Quill rose early, and if his body protested the reduction in time to lay languidly in bed, his mind was eagerly anticipating an entire service in the company of Noue. He ate leftovers, not just any leftovers, but leftovers from his moms, for breakfast. The stroganoff he heated over a small fire, the finger foods he ate cold, and recalling his resolution to resume practicing his forms he enjoyed two of the carrot puddings. He then donned his usual attire, considering as he dressed the merits of getting a green vest to wear. Blue was such a melancholy color. He supposed not all blues were, there was robin’s egg blue, sky blue, aquamarine… but his attire was more in the navy, royal, and indigo blues. He might look gauche at a funeral but could conceivably be in half-mourning for someone. He raised an eyebrow at the thought. There were those who were dead to him. In any event, a nice pine green wouldn’t look out of place and might lighten the affect of his attire somewhat. Maybe even the color of spring grass. No, no, that would be entirely too much; it would be too bright with his somber blues. Perhaps a new wardrobe? When one cycled shirts and underclothes, a new wardrobe was just a vest, waistcoat, and trousers. He could keep his greatcoat and hat, even. He considered. A mirror and a skein of fabric would help immensely with his—he realized he was dilly-dallying, and despite the imperative of not being late paused to consider this.
Was he feeling nervous? Shy? Things with Noue were in the early stages yet, they had held hands, kissed some, seen one of those touristy light shows… he knew her ideals, her loyalties, were compatible with his own. His moms had said nothing against her except to remind him that he was a man who fell in love. He wondered at that. Didn’t most men fall in love? Not every child was a nephilim. Did Burner fall in love? Was he, in his own demented way, in love with Noue? Quill shuddered at the idea. But then, Burner had declared himself Tome’s right hand man. He had higher loyalties. Not to mention, he had warned Quill away from Noue the moment he had ripped the image of her from Quill’s mind. Burner, Quill decided, was not a man who fell in love. All the more reason not to be late escorting Noue to Church, then. With that thought, he donned his hat and greatcoat and strode out the door.
The Golden Spoil was not on the covered central market square, but like the lightshow he had attended the night before was not terribly far off it either. Bells were not yet sounding to summon parishioners, but by Quill’s judgment he didn’t have long before they began their peals. He stood at the desk of the inn and waited patiently.
Well, alright, he waited fidgety and nervous and recalling that she had expressed disapproval of his Wholist faith. The Incarnate element seemed not to bother her, so long as he didn’t stray into Drachist territory, but she was not the biggest fan of the Wholist Church. To be fair, he wasn’t always the biggest fan of the Wholist Church, but he had his soul to see to and if his idea of purgatory was to be tossed back to Orth as a baby it at least provided a direction for his life. Witnesses believed all manner of things and to be honest he hadn’t looked closely at the denominations in Coldpass. He wondered if that was giving insufficient attention to someone he was attracted to, and felt a strong ambivalence between trying to learn more about Noue and feeling as though such thoughts were ill-advised. Then, too, he had been warned by more than two against giving his heart too much of its own head.
Given the direction of his ruminations, he surprised himself by daring a peck upon Noue’s cheek when she finally appeared at the desk in her coat and hat. Which were green. No wonder he’d been considering green attire. She laughed gaily at his small gesture of affection and pulled him by his lapels to a kiss that doubtless failed to shock the innkeeper only because she had seen all kinds of silly tourists. Noue, however, was generally level-headed, a fact Quill was certain of. When she released him, Quill drew a slow, deep breath and, when he saw her grin, smiled in turn. Though it didn’t vanish, her smile guttered when he asked if she was ready for Church. Clearly, not a woman of Wholist priorities. He winged his arm and then placed his hand over hers, to his delight neither of them wearing gloves. He asked what she had against the Wholist Church, and she replied absently that she was simply more of a Witness persuasion. He felt a nagging familiarity in the distracted, perhaps even slightly lost tone of her voice as she said this, and elected not to press further.
His next remark, on her being quite the enthusiastic kisser, garnered a smirk and a single raised eyebrow. She invited him to reciprocate, the next time, and he protested that he had been surprised. Noue rolled her eyes, declared, “I am going to kiss you,” and once again grabbed his lapels. Being of a more present mind, Quill noted how far Noue bent him to bring his lips to hers, and added her fit strength to his list of things he liked about her. But then he was kissing her, in the middle of a street, her lips soft and warm and fuller than his own, her tongue and a gentle draw inviting him to taste her, and then the bells of the city’s cathedrals rang. Quill broke off the kiss with an apology and indicated the ringing. Noue didn’t answer, merely nodded and rolled her eyes; Quill supposed that was kind of an answer, simply not a verbal one. Their kisses weren’t a verbal declaration that he was falling hard and fast, for that matter, but they were a declaration nonetheless. He felt quite in charity with life as they walked quickly to the pyramidal Church, as he covered Noue’s hand with his own and they settled into one of the back row pews.
They proceeded through the welcome hymn, made the God Star in prayer for their sins, sang the second hymn, and then heard the opening prayer and reading from the Gospel. “The Fruit of the Spirit is a great treasure,” the priest declared. “One which thieves cannot break in and steal. Save up for yourself the treasures of the Fruit of the Spirit. As we heard in our reading of the Gospel, the Fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To the novitiate, the most appealing of these is likely joy, or perhaps peace. It is a tempting offer, to invite the One God into our souls and trade all the worldly worries we carry for the peace that surpasses all understanding. And yet, I would say to you that the greatest boon of the Spirit is self-control. ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ You might say ‘I have self-control!’ In protest you might say it, and immediately you call to mind the crimes and sins which you have not committed. ‘Just on my way to Church,’ you may cry, ‘I did not trip that old man. I looked away from a beautiful woman and thought of my wife. I am not the thief stealing religious texts from the great and noble Tome.’ But did you give alms to the beggar, or did you save it to give to the Church? And did you not realize that what lies in your heart defiled you? You wished to look on the beautiful woman, and commit adultery with your heart. You thought yourself virtuous because the Church will use your alms better than the poor. And clearly, if one reads the headlines, self-control is something somebody in this city needs, and so all should pray for the Spirit. As the Savior said, temptations are inevitable, and so apologists cannot say that the dragon tempted. They are long-lived and virtuous, they accumulate wealth by dint of their virtue!” Noue raised her head to Quill’s shoulder and murmured that the priest was butchering the Scripture, for the full quote said woe to the one who does the tempting. Quill snickered, amused to hear a dragon in the wrong religiously, and garnered reproving glances which sobered him not at all. “But the poor will always be with us, and we cannot forget them either. Just as we should not steal from the rich, so should we not spare from the poor. The Power of Liamus is the patron of Coldpass, that angelic spirit which guards against the cold. Give your alms to the homeless, that they might buy a night’s reprieve from that most final of fates, to resemble a bookend holding up the stony walls of our buildings.” Noue murmured to Quill again that if the Church was so concerned with the poor, they could open their halls in the night to allow them somewhere warm to sleep. Quill whispered into her hair that they could discuss that in the narthex, but that they really shouldn’t talk during the service.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The rest of the service passed quietly, through prayers for the congregation, collection of the offertory, and the taking of Communion. Quill wondered if dragons took some kind of communion after their own Gotorjod, or if they just ate someone holy and called good enough is. The thought was heretical, of course, but he was thinking it jokingly. Still, he felt the back of his neck prickle and looked around to see if someone were walking about the narthex with bangs. He wasn’t sure what having bangs, or perhaps a low-brimmed hat, would signify, but he felt a definitive relief when he saw nobody through the open doors.
After the service, Noue was vehement that the Church ought to live up to the morals it espoused. “You asked, Quill, why I am not Wholist. This building is insulated by a colossal amount of stone to save on heating costs, and could save still more being heated by the poor of Coldpass. The floors are stone and the pews are wood, scrubbed easily enough if one wants to protest as to the unwashed state of the homeless. Witnessate churches are far from perfect, but they practice what they preach to a greater extent.” She did not keep her voice low as she said this, and they attracted curious stares. Glue and Parchment looked over curiously, but did not come over with any particular rapidity. Mentally cursing his friends with mild invective, Quill put to her the concept of poorhouses, and asked why they were not a solution. “I’m from the Fireplains, Quill. Yet the poor sleep cold in the poorhouses, hungry and cold after a demanding day’s labor and their only heaping helping that of spiritual vinegar for their ingratitude for being allowed to starve more slowly for their labors.” Quill acceded that it was true, the poorhouses worked their tenants hard and their spiritual diet was meager, but there was also the matter of someone having to pay for the heating. Noue’s eyes flashed with anger, and she managed to look down her nose at a man nearly a foot taller than her. “Your library pays for heating regardless of occupancy, cold being a poor environment for books. Why doesn’t Dragon Tales house the homeless in the night?” Quill murmured something about not having the authority to make that decision. “But have you brought it up with the person who does have authority?” Once, Quill admitted, and not again. He flushed, and it was in shame rather than the delight of kissing Noue. He almost immediately regretted saying it, but asked Noue of her branded coat, her comfortable suite at the inn. She replied hotly, “This coat was a gift from a sorceress I helped. As for my room—”
Quill made a mental note to thank the Power of Doctors or perhaps of Wrath, he would consult his axiom spirit at a less obvious time, as Glue cut into the conversation. “‘To say nothing of the intemperate tongue, which only the Spirit has the power to control! The tongue gives life to the defilements of the heart, and if you think there is no harm in words you are mistaken! As it says in the Old Texts of Scripture, the tongue can crush the spirit!’ Are you about to crush my dear friend Quill’s spirit, Noue?” Glue was grinning. “You should accord me the first attempt. Quill, you do realize you benefit from a certain amount of status, you could probably leverage that into a night shelter in Dragon Tales. It could be a halfway house for patients of Power of Engel’s, an aversion to books might be problematic but as the lovely Denouement pointed out, the entire predicate of the Sanitarium is that behaviors can be changed. It would cut down on overhead for rehabilitation to avoid giving them a permanent residence until they earned it in their own right. Even more than defiled hearts, the Savior did have a particular pet against hypocrisy.” Quill recognized that he was being needled, but his friend had just saved him from his own intemperate tongue and so laughed good-naturedly. Nonetheless, he felt a certain rigidity in Noue’s posture from her hand on his arm, and so when everyone had enjoyed a good round of humor at his expense, Quill drew Noue aside and apologized. “Bye bye, dear friends. Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!” Glue waved cheerfully, their arm twined around Parchment’s, who Quill just realized had been rather quiet through the entire discussion.
But he would ponder reticence later, now was the time to apologize. He had, without a doubt, spoken rashly and without awareness of her circumstances, and he hoped from the bottom of his heart—and, he added with a touch of devilry, the tips of his fingers—that she would forgive him. Noue looked up at him and stared intently for several moments, several moments which felt like a small eternity, before nodding and melting into his arms in a chaste but affectionate embrace. The entertainments being closed, at least the reputable ones, Quill asked how he might divert her and further enjoy her companionship that day. Noue murmured something into his chest that he didn’t catch, and he spent what was probably an improper amount of time for an unmarried man to hold his love interest, but he didn’t quite care about appearances just then. Perhaps he should seek out a fire sorcerer to reinforce the mental architecture… the thought slipped away. Didn’t Parchment know a fire sorcerer? He would, in any case, ask Glue if he needed help from fire sorcery, especially given the way his stomach twisted as he thought of that scrap of paper saying “no.”
