The Grand Cathedral in Northern Mid-Childa.
Compared to the Cathedrals of old this one is noticeably smaller, but at the same time it's still too big to simply call it a church. The inside of the structure can be considered unimpressive in a certain sense; for the headquarters of the Saint Church religious organization, it lacks a majestic presence- but supposedly the designers didn't want to make visitors feel insecure and overwhelmed by intimidatingly expensive decorations.
Though most likely it's because the church couldn't afford such luxury at the time.
Standing around leisurely in her room was Carim Gracia. As of right now it's 8am, she's inside the church and the candles lights were blown out by the cool morning breeze.
Carim sets a chair in front of the altar and sits on it. She’s wearing a simple nun’s robe that has a pure white base colour, with recognizable coloured threads like black, red, green, purple, gold and silver woven into pictures. Besides that, her clothes are covered in decorative cloth used for higher-order clergymen. This is formal attire worn when she’s visiting other people.
For someone like Carim, who’s different from normal Knights and Nuns, she has to prepare different sets of robes according to the season, time, location, occasion, position on the matter, and ambition. Sometimes she’ll purposely wear clothes that indicate a lower standing in order to raise the status of the guest; sometimes she’ll purposely wear clothes that indicate a higher standing to show her dissatisfaction…there’s a lot of ways to do this that are really complicated and troublesome.
Personally, she feels it's all too troublesome to do all these things, but just as her position provide several privileges, it also comes with several restriction of freedom.
Aside from her unique clothing, the most noticeable thing about Carim is her golden hair that reaches the length of her waist. The fluffy hair hangs over her shoulders and goes all the way down. Carim sits on the chair, places an entire set of gold and silver combs on her legs. She selects one from the pile of combs, which has different teeth length, width and spacing, and carefully lets her hair go past the comb like the strings of a harp. After combing all her hair through once, she changes to another one, and after that’s done, changes to another one. She continues to do this, as if the order of the combs used is very important.
Shining on her hair is the morning sunlight passing through the window.
"What are you doing?"
A displeased voice came from behind.
Chrono Haralown stood in the doorway with an exasperated look.
“Don’t you know? I’m combing my hair. A man shouldn’t be seeing a woman doing make-up.”
Carim chuckles.
“Several centuries ago, among the Belkan Noblewomen, there are methods to scorch their hair by either using the sun or the moon. The best-looking blonde hair is called the ‘Sun’s hair’, and it’s the greatest virtue for one to accomplish this. Isn’t it stylish to do this without the need of dyes? Ohoho~!”
Carim tries to stifle her exaggerated fake laughter as an attempt to further frustrate Chrono, but there’s no response from the man.
She twists her neck and looks at him.
“What’s wrong? What happen to your sarcastic remarks and snide one liners? To remain silent while I'm talking with you… Well, that's something I never thought I would live to see!”
There was still no response from Chrono.
Just when Carim was feeling puzzled...
"No... That's not it... Actually, I've been wanting to ask you something-"
Carim immediately replied him with three sets of two digit numbers.
"No, I don't mean your three sizes... But I appreciate it nonetheless."
"Oh well, those are fake numbers anyway... Then what is it you want to ask?"
"To be honest, your Midchildan sounds really weird. Do you have trouble with the language, or are you just treating me as an idiot? Which one is it?"
Carim stopped what she was doing.
The comb that’s gliding through her hair slightly trembles.
"W-W-W-WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?!"
"It's not that the words are wrong- the meaning is still there, it's just that... Well... Have you ever seen a creature called a platypus? There's nothing wrong with it biologically per say but-"
“You……you……do you know what you’re talking about!? There’s no need to talk about etiquette with a man who is a walking billboard for cardinal desires of every form of complex! Just some simple words is enough for you!”
"Just what are you going on about?" Chrono sighed. "Regardless, if you prefer to use such a special accent, it's alright. What I'm trying to say is that if you're frustrated about this, I can arrange to have you tutored privately myself... I don't want this to become an political incident between our two organizations just because one of our ambassadors couldn't stop laughing at your exotic form of speech."
“Uu! I’m not bothered by it! Why would I bother about a language?! Besides, you're the only TSAB liaison for the Saint Church, if there's any problems I'll just go to you straight away and pour out my troubled heart!"
"It's because I'm the only one for now that's why I want to fix that abnormality of yours so that other people can share my headaches! Hayate and the girls might be too polite to say anything but-"
"Eh? I don't speak like that to them."
"...What?"
"Whenever I talk to the Wolkenritters I use Belkan, when I talk to the other girls I talk like this."
Carim said all that in completely normal Midchildan.
"...I knew it, you're treating me like an idiot aren't you?"
"No I'm not!" Carim protested. "Verossa was the one who told me to use that speech when talking to important men! That's how normal Midchildans do things!"
"Please don't use such a suspicious individual as the basis of 'Normal Midchildan'..."
Wait, what did she mean by important men? Social status?
Chrono wanted to change the topic so he didn't pursuit the matter and said,
"However, why do you want to comb your hair in front of the guest? Shouldn't you have done it before having a conversation? You're the one that invited me over..."
Although she doesn’t like this topic, Carim feels that at least they can break away from the original topic, as her tone and attitude seems calmer than before.
“There’s no time. Actually, night is the time when women are in their bedrooms doing their make-up but I.... Nevermind, please don’t mind me doing this during our conversation.”
"But didn't you just say that a man shouldn’t be seeing a woman doing make-up?”
"If it's you then it okay."
What is that suppose to mean?
"...I knew it, you're treating me like an idiot aren't you?"
"I don't know what you mean."
Chrono signed.
"I guess that’s the result of the ‘Sun’s hair’ that you talked about, right? The myth about the moonlight should be a superstition, but the myth about the sun is actually due to the ultraviolet rays that caused the hair to lose colour pigments. This is probably an idea gained from books fading in colour due to overexposure to the sun. "
Carim looked mildly impressed.
"But I’ll give you some advice……you’ll get hair loss!” Chrono smirked.
“………This is rather rude when we’re still developing our diplomatic relations.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Eh? Chrono-kun has gone to see Carim-san already?" A girl in white military uniform and a long brown hair tied into a side-tail spoke. "Wasn't that suppose to be tomorrow?"
"Chrono said that its better to get an ugly business over and done with early rather than to let it hound you any longer..." A girl with blond hair and black uniform answered. "But still, I wish they would take things ease once in awhile... They said they're still developing diplomatic relations..."
"I wouldn't ponder about it too much," A girl with short brown hair and similar coloured Uniform shook her head sagely. "The romance between adults is a complicating matter... Too much reading in between the lines for my taste..."
"Eh?"
"R-Romance!?!"