A Nun & A Thief
"So then I told the guy, that's not a dragon, that's my wife!"
"GWAHAHAHA!"
The Guild was as rowdy as ever.
I drooped my head in sorrow, a mug of shuwa-shuwa in hand. "Guhhh, Darkness *sniff* *sniff*."
"WAHHHHHH! AQUA-SAMA!" The loud nun beside me cried out. "Why did you hab to leab me? GWAAHHHH!"
"...Cecily-san…."
"What is iiittt?!" she replied, still bawling.
"You're being really loud."
"Of course! Aqua-sama left! Now she'll have to wait for me to show off all the accomplishments I made for the order. Long will be the days where I could've simply waited outside her mansion till morning came."
"Guh."
Did she really do that?
"Well," I began, sitting up, "I can sort of understand where you're coming from; Darkness isn't here too."
"What am I supposed to do?!" Cecily whined as she grabbed on to me.
"I-I don't know, perhaps...perhaps you could...try doing some...nice...things? I'm sure Aqua-sen… Ahem, Aqua-san would be surprised to find out you did some fine deeds while she was gone."
"Nice things? But I always do nice things. Everything I do is for the betterment of everyone else. As a devotee of the Axis Order it's Aqua-sama's mandate that we enlighten the faithless heathens to our glorious teachings."
"Um, proselytizing is fine, but I was thinking of other deeds. Particularly ones that don't have you stealing from the Eris church, Cecily-san."
Cecily smiled. "I never steal."
T-The gall on this lady, lying to a goddess in front of her face.
"Really?" I said doubtfully.
"Of course. Would you call taking from a thief, stealing?"
"Yes."
"Of course not! Those items never belonged to them in the first place! I'm simply repossessing them as tribute for Aqua-sama. Why, just the other week, I gave Aqua-sama a bunch of pastries from that baker lout."
"Paid for, I hope."
"Why would I need to pay a bigot?! That man is known to harbor unjust hatred toward our humble bunch—not to mention he's an Eris Cultist. Ptooey!"
"I'm...I'm an Eris… N-Nevermind. Cecily-san, you need to go pay that man back. Don't you think it's unfair you're depriving that man of his earnings? Baking is his livelihood, and those pastries you took are his products. If you just take them without paying he's lost a lot of time through no fault of his own."
"I suppose we should start by suing the Eris Cult, then."
⸻?!⸻
"What?! H-How did you even come up with something so absurd?!"
"Absurd?! Going by what you said right now, it's wrong to deprive someone of their livelihood, right? Well, if that's the case, those sniveling Eris Cultists are depriving us upstanding followers of Axis of our livelihood!"
"How could you even reason that?! I mean they're simply trying to live out their lives—not to mention they're doing their best to spread the faith as their goddess would like."
"Listen, Chris-san, even though you're a follower of that dark goddess, I'll overlook it out of the overflowing graciousness and humility our clearly superior and righteous religion affords, but...those backwater apostates should stick to the cemetery like the shambling defilers they are! Leave the wandering faithless in the hands of the one true goddess, Aqua-sama."
"Blasphemer!" I yelled, shaking her in anger. "You call yourself one of the cloth?!"
"Ah, no! S-Stop it! HELLLLP! I'm being ravaged by this young man!"
"Young man?!" I shook her even harder.
"Ahhhhh, no, I'm not into this type of play!"
"Hey, would you two take that somewhere else?" One of the bartenders said. "We'll have to throw you out if you keep being this unruly."
"Guh!" I let her go. "Come. We're going to pay that man back, and you're going to apologize!"
Cecily straightened out her robe. "I'll do no such thing. That man needs to apologize to me!"
⸻!⸻
I genuinely couldn't believe it. Aqua-senpai...why are your followers like this?
Cecily went on. "That cultist needs to apologize to all the faithful Axis in this town and most certainly to Aqua-sama! The nerve of him, denying Aqua-sama those scrumptious sweets he makes...bastard."
⸻!⸻
I looked down despondently.
Cecily downed the mug of beer she ordered, sighing happily afterwards. "I'm feeling better, Chris-san, but you look like you could do with a better attitude."
"T-This is your fault!"
"My fault? Tch, typical of an Eris Cultist, falsely accusing someone else."
Why did I even try? Why was I even here, again? Oh, that's right, I was feeling down because Darkness left, but now…
I stared at Cecily.
Now it's because of her…
I began to tear up. "Aqua-senpai, why must I clean up after you even when you're not here?"
"Ah, Chris-san, you look really sad, again." She smiled. "Cheer up, I know something that'll make you happy."
"Make me...happy?"
"Umu."
Her smile was bright, so bright and free of malicious intent that she almost appeared as a completely different person.
"What...what is it?"
Still smiling, she said, "So, there's this baker—WHAAA!"
I pounced on her.