Jin thanks the blonde woman for the mead and steps away from the table. Unfortunately, Her first sip is ruined by the sound of Priest Herrick’s voice. “Cleric Jin, a moment of your time?”

The mead still tastes as good as it was last night. She glances around, then at the priest. “Sure.”

The priest smiles, then tilts his head towards a location away from the crowd. No one is exactly nearby, but enough are within earshot. Jin shrugs her assent, and they step away from the crowd.

As soon as they stop walking, Priest Herrick starts talking. “I mostly wish to warn you about the merchants.”

Jin raises her eyebrows and the priest quickly continues. “Not that you have to walk on eggshells, per se, but they had a… Less than pleasant interaction with a cleric in the past. At some point in my speech, I’ll be raising a toast to you and Sage. I will be flattering to both of you to attempt to soothe their worries.”

“Uh-huh. So people with actual experience with clerics tend to think pretty poorly of them, eh?” Jin snorts. “Kinda funny, if expected.”

Herrick smiles placidly. He can lie with more expressions, why does he always use that infuriatingly placid one? “…Of a sort. The public actions of clerics are rarely negative in nature for long.”

Jin finishes the sip she was taking deliberately. That sounded threatening. She doesn’t get a chance to form a response before Herrick starts talking again.

“Additionally, I will be conducting tomorrow’s sermon, and the village will expect you to be there.” He pauses for a moment to see her reaction. She sips her drink and he continues. “Then I will be conducting a more official announcement of Sage getting a letter of recommendation from me, as well as declaring her intent to become an inquisitor. I will also be announcing you, in a more official capacity. Sermons are one of the few events almost every villager makes it to every week, you see. If you express any desire to join the church in a more official capacity, I may additionally refer to you as a Blessed Cleric, despite you not yet being initiated.”

She mulls on his words for a moment. “I assume being called a ‘Blessed Cleric’ will be the main thing soothing opinions?”

“Quite right.”

“Mm…” This church sure does like to play loosey goosey with its rules. Or at least, Priest Herrick certainly does. She finds that she doesn’t care much, though. “I’d rather not be feared. Or… Actually, I might. It depends, do Blessed Clerics often have to deal with fan mobs?”

The priest blinks a couple times trying to parse her words. “Ah, no. In Travelers Rest, at least, known clerics tend to create pockets of space in the crowd, as a sign of respect from citizens.”

Jin feels a part of her sag in relief to hear that. She nods. “Sure, give me whatever title you feel like, then. No promises on actually joining, but would it be enough to say that I suppose I might join the church if I find it convenient at the time?” She smirks.

The priest frowns at her. “You’re being deliberately obstinate… but yes. I suppose it would be.”

Jin’s smirk drops and she frowns at him. “…Right.” She glances around. Sage and her dad walked off just a bit further from the crowd than she and the priest did.

Lilia, Rosemary, and Moss keep appearing to deliver more food, as if the table could use any more. Jin glances back at the priest, who looks to be putting his placid smile back on. Damn his stupid little smiles.

She’s so irritated now, all of the sudden. “Well, that was about a moment of my time, I think. I told Sage I’d be at the table, so that’s where I’ll be if you need another moment of mine for some godforsaken reason.” She mutters out the last words, but expects they’re still loud enough for the priest to hear. She doesn’t look at him as she walks off.

It’s not until she’s trying to write down formulas that she realizes that she hasn’t snapped like that at anyone in Rock Orchard until now. These are old habits returning, and… She’s not sure if she actually wants them back.

—

Sage loves feasts. Music, people, food! Feasts should, in her opinion, be the default state of village life, and everything else should exist to support them.

So she just can’t figure out why Jin always looks her worst when they’re at one. Not that she exactly has a lot of examples… But Jin looked more relaxed after they were attacked by arc-wolves! Now she’s all dour and stand-offish. Well, she’s usually like that, but it’s way more obvious now. She hasn’t seen anyone but Moss avoid eye-contact as hard as Jin is now.

Although… To be fair, someone always ends up going to talk to Jin whenever she does make eye contact. Always with words of exclamation over her being a cleric.

Right now she’s poking at some fruit on her plate and sneaking covert glances at the other villagers’ plates. She’s so obviously waiting for other people to start eating… She takes a sip of her drink and her eyes start turning towards Sage. Quickly, Sage returns her eyes to her father.

And—Oh hold on a second, she’s in the middle of a sentence. “—And um… Uh… What was I saying?”

She frowns and pretends not to notice the way her father’s smile droops at the corners. She makes her eyes light up. “Oh right! So um, yeah! That’s what I’ve done these past few days, ahaha…” Sage deflates and she casts her eyes downwards. She doesn’t know how to phrase… “But, Jin’s a good person, Papa. She’s, um, just kind of a jerk, sometimes. But, not a bad jerk, just um, like, sharp words, and uh. Well. I mean, it’s just the way she talks about things sometimes—“

She can’t find the right words. How do you describe the difference between core beliefs and superficial interactions? And the added validity towards those claimed beliefs, due to a lack of maintenance in superficial interactions? It all makes sense in her head, but the words—

Cy sighs and smiles at her, but she sees the mild disbelief in his eyes. Sage tries not to visibly deflate too much when he puts a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure she is, Pumpkin.” He’s silent for a moment, so Sage looks up into his expression. He looks so concerned for her…

“I’m scared she’s going to break your heart.”

What?! “PAPA!”

She feels somehow scandalized, and a heat fills her cheeks. She covers them with her hands while trying to glare. She knows it’s a childish response, but it’s not always easy to break those habits.

A few people look over at her outburst, including Jin, who Sage is trying to ignore right now. At this moment. Alright… Sage sneaks a glance and quickly looks away when they make eye contact. Oops!

There’s an amused glint in her father’s eyes. She tries to look mad and crosses her arms. “That’s! No! I’m not—I don’t—Papa!” She huffs.

He chuckles at her response, and glances around briefly.

They’re standing mostly away from the crowd of people near the library, since her father wanted a thorough update of her past few days. She just briefly summarized going to the ruined city, saving Jin, the arc-wolves, and their return. She hadn’t brought up the dwarven ruins yet. Papa was concerned about the wolves, but ultimately agreed that they probably weren’t going to be an imminent threat, since it’s rare a band of three would be bold enough to attack a settlement. Apparently he and the merchants made it to the village minutes after she and Jin left for the ruins. He already had the opportunity to talk to the rest of her family as they’ve been filtering in and out of the plaza. Jin has gone back to snacking on fruit, and apparently pulled her notebook out at some point.

“Sage, honey, your eyes are never so sticky as they are when they land on a pretty woman. You’ve been staring at the cleric the whole time we’ve been talking.”

Sage looks away from Jin indignantly and opens her mouth. “A—ahh…” Her eyes widen and she blushes again. Her arms come back up into a crossed position and she distinctly looks away from Jin. “It’s just because she grabbed my hands like that… She’s a jerk.” There’s no real ire in her tone.

“She’s an unknown. You know what Priest Herrick said, sometimes clerics are taken over by their delusions and can be dangerous. I know you’re smart but just… Try not to fall too much for a pretty girl’s smile for me, kiddo.”

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“…I’m not.” Sage mumbles. Her face is still warm, why is it so warm?

Nearby, Priest Herrick calls a start to the feast, and that everyone should take a seat at the grand table. Papa gives her one more squeeze on the shoulder before they go. “Don’t worry too much. I’m probably just over-reacting to the passing presence of a cleric, haha!”

“Y-yeah…” Something didn’t click quite right in her head, but the allure of food wins out.

—

Sage idly passes some rolls down the table while listening absolutely enraptured to one of the merchants telling a story.

“And so there I was, facing down an entire crowd of people holding wine glasses and dressed in fineries I certainly can't afford, dressed in nothing but my small clothes and desperately trying to figure out how I got there!”

A round of laughter goes up and Sage joins in. It wasn’t particularly funny, but the man is a good story teller and paces his words well. New stories are always fun though, she can’t not get excited over one.

She glances over at Jin, who didn’t laugh. She sat beside the cleric again tonight, despite Papa’s concern. Jin is writing those strange symbols in that journal of hers. She’s being careful to vary her line weight. Some shapes and connective lines are bold and eye-catching, while others are light and thin. Some bold symbols also have overlapping thin lines? Some of the lines are also just a series of dots. What does it all mean? Why does she keep flipping between certain pages? Sage can’t exactly do anything with the information, but it’s so interesting!

Another merchant picks up the story from where the last left off.

“Mm… Well, that story is only part of why we haven’t gone further north this year.”

This sounds like the beginning of important news! Sage has always been fascinated by how you can see an entire group of people react to words said so casually—all in their own attempted subtle ways. Papa stops whispering into Momma’s ear and making her giggle, and takes his hand to rub his beard in that one way he always does. Momma goes to cut into her food, but tilts her left ear towards the speaker. Priest Herrick always folds his hands when he’s listening carefully, and Jin stops writing without looking up. Her pencil gently taps one corner of the page she has open.

So many little details in people's actions! Sage has to quickly catch up to what the merchant is saying. “—the Emperor up there. Normally we’d go as far north as Caldemont, but if the situation there is bad as people say… Ah, I don’t know. The church has always been good to us. Taking our business somewhere where the church is actively persecuted doesn’t seem like the best business plan for us, you know? I don’t even know if we’ll bother with the Sand Coasts this year. We’ll have to ask around this Spring in Travelers Rest.”

At some point during the story Jin looked up, finally tearing herself away from the journal she’s kept in front of her all evening. “I’ve not heard of an Emperor yet. What do you know of them?”

The merchants exchange a few glances. There’s an undertone of apprehension from them. They’re obviously uncomfortable by Jin’s presence, which in turn makes Sage uncomfortable. She thought people had higher opinions of clerics usually? Most other merchants seem to. The de facto leader of the group who gave the news speaks up. “We just know of him as the Emperor to the North. If he goes by another title, we don’t know of it. If what those northern towns say is true, he’s a cleric who went mad with power. Started claiming the Gods were false, and that he is the ‘One True God’, or some hogwash. He’s been around for a few years now, but only started uh… Expanding, recently.”

The merchant avoids eye contact with Jin, which the gold eyed girl seems oddly delighted with, if her unusual focus on his face and mild smirk is anything to judge by. “Expanding? So you’re saying this one… Cleric, is essentially trying to carve out an area free of church influence?”

Priest Herrick looks incredibly uncomfortable. Which is to say he briefly looks worried and puts his hands under the table. Doesn’t he know how obvious he is when he hides his hands like that? He interjects before the merchants can continue talking. “Not quite, Cleric Jin.” Jin shoots him a brief annoyed glance, but leans back and pulls her attention away from the merchants.

Priest Herrick continues. “The Emperor to the North is a cleric who well and truly went mad. Cleric eccentricities are well known—“ He emphasizes this word and levels a look at everyone at the table. “—but the cleric we refer to now cannot and will not fall into the standard grouping of clerics at large. He is a deeply unfortunate case of madness.” With that word he levels a look at Jin. Sage notices her father get a contemplative look on his face while looking at a spot to Jin’s right.

“Removing church presence in the north is almost certainly a manipulation tactic on his part. I doubt he is trying to make any sort of… ‘Haven’ from ideology, as you might be thinking, Cleric Jin. I know the world of clerics is new to you, but I promise you that nothing can compare to what the Church of the Traveler offers.”

Jin sighs and returns to staring at her journal. Her pencil traces along lines of meaning, but doesn’t make any new marks.

A memory floats just beyond Sage’s awareness, so she starts speaking to try to remember it properly. “I’ve heard of the Emperor last year from other merchants. He settled himself into that city waaaay to the north, right? Umm, what was it called? Caldemont, right? Oh yeah, you mentioned that!” She snaps in recollection towards the merchant who was telling the news. “Yeah I think that was his base! Right? I wasn’t sure it was true when I first heard of it, a cleric trying to take over a city. I thought he was just crazy! Uh, the person who told me the story, that is. Guess that emperor is making progress though, huh?”

“Quite so, Sage.”

She beams at Herrick, and tries to keep the happy expression on as the conversation keeps going. An emperor to the north who doesn’t like the church, right as Oak wants to join the church militia? That’s… That’s really bad. Sage can’t keep the smile going. She glances over at Jin again, who abandoned all pretense of working on her journal to stare up at the rings illuminating the night sky above them.

Quietly, Sage leans towards her, feeling sad all of the sudden. “From Travelers Rest, the rings are just a line in the sky directly above you spanning from east to west coast. Hardly visible at all.”

Jin nods absently. “So the city is at the equator, then. I thought it might have been. Has anyone got around to building that canal? I can’t even remember how many times it's been dug out and filled back in.”

Sage blinks and thinks intently on the question. “I… think so? Filled back in, I think. Um, probably?”

Jin eyes her sideways with a raised eyebrow.

Sage explains. “Well see! In the middle part of the city? Where the coasts are just a couple hours walk from each other? It’s like, this big low road! All the way across. There’s a cool plaza in the middle though, lots of food vendors there. Some really good food vendors. Mm… have you ever had a kebab before? Oh! Right the road, um. In the ocean! The road goes into the ocean a bit with walls around it? It’s weird and like, built up for no reason. So. Maybe? Probably. I think so!”

“That was a lot of words for ‘probably’,” Jin says, amused, before staring at the rings again. Sage blushes and looks away. Gosh! Jin was being rude! Kind of… That doesn’t mean she should blush in response! Sage holds a balled hand to her warm cheek and catches a look from Papa. Her cheeks heat up more. This sucks.

Desperate for an escape, her attention pulls her back into the conversation dominating the table—also someone said her name. Herrick, like he usually does, has taken over the role of lead speaker.

“—our Sage here.” She thinks he started complimenting her..? She puts her hands down and starts a smile, ready for whatever gets thrown at her. “And so thankful to the Gods, as well! For helping guide their child where she needed to go. I will make a more official statement at the sermon tomorrow, but with her actions in the ruined city to the south, and guiding a Blessed Cleric of the Gods here to the safety of civilization, I will hereby be granting her a letter of recommendation for the Holy role of Inquisitor in the Eyes of the Gods, the role of which most of us are well aware how badly she desires.”

A few villagers chuckle, but Papa stares at her. What?! Did no one tell him? Oh no… She thought he was just ok with it, and that’s why he didn’t bring it up. He was talking to Herrick when she and Jin arrived! Herrick talks about everything—

“I believe she made clear to me her plans to go to Traveler’s Rest for her anointment this week! She will be traveling alongside the cleric she saved, Cleric Jin.”

Papa looks at Jin now. Momma doesn’t seem to notice, Oh no oh no—

“Tomorrow, she will officially be an Inquisitor in Waiting, and officially starting her next big step in life. A round of cheers for our beloved Sage, everyone!”

Aw, Herrick is just trying to be nice to her... But he’s letting Papa learn she’s gonna be an Inquisitor in the worst way! Cheers go up around the table that Papa doesn’t partake in. His smile is so fixed. And he wont stop staring at Jin. Sage’s smile is in high danger of falling off, so she raises her own cup and makes eye contact with Priest Herrick. He looks oddly sad or regretful..?

“Rock Orchard will miss you, Inquisitor in Waiting Sage. Don’t forget about us.”

Oh, that’s why. Aww, she feels touched by that, actually! Her eyes tear up just a little and she doesn’t have to fake her smile. “Thank you, Priest Herrick.” She means it, and dips her head. That was pretty polite of him, letting her react to an announcement like that before it’s the official one. It would be embarrassing to cry in front of the whole village.

Out of the corner of her eye she see’s Jin giving Herrick one of those skeptical looks she wears so much. Why is she so skeptical of everything all the time? That must be exhausting.

“And Cleric Jin! We are honored to have you here in Rock Orchard. The Gods are truly good to send us one of their Blessed Clerics.”

Herrick raises a glass to Jin and a few people cheer. Jin is just staring at Herrick with a tilt to her head, though. Then she takes her cup and tilts it in the slightest gesture of a toast before sipping from it. Belatedly, Sage takes a drink from her own cup when she sees everyone else finishing theirs.

For some reason, she feels like she missed something.