The time flew as the modest home flourished into vibrant life. The timbers that hung from the ceiling boasted new garnishes of herbs drying in the rising heat of the Hearth. Lyn saw the home grow from a modest dwelling to a beautiful and welcoming home. Candles adorn the walls alongside skein embroidery. Beautiful flowers both stitched and grown leak their beauty in dual sight and smell. An Ivory colored sign hung from a protruding rafter outside of the home. Burned into the sign was a simple glass bottle brimming over with bubbles and a cornucopia sitting full beside it.

  Laughter and music seep from the window coverings, flickering with the shades of passing figures. The air was thick with the smell of food, the room colored faintly blue from the smoke that found escape from the pans in the kitchen. Lyn in the main room serving hot Black Sap to waiting men and women. Time flowed like the plates and pots of the morning rush. Before she knew it, her feet cried out to her in protest. Seeing her chance to escape the fast pace the kitchen offered. Lyn quietly sat at one of the tables with Priest Vandal, her eyes drifting up to see the old man. He was still broad in the shoulders. Wasn’t no giant like Grant; no, he was a special breed of man. Priest Vandal was a bulwark, not a mountain. Regardless of the comparison, even at his age he still stood fearsome as he casually nipped at his meal.

  “Fields of Green Lyn, this Sap is the best in town.” He said reverently, mockingly drawing a cross across his chest. “You’ve done well to breathe life into the Hearth here.” He said with a guilty admission, slipping another bite in between words.

  Lyn smirked at the praise. “Oh, it’s not that good. Its just some simple herbal brews.” She fanned the air between them, mainly to cool herself off.

  Vandal smirked as Lyn protested with modesty. “Thy chant is holy, Lyn, lift thy voice and find peace.” He said, slipping into verse naturally. He felt the warmth of his words dip into the small sparks of tree sap he had sequestered away. “Thy work is holy and of friends and family thy work shall prosper.” He said softly, dipping deeper into his rote. Looking back up he saw the crease of a smile on Lyn’s thin lips. The small spark of sap he used unintentionally left a faint smell of mabel in the air.

  “Thank you… Vandal. No need to dip into sermon so shortly after service though.” She took some of the Black Sap from her pot and refreshed his drink. “Here, on the house.” She said warmly, to return the words of encouragement from the mighty Priest.

  Vandal flushed as she offered the drink and helped himself deeply to the astringent drink. Thin tails of steam curled around his face and fogged his glasses as he lifted his gaze. “Thank you. Really, Lyn, this is the best black sap in town.” He said more modestly now, wishing to preserve his rotes of encouragement for others that day. His wrinkly hands lifted to swirl the drink carefully, as if he was measuring his next words. “I have noticed… the symbols on the walls… Lyn…” He said softly, his face swallowed whole by the cup once more.

  Lyn sighed, knowing this conversation was to come. She knew sooner or later this would have to be addressed. Unsure how to proceed, she sat and listened to the Priest speak.

  “I’m sure you know the church doesn’t approve of… Folklore.” He said carefully. His mouth picking the acid strike of accusation from them. He knew that it would be very easy to raise his voice and smite the building of the heretical signage around. Memories of similar occurrences flashed before him. Burning homes, screaming children, the streams of crimson regret staining his hands.

  Lyn’s fingers tightened around her cup. “I’m… aware of this… Priest Vandal…” She replied almost as cautiously. The world around her seemed to… fall out of focus as they spoke. Her arms tensed as she started to register the man before him beyond the meek priest, he portrays himself as. Lyn could see through that disguise now.

  “I’ve seen my fair share of… Folk. Shall we say.” Vandal remembered the weight of his longsword at his hip. The purity of faith radiating out from it as his thoughts reached it. Bright flashes of fire, brief glimpses of hulking mass moving in the underbrush. His memories flooded with snippets of the wrong folklore. “It’s how I know that you’re not the one we should truly be fighting.” He said more clearly, once again sipping his drink. “But the rest of the flock might not see it that way.” The cup made a soft thud as it contacted the table. Bright red faces, screams of terror, heresy.

  Lyn nodded carefully, less on edge now that Vandal wasn’t going to drive her from her own home. “I believe I remember Grant muttering something about the church.” She admitted softly, feeling like a scorned child at school.

  Priest Vandal nodded. “Yes, I’m sure he’s said a thing or two. I could likely guess what he said too. But that isn’t my place, Lyn. I just wanted you to know that I would love to bring you and yours into the flock.” He silently took up a fork and speared some of the meat on his plate. Lifting the small bite into his mouth as he looked directly into Lyn’s eyes. “Flame above, I wish I had gentler folk like you and Grant in the flock. But its up to you to decide who your god is, not me, not the church.” He gave her a faint reassuring smile as they spoke.

  Lyn nodded again. “Why… would you want Folk into the flock? We’re not… really-“

  “Yes, you’d be surprised Lyn. You would fit in very well into the Church.” Priest Vandal quickly stated, his hands wrapped around his drink more carefully now.

  Lyn shook her head. “You can’t expect me to know that, Vandal.” She said more firmly. “I’ve traveled a lot in my life. I’ve seen old Orthodox. They make sport of Folk of all stripe there.” She said in a smoother tone. “I’ve seen-“

  Priest Vandal raised his voice just firmly enough to interrupt her but not to draw the attention of the rest of the house. His hand found the table, underscoring his point with a soft thud. “We are Not the Orthodoxy. We do not burn people at the stake here. Not here. Not at MY Church.”

  Lyn remained silent, reliving the past. Faces came and went in the reflection of her eyes before she shut them. With a small shake of her head, Lyn spoke again. “I will not Join the Church. But I don’t seek conflict with it either, Priest Vandal.” She said with a wavering confidence, seeing the drive the Priest has. “Can’t we… Coexist?” She asked in a small voice.

  The old man sighed deeply, looking down at his drink. “Your weave is disrupting the Church’s weave, Lyn.” He said in contrition. “We cannot watch over this house from the steeple. My faith does not follow me here.” He remarked simply, honestly. “If the town is taken by those… Malefcarum…” He struggled to even speak of any harm coming to this wholesome place. His eyes drifted up to the walls and rafters. “Lyn. I couldn’t protect this house if the town came under attack. Are you sure you do not want to join the Church?” He asked again, almost pleadingly.

  Lyn nodded quietly, seeing the welling sorrow in the Priest’s eyes. A growing need to compromise found her then. “I… I cannot join the church or allow my home to be ‘cleansed’ by the church. But… What if you were to bless Mercer?” Lyn said in a tiny voice. “Will that be an acceptable compromise?” Her hands curled onto the table, as if it took a herculean effort to offer her firstborn to the entity that shamed her so long ago.

  Vandal’s brow rose in surprise. “You would keep your home as is. Offering your future to the Church?” He asked incredulously. “It could turn him against you.” He said firmly, probing for cause. “Aren’t you worried he might turn into the man who’d drive you out?” Vandal asked with caution.

  Lyn nodded. “It’s a risk. But if my dash of temperance to the fire Grant offers to Mercer makes it to his soul…” She said in an almost mourning tone. “If he can be tempered by Faith, loved by Folk, and honed by Discipline…” Lyn began to lead in a hopeful tone. “Maybe he can be a more discerning man than anyone of the men here.” She said quietly.

  Priest Vandal sighed, seeing she was laying her heart open. A faint smile found him then as he reached across the table and cupped Lyn’s hands. There was a nearly imperceptible retraction in her arms. Vandal could feel her tense as his hands met hers. Her hands curled tighter as she gave her Son’s soul to the Church. “Your son is so lucky to have a loving mother.” Vandal said softly, his eyes searching her now tear streaked face. “He will learn and grow to be such a wonderful man.” Vandal rubbed her hands affirmingly. “I will make sure he is not one of the Destroyers that the church breeds.” Vandal smiled brighter this time, trying to lift her spirit. “Lyn?”

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  She looked up at Vandal, wiping a tear from her face and smiled. “Thank you.” Lyn stood and took the coffee pot with her as she walked back to the kitchen, needing to fill orders. She curled away from the priest then, hiding her tears from the men who found her home most agreeable to have breakfast before work. Subtle looks from the more perceptive found the Priest then. Wary men glaring at him from the corners of the home turned shop.

  Vandal quietly sat, observing the room around him. The hustle and bustle of the place filling his thoughts again. His hand landed at the grip of his blade, as if to quell its wrathful spirit, spoke a quiet prayer of benediction. The blade cooled at his small offering of prayer. A flashing blade, dark ichor staining an obelisk, the wailing screams of a dying dead thing. He fought the sympathetic memories of the blade leaching back to him, screaming as if to quell the heresy that brewed here. Priest vandal remembered where this blade came from then, the same fiery spirit his book called for in times like this.

  He stood sometime later and paid for his meal, leaving a tip and a written blessing for the home. Walking outside he saw Anthony working quietly, already stacking a new hay bale he had just made. “Anthony, it’s good to see you again.” He smiled and strode to the youth.

  “Priest Vandal.” Anthony replied warmly, allowing a small smile. “How was your meal sir?” Anthony leant on the machine he used to make the bale in the first place.

  Priest Vandal returned the smile and stood shoulder to shoulder with the young man. “It was very good, nothing like a warm meal on a cold morning.” The blade at his hip finally simmered down, ceasing its efforts to rial his vengeful spirit.

  Anthony nodded and turned back to look at the platform that stood erect and ready for the next step in its construction. Unsure what to say, Anthony stood quietly.

  Priest Vandal saw the contemplative man assessing the land before him. “Sizing up land you want to buy?” Chided Vandal.

  Anthony looked confused as he turned to look at the Priest. “Huh?”

  “You’ve been looking at the forest for some time now. Are you going to buy some land out there?” Priest Vandal asked tentatively.

  “N-no?” Anthony remarked in a confused tone. His eyes searching the old leather that Vandal had for a face.

  Vandal’s eyes moved to the far distance once again, looking at nothing in particular. “There be dragons, boy.” He muttered quietly, almost in gest, almost as matter of fact. The blade said nothing now, when it mattered most. No heat found him then from his sheath on his hip.

  Anthony scrunched his brow, trying to see what Priest Vandal was seeing. His eyes found the middle distance of the looming forest. Large green lumps of moss colonizing the woods between them and the terminator of sight. A large boulder just in sight from here on the edge of the property. Anthony saw… something… almost darker swaying to and from within the edge of the shadow of the forest. “W-what do you mean?” He asked in a small voice. It carried louder than usual as he noticed the forest was absent of birdsong and critter chatter.

  Priest Vandal’s eyes followed the movement of shadow, unsure of what to make of it. “The forest was never safe.” He remarked quietly. “I think we need to reconsecrate the ground.” He sighed deeply and looked back at Anthony. “I think it’s time we paid visit to the vestry.” His hand landed on Anthony’s shoulder. “Don’t you?”

  Anthony gulped, tightening his grip on his tool. “Ah- Y-yes. Okay. I need to put up my tool before I leave. Excuse me, I’ll be with you shortly.” He took off from there, and set his tools aside, looking back at the priest as the old man stood there. Contrasted by the large forest in the background. Massive trees with green undergrowth tickling at their base, a large shape sitting darkest in the forest stood. Just out of the sun, just out of his ability to recognize its silhouette.

  They both walked in silence back to the chapel at the top of the hill, the path laden with white stones that bear the cross of the church on them. Anthony felt… more reverent as he saw them. A feeling of safety and quiet comes over him every time he came back to the church. The feeling was doubled with the most reverent man in town forming his escort. Women in black and red robes watched them carefully as they pass, their eyes a focused steely reminder that unorthodoxy was not to be tolerated here.

  Anthony looked to Priest Vandal before speaking. “What… what are we doing back here?” Anthony’s voice became this small innocent animal then, attempting to observe the quiet serenity here.

  Vandal smiled down at Anthony with a reassuring grin. “I will be a moment, I need to speak with a couple people before we can take care of an issue forming.” Vandal rested a hand on Anthony’s shoulder. “Can I have you retrieve the large wooden box you keep clean in the vestry?” Vandal said in a near conspiratorial whisper.

  Anthony nodded slowly. “O-okay…” Anthony felt strange about retrieving it. He didn’t know who that box belonged to. Maybe it was Vandal’s… Stepping inside Anthony split from Vandal to go and retrieve the box. His eyes followed the twisting staircase that led to the building’s rafter. There he saw the door that kept the two rooms separate and walked in to see the room empty as usual. Three steps in and voices started to flow through the floorboards, a male and female voice. Their tones were muted and obstructed by the passage of insulation and timber. He strained his ears to listen unconsciously, attempting to seek meaning in the meaningless blurbs of sound coming from the floor. It was a moment later when he drew a cup for himself to listen to the ground. His hearth thumped as he waited a beat before kneeling.

  He set the glass down gently and listened, at first he heard his knees creaking into the board, then the voices start to clarify.

  “-We cant allow this.” A softer female voice asserted. Her tone implicit on something Anthony wasn’t sure of.

  “Sure we can, and we’re going to.” Asserted another voice hauntingly similar to Priest Vandal’s. “We’re going to respect the Folk on the edge of town. We must if we want to keep this community alive.” Vandal further insisted.

  “How can you be sure of that Old Man.” The soft voice spit venomously. “We are the church in this backwater. We state the ledgers, and the Fields of Green will reflect that in their bundles.” She remarked in a cold and poisonous tone.

  A third voice spoke up. “There is no need to retort to rhetoric. You will not speak to Priest Vandal in such a way, it is unbecoming of you.” The voice was male, and older than Vandal’s.

  Vandal spoke again. “Easy now. We’re all of the cloth.” He remarked. “Thy’s work is sacred, and allow thy’s work to speak in thy’s name. For all will be tally’d and thy’s faith be bountiful.” He said firmly.

  The woman rose her voice again, accusingly. “He quotes scripture of unity while defending the runts. Do you not see this hypocrisy?”

  The third voice rose in volume, bleating the other two out – not so much a word and more a tide to drown ripples.

  The room fell silent for a moment before the third voice spoke again. “This is Vandal’s church. He is the guide for our mission here. If he says we do not drive the folk from town. Then we do not.” The man stated firmly. “Furthermore, you will do best to remember your studies.” He said dangerously to the unseen voice.

  The room fell quiet again before Priest Vandal spoke once more. “Lyn is going to have her son baptized. She told me this morning. She Is a tolerable outlier in town anyway. She’s not like the others who just persist to uproot the church and bring in their pagan gods.” He said more matter of fact than accusatory. “He said, unto the servant, Go out into the roads and fields, and persuade them in, that my house be filled.” His voice listed in love and faith in his tome. “Now, three of these remain. Love, Faith, and Hope. Love is the greatest of these.” He said softer now. “We cannot drive them out just because they do not believe in the same things we do.”

  Anthony quietly lifted his head from the cup, remembering the task he was handed. Standing, he moved to grab the Box he was tasked with. At the end of the vestry lay a stained glass window with a large ornate wood box. Scrawled along its sides were delicate filigree laden with gold and silver inlay. The box was beautiful in a architectural way. He sighed and tested the weight of the box, finding it near impossible to move. With a great huff did he only move it. Anthony shuddered again, lifting the very heavy box up off of the ground and slowly made his way to the end of the room, only then allowing it to come back to the ground. The room shivered as it did, reminding him that they too could speak. His ears strained as he failed to hear anything rattling from the inside of the box after setting it down so roughly.

  At the bottom of the stairs did Anthony wait, a thin layer of dust and sweat line his face. Then he saw Priest Vandal walking with and talking to an ancient man. Still only four steps from the bottom floor, Anthony looked panicked as he held the box in place. “Ah- A little help?” He said in a rising tone of panic.

  Priest Vandal smirked and strode easily to assist the youth, placing a hand on his back. “Many hands make light work Anthony.”

  Anthony nodded as the man spoke; something tugged at his heart as the elder spoke. “I- I suppose they do.” He said quietly, remembering the conversation between the two. The face of the older man was now placed to his voice. It reminded Anthony of an aged wheel, pocked and striped with long use on dangerous roads. Anthony had seen dashboards weather better than the old paladin before him now.

  Priest Vandal and the old man remained silent as Anthony paused. “Is there an issue Anthony? Or are you just catching your breath?” His tone softened as he made eye contact with the youth.

  Anthony’s eyes widened as he started to struggle with the box once more. “Sorry Sir.” He hefted the box down and let it rest with a thud onto the flat landing that was the first floor.

  The two men smiled down at the box, both of them reach down to grip a handle each. “Thank you, Anthony. You can return home. Oh, I think you deserve a break after this. Don’t worry about coming in tomorrow to clean the vestry, please take some time for yourself.” Priest Vandal said softly, using his free hand to palm some Doltair into the youth’s hand. “Treat yourself tonight. You’ve earned it.” He pulled his hand back and the two old men waddled off with the heavy box.

  Anthony nodded quietly, unsure what to say or do. He turned and saw an older woman glaring at him from the opposite side of the church. Her hand resting on her rosary, her fiery gaze held him in their sight. Anthony felt a cold creeping down his neck as they made eye contact. Motivated to leave, Anthony walked out of the church and towards town. Maybe it was time to rest and relax after a glare like that.