The Acolyte Enjoys A Dream.

It was a quiet night when Hilda woke up to feel something hard and bumpy pushing into her chest.
It made her aware of how slender she still was there, well, she was still a growing girl so, the loose robes could obscure some of her growth but she still felt like she had a long way to go - but then she also noticed she wasn’t leaned up properly against the statue anymore.
For some reason it felt more like lying comfortably on the ground instead of hunched up against the statue in a poor imitation of that masked guy.
Then she noticed how comfortable she felt, as if she’d been having a good sleep. That was stranger still; there was no way Hilda could associate this place with a good rest at this point.
The only conclusion was the only thing that made sense to Hilda.
She was still in a dream. Dreams could slip into nightmares if one weren’t careful.
The only thing needed to end it was waking up.
The first step was awareness it was only a dream!
With a smug self assurance that she’d easily trounced this trap she laid out for herself, Hilda opened her eyes at once.
There was no sense of wakefulness.
Only the statue itself, nestled safely away from the pedestal that trapped it.
Hilda’s pupils contracted.
‘That shouldn’t be possible, but…’
Her eyes trailed upwards to a curious spectacle. Somehow, someway, the gryphon statue that had been kept safely in the same spot for almost four days had broken off. There was still an indent where its paws should have been resting.
All thoughts of sleep vanished as if a wandering breeze blew the fire pit out.
“Di…did I become stronger somehow… way, way stronger?”
Still clinging onto it, he mumbled in disbelief, wondering how she managed to break it off.
Tonight the clouds covered the light of the heavens, leaving Hilda in relative darkness, save the glow of the fire pit.
Yet she still realized it was off. Completely.
Then the talisman began slipping off, causing her to reflexively snatch it up and snap it back into position.
It didn’t take five seconds and Hilda could keep lying down. Nothing less could make her so keenly aware of the benefits of this new setup.
“…Well.. It’s easier to sleep like this…”
The way this shrine was set up, with a barrier from the talisman keeping out most of the elements and foes, even without doors the fire pit was able to keep the room reasonably heated at night.
Its obscurity discouraged most from passing by - bandits didn’t find it useful as a staging poitt.
There was also, seemingly, a gryphon guarding it. What that gryphon actually was remained a mystery.
“If I hold it like this…”
She cupped her wrists around its ears, leaving her hands firmly pressed against its forehead anew.
“…I can get some sleep.”
The thought was making her drowsier already.
Not helping the forces of alertness was the softness of the rug in all of its patterns calling out to the impoverished acolyte with skin pale and easily torn as paper with hair pink as a spring petal.
“Don’t blame me… it’s the rug… forgive me…”
Hilda swiftly forfeited and was whisked back to the land of dreams.
This time, her dreams were of happier memories… but not without some headaches.
“Whaat? You can’t figure out how to keep a single talisman secure? Maybe I should buy it off you…”
A much more fearsome-looking Avessi with fangs poking through her lips and nails long and hard as claws was pointing and laughing at her.
The mockery of her incompetent might have hurt.
But what hurt most of all was her attempt at a retort.
“It’s not like your clay was all that!”
She blamed the product instead of her technique… Hilda felt like a true failure of a customer.
That was the last moment Hilda recalled before she was whisked away to another memory.
If she had to be honest, she would’ve liked to stop recalling right before she saw Avessi’s smirk knowing she played herself…
Then it felt like a great fog was swept aside, a light soaking the darkness around Hilda. When it cleared, she was back in the memories of her younger self, when she was listening to stories one of the younger nuns, a pretty girl with long blonde hair was telling.
As a girl not even qualified to be an acolyte yet, but an observer, Hilda was not near the standing of any nun, much less one she had to admit was pretty and gave off such a royal aura on top of her devotion.
‘How can she be so pretty like that… I want to… I want to be like her.’
‘Did I think that?’
She could hear her own thoughts, but they were not of herself in the present. It was like a performance of the past.
“Now, we will speak of the story of griffins. Do you know what they are, children?”
The pretty blonde nun spoke soft. Hilda was at least three years older than the other kids there, she dared not raise her voice.
But when the other kids began to look expectantly at her for an answer, she couldn’t help but meet their expectations.
“Y-Yes! Griffins have, there are multiple kinds! All of them are rare but the ordinary ones are simple-minded beasts that have, they’ve been useful for many kingdoms over ages!”
She took a deep breath. The nun had yet to admonish her, only smiling expectantly.
That nun, by the way, had fat tits. It didn’t matter much to Hilda at the time, but in her heightened awareness she felt baffled the temple allowed her to wear that getup.
At some point well after this, that very same nun assured her that she’d be creating slopes through the robe someday as well, but Hilda found that assurance shaky.
When she realized the nun was still waiting for her answer in the dream she blushed deep.
“S-sorry Sister, I wasn’t jealous or worried about standards, or that you’re the same age in here that I am now but, no, I mean, I was thinking of the answer and I know, I know that sometimes the heavenly messengers of the Goddess can, they can take the form of a sacred beasts like a griffin! Ah, gryphon, or… or… um…”
It shouldn’t have felt so embarrassing, what with it being a dream, but it felt all too real to Hilda in the moment.
The nun stifled a giggle, indirectly helping Hilda break out of her trance.
“Ufu..he…. Heh… Hilda, was it? You’re a brave girl for speaking up, but try to find courage to resist when someone tries to push you down. Remember, the only one that can truly speak to you is the Goddess. Ah, it’s a shame nobody can find a trace of a heavenly gryphon anymore…”
After having dealt with the threat of one for so many days, Hilda couldn’t believe when she heard that those griffins were long lost. Even if it was but a dream of a memory.
Instead the dream itself lent a hand, or rather one of the peers she dreamed raised one.
“Then… what happened to them?”
“They say they’re waiting for the right time…”
That wasn’t something that Hilda recalled hearing before.
Had someone tried to interfere within the dream?
She had to test it out.
“…What time?”
Then, Hilda saw the nun open her mouth as if to answer only to freeze in place.
Then following suit were the other kids, not one after the other, but all at once.
Nothing happened afterwards.
For what felt to Hilda like a long, long time.
So long that it felt like the world was flickering away, as an ember devours a painting.
It was such a painful, miserable nightmare, and not even the sensation she was dreaming could force Hilda awake.
Then she saw a new light shine which felt as if it were lighting up the world.
Hilda opened her eyes. Morning arrived.
She rose to her feet, completely well rested.
Throughout the night, she kept a tight grip on the statue, without a hint the talisman fell off.
It was an odd sensation, but she slept well.
The day itself passed by surprisingly uneventfully.
She walked around outside holding the statue, watching the way branches danced against the wind, noting the way the hedges seemed to reach out as their branches grew.
For such an out of the way path, the hedges all seemed remarkably well trimmed.