Cohost writing prompt: @Making-Up-Adventurers — This cleric isn't praying to their deity so much as having a pretty fierce verbal dispute with their deity
Inja comes out of her room to find Quendarinna, paladin of the Fount Benevolent, frozen in place in the corridor with a very pale face.
"Morning, Quen," she says cheerfully.
"Well met," the paladin fumbles. "Are — are you well?"
"Could eat a horse," Inja says, tucking her arm through Quen's. "You had breakfast yet?"
"No, I was just — I was coming to — no."
Inja gives her a sideways look, and tugs her toward the stairs.
It's not until halfway through Inja's plate of still-warm bread, honey, and berries, that the paladin stops poking her own food around her plate. "I," she says haltingly. "Didn't mean to. But I overheard — some strong language from you. Toward. Uh, toward your god. Are you—" and she raises distressed eyes to Inja, "what will you do? Without her favour?"
"Oh," Inja says warmly, licking honey off her fingers. "Oh, sweetie, bless you. Me and Endred, we're fine."
"It was very strong language," Quen whispers.
"D'you know why they call us the Sisters of Endred?" Inja says. "It's not referring to us as a sisterhood of clerics; it's because the goddess insists on being a sister to each of us. Do you have any sisters, Quen?"
Quen shakes her head, still looking distressed, and mouths No.
"I had a pair of lovely linen trousers," Inja says. "They were my favourite. And one day they disappeared, and reappeared a week later with a huge rip in the arse, smelling like someone had spilt a lake of gin on them and fucked with them on. There are things you don't wish your god to do in your favourite trousers, sweetie. And she's argumentative. It's really the only way she talks to anyone, it's the only thing she respects. I've heard you pray," and Inja's face softens; she reaches out and touches Quen's shoulder lightly with her fingertips. "And it's beautiful, Quen, you're so soft and reverent and that's — well, I'd feel worshipped, if someone spoke to me like that...."
The cleric seems to realise, after a few seconds, that she's stopped talking, and is just looking at Quen. She coughs, swigs from her cup of honeyed tea, and turns her attention onto her breakfast plate.
"Endred," she says, "wouldn't care for it."
"You were arguing with your god," Quen says, feeling her cheeks pinked for — no reason.
"She likes it," Inja says. "It wasn't serious. Some families are loud like that, yeah? She just wants a family like that. She grants her favour to people who can stand up to her. She likes it if you can—"
"Win arguments?"
"Oh, sweetie, you can't win arguments with family." Inja's lips tighten for just a moment, as if she's thinking of something else, outside the subject of discussion. "But you can score points!"
Quen stares at her, mutely, owlishly. "She likes it when you—" and hesitates. "You called her some names."
Inja nods, with some enthusiasm.
"I'd get smote," Quen says solemnly.
"Yes you would," Inja says. "But then, the Fount didn't pick me, and Endred didn't pick you, hey? And your god likes you just as you are, all intense and serious and just, mmm—"
She breaks off. Clears her throat.
"Anyway," she says.
"I'm very glad you're not in bad graces with your god," Quen says earnestly, putting her hand over Inja's and giving it a little squeeze.
"Anyway," Inja repeats, a little indistinctly.