Hypatos Stelian is prostrate before the Emperor. It's the thing to do. When you do something that will seriously annoy the most powerful man in the world, you have to at least grovel for forgiveness.

Neither of them has been given permission to speak. Instead the Emperor is giving him a Look. It is not a pleasant Look. It is a Look that says: I am calculating the odds that only one of us is going to walk out of this palace alive, and do I have to make sure, right now, that it is me?

Dishypatos Haralamb (Haralambos when he's on duty) is also prostrate before the Emperor. The Dishypatos Of All Aroden has the right to merely bow very very deeply, but he sleeps on his stomach anyway and at this age it's easier than standing.

Silence stretches. Kydonius prefers to let the guilty stir in their own thoughts. This is an extremely effective technique against Taldane noblemen, but it works much less well against people who are three times his own age and have been running the Church of Aroden for a sizable portion of it.

"We recall," he says, "certain unfortunate words sadly spoken by the young preacher, Iancu of Mioveni."

Oh thank Aroden they're just being extorted.

"Your Imperial Majesty should be overjoyed," said Haralambos, "to learn that he has deeply repented of his unwise words and decided to devote himself to the high and holy cause of defending the Empire."

(This is false. But it's the kind of false that is not, by the standards of Taldane politics, a lie, in that it describes events reliably guaranteed to take place within the next twenty-four hours as if they took place in the last, which is to say it is a promise.)

"We are, of course, pleased to hear it." The Emperor does not particularly look less unhappy. "We further wish to draw the attention of the Church to the recent shortfalls in the Northern Purse." Because they can't deliver money to troops trapped behind enemy lines.

"Given the recent and unambiguous signs of devotion given by Aroden, how can we doubt it is His will that the Church support the campaign in any way we can? All that is absent, we will make up." Haralamb is going to die soon and then this won't be his job!

Ugh, they've already cut spending, where are they going to get the money? The Abadarans? The Church of Abadar will end up owning half the Empire if they do...

And yet, Kydonius does not feel reassured! "Given the urgency of the war and the necessity to overthrow the lich-tyrant of Ustalav, We yet observe that the hierophylakitai* yet remain in their churches, and we have no doubt but that the Church of Aroden has a fine justification for these excellent and holy warriors** remaining far from the front."

(*: Temple guards.)

(**: The legend that the imperial crown compels its bearer to tell the truth has now been conclusively falsified.***)

(***: As of the year 3803.)

"Your Majesty does us too much honor," says Haralambos, who is going to need to come up with a way to finish that sentence that doesn't leave the churches prey to casual looting by whoever the Emperor appoints to guard them but also doesn't leave the Emperor thinking they need the temple guards to restore order after a coup -

Arazni stops time outside the palace's outermost forbiddances, makes herself immune to Forbiddances in general, and floats ethereal through a great many walls, emerging just outside the Emperor's audience chamber. She goes visible as the Time Stop expires, and tweaks the spellbane so no one can follow her. (The Forbiddance she ignored then tries to fry her, because she's really not Lawful Neutral at all and did not bother to speak its passcode, but it doesn't work.)

Her wingspan is thirty feet, and she shimmers blindingly in the sunlight that streams in through the windows.

"I am Arazni, herald of Aroden," she tells the guards, in a voice that echoes like a choir of angels and will be perfectly audible inside the Emperor's audience chamber. "I bring great tidings of the war in the north for the Emperor Kydonius, long may he reign."

Kydonius recognizes that she is totally the herald of Aroden, but - 

The proper formalities absolutely must be observed!

- One of the key lessons he learned in his youth was that if you start by seizing your ground, you never have to retake it. He maintains a stoic and unawed expression, even though this is probably Arazni and if it isn't it's Tar-Baphon or Nex or Geb.

Meanwhile, a servant scurries up to him (prostrating himself twice on the way and only rising at the imperial nod) to whisper in his ear.

He will say something back out of the side of his mouth without changing his stoic and regal expression.

The servant will go back and talk to another servant!

(All of this is happening quite fast.)

And then the ornate doors can be pulled open by two servants (in very fancy clothes) and the herald will announce - 

"Her Most Radiant, Serene and August Divinity, Dispeller of Eclipse, Exalter of Equinox, and Pacifier of Solstice, Peerless Navigator of the Cosmic Meridian and Custodian of the Golden Astrolabe, Myrrophore of the Incorruptible Phoenix Feather, Vicereine-in-Spirit to the Celestial Pole and Praefecta of the Meridian Winds, Archontissa of All Archons, Despoina of the Ruby-Crowned Seraphim, Keeper of the Triple Chain of Aurelion, Paramount of the Ever-Loyal Eparchies, Exarch of the Amber Archipelago and Warden of the Thalassic Gates, Breaker of the Iron Clasp of the East, Vice-Regent of Absalom, High Alchemagistra of the Onyx Pact, The Holy Goddess Arazni, Herald of Aroden!" and she can be waved in to the prostrations of the various courtiers, who see an emperor every day and a goddess never.

Ah, politics. Once a long time ago when they were both mortals she and Aroden compared notes on why he wasn't more frustrated about Taldor, which she considered fairly disillusioning about the nature of civilization. After long discussion he asked her if she had ever met a tree she was disappointed in. She hadn't; if trees grew twisted and sideways they did that for reasons; if they were rotting from the inside  they were mounting a heroic but insufficient defense; there were trees you had better cut down, for one reason or another, but none at all which it made sense to hold in contempt. In fact she had never met a tree that did not quietly delight her.

This, said Aroden, was how he felt about civilizations. 

It is really not at all how Arazni feels about civilizations. About people, if she stretches it, but not about civilizations. It's like seeing double, looking at civilizations: you see the beauty and the slavery and the shining determination and the pointless slaughters into which it is directed. You stand about in waiting-rooms while armies march on better men.

Nonetheless she holds all her annoyance in abeyance, for this particular civilization has deep roots and may be the only thing on this world that can stand tall in the winds it does not yet know are coming, and because she is here for Aroden and he would not be annoyed. 

Also because she has played through this interaction a hundred times and got most of the annoyance out of the way on the first five.

(On none of the times she went through this in prophecy was it helpful to clarify that the archon command structure actually works differently than that title implies.)

The audience chamber is large enough to spread her wings in, so she does, even though it's blocking most of the courtiers' view. With the wings extended she can move them in a great sweeping motion that is visually satisfying to anyone but is not, actually, properly a bow, and importantly does not leave her flat-footed if Tar-Baphon shows up, though he almost never does.

"Your majesty," she says, and to the more distant observers her voice is now only a pleasant chiming of bells, with no words identifiable in it; angels can make themselves understood to all who hear them, but they are not actually required to. "Long ages have passed since my travels brought me last to your fair city. I see that the walls that I laid still stand, and rejoice to see that which has grown up around them." She did not found Oppara. But after the Tarrasque it required quite a lot of rebuilding.