[With another shard-bearer, one more comfortable with intimacy both physical and emotional, perhaps Liem wouldn't feel compelled to speak anything aloud to let his Discord bleed from him. Just physical intimacy alone might be enough, if it was in the form of an embrace, if he could find someone to let him tuck his face against their neck while they ran their fingers through his hair. He can't entertain even the thought of it without his cheeks warming, so that… that would certainly be enough. It would be a vulnerable enough act to pierce whatever threshold needed to be perforated to let the Discord flow out.

But even if he could find someone amenable to that kind of closeness, it would certainly not be the stern, prideful woman before him. He does not even think to suggest it.]

That's what I was taught, too. A man of god must reflect the values of the faith at all times, not just when he is wearing his church's colours.

[It's hard to display temperance when one is born from the blood of a creature that exemplifies violent indulgence. Even his very best had not been enough to satisfy his peers at Abadar's temple.

Probably Hayame knows this experience very well.]

You know the other members of my church were human. When I was being taught there, as a young man, I could not satisfy any of the priests that I was… pure of spirit. That I was sufficiently human to be one of them, and wouldn't disgrace them outside of the temple grounds. That is why I stopped being an acolyte, and learned the bow.