it would be better for her if she had never been born - Epilogue: Lilia, Alex
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"Oh, I believe you were on our side, in some sense, all along. But you weren't trying to be a good person until we won."

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"I could probably have hurt people less. I don't think I could've - been paying attention to whether I could hurt people less -"

 

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"Mhm. And now you can and you do? It would be good if everyone could manage such a transformation."

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"I bet for most people in Cheliax there's something that gives them the right - angle - but we don't have time to find it for them all individually. I guess some of them will figure it out and a lot of them will go to Hell. …and some of us will figure it out and go to Hell, of course." Sigh. "I think I am no longer horribly disoriented, for what it's worth. If you want to get back to work."

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"Do you want me to stay?"

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"Well then I can stay. An afternoon is the least of what I owe you."

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Most men, at that point, you could just lean across the desk and kiss, but unfortunately her instinct is that Alex is too much of a paladiny paladin and would be appalled. 

"Do you have more questions?"

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"Will it upset you if I ask in Aktun whether this was real?" He realizes there's probably no way to ask the question that isn't itself upsetting if the answer would be 'yes'.

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"I think apart from that the questions on my mind are somewhat action-relevant and so I don't really need answers that might tempt me to take actions."

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"I'm all right with you treating me in accordance with your understanding of me that's from this conversation, whether that means trusting me more or less. I …don't want to give the Church the information it'd need to go after her."

 

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"The thing that would free me to go after her if I had a reason to - I don't, right now - is the information that Iomedae spoke to her during the Miracle. I can treat that as confidential and not the rest of this conversation? It would be pretty difficult for me to treat the whole conversation as open when dealing with something as broad and affecting as many other things as how I relate to you, while also treating it as confidential when dealing with something as - entangled with all that - as your mother."

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"Let me think." She closes her eyes and checks that against her own understanding. "Yes, all right."

 

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"I guess I'll ask my questions, then… Did she set up a way for you to get out of Hell without her, or are you still relying on her for that? …Likewise for being young."

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"I'd require her in both cases."

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"Ah, so when you were trying to convince me to stay on Golarion instead of Heaven, you were asking me to let your mother kill me and bring me back. I can see why you didn't suggest it in those words…I'm not angry." He seems to be joking, maybe, if paladins are allowed to do that.

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She is delighted, but shakes her head. "Actually, no. There's someone else who can do it, if your soul will hang around for a few minutes when you're killed. She's involved for me because I can't be resurrected as easily. …I was asking you to let a different Evil acquaintance of mine kill you and bring you back, which I'm sure is no problem at all."

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"It's less of one. Unless it's Rose who I think may also have a grudge against me." He's still at least half-joking. "...Could she have given you - or someone else - the means to raise you?"

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"I don't think so. She has a compact with the devil who owns my soul; she can demand its return from him. In principle they could renegotiate and give some other party that right also; in practice …Hell is obviously reluctant to enable any such thing, and while it's one thing to let Evil archmages own their daughters' souls I don't expect them to be amenable to letting, say, helpful paladins do it."

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"I would not be very comfortable owning your soul. I would have to think about whether I could, if you asked me to."

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"Does it break the paladin rules, or is it just a little too familiar for this stage of our acquaintance?

That's another one where I don't actually think my mother did anything wrong… I do not expect her to try to use it for leverage. Even if I'm wrong in my judgment that she wouldn't want to, it wouldn't work, and she knows that."

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"Owning a person's soul in that fashion is a lot like owning a person and owning slaves is prohibited… I suspect this is not against any of the rules just because it has not come up. It is also important for paladins to avoid things that - give too strong an appearance of condoning generally things which would be evil in other circumstances, even if they are not in the ones that obtain. Doubly so for prominent ones like myself."

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And they would hardly advertise the situation but paladins don't do anything secretly that they'd be unwilling to have it known they do. "I doubt that it can be renegotiated at all but if it can I'll pick someone who isn't threatening to run off to Heaven in a few decades."

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"Would it necessarily expire on the holder's death? It seems like someone in Heaven holding your soul is not worse for you than someone on the Material."

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