"Incredible - That should at least make the supply situation at the worldwound a lot less expensive until we can get the electroplating process smoothed out, and suggests that if we do get that process working the bullets should work as intended."

"Mmmhmm. How do you feel about a break now?"

"Well this belt's starting to get a bit worn down and I was going to replace it, but that's a whole trip downstairs and across the street - it can wait, nothing's going to explode. Just let me finish updating the log. I know it's not a sensible prioritization but as far as personal convenience goes, I really wish we'd done ballpoints first, rifles second…

…done. I'm all yours."

"Gosh," says Iomedae, delightedly, and locks the door behind them. "You know, I have this terrible problem now where I'll be doing my work, going about my business, and suddenly a voice in my head will say 'did you know that Alfirin is the most beautiful person in the world?' It does this…once or twice an hour. Maybe three times."

There is a moment of panic - how did she find out - how is that at all a sensible response to finding out - before the alternate hypothesis even occurs to her. The other girl, the one who doesn't resemble Iomedae and bear her name - she is Sarkorin - it - still doesn't make any sense. Why? How? - these girls are younger than the real Iomedae and Alfirin were when they met, younger than they were before either joined the Crusade -

"Hm, really? What a strange problem to have -" She pulls Iomedae close and runs her fingers through her hair. "Do you think it's your own voice, or are you being haunted? I don't think I've seduced any ghosts lately…"

"It sounds like my own voice!" Iomedae leans into her and kisses her, happily. "If it's not ghosts the next obvious hypothesis is madness."

Alfirin does not respond with words for a while, for some reason. "You know, I did not happen to memorize the process for making antipsychotics. I think we might be forced to rely on behavioral or environmental changes -"

"Nuh huh, nuh huh, I refuse. We know what happens if I lead a life of blinding virtue, and I found a military dictatorship. For the greater good one supposes I should remain mad."

"Well, you have a point there. No virtue for you, I will have to refrain from disfiguring myself. Such sacrifices we make for the good of the world, I suppose."

"I don't think it would work, anyway. I have a suspicion that the voice in my heart that names you the most beautiful in all the land is assigning a lot of credit to your personality, and your brilliance, and your knowledge of industrialization, and your political opinions no one born to this beknighted planet really stands a chance of improving on, and your smile, and the way you tease me, and -" She has gotten distracted. They should kiss some more. Shapechanging outfits are really convenient for kissing.

They are, aren't they? They can just change from no-fasteners single-piece jumpsuits that aren't actually possible to get into or out of normally, to no-fasteners vests that can be shrugged off in half a second. It's very efficient.

This is simultaneously incredibly informative and incredibly confusing and incredibly upsetting. She would like it to stop, now, but there's nobody else around to jump to - she could just leave but then she'd appear, right there, and that would panic them and raise alarms - she could put them both to sleep, but that would almost certainly alarm them too -

"Wasn't much to decide, by that point," Jan tells Iomedae over tea later that day, "I'd been serving for decades, I'd already sworn half a dozen oaths of office. When they asked me to be Lord-Watcher, I was thinking about the responsibilities of the office, not the oaths. The responsibilities are what matter, here. The oath is just putting those into words."

"I think I feel responsible for all of the same things whether I've made an oath about them or not," Iomedae says. "But - I have no way to say to people, look in my heart and see my feeling of responsibility inside it - and that's what oaths can offer."

"That's right. It just - applies a lot more, when you're a junior paladin taking her oaths for the first time, or a junior officer fresh out of the war college, than it does when you're my age taking the oaths to be Lord-Watcher... I'd love to tell you I was thoughtful and responsible about it when I was fresh out of the war college but I can't. I took the oaths because that's what officers of Lastwall do, and by the Goddess I wanted to be an officer of Lastwall."

"Have you ever wished you'd done something else instead?"

"...Sometimes. Not that I'd never been an officer, but - Could've stayed at Captain. Would've been easier to do right by my family."

"But that's not - being stuck in a promise you made, that's just - wanting two things, that pull in different directions?"

"That's right. I've never regretted my oaths qua oaths."

"Thank you. ...a lot of what I want is to be - easier for Lastwall to work with, to plan around - am I going about that the right way?"

"Becoming one of Cansellarion's people? It tells us a bit more about what to expect. I think we've had some trouble planning around you and Alfirin but - a lot of that is just that you're bringing some very new things to the world. You're not very hard to plan around, personally, but radio broadcasts and 'Watt engines' are."

On Oathday Iomedae goes to the Cathedral de Sancta Iomedaea to make her vows to Cansellarion’s paladin order. She’s still nervous, and still pretty sure that her nerves reflect her correctly understanding the decision to be a significant one, rather than some part of her warning herself not to do it. She really genuinely expects Cansellarion to continue being a reasonable person when she is committed to his order, and if he’s not there isn’t actually a cheaper way to find out. 

She spends a slightly embarrassing amount of time fretting over what to wear. Not the cyberpunk jumpsuits, she doesn’t wear those out of the facility. A dress seems just as wildly inappropriate. Most paladins wear armor but she hasn’t in nearly five years and would be incompetent in it, and it seems like that undercuts all the symbolism -

(Alfirin may notice this predicament because she’s anxiously making the sleeves of many garments swing back and forth between everything from an Imperial Taldane gentleman’s riding outfit to an xkcd tshirt.)

She comes up behind Iomedae and hugs her. "You're overthinking this, but I think if I tell you to stop you'll just start overthinking and fretting over some other detail."

“I thought about enlisting for access to training on modern US military systems, and their military mostly just fights wars in the Middle East that don't accomplish anything! Cansellarion wants to take my homeland back from Hell! I’m being completely ridiculous!”

She ended up not enlisting because training on modern US military systems wasn't going to be useful, there was no way they could memorize and learn enough to build them. But the vows weren't in fact prohibitive.