“Apotheosis?” asked Mizuki.
Alfric blinked at her. “Criticality?”
“We’re close to bein’ proper dungeoneers, is what he’s saying,” said Hannah. “Where our problems all have solutions, and we’re off to the races.”
“I budgeted ten dungeons,” said Alfric. “In the original plan.” He leaned a little bit closer to Mizuki. “I think we could end up doing it in five.”
“You really don’t drink much,” asked Mizuki. “Or were you just not paying much attention?”
“Both,” Alfric replied. He leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. “Do you mind if I stay here tonight?”
“You live here,” said Mizuki.
“It was a joke,” said Alfric. “I can be very funny.” He let out a sigh. “Sometimes.”
“Come on,” said Mizuki. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
“Chronos aren’t supposed to get impaired,” said Alfric as he got to his feet. “We have a responsibility. A hangover comes back if you have to redo the day.” He looked at Mizuki. “Is that just very strong wine?”
“It is.” Mizuki got up from the couch and put Alfric’s arm around her, though if she was trying to offer him some support, Verity wasn’t sure what good she thought she was doing. He wasn’t even that drunk, a bit sluggish but not swaying. They went off together, and Alfric was leaning on her a bit more than seemed entirely necessary.
“So, how long until they’re a couple, do you s’pose?” asked Hannah. She was looking at the doorway they’d gone through and had waited until they were out of earshot.
“You think they’ll partner?” asked Isra. “Alfric said we shouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, I imagine if she waits for him to make a move, it’ll be quite some time,” said Hannah, nodding. “It’s not a good idea, for a number of reasons, but sometimes if the attraction is there, people can’t help themselves.”
“What are the reasons?” asked Isra.
“We already went over that some time ago, ay?” asked Hannah, raising an eyebrow. Her eyes briefly went to Verity.
“But between them you mean it’s especially bad,” said Isra.
“Well,” said Hannah. “Ay.” Verity looked at the empty couch. Isra hadn’t moved, which meant that they were in the larger armchair, the tenyon, together on one side of the fire, and Hannah was in the other with the empty space between them. It felt a bit uncomfortable to be so far away, but Verity didn’t want to move. Hannah drained the last of her wine. “There are a lot of things necessary for a good relationship, and I wouldn’t say that there needs to be some commonality, but if there’s not mutual interests or personalities that align, you need people who are good at dealin’ with each other’s peculiarities. And I think Alfric has his own way of doin’ that, which I’m not sure works in the long term, and Mizuki… I’m less sure about. So they might have a nice roll in the hay, but after that, seems like there might be issues.”
“Roll in the hay?” asked Isra.
“Sex,” said Verity. “But I think that’s probably more than enough speculation about them.”
Hannah shrugged.
“Is that a matter of doctrine?” asked Verity. “Thinking that people should be similar?”
“The church is wide,” said Hannah, obviously quoting something. “But it is a part of how the Church of Garos approaches things. Now a cleric of Bixzotl, she might say that it’s best for two people to be copies of each other, liking all the same things, being the same in every way, but… well, that’s not quite the same as symmetry, ay? People call them the twin gods sometimes, Garos and Bixzotl, but… ah, I’m goin’ on, sorry.”
“I don’t mind,” said Isra.
Verity didn’t particularly mind either, and it was definitely preferable to talking about a potential romance between Alfric and Mizuki.
“Well,” said Hannah. “It’s true that there’s usually some symmetry in a copy, especially a copy of somethin’ that’s had the imperfections—the asymmetries—removed from it. But symmetry isn’t just about repetition, it’s about patterns, the ways that you get that little moment of ‘ah ha’ when you see that this one thing, if twisted and lined up just so, maps onto the other thing. It’s very different, actually. There’s no appreciation of opposites from Bixzotl.”
“Mmm,” said Isra. “There is a beauty in the negation of a thing.” This also seemed like a quote.
“From the Keserbin,” said Hannah with a nod. “Exactly. And what I was sayin’ before was that if you come across your negation, or your partial negation, you have to be careful, because you might be natural enemies, but if you’re natural friends, then there are things that you’ll need to navigate, surely, and for that you need wisdom and maturity, and—”
“What are we talking about?” asked Mizuki as she came back down.
“Theology,” said Hannah. “Negation as a mode of symmetry, opposites and such.” It was a decent cover, and Verity hoped that Mizuki hadn’t heard too much since the conclusion, which Verity happened to agree with, was that perhaps the pair of Mizuki and Alfric might be lacking in wisdom and maturity. If that were true, the lack of wisdom and maturity seemed like it mostly came from one side of that pairing.
“Oh,” said Mizuki. “Not really my thing.” She flopped back down on the couch, spreading herself out. She had her eyes closed and seemed like she was ready for sleep.
“It’s temple day tomorrow, are you going?” asked Verity. “I think I will. I usually do. It’s an Oeyr sermon.”
“I hope it’s not plates again,” said Hannah with a deep sigh.
“Plates?” asked Isra.
“Do you ever do temple day?” asked Verity.
“No,” said Isra. “But I have read the books.” She seemed slightly defensive.
“There’s a sermon that clerics of Oeyr like to give,” said Hannah. “I’ve heard it probably five times now. It’s the parable of the broken plate.” She sighed. “I remember sittin’ through it at eleven, thinkin’ to myself, ‘Oh, so that’s Emergence’, and every time after that I wanted to just go to sleep.”
“Every clerical order has their stock sermons,” said Verity. “I think they’re necessary.”
“True,” said Hannah. “Because there’ll always be someone who hasn’t heard it or who needs a reminder. I s’pose I shouldn’t mind it as much as I do. For Garos, it’s usually the sermons on sexuality, which need to happen but probably get old. Even I think they get old, and they were a help to me, growin’ up.”
“Me too,” said Verity. “But I don’t find them old. They’re… affirming.”
“Well, I’m going, if everyone else is,” said Mizuki. “Though I have trouble paying attention. Last time we had the plate sermon, he didn’t actually break a plate, which I thought was a shame.”
“I don’t understand half of what you’re saying,” said Isra. “I don’t think I can blame it on the wine.”
“Plates,” said Mizuki. “You break a plate, it breaks into pieces, and they look random, but the sermon is about how it’s not because there are underlying rules to, um, stress propagation and, um, other things. There are rules, and those rules are mostly invisible to us until push comes to shove. Nothing is really random, the lines of fracture are all, um, deterministic, just hidden until the shattering comes.”
“Does Lin use those words?” asked Hannah. “Seems a bit much for a sermon to lay people.”
“Lin gets carried away,” said Mizuki. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”