This is the exhausted sigh of an Arodenite who has had this conversation roughly thirty times today alone. "In two hundred-odd years a dryad will be born from this specific tree and when she's ninety will invent... some kind of... magically significant flower. Apparently." 

That's nice he guesses. In three hundred years if they do their jobs properly their grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren will have the luxury of caring about that. However, uh.

"And, General, with respect, I will shut up and stand here for the next six days or for that matter the next six months if you tell me that this is a matter of  great import to our military strategy for secret reasons but in the event you can possibly tell me, why?" 

Siiiighhhhh. 

"Well, you see, it's assign you or the bloody entire archmage assigns herself. ApPARENTLY."

Look, she listens to the paladins when it's really important, you can't have everything. 

Does she, though!!! 

No, that's not fair, he's heard about what she was like at first circle. Apparently when she first arrived in Avistan her adventuring party's paladin had to explain to her that skeletons aren't the same person as they were when they were alive. Because she kept trying to rescue them from being killed.

And for that matter just a couple years ago they had to talk her down from animating a skeletal dragon on grounds that it was an evil dragon and someone had to find her a regular dragon to gift the livery she personally wove for the evil skeleton dragon because her theory was that the problem they had with this plan was that it might be scary looking.

But she did, you know, actually not do that latter thing because they asked her not to. And really, compared to staggeringly ill advised dragon necromancy, prophecy-backed predictions about magic flowers are positively reasonable. 

He is still so exhausted, though. Why are wizards. 

Marshall's exhaustion is blessedly smaller, as he mostly only has to deal with the wizards assigned to his company and they are, modulo the inevitable nature of wizards, mostly good soldiers. Nevertheless, he nods sympathetically. "Understood." 

(approximately 32 years earlier, about 4 years after the launch of the Shining Crusade) 

.

The Crusade won't start taking women as soldiers until they've had Iomedae a much longer time than this, but it's always taken wizards whatever their gender.

Technically Avaryne is not a wizard. (Some winter witches like to believe they're just the same-- they're not sorcerers! they prepare spells, they do academic research, their spells become more powerful with Fox's Cunning-- but she is not in the habit of sticking her head in the snowdrifts and pretending her power is not fundamentally contingent on the sufferance of the Baba Yaga.) But she says so honestly, when she requests an enlistment contract for a five-year tour under the usual terms for wizards of at least 3rd circle, and she swears under Truthtelling that she is reasonably certain she's not any more of a security risk than anyone else not proof against a Dominate; if the Baba Yaga (or, more likely, the Queen) orders her to betray her fellow soldiers for some reason, using normal threats, she will simply die in the process of saying no. 

"...you're aware you're Chaotic Evil, right?" the recruitment officer is obliged by his brand new policy handbook to say, because they do have people checking for that, and apparently one of the hotshot paladins has some kind of theory about the thing where paladins sometimes Fall if you make them do this job being caused by it being Evil to materially mislead people about their risk profile. 

"I think I might detect away from my own alignment the way a cleric does, actually, but--" 

"If you were something else I'd see both, at third circle," says the wizard who was on Aura Sighting Everyone In The Queue duty earlier, is out of spell slots not allocated to emergency response, and has been hanging out interestedly because interviews with prospective new crusade wizards are slightly more interesting than whatever stultifyingly boring dart game his corresponding martials are up to at the moment and the recruitment guy hates trying to answer spellcraft questions. "You see it sometimes around the Good-Neutral and Chaos-Neutral boundaries. Arodenite paladins around when they start getting spells ping Lawful from Him and Good from themselves, there's clerics of Sarenrae who ping Chaotic, I met a Norgorberite once who pinged for both Good and Evil and like he was probably lying but he heroically sacrificed himself to save a whole squad of guys so I'm not totally sure he wasn't just a really weird type of cleric..." 

Ow. 

"...fair enough, but what I was going to say was it's irrelevant to what risks I'm willing to take because there's nothing I at all can do about it. Me specifically, I mean, I promise I fully understand it matters for most people." At the raised-eyebrow invitation to elaborate, she continues, "My understanding is it's like-- well, take Nidal, right. Kuthites don't go to Hell no matter how Lawful Evil they are or aren't, they go to Xovaikain. I don't know where my great-aunt went when the Old Crone came to collect but I don't think her alignment mattered to the fact that it was neither the Abyss nor Heaven." 

She checked. The church of Nethys will sell you time with a crystal ball cheaper than the Abadarans will if you reliably tell them interesting facts while you're doing it. 

Alarmed blinking. Her Truthtelling symbol hasn't wavered. "My condolences?" 

"Thank you. Did you have any other questions?" 

Rifle rifle rifle through the pages. "Most wizards of Evil alignment who profess to be unmoved by fear of the Evil afterlives turn out to have been secretly plotting to become liches." Taldor fights a lot of wars and they have a lot of data about it. "Are you able to affirm that you have no such intentions?" 

"...most?" 

It keeps happening!!! No, he doesn't know why either!!!! 

He keeps his face neutrally professional. "So I am told." 

            "It's like ninety-five percent," says the Aura Sight wizard, helpfully. He's seen quite a lot of the post-horrific-emergency writeups for the number of times the Taldane armies have had this problem; he's Lawful Good, they let you read some of the forbidden lich facts if you can walk into the Forbiddance they're stored in and affirm you only want them in order to get better at fighting liches. "We're not even really going to believe you if you say no but we gotta ask, it goes in your file." 

"............are... are most wizards really stupid?" 

That's in no way an adequate affirmation. "Please answer the question." 

"I solemnly affirm that I have no intention of becoming a lich. Because that's stupid." 

Snort. "So noted." 

Sympathetic wry grin. "Any other questions on the list you only ask Evil people?" 

She'll answer all of them without difficulty. She might be Evil but she really does sincerely just want to join the crusade because it's a good way to circle up and save the world and maybe get to spend a little time around some nice Good-aligned people before she dies. 

Also, she can cast augury without material components once a day and she thinks the same principle ought to apply to divination if she can get to 4th. You know, if that's strategically relevant to whether they find her useful. 

Yep yeah here's her contract to sign they'll get her an assignment in the morning. Probably one of the cavalry divisions; they're short on wizards competent to ride a regular non-magical horse. 

"Good morning. Wizard Avaryne?" says someone, approaching her at the rally point for the division she's been assigned to. He's young enough that his being remotely in charge of anything is principally explained by the expensive plate and the entitlement to heraldry rather than anything about him personally, but the soldiers seem relatively non-sarcastic with their respectful nods as he passes, so he might also actually be at least a little competent. 

"If that's just what the rank is called, yes. You're the tourmarch, I presume?" 

"...oh, no, I'm his deputy," give him like two years, though, "you don't report to me," he is in no way making any type of facial expression that implies anything about the impact of this fact on whether he's allowed to flirt with her but he's kind of thinking it, "we both report to him. Marshall Patricks, of Phoenicia, at your service." He doesn't have a title yet, his father is still alive, but he says it in the very recognizable casually proprietary tone of someone who considers the place he's of to be a place that is his. "'Wizard' is not a rank, it's a form of polite address." 

"Ah. Technically I'm not a wizard." 

"You've got a wizard contract and, respectfully, every single person I've ever heard use the word 'technically' like that is a wizard." 

He's known some song-sorcerers to do it too but it's different. They say it like they're about to tell you a cool fact and it has not once ever in their lives occurred to them that anyone else might not be interested in every single cool fact they've ever heard. 

"...admittedly you sound slightly less like you're correcting me because I'm very stupid than the average war-wizard does, which I must say I appreciate," he adds, wryly. 

That gets a startled giggle. "Okay, yes, guilty as charged, certainly I am an academic. It's a different spell tradition, though. ... which I will not tell you about in detail unless you actually want to hear about it?" 

Hm.

...

...

Arguments against: foreign, Evil, objectively less Splendour than most of the serious candidates he's been introduced to at parties which probably reduces sorcery chance, wizards aren't known to be very enthusiastic about retiring to raise children, his father will be furious. 

Arguments for: deliberately defected from the white witches of Irrisen to come fight Tar-Baphon instead, passed all the security checks they obviously ran on her about that backstory, not immediately gratingly annoying, his father will be furious, and also he kind of wants to follow her around looking at her like she's a painting. Which is probably not because he's enchanted, see again items 1 and 2. 

...

...

"...I would actually love to hear about it over dinner sometime?" 

(sometime in the next few years...) 

The Farseer (the soldiers of their company have started calling her that instead of Wizard, as it is more technically correct which is the best kind of correct according to Wizards, and they are willing to indulge their Wizard when nearly all of them has each personally experienced having the crushing realization that they're about to die of being gutted/shot/lifedrained/etcetera in the next two seconds and then waking up stabilized because she just so happened to be standing exactly right next to them in particular) is staring into the middle distance, apparently ignoring her surroundings.

This is basically normal behavior, so no one is particularly alarmed by it, but they're all keeping a bit of an extra eye, because sometimes she surfaces from witchtrance and says something terrifying like 'eight seconds to fireball strike on our position, hands on me for resist energy' and they all have to move right quick. 

They're formed up with the main body of the army today, moving slowly into position for some grand strategic objective no one within several rank steps is cleared to know anything about.

Marshall probably knows (for values of "know" including "guessed from ambient context, using witchcraft intuitive understanding of how armies work"), but he's relatedly very scrupulous these days about not speculating aloud after the incident with almost getting court-martialed over his information state closely resembling the results of espionage.

Avaryne, who has been done casting for hours, finishes quietly counting time from the last bell, and says loudly, "jump in two," causing most everyone around her to snap to attention. 

(Her hour-long trance yesterday was about what spells to prepare this morning. 

The one she cast earlier today was about when.) 

Marshall nods briskly, pulls a wand[1] from his belt, and taps the cleric of Aroden standing next to him with it. 

[1] Precise nature of generic buff stack intentionally ambiguous. They are doing whatever makes sense in accordance with strategically efficient use of budget. 

"What?" says the cleric, who was assigned to them last week and had been a cleric for about two days before that. He doesn't see any signs of a fight starting. "Aren't we supposed to wait until confirmed engagem--" 

"Round buffs, now." 

Okay, sure, if the wizard and the deputy are on the same page it's somebody else's problem whether this strategically indicated. He starts casting.

Marshall taps himself as well, puts the wand away, and settles his lance back into position. 

A half-dozen soldiers, the ones immediately to the left of the cleric, are visited by the by-now-familiar sensation of knowing extremely and precisely where they should be standing; they all brace themselves. 

A gargoyle swoops out of the darkness, aiming for the baby cleric, about eleven seconds after Avaryne's announcement.

(It's quite difficult to run an army and treat the identities of your clerics as classified strategic information, and if you are Tar-Baphon, naturally it is useful to you to make sure Aroden sees every potential new cleric as having a high chance of immediately dying and wasting the budget, but not so high a chance he just stops doing it instead of spending budget at a painful actuarial surcharge!) 

At twelve seconds, the gargoyle is midair several feet from its target.

The prewarned martials all smoothly sidestep out of the way. 

A magical spear of ice bursts from the ground directly into their unwise ambusher, crunching through stone skin like it's ordinary flesh.

It hits the ground, squawking in annoyed offense, but it is not some poor infantry that is completely disabled by a grease or wizard whose concentration can be disrupted[2], it can just jump right back into the air and-- 

[2] In the modern era, of course, Fly is not a concentration spell. However, this not yet being true explains why Iomedae's Third Act (currently scheduled for a few years in the future) will involve riding a griffon when she certainly has access at that level to commonly used 3rd circle arcane buffs.

Did somebody say 'take a move action through the threat range of this x3-critical reach weapon'? 

Decidedly unmurdered and suddenly feeling like he deeply understands why these guys all love their Wizard, the young cleric looks around him at the undead swarming, takes up his shiny new silvered sword, and plunges into the fray. 

Whenever they can spare the time, Crusade officers do an activity somewhere between classes and drills where the wizards take turns minor illusioning images of their most notable enemies at various distances. It's not archery practice, really, though some of them do shoot arrows at the images while they're at it. It's recognition practice: how many seconds does it take you, at six hundred yards, to recognize Malyas, or Erum-Hel, or the Whispering Tyrant himself? It matters, not because it will actually help to shoot them, but because if you're three seconds faster you might get your people thirty feet further away before some sort of horrific nonsense occurs, and sometimes that saves some of them, if you're lucky and the enemy's actual goal is something else nearby.

They do it in various lighting conditions, with assorted variations in colors of cloak, in various--

"Wait, wait, hang on, does he always have that?"

"What?" says the illusionist, pausing in the middle of the dancing lights he was about to grade everyone on their reaction times against sudden mirrored blinding with.

"The mirrors! This guy just wears those?? All the time???"

"............the Mirrorgrave? Yes, that's his whole deal, they make him unkillable, did you miss that lecture series?"

"Miiight've been the week I was in medical with half my arm off. Sorry sorry, carry on, I shouldn't interrupt, I'll just..." gesture at the facial sketch artist who runs those classes. Scurry scurry. "Hey so quick question--"

SHE CAN WHAT

(some time later)

ONE OF THE CRUSADE WIZARDS CAN W H A T

(some additional drama occurs which is outside the scope of this thread) 

"...archmage! Ma'am!" Avaryne scrambles into attention from her relaxed and slightly undignified position of half-sitting half-leaning on Marshall's shoulder (unlike a rock, tree, fallen log, poorly maintained wooden camp chair, the literal ground, etcetera, enchanted steel is a surface that will basically never inflict dirt upon her clothes). 

(He's up a half-second behind her off the log he was sitting on, automatically combing a hand through his hair to be sure it's something resembling presentable.) 

Some of the higher-level Crusade wizards wince at you when you act like they're terrifying even though it is objectively true that they are terrifying. Rowan smiles briefly like she's just been complimented on her outfit (which is very impressive; she glitters with multicolored spellsilver embroidery, which rumor has it she makes herself), and then sobers. "I have orders for you. You're not going to like them." 

..... is this going to be like the prophecy tree again. That was such a weird week. They had to fight a bunch of creepy flaming not-dryads and, like, it sure helps to have an ice witch for that sort of thing but why is that even a thing. Ghouls and vampires and so on are terrible but they have a basically straightforward cause (urgathoa, may she someday fuck off) and a straightforward solution (stab).

Marshall is not being directly addressed and so he will stand attentively and not say Any things. 

"....yes ma'am I will do my best anyway?" 

Sigh. "How much do you know about Abadarans?" 

What. "... not... a lot? They run the bank and have the truth spell," which she is searingly envious of, imagine getting such an elegant divination down to first circle, but the damn thing is divine so there's no way to get them to share it, "and... uh... care a lot about boats?"

(look, she reads, but kn.religion isn't a class skill for witches.)

Cute. "The boats are instrumental, they care about trade. But anyway. We talked to the Archbanker about your mirror scrying spell and he made a remarkably persuasive argument that you should sell it to long-haul merchant ships instead of using it for military operations. At least one person proposed we ought to order you to do that and give us the money but in fact your contract does not permit that. Then several people said we obviously shouldn't tell you that and the commander of the knights of Ozem gave everyone a twenty-minute lecture." 

The crown paladin lurking just behind her shoulder, remarkably unobtrusively for a man in heavy plate holding a halberd, totally fails to restrain a starry-eyed facial expression. Commander Iomedae is just So cool. He wants to be that cool when he grows up.  

(note: it is the year 3802 AR or thereabouts and Commander Iomedae is, in fact, currently lower level than he is. This is somewhat hard to detect from the inside, though, when you're a multiclass fighter who needs a Splendor headband to cast his one (1) spell.) 

(Mood, bro. Marshall too would need a headband if he ever got paladin levels. Which he won't ever, probably, unless it's a really dire emergency. Aroden's your best option by a landslide if you gotta but he's still, you know, a god. He dislikes that. Valid for other people though.) 

"...okay," says Avaryne slowly, "and so instead your orders for me regarding this are...?" 

"Well," embarrassed hair-ruffle, "ah, in the process of arguing about this I fell into the tangential research pit," for like an entire week subjective actually, but let's not talk about that, "and you unrelatedly shouldn't be casting it for military operations because it's theoretically possible to reach back through the mirror and, this is a non-exhaustive example, horrifically explode you into a bunch of tiny shards of enchanted glass and kill everyone within fifty feet, and if I can figure that out then Tar-Baphon can, he certainly has more specific mirror-related expertise than I do." What with the, you know, terrifyingly powerful mirror-themed guy who is right there. 

"Oh. Um. Well that is of course very bad but I could just not stand near people?" 

What! No?? :( 
(Marshall is now Frowning Balefully, but continuing to be a good professional soldier and not say anything.) 

"...the tail risks are very bad and we do not want you to do that," Rowan settles on, after considering and discarding several more detailed justifications regarding incomprehensible things Arazni said about prophetic noise. 

Blink blink. On a slight delay, but only slight, she finishes processing this and performs a military salute. "Understood." 

(a few years later) 

Good morning, young tourmarch Patricks! You're being promoted.  

What, again? He's not, you understand, complaining about career success but-- 

Yeah, normally it'd be a little slower than that for a normal career progression but, you see, your current legionnary commander got disintegrated. Would've been worth a raise but the budget can't quite justify a resurrection, since we're pretty sure he'll make Axis and there's an adequately competent replacement right here.  

Well, all right then.

Five years ago he'd have been really excited about this and now he has... some other feeling about it? Hm. Don't like that.

He goes and sits in his field office and does some paperwork and does not think about it, for a while.  

"Good evening," chirps his favorite Farseer, shedding her muddy boots and coat at the tentflap door because she unfortunately is not blessed with the ability to prestidigitate anything. She sits on his desk, gently displacing some pages. "Guess what, I just went eight out of ten with the Lieutenant without casting even one spell-- wait hey are you okay?"  

He will... not at this time attempt to resist the siren song of handholding. This is still allowed for a little while. "Oh, congrats," and... he really means that, his technically-not-wizard is the best one, lots of wizards don't even try to get as minimally competent at swords as they expect of the rank and file much less actually good at, but the delighted grin disappears right off his face again as soon as he's done saying it. "Um. I am apparently going to be legion commander next week."

"Oh!" excited knuckle-kiss. "That's good news though? Why are you making a face like it's bad news?"  

"Well. Ah. So, you know how technically I'm your commanding officer right now but everyone agrees it's fine because it's really obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that in practice you're issuing orders in the field at least as often as I am and if I tried anything impolite you'd curse me to be devoured by my own shadow or something."

Concerned squint. "Yes?"

"I... do not think that remains true... once you're officially working for a different tourmarch who then reports to me."

Wry smile. "I literally can do the shadow thing, does that help?"

Oh no that's so cool. Help. "Some, but-- I have an obligation to set a good example, right, not just to not be the worst, and 'everyone knows' is way harder outside the space of a company where all of the soldiers know you personally? If you were three circles higher, maybe?" Ugh that sounds like such a shitty thing to say, it feels like telling her she's not good enough, but it's true is the problem. Marshall has seen a lot of combat in the last couple of years, and he's a close combat guy. He could not put Archmage Rowan on the ground in under six seconds even if she started within the reach of his sword, probably, but Avaryne? Less squishy than the average wizard at her circle though she may be... of course he wouldn't, unless she were Dominated or turned out to have been secretly a spy or something, but he could. Between that and the direct chain of command, it's not a great look. 

Tap-tap-tap go the deceptively delicate mirror-polished fingernails of the witch, on his paperwork, thoughtfully. 

She gets up, and assumes a professional standing-at-attention posture in front of his desk. 

She's objectively very chilly to the touch at all times, probably for magic reasons, but somehow he feels colder for the absence. 

Because of her contract. Which says a million things in it about obeying the chain of command because people can't be trusted to just not be idiots without being specifically instructed not to. 

Who cares. She could just ignore it, what's the worst that'd happen, that she continues to ping Chaotic Evil which doesn't mean anything anyway-- 

Marshall cares, is the thing. 

"Sir," she says, carefully, and waits for permission to speak.

Ow. "...go ahead, Farseer." 

"In accordance with policy, I am informing you of my intention to resign from crusade service at the end of my contract. Which, I am sure you recall, is in approximately two months." 

You what--

Cough. Deep breath. "Understood, Farseer, thank you. I will file the appropriate paperwork."

She is scrupulously, distantly professional for the next eight weeks. 

:( :( :( 

Welp. Time to do his new job. 

The day immediately following the end of her contract, she bids farewell to her company (they all very sympathetically wish her luck; they're assuming she's off northward to deal with some manner of Witchy Bullshit) and then drops by a slightly different field office, set up quite the same way, where Marshall and Roderick are poring over a map.

"Excuse me," chirps the Farseer. "Sorry, Ser Riordan, could I please borrow Commander Patricks for just a moment?" 

Squint. Didn't they break up? He thought they broke up. Marshall was sulking about it for weeks. "...sure." 

"Good morning, Farseer. How can I h--" 

Nope no talking it is kissing time. 

??? okay ?? ?? ? ? ? yay ??? 

Just briefly, though, they have other business. "Right! With that made sufficiently clear, you good for me to go have diplomatic negotiations with your mother about the hypothetical future inheritance situation?" 

??? is ??? is that a ??? good idea ???? he thought several years ago that it was a very appealing idea but he kind of assumed after getting to know her better that it was not a very realistic option ????? 

rod help,,, you are an adultier adult,,,

sorry dude can't help you with your noble politics bullshit. this is a regular-ass soldier who is busy laughing too hard to breathe 

??? 
"............if? you want? to do that? yes?" 

"Good good. Talk soon. Don't die." 

Blink blink blink. "I will as ever do my best." 

And away south goes the witch. 

"The Baroness will see you now." 

"Thank you." She will glide in, feet just slightly off the ground. 

(Overland Flight isn't that often worth the slot, even for people who hit fifth this year after all that drama with the mirrors and are still really excited about it, not when it's competing with Teleport and especially not if it's competing with combat spells, but having it still going for enough of the day that she clearly can't've just been keeping fly up works great for very genteelly yet pointedly highlighting being a serious wizard. Especially when she's spent her last several years on Crusade and even in brand new clothes definitely gives off the distinct impression of being more of a soldier than a court lady. Floating helps with that too, really, it means she can arrange her limbs into an appropriately elegant posture and then simply not move any of them.)

"Your grace, thank you for your time," she greets her counterpart politely. The cloak-flourishing curtsey she was taught as a child (behold, how I respectfully doff my protective furs, for I have accepted your hospitality) is definitely wildly foreign-looking to the Taldane eye, but it seems worse to try to do the local one badly.  

After considerable use of the castellan as intermediary so that she didn't have to personally admit to her visitor's face that she had no earthly idea what the appropriate style is for politely addressing a White Witch of Irrisen, the Baroness does know now, and she sounds completely confident, like she definitely didn't learn several new vocabulary words this morning. "Jadwiga Aelena, welcome." In direct descent from the witch-queen, no matter how many steps, they share the name, and are called all the same title, unless they are additionally serving some political leadership role. And of course they would not now be having this conversation, if this particular one were doing anything of the sort, no matter how well-written the letter she had sent ahead of herself. "I have considered your proposition carefully. Naturally I cannot entertain romantic flights of fancy without due cause, but you make, I must say, a compelling case." 

(a fifth-circle crusade wizard! of arguably royal descent! of course they want that in their bloodline if it's on offer! normally nobody gets that for their highly successful swordsman sons unless the sons in question are making really appalling adventuring party decisions but this one offered to swear to an Abadaran that Marshall has been a perfect gentleman the entire time she's known him! if she's bad at sounding high-class at parties they can just delegate that to a cousin!) 

 "However, there remains the very concerning fact that any daughter of yours cannot in any enduring sense be properly a granddaughter of mine." It's not that bad if a witch's daughters predictably get funny ideas about women's place in society, if they think they can get special treatment in this respect by virtue of magical talent and a good upper-class education they'll simply be objectively correct about that, but it is a huge problem if her children get, you know, eaten by the Baba Yaga at age ten. You can't make reliable marriage alliances with them that way. 

"Indeed they could not, no. That is why I fully intend to never have any," Avaryne says, cheerfully. "We have a spell for choosing the sex of a child, you see. My cousins are in the habit of using it to ensure an optimal number of daughters but there is no reason it can't be used in the opposite manner. I will someday be spirited away to wherever it is She takes us; my sons will not."

"Fascinating." And reassuring. "Ah ... I apologize for my bluntness, but it does seem rather important to avoid any misunderstandings on this particular point... I have heard it said that the Jadwiga kill their sons, if they manifest magic?" And in most families with a bloodline sorcery, it seems to turn up just about as often in the one as the other. 

Wince. "We are by the law of Irrisen obliged to do so, yes. Here, however, I understand that such uncivilized behavior would be frowned upon by the glorious Emperor of Taldor may he live forever? A fact which certainly I would not dream of disregarding regardless of my personal feelings on the subject." She assesses the Baroness's facial expression carefully, and then adds, in a slightly different less formal tone, "...and to be clear I also don't want to, I think it's a stupid law." 

Well. All right then. 

She's back at the Crusade a month later, to hand-deliver a letter.

...
...
...
!!

"....huh. I expected my father to be more mad at me about this even if you talked my mother into it."

She is overwhelmingly pleased with herself and not hiding it in the slightest. "Well, I'm very impressive, you see."

"You are," he agrees, beaming. "Well. If you were, uh, any other person, I suppose I'd be going and getting the paperwork to file for leave over the winter, but--"

"Yeah, I've already been away longer than ideal and I'm very useful in snow season, we're staying. If you cannot use it to get out of throwing a silly Opparan party what is even the point of Crusading to save the world, right."

"Oh hey, I didn't know you were back." 

"Hello! Technically I am currently a Visiting Diplomatic Guest and not per se Back. I have an appointment for a marriage contract consult though." This is the most self-satisfied nonWizard(tm). 

"Are you really. That sure does sound like a contract problems situation, wow. Con...grats and have fun being Rowan Enrichment?" Normally obviously this would be an insane thing to have be Rowan's job but they did finally convince her to stop trying to indulge her lawyering hobby in any way involving listening to Asmodeans say more than three words in a row so, like, as uses of archmage time go, it turns out it sure could be worse.

Snicker. "I shall!" 

It transpires that the winning move involves Avaryne and Marshall both technically resigning from the Crusade, getting married, and then Marshall re-signing in his capacity as head of household so that his contract covers both of them. This causes the chain of command to pass correctly through him without causing her to be technically answerable to anyone other than him, which suits her just fine. If she was some random person this could be a problem but Crusade wizards at 5th and up get a lot of autonomy anyway.

This does admittedly cause the contract to end up written in a way that lightly implies that Marshall himself will cast 5th circle spells if and only if you ask nicely. 

...This is acceptable. 

(this is hilarious.) 

(that too <3) 

Avaryne does a circuit of Patricks relatives and political allies and clears out a bunch of their 'it'd be way more expensive than the one spell slot is worth to hire an entire wizard to come out here but...' magic problems. Marshall's sister, tagging along on this trip for the networking opportunity and also to make fashion decisions for both of them because Avaryne is absolutely not qualified to do that, takes advantage of the resulting spirit of gratefulness to talk a number of them into diamond dust as wedding gifts, and is immediately her new favorite relative. 

Hey command we're in the queue for a telepathic bond in like next year's budget, right. Can we get the spell slots allocated now if we pay materials? 

Telepathic bonds!!! Her favorite ever since that time Rod prevented a major diplomatic incident while half-conscious in the hospital because she was about to say something really stupid. Love to attach Wizards(tm) more firmly to their associated Reasonable Sensible People. Heck yeah they can. 

Excellent. 

Fighting a war still sucks, but it sucks less, together. 

A little while later, though, Avaryne ends up having to take just shy of a year mostly-off, on account of it is unacceptable to be in a combat zone for any significant duration while pregnant; if she got murdered a Raise can and does land on her fine (they've unfortunately had to test this and apparently, whatever gets the ice witches probably gets them on arrival in the Abyss or wherever, not out of the River) but not on the baby. Thanks to easy telepathic coordination she teleports in regularly to drop a stack of buffs and then immediately leave again, but, you know, mostly off. 

She cheerfully declines spousal handholding for the birth of their son; Marshall is doing two people's worth of work while she's out of commission and really can't be spared even though command would definitely let him if he asked, and so he shouldn't. After all she is in no danger whatsoever due to being extremely magic. 

He sighs at her, fondly, but does not argue. (You don't, or at least you shouldn't, marry someone like Avaryne on purpose without being emotionally prepared to need to ignore some of the things your father told you when you were twelve about What Women Want(TM).)  

For normal people this is more of an ordeal. Avaryne puts on a Delay Pain and then experiences, painlessly, a medical event of similar dangerousness to being stabbed with one (1) mundane sword, i.e. one which kills normal people on a fairly regular basis and which she is competent to not only walk off but not even drop spell concentration over. Her sister-in-law is, to her immense credit, very polite about her searing envy. 

She allocates several hours and several more spell slots afterward to doing nothing except admiring the baby-- his name is Filmore and he is a tiny perfect creature with a tiny perfect round little face-- and transmitting mental pictures of him northward. 

Then she hands him off to the wet nurse, drops a couple Cures on herself for good measure, drinks enough painkilling sedatives to kill a non-paladin horse, sleeps straight through the lagged pain, and is back at the Crusade two hours after waking up. 

(They visit for a day every month, though. You gotta be sure a kid knows his parents even if there is an entire Tar-Baphon. It's only once a month, though, due to, see again, entire Tar-Baphon. It's a problem.) 

"You really need a better horse." 

This is unfortunately fair. The damn things might as well be made of paper with the scale of problems they currently have but he's much more effective with one than without. Arnisant's horse is somehow nearly as sturdy as a paladin horse even though he is absolutely not a paladin, but try as he might Marshall has never been able to perform the right mental trick or whatever it is to do that. He has been regularly attempting to meditate with Rowan and Arazni on the virtues of druids and so on--

which in her defense has totally worked before!! her favorite druid has a friend who can cast exactly zero spells and also has an whole and entire lion! 

--which, well, he's great at identifying obscure Tien flowers now but this has thus far in no way enchanted any of his horses, the most recent of which is now dead of being stabbed and not even very hard. 

"I know," he sighs, "I am trying, do you have any advice on caring about the flowers at the right angle? I have tried thinking very hard about the, you know, that thing Arazni says about how a city is only as strong as its fields and as enduring as its forests, and all that, but..."

He doesn't make a face but only from long, long practice. "Well. I'm not an archmage and I don't think like them, thank Aroden. I know you and I are not in all respects alike--" Arnisant is not per se judging when it's very convenient for him that Marshall is an insane person but he personally would never in one million years marry a wizard, his tolerance for their shit is simply not high enough-- "but if you want my advice... I'd say, stop thinking about the flowers at all. Start thinking about a particular horse. Helps to name it."

"Hm. All right."  

Good morning it's scheduled spring delivery of new warhorses for the Crusade from down south where they train them. High-ranking horse guys who are not paladins get first dibs. 

Good morning he sure does. Hmm. Okay.
Should he be using a different selection criteria than usual, or something? Does any of these thousand creatures Speak to his Soul at a hundred yards?

... not really, no.

All right. Well. Identifying the top few can work the same way it always does, looking at their teeth, their legs, whether they flinch or bite if you move weird, &c &c.

Does any of these five selected creatures Speak to his Soul the way Rowan keeps saying is how she picked her eagle out of a pile of eggs, from, like, two feet.

Hm actually yeah he specifically wants That one. For some reason. Normally he would ignore that feeling as random noise related to having a favorite color or something and not actually useful for anything but apparently that's how it works?

Sure dude all yours here's the acquisitions form. 

Hi there, horse with no name. Why are you special? 

im horse! hi. hello. friendly headbonk. 

You ... sure are... horse. Okay. Sure. Let's... hm.

Let's go visit home, actually. 

The magic light over the mantel glows green when Avaryne in particular teleports in. (And yellow if it detects anyone else she has with permission specifically instructed it to identify as probably-friendly such as Heleer or Mathriel. Not Marit, who when she asked said that if he were fifth circle, which he cannot confirm or deny he might be, he'd still prefer not to have any systems he doesn't personally control be able to identify him on magical sight. Red for unidentified teleports, which Marit did trigger once and lightly traumatized Security about it when they were way friendlier than they should've been. The Patrickses love Marit and are trying to convince him to marry one of their cousins when the war's over.) 

A little boy races out onto the lawn to hug Avaryne. 

Ack small creature aimed directly at knees. 
The unnamed horse scoots his legs out of the way of Filmore's path, skittering around behind Marshall to peer at the Very Small Human from a safe distance. So small?? Why???? Humans seem unalarmed. Harmless probably! Neat! 

The fast transition from holding an entire fifth-circle spell in your brain to Hug The Baby is kind of a weird one, mentally, but she has practiced it almost as often as the transition from doing that to ducking a javelin aimed at her head, and also likes it much better. baaaaby <3. hug baby. yay. 

"Good heavens, boy, you're taller than me when I was ten," pronounces Marshall, peering at his six-year-old. This is partly because it is somehow a surprise every time even though he has known for years that Filmore is clearly going to be taller than him as an adult-- must be the witch stock, the witches seem to mostly like their men roughly the size, shape, and cleverness of boulders-- but mostly because Filmore looks so pleased with himself every time he says it and it's very cute.

"I'm gonna be BIGGER than a HORSE," says Filmore gleefully. Pauses. Squints around his mother's elbow. "....why's there a horse though." 

"This is my new warhorse. Chevalier-General Arnisant, who is very wise, advised me that I should involve him more in my life, so since you are a very important part of my life I thought I should introduce you to him." 

!!!!!!! he's very important! :D :D 
He must Inspect the horse. Pat the horse. Poke the horse. Hug the horse's knee? Wait no that's not Professional. Pat the horse more. Reach grabby hands for the horse's face, quite a few feet above his head. 

The horse will hold very still, watching the Very Small Human with mild concern. It's so small. 

... small creature wishes to observe his face? S....ure? He will lean his face down for this purpose. 

Filmore has not reached the part of his lessons where he learns what exactly you are supposed to be looking for in a horse's mouth but he industrially Inspects the horse's teeth anyway.

Oh! Yes, okay, this is a normal thing to have happen. Horse will politely submit to Tooth Inspection. He doesn't know what they're looking for so he is blissfully unaware that Filmore doesn't know either. 

While this is occuring, Filmore's tutor will helpfully supply his parents with this month's notes on his progress. 

"Hm!" says Marshall, pleased. "Filmore, I see you've been doing very well." 

:D :D :D 

"I think this deserves a reward, don't you, my dear?" 

Avaryne is ongoingly kind of unclear on the entire concept of incentives as a parenting strategy at any fidelity finer than 'if they suck you gotta kill them' and has taken a posture towards her Perfect Baby to the effect that he gets anything he wants that she can reasonably provide in the like six hours a month she sees him, but she is vaguely aware that Marshall has, like, detailed opinions on how you teach a kid to not suck, and this strategy seems to have produced... Marshall... who's great... so she's basically on board with it. "...yes?" she hazards. 

He loves his wizard so. She is such a way. 

Grin. "Would you like to name the horse, Filmore?" 

:O 
"Yeah!!!" 

Solemn nod. "Then you may. What do you think he ought to be called?" 

Filmore contemplates this question for, like, an entire minute, which is actually pretty impressive at his age. Then he announces, gleefully: "CONQUEST."

Blink blink. "........what do you think that word means." 

"CONQUEST is when you BEAT THE BAD GUYS and TAKE THEIR STUFF especially their FARMERS so that things are GOOD and not BAD like how Tar-Baphon is BAD. Which is what he is going to help you with doing! Right! Conquest horse. For winning against the bad guys." 

.... that's ... not the worst understanding of the geopolitical justification for the Shining Crusade, for a six-year-old, admittedly. Marshall is maybe regretting this decision slightly but he is not about to turn around and tell his son that he's too stupid to be allowed to have rewards for paying attention to his tutors. "...more or less," he allows. "Conquest, then." He pats the horse. "That's you." 

im horse! 
wait. no. 

IM CONQUEST(horse). 
yes. very good. yay. good horse.