Leo's Tail
The Claire Moa Temple was quiet today. There wasn't a whole lot to do, and quite a few of the residents were out doing various volunteering work around the surrounding area. Therefore, quite a few of the priestesses were out relaxing in the temple gardens, soaking in the wonderful day.
The High Priestess walked with her protégé Leorina through the grounds to take advantage of the pleasant weather. Having grown close to her, she felt comfortable calling by her birth name Leo, even if Leorina herself preferred most folks refer to her by the longer title. Ever since Leorina had returned to the Claire Moa Temple and taken up her old role of a priestess-in-training, they had much more opportunities to spend time together, though they did make sure it didn't get too intrusive on their work. Such behaviour wouldn't be becoming of the High Priestess and the people under her care, after all.
"Such a beautiful day." The High Priestess said as they walked along, watching the priestess enjoy the sunshine. "Goddess Claire is truly kind to bless us with such weather."
"Perhaps." Leorina replied, tinkering with a little gizmo from her airship that she kept around mostly for her own pleasure rather than sky piracy. She was making progress with her training but was still getting used to this new position in life she was in. Wearing this priestess uniform again like she had all those years ago… it felt right, but also rather scary. "But good weather will bring bad weather with it."
"And bad weather helps to cleanse the ground and grow the fields." The High Priestess replied with a smile. Leorina was certainly more pessimistic than herself, but she was doing a lot better, and seemed more secure than she had been once upon a time. "Such is the cycle of the weather Claire brings, Leo. Both good and bad bring their own blessings to the world."
Leorina couldn't help but smile with a little snort. The High Priestess did this quite a bit, dropping sagely quotes about her faith and philosophies, but Leorina didn't mind too much, even if she thought it was a bit silly linking all that happened to their Goddess in some way.
Still, she had to admit, Claire must have shown her favour to give her a second chance in life like this…
Nearby, a group of priestess sat around a tree, Lolo being among them. All their eyes were on Leorina and the High Priestess as they walked by. The eldest among them, seemingly the ringleader of sorts, was a priestess with shimmery gold hair, and she was wearing a frown as they looked on at them both.
"Are you going to ask her or not?" One of the priestesses said to her.
"It's not a good idea." Lolo cut in, a grave expression on her face.
"Why, it's a fair point of interest, Lolo!" another priestess chuckled.
"Maybe I just don't think it's an appropriate thing to bring up to her; not when we're supposed to be making her feel welcome." Lolo said back, trying to stick up for her friend.
The priestess with the golden hair looked on as the pair walked past and sighed, her mind made up.
"Well, if you're all not going to ask her, then I will."
Lolo grimaced, but she couldn't bring herself to speak up as the gold-haired priestess got up and walked over to Leorina.
"Scuse me, Leorina?" she called out, the others in the group hanging back, not quite daring enough to actually go up to her. Lolo didn't join them, not liking where this was going, but not quite able to speak up and stop it due to her nerves.
Leorina looked round, a slightly worried expression coming across her face. She was trying to socialise more at the temple, especially with help from Lolo, but she still wasn't exactly matey with a lot of the priestesses, worried that her past as a sky pirate would cause them to dislike her.
"Yes?"
The golden-haired priestess looked at her with a slightly smug smirk. Here was the face of someone who indeed didn't think much of Leorina. This individual was a gifted priestess, certainly, but had gained a reputation for being abnormally radical in her worship of Claire and also tended to be uncaring about whether she hurt people's feelings with her words.
"Well," the priestess began. "Me and some of the others have been talking about this, and we couldn't help but notice… you're the only one among us that doesn't have a tail."
Leorina seized up at her words, her eyes widening as a pit opened in her stomach.
"I really don't think this is appropriate…" The High Priestess said quietly, her eyes narrowing at the priestess who had spoken up.
"Yes, I don't have a tail." Leorina growled, a growing anger beginning to fill her eyes. "What about it?"
The golden-haired priestess chuckled a little. "Isn't it obvious? How'd you go and lose it? What, did you cut it off to look more dangerous? Or did it get destroyed when you were off causing chaos as a sky pirate-"
Her words feigned casual conversation but hid venom behind every syllable. The High Priestess gasped in horror as Leorina suddenly threw the gizmo in her hands hard to the floor and approached the priestess, an almost tranquil fury on her face hiding the building rage behind her eyes.
"Why the hell do you want to know?!"
"Leo… don't…" The High Priestess said quietly, placing a hand on Leorina's shoulder, her tone stern but concerned, urging her not to do something she'd regret.
"Jeez, did I strike a nerve?" The priestess said with clearly embellished surprise. "What, is your tail a sore subject or something?"
"Juli, please, I think you've said enough!" Lolo called out as she approached the back of the group, unable to stand Leorina being ganged up like this any longer.
"Leo…" The High Priestess repeated, knowing how much inner turmoil would be swirling in Leorina's head in that moment.
Leorina's face remained defiant for a moment before tears began to stream down her face and she bolted towards the doors to the temple.
"Leo, wait!" The High Priestess called out in concern, before rounding on the group before her, minus Lolo.
"That was a horrible thing to say!" she almost shouted, her usual exterior of serenity cracking somewhat. "How could you think that was an appropriate thing to ask of her?!"
Most of the group were clearly regretful for going along with the whole affair, lowering their heads in shame, but the golden-haired priestess named Juli remained defiant, as if all she regretted was not saying more.
"You cannot expect us to not want to know things like this, especially when we have to be alongside a former outlaw like her!"
The High Priestess swallowed the righteous anger she nearly let out in response, before turning in the direction that Leorina had run in.
"I'll deal with you later…" she said as she began to hurry off after her protégé.
Once she was out of earshot, Juli snorted derisively. "Did you see those lovey-dovey eyes she keeps giving that criminal? They're in bed together, I'm sure of it!"
"JULI!" Lolo shouted, finally standing up for herself, quite a bit of building frustration at her friends' treatment of Leorina finally coming to the surface. "That is not for us to gossip about!"
"With all the teaching we've gotten about purity and abstinence in the worship of Claire, it's completely hypocritical." Juli said, mostly ignoring Lolo. "I'm certain that there's a passage in Claire's teachings somewhere that condemns this exact thing…"
Throwing up her hands in exasperation, Lolo finally left in a huff, unable to stand it a moment longer. A couple others in the group followed her, disgusted at Juli's words.
It was no secret that Juli was vying for the High Priestess role sometime in the future, and while it was still a ways off for her since she was still quite young and only a recently christened priestess, she was already acting as though she were the superior priestess among them, and that her word should be final.
Such a habit would surely get her into trouble sooner or later.
…
The High Priestess strided through the temple looking for Leorina, quietly fuming at the audacity of Juli for speaking to her in such a way. She had not been eager to grant her the role of full priestess, sensing a worrying amount of pride and ambition from her, but some of the other high ranking priestesses and leaders of La-Lakoosha had insisted from the promise her powers showed. She was so disrespectful, the complete antithesis of what a priestess should be, and she would be damned if she let her get to a high ranking position with an attitude like that.
She tried to calm herself as she looked for Leorina, keeping her ears open for her and checking where she could usually be found with no luck. She became increasingly worried as she looked, not sure if she'd run out of the temple altogether.
As she entered the main throne room, though, she heard a quiet sobbing from behind the throne, and Leorina's priestess hat lay abandoned in the middle of the room. Picking it up and holding it close to her chest, she quietly approached the throne and looked behind it, seeing Leorina huddled behind it in a fetal position, quietly crying.
"Leo…?"
Leorina barely acknowledged her presence but managed to respond, her voice distorted with tears.
"P…please… I just… want to be alone…"
The High Priestess looked round, worried about whether Leorina's crying might attract priestesses to come gawk at her, and quietly spoke again. "I understand, Leo, but this is quite an exposed place for you to stay. Please, let me bring you somewhere quieter."
Leorina shook with emotion but slowly looked up at the High Priestess, her face wet with tears, and finally nodded, as she was gently led towards the High Priestess' private quarters nearby.
Closing the door, the High Priestess turned to Leo, who was sat on a couch in the room. "You may stay here as long as you need to come back to yourself. If you wish me to leave you be, I shall."
Leorina looked over at her slowly, the idea of being alone suddenly feeling unappealing, and shook her head. "No… I… want you to stay…"
The High Priestess nodded gently and moved to sit down beside her.
"Would you like to discuss it?"
Leorina looked down, a bitter expression in her eyes. "I knew it would be like this. It doesn't matter what I do, people will always hate me. I'll never be accepted here."
"I will make sure that Juli is punished appropriately for this." The High Priestess said, her eyes only briefly showing upset at the words that had been said to Leorina before they became kind again. "But I have seen most of the others, and they are happy that you have been redeemed and returned to us. I once heard a priestess in training thank Claire for bringing you back to her light."
Leorina seemed at least a little assured by her words, but she couldn't bring herself to believe it all. "There'll always be one, though… one person determined to bring me back down… and they just had to make poke fun about my tail…"
The High Priestess placed a hand on Leorina's shoulder, squeezing it gently. "No matter what they said, what became of your tail does not truly matter. You not having one doesn't make you any less worthy of being within these walls."
"It's not gone!" Leorina suddenly shouted, before catching herself upon realising what she had just done and burying her head in her hands. The High Priestess kept her hand assuringly on her shoulder, letting her continue.
"It's still there… it's just…"
"You feel the need to hide it…" The High Priestess finished for her, understanding. "Because something happened to it, and now there's a feeling of shame linked to it…"
Leorina nodded, taking a deep breath as she finally began to open up, feeling as though she would never have to reveal this…
"When I was younger, soon after I had foolishly left the Claire Moa Temple to follow my own path, I began to view my tail as a symbol of the life I had left behind, and of everything I had thrown away. I couldn't stand to have it remind me of what I had done… so one day I tried to cut it off…"
The High Priestess raised a hand to her mouth in shock, her eyes filled with worry at the suffering Leorina had gone through.
"But I couldn't… it was too painful.. so, I gave up… and just hid it away… acting like it didn't exist…"
"So you could feel like you were finally free…" The High Priestess deduced as Leorina nodded.
"Leo… what is done is done… but those days are behind you, and you are back in a better path… you no longer need to hide it from anyone…"
Leorina shook her head, her eyes filling with tears again.
"I'm afraid…" she managed to choke out. "I can't bring myself to let anyone see…"
The High Priestess considered her options. Keeping her tail hidden was clearly still causing Leorina a lot of pain and stress… she just needed help to take that dangerous step…
"May I… help you take that step?" she said quietly, testing the waters.
Leorina looked up at her, clearly scared to say yet after so long of keeping it hidden from the world… but she couldn't bring herself to say not to the High Priestess, the one she cared about so much, and she finally nodded.
Smiling encouragingly, the High Priestess slowly bought her hands down to the base of Leorina's spine, feeling the slight shape of her tail under her uniform, tucked away. Slowly, she began to reach through and bring it out, letting it curl from the hem of Leorina's dress.
Leorina's breath quickened as she felt the High Priestess hold her tail and quietly inspect it. It was not unlike Lolo's with red hair on the end rather than ginger, but not nearly as well kept. She could see the substantial scar near the base from where Leorina had tried to… remove it… as well as other scuffs and scrapes from years of sky battles, the hair unkempt from being hidden for so long. And yet… she didn't mind.
"How…" Leorina said quietly, afraid to ask. "How bad is it…?"
The High Priestess smiled as she gently cupped Leorina's chin and leaned in to face her. "On the contrary, Leo… I think it's a beautiful tail… it's a part of you, and I accept it as such…"
Leorina's eyes filled with tears at the words, almost unable to believe it, even with her knowing how caring the High Priestess was.
"I promise you, Leo, I will see to it that your time in this temple under my care is a happy one. I don't want you to be afraid of us. In time, the other priestess will grow to accept you as part of our own… and they will accept your tail as just a part of who you are… a clever, brave, beautiful woman…"
A slight smile crept on Leorina's face as she felt the High Priestess' love wash over her, her own love in return beginning to show as she slowly began to draw closer to the High Priestess, unable to resist the urge to just…
Her lips gently planted on the High Priestess' own. The High Priestess hummed quietly as she returned the kiss, both of them closing their eyes as they pulled each other into a loving cuddle.
And as they hugged, letting the kiss hang there, their tails slowly intertwined, coiling together in an intimate embrace.
Two lovers, together…