"I have also heard nothing good about them but Taldor was forever at war with them and if they were actually a lovely place I wouldn't have heard it. There's -I guess I'd expect there's somewhere that can protect us from Cheliax and where freedom is either generally available or purchaseable. …though if we assume the god Iomedae allied, then we might assume She would've told the best available people to get us." She frowns. "I wonder if She ever got good at international diplomacy. Currently it feels very forbidding, as a thing to have to get good at."

"I bet she did. She had it easy though, she had her own country and lacked your noble impulse to tell everyone they should be a democracy…I assume. I think the fact that she sent us to her people is a little bit of a reason to think that she's not exactly allied, or not exactly unbiased, and I guess also a bit of a reason to think maybe her people really are the best. Or maybe she knew Andoran would have been just as good and assumed you'd be more comfortable in a military dictatorship because she was when she was mortal."

"I don't feel very comfortable but for all I know Andoran would be worse! They do apparently have just floods of beggar children everywhere, that'd be a bit dispiriting."

"It could be! I'm just saying - even if she is on our side and choosing what's best for us, she might not know, very well, what's best for us, or might not have known when our souls first arrived and she didn't know anything about us."

"Maybe I will also ask Cansellarion what exactly She said, when She told him to raise us."

She asks about Cheliax first, though. "What promises has Lastwall made about nonintervention in Cheliax?"

"Lastwall pledged to remain neutral in the Chelish civil war and to detain and exile any refugees from the civil war who were found to be planning to continue their part in the war from within Lastwall's borders. In theory, the obligation expired when the war ended and house Thrune took the crown. In practice - when the war was over Lastwall was still unable to renounce her primary duties guarding Gallowspire, nor was she able to simultaneously guard Gallowspire and prosecute a war with infernal Cheliax.  So she remained neutral."

"So if we're continuing our part in the civil war from within Lastwall's borders, that's not allowed, and they plan to argue that we're really not doing that, we're just invading? ...how is the rest of the international community going to evaluate that. It seems a little like splitting hairs."

"Cheliax will claim it's a violation of Lastwall's neutrality, though not out of some principled belief, it just benefits them to claim that. They're not exactly respecting it themselves. The hellknights at the worldwound will pitch a fit - not about Lastwall neutrality, though, just about two countries involved in the defense of the Worldwound spending any of their time and energy opposing each other. But, no, I don't think…Taldor, or Andoran, or Osirion are going to feel misled. It's possible that before the war starts Jan will make a declaration that Lastwall's leadership considers the Chelish civil war to be over, but I think everything they've done so far pretty unambiguously doesn't violate their pledged neutrality. I'm not Chelish; you've never set foot in the country of Cheliax, when the war starts nobody in my army will be serving Lastwall, and we'll start in Nirmathas, whose independence from Cheliax at least is recognized almost everywhere."

"Is there any external body that can be consulted about things like that?"

"The Church of Abadar agrees with this analysis to the extent that they believe Lastwall to be presently committed to neutrality at all."

"Okay.  Unrelated question - mostly unrelated question - what did Iomedae say, when She directed you to raise us?"

"She didn't direct it, exactly. Just told me that I could resurrect the mortal Iomedae. I could check the incident report for the exact wording if you have a question that turns on that."

Incident report?? "- I don't think so, I was just trying to get a sense of how much I could assume that our being here and doing this was Her intent - is it normal for Her to say that little -"

"Yes. It's expensive for Her to send a vision and more expensive the more She communicates."

"So we can make some inferences from the fact She spoke to you but the rest we just have to figure out? Is what She said to you secret?"

"Well, it's much less expensive for us to ask Her questions via commune, so we can ask Her for clarifications. We asked Her if we should proceed with industrialization, for example. We try to be proactive about asking things so that She doesn't have to do the more expensive intervention of contacting us. What She said to me is secret, but only insofar as your identity and presence in the world and how you got here are, you can tell Alfirin or anyone else who knows those things."

"Those were the only questions I had." Though she would not be unhappy if he'd picked up on new-Iomedae-with-fewer-political-opinions and wanted to ask about it, declaring things about it would run counter to new-Iomedae-with-fewer-political-opinions.

"Dismissed, then, we both have things to do."

A few nights later Iomedae wakes up screaming. Her skin is cold and her nose is bleeding and she doesn't remember what woke her but it was very very terrible.

Alfirin jerks awake and - looks around - rushes to the door to send one of the guards for help, because something is wrong and she doesn't know what.

She holds Iomedae. "What happened, is it still here?"

Iomedae spent the few seconds Alfirin was getting help fighting her way through the pillows on Alfirin's side of the bed panicking about the fact Alfirin wasn't there, never mind that she could literally see Alfirin standing a few feet away. "- I don't know. I don't think so?"

"You're hurt." It's a stupid observation.

"I can heal myself but maybe useful for figuring out what happened? If I wasn't hurt I'd think I just - had a nightmare - but I don't think nightmares punch you in the face. …but if anything hostile was here we should both be dead." …cling.