"Yep. Completely ridiculous. Like absolutely everyone going into a big life-changing ceremony... maybe not like people with a few more paladin powers whose god has given them immunity to stage fright. But like every other normal human being in this situation." She'd be kind of sad if Iomedae were the kind of paladin who never felt afraid. Depends how it works, really, but it seems like it'd be losing something good along with the bad, there.

"Right," says Iomedae miserably, "all of the other paladins in my new paladin order are immune to fear and will have no comprehension of what madness has taken hold of me. Good point, I hadn't thought of that."

"Don't they mostly sign up and swear the oaths before they get magic powers about it? I'm sure this is perfectly normal and they see it every year. I've heard you're supposed to imagine something completely ridiculous, for stage fright. Should I come up with suggestions?"

Iomedae tries out dressing as Mulan, then Mickey Mouse. "I don't think it's helping." The Little Mermaid. "Okay, no, maybe we're getting there."

"You know, I bet this wouldn't be the first time for that last one, what with the uncanny-similarity-to-China continent. But what I meant is that I think you're supposed to imagine Cansellarion with a frog's head or something like that."

Iomedae frowns consideringly. "...no, he's still really scary. And Lastwall seems more cosmopolitan and modern, welcoming the frog-headed ….can you sneak over to the cathedral and see what the other people taking oaths, if there are any, are wearing for it?"

"Yeah, absolutely." She runs off to do so.

"...Awkwardly," she says when she gets back, "They are all in military uniform. Did someone issue you a rank and a uniform when I wasn't looking?"

"No!" says Iomedae. "I am pretty sure I would remember that!"

"Well…maybe something that looks vaguely like a uniform but isn't actually claiming any sort of rank - like this -" She demonstrates. It looks a little too sci-fi to blend in well in Lastwall.

"Mmm," says Iomedae, distracted. "You look good in uniform. Contemplated joining any armies yourself?"

"I don't know if I could stand the discipline - or take seriously any army without any, I guess. Maybe I can talk Zima - no, not him, Valentina, she's slightly less grumpy - into starting an army corps of engineers and appointing me colonel or something. Let me design the uniforms… No, still too much discipline I think. Sorry, dear."

"And now we know why original Alfirin did not join the Crusade and make history. We thought she got eaten by a bear but actually she checked it out, found it had either too little or too much discipline, and lived a quiet life feeding birds and reading the newspapers."

"You know, you could make a decent living, reading the newspapers -" Now she's sad and a little homesick. She thinks it's kind of stupid to be homesick for a place she never wanted to go back to but persists in it anyways.

"...Anyways, while I am happy to stand here and look pretty - striking? I imagine I probably look more striking than pretty in this - we were trying to figure out what you can wear."

Iomedae swallows determinedly. "I will just ask someone. 'What should I wear' is a silly childish girlish question and I am embarrassed to ask it, but 'what won't draw attention, if we imagine Lastwall is presently closely observed by its enemies?' is a sensible one."

"Eminently. Should I come with you?"

"I don't think I'll have to go too far." Are there still guards posted at her door?

Of course! Is she still dressed as the little mermaid?

No!! She's back to her work jumpsuit. "My ordinary manner of dress will draw too much attention at the ceremony," she says. "What would be expected?"

"Initiates from other countries who don't have a rank yet usually wear plain white robes, under armor. If you're not accustomed to armor yet I think just the robes will do?"

"Thank you," says Iomedae with dignity, or something resembling it. 

In that case she will wear plain white robes to her ceremony.

The Cathedral de Sancta Iomedaea is very very nice. It's hard to imagine the Lastwall leadership she's met authorizing spending this much on an incredibly nice cathedral. Maybe magic makes the economics make more sense. There's a wildly-more-than-life-sized sculpture of the goddess, with Aroden's eye on her shield, holding a blazing sword aloft.

It's nice in the way she associates with Arodenite Taldor, beautiful to prove you can make beautiful things, grand to prove you can make grand ones. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard and we're better at hard things than the Russians. 

She hadn't been expecting the shield with the eye of Aroden. For some incredibly stupid reason; of course the goddess Iomedae had a shield with her god's holy symbol on it. Iomedae's heart hurts a little. 

No one's staring at her but it feels like everyone's staring at her. 

The ceremony is not as short as it possibly could be; It does not have a ton of extraneous detail, but Cansellarion does give a speech, and each initiate walks to the front separately to kneel and take their oaths. They pray together, at the end, rather than individually, for the Goddess Iomedae to hear their oaths, and to help them keep them, and to hold them accountable should they fail.

It doesn't feel instantly right and perfect once it's done, like all her worries were nothing really. It also doesn't feel like a grave mistake. It feels like -

Like she's been a free person since she turned eighteen and now she's something more complicated than that. Maybe better, but definitely more complicated. She asks the Goddess Iomedae to end the evil afterlives and it doesn't feel quite the same as asking Aroden but that's got to be in her imagination. 

Is there something she's supposed to do after this.

Not exactly supposed to. The other initiates are standing around socializing, being congratulated by their friends and their families and Cansellarion - some people are at this point staring at her a bit curiously, probably because she showed up for the ceremony and took the oath and was definitely not in training with the rest of the initiates who all seem to know each other. One of them does eventually wander over and ask. "Aina, was it? How did you come to join the order?"