#get!

I don’t know how but they found me!

Get out of here you! Shoo! Scam! Scam!

“You truly do not remember me, Mistress Bale? What a shame. Then again, such vanity is a sin, to expect that this humble priest might have left an impression on such a bright young girl.” Father Riafaut’s voice was a bit rusty with his many decades, yet in the way of all Elezen, the years had yet to truly ravage his features. He was still handsome, Anne-Sophie supposed, if one was fond of silver hair and nature’s map of a life lived largely out in nature engraved upon his face. 

“Forgive me, Father,” she replied, her voice swallowed up by the vastness of the nave of Saint Reymanaud’s Cathedral, the great statue of Halone looking ever above the heads of even the tallest of the Races of Man. “It is just...I suppose I was always lost in my books, even back then, and now I am lost in my prayers to the Fury.” She smiled brightly, hoping to convey that she was done talking; alas, the old man, much like many of his peers, was not to be swayed.

“Yes, such a young girl you were, then. Yet already that hair was shining copper, and your skin that rich toasted almond shade...from your mother’s side, I understand? Something about a Dzemael scion somewhere back in your family tree...quite the scandal, that was, as I recall.” He laughed, a thin, papery sound. “But then, lust has often been the sin of your family, has it not? We all have our vices; none are free from flaws, as well the Fury knows.” Moving closer to Anne-Sophie, his robes swished behind him, and Anne-Sophie was put in mind of a hawk gathering itself to dive for its prey. “I wonder...did that particular brand of, shall we say, indiscretion find its way into you? If so, why...I believe I could make things go very well for you after your graduation from the Scholasticate. Much better than any Hyuran woman could reasonably expect in this city, anyroad.”