Vinressus Weir looks very tired. "Is the problem that - you don't appreciate the way you're being treated in the relationship counseling? You don't want the results you expect? You don't feel comfortable with the concept? You're too distracted by worry for your friend to feel ready to care about anything else? Those suggest - different things I might ask Shelyn."

"My problem," she says slowly, "Is none of those. It is that Shelyn has asked something of me - technically of Iomedae, but the nature of the thing unavoidably involves me - but has not specified under what conditions She will consider our obligation fulfilled. If you are able to predict the answer to that question I don't need you to commune for it. We have attended one session of relationship counseling; is this adequate? If not, will ten be? A hundred? One each week for so long as we both live? Or if Shelyn instead requires a particular outcome, what outcome is it."

"I can ask that question but I'll tell you right now that I expect the answer will be 'unclear' because that question is not drawn into the world along lines Shelyn can trace. I could ask 'the relationship counseling is not working, would I, if I searched, find with Iomedae and her companion some other way to achieve whatever it is you hoped to see them achieve'. I could ask 'does being this unhappy after one session of relationship counseling predict that it will not serve this person'.

But nothing that matters is measured in numbers of sessions of relationship counseling. It is the sort of thing you are meant to do if it is helping you, and not if it isn't. If you are getting nothing out of it besides Shelyn's help with your friend, then my advice would be that you should stop going, and either Iomedae should attend alone or we should discuss some other way to achieve whatever Shelyn thinks is important to achieve here."

"What do you mean by 'helping me'?"

"The hope with relationship counseling is that it does not solve your problems for you, but teaches you strategies you can use to solve them, and maybe creates an impetus to solve them where they'd otherwise go unsolved. If it is working as it's intended, you will learn things you can use to pursue any relationship goal you choose for yourself."

"Well then it seems to be working as intended. When can we stop?"

"After three sessions."

She just said that nothing that mattered to Shelyn was measured in sessions of relationship therapy. So this answer is at best a half-truth; perhaps she has discerned that whatever Shelyn's goals are they will likely to have been met after that time, perhaps she's given up on crossing the communications gulf with Alfirin. Most likely she thinks Alfirin is being a tremendous idiot and will see the light soon. It doesn't matter. She has her answer; as long as Arazni is helped any mismatch between the answer Shelyn's high priest gave and what Shelyn truly valued is Shelyn's problem.

"Fine. Thank you for your time."

Ramona is sitting in her office, writing up a case conceptualization and treatment plan for Alfirin and Iomedae. They’re due for their second session shortly, and Ramona is feeling a little underprepared. They are unusual clients, even by Ramona’s standards, in that she still hasn’t figured out what the problem actually is, or how they’ll know when they’ve solved it. Ramona is hoping that if she systematically analyzes the case, she’ll come up with a brilliant idea for how to move the case forward.

The two were in a stable if unhappy equilibrium for years, avoiding each other and avoiding thinking about the relationship, until the goddess Shelyn interfered and insisted that they go to therapy together. To what end? To live happily ever after? To live happily until Iomedae’s ascension? To give Alfirin some tie to the world that keeps her from turning evil? What is Shelyn’s actual end game here?

And should Shelyn be calling the shots? According to Iomedae, Sheyln guarantees that her aims are in line with the clients’, and Iomedae believes that. And Alfirin gives off a confusing combination of vibes; she manages to convey that she’s there willingly, despite the situation looking coercive on paper.

Nobody can say what the therapeutic goal is, because only Shelyn actually knows, and it’s too expensive to ask her.

For therapeutic goal, Ramona writes down: “Unknown / exploratory; maybe it will become evident. Resolve misunderstandings and see what happens?”

She turns her attention to the pair’s interaction patterns.

She writes: “Pattern: Avoid / avoid, held together by mutual(?) dependence/shared goals in war; end of war → end of relationship.”

Avoidance is popular for a reason: it’s effective. Couples who keep their distance and minimize their entanglement can often live much more peaceably than those who get closer and reveal more of themselves – but avoidance also imposes a cap on intimacy. It’s cold and lonely. These two have taken it to an extreme. They are still, in their hearts, a couple, if a broken one: there’s a space inside each one of them reserved for the other and going unfilled.

Their mutual avoidance was self-perpetuating; they each had misunderstandings about the other that led them to maintain the distance. As they clear up the misunderstandings, they might find that there’s nothing stopping them from being close. More likely, as they reveal themselves to one another, their old problems will be right there to confront them. The pain will get worse before it gets better, and it might not get better at all.

Ramona wonders what stopped them from solving their problems the first time around. She probably doesn’t have enough information yet to tell. Hearing the story of the break-up will probably help, and that’s coming up soon.

Lots of couples need help with their emotion regulation and communication skills. These two mostly don’t, as far as Ramona can see. She’s not sure she buys this “feels no fear” concept – Iomedae seems to have a perfectly functional awareness of and avoidance of pain – but these two seem skilled at regulating themselves and conducting their conversations productively.

She writes: “Skills: good.”

There may still be some way for Ramona to lend domain expertise once the real problems emerge, but it’s hard to say in advance. They’ve asked for help in getting over each other, but Ramona will wait to give that until it’s obviously their best way forward.

So what’s the plan, then?

Just stay the course, apparently, and be ready to seize on some opportunity to help. It’s not a very satisfying treatment plan, as it’s very content-driven. She’s not actually teaching them anything, she’s just a moderator. Good thing she’s not billing this case to insurance.

She writes: “Treatment plan: continue to explore client-generated list of painful topics.”

She should also make a point of asking about some of the cultural terminology at the beginning of each session. Not too much, as that takes away from the harder-hitting topics, but it’s an investment that might pay off if she stumbles across an important question.

She writes: “Second session: ask about Shining Crusade.”

Paperwork done, and just in time for session, with two minutes to spare! What’s in the snack stash?

Ramona eats some dark chocolate toffee and then immediately regrets it because now her teeth have sticky stuff in them and the clients are already materializing on the couch. Well, it’ll be an uncomfortable minute or two but then it’ll dissolve.

“Welcome back! It’s good to see you again.”

“Do you have anything to share about the time since I last saw you? Any interactions you had with each other, or thinking you did on your own?”

Iomedae has died thrice and navigated a bunch of culture clash related to the wizards she imported from the other timeline (the paladins fit in fine) and run around recovering a bunch of artifacts and dedicated half an hour to prayerful reflection on Alfirin, which she spent concluding that she should probably be more careful about miscommunications in cases where she's deliberately withholding information for strategic reasons, and that probably love is a valuable experience and she should be on the lookout for opportunities to experience it whether Alfirin wants anything to do with her or not. (She's not forming intentions about repairing her relationship with Alfirin because Alfirin is quite likely to decide she does not want to grant Shelyn that kind of steering power.)

"I haven't given our personal relationship much further thought. I spent some time thinking about how I ought to orient, conceptually, to love, but I think that may be out of scope."

"It doesn't sound out of scope to me! Are you willing to say more about that?"

"It seems plausible to me that Shelyn wants me to have a different relationship to love than I will by default when I ascend. It would be difficult to justify her expending resources in this way otherwise, though sometimes the ancient gods make inexplicable decisions. But - I think this was not an inexplicable decision. She waited for me to approach Her about trade, and with our permission She introduced us to a humanlike creature who could help us. That's what the gods do when they are exercising unusual caution to - deal with mortals justly - She could have just nudged us into talking before Alfirin left after the war, probably -

In any event I understand Shelyn to be aiming at causing me to realize something about love. I would like to have attitudes about love that are generally appropriate and not excessively shaped by my specific situation, when I ascend, except that it seems perhaps characteristic of love that it's not very compatible with my interest in having priorities not specific to my individual life, since love as least as I seem to be being encouraged to experience it is inherently a fairly specific thing. So I suppose I ought to try understanding it better. I was considering pursuing some relationship towards that end, after the war. - not necessarily with Alfirin because I expected she might not want to change her behavior based on Shelyn's intervention. I found it difficult to think of any other people I would want to fall in love with but this is probably a failure of imagination." 

Ramona hasn't forgotten about Alfirin, but Iomedae's line of thought here is too interesting to immediately let go of.

"Can you say more about that tension between love being -- a specific thing -- and you wanting to experience a more pure or general form of love? It sounds like it's almost a research project, a way to make you more well-rounded? How do you imagine your specific love might differ from some very typical, canonical love?"

"Well, I would say that the most important case of romantic love, from the perspective of humans on Golarion, is the love that grows in a good marriage, and enables the participants to care for and protect each other better than duty alone would permit them. There are already gods concerned with marriage, so I don't intend to be, but - I ought to understand everything that is important to people, because the decisions I make will involve exchanges among them."

Ramona is not sure if she has enough rapport with these clients to go here at this point, but she'll take the gamble.

"Is there still room in your mortal life for a marriage? Or are you too close to ascension, or too bound by your other obligations, to permit for a marriage? That is, assuming you could find someone you wanted to marry, who wanted to marry you."

Ramona doesn't look at Alfirin.

"- well, I haven't settled on a specific schedule for ascension, and have always intended to do everything that is better done as a mortal first, but I think it would be unfair to children for me to bear them, and it is in any event impossible for my species at my age."

She felt a brief wrenching moment of what was probably jealousy when Iomedae mentioned an intent to pursue other relationships, but none at all at the prospect of her marrying. Probably because the thought is almost inconceivable. Being a wife just seems wholly incompatible with being a paladin or a general or a soon-to-be god.

To Iomedae: "Must marriage always imply children?"

"...well, some couples are unlucky, but it seems like one would not really be obtaining whatever specific valuable experience is obtained through marrying if one married while knowing perfectly well one couldn't bear children and did not really intend to live as a wife in any other important respects either. I do think it'd be good for the world if a married woman ascended, though the world would have to be very different for that to be possible and the things that would make it good would not be present if I found a man to whom I was willing to make what would have to be some deeply eccentric vows. I think if a married woman ever does ascend she'll be of a longer-lived species and almost certainly not a paladin."