- she nods, and reaches out to take it. "Risky?"

"Perfectly safe, we're probably mostly just going to be writing things down - I suppose if Tar-Baphon or some other enemy has caught wind of something they might desperately gate or wish in and try to kill us, but we're not in any more danger from that than we would be normally."

"You're uncomfortable with Élie."

" - he's uncomfortable around me! Which is entirely his right; I don't need to know, and haven't contemplated, the details implied by what he said earlier."

"Mm. He is, and he doesn't hide it well, but I think he would prefer not to be. He talked to me about it, some, and - You and Your church made some decisions that he understands, and agrees were the right decisions especially by your values, and which happened to hurt him and people he was close to a great deal. They were doing a great deal of evil, for the sake of freeing themselves, and there came a point where You and Your church stopped supporting them. It seemed like You'd abandoned them, and - he was just a kid, at the time. It left an impression, even though now he knows it was more complicated than that."

"I think he'd rather not still be holding this grudge, and he'd rather not act on it or - have you avoiding him because of it."

" - that's fair. Uh, I'll offer to bodyguard, next time it strikes me that the two of you might need it, though days of secret experiments probably isn't that. And if you want to invite him for a meal, Tanat did a mansion, today, because of the blizzard; we've got plenty."

"I'll do that, then. I think you'll like him, if you get to know him better, but maybe that's just that I like him terribly much and you tend to like most people better than I do."

"I expect I'll like him! Even the grievance with me makes me like him, really."

"Of course it does! Usually it's only me and Marit who can find it within ourselves to have complaints. And Pereza if the bookkeeping counts." And Curiosity but he's not really being fair.

"The Emperor is full of complaints! ...it's just you and Marit with the good ones, though. What kind of food should we have the house spin up for your new friend."

"Does food change, very much, over time? I've never actually thought to look into that. He's from Galt but maybe all the foods he'd find familiar haven't been invented yet! I suppose if they haven't he's the sort who'd be happy to sample historical cuisines just for their historical nature." And she'll list off some dishes of the sort that the rich imperial officials in Galt eat.

"I'll see it done!"

Alfirin will check the time, to make sure her sense of it isn't too misaligned, and rejoin Élie in the Pharaoh's demiplane.

"Alright. They have a tuning fork to reach us in emergencies, and we are requested for dinner in - about an hour if we spend it there, half a day if we spend it here. I told Iomedae in pretty broad strokes about your more personal objections to her future church, she was going to spend the next five months courteously avoiding you otherwise. I guessed that you would not mind and I hope I was not wrong about that?"

"Is she generally in the habit of avoiding people just because they seem to be concealing the fact that they don't like her very much?"

"Well, she thought you'd rather not have to interact with her much. And - you're important, and out of context, so - not causing additional tension was a priority.

Also on some level I think she didn't really know how to handle it. Most people like her."

"If I'd wanted her to be on tiptoe around me, I'd have said so. I was trying to be polite because I didn't want that.

I'm glad you said something, it sounds like it would have been an awkward five months."  

"Oh yes, dreadfully so." Not that she has not caused dreadfully-awkward five month stretches all on her own on occasion.

"I'm thinking we might want a telepathic bond for dinner, just because I have the context and might be able to spot - if you're about to say something like 'Cure disease is a third-circle spell'"

"That's a good idea. You're more conservative about these things than I am, anyway, and I think until we're in the secure demiplane we really do want to be as circumspect as we possibly can."

"Mhm. Speaking, of...?" She holds out her hand.

Plane shift. 

And the two of them can compare notes on tiny braindead gods for an hour before it's time to return to Golarion.

The Shining Crusade command is gathered in one of the larger dining rooms, with a spread of Galtan noble foods, talking. "- what's your excuse?"

         "For being single?" says Marit. "Why, that my love is given to the crusade, and what woman would choose a life of coming second in my heart?"

                   "Plenty of them!" says Arnisant. "Hundreds!! Probably thousands!"

There's an invisible Nondetectioned air elemental spying on them all from under an armchair in the corner.

(It's fine. Marit just likes keeping people on their toes.)

Marit's caster level is lower than the one on her see invisibility. She glances at it, then at him to confirm, and gives him a wink. She's not going to spoil it for anyone else.

By now, he's got his permanent arcane sight back. It takes him a moment to notice the auras of illusion, abjuration, and conjuration underneath them, another to figure out what they all do, and a third to realize it isn't a serious attempt to spy on a party of this level. 

He'll flop pointedly in the armchair and scan the room.