"Likewise."

Ramona has a very old inner conflict that sometimes flares up when she gets clients who are "too easy" in some sense. It goes like this:

Ramona: I should give back their money, they're doing all the work themselves and I'm just a spectator.
Also Ramona: And yet, they were stuck for... how many years, before they came here? And they're not stuck now. You're earning the money.
Ramona: It's the setting and the expectations, it's not anything I'm doing.
Also Ramona: You made this setting. You picked out the couches and the artwork. You set the expectations.
Ramona: But...
Also Ramona: Shut up and take their money. Work doesn't always have to be difficult to be valuable.

Ramona is so good at this particular inner conflict that she can breeze past all the lines and just go straight to the conclusion, so she does that.

She maybe also directs some appreciative thoughts in the general interplanar direction of Shelyn, for being correct that there were misunderstandings to uncover here.

"I think we're making really good progress, and if you both feel up for it, we could continue down our list."

Iomedae is sort of hoping they can get through the whole list in one day and call it good. Probably she shouldn't be hoping that. "I'm ready."

"The next topic on the list is the breakup, but we don't have to go strictly in this order, the scoring is approximate anyway. It could make more sense to talk about Iomedae's feelings for Alfirin next, for example. Or if Alfirin isn't ready we can take a break."

"I don't need a break." She's anxious and a little bit sad but that doesn't seem like a reason to stop. "Either topic is acceptable to me... If Iomedae doesn't mind talking about her feelings next I'd prefer to do that so I can stop avoiding making inferences about how she rated those relative to mine."

"That's fine with me. I rated it more highly because it's more plausible that you'd want to leave the Crusade over my conduct than the reverse."

"I admit I was also curious how those two topics ended up so far apart in the riskiness scoring! Let's go ahead with talking about Iomedae's feelings about Alfirin, then. Iomedae?"

Ramona feels a little bit like she's just thrown a heavily armored woman into the deepest part of the ocean, but Iomedae seems so competent that she can probably just breathe underwater anyway.

Iomedae can only breathe underwater when she's had reason to expect she might need to!

"I think probably the most straightforward characterization is that I still love Alfirin, and expect to for as long as I'm capable of love. I want her to be happy and live forever and achieve great things; I experience a lot of anguish over the possibility that she'll do something awful and I or someone will have to stop her."

Oh. That's - surprising. She assumed, given the terms on which they parted... 

Does she feel happy to learn this? Not... really. She'd expect to, but... she still feels worried. Regretful.

These women both look so terrified at the prospect of still loving each other.

Iomedae calls it anguish rather than fear, because of course she doesn't feel fear. But this sure has all of the hallmarks of fear: a prediction about something bad that could come to pass, strong negative emotions about that possibility, the urge to avoid the bad outcome...

Ramona is not sure how much to believe in this business about paladins not feeling fear. Maybe they do feel fear, but they just have large quantities of courage to counteract it.

She's not going to say anything, yet, she'll let the two of them sort this part out. But she is intrigued! How credible is it that Alfirin will do something truly awful and why can't she just... not do that?

There is probably a reason. There is always a reason. But Ramona can't guess yet what it is.

"That seems like something I would have been very happy to learn in a different context."

"I am not sure whether you mean that you resent learning it as a consequence of Shelyn telling us to speak or that you would have wanted to learn it in some context with plausible deniability or something else."

"I don't know what Alfirin meant, we'll have to find out from Alfirin herself, but I interpreted what she said very differently!"

"It sounded to me as though she was saying she wished you two could just... love each other. And that under different circumstances, it would have been happy news to find out that your feelings were mutually positive."

That interpretation did not occur to her at all and still seems implausible!

"First one. And a bit of the third.

...I think after this conversation I will need some time to think through how I endorse responding to that."

"That makes perfect sense. I am - grateful for having a more accurate understanding of things, and I'm sorry if - you would have preferred not to have this information."

"Alfirin, you too are surprised that Iomedae loves you. Can you say more about why you're surprised?"

...Right, she can just focus on the factual questions where what she wants doesn't matter, and figure out what she wants later when she's alone.

"...Many of the same reasons Iomedae was, I suppose. We - had our disagreements, when I left, and I thought - It seemed like she would have plenty of reasons to stop loving me. And we hadn't spoken in six years. And she was very - professional. Distant. And she's always been trying to think and act like the god she's going to be, and she's not planning to be a god concerned with or capable of love, so -"

"Iomedae, do you want to comment on why you were keeping your distance?"

A picture is starting to form, here, but it's still helpful to have them say things out loud.

"Well, dating Alfirin had been a mistake, and it seemed like a mistake we would plausibly have some trouble not repeating if we went around having common knowledge of being in love, and if instead Alfirin despised me then she would want me to keep my distance, so it seemed indicated in either case. It is true that I intend, as a god, to care about love only insofar as other beings care about it and not for its own sake, and that I mostly try to reason as a god, but I haven't tried to reduce the intensity of any of my mortal friendships, that seems like the kind of thing that would be wildly ill-advised for anyone else and is not so important I should gamble on being unlike anyone else."

"I am curious... where are you on this becoming-a-god project? How many years have you been working on it, and how many more would you guess you have to go?"

Ramona wants to know, is there time enough for love?

"In the other timeline I ascended five years after the end of the war. There's plenty of flexibility. I expect to stay longer this time, as the existence of two worlds means there are more tasks best accomplished while I'm mortal. I would stay longer than as long as needed to finish all my business if Alfirin wanted me to but I predict she doesn't want to - be able to change my behavior by wanting things like that -"

Indeed, Alfirin seems pretty alarmed about the possibility even being mentioned. Part of this has to be that she hasn't fully accepted that Iomedae still apparently loves her, since a part of her can't fathom why Iomedae would stay if she wanted her to.

"I am beginning to think we should probably just go ahead and talk about the break-up."

"It seems to me that either you have sufficient reason not to be in a relationship, or you don't."

"If there are good reasons not to be in a relationship, then you can just... not do that. Sorry, the word 'just' is dismissive there, I realize it's quite hard to refrain from being in a relationship that you yearn for, and if that's the correct answer, then I can do my best to help you ease the pain of it despite the common knowledge you now have. And revisiting and verifying your reasoning for being apart will help you immensely."

"And if there are not actually good reasons to not be in a relationship, well."

Ramona chooses not to finish that sentence right now, and instead falls silent to see what the reaction will be.