The priest called Consideration was not happy. He would not have said he was unhappy to be called Consideration, he was unhappy that a Consideration was called for in the first place. He had still been a child, the last time a Consideration was sent to negotiate with heretics.

This was much worse.

The news of surrender at Lord’s Shield had been met with four days of debates and arguments in Light’s Home, the capital city of the Lord’s House. It had been such a difficult decision to make, offering peace to the heretics of Haven.

Surely the Lord’s House could have just crushed them, small as they were. And yet, there were so many who argued that the only chance they would have to defeat Oszrath again was if Haven left the field. It was humiliating.

Consideration had wanted so badly to refuse his calling, to keep up the argument. But he could not deny sharing the fear that Haven would move on Sun’s Light and open the floodgates to Oszrath and Narmen. It was humiliating.

There could have been no coincidence when Consideration finally arrived with his entourage at the border of the wastes. They were met only by women. Nine women of various ages, sizes and armaments. Only two did Consideration recognise on sight: Tengu in her bird mask, and Jules in her massive size. Had Ato been older, he would have recognised her too. It was humiliating.

Consideration had heard of Ato, Ora, and Weir, and despite his will to remain impartial found it interesting that Ora still dressed almost as a woman from the Lord’s House. He had heard that she was an escaped slave from the abandoned mine nearby.

As they travelled three more days to Lookout, Consideration came to find Ora most horrifying of the whole collection. At first it was Ato and Jules, who paraded themselves and their bodies about with such disgusting immodesty. Both, it was clear, were engaged in pride more than immodesty. Jules’ scars were, Consideration believed, on full display. And word had gotten back to Light’s Home of what Ato’s tattoo meant.

But they were heathens, they could not have known better. Ora was different. Ora was certainly the first actual heretic Consideration had ever met. Like Consideration, she rose before the sun to give the morning prayer to the Lord. She covered herself in accordance with the Word. Yet she wore armour and weapons, as a man, and interacted with Ryoko as a man would. And, Consideration discovered, she prayed to the Mistress after the sun had gone down.

Consideration knew he must contain his outrage and disgust, difficult as it may have been. Not only was he here to negotiate peace, but these women had met him at the border with the intention to provoke him. He could not allow himself to be provoked.

Lookout was nearly as horrifying as Ora. Consideration had known just how small the place had been, how small it still was. It staggered the mind to think that this tiny fortress had been the deaths of nearly nine thousand soldiers. And it was peopled by so many heretics. Hundreds of men and women who dressed and acted almost in accordance with the Word, and yet interacted as equals among sexes and professions.

Consideration wondered if all of Haven prayed at night to the Mistress.

Here, at least, there were men to speak to. If Consideration had not already known the greeting party had been a provocation, he would have discovered in quickly in Lookout when five men were added to the contingent from Haven.

Consideration had heard none of them, until a passer-by called Beln by a different name. Consideration had heard of Asmon Varalagos, a promising young man who had once lived in this place. There had been consideration that he had been a liar, and yet Consideration was surprised to have it confirmed.

It was a shock when Consideration and his entourage were offered private accommodation. Consideration appreciated that the house had no electricity of plumbing, even if it was certainly an insult that this large house had been built specially without those conveniences for his benefit.

No one from Lookout stayed in the house with the delegation from the Lord’s House. No guards were posted outside. And, as Consideration was hosted in Lookout for two days to recover from his long journey from Light’s Home, he and his people were allowed whatever freedom they wished.

There was no doubting it was a ploy, to show them what Haven was like. No money changed hands for the receipt of goods and food. Men and women of all sorts went about their business as equals, even those disfigured and deformed were accepted into Haven’s society, sometimes limbs replaced with intricate contraptions, sometimes wheeled chairs or even a wheeled bed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Consideration was devout, his entourage was devout. While Lookout may have been a greater glimpse into the operation of Haven than the Lord’s House had had before, it was a horrifying thing to behold.

The path to Haven itself was filled with more oddness, more horror. They stopped the night at a village by a quarry, where workers took regular breaks and discussed amongst themselves the best ways to proceed. They stopped the next night at a logging camp, where the sawmills were of such complexity that no worker could be caught in them, and great thought was given to maintaining the life of the woodland.

Haven itself was very like Lookout, simply larger. People of all sorts interacted as equals. There seemed no hurry to work when the sun was up, and the streets were lit by electric lights when the sun was down.

This time, there was no freshly built house for Consideration without these electrical conveniences, though Wier did offer to turn them off. She did warn that without the ‘extractor fan’ the whole house would certainly fill with the smell of the toilet.

Finally, it was time for Consideration to fulfil his calling and begin the negotiations for peace. He was in for another surprise, of course. While he had not known of all of the fourteen people who accompanied him from Lookout, Consideration had been content in the belief that they constituted Haven’s leadership.

It appeared, however, that Haven had no leadership. Not only was there a delegation from Narmen present for the discussions, but more than three hundred people from the whole nation of Haven filled a huge room to participate in the negotiations, women far outnumbering men. Hundreds more attended to observe the proceedings.

Consideration and his entourage learned, over the first two days of discussions, that while there were a set of people popularly considered to be Haven’s leadership, they refused to give themselves complete decision-making power.

In Haven itself, Tengu, Ora, Wier, Osmond, and Andros were thought of as leaders. In Outpost it was Jules, Beetle, Owl, and Heft and Pest. In Lookout it was Beln, Mu, Hobbs, and Massi. Ato and her brother Emen were something of an edge case, Ato was broadly considered an unrivalled military commander, but was not thought of as part of the nation’s actual leadership.

The other three-hundred-odd people participating in the discussions were an allowance only to the size of the town hall, which had once been Andros’ shop near the western gate. One out of a hundred people had been elected to join the discussion because there was no chance of Haven’s entire population fitting in this room.

If Consideration had had any quibbles about the ineffectiveness of democracy, the absolute slowness of the negotiations would have crushed them. Those first two days were taken almost entirely on deciding what role the delegation from Narmen would play in the discussion.

Though there seemed vanishingly little disagreement on the subject, the entire third day was taken with deciding whether or not Haven actually wanted peace with the Lord’s House.

Consideration could only lay blame with Ato for how long that part of the discussion took. She had joked that, if there were no peace, she could take the whole of the Lord’s House herself, and the discussion stretched almost to dusk.

Had Consideration not passed through Lookout on his way to Haven, had he had less access to the goings on within, he might have thought that the way discussions always ended before dusk to be a concession to his beliefs. But it seemed that the majority of Haven was peopled by heretics.

On the fifth day of Consideration’s time in Haven, there was no discussion. He had been given the day to ponder Haven’s demands. Had he asked for more time, he would have been given it. He didn’t need more time.

Of course it was difficult. The Lord’s House should have been able to crush this little nation. But the leadership back in Light’s Home had become increasingly convinced that, even with no war against Oszrath and Narmen, they would fail in such an attempt.

Outer Light had been left gutted and in ruins, after the siege on Lookout had failed. The Lord’s House had feared that rebuilding it again would only serve as an invitation for Haven to rejoin the war. They had been for more concerned than they would have admitted, when news came of Ato’s siege breakers arrival at Lord’s Shield. They had been right to be concerned.

So why resist Haven’s demands? Outer Light had produced no iron or stone for more than three years. As much as Ato had joked at her capacity to destroy the Lord’s House, the idea that she may try made Consideration want to never leave his home again.

For nearly sixty years, the Lord’s House had confidently expanded south, toward the border of the wastes. The land was fertile enough, and Deep Illumination produced so much metal from its mines. Narmen and Oszrath had had no desire for the land, as difficult as it was. Even Ovek would never have demanded it in payment.

Outer Light was barely three days from Deep Illumination. To have an enemy, especially one as capable as Haven, so close to the second biggest city in the Lord’s House was nearly unthinkable.

Even if Ato could not take the whole of the Lord’s House, Consideration had no doubt that she could take Outer Light and Sun’s Light. He had no doubt that if Haven stayed in the war, the Lord’s House would suffer greatly.

On the sixth day, Consideration agreed to Haven’s terms. The Lord’s House would cede Outer Light and the surrounding area to Haven and in return, Haven would participate in no further offensive action against the Lord’s House. It had been agreed that Haven could come to Narmen’s aid if the Lord’s House tried to retake Lord’s Shield. And if they did, it would not be seen as an act of war.

When he had left Light’s Home, Consideration had not realised the depths of his desperation to keep Haven at bay. It was humiliating.