"...Yeah, that's fair enough."  He wouldn't have thought it was the sort of complicated thing you needed sermons about, but, well, it sure sounds like they do.  "I hope whoever you get's decent at it.  We had the most boring old priest back home..."

"I think there must be some everywhere- my father would bring us to services every week, I know more about prices than I ever wanted to learn."

"When I was a kid I thought our village priest did executions slow just so's he had more time to talk," Cambra offers.

"That's awful," Argil says, laughing.

"My complaints about sermons were almost never boredom, but, well, paladins," rueful smile.  "Mostly I'd disagree with them about things. There was this Shelynite when I was small who kept going on about how you should spend all of Sunday appreciating the beautiful things in your life and not doing anything..."

"Shelyn is... art?"

"Art, music, beauty, love including the family sort. It doesn't have to be fancy art or expensive beautiful things or anything special – it's normal people making their houses look nicer, girls putting ribbons in their hair, having clothes you like instead of random ugly ones.  I'm not a very Shelynite sort of person, but I do think She's right that it's important to have these things."

"...I am honestly much less sure that it's important to have expensive fancy paintings, but She is a god and I'm not, so perhaps I'm missing something," he laughs.

"Oh, but then how would your neighbors know how rich you are...?"  Khalida murmurs.  "Not to say I haven't expensive tastes of my own, but, um, not so with things one must only look at and not touch."

"I hope you're not under the impression Marcus here doesn't have expensive tastes!" Argil laughs. "He just doesn't realize it until someone points out to him that normal people pay a tenth as much for horses."

Marcus looks good-humoredly embarrassed but doesn't argue.  It is in any case an important service to make it clear to the Chelish people that it's all right to make fun of paladins.

"Well, horses are useful, like spellbooks."  She gives them both a good-natured smirk.  "I did see she was-" she makes the vocabulary constraint face again and drums her fingers briefly on the table- "...she enjoys to go fast?"

"She really does."  Marcus expects to choose a weapon if the Goddess grants him the choice, but it's clear how fond he is of his horse.  "You'd say hot-blooded about an animal, or lively or eager, more generally."  (Argil gives him a bit of a look about the uncharacteristic vocabulary lecture.)

"Can spellbooks be better or worse, besides what spells they have in them?"

"Hot-blooded- is that 'blood' like blood from a wound?"  (Cambra nods.)  "I mean mainly the spells, although one must have good paper to hold them.  But since it's to be so precious anyway, it's- one would have scarce reason to have it not also beautiful?  Like- like embroidery on a sack instead of good linen, to save a twentieth the price of the silk."

"Or like a magic weapon, or even just a very well-made one," he nods.  "I do think Shelyn's right that if you have something important that will already cost you a lot in money or effort, it's worth adding a little more to make it a joy to see and use, if you can."

He wonders what Cambra or Ferrer think about that – but he can neither tell from their expressions nor expect to get a meaningful answer if he asks, so he's just going to say things until something turns out for inscrutable Chelish reasons to be an acceptable topic.  He does not exactly have social strategies that aren't just being very himself.

"Huh, so... it's Good to make things pretty for no reason, just because you can?"  Ferrer ventures, after half a moment.  "That seems... easy."

"...s'pose it makes sense?"  Cambra gives a slight nod in Khalida's direction.   "I seen Guiu's and Taberner's spellbooks, looked about the same from the outside."

"Mm, more or less? It's Good to do easy things that people will enjoy even just a little. Neutral if it's only you enjoying it, I think, though Shelyn would still like it and it's still... a step in the right direction. It wouldn't be Good to miserably do art you personally hate and nobody else will ever see – it's not about it being pretty, it's about someone appreciating it. But Shelyn's opinion is that if you're making something you think is nice and not hurting anyone by it, it's almost certainly making the world better."

He is neither a Shelynite nor good at sermons, but it seems a better start than nothing.

"And... Iomedae don't mind, then?"  He gives a small nod in Marcus's direction that is... possibly meant to indicate his general paladinness.

"No, 'course not.  I'd be surprised if any of the Good gods minded each other's things.  Iomedae tells us to have fun at least once a month, and I bet for some people that's singing or drawing or something."

"...I mostly get my fun by talking to people, but when I'm out of mending to do I sometimes embroider the edges on my clothes."  The hem of his tunic has two rows of little swords along it, even enough but clearly not done by someone with a lot of experience.

"Huh, you do embroidery?  When did you learn?"  She takes a closer glance at his hem, if he's indicating it (to a half-decent Sense Motive visibly reassessing it from 'meh' to 'it's amazing the bear can dance at all').

"...you do embroidery for fun?"  (Oh no that was definitely rude.  Oops.)

Argil cackles at her tone, and Marcus joins him, after a moment to make sure he's not going to be terribly rude in doing so. 

"My little sister taught me when we were children, I think mostly to have someone who was worse at it. It's not so fun that I'd count it for the requirement unless I couldn't find anything better, but the forts can be boring, and I like having something to do with my hands."

Khalida recovers her composure after a moment of her own, giggling softly behind a hand.  "It's no worse than anything if one does it while talking, I suppose, but were I commanded to have fun I certainly shouldn't choose it by itself."

"I don't think about the commandment much, because this," he waves his hand around the table, "is fun and I do it all the time."  Grin.  "But if I had to... do an unpleasant solitary job in a basement for a month, or something...  I expect I could manage with embroidery."

"...even stuck in a basement, I could think of things more fun than that."  Cambra glances at Argil and reconsiders whatever he was about to say.  "What if y'stuck yourself too many times, would She drop you for not enjoying it?"

"You know, that's a good question. I don't think so? Or, hmm, not if I was trying to do what She said and just really couldn't manage. But you're right that there's other things I could do, so if I was just failing to enjoy embroidery and not even trying anything else, She might."

He doesn't sound entirely sure, but he also sounds, to a Chelish ear, oddly unworried about it. Not like he doesn't care, but like he expects things to be fine even if he does get something like this wrong.

He also sounds oddly unworried to Khalida, being dropped would be the worst thing ever, she couldn't stand it.  (Well.  She's already been through one Worst Thing Ever and turned out she could in fact stand it and rebuild.  Still though.  She's pretty sure being dropped would actually be worse.)

"You don't think She'd drop someone for trying and failing?  I heard a cleric might be dropped for breaking their vows even were one vampired into it."