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“Lae-rinnnnnn,” Zelae sing-songed. Her cousin was slouched in a chair across the room (the better chair, mind you, the one without a loose leg that wobbled precariously when you sat down, since being an adult meant you got first pick of everything even though she was only a few years older than her), her legs crossed on the wooden seat, her neck craned into some big, boring looking conjuration textbook in her lap. She did not look up when Zelae called her name. “Lae-rinnnnn,” she tried again. “Laerin! Come on!”
“What!” Laerin snapped, slamming the book closed. “I’m trying to study!”
“You don’t even have to go to school for like, another month,” Zelae said. “Besides, you promised to take me to see the werewolf today, and it’s nearly noon.”
“The what?”
“The werewolf!”
“Doesn’t that seem a little dangerous?” Laerin said, already beginning to open her stupid book again. Zelae could growl. Striding over, she grabbed the leather cover and forced it shut.
“It’s not the full moon, you clod,” she huffed. Laerin didn’t even yell at her— she just rolled her eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes! She’s not going to be all wolfy, she’s gonna be talking about Galicaea or something.”
“Well what’s the point of going to see her if she just looks like a normal elf, then?”
“Because she is a werewolf! Besides, she’s not an elf, she’s a human. From Solace.”
That at least seemed to catch Laerin’s attention, making her look up from her struggle to read her book at Zelae’s face. “A human?” she said. “What’s she doing here?”
“Talking about Galicaea,” Zelae repeated. “Come on, please? I can’t go out without an adult and you know mother and father and aunt Sandriel would never take me.”
Laerin squeezed her eyes shut, and for a moment Zelae thought she was about to tell her to buzz off. Although, it might be nice to hear the familiar few Solesian slang words that Laerin had passed on to her. She hadn’t talked like that since she got home from Kei Lumennura. But a second later, she said “fine. I’ll take you. Just give me a moment to get ready, I can’t be seen like this,” and all other thoughts left Zelae’s head.
“Yes! Thank you so much!” Laerin didn’t react to Zelae’s excited little hops as she followed her out of the room, close on her heels as if that would speed up her languid stroll. Zelae checked her astronomical watch— still almost an hour until the start of services. In less than an hour, she would see a real live werewolf!
When they arrived at the green space, it was a lot less crowded than Zelae would have thought. The way Nithriel was talking about it, you’d have thought everyone and their cousin would have been there. Instead, there were only five or six elves besides Zelae and her cousin in the park, clustered under the big tree closest to the makeshift stage. None of them were really talking to each other, the only sounds in the park coming from the traffic on the streets bordering it and the Celestine Sea on the horizon.
And on the stage…
She didn’t look like Zelae had imagined. Sure, she was much hairier than anyone she had ever seen before, sparse dark fluff covering her tawny limbs and hair so thick it stood up on top of itself where it wasn’t shaved off, but she was hardly furry. Zelae didn’t even know how much of it came from being a werewolf, and how much was just because humans had more fur than elves generally. She was maybe taller and broader than most elves, but not by much— not enough that you’d mention it if you wanted to point her out— and she was wearing a simple white cleric’s toga, not the garish, colorful garb in pictures of Solace in the news. She had a serene, close-mouthed smile on her face as she looked over the gathered elves and checked her watch again. Not a fang in sight.
“Well,” Laerin said. “There’s your werewolf.”
Zelae grabbed her hand and practically dragged her over to the shade tree. There was another person on the stage, she realized, and Nithriel hadn’t mentioned there would be an orc too! Even sitting cross legged beside the werewolf he was clearly huge, his arms and belly stretching the fabric of his black Solesian shirt. How did you even get that big? Was that why orcs ate a lot of red meat?
“Your mouth is open,” Laerin drawled. Zelae shut her jaw with a click.
The werewolf peered around, her ears twitching in an almost elven way. Zelae looked around too, but there was no one else coming. “Alright!” the werewolf said, glancing briefly towards the orc. Her voice was a little low, but smooth and soft. “Good morning, my friends! My name is Cleric Tracker O’Shaugnassey, and my friend is Ragh Barkrock. Would you please face east and join me in welcoming Galicaea?”
Zelae shuffled to face the horizon. She mouthed the strange sounds to herself. Tr-ah-kurr. Trac-ker. Track-err.
The moon peeked over the lip of the sea, and the group took a breath as one to begin the well rehearsed prayer. “Hail Galicaea, welcome Galicaea! Bless us and see our vigil on this day of the first quarter moon.” They bowed deeply towards the horizon, then straightened up, turning back towards the strange werewolf cleric.
It occurred to Zelae that now that she had seen her, she would simply be here for another hours-long moonrise service. Her ears flicked back unintentionally. It wasn’t that she hated services, but it was so hard to stay still during them. Her parents weren’t there, of course, but Laerin was way different after coming home from Kei Lumennura. Zelae clasped her hands together and planted her weight on both feet, just to be safe.
“Why don’t we all sit down?” Tracker said, about a second later.
A confused murmur went through the crowd as she took a seat on the stage, legs crossed right next to her orcish companion. Zelae was the first to sit down, dry grass pricking her thighs through her robes. The adults followed hesitantly, lowering themselves down like they were worried the request was a trick. Zelae twined her fingers in the dusty grass.
“Wonderful. Much more comfortable this way, right?” Tracker said. Zelae hummed quietly in acknowledgement. It was no pew, but she would be grateful for it after the first hour. “Well, anyway, thank you all for coming. Today, I’d like to talk to you about perfection.”
Zelae’s brow crinkled. Perfection? That was just… a normal topic for a sermon. She’d expected a werewolf to pick something weirder, especially because every cleric she’d seen would say a werewolf was as far from perfect as you could get. But it would be rude to get up and leave, and Laerin would never let her live it down.
“Now, perfection is a bit of a funny thing, because it’s impossible to achieve,” Tracker continued. “It means to be without even a single flaw, not a single tiny blemish against your beauty, or virtue, or skill. I bet some of you know how hard it is to work towards that, even with centuries of practice.” She paused, as if waiting for some kind of response, but the crowd was dead silent. “Um. Anyway. And it’s not just that it’s hard to avoid flaws, but some things are flaws to one person and good qualities to another. Like, being impulsive and quick to act is bad, until you’re in an emergency and need to act quick, and being thorough and careful is irritating until you catch a mistake that could have killed someone. Is the impulsive person perfect, or the careful one? It depends on the circumstance.”
Laerin leaned towards Zelae, her chin resting on her shoulder so her mouth was up against her ear. “This is utter garbage. Are you sure she’s a cleric?” she muttered, “or just some random werewolf your classmate saw?”
Zelae blinked and didn’t answer. Tracker’s sermon had been making perfect sense to her.
“Now, of course the issue of how to be perfect is very important to me, since Galicaea commands us to never be complacent in our virtue, and to always seek a higher level of good. For a long time, I struggled with what that meant. What virtues should I work towards? How do I know if I’m getting there? What do I do if I feel like nothing I do will be good enough to meet my potential?”
Someone towards the back of the crowd started barking. “Well, I—“ Tracker tried to start again, but they barked over every word. “I looked to the scripture, and—“
“Woof woof woof!” shouted the person in the back. Laerin snorted once before getting ahold of herself, forcing her sneering smile back into an impassive line. Zelae fixed her eyes on the ground, her stomach souring. From the sounds of it, the person barking was an adult, with a deep voice like a guard dog. Should she tell him off? What would she even say? She hadn’t even been to Kei Lumennura, no one would take it seriously if she said it was mean. But then Ragh set his pole arm aside, motioning to stand.
The barking very quickly stopped.
Ragh shrugged and settled back down. “Anyway,” Tracker said. “If you look into the scripture, the real early scripture, you’ll find the same message— work towards perfection. But you’ll also find that Galicaea makes every soul perfect just the way it is.”
Zelae’s breath caught in her throat. She could have sworn— obviously, she was imagining it, but she could have sworn Tracker was looking right at her when she said it, her earthy brown eyes piercing straight to her soul. Like she was talking to everyone, but really, deep down, the words were just for her. Her heart beat like she was running, her leg bouncing in time.
Laerin put her hand on her knee and held it in place. “Pay attention, you’re the one who wanted to come here.”
Zelae was. And Tracker spoke of a world where people’s differences complemented each other, where you didn’t have to change to be good, where perfection wasn’t a constant competition with everyone around you, but an effort to be better on their behalf. Zelae wondered what it was like to have people worth being better for, not just those who would always demand you change your ways and then never notice when you tried your best to, only when you messed up.
It sounded nice.
Was it like that in Solace?
And then Tracker wasn’t talking anymore, and Laerin was sighing heavily beside her. “Well, that was a tremendous waste of time,” she drawled. “Nobody reads the old scripture anyway. Are you ready to go now?”
“Just a minute.” Zelae stood up, drifting through the now-empty park towards the makeshift stage, where Tracker and Ragh were still sitting and talking quietly.
“Absolutely not!” Tracker’s head whipped up, meeting Zelae’s eyes as Laerin’s hand closed with surprising strength around her wrist. “I’ve already wasted enough time here. I need to study, and you need to get home!”
“But I want to talk to her!” Zelae didn’t intend to be so loud, but the idea of leaving Tracker’s side seemed as painful as ripping out her own heart right now. “Just for a minute! I’ll come home after that, I promise—“
Laerin snarled. “Fine! Take as long as you want! But I’m going home. Don’t blame me when your mother and father send you to Kei Lumennura the moment you get back.” She practically threw Zelae’s wrist to the ground in disgust, leaving her arm swinging as she watched her cousin storm off towards the more built up part of town. Then, she turned back around.
Tracker was now sitting on the edge of the stage, her legs swinging. Their eyes were level with each other. She looked way younger up close— older than Zelae, sure, but not yet an adult. Maybe it was a human thing. “I’m sorry about my cousin,” was all she could say.
“No problem,” Tracker said, a warm smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “What can I help you with, pup?”