"Asmodeus and the forces of Hell do not care about making people strong - Hell is a place of torment."

"I do not seek Hell's torment, merely Hell's discipline. If sufficient discipline is impossible without suffering... so be it."

"Discipline without suffering is hardly impossible. Lawful good is no less common than Lawful evil."

"I have seen the discipline of Heaven's so-called 'champions.' It does not impress."

He goes looking for...Ember, next. After Derenge Ember should be a breath of fresh air.

Ember hangs out in the streets of Kenabres, talking to people. Preaching, you could say. It is freezing and she's barefoot but she's still attracted a little bit of a crowd. 

"I don't think that's right," she's telling a man, "that it doesn't bother you. I think - it's like this snow, right. It makes it so I can't feel my toes. But they're still there, and they're really going to hurt, once it's warmer."

"...Do you need shoes?" It cannot possibly be the case that the supply situation is so badly organized that an important high-level spellcaster does not have shoes.

She turns to look at him. "No," she says cheerfully. "I don't really like shoes."

     "Kind of like how sometimes you'd rather not feel anything," says the man.

"Kind of like that! What you're used to, even if it hurts very badly, is better than something new that might hurt in some different way."

"I think you should probably wear shoes. Being barefoot in this weather - you could lose toes." He supposes Sosiel would regenerate them and Sosiel's spells are usually otherwise being wasted but still.

"That hasn't happened to me before," she says. "I think it might happen to other people, who don't have magic, but still it seems like it's up to them if they want to wear shoes."

       "I think people should wear shoes," says the man, a bit concerned about whether he has lost track of which level on which this is a metaphor. 

"Do you mean that you think it's worth trying to change the ways you hurt yourself over and over even if that comes with new hurts? Or do you just mean that people should wear shoes."

        "...both, I guess."

"Then I think if I were you I would go to her grave."

        "It doesn't seem very like wearing shoes."

"It isn't! But it's a kind of breaking a pattern that's hurting you in a way you don't want to pay attention to."

"Ember, why don't we go inside and have a hot cup of tea and warm up your feet - " he notices the scars and makes a snap judgement " - in some blankets. It would mean a lot to me, if we could talk indoors where it's warm."

"Would it?" she asks curiously. "Because you are uneasy around things that you don't understand?"

"...Maybe. I think it's mostly because I'm unhappy when children are suffering right in front of me and I have the means to fix it."

"Would it be all right with you if we go inside?" she asks the rest of the small assembled crowd. 

They are broadly in favor. 

"All right! Where are we going."

"...To the citadel? Unless you like some other place better."

"Oh, I don't think the Knight-Commander will want all of these people to go into the citadel. It frightens him, when people go places he isn't expecting to find them. We could go to Ane's house, though. Ane makes good tea. Shall I show you?"

"...Okay." He follows to Ane's house.

Ane, it turns out, is a crippled old man with a bit of wizardry who has fixed up one of the houses near the citadel and does laundry if you bring it to him. He is evidently delighted to see Ember, and not very surprised that she's trailing half a dozen people, though he's mildly surprised that one of them is a fancy priest. 

"Ane! Can you make us some tea? It's very cold outside today, and it was making this man sad, to see us in the cold."

"It's not that every house in the city isn't open to her, father," Ane assures the priest, "it's just that she's got no common sense. I can make you all some tea." And he sets some water boiling.

Ember cooperatively wraps her feet in blankets, and does the same for several of her companions even though they weren't barefoot.

       "I don't know what tea is," one soldier confesses.

"It's just water that tastes funny. If you do not like it, you can just hold it up to your nose and breathe it; it smells like summertime."

"Thank you for your hospitality Ane," he is not sure whether or not he should be giving Ane some sort of gift or compensation. He'll try to figure that out.

"Ember, I take it you spend a lot of time on the streets - do you have a place of your own? Somewhere to sleep?"

"There are some rooms in the citadel where someone put a bed for me," Ember says, "and sometimes I sleep there, but sometimes I don't like to. It makes me sad that there aren't enough warm dry rooms for everybody. Maybe like how it makes you sad to see a child suffering."

      "When she sleeps in the barracks we don't give her any trouble, father," says the soldier. "We'd never."

"Please, I'm not -" in the local chain of command, but that's not really what's going on here " - used to being called 'father' except by my own children. I take it it's the local form of address for priests?"

"What would you like us to call you?"