During prayer, Mercedes creates a misunderstanding.

All throughout the day, Mercedes had found herself humming a song she'd heard during the party the previous night. It hadn't stopped her from getting things done; she'd hummed softly while taking care of flowers in the morning, standing in line for breakfast, organizing shelves in the pantry, and attending classes (extra softly at that time). She didn't find anything especially unusual or troublesome about going about one's day accompanied by a merry tune. The only thing that was occasionally troublesome on this particular day was that, every now and then, the humming would begin to slide into actual soft singing, and if she happened to be standing, some movement of the hips. Then, things had threatened to get awkward.

Bending over a planter of lilies in the monastery's greenhouse, a watering can in her hand and a swish in her breezy skirt: "Hm hm hm butts and I cannot lie-"

Holding a tray, then holding her hand over her mouth when she recognized a female classmate next to her giving her an odd look: "Hm hahahmhm can't deny-"

One hand on her hips as she gave them a playful shake, momentarily losing count of the sacks of grains on the shelves: "Badabada bada bum and an itty bitty waist-"

While working through a quiz in the Blue Lion classroom, trying to come up with a clever written solution to a classic military exercise: "Hmhm hahm in your face you get-"

The ordinarily stoic professor at the head of the class, the young and mysterious mid-semester transfer known as Byleth, had turned her sharp blue eyes towards her student. That expressionless gaze could be taken to mean many things at many times, but in that setting most surely meant "knock it off." Flushing, but yielding to the authority to the woman she suspected could be her own age, Mercedes had bowed her head and zipped her lips.

Now, finally, after making it through a day with the silly song stuck in her head, Mercedes had the Box in her hands. All she needed was a chance to use it... However, as she knelt in the chapel for her evening prayer, she felt like she had finally reached her breaking point in waiting.

She was one of the few who regularly worshipped that late in the day, and she found she had the chapel to herself. It was just Mercedes, her Goddess, and her magic, body-controlling music box. For years, Mercedes had made respectful thanks for the blessings of the day a ritual. Even as she had grown a little less rigid in her followings of the teachings of Seiros, she would never allow a day to pass without thanking the Goddess for care and protection. And yet, while she ordinarily looked forward to her time alone with her thoughts and her reflections on the Goddess' teachings, she found she simply couldn't summon the concentration that day.

Wasn't this empty chapel, empty except for herself, the perfect time and place to get in some practice? She had to continually push the thought out of her head as she remained on her knees, her heavy-lidded blue eyes shut and her brow knit in a portrait of concentration.

Finally, she had had enough. She admitted to herself there was no way she could pray in this condition. "Goddess... I can be allowed this small act of selfishness, can't I? If I can't divide my focus, I fear I'll fail to focus at all..."

She looked up into the faces of the Saints depicted in the stained glass around her, praying for preemptive forgiveness...

--

Outside the chapel, an approaching student had coincidentally chosen an odd time to engage in prayer. Ashe Ubert, a rare commoner in the Blue Lions house, walked the torch-lit path to the chapel's doors with a hung head and a heavy sigh. His short, silver hair shadowed the bright green eyes in his pale, freckled face, giving him an almost ghostly appearance in the dimming day.

It was strange for Ashe to choose to visit the chapel at all. The first reason was that Ashe wasn't really a devout practitioner of the religion of the Kingdom, any more than he felt he had to be to eventually serve as a knight. He'd never put much personal stock in prayers to the Goddess. The second, however, was his fear of ghosts, which would quickly become more relevant.

Ashe looked up the path towards the tremendous, imposing chapel and immediately remembered why he'd never chosen to do this before. In the shadow of the church, a pale, tall figure was drifting towards him with its head hung low, its ghastly blue hair in a braided bun, mumbling to itself in an eerie, unclear voice.

Ashe let out a reflexive yell of terror, which caused the other figure to let out a small cry of shock in return. It wasn't a vengeful ghost from the church graveyard after all, but another student. Marianne von Edmund raised her brown, doe-like eyes and her pale face towards him. She apologized in a soft, wavering voice. "I-I'm sorry! Did I somehow offend you...?"

"No, Marianne, not at all!" Ashe replied profusely, embarrassed at himself and at making her jump. "I thought you were... s-someone else," he hedged, deciding not to tell his classmate that he'd thought she was a vengeful undead. "Were you going to chapel? You can join me if you want."

"Ah... no... I was just leaving," Marianne muttered, then began brushing past him to do as she said.

"Are you sure? I'd be happy for the company!" Ashe reassured her with a smile, hiding the fact that he'd very much appreciate any familiar company rather than find himself alone in the chapel at night.

"Um... S-someone else is there. When I saw, I decided to leave. I prefer to pray alone, so... I'm sorry."

"Oh... Well, consider the offer open if you ever change your mind," Ashe replied, clearly relieved to be told he wouldn't be left alone.

Marianne only bowed her head and kept walking by. If she said "thanks" or "sorry" again, it wasn't audible.

Ashe watched her go, then realized what had just happened. "Marianne probably thought I was happy she didn't take up my offer... Stupid Ashe! That's just one more thing I've got to try and confess to the Goddess... And I have to apologize to Marianne later, of course."

Although one could be forgiven for thinking so, Ashe's visit to the chapel hadn't been to overcome any kind of test of fear. The young man had been having trouble adjusting to life at the Academy. His fellow students in the Blue Lions treated him well, but the truth remained that he was only a commoner adopted into a noble family. In spite of the training he'd received, whenever his grades slipped, or he had to ask for help, or he had to adjust to some new understanding, he always wondered if he didn't belong or was holding the others back. He intended to take those heavy concerns to the Goddess and see if prayer could offer him new direction, something that would set him back on the path of becoming a proper knight, a goal he'd aspired to ever since his Lord Lonato took him in as a thief off the streets.

With those solemn thoughts, he approached the chapel...

What he saw and heard as he reached the doorway was more unbelievable than the ghost he'd thought he'd seen moments ago. He had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't imagining it.

His classmate, Mercedes, was crouched at the altar, her blonde, braided head bowed in prayer. That part of the scene was so natural, expected, and familiar, it was as though it had been cut from one reality and placed into another. While her upper body bowed its head and held its hands clasped in prayer, the lower body was neither still nor kneeling. Instead, her legs were spread as she faced away, and her lower body was moving furiously. It looked less like a dance to Ashe and more like an exercise, or perhaps demonic possession. Adding to the surreal image, a type of music could be heard even from the doorway, carried by the chapel's acoustics. It certainly didn't sound like the organ, choir, or bells one ordinarily heard in a church. He could tell it was designed to be played loud, but was being held at a relatively furtive volume here.

He found himself at an odd crossroads. He hadn't come here and seen Mercedes pray often. Was it possible this was part of some ritual she practiced? If he shouted out and interrupted her, he'd have two women he needed to apologize to. She didn't seem to be in any danger...

As such, feeling like a thief, Ashe quietly slipped in and took one of the empty pews, leaving her to her work at the main altar. At this distance, he could pick up some details he hadn't been able to before. He could hear the lyrics of the song, but they barely meant anything to him. He knew just enough to tell that they surely had nothing to do with any teachings of Seiros he'd ever read about. The other strange new detail he noted was that her usual blue stockings, which went up past her knees but terminated before her skirt, seemed to have some fresh rips in them. As he stared at them more carefully, he realized they seemed less like rips and more like an intentional pattern of openings along each side, revealing more of the older student's smooth white calves. In fact, now that he looked harder, he could see there was a sort of golden embroidery around them, so they were definitely intentional decorations...

His eyes couldn't help but travel up, past her thighs and towards her skirt. The position Mercedes held kept it stretched from leg to leg, not quite reaching the knees, and thus the flap it formed at the back hung precariously low over what he recognized as the curve of her bottom. He found himself staring at it, realizing that the question of whether Mercedes' panties would end up exposed by her hyper movement was less a question of "if" and more "when." Already, the majority of her thick, unblemished thighs were on nearly full display...

Feeling guilty, he tried to stop leering at his classmate's body, especially considering he'd already told himself this was a ritual of prayer for her. Even if he bowed his head, however, there was no way he was going to be able to put himself in the mindset to have a one-on-one conversation with the Goddess, not with Mercedes and the unknown knight named Sir Mix-A-Lot both vying for his attention.

He raised his head again, intending to finally announce himself, only to find his startled green eyes locking with Mercedes' now wide-open blue ones. She only looked shocked, however, not panicked. In only a moment, she was addressing Ashe with her usual sunny lilt. "Ashe? What a pleasant surprise. I didn't expect to see you here, especially late in the day." She'd turned to face him, but even as she did, her ass continued motoring behind her.

Ashe almost asked if Mercedes was aware she might be flashing her panties at an icon of the Goddess before deciding against it. He swallowed the lump in his throat, then tried to speak as casually as he could. "I uh, thought I might try having a conversation with the Goddess... about how things are going for me. But I'm finding it kind of, you know, hard to concentrate."

"Ah, I understand," Mercedes agreed with a nod. "I was having a hard time focusing earlier this evening, myself."

... Ashe struggled to decide whether Mercedes was messing with him or not. Actually, there was something more important. "Mercedes, do you know where that noise is coming from?"

"Ignoring that," Mercedes replied easily, smiling at Ashe from her place leaning on the pew, "I'm sorry to hear things aren't going well for you. You know, the Church may not like it if I told them this, but when I have a hard time speaking my thoughts to the Goddess, I find it helps to tell them to a friend. Is there some way I can help?"

On an ordinary day, in an ordinary conversation, Ashe probably would have taken his friend and classmate up on that offer. Under the circumstances, however, the thoughts he'd come in with were the last thing on his mind. He tried to find a way out. "Well, they're not really concerns you'd tell a friend so much as... confessions you'd tell a priest, Mercedes."

"Oh...? Well, you're free to come back later... but, if you want to tell me anyway, know that I won't judge you. I used to work in a church, did you know? I don't just want to hear you out, I'm actually well-qualified to."

Ashe was beginning to feel like when he'd crossed the bridge to the monastery, he'd crossed into a dream world. Not a nightmare, exactly, but certainly not real life. As Mercedes continued to smile at him with a calm and patient smile, her hands left the pew ahead of her and crossed behind her head, thrusting forward her breasts, which seemed to want to leap out of her conservatively buttoned white undershirt and attack him. To Ashe's mind, she was either playing an expert trick on him or was under some sort of trance. He tried to attack it more directly, addressing her seriously. "Mercedes, what is that dance?"

His classmate looked puzzled. It wasn't that she didn't know what he was talking about; she was trying to find a good way to explain it. "It's a little strange, isn't it? I wanted to practice it, but I was determined to serve the Goddess at the same time, so here I am. Since you're here now, I think the Goddess is telling me to help you. There's a long story to the music and the dance, but let's talk about you. What's bothering you lately, Ashe?"

Ashe struggled to keep his eyes meeting Mercedes', and struggled even harder to think about what his problems he'd come to discuss were. "You know..." he gave an uneasy laugh, smiling at Mercedes. "You know, I can't even seem to remember it. Feels like talking to you wiped it all out!"

"Really? Am I that relaxing of a person to talk to?" Mercedes seemed to be asking genuinely, her easy smile still showing above the impressive shelf of chest she was now undeniably shaking in his face. "Well, if that's so, I'm glad I could help. Just remember that if there's anything you need, I'm always happy to help."

"Haha, you always take too much on your chest, anyways. I shouldn't be bothering you." Ashe finally got his eyes back on Mercedes' face and saw her quizzical look. "Y-your shoulders, I mean!"

She rolled his words over in her head. Suddenly, a look of understanding crossed her face. "Oh! Oh, I'm sorry Ashe, I must be bothering you terribly with this dance. I'm sure you can hardly concentrate on anything."

"Well, that's true, but... the dance might be just what I needed, I think? Like you said, it makes it impossible to think about the stuff that was bothering me. Not what I expected when I headed for church, obviously, but it's nice! So I really appreciate it, but I need to ask... Is that really okay? I mean, to be dancing and playing music like this in a church? I obviously don't know as much about it as you, but there was nothing like this back in Gaspard."

Mercedes seemed to consider the question carefully. She spoke slowly when she answered, as though she, herself, was confused. "I think it's fine... as long as... you pay? That is, if you pay your tithes to the church, I think you'd ordinarily be entitled to the church's service... I think."

Ashe obviously had no idea what that meant. He'd been looking to her as an expert on the church, and was clearly bothered when he couldn't understand her. "You're saying, because you pay tithes to the church, you're allowed to do whatever you want in a church building? I don't think that's how it works."

"No, that's not quite it. Um..." Mercedes seemed to be thinking hard about what she'd meant when she said that. Her eyes again alighted with a realization, although this time it did seem to affect her. She blushed and shook her head furiously, a gesture meant for herself but easy to take as a refutation of his reasoning. "I'm sorry, Ashe, I don't know what's gotten into me. I think I meant... Well, I don't very well know what I meant. This may be sudden, Ashe, but do you pay tithes to the church?"

Ashe nodded, reclaiming his usual seriousness. "Lord Lonato, the man who raised me, made sure I took it very seriously, so I do it out of respect to him."

"Mm. That's good. The church relies on our tithes to continue doing its good work." As she spoke, Mercedes continued to rock her chest, shaking her shoulders and leaning in towards him. She began undoing buttons on her white shirt slowly as she spoke, reaching beneath the clasp of the gold shawl she wore to reach the top button. "The Goddess teaches us that to pay our tithes is to demonstrate proper faith that She will provide for us." By the end, she'd revealed a nice window into her cleavage, even showing the trim of a lacy, gold-covered bra Ashe's mind was now reeling with the implications of. "So, when you pay your tithes, do so with your whole heart. When you do so, you need not apologize for the good fortune the Goddess sends your way. Okay, Ashe?"

The young man gulped and, thinking he was doing what his older classmate wanted him to, reached into the pouch on his hip. He withdrew a gold coin, thought about it again, then reached in for another. He took both of them and put them hesitantly between Mercedes' offered breasts. "Is... that right?"

Ashe and Mercedes stared into each other's eyes wordlessly for a long time. Ashe's eyes darted between the coins he'd just placed and his friend's stunned expression. Mercedes' eyes traveled slowly up from her own chest, now jingling the coins together as she continued shaking it, to her friend's reddened freckles. Finally, her own face began to glow more and more red as the understanding of what her rambling explanation had led to dawned on her. "Oh Goddess... N-no, Ashe, I'm not saying you should pay me for... th-that is, I didn't mean to-"

"Oh? Oh!" Ashe gasped. He made as if to grab his coins back out before realizing what he was doing and snapping his hand back. "I'm so, so sorry! I thought this was a n-noble custom or a church custom or something that I wasn't understanding, I just didn't want to cause trouble! Y-you, um, you should keep that and I'll go!"

"Wait, did you think I was asking you for a tip for the dance?" Mercedes asked in disbelief, although she had to confess she couldn't make heads or tails of what she'd been saying, in reflection.

Ashe looked offended now, rising to his feet on the defense. "How else could I take what you're doing? I didn't think you'd pull this kind of a prank on a friend, Mercedes!"

Mercedes tried to think of what to say to calm Ashe down. She'd tried to step around it earlier, but explaining that there was a magic box making her dance seemed like it would come off as a flimsy excuse and only hurt Ashe more, now... Also, she wasn't fully confident she remembered how to quickly turn it off to prove the truth of that explanation. She tried to think of what explanation she could give that would keep him from storming off in a worse mood than when he'd entered. Finally, she came to the only thing she could think of in a pinch. "Ah, Ashe... you're right. I was just asking for a tip for the dance I did for you... But, um, I was just shocked because it was so much! I could only accept half of this," she declared, handing him the other coin back after fishing it from her own chest. "Please, take this back."

"I couldn't," Ashe declared immediately, seeming incredibly confused. "But forget about that! Why are you... dancing for me, anyway?"

At this point, Mercedes probably should have buckled up for a long explanation of the magic box. However, having already settled into another, and being shaken, she couldn't help but lean into her lie. "I just thought the dance would take your mind off your worries. I told you I was experienced in counseling, right? Think of this as another kind of counseling I happen to be okay at."

That misleading statement clearly had Ashe's mind reeling with even more new implications. He tried to find the least insulting thing he could settle on to say, the least offensive way to ask Mercedes if she was essentially selling erotic performances for money. "Ah. So... you do this regularly?"

"... More often, nowadays," Mercedes spoke in a half-truth.

Their awkward conversation paused for a moment while Ashe thought of what to say to break it off. He watched Mercedes passively shaking her hips even as they stood there, as though it was easier than standing still. She seemed quite determined to earn that measly coin he'd tossed her... in a way, it felt disrespectful not to acknowledge the hard work she was putting in for him. "Well, it really did make me feel better. If it's not too much trouble, we could have a counseling session again some time? I feel like there are so many things stressing me out these days."

"Oh, of course!" Mercedes spoke in a hurry that was half to end the conversation and half her natural impulsiveness to help another with their problems. "But next time, maybe we'll have a little more talking about you?"

"That sounds great, Mercedes." It was clear to look at him that he was still mulling over whether he would actually try and meet with her again, or if he was simply trying to leave this odd situation behind him. "I'll be heading out. Are you coming this way too?"

"I'll just finish up here. Good night, Ashe," she told him with a broad smile, one that twitched at the corners as she found herself leaning towards him and hooking a finger into her mostly-unbuttoned blouse. She yanked it downwards slightly, giving him a better view downblouse at a colorful brown-and-gold bra she was wearing, along with the eye-popping mass of chest those cups were holding.

Ashe gave her a polite nod before hurriedly turning on his heels and power-walking away from what he was now assuming was illicit night-work that his friend, who he'd previously taken as a chaste, motherly type, was doing on church grounds.

Mercedes let out a long sigh when he left, then finally managed to go turn off the Box from where she'd tucked it away. As she expected, it did take a bit of fumbling with the controls. Finally, her hips stopped rocking, but she didn't know if she'd ever get the song out of her head. "Oh, dear... I've left a terrible misunderstanding here. I should try to clear it up with Ashe when I see him tomorrow. I need to hear what's bothering him, after all... and if there's any way I can help, of course." Quickly regaining some of her usual airiness, she fished the coin she was given earlier from where it had fallen and giggled lightly. "And... I should ask him if he likes big butts and he cannot lie!" she joked to herself, jerking her hips from side to side in the pauses.

Looking around, she suddenly remembered she was in a church. "Ah, that is... after I earnestly repent for my sins today. I ask your forgiveness, oh Goddess," she began praying, finding it much easier to kneel and focus on her sins of the day after that experience.

Ashe passed through the gates to the chapel on his way back to his room. The music behind him was growing faint as he left its source, although Mercedes still hadn't quite turned it off. Suddenly he was assaulted by another figure from the dark corners of the entrance. He let out another reflexive yelp as he was tackled.

... Actually, rather than a tackle, it was really more of a hug. Marianne had jumped out of the shadows where she'd been hiding, her face a messy mixture of terror, tearstains, and tomato-red flushing as she began grinding her own impressive chest against him. The uniform jacket she'd seen her wearing earlier was missing, and her white undershirt was unbuttoned in a familiar way, thrusting her wanting cleavage towards him. "Ashe! P-p-please help...! I c-can't-!" she squeaked in a mouse-like cry.

Ashe quickly reached into his pocket and fished out another coin, placing it between her breasts before breaking free from her weak hold. "No thanks, Marianne! I'm good for tonight! Um, bye!"

"Huh? W-what... No, please wait...! Ashe!" the young woman called out to his back, before they were separated from each other by the darkness of the night. Once the music was cut off almost immediately after, a stillness that felt impossible considering the previous bustling returned to the chapel.