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Jimin’s oath weighs self-imposed on her shoulders tonight.
It has been less than a fortnight since she received her blessing. Most paladins receive their call from the Gods or “angels”, and Jimin was no exception.
But for her, it was far less that of destiny, and much more that of a relative pushing her career prospects along where they would prefer. Jimin, in some ways, envied aasimars who were not as in tune with their Celestial ancestry, who enjoyed the perks of being distantly planetouched; close enough to humanity for others not to make assumptions and close enough to something otherworldly to be smiled at on the street by strangers.
Jimin was more aptly plane slapped, splattered with golden freckles and sprouting long, white feathers from the tips of her ears. Swearing her oath of devotion to holy, unshakeable goodness and light was not a matter of if, but when.
Then again, Jimin isn’t unsuited for the life of a paladin. The Order of Brass Scales are a cozy, friendly bunch: an unofficial gathering of local knights who surmised that it would suit all of their best interests to work as one to fulfill their oaths. Yoohyeon, while nearly as inexperienced as the rest of them, does take to leadership well, and if nothing else she is an elder sister they can rely on. Jimin quite enjoys that.
But Jimin is also, to a fault, unshakably nice to pretty girls.
“There was a statue of Selûne defaced, the one just outside of Misty Forest,” Minjeong tells her from across the tavern table. She tells Jimin this as if she would know, but Jimin can only retain the soft darkness of her eyes and the frothing white bubbles of milk in her glass.
“Has to be the Shar cultists,” Gaeul scowls beside her, chasing the taste of the word “Shar” on her tongue with a hearty gulp of beer.
“Jimin, I know you’re new to all of this, but would you…maybe some others from the Order, too…” Minjeong’s voice grows quieter, and she rubs her pennant between her fingers. “Would you be able to keep watch at the Harvest Moon Ritual?”
“ Of course, ” Jimin jumps to her request, clasping her hands together.
Minjeong smiles, curtly and dutifully as any cleric would, and Jimin doesn’t notice Gaeul’s sideways glance, a smirk on the lip of her mug.
And because she has promised Minjeong her service, she stands at the entrance of the temple, fully armored and fully armed.
Jimin admits that she was not previously privy to Selûnite rituals; Minjeong and her cleric friends spread good will and kindness to those in need, and all of them enjoyed a sort of freedom that Jimin would not expect of those devoted to a deity. But she expected that Selûne’s rituals would perhaps, by contrast, be a more formal manner of serving the goddess.
But in the courtyard of the temple, the cleric women are gathered around a carved moonstone fountain, freely dancing in frocks and gossamer veils, engaging in gleeful libations to their hearts’ content. Minjeong is seated on the side of the fountain, dewdrops sparkling on her hair, and she laughs as Gaeul attempts to tip a goblet of wine towards her lips, while Chaeyoung is pulling her bare arm in the opposite direction to convince her to dance.
It’s a scene so playfully debaucherous that jealousy, the want to join Minjeong in her dances and wine for her goddess, clutches at her chest. But Jimin’s plate armor deflects it, newly etched with the seal of her paladin’s crest, and she’s thankful when she sees Jisu come back around from her patrol.
“The perimeter’s clear. Haven’t seen a hair of any Shar worshiper yet.”
Jimin nods in affirmation, but Jisu answers her next question before she can ask it. “Things seem just as uneventful at the front.”
She glances through the archway, to the clerics bathed in fountain water and moonlight. Jimin sees her eyebrow raise, just beneath the curve of the helmet over her forehead, as she watches on with an almost forlorn smile. Jimin lets herself look back, as if Jisu has given her permission to, but something else catches her eye.
An elf woman in garb bearing Selûnite symbols (far more clothed than the clerics) rushes over to Gaeul’s side, eyes wide. She whispers something rushed, hushed into her ear, and Gaeul’s wine-warm smile immediately drops. She in turn whispers to Minjeong, equally hurried, and it doesn’t take long before the dancing dies and the temple is filled with concerned whispers.
“What’s…” Jimin mumbles, and Minjeong, scurrying over to her with wide, brown eyes, snatches the rest of her sentence out of her mouth.
“ Fuck, ” she hisses, “The dagger’s gone.”
“The dagger?”
“The dagger, the—” Minjeong throws her hands up and almost shouts, frustratedly, before biting the rest of the thought-to-be at the roots, “It’s a moonstone dagger, we need it to end off the ritual. If the Archpriestess found out we lost it, if someone stole it…”
“I haven’t seen anyone unaccounted for thus far,” Jisu tells her, cordially reassuring, “But Jimin, why don’t you take a look around?”
Jimin nods immediately, plate armor squeaking with the movement, and she exchanges a long enough look with Minjeong to understand why Jisu is making them switch posts.
She makes her way around the left side of the temple walls, the forest just past them foreboding and hazy in the distance. It’s off-putting enough that the crunch of leaves behind her is deafeningly loud, and she whirls around, greatsword swung out in front of her in an arc.
Both she and the person behind her freeze: a tiefling girl in a gossamer gown, hunched over, bare toes unmoving from the offending leaves beneath them. Even her rose-purple tail is still, tip sticking straight up. Only her chest moves as she breathes a deep, almost exasperated sigh.
“Halt,” Jimin commands, and the tiefling girl…remains still.
Jimin mentally pats herself on the back. Yeah, she’s a natural at this.
The tiefling only blinks, unmoving from what appears to be an awkward position.
“...You can, uh, stand up normally.”
She does so, and her body language change is immediate, puffing out her chest.
“Is there anything wrong, officer ?” she asks with a girlish giggle.
Jimin squints suspiciously. “You’re one of the clerics. Aren’t you supposed to be preparing the ritual?”
She sighs, rolling her eyes. “Well, we can’t do the ritual without the dagger. Aren’t you supposed to be making sure nobody interrupts our business?”
“I, um, well, I guess that’s true…”
“I’m Ningning,” the tiefling introduces herself, without being asked, “It’s okay. I know Minjeong asked you to come because she likes you.”
Jimin flushes hot, feathers from her ears spreading over her cheeks, as if to hide her blush. She notices the glint of Ningning’s canines when she smiles, nibbling away at her carefully guarded restraint. She knows not all tieflings subscribe closely to their hellish nature, but for this one, the horns and tail aren’t just for show, it seems.
“A-are you one of Minjeong’s friends?”
Ningning shrugs a bare shoulder, the corner of one side of her lips tugging. “You could say that. It’s not hard to tell. All of the girls like you, really. I mean, we like you enough that we don’t mind you staring at us all night.”
The arms holding her greatsword grow heavy, and her legs quake in embarrassment, only compounded upon by the way her armor clatters together, unbecomingly loud.
Ningning is quick to notice, and takes a step forward. There's a bit of a twinkle in her eyes too, sizing her up as if intending to challenge her. Jimin isn’t that tall, but she's about a head taller than this girl is. She’s also armed to the teeth, but all the while it is her confidence that leaves much to be desired.
A thin tail curls around Jimin's ankle and tugs, pulling her just off balance enough that her grip loosens, and in a moment Ningning has her pinned against the temple wall.
Her greatsword flings across the ground, just out of reach, and the blade of a dagger at her throat.
“Looking for this?” Ningning flicks her other wrist, producing another dagger from her free hand; glinted, pale moonstone.
“Heh…you’re not a cleric, are you?” Jimin asks with a weak chuckle, her Adam's apple bobbing uncomfortably against the sharp edge of the blade.
“Selûne wouldn’t be my first choice of a goddess. Or my second. Maybe third, though. I did like the dancing and wine,” Ningning waffles on, maintaining a firm yet almost too gentle pressure against Jimin’s body, against her throat. “But no. Why, was I that convincing?”
Ningning’s gaze falls on Jimin’s arms, still at her sides. “You look strong. You could grab me, pin me against that wall, and take this dagger right out of my hands if you wanted to.”
The final phrase of Ningning’s pseudo-monologue is quieter than the other two, and the euphemism isn’t lost on her.
“If you’re wondering, I’m not into Shar, either. Just that some folks will pay quite a lot of gold for an artifact like this…”
Jimin’s sense washes over her, knowing that she can’t just let this thief have a prized religious artifact. “Y-you know it’s worthless, right?”
Ningning’s eyebrow cocks. “What?”
“It’s a current-day ceremonial dagger. I don’t think i-it’d be even worth a silver,” she babbles, hoping she’s got a hook in Ningning’s lip, “If someone’s asking for gold for that, they’re scamming you.”
“Really?” Ningning replies. She takes the other dagger, tapping it on Jimin’s feathers. “You sure know a lot about this sort of thing.”
Jimin volleys back. “I know enough about Selûne to know it’d be stupid to try and sell that.”
Ningning bites her lip, feeling for the hook. “Well, if you’re the expert, I guess I can’t argue with that, now can I? I want something for my troubles, though.”
“And that is?”
She doesn’t move the knife from her neck. “Kiss me.”
Jimin’s eyes go wide.
“What? Don’t tell me you don’t want to. And you’ll be keeping your promise to those other girls, too.”
Ningning is closer than she needs to be right now, chest pressed against her plate armor. She smells her breath, clean, with just a wisp of sulphur brushing against her nose. And her lips are dark, blushy plums, darkened with blood surging through them.
Jimin leans in, takes the hook from Ningning’s lips, and swallows it.