Altarrin is so reassuring, that question had Carissa near completely at a loss. "I want to become immortal and eventually a god and give everyone afterlives," she confirms. "I want to - "not have it be the case that I leave people who are kinder and less broken and better than I am deeply traumatized in my wake wherever I go, not have it just be true that I am a terrible idea to trust -.

"I want to be competent operating in contexts that aren't Cheliax where assuming everyone is out to get you is occasionally incorrect. I want to have interesting sex where both parties have the same basic understanding of what's happening in the world? Not that I want to stop having sex that is part of elaborate months-long manipulations but I am worried it's bad for me if it's the only kind I have? I want to, uh, be corrected and perfected in the purifying flames of Hell?"

" - I am aware, to be clear, that the flames of Hell don't actually do that. I just wish they did."

(Being corrected and perfected in the purifying flames of Hell, even the hypothetical version that somehow actually did that, is almost certainly not on offer as part of relationship counseling anyway. Altarrin is pretty sure.) 

Well that's mortifying. Altarrin wants reasonable mature well-thought-out things, and even Caris wants things that he can talk about and not sound like an idiot. Bastran just...wants everything to be the way it was a few months ago, when Caris was his fascinating compelling wonderful lover and nothing was more complicated than that, and he wants to do it all over but this time without any of the stupid mistakes, and he wants Caris to trust him and think he's competent, and he wants Altarrin not to be miserable about the Empire and he wants the Empire to be worth it.

Bastran is pretty sure that ABSOLUTELY NONE of those are possible to have at all, because they're - wanting basic facts about reality to be different. They are definitely not things Ramona can give him by being good at relationship advice. 

"I'd want to...deserve Caris' trust, I guess? And I want to - learn how to stop hurting people I care about." There, he said it. He's quietly dying on the inside but at least he said words? 

Ramona has been taking notes and keeping score. How many clients want each goal?

- Caris/sa to be immortal and/or a deity: 2
- Stop damaging other people: 2
- Someone else to feel or be a certain way: 1
- Hash through old mistakes: 1
- Sex occurring in a shared context: 1
- To be corrected and perfected in the purifying flames of Hell: 1

Goals that all three clients want: 0

This is not Ramona's first time at the circus, though admittedly this one's high wire act is higher than most. It's not unusual for clients to have disparate goals. She can pull these together.

"It sounds like there's quite a lot of work to do here. You want to repair old injuries. You want to understand how and why you hurt other people, so you can stop doing that. You all expressed some version of wanting the others to feel safer and more secure, but you did it in a smart way. You didn't just say, 'Feel safer!' You said, 'I want to figure out how to change my own behavior so other people can rightfully feel safer with me."

"Most of all, I notice that your goals are complimentary. Nobody named anything that's in direct conflict with what someone else wants. That's a really good starting point."

"And more good news: a lot of what you want is possible to achieve in therapy."


"I admit that I do not know how to arrange for someone to be corrected and perfected in the purifying flames of Hell, that is a new one for me, and I'm not totally sure it's something I want to bring about, but it sounds like you didn't mean that one literally, Caris, so I'm going to let it go for now and maybe ask you more about it later."

"And I also don't know how to make someone a deity, but I have the impression you have your own way forward on that."

"Yes, I was not expecting relationship therapy to cause that." Except by giving her access to Earth, which may well be decisive. She's absolutely not going to say that. "The flames of Hell literally exist but I do not think they will solve any of my problems at this point."

"- In Carissa's world, to be clear. I am quite confident they do not exist in Velgarth and have no reason to expect they would exist for Earth, although I suppose I could check if you wanted to know." 

Ramona is nonplussed that Hell apparently does exist on some worlds if not others? She spent a lot of time unwinding childhood programming about that and if it turns out that there really is a Hell, well, that would be upsetting. To put it mildly.

"Huh. Actually. Yes? If you could look into it I would be very interested to know that important information!"

"All right, next question. This one can take a while."

"I need to know about all the major problems in your relationships with each other, but if I just ask you to start telling me the problems, it usually doesn't go very well. Asking straight up often leads to hurt feelings and out of control conversations, or just silence."

"So instead I ask the question inside out."

"Someone will go first. Let's say... Bastran."

Bastran is not a random choice.

"Bastran, you'll tell me the top three or four concerns or complaints you think the other people have about you. These might be complaints Caris has about you, or Altarrin, or both. You may or may not agree that the complaints are valid."

"While Bastran is talking, I'll ask Altarrin and Caris to remain silent and just listen - it's not a team exercise. I want to know what Bastran thinks you think of him."

"Once Bastran is done naming his three or four things, and I've talked with him a bit about them, then I'll give Caris and Altarrin a chance to weigh in."

"When we're all done with that, then we'll do the same exercise from the other two points of view."

"Are there any questions? If not, you can go ahead, Bastran."

Oh no this is terrible. Why can't Altarrin go first, Altarrin is emotionally competent. 

Okay. Deep breath. He's maybe going to take fifteen seconds to put his thoughts in order, first, hopefully that's allowed.

"I think Caris thinks I'm less trustworthy than Altarrin and less - able to keep people safe if I say I'm going to? Which is - probably true, to be clear, I'm not arguing with it. I think Caris thinks I'm hurting Altarrin by trying to keep him in the Empire, and that it's - selfish of me to say I need him to do my job, just because my job is really hard, and - I guess probably thinks it's a sign of me being less competent, that I don't feel like I can be a good Emperor without Altarrin's advice?"

This is the WORST EXERCISE IN THE WORLD.

"...I think Altarrin probably isn't actually mad at me, he - doesn't do that, mostly," it's because of the emotional competence and probably also the being a 700-year-old immortal who isn't entirely a normal human being anymore. "But I think I hurt him a lot, by - going along with the Office of Inquiry wanting to be maximally paranoid and keep him prisoner under a ton of mind-affecting compulsions while they questioned him for days. And he'd agree with that, just - probably isn't mad and doesn't think it's - productive to blame me about it or anything." Because Bastran is not emotionally competent and not 700 years old. "Uh. I think Altarrin thinks I'm wrong that the Empire is where he can do the most good for the world, and that I'm harming the - things we both actually care about - because I have the power to give him orders and I'm using it to make him stay."  

There that was four things aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Ramona asked Bastran to go first because he's the most anxious, and if someone else went first, he wouldn't listen to what they were saying at all, he'd just sit there fretting about what he was going to say when it was his turn.

"Well done, thank you, that's very helpful. Let's take them one at a time, so I can understand them a little bit better."

This is partly because Ramona does actually need to start tracking details now, and partly because the more a person can take responsibility for their own mistakes and say them clearly out loud, the less other people need to explain the mistakes later, and it's better for everyone if the culprit does the explaining than if someone else does.

And also it's kind of cool when the person talking is just wrong and the other people get a chance to hear all the weird made-up shit their partners were thinking.

"So the first one was: You think that Caris would say you're not trustworthy and can't keep people safe. Which people? Safe from what? How do you think Caris would answer that?"

"...I don't know if Caris would say I'm not trustworthy period?" Even if he DESERVES IT. "But - we talked about it, when we were negotiating for him - her at the time, I guess, she was talking to me as Carissa then." Probably to make it less weird but it did not really make it less uncomfortable. "About surrendering back to the Empire so we could finish investigating the attempt on Altarrin's life. And Carissa didn't trust me to - get it right, to be able to actually stop the gods from using my people as a tool to kill her. Trusted Altarrin more, we only agreed on something once I let Altarrin have all the impairing mind control taken off so he could check. Altarrin's - obviously better at it, he's has more practice and he's - the sort of person who gets to be 700 years old in the first place." 

Awkward shrug. "I think Caris would say I'm pretty trustworthy. He was willing to negotiate about trying to save Altarrin's life, and about surrendering at all. Just. It's - it feels like it shouldn't take that much skill to keep someone safe from the gods in the Empire. Our entire goal is keeping the gods away and I'm the Emperor. Just. I'm not actually good enough at that." 

"Okay, so it's not so much that you lie or go back on your word or those other forms of not being trustworthy. It's a question of... can you get it done. Can you protect Caris from the gods. Are you powerful enough, effective enough, to do that. Or not."

Ramona keeps watching Bastran's face while she says it back to him, looking for signs that she's on the right or wrong track.

"So maybe the idea of 'trust' comes in if you and Caris have different estimates of your own power. Like if you think you've got the goods, and Caris doesn't think so, or fears that you don't. And then something that's already a very high stakes situation is even higher stakes, because it's not just Caris's life you're trying to save, it's Caris's good opinion of you and your effectiveness and your judgment."

"Is that right? Am I getting it?"

Ramona is basically just putting the string "protect Caris from the gods" where she would ordinarily say, for example, "remember to pick up groceries for dinner" in a more typical therapy session. It's fine.

"...Yeah, I think that's mostly it. I guess Caris might worry I would go back on my word if - something happened that looked suspicious and scary enough, and all of my other advisors were saying Caris was obviously out to destroy the Empire and hand it to Asmodeus– uh, the torture god from his world. Um. I think it might be true that I wouldn't - be confident enough that I was right about Caris, if enough people thought I was wrong? And Altarrin would be, Altarrin would never betray Carissa after he gave his word. But - I think I might be strong enough to not do it either, and I'm not sure if that would actually be one of Caris' complaints," it just feels like he DESERVES IT and has demonstrated to Caris that he can't reliably make promises. Possibly that isn't true but it feels like it's true. 

Another helpless shrug. "I think it is just true that I'm not effective enough, even if I really should be powerful enough, I - can't argue with that. It's a pretty big thing to ask someone to trust you with."

It is kind of obvious from Bastran's face that this does NOT MAKE IT BETTER and also that he has deeply conflicted feelings as he's saying that he really should be powerful enough. 

"Oh I see, so there's another layer here. It's not just, can you stand up to the gods. It's also, are you going to go to bat for Caris against your advisors. So maybe you think Caris's fear is that you're too easily swayed, or something? Like powerful voices around you can push you this way or that way, and so just because you swore to Caris you'd have his back doesn't mean you're really going to do that. Not if someone else talks to you and changes your mind. Something like that."

Ramona judges from Bastran's face that she's zeroed in on what he was saying, well enough for now anyway. She turns to Caris.

"Caris, how did Bastran do? Did he describe a real concern that you have about him? Is there anything you want to add or edit about his description?"

"Don't worry about the other three things Bastran named, we'll come back for those. Right now it's just about this question of trustworthiness and keeping you safe, and being able to stand firm rather than sway in the wind."

" - he did a really good job, right. I'm alive. He could've - I'm sure some people advised him not to go through with letting me heal Altarrin, or to kill me once he took me prisoner, and he didn't listen. I was worried that he would, but he didn't, so. I guess I'm not as worried about that anymore. 

It's not his job, right, to keep me safe. It's his job to run the Empire. It's my job to keep me safe. I don't actually know if he listens to his advisors too much or too little, he'll also get killed if he's not paranoid enough and that'll be - even worse for my safety. I guess I don't feel - sure he'll be okay. And it'd be - good if I knew that more confidently. And I mostly feel sure I'll be okay because I'm out of Jacona and the people in his court who want me dead can't find me. But it's a - very hard job, right, it's not like I think I'd do better at it, except by not being so Good and so not spending as much time being sad about it."

"Okay. So it sounds like Bastran accurately described a real thing, a real area of concern, but... he's overestimating how big a deal it is to you now? Like maybe this concern has actually already been partially put to bed, and maybe you give Bastran a lot more credit than he thinks. You think it's complicated, and he's doing his best, and his best is actually pretty good?"

"Yes. Almost no one - would have been worth even trying to negotiate with to heal Altarrin. Almost no one would've - stuck with it."

Ramona turns back to Bastran.

"What do you make of that, Bastran? Can you take in what Caris is saying, that he thinks you actually did a pretty good job there?"

Squirm. "...I - appreciate it? I was trying really hard, and - I wasn't sure it would end up working out, but I'm glad everyone is okay now. ...I do, uh, think that Caris has appallingly low expectations of how trustworthy you should expect someone to be as, uh, a basic human decency thing. Because of growing up in the country ruled by the torture god, and stuff." 

"While you may well be onto something there, Bastran, I'm going to take that question and save it for later, when we're focusing on Caris!"

Ramona does think Bastran might just have a point, but she also notices how fast Bastran took the spotlight off himself and put it on somebody else. Ramona's going to shine it right back on Bastran again.

"Let's go to the second concern you named."

Ramona consults her notes.

"You said you think Caris thinks you're being selfish by requiring Altarrin to stay close, something about Altarrin helping you with your job as Emperor. I don't really understand what's going on there. Can you explain? What, if anything, are you doing to keep Altarrin close to you, and what do you think Caris thinks about that?"

"....I mean. Altarrin is under compulsions to be loyal to the Empire and to me and to obey Imperial orders - and to not try to have any of those removed - that's standard, the early Emperors figured out pretty quickly that the gods could sneak people in as assassins way too easily if we didn't do that. But, uh, I made the decision that he needed the compulsions back, even if it's mostly that it would look really bad to the Office of Inquiry if they caught him without them right after I just leaned on them a lot to clear him in the investigation. Uh. And I am kind of the only person who could - make the decision to stop doing that. Because everyone else has to obey me."