She thinks until she's - not done thinking, it's a big topic, but until there are no immediate implications to her remaining confusions. It's probably only about a minute. She's enjoying Ma'ar's quiet impatience, beside her. 

:All right,: she says, turning to him. :Now you'll have to tell me, because I've never had the slightest chance to find out, are men built the same as women, or are there any differences relevant to lovemaking?:

It's a joke but she delivers it very persuasively and maintains a straight face for as long as she can bear it.

Iomedae is adorable and Ma'ar is amused.

(He would perhaps be slower to catch on that it was a joke if he hadn't heard almost exactly the same line before. He's slept with a lot of women, including some who were mostly in it for the option of a mage-gifted child and weren't sexually attracted to men at all.) 

...He is pretty sure that Iomedae is - well, he has no idea who she's attracted to in general, but he's pretty sure she wants him.

He can show her some of the relevant differences for lovemaking. 

Iomedae continues to be very incompetent but very cheerful and possessed with truly remarkable stamina.

It continues to be adorable.

(Mindspeech is very useful for giving prompts and hints without having to pause anything else, but Ma'ar mostly doesn't, he is kind of enjoying the cheerful and enthusiastic incompetence. It's very her. He likes her. A lot, actually.) 

...Iomedae probably has more stamina than Ma'ar does. 

Oh definitely. There is probably no one who can match her in either of two worlds. She doesn't seem upset about this. She kind of just seems uncomplicatedly happy in general. 

:I am very glad I met you, Ma'ar.:

:Mmm-hmm. Glad I met you too. ...and that I did not join your paladin order, since then I would be in your chain of command.:

Not that he could have, since he was here in Velgarth and not Golarion, and also probably too Evil for them, given his policy choices and the war and his immortality backup –

(not the mood right now)

He thinks he's going to like and appreciate her people a lot, and he's looking forward to working with Urtho on inter-world Gates so he can meet them and Iomedae can see her colleagues and friends again, and that's also not a topic he wants to discuss right now - really he just wants to flop on Iomedae and be as uncomplicatedly happy as he can manage. 

:M'happy. ....I think it has been a long time. Since I was as happy as I am now.: 

:I'm also not usually this happy! It's good! It's good to get glimpses of -: She gestures expansively at the room or maybe the world or maybe all of Creation. 

Snuggle. Iomedae without armor is so snuggle-able. (He wonders if it bothers her not to be wearing it, the same way it would bother him to take down all of his shields.) 

:I want you to have this. It - seems important. If you are going to be the god of - winning the war against Evil forces. That - this is one of the kinds of thing we are trying to win, for everyone.: 

:I try to be very careful to keep track of - what all the fighting is for. It's a - risk of being a narrow kind of god, that you won't be equipped to notice when a different thing is called for. And gods gain a lot from specialization, so I'd be sacrificing a lot, if I try to maintain - the whole of human values in my remit. But I can't afford not to know it, or I'll make the wrong trades.:

:Mmm. ...I think I was making that mistake, despite not being a god, being - too narrow -: 

:It's a really easy mistake to make.:

:It really does not seem to be for most people! Unless you are counting the thing Urtho does as a different kind of narrowness, but - I am not sure I would, it feels different. I suppose it is an easy mistake to make for...people like us: 

:- yeah.  People who are trying to actually win at incredibly difficult problems. Most people aren't doing that but - the people I meet mostly are, so the mistakes I see are mostly - mistakes flavored from that.:

:I am not sure I had ever really met - anyone, like that - before I met you: He snuggles up closer to her. :- You know, I think I am actually excited, now, to work on Gates to your world, not just - feeling like it is important and I should care and it will probably not hurt too badly. I want to meet your friends: 

: - that'll be interesting.

I want it too.:

Sigh. :I do still feel nervous about working with Urtho, I think. It is just - it has been such a long time - and honestly I am not sure I was ever comfortable with him, even though I admired him very much. I am not - predicting anything going badly, I think, just - stressed: 

:The headband might help with - successfully communicating with him.:

:It does help, I think, just - it helps less with feeling safer? I suppose I could beg you to come with me and do the no-fear effect the whole time. ...Anyway I was planning to let Urtho use it for most of the work.: 

:I can sit around and make you unafraid if you want. Speeding up our return is worth quite a lot to me.:

:I would appreciate that. I expect it to be mostly the first time, that is hard, and after that I will be all right. And I am sure Urtho would be delighted to see you as well.: 

Maybe they can do that tomorrow, though. Today, he really should report to his King - he doesn't need the no-fear effect for that, it'll go fine, though he can probably make it go a lot better than fine if Iomedae is willing to lend the headband for it - and then, yeah, there are probably parades. For that part he kind of would like if Iomedae came with him. 

Iomedae is willing to lend the headband. She needs it for thinking through the details of the assault on Hell, but other than that her highest priority now is getting home and that clearly requires Ma'ar and Urtho, not her, to have the headband.

Well, in this case he's technically using it for politics, not Gate-research. But it's politics that, if it goes better, should give him more leeway to be away from Predain, and thus focused on Gate-research instead. 

And afterward is the parade. It's kind of miserably grey outside, not actually drizzling but the capital does not currently have mages to spare for weather-working that will get it all the way to sunny. The important people can still have weather-barriers, though, and there are mage-lights, and it definitely seems like half the population of the entire city has bundled up and come outside to celebrate. 

Iomedae sincerely enjoys parades, if they are in celebration of battles that were rightly fought, and in this case they are in celebration of battles rightly averted! She's delighted.

Ma'ar mostly does not enjoy parades, but he appreciates Iomedae enjoying it, and the no-fear affect helps; half of why he doesn't normally like public events is that he's always jumpy in crowded outdoor spaces. 

Then there's a court dinner. Court dinners in Predain, it turns out, are not incredibly formal, especially not when everyone is bursting with excitement about the end of a war. There's no assigned seating, and most of the attendees seem to be there with the aim of getting drunk. There are a lot of toasts. There's dancing. There are some fights, though not serious ones, more just sparring for fun. It's incredibly loud and, after a candlemark of the hall being crammed full of dancing people, quite overheated. 

Ma'ar mostly mills around talking to various people, and seems much more comfortable here than he did at the more formal - and outdoor - parade. Though he does try to stay close enough to Iomedae for the no-fear effect to stick.