"Not everyone becomes wiser, kinder, and better informed over the course of a given year, and some people she might find herself trying to cooperate with might need something more specific than - I should probably not be trying to convince a Chaotic Good person who is not even here and who, if here, would be spending divine budgets I can't expect to wield on the cause of Good. I'm assuming this person is Good, I haven't actually heard of the Kofusachans."

She smiles at the aborted rebuttal. "I'd be a bit surprised if you had! I hadn't either, until I met her. Kofusachi is mostly worshipped by the people of Tian; He's the Chaotic Good God of prosperity, happiness, and travel."

She switches voices back to the Kofusachan's and adds: "the road ahead should lead to your happiness, and the road behind should be more abundant for your passage."

"Should it. Does this come with instructions of any kind or would that be insufficiently Chaotic."

She laughs. "I think those are the instructions? Move towards what makes you happy, and do your best to leave the peoples and places you pass through better for your passage. There's common practices - Kofusachans are encouraged to support local businesses and help people find joy in their day-to-day lives - but my understanding is that it's intentionally open-ended." 

"Well, it's not really news to me that I'm temperamentally Lawful."

She giggles playfully. "It's not news to anyone at #11, Select." 

Her face softens a bit. "It very much isn't a philosophy for everyone, but... it was really good for me, to hear it when I did. If I hadn't met her, I don't think I would have left Absalom, and my life would have been much poorer for it." 

"We are certainly glad to have had you here, though I don't know if it was at any point in the process a plausible happiness-maximizing destination."

"Well, I'm only a dabbler, in both Kofusachanism and Chaos. Ultimately, I'm here because it seemed like somewhere I could help a little bit with the big problem and help a lot more with the small problems that get neglected in the face of something so vast and terrible, and because I wanted to meet and make friends with the kinds of people who end up here. And I think it's been working out pretty well, on all counts."

"I think you may be the first person to spend any time here with a professed goal of making friends. Does one not, if nothing else, eventually run out of capacity for more, I suppose I wouldn't know."

A flash of sorrow passes briefly across her face. "I suppose if everyone I've befriended was in one place there would be no way for me to keep up with them all. But... I haven't really stayed in one place for long enough for it to come up, since my journey began. I write letters to those dearest to me, and try to stick around long enough for their replies to make it back, or let them know in the letter where I'm heading next." 

It's hard, when she pours her heart onto paper and doesn't get a reply (or worse, a few short sentences from someone with just enough info to let her know they didn't really read her letter - when there's no reply, she can at least tell herself that the mail wasn't delivered). Sometimes there's weeks or even months where she can't bring herself to pick up a quill. But the letters she keeps stashed in her haversack are among her most prized possessions, and she always comes back to it. 

"And if you're not talking about the nature of various alignments all the time what does come up in a correspondence like that?"

...she can't actually tell if he's joking, which is in its own way very delightful. The man's sense of humor would be at home in Osirion summers. 

"I fill my letters with a summary of notable or interesting things in my life since the last time I wrote to them, small things that reminded me of them, answers to questions they may have sent in their last message, and questions about what's going on in their lives. If it's a friend who won't mind the additional steps, I'll also include some questions and tidbits for our mutual friends that I'm less close to, since it's easier to write one letter than several. And often I'll put in a promissory note for a few silver, for my friends who have trouble making ends meet; it'll cover postage back and a few meals for their families." She smiles.

"What I get back depends a lot on the person. Sometimes it's their version of what I send, sometimes it's excited updates about their personal projects, sometimes them talking about the hard events in their lives that they want my advice on or just want someone who cares about them to have heard." And sometimes it's plesentaries that tell her they've moved on, and want her to also.

"Huh. How many of these are you sending in a typical month?"

She tilts her head to think about it. "Seven or eight?" (months when she's too focused on New Place / People to avoid letting some of the letters pile up are not typical, and neither are the catching-up months after.) "I have a few I want to write later this evening, actually." (would she have remembered this if they hadn't had this conversation? Who Can Say.)

"Ah, don't let me keep you."

"Oh, I won't get any writing done until after my healing shift in an hour or so, it's easier for me when I have longer stretches of time. But I can get out of your hair now if you have other duties to attend to." She'd rather not - she's Not Obviously Losing this chess game, which is neat, and she's really enjoying the conversation because she has caught feelings for him, but she doesn't want to wear him out. Befriending and bedding introverts is an act of balancing.

"Not unless someone comes in with a report I don't. I need to be in the habit of turning more over to Grec if I'm going to be doing a patrol on a daily basis now."

She nods. "Oh, that reminds me - I'll need to confirm it with Rowen tomorrow, but I expect to get his approval to take patrols to neighboring forts for healing purposes, if that changes any of the logistical work you need to do." It won't really make sense for them to go out on patrol together, unfortunately, but she's still looking forward to it for a lot of reasons.

...Check? 

He gets out of check. "That would simplify things and let us cover greater distances - or just me, if you don't want to spend a sleep shift at a different fort, though they'll all accommodate you -"

"...I would want to visit a fort a few times before deciding whether I feel comfortable bunking there. I know Chelish forts usually are among the best on the line about respecting the Worldwound treaty, but these are... stressful times." She looks uneasy, and also somewhat embarrassed about being uneasy about this. (She's still not thinking about it.)

"They are. I cannot expect that they'd try to keep you by force but they might imply something, or... give some creative excuse."

...Venn tenses up a bit and doesn't immediately respond. (This is staggeringly unprofessional. "He's going to think you're a child", she imagines Demonscourge saying, which is really unhelpful, actually,)

She nods in acknowledgement while she tries to think of something to say that isn't stupid. 

"... under the present resource situation it's not even a stretch to offer you your pick of #11's squads to escort you even on non-overnight excursions, if you've identified one you'd favor for the purpose."

She relaxes, nodding gratefully. "Thank you, Commander, I really appreciate that. Scheduling permitting, I'd like to go with Txell's squad to #8 tomorrow?" She actively likes Txell and is neutral-to-positive about all of her people.

"Guiu?"