"I wasted it on ink because my judgment and reflexes were too impaired to work with explosives or power tools. I'm fine, really. I don't think your problems are childish, exactly. I think it's normal, to want to be able to love and trust your god, or to want to know how badly you messed up when you make a mistake, or wanting to be treated with respect by your coworkers - it does rankle, a bit, every time I notice them noticing that we're girls."

"I wonder if they have any priests that do…pastoral care…or if that's even been invented yet. It probably wouldn't help if they're not authorized to learn all the secrets. I miss Evelyn because she would not think this was my fault at all and would be upset that all of the benevolent well-intentioned institutions had neglected to look after me properly and I miss my father because he'd think this was my fault but that I could do better. …I miss the idealized version of my father I've been consulting in my head for five years, my real father was probably substantially worse."

"It would be pretty weird if they haven't invented the concept of priests listening to their parishioners' problems and advising them. Maybe not as weird if they had it but not in a way that interacts well with secrecy, or maybe they do it in some overly-structured military theocracy way...

...do you want my thoughts on what you did wrong, or is it not the same coming from someone who's not actually an authority at all."

"Of course I want your thoughts on what I did wrong!"

"I think you didn't actually make a mistake taunting Abrogail - well, not in hindsight. It was a mistake doing it without knowing how she'd respond but if we knew how she'd respond - It was terrifying and you being attacked every night is really scary too, but I think it's still - I think Cansellarion's really glad she doesn't have that wish next spring.

As for losing your sentence… I think a lot of that is just that you're not temperamentally deceptive, and you don't have much practice being deceptive, and you're not always very good at it. And… I don't know, I don't know what it felt like, maybe even if you'd had a ton of practice tricking people it still would've thrown you off - but it seems like if there was an avoidable mistake there, it's just that you never took the time to get good at lying. And I don't think that's actually a mistake."

Iomedae sighs. "That is fairly persuasive and not emotionally satisfying to the part of me that wants to have made a mistake since then I can avoid it in the future and am not fundamentally powerless."

"Yeah. It's like me wanting to be a wizard so I can keep you safe even though it's not like if I'd mastered second-circle spells it would've made a difference."

"I love you."

"I know. I love you too."

On the radio, Freedom does not give Abrogail Thrune the satisfaction of knowing the Nightmares are getting to her. She talks with a cleric of Erastil about Erastil and intersperses it with an educational segment on crop rotation. 

              “Do you plan to marry?” asks the cleric of Erastil, at one point in their conversation.

“Oh, I don’t know. Not while Asmodeus is strangling my country. Maybe once we’ve won.”

              “No matter how great the adversity we face, it’s often wise not to face it alone.”

“I agree with that, but - well, some adversities are of a character it’s not wise to bring children into. And some require straightening out which promises you’ve made and which rank the highest. And - marriage, as it functions in many societies, obliges women to the service of men who might well be unworthy of them, and I don’t think much of that at all.”

                 “All of life is substantially spent in the service of people we might easily judge unworthy of our care.”

“No one is unworthy of our care, but lots of people are unworthy of our service. Every person of any species or shade or origin ought to have safety, and freedom, and an education and a radio and labor by which they can improve their lives, and a knowledge of the evils in the world so they can help solve them. No one can be unworthy of that. Abrogail Thrune’s not unworthy of that. There is no slave and no criminal and no destitute beggar who I am above feeding, if I have food and time and they are hungry. 

But to swear to obey another - it is not enough that they are a reasoning being and that good things ought to be theirs. They must also be someone who will fulfill their duties, admit their errors, keep their promises - how many women, every day, give their word to a man they know none of these things are true of, because they have no choice, and how many give their word believing this to be true and learn bitterly that it is false?”

                “And so we strive to teach men to be worthy, and women to look for men who are.”

“You could also just tell everyone not to pledge obedience in marriage. Some places don’t.”

                 “...that does seem to me to be taking it a bit far, damaging many healthy and happy homes to solve a problem that could be solved more directly.”

“Does it damage a healthy and happy home, if a husband and wife pledge to one another that they will both be faithful and both care for the other, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, that they will honor each other and respect each other, and no one promises obedience?”

                   “...I suppose it might depend on the home. I have to say, this is not the disagreement I expected you to have. I have met Andoren political radicals before and they were generally in favor of abolishing the family altogether in favor of free love.”

“Well, I think there is nothing modern or radical about trying to talk women into sex while having no intentions of doing right by them, nor about conceiving children you cannot support, both of those being among the oldest vices of mankind. 

...with that said, the kinds of people who want to abolish the family altogether in favor of free love can go found experimental communes, and all my goodwill to them, as long as they have some way to ensure no children are conceived to parents who cannot provide them a stable and loving home. There are some ways! I know of one community that pairs young men with older women, and teaches the men continence so they cannot get women with children, and I think that is working to the satisfaction of those involved. I think that some will regret their experimental communes and some won’t but it is in any event the absolute right of any person to pursue their eccentric vision of the good alongside those who share it, if they don’t endanger children thereby. 

But most of our listeners are not Andoren political radicals, and they are thinking to themselves that that sounds shocking and appalling, and I propose not that they contemplate free love communes but that they raise honorable sons and honorable daughters and that the sons and the daughters make the same promises, and strive to fairly share the burdens of life and to make its crucial decisions together. …and that women should leave husbands who beat them, I suppose that’s a bit of a radical political opinion.”

          “Well, it depends why he beats her, I’d say.”

“Oh? When would you say it’s all right?”

         “Well, if it’s a matter of adultery, or - theft, or slander, some matter that in a man would be pursued in court -”

“We reach a very wide audience of people, living under very different legal codes,” says Iomedae, “and it seems perilous to try to make absolute proclamations about all of them. I will say that I stayed once with a woman who refused to ever even hit a child, no matter what they did, and it worked, to raise honorable hardworking children. And if there is anybody who hates to hit their children, but thinks it is their duty, I wish they could know that it is not irresponsible not to, that the virtues can be taught otherwise. And - this seems as true for a spouse, in most cases, though I’ll grant you that it’s complicated in cases where a husband is to act as the law towards his wife. Probably we shouldn’t have that situation, and the law should treat men and women just alike.”

           “Should it? Men and women aren’t just alike.”

“The law should treat alike many peoples who are different. I am also broadly against different legal codes for different races of people. Our uniquenesses are admired by our friends and loved ones: the law does not assess our character, and should be consistent and impartial.”

          “I think I would say instead that there should not be institutions that need function at a scale where they work by arbitrary rules with no consideration for the individual.”

“That seems like a fully general argument against living anywhere bigger than a village.”

       “Well, yes. Erastil thinks cities are…mostly contrary to human flourishing.”

“You know, that’s very fair of him. For now. But when we address disease and learn to build paradise in this world, cities will be much improved, and then He’ll be wrong.”

The difference between Freedom’s affect and Iomedae’s is at this point quite large. Switching Splendour out for Intelligence makes the transition even easier. It’s easy, with the Splendour headband on, to be Freedom, who picks fights on the radio and calls the rulers of countries by entertaining nicknames and is untouchable even by Abrogail Thrune, but when the radio is off she is exhausted and scared and overwhelmed and in meetings she is quiet, unless someone asks her for numbers.

"I'm worried about you," Alfirin says. "I know it's a lot, I know you're scared - I'm scared too - but. You don't seem very okay."

“I don’t,” Iomedae agrees. “A proper night of sleep would probably help but that seems not to be on offer.” Apparently Evil wizards with Nightmares can in fact detect when you’re sleeping and send the spell then, so you can’t foil them just by sleeping infrequently. Lastwall suggested some more magic items but they seem to have only moderately reduced the frequency of the nightmares, and now sometimes she has sleep problems in anticipation of having magical ones. “If I had any ideas to be more okay I would definitely be acting on them but it feels a little insurmountable right now. I can’t exactly take a couple of weeks off. I feel like we gave introspection and discussion a fairly good shake and it didn’t quite get me to - a picture of what I need from myself. Possibly I should ask about wearing Wisdom some time? But I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like I’m having a failure of wisdom, it feels like I’m having a failure of - trying to do a really hard project while unable to sleep because of harassment from Evil wizards and while I have exactly one person in the world I trust, and while a lot of important emotional needs of mine like being able to defend myself are basically not attainable. …we talk about my feelings too much. How have you been doing?”

"Well, awkwardly, if we're trying not to talk about your feelings - my biggest problem right now is that I'm worried about you. Everything else about this is - I mean a lot of things about the world are bad but day-to-day it's fine? I'm running a factory, I'm learning magic, I'm making ridiculous amounts of money that I don't even know how to spend but - it's validating, right, and everyone thinks I'm really smart and they all know I understand the machines better than anyone else - and I have this wonderful girlfriend whose life a bunch of Asmodeans are determined to ruin. I wonder if it's worth trying to sleep in the middle of the day or something. I think the way the spell works they do have to be keeping a powerful wizard of theirs in a coma waiting for you to sleep, I'd be surprised if they went for that 24/7…We should ask someone tomorrow."

"That sounds good. I don't think you need to worry about me? This is tough but - I'm not going to stop doing it. I'm not even going to want to stop doing it. And I'm going to be okay eventually, even if it's not until after we've shot everyone who's trying to mess with me."

"Mmm. You're not sleeping, making it by on magical metaphorical coffee, even if we find a solution here you're scared they'll find something else - I think if I were you I'd find it very satisfying, knowing Abby is making her wizards waste a teleport every day to give me bad dreams, but also I'd be worried they'd escalate to something worse… I feel like you're having a hard enough time here that I'm allowed to worry about you. Even if you can keep powering through it, even if you'll be okay eventually. I care about you and I care about you being okay now even when that doesn't make sense as a strategic priority."

Lean. "I guess you are allowed to worry about me. I'd sure worry if it was you. We should ask someone about whether sleeping in the day will help, and about whether there's anything else they can do even if it's expensive, at least occasionally. Also someone - which means you, as I haven't done great at making any other friends - should appreciate how even though I am in a very bad mood I have picked no fights with our allies at all."

"You've done wonderfully at not picking fights. Iomedae-the-paladin has been very subdued and even though I'm worried about her I appreciate immensely that the only fights we get into with our allies are when I decide to pick them."

"I don't even know that I disagree with Lastwall's people about sex and marriage and family but it really seems very wise to not find out."

"Well, they don't think it's evil that we're sleeping together, but I bet they'd be pretty confused at least if we announced an intention to marry. Maybe not if I were a real wizard first."

"I would feel a little silly telling people we meant to marry if you weren't a wizard, it'd feel a bit like we were pretending. It's different in America where lots of marriages are childless but here - it's not how you'd say ‘we have promised to stay together' -"

"Mhmmm. Wizard or no I bet we'd still shock the Lastwallers. I wonder if any of them are married."

"I bet you the men are and the women are not. For a man it makes a career easier, to have a wife. And it'd in fact be very stupid to have all your most impressive people childless…. Cansellarion might be unmarried. I think a reasonable person whose plan for their life is to take down House Thrune would probably not risk it, if they thought they could bear to live alone. My worst nightmares that aren't sent by Evil wizards are of Abrogail learning about you."

"Mmm. I'm not looking forward to it, for sure. She doesn't have a wish to spend on it, though."

Iomedae smiles, tiredly. "She doesn't. Sucks to be Abrogail Thrune."