The priest was a lady, wise in her years.
The boy in the brown overcoat stood baffled through and through over a simple statement.
He asked, trying to shake off his stupefaction, "Is it normal for people to get baffled over something as simple as that?"
The priest answered affirmatively, "this is something that has happened in this cathedral quite often. I believe it's due to the intent behind the architectural beauty of this cathedral." She looked up, mesmerized by the mosaic of a lady in handcuffs leading people as nine servants of her flew around her.
Each of the servants in the mosaic held onto something different from the others.
A sword, a pair of gloves, a pair of crystal boots, a horn, a crown of twigs, a bloodied pair of wings, a blindfold, a vest from an armour suit, and a sling.
Yet every single one of the servants also had handcuffs on both of their hands and neck. A visceral image that plagues the mind of the one who looks.
The wanderer also looked up following the priest's example. His wasn't mesmerized, he felt vindicated. Violated even.
That image was so wrong from the image he had imagined of the lady and her servants.
"That's…that's just..so wrong!" he whispered to himself. The priest looking up responded to his silent whisper with her own remark. A subtle one.
"The mosaic is meant to throw off the people. The event this portrays is even more horrifying yet it's the start of the repentance The Lady begins to save the people of the realms."
The wanderer scrutinized the priest's face. She let him.
"The Lady of Repentance had seen the realms made by the Master of the realms. He wasn't cruel. Not to her, not to the people. But he was absent. Always." The priest continued.
"I—I am sorry, but how does that relate to the Sword of the Lady?" The wanderer interjected, gradually coming back to his senses slowly.
He was glad, and horrified. He wished to glance around the cathedral to eye the ones who had listened on the conversation. He needed to maintain a particular personality in Rigac.
The wanderer reminded himself, 'I can't risk it. Not when I am this far gone. No.'
The priest finished her reverence of the mosaic, let her eyes wander down onto the boy in the brown overcoat.
"So child, how may I be of service to you?" She didn't respond to his earlier question.
The wanderer accepting her cue began, "I am here for the play's rehearsal. It's my first time as well as trial for that. Uh, Ma'am Priestess?"
She smiled and proceeded to take the extended quest issue paper for adventurers from the boy, "I am not a priestess child. That title is for nuns who were born and raised inside of the church's hierarchy and holy places. I am a Priest. Priest Noria."
Her smile was the warmest the wanderer had felt. Since, the last smile that had asked him to not take revenge, to be away from Rigac.
A silent memory flickered over Priest Noria's figure in front of the wanderer. The image of a man–him missing his leg and half of his lungs—yet his words requested him. His gloves were redder than his own blood.
The words forbade the wanderer to not follow the path he had pledged to take after seeing Beret's devastation.
A tear rolled down the wanderer's cheeks. He hadn't cried for weeks.
Rigac had that effect on him. To wish to scream, lash, burn it.
But the cathedral? Its motifs relegated his emotions he had used to hide his pain.
The pain only appeared as a single drop. But Priest Noria didn't let it fall down; her pair of white gloves caught it before the drop could leave the wanderer's cheeks.
She settled beside him without a word. Her blue and dark red priest's robe fluttered so softly, it betrayed the stillness she seemed to carry.
The wanderer didn't move nor Noria initiated another conversation. Both waited not for the other to start. But to let the unsettled pain of the wanderer to rage within him and to lose to the blessing that is Noria's presence.
Cathedral had some movements during the time Noria and the boy sat together in the silence.
A few other worshippers came in through the huge double doors. Settling themselves in the hall filled with pews based on how their own heart reacted to the architectural beauty of the cathedral.
It was a common occurrence among all the new worshippers and those already settled. For everyone could only walk the distance their hearts allowed before they were overwhelmed with their hidden pain. The remorse that they carried.
The wanderer began a new conversation. "Why only nine differences between the servants?"
His eyes were settled on the mosaic below the pews. He could only see a part of it, a small section. Even this had an effect.
'The artistry is unmatched. Why would someone want to attack such a cathedral?' The wanderer mused a wondering he considered.
Noria let the silence continue. She already had the answer ready, yet she felt it. His question wasn't over.
"What are the servants of the Lady?" He inquired at last. The one that had plagued him since Ashtrim the city. He never questioned it there, he didn't ask of it in Cleaving, and now here in Rigac. The question flowed. It didn't let itself simmer below him.
"The servants are the people the Lady chose—who would defeat her, if she ever becomes like her father." Noria's words becoming one with her presence.
"In the start, there were only nine servants. And when her repentance for the people of the realms was over, the servants' numbers grew. Each had a different approach to defeat the injustice that the Lady may commit. That's the different ways each chose to answer to service the Lady." Noria let the answer strengthen in the stillness of the cathedral.
The wanderer shifted away and stood. He had gathered enough courage, he needed to act. Act in ways the city of Rigac wouldn't question him.
The wanderer reminding the Priest Noria requested her, "may I attempt to be a part of this play? I wish to learn. Learn of the Lady Repenter's life."
Noria without ever glancing at the boy cleared away his question. "You already did. You came, that's enough for us."
Noria stood up and walked away from the wanderer. The wanderer called back to her, "Priest Noria! What am I supposed to do now?"
"Live your day, the play's practice for today is over. Come tomorrow but do go to the back to pick the notes and script for it. Say Priest Noria sent you for the Servant of Messengers." She replied back without ever turning.
Noria began visiting the new worshippers who had come. One at a time, wishing them.
The wanderer still stood in his spot gathering courage. He didn't expect it was this hard to just take one single step. The cathedral wasn't pressuring him, it wanted to help him.
The wanderer felt that the cathedral even wanted to make him fly, yet he himself was afraid. Afraid he'll fly away from the choices he wishes to make. He wanted his own destiny and fate, while the church wanted to help him in that.
The wanderer dragged his feet a hair's breadth forward, then a couple more. He took a few paces forward. Stood still after. Continued the same procedure until he was close enough to the front of the pews.
A cleric of the church was attending the podium from which priests would do recitals. He had seen one as such in Ashtrim's The Temple of The Repenter.
He asked the cleric, "Priest Noria told me to go to the back for the play's notes and script and I am sent for the Servant of Messengers. Which door will lead to the back she meant?"
There were six doors behind the podium all leading to the back, but obviously different one possibly. Yet the doors were so far away, he had a worry it will take him the entire day just to get out of the cathedral. The cathedral's artists who made it had outdone themselves beyond measure.
The cleric answered, "take any of the ones in the center. Both ends up leading to the same place. Also what motif she said you were part of?"
The wanderer confused, inquired of the question, "motif? What motif?"
"The Servant you are supposed to play partially as. That's what a motif is. Priest Noria is responsible for selecting the motif of the person. So which is it?" The cleric cleared up the confusion.
The wanderer understood that he wasn't the only one playing to be the Servant of Messengers then. And so he answered, "Priest Noria selected me for Servant of Messengers."
The cleric was confused; he pointed the door once again thinking to himself of something. The wanderer followed his directed door and went to the back picking the notes and scripts after relating once again the same words Priest Noria had told him.
The ones in the back room were also confused but they helped him. Gave him the script, ran a few lines with him. And walked along with him out to the hall of attending to which the double doors open to.
The cleric as well as the people in the back were a bit curious, but their curiosity did fuel the wanderer's motif on Rigac. He now had more control on him, his body and thoughts in control of him as he led himself out of the hall and the double doors.
The wanderer was gone.
The staff of the cathedral, a few who were curious came to ask Priest Noria one question, "Priest Noria, there never was a Servant of Messengers in the play. There isn't a motif placed in the play where he could be placed. So why tell him so?"
The priest answered, "because the messenger came. And he didn't know he was one. Scrap the play silently, and help in preparing for an evacuation within two days."