The scrupulously clean healer entered the church, her black coat and trousers perhaps the only black in the entire building, and, like a flea, she traversed the great expanse of pure lunar white.

As she passed the pews, she mused on the color white. While the church's white walls appeared exactly the same as the Infirmary, this was a very different-feeling white. In her place of employ, the lack of color was a soothingly pragmatic choice. It showed dirt best, and when the servants bleached the sheets, it all ended up white anyway.

Here, however, the white was troublingly symbolic, indicative of an obsession with purity. Not the admirable purity of simple sterilization, which was meant to serve a greater purpose, but an obsession with purity itself -- purity for its own sake -- perfection in all things. Morality. Ancestry. The soul (whatever that was). Even thought.

And who determined the criteria for this so-called perfection? Did the prophets fashion it themselves, consciously or insanely.. or had some mysterious power, probably mistakenly deemed a god, truly spoken to them?

Though she was born a skeptic, the gods worried her. Deeply. If Alioe did exist... If Alioe, perfect lady of time and order and foresight, of everything Abeline held dear... If she did exist, she'd surely see the heteroclite healer as a worthless speck of dirt to be cleared away, or, worse, a spiritual germ fit only for long, torturous destruction.

And she feared it might be true. Her life had been too bleak, her pleasures too brief...

The flea of a heretic had reached the altar. She wrung her hands, trying to remember why she had come, and she seriously considered the virtues of fleeing before an Everine spotted her.

"If you turn your hands any harder, you will set fire to yourself." A soft voice came from behind the anxious woman. It was a female voice, by the sound of it, a young one too. Perhaps younger than Abe herself. If the healer was to turn, she would see a figure, shorter than herself, completely covered by the Everine robe, hands clasped in front. An almost etheral glow seemed to shimmer off the white and blue outfit as the priest seemed to wait for a response. It was her duty to help those in need, when they came to this place. And to the young Everine, Abe appeared in need.

The wringing stopped, and the healer glanced at her hands; her nails were clipped that very morning, quite closely indeed, and her hands washed thrice at least. Too much?

"Probably," she muttered, finally turning to the other woman. Where she expected to see a green dress, she saw a white and blue robe. Who's ever heard of a snarky monk? Perhaps they have a spark of personality under those anonymous veils, after all...

"I'm looking for records regarding the residents of the phasmonia. One in particular, in fact."

As she spoke, she recalled her plan (the rationality of which her sleep-deprived mind could not confidently determine): If the records proved the blind ghost woman at the phasmonia was alive at some point, it would lend some credence to Moore's spectrographs when they submit the study for peer review. Or, rather, that was the tenuous hope her frazzled brain produced.

The Everine hummed softly, moving to stand beside Abe, looking up at the intricate carvings and window leadlights, hands still clasped in front of her.

"It seems, lately, that everyone at this school is interested in those who have passed, rather than those who still live. Peculiar. I wonder, if living within the walls of the church, if I have missed some sort of trend." By the tone of her voice, it might have sounded as if the young woman was smiling.

"But that aside, we have some records. The church has a duty to record all deaths and births, the sunsets and sunrises of life. Which exactly was it you were interested in?"

I am very much interested in the living, madam.

"Hrmph." Abeline smirked, her glasses sliding skeptically down her nose. "Trends are of no use, anyway."

The utilitarian scientist clasped her hands behind her back, tilting her head up to view the altar through her wayward lenses. Already, she was liking this Everine, a rather disturbing development in her opinion. The Church was such a monolithic entity in her mind-- a parasitic hive of blue-masked bees that stole the precious nectar from her Brunnhold. Rumor had it the Church wanted to control more than their share, to spread and infest the Head.. and Servalis was rightly fighting back...

But this young monk did not seem a ruthless enemy.

Insidious.

"A death. Specifically, a woman who died at an old age. She was blind," the healer fished in her bag for a moment, producing a notebook. She lifted her glasses and squinted at a wrinkled, ink-stained page. It didn't matter that the words were illegible, merely looking at the mess was enough to remind her. "And she may have died in the summer."

There was a spectrograph in her pocket, but she kept that to herself for now. The Church was famous for meddling in scientific affairs...

Affairs? Perhaps that wasn't the right word. Or too right-- Let's not get distracted here, Abeline.

There was a pause after Abeline spoke, a moment where, if one thought about it, a smile could have occured, before the Everine turned to her.

"That, whilst a wonderful description, could probably describe half the occupants of the phasmonia." Turning, she began to walk, not beckoning to the healer, but obviously expecting her to follow.

"Is there anything else you can tell me? Name? Cause of death? Illnesses?" The young woman stopped at a side door, pushing it open to reveal a room of bookshelves. Hundreds and hundreds of scrolls filled the shelves, floor to ceiling, piled on top of each other and sectioned off in alphabetical order and year. The room smelt like a library, papery and old. Dust motes floated through the slight light rays that hit the room when the door was opened.

It breathed history.

Scrolls! Not stacks of paper, not cabinets full of folders, but scrolls! How archaic! How delightful!

"Oh, my," she whispered, putting a cold hand to her lips. Ah! She was getting weak in the knees.

The healer leaned forward slightly, half-stumbling, half-wafting into the scroll room. The perfume of dry, ancient paper evoked a more spiritual feeling in her than any incense ever could. Calmative yet invigorating, peaceful yet thinking...

She seemed to ignore the other woman for a time, lost in the myriad of lives laid stacked before her. Was there a scroll for her mother? Was there one for herself, unfulfilled and awaiting fresh ink to complete it? How far back did these go...? Decades? Centuries?

At last, she looked to the monk, mumbling as if roused from meditation, "If I could tell you, I wouldn't be here."

Her hand wavered over a random scroll. The healer liked books-- fictions and textbooks mainly. Contrary to her discomfort from physical contact with people, she liked to touch books. If she had read a book before, the slightest brush with it recalled vivid images.. sounds, smells.. whole worlds...

She abstractedly voiced a thought, "Now how did Alisoina do it?"

The Everine stood in the doorway, watching the woman, hands folded in front of her. It was often like this with the academic souls, they went to pieces over dusty parchment. Admittedly, it could be quite overwhelming, so much history in one place...but it was something the Everine saw almost every week. The initial wonder had worn into simply bemusement at others.

Clearing her throat, she tilted her head.

"How did Alisoina do what?"