It seems to be much more obvious to Ramona now than it was to her at the time. She does not object.

Ramona is tempted to keep pressing Alfirin, but this early in therapy it's more important to keep things balanced. She turns to Iomedae.

"And what do you remember of those early days when the two of you first met? What did you first notice or admire about Alfirin?"

"When we first met I said to her that - I'd asked Aroden once if we could see all the stars in Creation. I said that to a lot of people on first acquaintance, because some people saw immediately why I wanted to know - because around the other stars were other worlds, and those might have problems as grave as ours, and to pray to the gods at all is in a sense to attempt to reallocate their attention to ours. 

 But I found it indicative about people, whether seeing the scope of our work expand up into the sky made them happy or afraid or defensive or reluctant - They almost always asked 'what did Aroden say?'.

Alfirin said 'don't tell me' and then reasoned out how the gods might have formed creation and what each of the possibilities would imply about whether there were stars we couldn't see. I couldn't follow all of the details of it, she's smarter than me, but - I appreciated how curious she was, and how - irreverent - she thought of Creation as something that ran on rules we could reason about - she seemed easily surprised, in the sense of a man who pays the world close enough attention it can easily surprise him with small variances rather than in the sense of one who pays it no attention and is surprised by everything."

This is unwise. She should stop. She stops.

She knew when she agreed to do this that it would mean talking about her relationship with Iomedae. She knew and was resigned to the fact that she'd probably have to admit to still loving Iomedae and probably destroy their ability to work together. She... hadn't been thinking about how it would involve Iomedae talking about what she used to admire in Alfirin. It hurts.

There's something here, in that word irreverent, in Iomedae's surprise that Alfirin thinks like a physicist, in the idea in their world, gods are apparently real and you can aspire to become one.

Everyone has a perspective. Everyone stands within their own context, and looks out from it, and the kinds of things they see as strange or remarkable says as much about them as about what they observe.

In Iomedae's context, it's strange to think like a physicist. That implies that in Iomedae's world, there is some other way that people usually think. It's so ingrained, Iomedae wouldn't think to point it out or explain it. So what is that way, that people usually think?

Ramona probably doesn't have enough information to figure that out yet, but she's allowed to ask more questions. She should be careful not to lose the emotional thread in her excitement about conducting cultural detective work.

"Iomedae, when you saw how Alfirin's mind worked, it was fascinating. She had the power to figure things out, to make predictions, about realms that felt out of reach. And that was maybe -- exciting? Intriguing? There's power in that. And maybe you wanted to see more of that, and learn some of it for yourself, or just be nearby to witness it. Is that right?"

"I am curious how regular people, non-Alfirin people, usually approach things in your experience. You mentioned an incuriosity, or just wanting the answer handed to them. Is there a sense that hard questions are unknowable? Or... you called Alfirin irreverent. So maybe by contrast, other people, more reverent people, left such matters to the gods?"

"Most humans on Golarion would have no way of learning what the stars were even if they wanted to, unless their priest happened to know, and no way to learn if their priest was mistaken. And they would probably be wronging their families, to direct their attention that way in the first place, because the stars don't affect the harvests. That it would be a wrong to set oneself the puzzle is untrue of most crusaders - one of war's few luxuries is plenty of free time - but it is not an easy thing to unlearn your conception of virtue when you find yourself in a place where it is less applicable, and not an easy thing to tell whether you've found that."

Ramona notes that when she asks Iomedae two questions, a personal one about her feelings about Alfirin, and a general one about cultural anthropology, Iomedae only answers the general one. When she gets to the point of wanting to push Iomedae, she'll have to give her less cover to hide behind. Not yet, though, and probably not for a while.

First, she needs to get a better handle on the basic context.

"It sounds like you two found a lot to admire about each other in those early days, and as I watch you talk about each other, it looks to me like that never went away. You're both very unusual in your world, strong and powerful women. Alfirin, Iomedae thinks you think in a different and powerful way. And Iomedae, Alfirin admires your methodical competence."

Hmm, probably too soon to ask about the relationship and how it ended. Where to go next? More cultural background, probably.

"In my world, especially historically, we've been confused about powerful women. In many times and places, women had little power, and even if they were hard-working and thoughtful and competent and managed to amass a little power, men would seek to take it from them. We're doing better these days, but our long history of disparity haunts us."

"How is it on Golarion? Are you two unusual not just in your power and aspirations, but all the more so for being powerful and competent while being women?"

She's pretty sure it did go away, at least on Iomedae's end. It doesn't make sense for Iomedae to still find her admirable, when - 

...She can just answer the question asked, instead of ruminating.

"Powerful women are less common than powerful men. The degree of disparity varies by culture and occupation; powerful priests being women is more common than powerful wizards being women, which is more common than powerful warriors being women. Powerful people are more likely to be women in my culture of origin than in Iomedae's."

Iomedae is curious what Ramona means that her civilization is doing better these days, what sort of ideologies or religions or material conditions produce the idea that women having power is 'doing better', but Nirvana is paying for this and she shouldn't ask just because she's curious. "The Crusade did not accept women as officers before I joined. It did accept them as wizards, because one can hardly be choosy about wizards, and as priests, because the gods are presumed to know best about that. Arazni, when She was mortal, was a woman."

Hmmm. There is somewhat less sexism on Golarion than on Earth, it sounds like, and also neither of these two have a moment to spare for brooding or bonding about systemic oppression. Ramona feels somewhat tempted to ask Iomedae about breaking the glass Crusade ceiling, but mostly expects it to be a dead end. If Iomedae is undaunted by the odds of ascension to godhood, she's probably not going to feel tenderness toward her past self merely for becoming an officer.

She'll pull a different thread instead.

"Can you tell me more about Arazni? She's the one you're trying to save, correct? But it sounds like... she already died?"

"Yes. She was an outsider, and generally when outsiders die they cannot be restored to life by any means. But - in the other timeline, about fifty years after the Crusade ended, my Church irritated a powerful necromancer, and he decided to take revenge by restoring Her to - not life, not exactly. Undeath, which preserves some qualities of a living person but not all of them, and which is generally considered a fate worse than most. For nine hundred years She has been undead and enslaved to him. I could kill her, but that wouldn't help much; Shelyn is the only being we know of who might be able to actually heal her.

She was also born to Golarion, originally, but thousands of years ago. By the time we met her she was an astral deva - a kind of angel - and an archmage and a bit of a god. She was - angels have to be sparing with their words, on the material. But she was generous with everything she could possibly share with us, and funny, and ambitious, and -

- shortly after I first met Arazni I said to her, 'I don't mind if I die, as long as the work of my life will get done anyway'. And she said 'sounds like you should mind if you die.' It's - the sort of thing you only need to hear once but may really need to hear once, or at least I did."

Concepts Ramona doesn't understand and is still not asking about, collected:

 - "the other timeline"
 - "outsider," possibly related to being an "astral deva / kind of angel"
 - "gods" and how you become one and why so many people fail at it
 - "immortality" and how you get that and why it often requires evil acts. Also if you are immortal can you better refrain from acting on confidential information or was that an incorrect inference?
 - "Aroden" who chose Iomedae, for what?
 - "Shining Crusade" against what and why is it shining?
 - "wizards" and "teleporting"
 - "paladins" and "knights"

The odds are pretty good that most of these concepts don't actually matter to the relationship between her clients. You could substitute in different goals and factions and attributes and the basic story would be just the same. It's important not to get bogged down in the details; that's the overly-specific intake form all over again.

But a few of the concepts might turn out to be very important indeed -- and Ramona doesn't know yet which ones are which. So she'll just track them, and see which ideas seem to come up over and over.

"Arazni seems like an amazing person and I can see why she matters so much to you, Iomedae."

"What kind of connection do you have to Arazni, Alfirin?"

"One that is somewhat more complicated than Iomedae's.  She was a friend and a mentor and - terrifying. Like - hm, no, I can't actually think of something analogous and even if I could it probably wouldn't translate. I am uncomfortable with divinity and she was a god, if a small one. Every conversation was - she could foresee how they would go before they happened, she could steer how they would go - not arbitrarily but extensively. And she didn't, I think, with me. And it feels like she taught me half of everything I know, and she saved all of our lives dozens of times and she was one of very few friends I had, even after I left the Crusade and came back."

"I think most people find Arazni terrifying and I am unusual in that respect because I am not capable of experiencing fear."

"I have been told that I am unusual in the manner and degree to which I found her presence discomfiting."

Ramona had been just about to ask Alfirin about her discomfort with divinity when Iomedae's comment hijacked the top spot on Ramona's priority queue.

"Iomedae, when you say you're not capable of experiencing fear, is that -- figurative? Or do you mean that fear is just completely absent for you?"

"And either way, was that always true, even when you were a small child, or did it start later?"

"All persons empowered by the gods as paladins, once of sufficient strength, experience no fear. I reached the relevant strength when I was sixteen."

"I'm confused! I consider fear a helpful feeling. Fear is part of the feedback loop by which we avoid repeating our mistakes, or the mistakes of others. How do you do without it?"

Or do 'paladins' just get injured and die a lot faster than other people?

Or is their 'sufficient strength' somehow enough to counterbalance the increased rate of injury? That doesn't sound right.

Ramona should stop trying to puzzle this out and just listen to Iomedae's answer.

"The fact paladins experience no fear is considered a mixed blessing for approximately that reason. Soldiers who will not flee in terror are more capable on the battlefield, and a unit that is less likely to break is likelier to survive, but fear is also protective against recklessness and more generally is part of peoples' processes for decisionmaking; when they are without it they will have to change. The conventional wisdom is that paladins should be part of a religious order that helps compensate for the challenges, and that they usually fall - are renounced by their god and lose their powers - without that. Or die young. Many paladins die young. Most people who could have grown up to be like me died young."

Well, that all checks out, at least. Still, these are not standard-issue humans! Ramona should check more of her assumptions.

"Are there any other major changes in the life cycle of a paladin, or a person on the way to godhood? Have you lost any other emotions along the way, or gained ones that I've never heard of? Gained or lost any other capabilities?"

"We both wear very good cognitive enhancement that improves our memory, reaction times, decisionmaking, intuitions, cleverness, and attention. I have been working towards making decisions in a way that is legible to the gods and being able to make commitments as gods do, but that's just a matter of deliberate practice, not a magical effect. We have...many capabilities. I'm not sure which ones are relevant here. Powerful paladins spellcast, are immune to enchantments, make their allies braver and more resistant to hostile magic, smite evildoers, move very quickly, heal people... as a person on the way to godhood I have more flexible spellcasting, can speak directly with Aroden, and can make fate go my way sometimes.

There haven't been other people like me so there's not established wisdom on whether being like me has psychological effects but I think I'm broadly the same person as when I was younger, just having learned some bitter lessons and grown wiser and learned how to do a lot of things I wanted to do all along."

Powerful wizards famously get their genius out ahead of their wisdom and make decisions that are kind of stupid for how smart they are, but she'll leave Alfirin to say that or not.

That's a dizzying list of advanced capabilities! Ramona scrawls notes as fast as she can, and then reviews.

Many of these things do not, strictly speaking, seem relevant to relationship therapy. Probably? The ones that stand out are advanced decision-making skills and being especially clever and attentive.

Many people have pretty strong feelings about exactly how clever their partner is, especially in relation to them. You might admire your partner for being much cleverer than you are, or you might enjoy taking care of your uncomplicated spouse. Maybe the two of you pride yourselves on both being clever. But few couples could withstand a substantial change in cleverness on one partner's part.

Maybe Alfirin got more clever, too, though? It sounded like maybe some of the cognitive enhancement was not just for paladins. Ramona will follow up on that in a moment.