Hee hee hee hee!

She can keep going with those for a while, but she does run out eventually.

That's okay, it turns out an hour was an overestimate for how long it'd be funny.

Venn... really doesn't want to ask about doing pre-execution counseling for rapists. But she should at least check on Blai, if she can find a moment to drop by his office? 

He's re-reading the relevant section of the handbook when she comes in and has the Acts open as a crossreference.

He looks up when she comes in, though.

-she sees the look on his face and hurries across the room to wrap her arms around him. 

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispers, face pressed against him.

Oh that's better. He still has to kill seven dudes but he does not have to also drive off Venn in so doing. Hug.

"It sucks," she says, after a while, her face still buried in him. "I knew it was probably going to happen, but I guess - I guess I was hoping after the first they'd realize you were serious and stop." She laughs hollowly. "I guess they will now - that poor woman -" 

(...she's a lot less composed than usual.)

"...do you want more details or not?"

...she thinks for a moment and then nods. (She's going to want to check up on her, and she's probably going to offer to help with the spiritual guidance even if she still doesn't want to, so... knowing will help.)

"I have to confirm everything with the Zone tomorrow but the picture I presently have is that it was not - novel behavior, except for the going about it in a pack, which they seem to have done this time so that none of them would be singled out, on the theory that I might not be willing to lose seven at one stroke. I'm not sure if she found this more objectionable or if she would have reported to me anyway. - I'm going to forbid men as a class from the kitchen wing entire for anything short of active fire or demonic attack, there's nothing we ever need to do in there except the butcher and he can work somewhere else if even one kitchen staffer even hesitates to tell me to let him in, if something in that wing comes up I'll send Farre y Puig."

Augh. "...she almost certainly found it more objectionable, even if she would have reported it anyways.  ...and I think those are reasonable precautions, considering." 

"They mostly did not try to deny it except for the first one I happened to see, presumably all assuming he'd corroborated what she told me, so I expect an unsurprising Zone and some executions after it." Sigh.

Sigh.

 "...I - I really don't want to do spiritual counseling for them," she says quietly after a while. "It's  - I think I could do a decent job, and I probably will, but I just... I don't want to. I wish there was a Sarenrite here to do it instead." 

"- oh, I was assuming I would have to attempt it, the language in both books strongly suggests that it is a cleric thing and there are no others."

"I think that's because Lastwall-trained clerics get special training for it? Which nobody here has." She leans into him more. "The basic idea is just - in rare cases, people can realize all at once that they do sincerely regret their past choices and renounce them, and this can change how they are Judged even if they don't act on it. It... almost never works, but - almost never is better than never, right, so it's still worth doing..."

"That was the principle on which I tried Iomedae," he agrees, "I didn't think I was likely to be as far up as Neutral but it is possible to switch in a moment - but I'm not really sure it will - translate well -"

"Yeah. And - I don't think 'well, you are about to be executed anyways, this is a chance to not go to Hell' is a useful frame for repentance. ...In an ideal world they would get this talk from someone who wasn't, like, having to supress how upset she felt about what they'd done. But - that's not the world we live in."

"I suppose we could give them all their pick of the two of us, though I don't know if they'll be any good at guessing what they'll require in this situation."

"That seems reasonable, yeah." 

Floppy bardgirl.

He contemplates which things on the revealed menu of possible cuddle behavior might be best suited to the occasion and then decides to try petting her hair.

Venn sighs and relaxes into him. (Her reactions are more subdued than the first time he tried this, because how bleh she feels is a real factor into how much she emotes, but she is still enjoying this.)

It seems he has not chosen a laughably incorrect menu item! Also she's soft.

She is! The world around them may be strenuous and full of problems but Venn remains soft and huggable.