Private Journal Entry. Father Ridire
Date: 16 August, 2025
Location: Private Chambers
The letter arrived today. A single page, carefully folded, ink-dark, signed Delilah. She writes of seeking counsel, traveling a long way to find me. She reveals nothing else. Nothing of the pain or hunger she carries, nothing of the shadow she hopes I will illuminate.
And yet…even these sparse words coil around me like a rope. Polite, restrained, almost innocent, but beneath that, I feel a pulse I cannot name. A tremor that is not fear, not duty, but something darker. Something electric.
I have not met her. I do not know her voice, her face, her hands. And yet, in the anticipation, I feel her. In the curl of the ink, the slight quiver of the paper, she exists already in my mind an enigma pressing against the sanctity of this chapel.
A month waits between us. A month for my imagination to twist her into every possibility: the timid seeker, the bold temptress, the shadowed soul who will test every boundary I hold sacred. Each thought is a ritual of tension, a slow stroke along nerves I thought disciplined.
When she arrives, I will meet not merely a stranger seeking counsel. I will meet a spark, a question, a challenge to all I am sworn to guard. And I will kneel, hands trembling over the Bible, and wonder if I will guide her…or be guided myself.
The Cyrenaian Hedonic church 