Does he want the kind of reassuring smile that makes it very very easy to choose not to be scared? Because she can do that all day.

It feels like being back in Urtho's Tower.

Ma'ar can't think of any better way to describe it. It feels - not like everything in the world being all right, so many things are so far from all right, but - like he's come home. Like he has a home to come back to. Like there's safety in the world that isn't what he personally built, and he's not alone, and the work will be very hard and very long and - it's not even that he thinks they're definitely going to win, whatever Iomedae did hasn't changed his beliefs, but...

...but he can be okay. Lots of specific things aren't okay and he's sad about it, there are people he was already too late to save and there are going to be more of them, because this is going to take a long time, but some kind of desperate internal pressure is easing. It's as though he was trying to hold a bridge together while dangling in midair, nothing below him to catch him if he fell, and he's only just realized that he can set his feet down and find solid ground. 

(It is very obvious to Iomedae, from the change in Ma'ar's body, that he has almost never, in his entire life, felt safe or not been afraid.) 

This is fascinating. He's not sure it's going to make it easier to think, overall, but it's - at least going to mean he has different thoughts. Maybe more useful ones. 

...He's also still very tired. Among other things, it's been a long time since he was regularly getting enough sleep. 

:Thank you: he sends. :I - think that if no one has contacted either of us with an emergency, things are stable for the moment, and I should try to get some more rest: 

Sounds good.

Ma'ar gets himself comfortable, or as comfortable as he realistically can given how much of his skin is still raw and tender, and closes his eyes and sleeps. 

Need watches through Iomedae's eyes. Smugly. 

:You know, you really aren't discouraging him from falling in love with you. Did you see his face? ...I approve of him, I think. He's a weird person but he's - trying so earnestly - don't meet many men like that: 

:He is a very unusual sort of man: she agrees absently. :I don't really know what you're rooting for here. I have a peace to negotiate and it'd be very disruptive to it if I were inappropriately invested in one side's commander.:

…It’s mostly that negotiating peace is boring and Need is bored, and it’s not really something where she has skills to contribute, and teasing Iomedae gives her something to do with herself. Also Ma’ar’s enormous crush on Iomedae is, in her opinion, hilarious.

Iomedae can decide to be all duty-bound and responsible if she wants, but maybe she should also consider someday having fun. Probably Aroden would approve of that.

Iomedae has lots of fun! In peacetime!

Well, they should definitely work on making it peacetime, then.

Ma’ar sleeps. 

The Healers are going to notice that he’s responding substantially better to their Healing-efforts than he was before.

…Well, probably having now eaten literally anything in the last day is helping? And the fact that he’s not using his Gifts constantly, they didn’t exactly have standing to order him to stop that but it all comes from the same underlying energy-reserves. They were definitely considering a theory that Ma’ar was recovering more slowly just from sheer exhaustion. 

That being said, they do also have questions about what Iomedae did, immediately before he went back to sleep. It really looks like she did something and it wasn’t just giving him the right reassuring platitudes.

She did do something. Paladins cannot be frightened, and they can make it easier for other people to also not be frightened. It's a choice, by the other person, if they don't want to let a paladin's aura affect them then it won't, but it makes it easier to decide not to be scared. In Golarion it is disputed if this is mind-affecting magic or just the same sort of thing as a hug, the reassuring touch of an allied mind; she doesn't know. She won't do it during negotiations, obviously, but at the moment it seems to be helping him sleep.

Well, it’s a known observation that sometimes being under intense strain, even purely emotional strain, affects how well people respond to Healing as well as how quickly they recover naturally. Helping him be less stressed seems to be helping, maybe quite a lot. 

She'll keep it up, then, if that's all right. She doesn't want to make them nervous. She understands the many reasons no one in Predain would particularly trust her.

(Actually two-thirds of these Healers are Tantaran! It was a bit awkward at first, especially for the outnumbered Predain Healers, but - really, it seems like Healers are mostly the same everywhere. And treating a terrifyingly critical patient, like Iomedae was not that many candlemarks ago, is a very efficient way for Healers to end up being friends. It also helps that she recovered so absurdly fast; it feels like winning against a common enemy.)

Anyway, yes, they would appreciate it if she kept doing the thing as long as she’s able. Ma’ar was clearly under a LOT of pressure and it was probably hurting his recovery. 

Understood. She can do it for the rest of the day.

She rests herself, though she doesn't sleep (that would interfere with her aura of courage). She looks almost normal by nightfall; she should be wholly recovered by morning.

Ma’ar sleeps nearly straight through the day. He wakes a little before sunset, ravenously hungry and in urgent need of relieving himself. He's able to stand up and walk to use the nearest privy without incident, though the Healers are definitely hovering, and then will get to work shoving food into his face with much more energy than before. 

(The Healers will offer Iomedae food as well; she doesn't seem to need it but it can't hurt, and probably warm soup is just comforting and nice even if you're someone as absurdly powerful as Iomedae. They've been staring at her still-brightening life-force with kind of a lot of awe.) 

She eats the soup. She went through a period of not eating because she couldn't benefit from it and there were starving people, but these days she only does that if there is some way to cause the starving people to have the food. Good isn't about sacrifice, it's about things being better than they'd be otherwise. And food is an important way that societies communicate hospitality and shared humanity. And maybe she's only partially sharing in that humanity, these days, but she can still appreciate the taste of soup. 

:At this point I should plausibly return to Tantara,: she says to Ma'ar once he seems to be very plainly on the mend. :We have a peace settlement to arrive at.:

Ma'ar nods. 

(He doesn't want her to leave. Right now he feels - okay, stable, like everything that could happen is something he could bear - but he is pretty sure this is mostly if not entirely because of whatever magic or not-even-magic Iomedae is doing. He...can manage it, he thinks, it'll probably be unpleasant and awful but his head is mostly clear and he thinks he can stay in control and make reasonable decisions, or at least no-more-impaired-than-usual decisions, even with that foundation of feeling-safe gone.

He doesn't want to, but - that matters a lot less than the future of Tantara and Predain. And right now, while he's not scared, he can think about that without flinching.) 

:I think that makes sense. I am somewhat surprised you have not heard more from Urtho, but - I suppose he might want to avoid bothering you, if he is not sure how fast you are recovering: 

:I'm hoping that is all it is but I should probably check.: She meets his eyes. :I have confidence in you. You want this peace, you know it's good for Predain, and your people trust you.:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand she is definitely saying that because she feels badly for having expressed her completely-true-and-valid complaints to him in what might be argued was an overly harsh way. 

It...still helps. He really doesn't think she would lie. 

:I do want peace, very badly. I want Tantara to be all right. And I - think that I can continue to hold my people's trust for long enough to make this work, even if I am sure they think I am making some baffling choices lately: He REALLY needs to sit down and properly speak with the King. Honestly he wishes he could have Iomedae there, but it's going to take some work first before the King would even be willing to let Iomedae do the be-less-afraid effect to him, even though it would really help. He's pretty sure that they could de-escalate this twenty times faster and more smoothly if no one were terrified. 

:...You had wanted to at some point speak to the Tantaran prisoners we are still holding: he muses, after a moment. :Once you felt safer being in Predain. I somewhat suspect that concern is alleviated, now, though I am not sure you still feel the need to speak with them: 

:Let's actually see if we can get the prisoner exchange through tomorrow and obviate it. I'd be very surprised, at this point, to learn you're mistreating the prisoners except insofar as you're running out of food.: