“What are those?” Lucina was decked out in black spandex pants that hugged her hips tightly, a gunmetal grey turtleneck that accentuated her breasts, and a dark blue denim jacket. Her long, black hair was put up into a high asymmetrical ponytail with her bangs cascading down the left side of her face.

We were in Judgment subspace, and currently on our first date as unofficial lovers. She was intrigued by the thought of having a date in subspace, but was immediately taken aback by the display that awaited her.

“Ah, those are a Christmas tree and Christmas lights.” I pointed to an unnaturally large tree and waved some of the multi-colored devices at Lucina. She stared at them, dumbfounded.

“Chris...mas? Is this the name of someone or an organization?”

“Ah, no. Christ-mas. It’s kind of weird. The man who’s name is associated with the holiday is named Jesus Christ, but somewhere along the way I guess the ‘t’ became silent in the holiday name.”

Lucina just continued to stare at the multi-colored lights. “And… why isn’t any of it already set up? You do know that this is subspace, right? You could have just had Judgment set up a vision from your imagination before you came here.”

“Yeah, but half the fun is in setting it up as a family.” She looked at me strangely, and I shrugged.

“After scanning Master’s memories, I can confirm that his words are true. Whether or not he believes them himself has yet to be determined.”

I had given the AI strict orders not to reveal itself, lest I have a ton of explaining to do to the woman who it based its appearance off of.

Lucina frowned in thought for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. “Well, whatever. It’ll be a new experience for me, to say the least. While we do have people from other dimensions in Ethia, I’ve never experienced any familial traditions such as this.

“Actually, it’s not really familial, but more religious.” I corrected, but that only served to make the woman more confused.

“What’s religion?” I nearly dropped the glass ornament I was holding in my hands. Needless to say, it wouldn’t have broken, but the thought was so ingrained into me that my body frantically caught the small glass orb.

“What do you mean?” I only spoke when I was sure that everything was safe in my hands, and had no immediate danger breaking anything. A thought that I once again had to chide myself for.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Lucina replied.

“I mean, does Ethia not have religion?”

Lucina folded her arms under her chest and stared up in thought. “I don’t… think so? Can you just explain the concept to me and I’ll tell you if we have something similar or not.”

“Ok… where to begin. Religion is… for lack of a better word, organized worship. People create churches-”

“Oh, we have those!”

“As I was saying, people create churches to worship beings that we can neither prove nor disprove exist. Some people call it the metaphysical.” I finished placing all the ornaments, and set to wrapping the tree in Christmas lights.

“Wait, why worship the metaphysical? If you do that, then whether or not people are truly respectful all depends on their level of faith in this being.”

“Exactly. Whether or not a god is out there, there are people that will use their religion to suit their own needs, as well as people who will use it to satisfy the needs of others. Of course, neither are inherently bad or do harm, but as much as there is a stigma against people who practice religion, there is also one against people who refuse to.”

I sigh, and Lucina moved beside me and started to rub my back. “So which side were you on? It sounds like a war that has waged for aeons.”

“I… am a special case. I believe that a god, or gods for that matter may exist, and if they do then there’s no reason to say that others don’t. That’s the way people in my world have always been. If one group is right, the other has to be wrong. I find it so stupid and ignorant of those who discriminate that both cannot be correct. Who says there has to be only one god? If your god is all powerful, why couldn’t he appear at a different time, in a different place under a different name. What if, all gods were-”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

I looked over to Lucina, who had a worried look on her face. I sighed, and stopped my rant. “Well, not like it matters now anyways. I’ll never be able to return home, so I might as well stop pondering things that I’ll never speak of again. Sorry for getting so incensed.”

Lucina shook her head and moved to my front to hug me. “Don’t worry. If it helps you to speak of it, I will listen.”

I hugged her back, and combed my hair out of my eyes. “Thanks, but enough about my world. You said earlier that you had churches?”

“Yes, although they aren’t anything that resembles those in your world, save for the worship part. In Ethia, we worship physical beings, though.”

“The starlords.” I remember hearing them used as curse words, words of exasperation, as well as relief by Reya when I was around her. I had always assumed it was a translation for god, but to think they were a completely separate thing…

Lucina nodded. “Exactly.” She let go of me, allowing me to finish the lights while she attempted to place a star inside the tree.

“No, that goes on top. It’s usually the centerpiece of a tree.” She rolled her eyes and willed herself to float to reach the top of the tree.

“Anyway, we worship the starlords - interdimensional beings that have entire star-systems under their control. They appear every ten years at the temples to bless those who worship them. Of course, there are different starlords with different blessings, but that’s a story for a time when this is more relevant. For now, all you need to know is: do not openly mock a starlord or insult one. The last time something like that happened, a starlord - I think it was Starlord Garzi - smote several cities in the Kingdom of Liones, the heathens that they are.”

The Kingdom of Liones… Europe, if I remember correctly. “What did they do?” I asked, and Lucina looked at me nervously.

“I really shouldn’t… ugh, but it wouldn’t hurt to tell you since you are a paladin now after all. One of the leaders of the church complained about Garzi’s figure, and how she was… unevenly proportioned, the disgusting pig. Needless to say, Garzi caught wind of it and burned down the church, her followers, and the surrounding area.”

I shivered a bit. The starlords seemed to be just as temperamental as regular people, which, for beings of their strength, was a dangerous thing.

“My databanks on the Starlords are partially locked, for some unknown reason.” Judgment appeared out of thin air, and I nearly had a heart attack. If Judgment comes out looking as it is now, then-

“Hmm?” Lucina put her hands on her hips - her oh so enticing hips - and walked forward to get a better look at Judgment. “I see. So you were smitten with me even during our first encounter, that you made an AI replicated from me. How cute.”

I laughed nervously, but I could tell that it wouldn’t get Lucina to stop staring at me. “To be fair, Judgment chose that form on it’s own. I just consented to it.”

She turned her gaze from me to the AI, who confirmed my words. “It is as Master says. I took this form, believing that it would help me to manipulate the minds of those I interacted with. Unfortunately, it has no effect on Master.”

“Of course!” Lucina started hugging me. “He has the real thing to play with after all. Speaking of which…”

Lucina started to strip, revealing a satin bunny-girl outfit with a zipper running from her practically overflowing chest and down past her crotch. “That’s a size too small, isn’t it?”

Lucina blushed, and pushed me down. “I can’t help it! If I had a choice in how my genes were created, I would’ve went back and slapped my mother for giving me these!”

She squeezed her breasts and shuddered. “They just stopped growing two years ago, and they’re way too sensitive.” She sighed. “Stop changing the subject. Subspace sucks because we can’t have sex, but we can do foreplay as long as you turn the safety feature off.”

Is that true?

“Yes, Master. Shall I disable the physical contact restriction?” Please do.

“Very well Master. Physical contact restriction disabled.”

Lucina pounced the minute she heard the announcement, and started to greedily kiss my face and neck. I smirked at her vigor, when a voice shocked me out of the pleasure.

“I hope you weren’t going to start anything without me.” Rachel, my college crush appeared out from behind the tree, in red and white lingerie. I was momentarily taken aback before Lucina’s soft lips took mine.

“Come on Joshua. Let’s start.” With a sultry smile, she started to undo my pants as Rachel walked over. The room started spinning, twisting into a mess of lights and colors.

My breathing became ragged as Rachel’s distorted voice reached my ears. “Where are you going? Let’s have some fun!”

“Forceful ejection complete.” I sat up in my bed, located in the guest quarters of Redleaf Castle. I looked down at my sweat stained sheets and took a long drink from the glass of water on my nightstand.

Judgment, what the fuck was that?

“A dream, Master. Apologies, but I needed to use it to extract the last of the tainted data from your system. While you are immune to the mind altering effects of the cyber-stein, the longer such data is in my system, the longer it corrupts my coding.”

I took in Judgment’s explanation, hands on my face. Next time you need to purge any data, please warn me beforehand. That was not a pleasant experience.

“Of course, Master. You still have four hours until the meeting with the king about your mission to the Luong Empire. Would you like me to return you to sleep and wake you at an appropriate time?”

Glancing over to the window, I could see that it was still dark outside. Smirking, I sat up and rejoiced in leaving the damp covers. “No, I’ll get up. Start the shower, and set to 38 Celcius.”

“Master, what’s Celcius?”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “Scan my memories, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”