I slowly wake up. Looking around the room, everyone else is gone. Yeah, Aubrey’s an early riser and Kiaran has to be at work by ten. I only get to sleep at around four, so I’m usually not up until noon. I normally spend most of my free time in the morning studying, but I’m supposed to be taking a break right now. I can’t talk with Aubrey or Kiaran right now, so what should I do?

…

This is how you know I’m getting really desperate. In my interactions between Kiaran, Lucidna, and the other librarians I’ve had to interact with, it’s clear that I’m incredibly lonely. The moment I spend any sort of time with someone who’s even remotely attractive I wind up imagining myself in an ‘intense’ personal relationship with them, and I find this incredibly creepy. I really need to get out more, and I’m incredibly bored, so I plan on killing those two birds with one stone.

I’m currently standing in front of one of Kári’s temples. Magic is all about forging connections to super powerful beings, and Kári specifically caught my eye when asking Lucidna. He’s popped up in a few of the children’s books I’ve read as well. The Archon of Wind, Kári, apparently in his life, he became so powerful, he’s still able to influence the world even though he was murdered over 800 years ago. I don’t know anything about him other than what Lucidna’s told me and what I’ve read in the children’s books she’s given me.

His temple is on top of one of the hills in Heafdes. There’s no other buildings here, being a place of religious worship. His temple is a huge, white building that looks greek. There’s stained glass windows along the walls though, so it’s not quite exactly like that ancient Greek architecture I’m comparing it to.

There’s a bunch of people walking into the building. They’re all wearing white and light blue. Me in my black and white robe sticks out like a sore thumb, greatly increasing my anxiety. Maybe, this was a bad idea after all…

No, this isn’t a bad idea. Azariah doesn’t back down from situations like this, remember? Azariah’s only friends right now are Kiaran and maybe Aubrey. That won’t do, Azariah would have way more friends than that! And the only way to get friends is to actually be around people! Thinking like that, Azariah has no choice! I muster up all of my courage and walk into the temple.

The inside of the temple is a tad bit similar to a church from my past life, but not quite. You have the stained glass windows, and the altar in the front, but other than that, there’s quite a bit different. There’s rows of long tables and individual chairs, which all look to be masterfully crafted, with all the chairs varying in design. The ceiling is glass, which is highly unusual for this world.

Getting a hold of myself, I hurry up and take a seat, like everyone else is doing. Looking around there’s only a few people who aren’t wearing white or light blue, and even fewer who aren’t wearing any sort of lighter colors. I’m the only one wearing black. This is making me really uncomfortable, but I’m too far into this to leave now.

It takes a while for people to stop coming in, but after that, the doors are closed, and a young woman walks up to the altar. She has black hair that comes down to her eyes. She’s wearing a white dress that only comes up to just above her knees. She’s slim & short, and I can’t notice any boobs. Flat, just how I like my women… ugh, did I really just think that? That’s so creepy, even by my standards…

“Hello everybody-” she begins. “-I’m happy to meet with you all again for another day. I can see some new faces in the crowd today, so I’ll start by introducing myself. My name is Jody Graham, I’m a priest of Kári’s cult here in Heafdes. I’m the son of Kara Graham, an archbishop of our faith.” 

Huh?! That’s a boy?! That’s even better! His voice didn't even give it away! That’s amazing! 

“And before you ask, yes, I am, indeed, a boy.” He acknowledges it too! I’m in love!

“So, should we have all the new people introduce themselves or should we hurry up to the mass offering?” Oh God, please don’t make me introduce myself. 

“Hmm… seems like you’d all rather move on. That’s fair, we’ll have all the new fellas mingle with each other after the mass offering and my little performance~” Oh God, everything about his voice is seductive. Just keep talking.

A well endowed blonde woman comes from one of the back doors with a huge, iron plate. She places it in front of the altar and takes a seat. 

“Let’s start by giving our offerings to our great patron, the Archon of Wind, Kári.” With that, a bunch of people start getting out of their seats and walking towards the giant metal plate. What? I was meant to bring gifts?! I didn’t know that?! 

“Newcomers are exempt. Giving to the mass offering also isn’t required, but greatly appreciated.” Oh, phew. Thank you for saving me from the embarrassment, Jody.

The people who walk up to the metal plate place all sorts of things onto it. Food, drawings, writing, small statues, wood carvings, that sort of stuff. After a while, everyone places their offerings on the plate and returns to their seats. “Hm, quite the offerings today. I’m sure Kári will be very pleased. Shall we move onto the prayers then? Again, this isn’t required but greatly appreciated. I’ll give everyone a short minute to get all their thoughts across to Kári.”

Almost everyone closes their eyes and bows down, in prayer, I guess. Jody, a few others, and I don’t pray. I wasn’t much of a religious person in my past life, and I doubt I will be in this life either. I understand this is a fantasy world and there’s magic and stuff but this is a bit difficult to believe. A human died eight centuries ago, is still able to interact with the world, and has the time to listen to so many prayers. I’ve heard that Kári was so powerful he might as well have been considered a God, but I still can’t believe he’s capable of listening to all the prayers of all his followers.

“Alright, sorry but that’s all the time I’ll allow you guys. I’ll be performing now. Ulnoa, hand me my instrument.” The well filled out blonde woman gets up from her seat and hands Jody a small harp. It’s only about the size of a head, made out of a lighter type of wood, and has growing light green engravings on it. The strings are also glowing. Is he going to start playing it? Is he supposed to be doing that? Is that what they normally do here?

Jody plays a short series of notes on his harp which sounds absolutely beautiful. “Alright, it seems to be tuned fine. Let’s begin.” 

Jody begins playing his harp and singing. Normally if someone were to do this, I would cringe, but the harp sounds far too good and his singing voice is far too beautiful for me to have such a reaction.

This probably goes on for nearly 5 minutes, and I’m absolutely entranced during the entire thing. Jody sung a song about how Kári used wind magic to lift an entire city into the sky, and how he ruled there until the Archon of Lightning, Adad came up there, dragged Kári back to earth and destroyed the entire city in one attack. Honestly, I’d love to read about this, but I want to hear Jody sing even more…

“Ah… now I’m parched. Well, refreshments should be here shortly. All of you mingle with each other while I take care of that real quick~” Jody then leaves. Everyone after that starts getting up from their seats and talking to each other. I can hear people introducing themselves… oh no… Ah, this is getting my stress way up. It wouldn’t be rude to leave right now, right? I hope not… I stand up, getting ready to leave, but then Jody comes back with a bunch of other various men and women in matching white dresses. They’re rolling in tables on wheels with water, cheap food, and various art stuff that I recognize. That last part is what prompts me to stay.

“Alright everyone! Food and stuff is here!” Jody raises his voice in order to be heard throughout the whole temple. Even hearing his voice is a relief. Everyone heads over to the tables that they brought out. I also head there, since everyone is focused on the food, I figure I’d be less noticeable. Also, I haven’t had lunch yet, so I might as well try the stuff they’re serving here. Looking at the art supplies, they have scrolls in place of paper, pencils, quills, paint, sewing stuff, and various other things.

Hey, this is all free, right? Looking around, I see other people taking some of the art stuff, so I might as well. After having a rather light lunch all while standing up I take a scroll no one’s grabbed yet and a pencil. Taking my seat, I roll the scroll out in front of me and put the pencil to paper. I have no idea what to draw. I pretty much only drew anime in my past life, and I’m afraid that’s going to be too unfamiliar to the people here…

What would Azariah want to draw? Jody’s entire existence is really making me feel a certain sort of way, so I think Azariah wants to draw a cute femboy in a dress… Can’t have it be too similar to Jody though, don’t want to come off as creepy. I’ll change the dress to a skirt then, and make the hair longer.

Sketching it out, I make the head rather short to amplify the cute feel. I only make the body 5 heads tall to show how short the character is, and I decide on a pose. Leaning forward with both hands behind the back. A cute pose, can practice foreshortening, and don’t have to draw hands. Perfect. After that’s done I sketch a short sleeve shirt and a skirt short enough to leave the thighs exposed on top of it.

After that I begin doing the lineart. I start at the hair and then move to the rest of the head and face. I’m most of the way done with the head before I realize I did draw anime even though I was intending not to. I don’t know how to realisticly, so if I started trying now it would just come out horrible. I just hope no one sees this.

“Oh Kári, that’s so cute!” I hear from behind my shoulder, freaking me out. Turning around, it’s a rather tall woman with a wide frame and short hair. She’s wearing the normal white and light blue of most of the people here, implying she’s a regular. The fabric of her outfit is rather thin since I can just barely make out her bra and cleavage. I’m too stressed out to enjoy it right now. I’d just feel disgusted at myself for enjoying something like that anyway.

“That’s really good, who is that supposed to be?” Oh God, she’s still talking to me… It’s far too embarrassing to admit just how obsessed I got over Jody, so I try my best to make some random stuff up. 

“No one… I’m just doodling…” 

“That’s really good for a doodle. He’s really cute and well done!” Huh? He? You’re supposed to think he’s a girl, did I mess up somewhere? 

“How did you know it was a boy?” The tall lady just looks at me weird for a moment. Don’t look at me like that, this is already stressful enough… 

“Judging from your dress, you’re a newcomer, aren’t you?” What does that have to do with my question? 

“Y- yes…” 

“Well you know, Kári was famously very short and feminine. People in our cult trying to replicate his appearance usually end up looking like your drawing.”

Huh?! One of the legendary God-like Archons this country practically worships was a femboy?! Not only that, but his cult is full of femboys?! How many more Jodys are there?! How many femboys are in this temple that I mistook for women?! Ah, why am I only learning this now?! If I had known that I would’ve been showing up here every single day from as soon as I was revived!

“Huh? That got you pretty excited didn’t it?” Oh no, what did I do? 

“How did… you know?” 

“You slammed your hands against the table and started staring off into space all obsessively, and you were blushing.” Oh God, that’s so embarrassing… Still though, the femboys are worth it… I wonder if one of the female Archons could be considered a tomboy? I wonder if their cult would be full of tomboys? I might have to check that cult out as well…

“Well I’ll let you keep drawing. Let me see it when you’re done though. And please keep coming back here, if you’re able.” 

“OK…” The tall woman walks away and leaves me alone. Phew, the adrenaline from after a good conversation is kicking in. This combined with the fact I learned this cult worships a femboy and is also filled with femboys causes me to reacha huge new high.

><><><><

“Give it back in 40 days or less. Anything after that will give you a late fee.” 

“Of course.” The civilian leaves the library with his newly checked out book. Glancing at the magical clock on the check out desk, it says 2:58. Azariah’s normally here by now. She’s never less than 5 minutes early. This is highly unusual behavior for her. Was she more burnt out than I thought? I’ll let her take a day off, but I’ll have to scold her for not telling me in advance.

“Lucidna, I’m here sorry for being late.” Just as I think that, Azariah walks through the entrance way to this section of the library in her uniform. 

“You still have two minutes, you aren’t late.” 

“Oh, that’s good.” 

“And it’s Librarian Von Stein while we’re working.” 

“Sorry, Librarian Von Stein.” 

“So, how are you doing? Are you appreciating the break?” 

“Oh, I want to start back up again.” 

“What?”

I accidentally raised my voice a bit, which pretty much always gets some negative reaction out of Azariah but she doesn’t appear to have noticed this time. 

“I want to hurry up and learn to read. I want to read about Kári.” She says, excitement in her voice. Using my eyes to look into her soul, she doesn’t appear to be burnt out at all, and is instead the most excited I’ve ever seen her. Is a single off day enough to completely rejuvenate you, Azariah? 

“You seem in a good mood, what happened?” This question was a mistake, as when I ask it, Azariah begins saying what I assume is an entire essay on Kári, his cult, and “femboys”. She’s probably going on for two whole minutes before finally stopping.Azariah begins gasping for breath, as she didn’t breathe during any of that. Honestly she probably said more words just now than during an entire normal day for her, minus our studies. 

“So let me get this straight. You really want to get back to work because you learned that Kári presented very feminine and you want to read more about him because of that?” 

“Yes.” Azariah’s fun to teach but she’ll get way too excited over the most random things.

“Oh well, given the contents of your soul, you’d be a great fit for the cult of the most lustful Archon.” 

“L-lustful?” 

“Huh? Did you seriously not know that? I thought you would’ve. When he was alive he had 112 wives and 93 husbands.” 

“He had husbands?” Azariah says, as she’s breathing heavily and blushing. That’s the part that caught your attention?

“He was also a huge patron of the arts, so his cult treats that sort of thing in very high regard. If you were spending all your time working or studying, I’d recommend you keep heading there everyday. Judging from your speech from earlier it appears to be a good influence on you.” 

“Thank you. Can we start studying now?” 

“OK, we’ll start studying now.”