"You know that they're… Seelies… right?" Mr. Hianchi asked for the third or fourth time - and this time, I got angry at him.

I tossed my translation book to the side and glowered at him. "Yes! Of course I know that! I'm a 'Seelie', Mr. Hianchi!"

He raised his hands placatingly. "Vix! Be careful! Somebody…" he looked around to make sure we didn't have any customers. We didn't, which wasn't unusual for five minutes until closing time. "Somebody might hear. They might think you're serious."

"Mr. Hianchi. I. Am. A. Selenite. I didn't think it would matter…"

"You're Gionian," he stated.

"I'm both," I stated back. "Can't I be both?"

He made a fist with his left hand before clasping his right hand on top of it. "Gionian trumps Selenite. But them? They're just…"

"They're Kronojic Selenites, which are different," I said with a sigh. It was clear that I wasn't going to unravel decades of bigotry in one conversation. "I promise I'll be careful, Mr. Hianchi…"

He waggled a finger at me, the fact that I was a 'Seelie' immediately forgotten. "Don't let them poison you with their lies. You're too good for that."

I offered a noncommittal half-nod before stowing my supplies away and fishing my pay for the day out of the till. At this point in my employment, Mr. Hianchi trusted me enough to extract the appropriate amount out of the register. I imagine he counted afterward on occasion, but I wasn't about to cheat him - not over five tollos. Not only would it sour my current employment, it might well sour things for Mossy once she took over. Plus, Mr. Hianchi really was a lovely man when he wasn't being a disgusting bigot. I slipped my earnings into my hidden pocket and started for the door.

"Would you be a dear and- ah, read my mind."

I flipped the open sign around to indicate that the store was closed… and then gestured the woman who'd just stopped outside the doorway inside. Her crestfallen expression brightened as she slid past me. Mr. Hianchi certainly wasn't going to pass up one last sale for the day. I made my way out to the corner, people bustling down the avenue after a day's work, carriages trundling by, the streetlights already glowing in the dying light. It was late winter in Floria… which didn't actually mean much aside from the sun setting in mid-evening instead of late evening and the occasional winter storm roiling down from the Kerebels to the north.

Such a storm appeared to be in the making, inky black clouds blotting the northern sky against the indigo it was quickly displacing. Lightning flashed about the stormfront, but it was still too far away to hear above the sounds of the street. I met Mailyn on the corner, greeting her with a hug, as I often did.

"Aldo here yet?" I asked. She just rolled her eyes in response - of course he was late. "What about…"

"Here! I am! Sorry!" Mossy said, pink-faced and gasping for breath. "Sorry! I was getting herbs with Mrs. Delina. Did you know there's shamblers out in the Dead Canton?"

"Everybody knows that," Mailyn stated.

"I didn't! They're so gross! This one had its eye out and there were these worms… just worms… or maybe maggots. Mrs. Delina said they're different from worms because they turn into bugs… and it smelled!"

"I think you and Aldo have a lot to talk about," I observed.

"Talk about what?" Aldo asked, popping out from the nearby shadows.

"Shamblers!" Mossy gushed.

"Oho! Yeah, lay it on me, sister. I'm a bit of an expert. We got to compare notes," Aldo said.

Alas, their conversation would have to be delayed, for our carriage had arrived. It was a Skysday, four days after our initial 'meeting' with my fellow Selenites and two days after they requested that I meet with the bond-priests of their temple. I'd accepted the invitation, of course… on the condition that they supply an authentic Selenite meal for me and three of my friends. This was just as much to make sure they were serious as to maybe, just maybe, give my friends a little taste of home.

There were a lot more Selenites in Floria than there had been when I arrived - three more slaver ships had been captured, and around half of the arrivals had stayed rather than spreading out across Perdita or seeking passage to fairer lands. But ours was still a community of no more than a thousand residents and refugees, and we didn't have a single restaurant yet. At least none near the Collegium or Mini Gionika, where I spent most of my time.

Oh… and my final condition for a meeting had been that they provide passage there. We weren't about to spend an hour walking southeast from Mini Gionika to Crane Island.

I suppose I was expecting a glossy carriage in forest green with enameled white and silver detailing, like the one the bond-priests of our temple back on Barsoa rode about in. As far as I know, there are no official colors to the Selenite faith, but I'd always assumed that the design was standard. But this carriage was dingy blue with more dinge than blue and the wheels looked to have been cobbled together from at least seven different vehicles. It didn't exactly speak of ostentatious wealth… but at least they had the symbol of the Most High emblazoned on the door. Or stenciled on with black ink, I suppose. The all-seeing eye of Honored Asuna within a human heart and soaring aloft with two gryphon wings.

"You are Vix?" the driver asked in heavily-accented Perditalog.

"Vix and friends!" I nodded. With an uncertain smile, she hopped down to help us aboard. Soon, we were traveling southward, the cool evening air billowing in from the open windows. We clattered down to the Crane Island Bridge and crossed onto the mid-sized island of lower guild houses and metalworks buildings wedged between the Foreign Canton and the Captain's Canton. Burning coal and the tang of ozone carried over the wind.

"You know, I was on same boat as you," the driver called back. "You and two olders… you were the three of the Collegium on the ship?"

I nodded enthusiastically. "Oh! You were one of the rescued indentures?"

"Yes! Oh, your Perditalog very good. Much much good than mine."

I'd honestly heard much worse in Mini Gionika and I told her so - Floria is a city of immigrants, after all. The fact that I'd picked up Perditalog and six other languages from scratch in the same time she'd sort-of learned Perditalog? That was just a Collegium kid thing. You could hardly expect just anybody to do it, especially a grown-up who's got to worry about how to house and feed themselves and maybe start a family. Satisfied with my assessment of her language, the driver continued to chat with us most of the way - up until the first fat drops of the thunderstorm spattered down and rendered conversation difficult.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

It was still only spattering when we arrived at the temple - those big, awkward drops of rain that smack against your head and shoulders like somebody flicking you with a wet finger. The driver pointed to the structure and, as soon as we'd all debarked, immediately took off toward the nearest stables, leaving the four of us under the awning by the entryway, staring out as lightning flickered across the sky.

"Any chance you arranged for a carriage ride home?" Aldo asked.

"Um," I said.

He rolled his eyes and laughed. "Wonderful."

After an awkward moment, it became obvious that nobody was going to let us in. The structure we'd been led to was quite evidently the temple - after all, it had the same inexpertly-stenciled symbol of the Most High right there on the door, as well as a little placard for worship hours posted in Kronojic and Selenite. Yes, it was pretty obviously a temple, but it was just as obviously a renovated guild house.

Whatever guild once owned the building, I hope they traded up, because I can't imagine a self-respecting guild trading down from that. I knocked on the peeling blue paint of the door and, after a moment of no answer, I creaked it open and saw us in.

The door was unlocked and the inside was empty. Fortunately, somebody had thought to leave a few glowglobes on. They were low-end models, providing barely enough light for the ruddy, shadowy glow of a contemplative haven. I'd halfway been expecting a welcoming delegation, but it might as well have been a ghost house.

"Hello?" I called in.

"Thought we were getting a free meal," Aldo mumbled, taking a step toward the temple floor.

I held up my hand to stop him. "Okay… follow after me and do exactly what I do, unless I say otherwise."

First in the temple was the entry hallway, a little enclosure with a trough of water running across about half-way down the hall, as well as four pairs of shoes stowed off to the side just before that. I slipped my own shoes off, placing them behind a pair of brown city shoes that had probably been quite nice in their prime a year or more ago. A woman's shoes gauging by the size. I stuffed my stockings into my shoes, giving them a quick sniff to make sure they weren't riper than I thought they'd be, and then carefully stepped into the trough of running water.

It was a substantial marble basin perhaps half a meter wide and spanning the whole hallway - the 'pool of purity' that symbolized the washing away of sins and the world's worries. In Asunist tradition, each pool must be enchanted and sanctified to ensure ever-flowing holy waters. The feet that touch the temple floor must be pure, and they must be…

"I'm not just leaving my shoes for somebody to steal," Aldo stated.

I shot him a serious look. "Nobody would steal shoes from here. Nobody." Back at our temple in Portogarra, it wasn't uncommon to see a dozen pairs of shoes at any given time and well north of a hundred on worship days. As far as I know, not a single pair was ever stolen, and it was said that the poorest mendicant wouldn't think of stealing the finest pair left at the temple entry. That's patently untrue, of course - they would certainly think it. But it ought to suggest the sanctity with which Selenites regard their temples.

I padded out of the water, drying my feet carefully on the towels that had been laid out just beyond. When Aldo dried his own feet off, he muddied up the towels, not having washed his feet fully enough (to be fair, given that he runs around barefoot half the time, that's a serious logistical issue). With an annoyed glance, I snatched the towel away and tossed it in the soiled towel bin. "Wash them again," I snapped. With a gulp, Aldo complied.

From there, we entered the tabernacle proper. I imagine it had, at one point, been an open workshop floor. It actually reminded me a bit of the main chapel of the necromantic cult I'd once been in, and I had to take a second glance around to assure myself that this was, in fact, a proper Selenite temple…

"Ah!" I grabbed Mossy by the collar before she could wander into the temple.

"Sorry!" She blurted - and, wow, did sound carry in that big, vaulted tabernacle. "Sorry," she whispered. "What?"

I pointed to the little bureau next to the entrance, sliding open the drawer and sifting through the contents: several dozen silken veils in a variety of colors. I picked a black one and quickly placed it over my face, tying it in the back. "Always wear a veil in the tabernacle - otherwise, the Most High may place their gaze upon you and judge you. Do you want a god to judge you?"

"I sure as hell don't," Aldo said. Selecting a navy blue veil for himself. "Oh… am I allowed to say h-e-l-l here?"

"You can say hell," I assured him.

"Oh, good. Sorry, Asuna!" He made the sign of the circle. "Uh… what sign do I make?"

I showed him by holding two fingers to the center of my chest. We'd actually learned about Asunism, my Selenite faith, in our religion class (well… at least in my tier five religion class learned it - Aldo was in tier four), but it had only been a single class and, even if Aldo's class had covered it, his study habits were questionable at best.

With our veils on, we went into the temple proper. Almost immediately, my breath caught in my chest. Once, my parents had donated twenty qattrokronos to our temple to renovate the reflection room. Twenty qattrokronos. I imagine the entire interior of the temple in Floria had been refurbished for half that and another twenty qattrokronos would have bought you the whole building.

Even so… something in the place felt familiar. Even though these were mostly Kronojic Selenites, entering the temple felt like coming home. It felt like walking under the great aegis of spread wings, the Most High and their archangels, wings spanning the whole world and yet focusing their attention upon me in that dim, incense-hazy tabernacle on Crane Island.

I took a few steps forward, tears welling in my eyes as I looked to the apex, the interior of the ceiling shingled in the likeness of many-hued feathers, mostly in painted wood. When I heard Mossy's foot scuff behind me, I stopped them with a gesture and pointed toward the darkened alcove just in front of the back row of pews. There, within the alcove, was a cast bronze sculpture painted night black - a cloaked, gryphon-winged figure, a beautiful woman's features barely visible beneath a full-faced veil.

"Don't go beyond the shrine," I told them.

"That's Kirri," Mailyn said, touching her fingers to her chest - at least she had been paying attention in class.

"The archangel of shadows, secrets, and outsiders," I added. I gestured to the three of them. "Outsiders. That's you."

I knelt at the shrine to Kirri and drew my blade, pressing the sharp of the tip into my thumb just enough to draw a bead of blood, which I smeared on the inside of the offering bowl, a token offering of life in exchange for passage into the temple. From there I went to the main altar, upon which no statue sat, for the Most High requires no medium to commune with their children. I knelt on the little velveteen pillow at the base of the altar, carefully undid my veil, and knelt low, my forehead touching the prayer-plate, a smooth, cool indentation at the base of the altar. It was a different color from the rest of the marble and worn from centuries of use. I imagine it had been carried across to Floria from some older temple during my people's diaspora.

Without my veil, I felt a presence upon me, an almost imperceptible wavering in my thaum and every mote in the thaumic field beyond, the attention of something exquisitely subtle yet incomprehensibly immense. It could have shaken the fundaments of the world if it wanted to, and yet its attention was somehow apprehensive.

"This wayward child bows to the Most High," I said. My voice sounded so small in that vast place, and I wondered if the others even heard it, if it had been swallowed in the feathered vault of the tabernacle. A vault that somehow seemed far more cavernous than it had been just a moment ago. Entire epochs of airy space stretched between my little prostrated back and the feathers representing Honored Asuna and their archangels. And then, like a subtle buzzing in your ear that suddenly stops, the frisson of attention dissipated and I was kneeling alone in a hushed temple with my forehead against a smooth stone.

I heard the rustling of robes behind me and a gentle hand touched my shoulder. "Rise, child. Let us get a good look at you," a matronly voice said. I stood and turned, the priestess embracing me by the shoulders. She took me in, smoke-gray eyes flitting up and down before bearing down on my eyes. "So you're the little Shadow those louts have been talking about. Aren't you a pretty little thing?" She took a step back and glanced over to my friends, still waiting respectfully behind Kirri's shrine. "Well, what do you say we go upstairs? Supper's getting cold."