They notify him a few hours later that they'll take the civilians, in secret, and they'll have to abide by Osirian law while they're here which would preclude the following things from recent episodes of Freedom Radio (a few things that qualify as evangelizing for Chaotic gods, a few instances of advising people in Cheliax to murder their priests and desert their army), and they will guarantee at least a week's notice if kicking them out but are not prepared to guarantee more notice than that.

He'll return to Vigil to speak with Iomedae, then (And let Jan know about a likely impending attack).

"I am ordering you to relocate on Wealday to the Dome in Osirion. We have reason to think Cheliax is going to make more attempts to kidnap you and you'll be safer in there. I'm appointing Lieutenant Jeres your commanding officer. He will also be your chaperone, as you are required to have one. Alfirin is welcome and encouraged to join you though she will also need a chaperone. They want a legal guardian, so she may have to sign an agreement to the effect that she will treat Jeres as such for as long as she remains there. You will also need to moderate the content of your broadcasts to comply with Osirian law, Jeres has the details on that. Any questions?"

Wow! Iomedae is really deeply unhappy about this on enough levels that they aren't immediately possible to disentangle in her mind. Some is the censorship. Some is the having a legal guardian, she is done having a legal guardian. Some is how upset Alfirin's going to be.

None of that's a question. Cansellarion's busy liberating Cheliax from Hell.  She can evaluate afterwards if he made the tradeoff correctly, and is not anywhere near confident enough he didn't to protest it.  "No, sir."

"Alright. One more thing and this one's not an order... Nefreti Clepati, who is still a little bit prophetic by virtue of being Nethys' high priest, thinks that it may help with some secret things if you invite... someone... to your and Alfirin's wedding."

Iomedae was not going into this declaration in a good mood and so she mostly feels…really upset, actually. That was her business to handle as she liked, and doesn't really seem like it ought to be the subject of prophecy. - set that aside. "...someone I'd get along with?" she asks.

"They're a defector from Cheliax. I don't know them very well as a person but I suspect they could be - personable - if they chose to."

"There's a war on and I have no imminent intentions to marry and would need to talk to Alfirin but if it helps it seems like a not very costly way to help? Is the idea that the defector …would get along with us? Would be happy that America has gay marriage? Would consider it proof of - something important about Good?"

...gay marriage? What does that mean? Marriage between two women? How is that possible - none of this matters.

"I don't know. Clepati did not elaborate on how this helps, just that it might help - with something secret that doesn't bear any obvious relation to the Chelish defector, nor directly to you and Alfirin. She also said that even if it didn't work she'd think it was funny… I understand if you don't want to do this. It's really not a reasonable request to make of an ally."

"I'd very much like to talk to Chelish defectors, it'll help me improve the messaging, and I'd like to think I'm a good influence on them, and so I'm at least intrigued. I…wanted to have more control over what people thought of Alfirin and I, and I think Alfirin's going to be very upset about my orders and I don't want to make that worse. By when do you need to know."

"I was planning to go back to the front in about an hour. And bring you with me, if you're going to talk to the defector."

"Then I'll tell you in an hour." Iomedae feels very unsteady but probably an hour will be long enough to fix that.

He leaves to go plan the defense of Lastwall with Jan.

"Hey…something's wrong."

"I have an hour," says Iomedae. "- so we can ration which parts we spend how much time being upset about. First, Cheliax is probably going to attempt to kidnap me some more so I am being relocated to the Dome in Osirion, as of Wealday, and you are invited to come too, but you're going to hate it."

"...Okay.  Why am I going to hate it - I assume you want me to come with anyways -"

"I honestly don't know - I mean, of course I want you with me, I always want that, and I want you safe and I don't know if Cheliax knows enough by now to try to grab you too but they might. But I - can't ask this of you, you've just got to figure out what you want to do - apparently in Osirion we need a chaperone who is our legal guardian."

"A…chaperone."

"That is what Cansellarion said. Also, I have to moderate the content of the broadcasts to comply with Osirian law."

"Honestly I'm still surprised Lastwall let you get away with as much as they did - glad, obviously, but - not what I expected from a premodern dictatorship…" That's not the important part. "I have to decide within the hour?"

"No, by Wealday. What we have to decide within the hour is also upsetting but much stupider. Nefreti Clepati says that it might help with something secret if we invite a specific Chelish defector to our wedding."

"...That's stupid. How does she even know - we don't even know -"

"That's what's so upsetting! It's not upsetting to decide to get married, that would probably be excellent, but it's upsetting to have it prophesied when we haven't decided! That's our decision!! Prophecy being broken seems to mostly make everything worse but if it were to make anything at all better you'd think it'd be this!!"

"I know! It's -" She hugs Iomedae, "...I promise I'm not going to refuse to marry you out of spite but I'm noticing that I have the impulse. I don't want to invite random Chelish defectors to our hypothetical wedding just because some mad priest said to. But. I'm not gonna veto it if you think the secret thing is important enough."

Hughughug. "I don't know what the secret thing is except that I've never seen Cansellarion so - something. I figured I'd talk with the defector and see if once I spoke to them it made sense how it would help. I don't know. If it's something like 'once they heard about what America is like they'd want to make Cheliax like it' and the wedding is mostly metonymy, that'd be fine. And it might be mostly metonymy, she's a mad priest. But I don't mean to do it unless it actually seems like a good idea for reasons that aren't 'a mad priest said so', and with the qualification that we don't know if we intend to marry, and I'm fine with not doing that either, just out of spite, if you want, because it's really an extraordinarily unreasonable thing to ask. And while spitefully not marrying people because someone said you were going to is manipulable by our enemies, spitefully not inviting people you weren't going to invite anyway isn't."