There he is, fielding Uncle Jacques' questions on the masonry styles of southern Thuvia. 

"Naima? What is it? Gods, did something else happen?" 

"No. ...yes. ...no. Can I talk to you outside?"

Right – she wouldn't want to be alone in a tent with two men. He doesn't see why Osirian women agree to live like this, personally, but then nobody asked him for his opinion. 

"Of course." 

She waits for him to get out of the tent.

- gods, now she has to talk to him, this is the worst, she's going to mess this up horribly, and - no, the alternative is trading her soul for her baby and then not even getting to keep the baby alive, okay, focus, she has a voice and she is going to use it.

"Do you happen to be married already," she says, after about three seconds of awkward silence, which is not really what she meant to say at all but, you know, we can't have everything.

What. 

"....I can't say that I am." 

"Okay. Well. 

"I have to marry someone. Today. I guess possibly tomorrow. My father in law wants custody of my child, which will kill the child, literally, he will die, and the only way to beat his right to it, legally speaking, is for the child to have a father, who could say no to it. I would ask someone else, but I am very sure that no one else within a ten mile radius is willing, and - " vague handwave. "Anyone else would make me stay here forever. The other option is, of course, the Inquisitor, which I did think about, but I'm afraid I would grow to despise him, and I think that he might despise me, too, so I think he's probably the worse option."

There. That's, uh, the information, although even she can tell that that's probably the most incompetent possible way to put it.

There are a lot of things Élie could say to that, but the one that actually comes out of his mouth is – "Yes. Of course. When do you need me?" 

He's only known Naima for a couple of months. Or – he's seen her before, of course, doing this or that in the village, but to be perfectly honest he'd never really bothered to learn who anyone was, in Mut, because learning their names might make it seem like he was planning to build something like a life there and that was just too exhausting to think about. He knows she's clever and determined and honestly a little bit scary, and that she has some sort of strange inexplicable talent she wants to use to change the world, which is a trait he admires in other people even if he's thoroughly lost it himself. 

More importantly, he knows she has a child who needs her. Élie has done some things he's proud of, and more for which he'll never forgive himself, but rarely anything so clear and clean and simple as "let the baby live." So that's it. It's simple. It's not like he was doing anything with his life anyway. 

She has ten minutes of arguments rattling around in her head already, and is so ready to launch into them that she almost trips and falls into the arguing before she can stop herself. "You - wait, really?"

"Yes. I'm not exactly – " he spends a moment trying to think of a word that encompasses sheer boggling unlikeliness of anyone voluntarily deciding to spend their life with him, and settles on "eligible. You know I'm not. So it's no trouble. I understand there are certain legal formalities associated with Osirian marriage, but rest assured I don't want to inconvenience you or lay any claim to your property. We'll live like – how do you say it? – like brother and sister. Whatever you need to keep the child."  

She blinks.

"I - okay. Thank you. Really. I just - I thought that would take more conversation, but - thank you."

"So it's settled, then!" A bit more brightly than he feels. "What should I do next, order my wedding clothes?"

"I don't, um - oh, let me think. Okay. I have to get my father to agree to it, which he never will, but I have a charm person today and I don't see that it harms him any. If I can - oh, if I do it in front of Saira she'll know I did it and it won't count - 

"Okay. I think - the charm lasts an hour. I can invite you to meet my father, charm him, you can ask him for permission to marry me and I can consent, and we can explain that we want to do it right away so that we can go on and report to the government tomorrow about the Lamasara situation, and then it's only a five-minute walk to where Saira's staying, so as long as the conversation doesn't drag it should work. If that's - if that's okay."

....okay on the one hand Élie is against mind control, but on the other hand he doesn't think people's fathers should get to decide who they marry, so probably this is fine? Whatever. He's committed. 

"Will you and the baby need a place to stay? I live alone and I'm not sure what's considered proper in this part of the world." 

"Oh, um, I think - I think the town's sort of still overrun with scorpions? I think - the last I heard we were heading back to Alexandria after this to inform the government about the Lamasarans, and I haven't - I haven't actually thought past that."

"I hadn't thought of it either. It looks like most of the Galtans are moving to Alexandria, so that's probably what I'll do. Of course, if you want to stay near your family – " 

"No, I'm fine going to Alexandria. - not that I never want to see them again but I think maybe I could do with a little bit of not seeing them, uh, immediately after this. If it's no trouble anyway."

"And is there anything I should know before I meet your father? What should I call him? Is there a dowry? Bride price? Am I supposed to bring a gift?" Because at the moment he doesn't exactly have anything on hand. 

"Oh right, argh, uh - you're supposed to have jewelry, nice jewelry, or, you know, nice enough that - I think everything else can be skipped but I don't know if he'll do it even charmed without the jewelry, because - um, it's, women don't own most property but they own their wedding jewelry, so it's, you know, supposed to show that you're rich enough to provide for them and also be enough to tide them over during any personal emergencies that happen for, uh, the rest of their lives - oh - "

She opens the flap to peek in the tent. "Um," - she can't call him 'Uncle Jacques' and she also can't just call him 'Jacques', probably, that sounds rude - "I'm sorry about the inconvenience but do you happen to have any, like, old Osirian jewelry that looks impressive but not so impressive that you wouldn't part with it, I can pay you for it."

"I also have my share of the reward money – gods, what even is there in this town – " 

At which point Jacques pops out of his tent with an enormous jasper and carnelian necklace. "Dear child, I'm not in the business of supplying young ladies! But I do have this set I bought off an antiques dealer in Alexandria, dreadful man, promised me they were genuine Ascension-era antiques and of course one one can't believe everything one hears but I have a colleague who spoke so highly of him – would you believe they're only 200 years old, practically costume jewelry! I'd part for it for no more than the cost of the stones and I wasn't really expecting even to get that in a town like this and prices being what they are these days..."

He is not, voluntarily, going to shut up. 

"It's perfect. How much would that be?"

He will let her have it for 10 gold pieces and another quarter-hour of complaining about unscrupulous antiques dealers. 

"I'm so sorry that happened to you. Has it happened at any other points, do you have any pieces that are comparably irrelevant to your interests - "

He has some turquoise earrings and an anklet that looks like a kind of misshapen snake! 

"Perfect. Thank you. I'd love those."

Élie is not totally sure how much this actually matters since obviously he doesn't want Naima's property, but this seems to be important to her??

"We can always get more jewelry in Alexandria after the wedding, if you like."

"Oh, it's, um, it's fine. It's not important. Just - want you to be able to demonstrate that you have them. And then when we get to the wedding you can give them to me."

She gives the money to Uncle Jacques and gives the jewelry to Élie.

And Elie can pocket the jewelry even though the necklace is frankly tacky and he is going to buy something nicer in Alexandria; even if it's not a real marriage Naima should have something that doesn't look like it came out of a tourist shop. 

The necklace has some big colorful rocks and some precious metals and those are the important things at this point, really.

She thanks Jacques and then - starts off towards the area of the camp where she last saw her family. 

"Okay. Do you - do you know what you're going to say or should we run through it or something, I'm not any good at these things but I guess basically you just want to - ask for permission to marry me and then assure him that you can and will provide for me and for Rahim and that you're a suitable husband and everything. You being Galtan I assume the biggest issue will be convincing him you don't intend to abandon us in three years. - you understand that Osirians do not divorce."

It occurs to her that maybe that was rude? But it's also true and important and she can't immediately think of a non-rude way to have put it.

Élie abruptly realizes that getting married means Naima is going to be stuck with him. 

"I – yes – I mean, if you want to marry someone else in three years I certainly wouldn't stop you." 

"I mean, everyone else would. But I think this is not really important. Or - I think as long as you think you can make sure Rahim doesn't starve if something happens to me - doesn't starve is too low a bar, but you know what I mean, I hope, that he's taken care of - that's the actually important thing and it's just, if you want my father to say yes, even charmed, then he has to think that you intend to stay with me forever, you know, because otherwise it wouldn't really be a marriage. If that makes sense."

"Can we talk about what stay with means?" 

" - we can but it's not actually - uh, if you want to leave in three years that's fine. Or in three months. Or immediately, I guess. As long as you'd see that Rahim was taken care of if I died or something happened to me. It's just - that's not going to be what my father wants for me."

"I meant, what if you meet someone in a year or three or five who you actually want to marry and have a life with? Of course right now the priority is protecting your son" – "actually, what do you want for Rahim if something happens to you? I'll be able to provide for him financially and see he gets regular healing, but I'm not sure I could raise a lawful neutral child" and dear gods is he getting ahead of himself. "Look, I'll say what I need to say to your father, but I want to understand what it is I'm agreeing to." 

"I, um - I'm not going to meet anyone. I'm a witch. I guess you're probably entitled to know. I'm a witch and a widow and I already have a child and no one is going to want me, I'm not really - eligible, I guess you said. We match. So there are no problems on that front." Not thinking about Tariq, not thinking about the stupid insane hope that she could have someday become wealthy enough to resurrect him, because that's so much money and just because she can make a lot more than she ever could before doesn't mean that she's ever going to have that much, no matter how many healing spells she sells.

"I think - I think that by marrying me you are agreeing to see to it that I and Rahim are materially provided for and that you can represent our interests to any, like, government officials, since I guess they have those in Alexandria - but this shouldn't be very inconvenient for you because I can in fact sell spells, although we might have to - set up an account where the money goes in and then a certain amount of it comes out to me each month, or something, if you didn't want to be there to handle it personally? And for Rahim - I think, just - don't let him die. Not before he's old enough to go somewhere and not waste away in the Boneyard. And beyond that - I don't know. Try not to aim him anywhere bad."

Élie desperately tries to remember how witches work. He has, actually, had a rather good magical education and he's sure this must have come up at some point during it but he's never met one. He's pretty sure they're arcane casters? It must have something to do with the unreasonable number of healing spells she can cast – do witches not have limited spells per day? – but if that was it he'd definitely remember – maybe it's just the healing? But she could still do so much with that. Also Élie is zoning out, ugh. 

"I'm not worried about money. If we go someplace with banking you can just get our own account and of course I'll help if you or the child need anything. I – I don't know that I would be an especially good father, but I think I could keep him alive." And give him a better life than he'd probably have in this town, he doesn't say. It's not a high bar. "If anything happens to you, of course, which I hope and expect it won't." 

"I kind of expect it will? But hopefully not soon enough to inconvenience you."

Well that's not concerning at all. ".....what kind of timescale are you thinking about, here?" 

"Oh, um, I'm sort of just working on the principle that nothing is free? So if something gives you magic powers then you can expect it to want something else from you later. But, uh, I can't actually narrow it down more than that."

"I don't know, sorcerers generally seem to do alright. Maybe witches are different. I – I don't actually know much about how witches work. What do you mean when you say something gave you your powers?" 

"Um, I had a dream? In which I was offered - the power the save Rahim. And I accepted it. And when I woke up I could - do the healing thing, heal any given person once a day. And I haven't found a limit to how many times a day I can do it. And a few other things - spells, obviously, and putting things to sleep." She's fidgeting. "I guess that's - really not a fair thing to just spring on you, is it. Uh. Is there anything else you need to, uh, to know? Before we talk to my father and turning back becomes, uh, possible, but rather more awkward?"

There's an enormous number of things Élie wants to know, but none of them are really relevant to the decisions he's making right now now are they. 

"Well, it sounds like there's a lot the both of us are going to have to learn about your kind of magic." Who's giving to her – how far it scales – if there's a way to replicate the effects – why it's so rare – 

Okay, he's excited, but saying that seems insensitive.  

"Yeah. Does that mean - it's okay - ?"

"It's okay. ...with the way things have been going, if some malevolent outsider shows up for your soul or whatever it is they want, I'd probably be involved anyway." 

"Yeah, I guess so." Kind of depends on the timescale, maybe, but - well, whatever. "Uh, sorry about almost forgetting to bring that up. Is there, uh, anything else you think you're going to kick yourself for not having asked about, later?"

"What a question. If I knew, I'd be asking you now – but no, actually, there is one thing. What do you want me to be to Rahim?" 

"His... father," she says, in the tone of voice of someone who is pretty sure this is actually a trick question. 

Élie has know that he wants kids since forever, and decided he was never going to have any of his own when he was twelve and realized that when they died they might go to Hell. 

"You and I might have very different ideas of what that means. I'm not sure I'd be very good at raising a child in the Osirian fashion."  

"I don't think fathers even really do much with babies? But after that - I guess it's - " uh, technically he's going to have absolute legal authority over him, so the question is kind of what he wants, and gods, this is really a lot of reliance on someone she's only known for a couple months who in fact does not have any of the same cultural context that she has, but it would be hard for it to go worse than consigning Rahim to the boneyard right now - "I guess we can figure it out. And, uh, if you don't actually want to be very involved in anything, that's, you know, fine."

"The boy deserves to have a father." 

"That's always ideal, yeah."

"We can talk about this more when he's safe and in your custody. But – if you want me to be father to him, well, you know I'm no Abadaran. Any child I raise will learn how to reason for himself and follow his own conscience. I won't interfere with the way you choose to raise him, if that's not what you want. But it is important to me."   

"I am not sure what about my present activities gives you the impression that I am not in the habit of reasoning for myself or following my own conscience. - uh. That was rude. I - don't actually need to have an argument about this right now."

Élie does not say that this might be related to the thing where her father-in-law is trying to take away her child with, apparently, the full support of the local legal establishment, because that would really be getting their marriage off on the wrong foot. 

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you weren't. But I've seen some of how the fathers in Mut are with their children, and – "

Naima is honestly fully aware that these things are related, at this point. She's going to think about what this means for her alignment... later. At a time that is not now.

"Well," she says, "I guess we'll have lots of time to figure out what we're doing." That's not really an answer, but she doesn't actually have any very good answers, here.

That's for sure. 

"Should we talk to your father now?" 

"...yeah, I guess it's not getting any earlier in the day."

Her family is, like all the others, camped out near a makeshift tent, which she can tell isn't going to be big enough to fit all of them. She whispers her spell under her breath without breaking her stride.

"Hi Dad," she says, getting the attention of an Osirian man who's probably in his fifties. "This is Élie, one of the people who was recruited by Inquisitor Shawil to investigate the scorpion attacks. We're going to alert the Osirian government in Alexandria about the situation and anticipate being needed for further, uh, stuff, later, so I thought that maybe he should talk to you now, and not later. He has something to ask you."

Wait, what?? He thought Naima was going to have this conversation. He doesn't know how to talk to middle-aged Osirian men! He doesn't think middle-aged Osirian men would want him marrying their daughters if they knew what his deal was, and frankly that's very stressful! 

"Naima and I are engaged," he says, because surely a short, simple statement of fact is best. 

Oh, right, yeah, that was the thing she thought that she might have to explain to him and then got repeatedly distracted from explaining to him. Really it should have been implied by the fact that they have to charm her father in order to obtain his consent, which is necessary to make the marriage legally valid, but in the end this is still pretty much on her.

          "You're what," demands her father, and she can't even tell if the charm worked or not, because honestly she feels like he would say that even if he was charmed.

" - okay, I think they must do this differently in Galt. Élie would like to marry me. I have spoken to the Inquisitor about it - " and blown him off contemptuously before today - "and he thinks it's a good idea, given that mothers should be married and very few people are going to be interested in marrying a spellcaster. Élie is a wizard, and it doesn't bother him. He's lived here for several years, you know, he's not a stranger. Obviously he's never tried to get married before, though, and I may have - accidentally misled him about the process, knowing that you'd want to see me married again, but obviously I'm aware that no arrangement can take place without your permission. Which is what he'd like to ask for."

She can't tell what her father is thinking because she's looking down, and not at him, lest she make it too obvious what exactly it is she's doing. She has absolutely no idea whether the charm successfully stuck. He's quiet for several seconds, and then -

          "Why do you want to marry my daughter, exactly. Élie."

"Yes. Your permission. I would like to ask for your permission to marry Naima." He thinks he's doing a very good job of not letting it show on his face that he thinks this whole procedure is uncivilized and degrading to the three of them. "Because – I've grown attached to her, and to Rahim, during our travels together. And, uh, one does meet so few female spellcasters in this part of the world, and I'd like to marry a woman who can collaborate in my work." Which is even true, if he thinks back to the part of his life where he'd thought about marrying at all. 

Oh man that's actually a good answer! See! Perfect.

          "Well," says her father. "I'd like to at least sit down to have dinner with you, first."

"There's no time," she says, even though this isn't directed to her. He is charmed, she thinks, he has to be, so hopefully this isn't a problem. "There's, um, we have to leave for Alexandria right away, as soon as possible? So that we can assist the church in correcting the scorpion problem. And I don't know how long that's going to take, but I think it's - more proper to avoid traveling for that long as an unmarried woman, right? So it would be better to do it now."

It dimly occurs to her that she could actually have just told the truth, here, that if her father is charmed - even if he isn't, actually, as long as he's calm - he'll want her to be able to keep the baby. Maybe she didn't have to charm him at all, then? Ugh, too late for that. She's just not used to being open and honest with her parents actually leading to anything she wants. 

Her father is staring at her.

"...also Tariq's father wants to claim custody of Rahim before we go," she says, belatedly, "And - he's so young, you know, he's too small to be separated from me for however long it would take to prepare a proper feast - which we can't do anyway, with the town overrun with scorpions - and - if I'm married then there's no ambiguity, see, between you and him. So if you're going to trust the inquisitor's judgement in the end anyway, then it would be better for everyone to just do it now."

          Somehow that works. Sort of. He doesn't exactly look overjoyed about it, but he nods. "Well. If that's how it is. You want to do it right now, then?"

"Yes. I would."

          "All right. Have you bought the jewelry yet?"

"I have." He takes it out and hopes it's not tacky enough to break the spell Naima's father is under. 

Honestly Naima's father looks mildly impressed, which is probably because unlike Uncle Jacques he can't tell that it wasn't actually dug out of a three thousand year old tomb. Although honestly the pieces are perfectly fine in their own right, for a farmer's daughter, it's not like Tariq's were any more objectively valuable.

          "Well, all right. I'll get your mother, and anyone else we can round up."

...right. Her mother. Who is not charmed. "Do you have to?"

          "Well, she has a right to see her own daughter get married, doesn't she?"

" - well," she says, lamely, "She already saw it once."

          Her father looks at her like she's mildly insane. It is not a new expression. "Wait here."

Great. Well. Okay. She'll wait here, then.

"Is there a reason you don't want your mother present?" 

....that's a stupid question. She's marrying the strange foreigner under duress and doesn't want to rub salt in the wound. 

"Well, she's not charmed. I like her fine, if that's what you're asking."

"Oh. ....Do we also need her permission?"

"Well, no, but - "

Somewhere off behind several tents, too far away to make out individual words, there's a loud conversation between a man and a woman that cannot quite be described as a screaming argument.

"She's not an idiot."

Well, Naima had to get it from somewhere. 

"Alright, then, thirty-second version, what does she want in a son-in-law?" 

"Um - going to provide for me and not run off, going to, uh, want to raise my son, appreciates me in particular on some level, not easily exasperated and therefore likely to put up with me for any length of time... keeps promises, respectful, oh wow I thought that was going to take them longer - "

Her father is returning with her mother in tow, a woman about a decade his junior.

     "There, you see," her father says when they get close enough, gesturing at Élie. "The scribe. He read the will for us when Tariq died."

"I see," says her mother, who is looking between Naima and Élie as if trying to determine which of them she needs to murder. (It's Naima. Naima kind of wishes that there were a good way to signal to her mother that it's not Élie, but that would kind of interfere with her other plans, here.)

Oh gods this woman looks like she wants to murder him. 

"Enchanted to make your acquaintance, Madame, uh –" 

"Farah," says her mother, icily.

" - okay, great, now we can go," says Naima.

          "We'd better round everyone else up," says her father.

          "I don't think that's necessary," says her mother.

"Yeah, I don't think we need to," says Naima, because after all she's the one who charmed him and he's probably more likely to listen to her? "Look, we can - come back and have a real celebration later, okay, but right now we need to get this done and head out to Alexandria to get the scorpion problem dealt with."

          "And this can't wait until after that," says her mother.

"No, mom, it can't. Let's just - go find Saira."

She's gonna turn and walk in the direction of the area where Saira was set up, last she saw, and hope that everyone else follows her without requiring any further explanations.

Élie is going to follow her and look very respectful and trustworthy and parentally-inclined and also insofar as is possible not like he's responsible for this situation! 

When they get to Saira's tent, her mother very calmly informs Saira that Naima's father is under a spell, as Naima probably could have predicted she would do, if she hadn't been so insistently barreling forward, in the hopes that momentum alone would be enough to make the plan go off without a hitch. Her father is offended, but Saira, of course, is aware of the conversation that Naima had with her not two hours ago, and she's known him for upwards of thirty years now, so she talks, and talks, no matter how how Naima tries to interrupt her, until the spell snaps on its own. Then Saira tries to talk him down from reacting, but even Saira's powers have their limits.

Her father slaps her. Only once, hard enough to bruise. It stings less than the words.

          "You just have no respect, do you. And no sense of self-preservation. It never enters your head that the rules might exist to protect you, to keep you from doing something so idiotic that only you would think of it - "

          "Abdul - " says her mother, plaintively.

          Her father shrugs her off. "You want to marry him? You think selling yourself to this Galtan will solve more problems than it causes? You are so confident in this that you would mind control your own father to allow it to happen this very day, rather than heeding any of the advice that I or your mother or the cleric might have given you if you had gone about this remotely honestly?"

Naima says nothing.

          "Well, fine. Marry him. It's none of my business, is it, because no daughter of mine could have made it to adulthood without even the slightest shred of common sense or decency. Belong to this adventurer and see how he treats you, I have no objections. Just don't come crying to me when it's not as you liked, and remember you traded the family that raised you away to have it. You are not my daughter, not after this."

"That counts," she says to Saira, eventually, when her father has stormed off.

Élie is thinking, first, that he really should have asked if charming Naima's father was absolutely necessary, if he hadn't been so willing to assume the worst of Osirian parents – although Naima does know him better than he does and he might just be being naive – second, that nobody's buying anyone, and, third, that he's really not that abysmal as a marriage prospect.

He also consider asking Naima if she's sure she wants to go through with this, but then he sees the look on her face and thinks better of it. 

          "Oh, Naima," says her mother, "he didn't mean that."

"He meant it enough for the law."

          "We can keep Rahim here, with us, until you're done working with the Inquisitor - "

"Mom, that's not any better, it's not like I think Tariq's family is going to smother him while he sleeps. He needs me. Even Saira can't do it, not realistically, not with the rest of the town to think about, too. And I'm - I'm not so callous as you seem to think I am. Maybe I shouldn't have charmed Dad. But I'm going to keep Rahim safe, however I can."

          "Then we can talk to the Inquisitor and get him to release you, and you can stay here and find someone in your own time. We'll talk to Tariq's father and - "

"His legal claim is stronger than mine, you know."

          "I'm sure he can be reasoned with."

"Well I'm not. And I'm not going to gamble on arguing this well enough to be allowed to keep Rahim whenever it comes up. I'm going to marry Élie and resolve the whole situation. I'm not going to let you argue me out of that, because a life hangs in the balance. You can stay for the ceremony if you want."

          Her mother says nothing to that, but she doesn't leave or try to stop her.

She turns back to Élie and speaks in Taldane, just so she doesn't have to think about how anything sounds to her mother. "Sorry about all of that."

Ordinarily he'd say it's not her fault – but that's not strictly true, is it? 

"You did what you had to do." 

" - yeah, I guess that's what it comes down to. Are you - " still doing this after seeing what a disaster this situation apparently is " - ready?"

Élie's opinion of Osirian parenting is already low enough that he's not actually too phased by this interaction. "If you are." 

Saira is going to want to check that he's aware of what the promises he's making are - that he will honor his wife, and protect her and provide for her and for her children, and be good to her and greet her with love. Also going to want to double check that he hasn't been charmed, though she doesn't have a spell for this and is going to have to do it by talking to him for a few minutes.

Not charmed! Pretty much knows what he's getting into! ...Would actually like some clarification on "greeting with love," since he really would prefer not to swear falsely, but since Osirion has arranged marriages presumably there are understood parameters for this. 

Saira can discuss the nature of love, if that's what's necessary. It's not best understood as a fleeting emotional state. It's a stable desire to prioritize the needs of another person, even when inconvenient. It often takes practice, but it is achievable with practice, even towards people who one has little natural interest in.

It is occurring to Élie that he's about to make a very serious commitment. 

He likes Naima. She's a good adventuring companion, and obviously a gifted healer. But he hasn't known her for very long, except as the prickly tailor who most of the villages' exiles prefer to hire because she speaks Taldane. Is he willing to make a lifelong commitment to protect her, and provide for her, and put her needs before his own? There's still a dying child on the line, so he's definitely going through with the ceremony. He could always just say the words without meaning them – he can't say he fully understands the situation he's in, but it probably counts as some form of duress – but Naima deserves better than that. Certainly, she deserves better than him. 

Alright. He'll do his best.

"I will honor my wife, and protect and provide for her and her children, and be good to her and greet her with love." 

          "And Naima? Do you remember everything you're promising?"

"I will be faithful to my husband, and take guidance from him, and obey him, and use his money wisely, and raise his children to honor him, and be good to him and greet him with love," she says, obviously by rote.

      "All right then," says Saira, sighing. "I hope it brings you more prosperity than pain, children."

wait, WHAT? 

"Sorry – can we back up a second – you don't have to promise to obey me. I would actually very much prefer you don't promise to obey me."

"That... is what women promise when they get married?"

"I didn't promise to obey you!" 

"Well, you're a man."

"I don't see what that should have to do with anything! I'm an adult, and you're an adult, and – and – who just swears to obey someone they're supposed to have an intimate relationship with? I mean, at least ostensibly – " oh gods this is so awkward – "I don't see how one could trust or respect someone after making a promise like that. Of course I won't hold you to it." 

Man, this is just a very weird conversation to be having immediately after - she's pretty sure - she just got married, in front of her mother and Saira, who are definitely now thinking that she's a lunatic married to another lunatic, if they weren't thinking that already, which they probably were.

"Uh, if it bothers you I would think you could just not... tell me to do things? I guess?" 

"You might have warned me first." 

She thought it was understood to be a part of how marriage works!! How else would it work!!

For some reason she doesn't really feel like arguing about this, though. She feels tired. And - kind of humiliated? Which is probably exactly what she deserves, for trying to pull a stunt like this, it's all working out to have exactly the abysmal effects on her reputation here that one might expect it to.

But Rahim is asleep in his sling, still, and nobody's going to be legally allowed to take him away now. Except Elie. Who she doesn't know that well, actually.

" - sorry," she says, because this seems like it is maybe the sort of conversation where the closest thing there is to a winning move is to shut up.

Whatever Élie thinks about it, Naima certainly seems to consider herself bound to obey him. Which means he's just going to have to watch everything he says to avoid the ghost of an implication that he might be giving her an order, for any reason, ever, because she might do it – and he can take her son away – and suddenly he feels very, very tired. 

He – likes to think he'd have agreed to the marriage anyway, of course. There's still a deathly ill child in the picture. In a similar vein, he likes to think the reason he's spent his entire adult life participating in various doomed rebellions is because he sincerely believes in the inherent freedom and dignity of persons, and not because the only thing in the world he truly wants is to just be able to say what he godsdamn means. Whole nations of people just live like this. He's never going to understand it. He wonders how Osirians make it to Axis as often as they do. He doesn't believe that mortals are inherently evil, as a matter of principle, but sometimes he wonders if they don't have an irrepressible grubby little need to rule or be ruled, which in either case is the first step on the road to Hell. 

"Don't worry about it," he says, because he can't think of anything else. 

"I'm going to go find the boat," she says, after a couple seconds, and then turns and does that before her mother or Saira or Elie or any other random person in this town can try to talk her into having any more conversations, because she's wising up again to the fact that having conversations is, generally, horrible.

It occurs to Élie, belatedly, that "don't worry about it" might be construed as an order. He is so bad at this. This is exactly why he doesn't want to be in a situation where another person's freedom and dignity depends on his ability to perfectly modulate his language! 

He's going to stay right where he is, since he gets the sense Naima doesn't want to be followed. 

She was actually kind of hoping he'd follow, then she would be able to talk to him without other people watching in an attempt to determine exactly how idiotic she's just been, but it's whatever, really, she doesn't entirely know what she would say to him anyway.

It does occur to her that 'don't worry about it' is in some sense an order. She could really annoyingly try to follow that order even though she is otherwise actually quite inclined to worry about it, but - Élie wouldn't actually want that, she doesn't think, so it wouldn't be being obedient in the way that matters. Obedience, as everyone has been trying to impress upon her since she was five or so and first demonstrated being too clever for her own good, is not about following precisely the literal words of instruction that you have received, and otherwise doing whatever you want. It's about doing what you're supposed to, following the guidance of those in authority over you, and doing what you expect that they would have you do, if they were available to give you more complete instructions. And Élie - she thinks, although she doesn't quite know - would probably have her worry as much as she thinks is at all useful.

When she reaches the river she sits down and stares out across it, until her baby wakes up, at which point she feeds him.

Her mother watches her leave, also getting the sense that she doesn't want to be followed.

"What will you do now?" she asks Élie.

That's an excellent question. He sighs. 

"Honor her, and protect and provide for her and her child, and be good to her, and make a good faith effort to greet her with love. If she wants to talk to me."

Élie is, as a matter of principle, not Lawful, which means he takes his promises extremely seriously. A perfect world would have no need for Law – merely Reason, by which all beings can determine the foundation of correct action. No binding constraints but those which which we establish for ourselves. Those are sacrosanct. Even if they start to look really awkward five minutes later. 

Something in the mother's expression softens, at that, even if it doesn't really answer the question at all.

"She's not usually angry for very long," she says. "I hope she can be happy with what she's chosen."

Élie notices, very belatedly, that he's still holding the tacky necklace. 

"Oh, no – I was supposed to give these to her, wasn't I? I'll go find her." 

"That would probably be for the best. Abadar be with you," she says, and looks only a little bit like she's trying to ignore something that smells slightly off.

Naima is sitting by the river nearish one of the river boats, nursing her baby and absentmindedly petting her familiar.

He should probably talk to her using words like an adult human being. 

....but he's going to sit down about ten feet away and look approachable like a young spineless jelly. Not that adult jellies have spines. Some of them are poisonous, though. Or corrosive. He's going to try to look like one of the non-poisonous ones. He thinks those are the yellowish ones, or possibly the green. If he's going to be adventuring regularly, he should probably know these things. 

Mentally cataloguing jellies is so much easier than figuring out how to talk to his wife. 

Oh hey it's Élie.

There's probably a much more correct way to say the thing she's been thinking, but she doesn't know what it is, so - "I wasn't trying to trick you. With the vows. I realize I have not come off as someone who's at all above tricking people into marrying me, but I wasn't. It just didn't occur to me as something that might be important."

Osirians. 

"I didn't think you were trying to trick me. ....I came to give you your jewelry. Here. I'm sorry, during the ceremony things – sort of got away from me." 

" - oh. Yeah. I guess I do want that."

He'll put it down so she can pick it up; it hasn't occurred to him yet that they're allowed to touch, now. 

"I suppose some kind of unexpected culture clash was bound to come up." 

"I guess so." She takes the necklace and the earrings, and puts them on. Normally the groom is supposed to put jewelry on his wife during the ceremony, but she supposes he probably wants to be done with ritual, so she should probably keep any feelings about having done it wrong to herself.

"Thank you again. For, ah. Marrying me."

He almost says it's nothing, but that would imply that he doesn't intend to honor his commitment. 'Don't mention it' sounds like an order. So – 

"I was thinking that we should set up in Alexandria. It's probably easier for everyone if we're not, ah, underfoot."  

"Yeah. That makes sense to me." She sounds gloomier about that than she means to; it really isn't gloomy at all, it's just that she still feels rather bitingly humiliated and that's seeping into everything else, apparently.

Oh, gods, what if she wants to stay in Mut and isn't going to tell him because he might or might not say something that could possibly be interpreted as an order. – On reflection, it doesn't seem likely that she would, what with Mut containing the family she's just mortally offended and the in-laws who want to steal her baby, but, hey, he's not a mind-reader. Well, not unless it's really very urgent. 

"If you want something different, I would prefer that you tell me. Though you're under no obligation to do so." 

" - no, I want to go to Alexandria. Not, like, to never see my family again, but to never see them for..... months."

"I think we can manage that easily enough." 

Nod.

"Do you have any further idea what you plan to do once you get there?"

"In the short term, that depends on what happens when we tell the powers that be about the scorpion plot. Afterwards, I – " 

He hasn't actually thought that far ahead. He could – what, sell spells, keep his head down, don't do anything with any material effect and just generally wait for death to take him? It's a little bit late for that. 

"I'll see. After the week we've had, I wouldn't want to make too many predictions." 

"That makes sense."

She is, actually, planning to sell spells and keep her head down, although she's not particularly feeling morbid enough to think about her eventual death, and also she's planning to round out the list by being a good wife and mother from here on out, even if everyone else seems weirdly convinced that she's not capable of doing this, even though she has done a perfectly passable job of it in the past.

At some point the inquisitor will be done with his business here, and they can start back down the river without waiting for dawn to occur.

The last time they were on a boat together, Élie slept on deck with the crew and the inquisitor while Naima and Catherine shared the cabin. It occurs to him that someone, possibly Naima, might be anticipating different arrangements. 

She might be, but if she is she's not saying anything about it. 

(She is, in fact, avoiding forming expectations about this particular situation, because she kind of has no idea what Élie thinks is going on with them, and it seems probably easier to just follow his lead about things that are not, actually, very important.)

....but this is her home and the people here recognize her, and recognize a bunch of new jewelry when they see it, and while it's really more likely that she obtained it while wandering around with the inquisitor, someone prepping the boat chooses to half-jokingly ask if she's gotten married recently, and then, well, she's never been very good at keeping her reactions from reaching her face, so now the crew they're picking up here knows about that. (And Catherine and the inquisitor will know soon, if they don't already.)

The crew doesn't even ask them whether they want to room together, after that, they just select a cramped little room for them and tell them that this one can be theirs.

"I hope you know I don't expect you to do – anything at all, really, and especially not with me. I can sleep on the deck, if it would make you more comfortable." 

"I don't care," she says, and then is pretty sure that sounds wrong. "I mean - I don't mind either way." Although she's not entirely sure how they're going to - well, it's probably just barely possible for one person to take the floor in this room, if that's what he ends up set on. She's not actually clear on what he's expecting, here. - well, actually, he just said that he's not expecting anything, and that's going to be a bit awkward, if they're both determinedly not setting any expectations about their relationship and therefore ending up with very little knowledge of however that relationship is actually shaped. That's sort of a way of just totally declining to shape it at all, if you think about it, which seems like it might possibly be bad, leaving the shape of something like that up to chance and people's whims.

She is not really sure what to do about that. It probably requires talking. She's so bad at talking.

"It does seem like it might eventually cause problems if we're both determinedly not setting any expectations. I'm not sure that's something to tackle before we figure out who's sleeping where, just, noting that as something to think about later."

Élie thinks he's trying very hard to communicate that Naima can really just live her life now without reference to what any of his expectations might be. 

"I expect that you will want to set up in Alexandria, and sell healing spells, and raise your son. Which you really should be allowed to do without my participation – anyway. I intend to honor my vows. I'll provide any assistance you need. Beyond that – well, I expect us to be friends, if we can. 

Okay she really genuinely meant that they shouldn't have this conversation right now! Maybe she should have worded that recommendation more strongly? Whatever. 

"Where do you think it would be most convenient for you, personally, to sleep tonight."

Élie's not the one with a cultural prohibition against existing in the near vicinity of opposite-sex adults until marriage! But he suspects if he punts this question any further they'll be having the conversation all night. 

"The floor is fine." 

It doesn't look very fine to her, but then she's not the one being asked, so. She nods.

It's pretty usual to sleep naked, in Osirion, or at least in her part of Osirion, but she mostly hasn't been doing that over the course of the last month, since they've been doing crazy adventuring things and occasionally getting attacked by scorpions and spiders at night. She's going to pretend that people normally sleep in their normal clothes, or possibly that she's doing that because she isn't entirely sure they're not going to be attacked by Thuvians in the middle of the night. One of those. She probably doesn't have to specify which, she just has to act like this is the obvious normal thing to do, even though it isn't, and even though there isn't really call to care, because if Élie did want to have sex with her it's not like she would refuse, or even particularly mind, or even mind at all, necessarily, given that he's theoretically her husband even if it doesn't quite exactly feel like that, probably because she first conceived the idea of marrying him less than twelve hours ago. It might be less than six.

Whatever. She'll take the bed and not do anything that'll make it harder to respond to a fight in the middle of the night. Rahim can sleep beside her, safe between her body and the wall of the ship.

Élie is still half-assuming that Naima doesn't mean to treat this like a real marriage, obviously. Whatever else happened today, at least the child is safe. As for the rest of it – well, he should probably think about it at some point. But he's awfully tired. The floor of the cabin really isn't so bad. 

Rahim wakes up only once in the middle of the night. He doesn't do that every night, anymore - he's getting close to a year old - but he wakes up tonight. She sleepily nurses him back to sleep, and manages to make it through a few minutes of aimless thinking before it occurs to her to wonder whether he's woken up Élie and whether she needs to do anything about that.

He has woken up Élie, who is doing his level best to lie very still and look like he wasn't about to cast magic missile at a nonexistent intruder! He's not getting his spells back, is he?

Well, it's dark, so if he's not being obvious about being awake, she'll count herself lucky, nurse the baby back to sleep while only half-awake herself, and then settle down again and go back to sleep.

She has no trouble getting her spells back in the morning, although after that she does have absolutely no idea whether she's going to manage to change clothes at any point during this trip, or whether it's kind of uncalled for to be thinking this much about the logistics there and not just going for the obvious - 

Actually this is dumb. Is Élie awake by the time she finishes communing?

Yes, but he's gone out to prepare his own spells on the deck. ....no such luck. 

Well, in that case, might as well solve her problem while she's been given an obvious solution! She can change her clothes and brush her hair and try not to think about what she's going to do if he walks in in the middle of this process. Not that that should actually be a problem at all, it's just that it seems like it might end up being kind of awkward anyway.

If no one interrupts her, she'll nurse Rahim again, and if no one interrupts that, she'll put him in his sling and see if there's anything around to eat.

There's bread. It's ...edible. 

"Naima!," he says when he sees her. "Have you had breakfast yet? We're lucky, I don't think this can be more than three months old." 

Oh good, they're speaking. ...she's not sure why they wouldn't be speaking, actually, but somehow it's kind of a relief anyway.

"Not yet, just finished getting Rahim his. I guess it's fine as long as it gets us to Alexandria." She thinks it's just stale, not actually dangerous, so she'll do her best to eat it and avoid directing any complaints in this particular direction.

chomp chomp this sure does contain calories. "I saw the captain earlier, apparently we're stopping in the next village for supplies. They were expecting to restock at Mut, but obviously that didn't work out." 

"Oh, that makes sense. I hope they're not all overrun by scorpions."

It transpires that the villages are not, in fact, all overrun by scorpions, although Mut isn't at all the only place along the river that's been hit. Naima still has most of the money she earned the last time they were in Alexandria, and she figures it's enough that she doesn't particularly need to worry about the cost of enough extra food to avoid having to worry about whatever the rest of the crew considers food. Does Élie have anything he wants her to buy, while she's buying stuff anyway?

Élie has never gotten the hang of the way Osirians haggle and is appropriately grateful to give her his list. " – just a minute, I'll write all that down for you" 

"There's not much point, I couldn't read it. I'll remember it."

"Oh."

Élie is sort of abstractly aware that most Osirians are illiterate, in that they keep asking him to write out their wills and certificates of birth and marriage. Naima's different, though, Naima's clever. It seems to him that  intelligent people ought to wake up one day with the ability to read like mushrooms popping up after a rain; certainly he can't remember not knowing. 

"...what's that like?"

"Uh, well, what's it like when someone says something in a language you don't know? I know that there's a language there, but I wouldn't know how to tell what's being said in it. Or written."

Well that's no way for a person to live. 

"I'll – do you want me to teach you?"

" - um, sure."

That sounds painfully disinterested, a half-second later, but it takes that half-second for the offer to catch up with the parts of her that think about things, which don't often seem to include the part that determines what words first come out of her mouth. She would like to learn to read. She would very much like to learn to read, more than she wanted to learn Taldane, which she picked up very determinedly in bits and pieces, listening to Galtan refugees having exchanges in front of her without any thought to whether she could understand them. And - it's not accurate to say that she's never been taught anything, Saira gives instruction on the teachings of Abadar to children and adults alike, and Naima has always been very diligent in her attendance, but -

It feels a bit like how it felt when he immediately said yes after being asked to marry her. The sort of thing one should have had to wring out of someone, with clever arguments or hard work or repeated rounds of bargaining, and which instead is just being handed to her, like he's not even aware that the thing is an unreasonable gift.

She should probably say something about any of that, but the words aren't really helpfully untangling themselves for her.

Élie just wants to get this problem solved as quickly as possible. What in the world is this society doing with itself. Even Cheliax gets this one right and the idea that anything about Chelish pedagogy might be admirable offends him personally.  It's one thing to spend one's life trapped in a little village like Mut and quite another to spend it – really trapped, in mind as well as in body, with no way of knowing any other kid of life except what passes by on the riverboats or with the refugees from Galt. Especially if for strange, lonely, difficult children, as Élie is starting to suspect Naima must have been. He was. The day he found a stained leaf of Hosetter's Imperial Betrayal tucked underneath the endpaper of a vanished's classmate's history book was when that loneliness became bearable. 

"If you don't mind, I'd like to start right away." 

" - okay. Before or after the shopping trip?"

Right! That was going to happen. "As you like. I'm not very particular about food, anyway." 

"Well, I'm not very particular about food, but reading does sound easier to do while the boat is moving."

"In that case I'll start preparing a lesson." He's never taught an adult to read before. He's never actually taught anyone to read before. One generally starts with letters, right? 

"Okay. Well, uh, thank you."

She's practical about buying precisely what she needs, and doesn't dawdle; the last thing she wants is to leave the river boat waiting on her, or, gods forbid, be forgotten in town. The walking takes a bit of time, but she's back inside an hour.

He has prepared a primer. It has all the letters of the alphabet in written in neat Taldane, and followed by all the letters of the alphabet in Osirian, followed by the ligatures and alternate letterforms crammed into the margins because he remembered those existed somewhere in the middle and the boat didn't have a lot by way of loose paper. 

Naima will return to their room and pack the food neatly away in a bag somewhere. Then she can... sit on the bed, since there aren't a lot of other places to sit in this room. 

She feels like she ought to say something, but she doesn't know what it is, so she defaults to silence, since that's usually less wrong than saying the wrong thing at an important time. Someone having offered to teach you to read is definitely an important time.

After a few minutes, Élie walks in. 

"I was thinking we might start with the Osirian alphabet, since that's your native tongue, but the Taldane alphabet is simpler, so – your choice."  

"Um - I'd like to learn both?"

"But is there one you'd like to learn first?"

"Uh... whatever they have books in in Alexandria, I guess. Which is probably Osirian, though I haven't exactly checked."

"Probably." Which means he has to show her the ugly primer. "We can start with the consonants, then. This is alif – " 

Naima doesn't know any letters! She will stare at them and try very hard to remember which ones are called what, though.

As long as Naima doesn't look too overtly confused, Élie will barrel on! Osirian letters are written like this, and they make these sounds, and to give them voice one adds some of these little dots, like so. 

She doesn't think she's confused! She certainly hasn't immediately picked all of that up, but she's focusing on it and trying to remember as much as she can. She doesn't repeat after him or say anything or really otherwise respond at all, besides watching and listening.

"Got all that?" 

And then, as he catches himself – "I don't expect you to have them all memorized yet. At this point in my education I think I copied it all out about two hundred times, but I was five years old and found it unbearably dull even then."  

"But you knew it all, at the end of that?"

"Oh, I knew it before, but we all had to do it just the same." 

"Oh," she says, like she understands, even though she doesn't. "So how did you learn it?"

"Oh, I suppose my parents must have taught me. There was this one book – I couldn't tell you what it was or who wrote it, but it was covered in green leather with the letters raised – and I remember staring it for hours and being furious I couldn't understand what it said. And then suddenly I could! Of course it couldn't have happened that way – " and at this point it occurs to him he's not exactly answering Naima's question – "but the copying seemed to work well enough. In the general case." 

Nod. "Is there any paper around, or should I plan to buy more in Alexandria?"

"I have paper, here – do you know how to use a pen?"

Of course there would be a trick to it, there's a trick to using anything. "Not in the sense of having done it before."

Then he can demonstrate. "There's really not much to it. Don't worry if you spill at first, everyone does. It's easier when one's not on a boat." 

Naima approaches this task with intense focus. She gets the ink into the pen, but also a few drops in some places she didn't mean to. She very carefully tries to copy Élie's letters exactly, holding the pen in a pincer grip between her thumb and her fingers. It's not that bad, for a first try, probably because she doesn't actually have the fine motor control of a six-year-old. On the other hand, she's very slow, and her letters look off-balance in a way that nobody who'd been writing for years would ever form them.

"You should see my handwriting when I'm not trying to set a good example." 

- so it's bad. That's to be expected. "Which parts are wrong?"

– he's an idiot, of course she'd be insulted, he should have kept his stupid mouth shut. 

"Nothing – it's fine – I mean, there's nothing incorrect. A little uneven, maybe, but that's to be expected, and it doesn't much matter as long as it's comprehensible." Gods, he sounds like a babbling ape. "Would you like to practice more, or shall we proceed to the ligatures?" 

So... it is bad, but he's bizarrely reluctant to tell her that she didn't get it perfect on the first try, and not going to tell her what parts make it look like a beginner's work. Well, she can learn it from careful observation, if that's how it is, there's probably something else going on here that she's not getting.

"Whatever's more convenient for you."

"Neither – I mean, I want you to learn at whatever pace you think best."

Why is he so focused on her! Doesn't he have things to do? - well, plausibly not, actually, they're on a boat and he may not have brought anything to spend all his waking hours on, but -

"I don't want this to become inconvenient for you," she tries again, even though she's pretty sure that's wrong.

"I want you to learn to read. The most convenient thing would be for you to tell me how you learn best and what kinds of help you need." 

How does she learn best.

Doesn't everybody learn things about the same way, really? You have to watch, and you have to do, and with complicated things that can't be directly observed - she doesn't think writing is the right sort of complicated thing - sometimes people also need to explain some parts to you, all of which Élie is doing. Within that, people catch on faster or slower; some are smart, and some are stupid; some are inattentive and lazy and some are focused and diligent. She thinks of herself as smart and focused and diligent, but - oh, maybe that's what he's asking, whether to expect her to be quick or slow at learning?

"I can handle more."

"Alright, then. Keleshite letters – sorry, Osirian, it's the same system – look different depending on whether they appear at the beginning or middle or end of a word." He'll demonstrate.  

She watches very carefully, tries to absorb it all at once, and does not ask questions.

"..it took me a long time to get all this straight. It'll be easier when you're more used to reading. Here, I prepared some sample sentences – " 

They're simple, the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a children's primer. "The dog chases the cat," "The tailor lives in the green house," "The people rise up against the wicked king." 

She stares at the sentences with intense focus, and, again, doesn't say anything.

Having only been seriously exposed to the Osirian writing system... once, or so, she cannot actually remember how the sounds match the symbols well enough to make any real sense of them.

"Do you need more time? We can go over the sounds again."

Unlike the writing, this, she supposes, she really can't practice alone. 

"Hearing it again would be helpful."

Then he'll repeat them again! If he's disappointed in her for being a slow student, there's really no indication of it. 

She doesn't think that a normal person can memorize that many pieces of information in one go - or two goes - which does make offering her the sentences a bit weird. (It doesn't occur to her for a second that she might be meant to do the exercise incompletely, picking out the parts she can without being able to so much as imperfectly stumble through the entire exercise.)

How do you learn to do anything else. By watching someone who knows how to do it. And then trying, of course, but once you can do it, however imperfectly.

"I think it might be useful to hear you read some sentences, if we're going to work on sentences," she says, after a couple more minutes of staring at the samples.

"Oh – of course." It's occurred to Élie that he's probably doing something wrong. Unfortunately, he barely remembers learning how to read, and he's entirely certain that he wouldn't want to replicate it. He'll read the sentences, slowly, enunciating as clearly as he can and indicating the letters as he goes. 

In the last twenty minutes, she apparently has picked up enough familiarity with the letters that this no longer parses as a kind of mundane magic; she can see the which parts of many of the words correspond to the sounds, though not all of them.

"Could I watch you read some more?"

"Of course!" At this point he's run out of sentences and can pull out an actual book. "I do apologize, it's fairly dry, I borrowed it from Jacques and he only owns books on Ancient Osirian brick-making, but there weren't too many alternatives in Mut." 

"Ancient Osirian brick-making is perfectly fine."

Then he can (slowly, carefully) read aloud on the subject of Ancient Osirian brick-making! 

Is Naima going to interrupt him with any questions? 

Nope!! But she's going to stare at the page over his shoulder very, very intently.

....at some point Élie is going to get genuinely enthusiastic about the subject of Ancient Osirian brick-making and speed up a bit. 

Still staring very intently! In some parts she can almost follow along for multiple entire words!