As I recovered from my near-drowning, I prepared to give the Almighty a piece of my mind, for the great tower bell of the Bannered Temple rang out the eleven o'clock hour, meaning we had fifteen minutes to be lined up in front of the temple and ready for services. Knowing what the bell meant, we all trudged up from the wharf and prepared to march into Saintsday worship.

"I want three lines!" Solomon shouted to us. "Years one! Two! And three!" He gestured to three spots along the grand, silver-flecked processional leading to the temple. "Keep them straight! If you can touch anybody in the other line, you're too close!"

Most religions in Floria keep Saintsday as their sabbath for purely pragmatic reasons. Even my own Selenite faith, which traditionally had its sabbath on Ashday or Turnsday (depending on the time of year) observes on Saintsday in modern times. This is both for convenience and because people tend to distrust what is different. You may judge for yourself whether we Selenites have made any headway in gaining the world's trust.

In the great central chapel of the Bannered Temple, the Church of the Avatar and the Church of the New Circle alternate the eight-thirty and ten o'clock services, followed by the service for Collegium Scamps at eleven-thirty. About two thirds of the time, one of the two aforementioned churches repeats its services, and the other one third of the time, another faith volunteers to take over (the Temple of the Darkstar ranks in at a distant third most common religion, followed by all others). For the longest time, I wondered what purpose having the Scamps attend the services of a dozen different faiths, sects, and/or denominations was, and have come to the conclusion that the Saltfriar himself was correct:

"Expose a child to one faith, and you will make a fanatic… expose him to two, and you will make a heathen."

In the Saltfriar's time, a heathen was anybody who wasn't a 'follower of the book', but I believe he meant either an atheist or agnostic. So far as I know, very few fellows of the Collegium are outright atheistic, given the ample evidence for divine retribution in Terre's past, but even fewer believe the flowers and sunshine espoused by folk religion.

And, of course, there's another reason that the Collegium exposes us to many faiths. To quote my old mentor in the Siblings of the Sacred Grove: "There are many occasions where it's beneficial to be a religion other than whichever one you prefer. Better learn about them, and best believe them in your wild-eyed moment, because True Believers can smell out insincerity like a hound dog sniffs out a fox trail. Or another dog's rear."

"Looks like we got New Circle this week," Mailyn whispered, a complicated expression playing across her face. That was her family's faith, and its association somewhat soured her to the religion - and yet it was the religion she knew.

We rarely attended the same service twice in a row, and never three times. Of the non-Selenite services, I think my favorite was that of the Church of the New Circle - but not for any theological reason. As far as I know, the Avatar was a mortal-blooded charlatan with uncommon talents for divination and bullshit.

The New Circle and Avatar faiths both follow the Avatar, their main disagreement being whether or not their god stopped sending prophets after the fall of Old Turia and, consequently, who gets to claim divine authority. Myriad idiosyncratic differences have arisen between the two over the centuries, but to an outsider, those differences seem pedantic (for instance, whether clergymen - and they were all men - could marry). Reverend Nuches was married, and his wife sometimes baked shortbread cookies for us Scamps - though there were never enough for more than a fraction of our number.

Reverend Nuches, gave the New Circle services and was an excellent orator, a man of great compassion, and (most importantly for young audiences) a hell of a storyteller. I imagine he converted a few Scamps to his side of the theological divide… as for myself, my faith only wavered. On those rare occasions when I pray or attend services anymore, it is to Honored Asuna and the Selenite faith of my forebears, or else to the Darkstar, which my people regard as a cult of the Archangel Kirri, who is obviously close to my heart. But Reverend Nuches was my Saintsday favorite as a Scamp. I hung onto his every word.

"…That's weird, isn't it? Let's think about that passage for a minute. I am the waters and whoever drinks from them shall drink of me. Do you suppose the Avatar was a water man? Was he a puddle?"

"No!" we shouted back, laughing. Normally, priests and reverends don't care for the level of audience participation that Nuches did, and he spoke in short, simple sentences that I could parse with my still-limited Perditalog.

"Are you sure?" Nuches pulled out a straw using a sleight of hand trick and noisily slurped from a cup of water. "Do you think this is what he meant, maybe?"

"No!" More laughing. As for me? I wasn't laughing - the memory of nearly drowning in the Largotto mere minutes before was fresh on my mind, and I could still smell the earthy tang of the river water I'd coughed up with each breath.

"No, probably not," the reverend agreed. "Our Avatar said, 'My rivers are deep and the current is mighty, and who fights my current shall surely die…'"

Visions of drowning crashed down upon me, and my subconscious chose that minute to start bawling in the middle of service among a crowd of nearly fifteen hundred fellow Scamps, a dozen acolytes, and the twenty or so members of the lay public who'd missed the earlier morning services. An acolyte made her way through the crowd of Scamps, leaning down to hiss at me, "You need to settle down!"

"Sorry…" I said - but her rebuke only made me cry harder.

"Don't tell her not to feel whatever she feels," Reverend Nuches stated. Duly chastised, the acolyte nodded tersely - though she clearly disagreed. "Take the girl to the office and give her something to drink."

The acolyte grabbed my hand and practically dragged me to my feet. Still sobbing, I stumbled after her and into a cool, dark, well-appointed room just off from the main vestibule of the temple, in the shadow of the great, colorful banners of a dozen faiths swaying from the vast and airy vault of the ceiling above. The acolyte glowered at me as my sobs gradually subsided and I dried my tears on my sleeve. She slid a small cup of lukewarm water in front of me, which I gladly gulped down, hoping to wash the taste of river from my mouth.

"Stay here and don't make a peep," the acolyte said. "You should feel bad about disrupting worship." She turned on her heels and stalked back out to the service, leaving me to decompress in the temple office.

As my emotions ebbed, sobs turned into hiccups - and I had no water left to help with them. I sat in the richly-appointed room in the strange multihued light of stained glass as Reverend Nuches brought the services to a close with a sing-along hymn and a closing prayer. As my hiccups echoed off the smooth marble of the office walls, I heard the chatter of fifteen hundred Scamps filing out of the building and out into Floria to do whatever else they liked. There was still plenty of daylight left and no classes or other obligations to fill the time. A minute later, the door cracked open.

The warm voice of Reverend Nuches called in: "Is it okay if I enter?"

"Y-yes," I said.

"If it's not too much trouble, would you humor this old man and tell me what's bothering you?" The reverend strode into the office, divesting himself of his vestment, beneath which he wore plain brown garb that wouldn't have looked out of place on a petty merchant. He sat behind the desk - presumably, this wasn't his office, but a multi-purpose work office for the various clergy that used the temple. The desk was clear of items until he placed a heavily-annotated Book of the Avatar upon it. "What's your name, child?"

"Alvixia?" I said, as if it was a question. Truth be told, I hadn't quite caught his first question in its rapid Perditalog.

"That's a Gionian name," he observed, though he probably could have determined that from the Gionian in my Perditalog accent, too. "Why were you crying during services, Alvixia?" He asked this second bit in accented but fairly-fluent Gionian.

"I… I almost drowned today…" I mumbled.

"You're learning to swim?" he asked.

"I'm not a baby," I said, a bit more forcefully than I'd meant to. "I got pulled under and they held me there!"

"They? Somebody tried to drown you?" His dark brows furrowed in concern - his curly hair had mostly gone to silver, but his bushy eyebrows were mostly black.

I tearfully told him my story, and Reverend Nuches listened, not interrupting me, nor goading me to hurry when I broke back down into sniffles. He came back around the desk, kneeling down to my level and taking my small hand in his. "That sounds awful, Alvixia," he said. "It's not your fault. Do you know why these children are being cruel to you?"

"They… they call me a Gionian princess…"

"Jealousy can be an ugly thing," Nuches said. "Are you familiar with the Avatar's saying that, 'The strong who rule this world shall bow before the weak, for they shall rise as kings and queens'?"

"I'm not weak," I said.

"Perhaps the passage has more than one meaning," Nuches allowed. "What else do you think it might mean?"

I nodded - I'd heard that in the Church of the Avatar services several weeks before. It was a very common saying and, even if I wasn't 'of the book' as Reverend Nuches probably assumed, my education into religious matters was gradually expanding. "Father Roselio says the order of things will be up… upended? Upended in the last of days…"

"That's one interpretation," Nuches agreed. "But St. Rory interprets it differently. He says that the strong have the duty to cultivate the weak. Do you know what that means?"

"Um… to raise people like you, um… raise crops?" I guessed.

"Close! Very close! It means that, when you're strong, it's your job to help people when they're weak so that they can help you when they become strong. If the strong keep the weak down forever, then there's nobody strong left when the strong become weak."

I nodded. "I see. Um. What does that have to do with bullies?"

"Bullies might seem strong, but they do what they do because they're actually weak. And there are two ways to get them to stop: the carrot and the switch."

"This is a lot of farming metaphors," I observed, not quite getting his point.

Reverend Nuches chuckled. "Most ancient religions were founded by communities of herders and farmers - only the Avatar knows why. Probably because there wasn’t much else around but herders and farmers back then and they had lots of free time. In any case, the carrot is you giving them something when they leave you alone. And the switch…" he held up a fist - it was the rugged fist of a laborer and not the smooth hand of a scholar… "you clobber 'em in the nose if they don't."

I giggled. "Really?"

Reverend Nuches nodded. "But don't tell anybody I said that."

I nodded. "Thanks, Reverend Nuches."

"Any time, Alvixia."

I wandered out of the Bannered Temple and into the early afternoon sunlight, wondering what carrot and switch I could present to my tormenters. Something that let them know attempted murder was not an acceptable Saintsday pastime.