"This is Freedom Radio! We speak the truth, no matter how much trouble it causes. Anyway now you've gone ahead and teased it, and the whole story is rarely worse than a partial one."

" -you know, it's mostly just what I've already said. The institutional Church of Abadar was surprised by the plans to sponsor the pharaoh of Osirion, and it was a serious concern that it would give the appearance of ending our neutrality in geopolitical matters. The Church in Osirion is independent from the Church outside it, to partially assuage such worries."

"Very sensible," she says approvingly. "And, see, I think more reassuring than not saying it. Well, thank you for coming on the show, Archbanker. May we build Axis in this life, and then improve it in the next one."

"The Church said they'll try to tell me in a month or so if they got new priests out of it. I expect they ought to. There must be plenty of people who'd never had it explained before."

"I'd expect so. It was a much better explanation than most people are going to have heard - I was listening, of course. You did great, as always."

Iomedae hugs her. Kind of wants to kiss her, actually, which is a new feeling. She's not sure if paladins are allowed to do that or not. She doesn't really want to ask anyone in Lastwall - maybe she can fold it into her on-air interview with a priest of Iomedae, in three weeks. "I wore intelligence not splendour for it. I should really see about getting both, at this point - I feel odd about spending huge sums like that, because Lastwall hasn't asked me to give back all the money they paid me, but I know their situation is moderately dire and I'd quite plausibly be glad I did give them the money, I just don't know how to know, and I don't know if they'd ask if it's actually severely dire or if they consider themselves honor-bound not to."

"You could just ask. They're paying me more than half in ownership of the industries, because I think they're shorter on gold than they are ownership in the industries. The gold's mostly for - you can't even buy the best headbands, so it's mostly for if I'm wrong about whether they'll respect my partial ownership when we leave -"

She nods. "I guess I should ask. I - I've been so busy that I don't know that it was an error not to try to get to the bottom of it, but I don't really understand them at all, as people. …I guess I'll learn about them on the air in three weeks. It'll be very authentic. The audience will love it."

She laughs. "I suppose that's one way to get your questions answered without having to change up your schedule at all."

"I was also hoping to sneakily figure out what paladin rules I'm supposed to be following on-air but I guess that might leak information."

"Hmm. On the one hand, you don't have to ask in a way that admits that you have no idea what they are. On the other hand, it's maybe broadcasting key facts about you to Cheliax. I can see how it's a hard call."

Iomedae makes a face.

And very grouchily the next day flags down Sir Cansellarion after their morning strategy meeting. "Who should I go to with questions about how being a paladin of Iomedae works?"

"...You haven't sworn to an order yet, have you? You should probably do that soon - I can sit down and talk with you about what the oaths for my order are, though you ought to check with representatives of the other major orders too and get their perspective - Whichever one you pick, oaths are initially for a period of a year, and you'd renew them for the longer-term after that. Do you want to have that conversation with me now? I have things to do today but none that have to get done this morning."

" - then I probably do want to talk now, if that's an option. I'm …sorry I didn't ask earlier - was anyone ever going to say anything or were you just going to wait until I thought to ask."

"You're young and very busy with very important work - and with paladins who get empowered younger, before they've chosen or sworn to an order, we usually want to get them into an order quickly because the structure helps them keep to their principles and not stumble - and I guess nobody was thinking of that as a likely problem, with you."

"- I had a pretty hard time the first month after I was made a foster child in America. But here - no, not really. Though yesterday I noticed that I wanted to kiss Alfirin and realized at that I should probably learn all of the rules."

"...Oh." Somehow the possibility had never occurred to him. "Ah. My order does not require an oath of celibacy, though some do take one voluntarily. I think that's not the kind of - um - interest - that my paladins tend to take oaths about, though."

"The Church of Jesus held that it's evil for women to lie together but we weren't sure if this was only because their god stopped answering Communes a couple centuries ago and they've been making things up ever since."

"I do not know us to have specifically put that question to the Goddess but I think it's not evil and we would know if it were."

Iomedae nods, satisfied. "What are the oaths of your order?"

He can sit down with her and go through them. He thinks she'll probably pick his order, after seeing the other options, but he's absolutely not going to say so until she's made up her mind.

" - this is patently ridiculous but I feel odd about swearing to a paladin order, even though I wanted to very badly for such a long time."

Hug. "Is there something wrong with the orders, or is it a more general feeling?"

"No, they're very reasonable. Reassuring about Iomedae as a god, really. They won't take my lifetime oath, for one thing, just a year for a trial, and they're - careful - I would swear to obey lawful orders from my leadership. …that's how America does it too but I don't think it's how America did it in the 1800s. It's just that I guess I've gotten so used to steering only by prayer and my own judgment that now part of me is hesitant even about swearing to obey lawful orders from someone who is trying to fight Cheliax and will be better at it with my help. Like I said. Kind of ridiculous."

"I don't have a leg to stand on calling your reluctance ridiculous when I very much am not signing up for any paladin orders myself - but I do see what you mean. Is it that you think sometimes you'll get lawful orders that are mistakes, or that you'd rather not follow for other reasons, or just the principle of signing away your ability to make the call for yourself -"