[open]

[hasapoint]

Type: Video
Sender ID: hasapoint (Lashan)
To: Public
Subject: waterproofing charms
Warnings: none!

[FIRST: You get a very close shot of Lashan's eye as she squints at her shellphone. We have here that double-doozy of a medieval and an old person and while she's pretty sharp, these devices are not intuitive to her.]

'S it working? The bead's glowing.

[aka 'the light's on'. The video pulls back a bit but like, it's still pretty close and the angle is unflattering. This whole thing feels completely unnatural to her and the lines between her brows are deepened in a frown.]

I'm Sister Lashan. I'm a lay sister, not a nun. I've made some charms for waterproofing. They're not well-tested though. If you help me with that I'll give you one. Want to know their tolerances and if I have to tweak anything before I start selling them. I'm on Elrut.

[yeah this has made her feel ridiculous and stilted. She prods at the phone with a finger.]

...How do I- [she found out how to end message! this was Not guaranteed.]

Comments

text->Video

[yuezun]

[He's frowning at the response. That doesn't really help him since, in his understanding of things, there was no priest or monk whose 'main job' was 'prayer'. Unless she meant leading others in prayer?

He had wanted to keep this to short messages, but her apparent lack of familiarity with the format made him sigh and switch to video as well. He set the device just far enough back on his desk that he could continue his paperwork while speaking.]

Explain your job. This venerable one is not familiar with it.

[hasapoint]

[Lashan's glad. If she has to give a long response by poking this thing she will refuse. She raises her eyebrows at 'venerable', though, and does not joke, 'if you're venerable I'm ancient'.]

It's got to do with the structure of the institution I joined. The orders they split off from are hierarchical and tiered while the Sisterhood's a little more fluid, but there's remnants of the old structure there. "Nuns" take some complicated vows and can rise in the ranks, "Priestesses" are a step above that and have more a leadership role. Most of what they do is in the temple or related to blessing and warding.

I took vows, but they're simple ones that don't bind me as tightly and I renew them every year. If I lead prayer or I'm up front ghost-warding, and I do sometimes, it's more as a favor. Mostly I make things we can sell to help keep Irminsul going.

Who are you?

[yuezun]

[He set his brush down and turned to face the camera, shoulders and back straight. Sitting at his desk like a king on a throne and directing his full attention to her for a moment as the exchange of introductions should be given a certain amount of respect.]

This venerable one is Dongfang Qingcang, Moon Supreme of the Moon Tribe, Ruler of Cangyanhai, of the world known as the Three Realms. In this world, this venerable one is the captain of the Phantom Moon and leader of the Raiders of the Lost Arts.

[He inclined his head in polite greeting.]

This venerable one knows of mortal priests, priestesses, nuns, and monks. Some of whom create talismans and charms and various other spiritual items and will lead prayers to the gods. He has never heard the term 'lay sister' before. But, this venerable one admits, he has not spent a significant time in the mortal realm - any mortal realm - before coming to this world so that may be something he has missed. More likely, however, is that your institution is not of his world and entirely foreign.

However, this venerable one finds himself interested, since you placed such a division on lay sister and nun. That you expected it to be immediately understood. You are relatively new?

[hasapoint]

[Ahhh. This is an Important Person. Lashan's people don't have those, or not the way housefolk and others away from the Plains do. While living among outlanders she'd had to learn their ways in order to deal with nobility and high-ranking clergy. Lashan doesn't change her expression. She's got a serious face, if it's not lit by amusement or affection. That's going to have to do. She doesn't want to alienate people and make enemies without cause, but she's not trying to sell a sword that will keep her Sisters fed for a season, so she won't abase herself or imitate him, like listing off who she's been to who will mean anything.]

Yeah, I'd guess we're from different planes. [Does she have to answer the rhetorical question? Nah, she'll just incline her head.]

The See religion's firmly entrenched just about everywhere in my part of the world. ['Unfortunately', she doesn't say.] Some of its priests are more powerful than many kings. Part of their structure is that girls who can become nuns, and boys who can become monks, are chosen in childhood. Nuns have to get symbolically married to one of their gods. That marks them as distinct, gives them certain privileges and power, but restrictions too. They can't just walk out. Lay sisters and brothers are common people called to serve as adults. Not part of the institution the same way, not as powerful within it, but it's easier to leave.

My Sisterhood's not the See, but it grew from a sect of it. Let's call my emphasis force of habit. [Pun intended, but it's for her sake.] I wasn't born in the grasp of the See, and it has no hold over me.

[yuezun]

The See? A specific entity that is worshiped as a god, an actual god, or a series of beings?

[being something of a god himself, he's curious.]

If you do not worship this 'See', who does your sisterhood serve?