He's heard it before. So many times before. I don't want the world to be devoured by demons, and so everything else, I will permit, and permit, and permit, and rob everyone of everything while they submissively bow their head and recite 'I don't want the world to be devoured by demons'.

"Accomplishing things is really overrated, in my experience."

"If she loses her throne and enlists at Crusader's Fort and gets eaten by a demon I won't shed any tears. But it seems like such a waste, to be killing each other.

...I was rude, to you. In the Fane, and I never apologized."

"Oh, no apologies, please, that's more serious than I thought we were."

She laughs "That's a relief to hear. You had me worried today, with all the flowers and the hot tub. Unfortunately, there's no escaping it, I'm one of those obnoxious Lawful Good people. I apologize to everyone." Almost everyone.

"Well, I will patiently overlook this vice because you are so very good at dancing."

She lies there in silence a bit longer.

"The Knight-Commander didn't do..." she can't say 'anything wrong', can she. "...what you think he did."

There are - kind of a lot of small distinctions that might be important to Catherine but don't much affect whether Daeran is mad at the Knight-Commander or not. Plenty of his own awful decisions he was fully clothed for, for instance. Also she might be lying so he doesn't go confront the Knight-Commander and get killed, which isn't what would happen but she doesn't know that. ...and he'd probably get killed at some point not all that long after that, when the powers that be really panicked.

"His access to the hot tub is nonetheless retracted until he says sorry. I hear Lawful Good people do it compulsively."

"I'll let him know, if he ever asks. It - really isn't about him, though. And whatever you're imagining he did to hurt me - he didn't. Really. He did turn me down I guess but that's - not why I'm here."

"I promise you, I can dislike people just for being perfectly virtuous crusaders who have done nothing wrong at all. I often do, really."

"But right now you're being protective of me and it's sweet, it really is, but it's also misplaced."

"Well, only a great fool would argue with such a lovely lady about anything, let alone her personal business."

She turns around and kisses him.

"I appreciate it."

Oh, kissing. That sounds more fun than arguing.

It's mostly just the one. She's still feeling kind of out of sorts.

After a while, Alfirin closes her eyes for two seconds to let Catherine know she's back, then lets them go again.

"I should go. Thank you."

"Any time, dearest."

And she goes back to her own quarters.

Sweeps up the rose petals.

Does not cry.

Aarind is responsible for diplomacy with the Crusade, and a part of that is getting to know the Knight-Commander's top staff. He goes to the cleric, Sosiel, first; he'll probably be the most familiar, of those that he hasn't spoken to already. If nothing else he's neither evil nor a child.

He's neither of those things! He's a handsome man who spends most of his free time painting landscapes of Drezen, though he also has a little bit of a gambling habit and can sometimes accordingly be found at the tavern. 

Well, clerics are hardly forbidden from drinking. The conventional advice is that gambling is unwise, but clerics of Abadar make a habit of it for reasons they've never quite been successful in explaining to him. At any rate, whether he can understand their reasons or not, the fact that Abadarans use it as a form of divinatory ritual means it can't be all that harmful. He finds Sosiel in the tavern and buys himself a drink and sits across from him.

"I hear you're the Knight-Commander's top priest?"

He shrugs a bit uncomfortably. "I try to do my small part. It's the end of the war that I really yearn for."

"A noble enough sentiment" though somewhat unrealistic. "Do you have a family, away from the front?"

"...I have a brother out here somewhere. I don't know where, but I know in my heart he's not dead. I don't have ...all that much else. The rest of my order was killed in a demon attack while I was away in Nerosyan. War is a terrible thing."

"It is terrible, to be avoided whenever possible." He agrees. Not that this particular war is very avoidable.