"I spoke with Alfirin about the constitutional convention."

"And it went poorly? Or you're just not looking forward to what you're likely to get out of it?"

"Would you believe that she expects me to run it myself?"

" - well, aren't you planning to?"

"Oh, not you too. You really don't think there's a single Chelish person living or dead who's qualified?"

"Well, what makes someone qualified? They'd have to care about democracy, or about producing a constitution, which on its own disqualifies nearly everyone in the world outside of Galt and maybe Andoran, and certainly nearly everyone in Cheliax. They'd have to have any practical idea how to run a convention, which disqualifies even more. They'd have to be strong enough not to be pushed around, and yet not associated with the old regime, and yet taken seriously by people who have only ever known the old regime. There are people we could claim meet enough of those to try, but none who are likely to actually succeed, especially at producing something we won't all want to burn."

"I'm sure we'll want to burn whatever comes out of this no matter who's in charge."

"Well, then why do you want to do it at all?"

"The last time I was sure I couldn't do anything to fix Cheliax, I was rather badly wrong. That's one reason. 

And it's not so different now, is it? One doesn't do these things because they're likely to succeed. If I wanted to impose the form of government I think is best short of abolishing the monarchy altogether, I probably could. Alfirin would listen to me. She owes me that much. The only reason she isn't part of the library right now is because I thought it was worth handing her a country and all the people in it – and that's the other. The only reason I've ever wanted to involve myself in politics is because I want people to be free, and Cheliax isn't. Free from Hell, yes, but – "

Here on the material plane, I want to try to do more than changing one tyrant for another.

"And all of that is fair, but I am baffled about how you expect appointing someone else to make Cheliax more free than if you take ownership of the process and see that the process actually occurs. Anyone else put in charge of this operation will not be doing it because they freely chose to. They will be doing it because you insisted. And if you're going to insist on it, because it's important to you, then I don't see why you're not willing to run it and give it the best possible chance of actually occurring, or of being given anything like a fair and honest attempt, as opposed to a simulacrum of an attempt that is primarily aimed at placating you."

Of course Naima's arguments are better than Alfirin's. 

"Because I very very badly don't want to?"

"Well, I don't want to go to work every morning, but if I don't then hundreds of people will die, and many more will suffer needlessly. You have been given the opportunity to accomplish - not that which is most important to you, I realize that it's depressing for you that Cheliax has the opportunity to attempt democratic rule and Galt does not, but something very close to it. But if you want to actually have it, you have to do the part where you make it happen, if you are the person best qualified to see it through. Even if you very very badly don't want to."

"Is there anything I can do to make it easier for you?"

He wishes, very sharply, that his old friends were still alive. Lucien and Gabriel would understand what he was trying to do – but then, Lucien wouldn't forgive him for compromising with tyrants, and Gabriel would laugh and tell him to write the damn constitution himself if he cared so much. It would be yet another political headache, in any case. The last thing he needs right now is a tussle with Cyprian.

"I'd say that it's impossible, but you've worked miracles before." 

"Impossible to have what you want, or impossible to make you less miserable? I'm sure we can at least make you slightly less miserable."

"It's not going to be easy however I feel about it, and you're right that I should just stop feeling sorry for myself." 

"Well, you can certainly feel sorry for yourself if it helps. I do it all the time. But it does, ultimately, fall to you to see that any process meeting your standards for legitimacy or usefulness occurs. And that way, even if you do get a constitution you want to burn at the end of it, at least you will have given everyone involved some vital guidance about what making their own political decisions would even look like, which they can call upon the next time it's needed."

"There are some people who'd think it's very funny that I'm supposed to have any guidance to offer on practice of government." 

"I'm sure, but none of them are in this room. Elie - "

"I have never seen you try to build a government. Possibly you are actually terrible at it. But I have seen you offer space and agency and the freedom to make choices to people who were scared and hurting and who didn't really know how to use these things, and continue offering it until they did. I have watched you raise your children in ways that would never occur to anyone else, because no one else would care about the children's desires if it seemed to them that the children wanted stupid things. I have watched you argue with Saira about whether you could have yourself declared incompetent to protect your wife from the possibility of your becoming more tyrannical later in life. You are willing to listen to people and avoid imposing your own will on them, even when their will is stupid, and even when this makes you look stupid. And, importantly, you are not, actually, stupid, you are possessed of sounder judgement - and far more hard-won experience - than pretty much any of the pre-infernal nobles I have talked to and raised and made much of the backbone of the current government. And you are the only person I can think of who will not respond to a bunch of patently stupid ideas by outright overruling them and replacing them with something you like better. Or, well, at least the only person who will do it out of principle and not out of fear."

"Maybe it will go up in flames. Maybe it will go up in such flames that it will tarnish the concept of democracy further and everyone will continue never taking it seriously. But everyone already doesn't take it seriously! So unless you actually believe that democracy is a stupid idea that you should never have bothered with, and that the people of Cheliax don't deserve a say in how they're ruled, in which case you should not force them to go through the motions of something you think will turn into a flaming mess no matter what anyone does - I think you owe it to them to create a space where anyone can actually discuss what giving them a hand in their own destiny might look like. And I think you owe it to yourself, to see the thing you care about through, and if it fails at least know why and how it failed, so that you can learn about what things do and don't work."

Leave it to Naima to make "nobody cares about the central preoccupation of your adult life" sound, somehow, comforting. 

"Thank you. I do hope I'll learn something about republican government, I hope much more devoutly that I will never again in my life have the opportunity to put that knowledge to use. Well. In my natural life, maybe – I might feel differently in a hundred years – but if I'm doing anything right at all everything I know would be hopelessly behind the times. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I can just imagine the grandchildren lecturing me about how restricting the franchise to the living is a relic of the old regime – 

– That's all I really want, you know. Just to keep doing the job badly for long enough that someone relieves me of it out of sheer exasperation." 

"I think you are pretty likely to get this eventually. But you will get it faster if you introduce people to the idea that it is a job that can be done."

"Eventually. Two generations might be optimistic." 

"Well, however many years it would take, it will take fewer the sooner people start seriously thinking about it."

"Enough. You've convinced me I should do it, or at least that nobody else well. Even if my primary qualification is that I both can and won't force the whole nation of Cheliax to accept whatever provisions I dictate." 

"Good! Now what do you need. I'm not actually very clear on how one goes about organizing a constitutional convention."

"In Galt, one begins by assembling the nobility along with elected representatives from each town with a local parliament, which are of course ancient and numerous. In Cheliax – I have no idea. Roll knucklebones on a list of tax-payers and hope for the best?"