"It was not great. I think probably a bunch of the ways it was bad will make more sense when we can read. My best guess now is that the church of Jesus mistreated them terribly, and they think it's the church of a god that doesn't even exist, so of course someone in that situation is going to dislike and distrust paladins."

"Especially if they have never heard of them - I mostly only heard bad things about Aroden and his church before I came here but also I know you can not lie and so I could trust you."

"I think the state of education here is horrendous because the priests don't get any miracles so there's no way to distinguish true ones from false ones. If there are any true ones. My guess is that the gods died, or something, because it's strange that they'd have the concept of - a man who became a god and said there is Heaven and Hell and Limbo - if he didn't have some way of knowing - I guess he could just be a powerful person who didn't ascend and just claimed to - but someone who knew the truth founded Christianity, and these days it's a mess because he stopped granting spells, or never did. And some institutions...persist...but paladins wouldn't. Paladins are not actually the shape of thing that can endure without a god that picks and renounces us. 

I think even if I was accidentally impolite to Emily she won't get back on her word about not telling the social workers about Taldor being in another world, but I am very afraid of it."

"Yes. Now that we know that - and know that the people in this place do not know - It is scary that they might find out. I don't want them to know before we know more about here, until we decide to say -"

"Until we are free, I think. Nothing good comes of being a slave that is very interesting to the Emperor, and Emily didn't think that'd be any different in America. Also she said 'they might think you're crazy' like they do something terrible to people if they think that they are crazy. But I didn't want to ask, we can look that up once we can read.

If anyone does find out, I will say  'I'm not comfortable answering questions about my childhood when you're in a position of power over me' and you can say we were lying to impress Emily and maybe you'll be okay, if they don't have a way to do truth magic, and I am getting the sense that they don't." 

Iomedae is getting the sense that Emily thinks she is a naive idiot for being unwilling to lie. Her best guess is that she is, in fact, not underestimating how badly America can and will hurt her, and is just clinging to something worth even more to her than that, but it is of course worth considering the possibility that she is being naive and that if she knew what they'd do to her it wouldn't, at all, seem worth it. She thinks a paladin isn't supposed to lie even to escape eternal torment but she could renounce Aroden first and tell the only people in the world who were in any sense relying on her being a paladin -

- she feels sick again, now. Why does being a slave hurt so much. When you put it like that it's not even an interesting question. 

Aroden does not think she is a child. 

"In what capacities would you say you are relying on my being a paladin."

"Well, I do not know if America has demons. It has been helpful for trusting you so far but - I do not actually have a way to check if you are still a paladin. I am not relying on it for trusting you any more."

"Okay. I am going to try not to give it up and if I do I'll try to tell you as soon as possible but I do not know for sure how well I'll do and it might be relevant to my decisionmaking if you were making plans that counted on my being a paladin in the future."

This kitchen is going to be so spotless.

And Evelyn, who has just had a lovely time with Lily at the park, will get home at 6 pm to - well, apparently to Emily and her girlfriend watching TV in the lounge, and Iomedae and Alfirin - not with them - they seem to be cleaning the kitchen...? 

That's. Uh. That - does not seem like this conversation resulted in all of them being friends. Which was probably a lot to expect, but - ugh. 

Evelyn will be blandly cheerful and pleasantly remind Lily to take her shoes off before sprinting off to tell Iomedae about their park adventures. 

Lily will run off to the kitchen and attempt to inform Iomedae that she went SO HIGH on the swings and was SO BRAVE and also there was a ladybug and it was pretty. 

Evelyn would really like to interrogate Emily on whatever just happened here, but - she sort of agreed with herself that she wouldn't do that? It doesn't do any good to give them privacy to talk if she's going to demand to know about it afterward. 

...She'll follow Lily to the kitchen, pausing to smile and wave at Emily and Claudette, and smile pleasantly and normally at Iomedae and Alfirin and then start working on dinner - wow this kitchen is clean - she sort of wants to thank them but also she doesn't want to draw attention to it - 

She'll start working on dinner. It's going to be pasta, because that doesn't require thinking. 

"Thank you for invite Emily here to talk to us. We do not think very close things but I think it was a help to me."

"Mm?" Evelyn glances over. "- Yeah, I guess you'd have pretty different beliefs. I'm glad it helped, though. Emily is - well, she had a hard time, when she was your age." That's a fine thing to say even if Emily might overhear, it's not like she would disagree with it. "I think there's some stuff she would understand better, even if you're - very different people." 

(Evelyn is NOT ASKING what they talked about, even though she's desperately curious. The fact that she's desperately curious isn't even the point. The point is that Iomedae needs something, Iomedae is in pain, and Evelyn doesn't get it. She thought she knew all the ways that teenagers could be in pain, but, apparently, she does not. ...It's important, to figure it out, but she is absolutely not going to do it by snooping.) 

Her duties discharged Iomedae is going to look for something else to do. She finished the English worksheets but she can go back through them.

Evelyn would print her off more worksheets if she wasn't in the middle of supervising pasta on the stove and trying to keep Lily out of the cupboards. It's probably fine, anyway, it's good to review materials to remember them better. 

She still has no idea how to navigate this - whole dynamic, whatever it is - but once pasta and sauce are ready, she'll call Emily and Claudette over to eat. 

Hopefully Evelyn is on top of making some kind of normal conversation happen, because Emily is still mostly distracted by a combination of 'feeling like an idiot' and 'being mad at Iomedae for stupid reasons.' 

Evelyn is 100% on top of making pleasant small talk! She wants to hear about Emily's job at the daycare, and - what does Claudette do, again? 

"I am an artist! ...But art is not a good way to make a living. So I work at the pharmacy." 

Evelyn is delighted and attentive and wants to hear all about it! What kind of art? And which pharmacy? She's been to most of the ones in town, and knows the staff... 

Evelyn is kind of an absurd human being but, like, not in a bad way. Right now Emily appreciates it kind of a lot. 

And hopefully that gets them through dinner without anyone's feelings being hurt, and Evelyn can gently shoo Emily and Claudette by mentioning that it's time for Lily's bath.

She's tired, but - less so than yesterday? Having Lily at school for most of the day helped, and then having some park time with just Lily helped...more than that, probably. Evelyn feels like she could gracefully cope if there's going to be another big serious emotional conversation with Iomedae and/or Alfirin before they all go to bed. 

...Is there? Going to be a big emotional conversation, that is? Evelyn isn't going to be the one to start it, but once Lily has been read to and sung to and tucked in and her lights are out, she'll suggest they can all have some hot chocolate, and try to make it obvious in her body language that she's available and listening.

Iomedae doesn't speak at dinner, and tries (though she's not very good at it yet) to conceal her prayer before she eats. She accepts hot chocolate and asks precisely three questions about English words she was confused by from her vocabulary sheet ("exam"? "sports"? "traffic"?).

....Evelyn has some concerns. It is not going to help to bring this up. (And she already told Iomedae - and hopefully Iomedae understood - that her not-bringing-it-up is NOT because she doesn't care about Iomedae's wellbeing.) 

An exam is something you do at school, that's meant to check whether you learned the things you were supposed to learn. Sports are - activities people do with their bodies for fun; games with throwing balls around are the most popular kind of sport but lots of things count, including riding a bike. Traffic is when there are lots of cars driving on the road and so it takes longer to drive somewhere. 

Iomedae appreciates that. 

"I know it is hard for you, that I talk less now I know more. Maybe it feel like - you try to do right thing, let me go visit my friends, let me talk to Emily, and I less happy and - free speaking - than when I first get here. I do not want to do to you - your generous make you worse off. But the more I understand what has been doed to me, the more I can know which things that matter to me I can have and how much pay for them, and that is better for me than no knowing, even if the Iomedae no knowing seem happier. If you want me talk as repay what I owe you, I will, but the thing that is best for me is to no talk to you, maybe until I am free."