them the same way they probably did to the Asmodean ones... What an upsetting concept.

"Huh.  Maybe."  He sounds a bit unconvinced.

"They'll have sermons in the fort you're staying at, if you want to listen and see what you think?"

"Might do.  If we've got time, the Ch-Learned is in a hurry."

Ferrer's near-slip gets the beginning of a startled look and then a sheepish smile, and a nod at the rest of the sentence.  "I'd be curious to hear what you think, if you do end up having time."

"And, ah... People make mistakes, and Mendev isn't Lastwall.  Decent chance there'll be something wrong in whatever you hear.  Just so you know."  It's not so bad that he'd usually consider this a necessary warning, but the Chelish men seem very... inclined to assume they're not allowed to say even a word out of line, and never mind who decided what the line is.

(Oh.  Church politics.  Of course everywhere has it.)

Careful nod.  "We're back to Eleven once this is done with.  'M sure the commander'll hear the word from Lastwall."

Well.  He can't exactly stop people from being careful and nervous about something when they're already inclined that way, and shouldn't even if he could, so this is probably as good as he could've done here.  Slightly pensive encouraging smile.  "The Goddess chose him, he'll do fine."

And he'll wait to see if any more conversation materializes on the subject, though he doesn't expect so.  (A safe guess, that, with Cheliax.)

Yeah, Ferrer is definitely inclined to ride in silence rather than venture anything that might or might not be heresy.

Some silence would be fine, but Marcus would rather have it happen after a less fraught topic.  Surely he can find one if he keeps trying.

"What do you think you'd do if you did get pardoned?"

"Docks work, most likely."

"Sounds warmer and with fewer demons, at least."  Not that Marcus has ever done manual labor for money, but it doesn't sound like a bad life to him.  "D'you have a city picked out?"

"Nah.  ...y'really think she'll be handing out pardons for stuff what's a sin against Abadar, not just the old government?"