[Cally's] Scars

[Faith Augustin]

25th Ymiden, 717

"Hey Pash," Trudi said, leaning on his and resting her head on his shoulder. She was a truly dreadful flirt and she enjoyed flirting with Pash nearly as much as she enjoyed flirting with... every other man and half the women who came in here. Of course, her absolute favorite person in the world to flirt with was Padraig. That was like shooting fish in a barrel to the wicked young waitress. However, she seemed almost serious, which was as close as she got. "Boss wants to see you."

Faith was in her office. It was a small, very neat office where everything had a place and was in it. She was a very controlled, very disciplined and very organized young woman, there was no doubt. Faith was sitting waiting for him, not behind the desk but sitting in one of the three overstuffed and comfortable armchairs in the room, arranged around a low table. While she waited for him, she was just checking through some orders and so on, so she had pieces of parchment in her hands. On the table in front of her was a jug with fruit juice.

The door to the office was open and she smiled as Pash walked up to it. "Hello Pash. Come in. Thank you for popping in, I'm sorry to interrupt you." Always polite, always had been so and Faith was unlikely to ever change. She looked at Pash and motioned to the jug. "Would you like a drink?"

When she had made him as comfortable as she could, Faith smiled. As was her habit, she sat with a very straight back and her hands folded in her lap. "I was born in Andaris. On the trial I was born, they handed me over to the slavers and took their money. I don't know why." She smiled, a soft and genuine smile, then held out her hands.

"The tattoos mark me as blessed by Famula. The nails by Vri. One of Vri's blessings is to allow me to remember everything. Every detail. From the moment I was born." Her hands folded back in her lap and she gave a slight, rather mirthless smile. "That was how I learned how old I am. What my name would have been. They took me to Athart and there I was trained until I was seventeen arcs old." She was determined, it seemed, to say what she had to say. Faith was usually a quiet young woman, but this was something she needed to say. Now that he knew.

"I was sold to an undertaker, who took me back to Andaris and finished my training." Faith looked down at her hands, then lifted her head again and this time she did not drop her gaze. "It was the twentieth of Ymiden last arc, 716, that I was allowed out to meet free people for the first time in my life. In Athart, I knew other slaves and my owners. In Andaris I lived, ate and slept in the room with the corpses. Then, I was allowed out." She smiled at him and seemed, indeed was, genuinely happy when she said it. "No free person will ever understand what it is to see the world for the first time as an adult. But that is what I did. Then, I was bought by a noble lord, who kept me as his personal slave until he gave me my freedom. On the 121st Vhalar."

With a smile, she recalled that time. "Padraig had been my tutor since the beginning of Vhalar. When I was given my freedom I ran to him. I was branded four times in total, Moseke healed me of the brands and the scars I had." She looked at him and opened her hands in a gesture of almost- surrender. "I do not speak of it because here, I am just me. But if I was you, I would have questions and would not know how to ask them. So, ask away, it is of no bother at all."

Either Faith felt nothing at all about her slavery or she had an impossibly good grip on her emotions. Yet, she was not tense in the way that someone who repressed them was. She was calm and placid, happy to talk.

[Pash Raj'oriq]

Pash was tired, stretched thin, worn.

He’d done his level best to hold it all together over the past few trials, but everything had honestly been a lot to process. Maybe it showed on the surface a little, the slow creep of broodiness that he was prone to letting swallow him up in difficult times. This particular darkness was not creative in nature for once and he struggled to deal with it all in ways he’d chosen to keep to himself, most likely to his own detriment.

Despite this, he showed up to Cally’s on time. Early even, as was his usual habit. Dressed and clean and prepared as if, on the surface, everything was fine.

The seafaring minstrel did not, however, feel at all like returning Trudi’s flirtatious banter. Usually, it was fun and amusing, though slowly feeling out of place the more time he purposefully made to spend with Kali’rial, but even outside of that small, strange thing, it would be clear to the outspoken server that Pash was not in the mood. Her words did not encourage him.

Maybe Faith had noticed. Maybe his playing had been off. Maybe someone had complained.

He he nodded without so much as a witty comment and slunk his way to his dark-haired employer’s office, fingers already worrying restlessly at the woven strap of his lute that hugged comfortingly across the clean, crisp fabric of his shirt. He made to hover in the doorway, but it was open and Faith saw him. She was sitting in a comfy side chair and not her desk and he returned her smile as he joined her by the small table.

He was so fired.

“It’s no’ interruption.” He sat, sliding the lute off of his shoulder and setting it beside him against the chair. He rubbed calloused palms against the soft leather of his knees before figuring out how to hold them still there. Pash looked to the pitcher, normally lagoon blue gaze darker than usual, cloudy, though he nodded and indicated he wouldn’t object to a drink, even if it was just juice, fortunately or not, “Aye, thank you.”

The tall Biqaj attempted to settle, but it proved difficult. Other than his father’s shipyard, Faith was quite literally his only formal employer. He’d traveled so much and made his living more from busking on street corners and city squares or playing rowdy taverns that he’d never bothered looking for regular employment. His life as a musician had been much more of a wild ride—what compelled him to do something so tame here in Scalvoris Town? He wasn’t sure. He hadn't quite put a finger on it yet, but it dug under his skin and rumbled through his thoughts more often as of late. Faith was so well composed that if he was the type, he would have been jealous. The shorter, younger, paler human sat with a poise and clearly had all of her thoughts collected. Her self-discipline was well-honed while Pash was a feral thing—so much sea brine and salty wind, late nights and far too many drinks, impulsive creativity and insatiable curiosity.

She’d already made up her mind.

He was so fired. So so fired. Damn it all. He was not cut out for this sort of thing.

Faith opened her mouth and it looked as though Pash may have actually leaned in—leaned in!—to hear the words he expected to hear wash up against his pointed ears.

Only they did not come.

Instead, she began to talk about things he had not asked to hear, to say things he did not know he needed to know, to share about herself in a way he had not at all expected. Andaris. Athart. Slavery. Immortal Favors. Brands. Freedom. Healing. And, of course, Padraig.

The salty bard blinked, not interrupting, restlessness washing away from him as he listened, a stillness of concentration that was rare but possible when he truly desired it to happen. If he could do nothing else right, he could listen, hearing more than words but also watching expression, feeling feelings, seeing beyond the surface that people often hid behind. Faith was honest, hiding nothing, and so damn calm he might as well have taken a nap. The calmness as the word slave was used out loud in the room was indescribably refreshing. The Ne’Haer-born Biqaj may have even sighed about it, feeling a weight he refused to see himself as even carrying wash away like so much sand under the tide.

“Look,” he balked at her assumption that he had questions, a cautioned expression creasing its way into his tired, pretty face, “if this ‘s ‘bout th’ other trial an’ everythin’ that happened, I—” He already knew everything. He knew everything and more. In some ways, invisible, wordless, indescribably magical ways, he knew more than everything. Probably more about Padraig’s own feelings for her than either of them knew for themselves because he’d seen it, felt it, desperately tried to rescue it, “—I’m sorry. Things got outta hand an’ … aye, well … y’know th’ rest from someone’s mouth other ‘n mine.”

He was sorry. For what? He didn’t know how to say or what he should say, how much of himself to give away. Did she want to hear it all from him, too? Did he have to relive it again? Was she wanting him to admit to something specific? He chewed the inside of his cheek.

“Faith, I grew up in Ne’Haer. Slavery, to me, is ugly, wrong, impossible t’ agree to. I can’t say I understand what drives anyone t’ think that puttin’ some thinkin’, feelin’, breathin’ person into that kind o’ position ‘s at all th’ right ‘r sane thing t’ do. So, while I thank y’ for sharin’ your life with me, y’ don’ have t’ justify anythin’ to me. You’ve clearly overcome all th’ ugliness that’s been thrown at you, an’ it seems like th’ Immortals agree.”

Pash didn’t quite smile, but his expression was kind, genuine, appreciative.

“Why did y’ go an’ tell me this now?”

When was she going to tell him he was fired?

[Faith Augustin]

He was sorry? Faith shook her head and looked at him with a calm expression, as was her usual; not her always, but her usual. "I consider it good advice never to apologise for doing the best you can in the moment," she smiled, just a slight smile. He was older than her, she considered. In some ways, he knew more about the world than her. In other ways, he had no clue and she was grateful that he didn't. He grew up in Ne'haer? Somewhere where slavery was absolutely not allowed she knew. It had been in Ne'haer that Moseke healed her of her brands and scars.

With a tilt of her head, though, Faith looked at Pash and listened to his words. More than that, though, she watched him; how he moved, how he spoke. He asked her why she told him all this, now, and Faith smiled. "A number of reasons, I suppose." Certainly nothing so complex as just one answer, never that. "Because if you're going to know, I'd like to own that. Just the word, the knowledge itself can give rise to wondering, thoughts, questions. As an academic, I understand the importance of a comprehensive definition." She smiled, her expression just slightly mischievous.

Then, she sipped her drink and put it down on the table. Looking at it, she seemed to study how the condensation trickled down the glass and she breathed in.

"Whilst that is a reason, it is not the main one." There was no point to deny it. She looked down at her hands and a hundred memories fell in on her. Faith would not share them, she was fundamentally a very private woman. Only Padraig ever really saw her, of the people in her life at this moment. Yet, for all that she was private, she was also a compassionate individual who understood pain in ways that no one of her age really should.

One trial, she promised herself, one trial there would be no more slavery.

"When I was first free, I lived in a world that I had seen but not truly experienced; that I could define, but did not understand." Oh, how true that was. The young woman smiled as she recalled the first time that she had gone out shopping on her own, with her own money and she had returned with fabric, yarn and a spelunking kit. Things which she had seen and thought might be useful. So many firsts, so many things which other people took for granted because they had always known them, yet Faith had come to the conclusion that she was just worse at hiding her confusion.

"I told you it because it seems to me that what happened on Immortals Tongue was like living in a world which none of you understood, albeit briefly." Faith shrugged slightly and then spoke the truth of it, "I wanted to ask you how you are."

[Pash Raj'oriq]

“You’re assumin’ that I did th’ best I could, which ‘s, o’ course,” the tall Biqaj exhaled, looking away from Faith’s silvery gaze to his hands, to his fingers curled white-knuckled into his knees, “a generous assumption. M’haps what I thought was best an’ what actually was best weren’t at all sailin’ th’ same current. But, I believe th’ sayin’ goes that hindsight ‘s th’ clearer view o’ things, eh? This clearer view, it’s—”

Pash was slow to look up, his normal, suave self-confidence tucked away like a sail flaked for storage. He had patience for anyone but himself. If the taste of failure was sour, the flavor of humility was bitter. He disliked both in a way that had few words, though, the truth was that neither was at all a new experience. The magnitude was simply exponentially greater than anything he’d found himself caught up in before. He’d wasted so much time in the shallows where the water was clear and warm. The cold depths of open water were far from safe, and the moment he’d attempted to swim so far, he’d nearly drown. Had drown, in some ways. But lived.

How was he?

“—I’m tired.”

So damn tired.

Exhausted.

The seafaring minstrel shifted in his seat to actually lean back in it instead of sitting up, releasing himself from the tension of waiting to be dismissed, of waiting to be told he knew where the exit was and how he should take it. His hands moved from his knees to rest on the arms of the chair, fingers of his left hand unable to keep themselves from tapping at a staccato pace without sound,

What kind of answer did Faith want to hear?

His gaze was cloudy when he finally met her own, though his baritone voice was not petulant so much as uncomfortable, stirred. His first answer was, obviously, blatantly, selfishly a physical one—he’d always looked make sure his base needs were met, he’d always lived a life for himself while justifying his questionably hedonistic decisions by at least attempting to make sure others enjoyed the ride with him. By Zanik’s prowess, surely even Kali could see that? He’d seen himself truly for what felt like the first time—though surely it wasn’t, was it?—on the Immortal’s Tongue. He’d seen himself in a light that he did not, not at all, yet have words to describe, let alone the internal discipline to deal with properly.

Pash chewed the inside of his cheek, letting a silence hang between them for a moment because he knew his answer was not enough,

“Faith, I’m no’ ignorant t’ th’ invisible things—th’ Immortals ‘re real an’ they do their business here among mortals, goin’ so far ‘s to mark them an’ make children with them. To what end, I don’ know. But d’ you, either?” His tone was not accusatory, aware now of her full experience with the Immortals who’d not only given her favor, but healed her in their kindnesses. Did she know why, though, other than their whim or personality? Were their emotions or purposes something a mortal could really completely understand? He doubted it, but that didn’t keep him from wanting to know more, to feel a connection with them, to be a part of something greater than himself. Because he did, his insatiable curiosity perhaps fueled by the longing to be caught up in a story that was not just a mundane tale told on mortal lips, a song that faded with his last breath.

“Magic ‘s alive an’ somethin’ else entirely, twistin’ its way into m’ existence because I wanted it, because I wanted more o’ myself, but also more ‘f others. I asked for it, an’ while it’s temptin’ to do what I want with it, to turn m’self into somethin’ hungry an’ horrible with th’ power I have, I don’ want to be somethin’ ugly. I don’ want to destroy ‘r steal ‘r force others t’ do what I want, even if sometimes, sometimes, that strangely feels good. It’s no’. I’d rather help, mend, an’ protect, but usually—a’right, it feels like always—that jus’ ends up bein’ ‘bout me, m’self, an’ I.”

Pash smirked. He was just a mortal, after all.

“So, how ‘m I?”

A sea-weathered hand reached up to run over his face, calloused fingers dragging through the dark hair on his cheek, eyes fluttering for a moment as he attempted to put his Rakahi feelings into Common words, into a Common word,

“Stormy.”

[Faith Augustin]

"I do," she said, when he spoke of the Immortals and whether she knew to what end they were here. "Each Immortal embodies particular things, aspects. Domains. Famula is Service, Souls, Resurrection and Blood. She's why I do this." Faith smiled and gestured around to Cally's. "It isn't that Famula represents those things. She is them. So, when I serve in her name, I give her worship and I think that maybe feeds her, or, makes her feel me, my soul. Which she can then look at and she recognises that I walk in step with her. I want to serve, living and dead, I want to serve." Faith glanced, just once off to the left behind Pash. She said nothing about it, but the glance was there.

"So, I serve her and do that by serving mortals wherever I can, dead or alive. She rewards me with her blessing which both shows me her pleasure and allows me to serve her better." Faith smiled slightly, not quite sure how else to explain it. "I fit her, she fits me. We make each other stronger, I think." She had to admit, and she said it next. "But the owner who gave me this name did it as a lesson that I am nothing without faith. It defines me." So yes, she believed that she understood the Immortals. They were the very personification of what they were and that defined how they behaved. Mortals were in synch with them or not, and so relationships grew.

Faith looked down at her hands as he described magic and she had a rather sad smile on her face. "Famula forbids magic. She does not tell me why, but then I haven't asked." Her expression grew more amused at that last bit. It was true, she had not. Faith held out her strange hands. Tattoos on the wrists, strange fingernails and leaves on the palms, they were odd and unlike the rest of her.

"Padraig has told me about all that happened on Immortals' Tongue, from his own perspective." Faith smiled, aware that the two of them had a different perspective on some things. "And I wanted to ask you if it would be helpful, really. I have ..."

How to word the next bit? I have been beaten until I learned? I have been trained by my owners? I have endured things you can not possibly imagine and so...

All probably non-starters.

"A skill, I suppose. Tricks and techniques. Ways to control and overcome my emotions, to put them to one side in the moment, to be explored again later." She smiled slightly and her pale silver eyes seemed almost amused when she spoke the next words. "From the earliest time, tears meant the cane or, once older, the whip. The first time I laughed was with Padraig, it was not allowed. So, I learned and I learned well. I can teach you, if you like and if it would help? Only if it would help." She gave a sudden, genuine grin.

"I'll use different techniques, I promise."

[Pash Raj'oriq]

Of course she did.

Pash shifted uncomfortably in his chair, suddenly feeling like a child even though the woman in front of him was probably barely older than his youngest brother back home in Ne’Haer. He was the eldest, it was true, and while he’d looked out for his siblings and cousins when he had been a child, he perhaps didn’t always act the part of adult when he didn’t have to. He grew up wanting for nothing—his parents both successful in their businesses, surrounded by family who cared, and part of a culture that valued freedom—and he’d certainly not been shy about taking advantage of such a life. He still did. When the wind didn’t blow in his favor, he could always sail elsewhere. Not everyone had been handed the same choices as he had. Not everyone had choices at all.

The tall Biqaj chewed the inside of his cheek to keep from commenting about the Immortals and magic, aware that many did not approve. He’d always assumed they were jealous of such power, that they alone wanted to bless or curse mortality as they saw fit instead of watching mortals take such power for themselves. He’d heard tell that the spark that was passed to him through initiation was alive because it was part of those who came before the Immortals, the Originals, and while he wasn’t sure if that was at all true or not, he could see how such a truth would cause magic to be out of favor with the Immortals as they were.

His tide pool eyes narrowed at Faith’s mention of Padraig’s telling. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to argue that all over again, to run a whole ship aground chasing one little fish. Pash frowned, but said nothing, the difficulty of such an exercise in silence visible on his face.

“Teach me what—” He was confused. He’d felt all the emotions of a slave (no, he’d been inundated, flooded, drowned in them), and while Delta was not Faith and their lives were clearly very different, she was his only point of reference when he thought of the internal emotional turmoil one must feel in captivity when surrounded by those who were free. The last word trickled out, almost by accident, a hiss more than a collection of real syllables, as thick with opinion as it was with his Ne’Haer Rakahi accent, “—oppression?”

Pash could read between the lines. He knew that she cared and was offering to help in some way. Because he’d made a mistake. He’d been swallowing that bilge water for days. The reminder on someone else’s face, in their tone, and in his dark-haired employer’s bright silver gaze was a hot knife, cauterizing wounds he was more than willing to just let bleed.

Feelings were meant to be felt. Didn’t he already have to remind Kali’rial of this? To put them all away, to deny them, was denying an integral part of someone’s existence. Faith had been a slave. He was confident had he heard the details—and he did not want to, not one trill of it—he would have entirely disagreed with any and every methodology presented. Of course to exercise power over the will and the body of another, one had to deny feelings, deny everything, deny the other was even a person if the archaeologist’s slave was any example, if Delta was an example. Even in manipulating the threads of another’s tangle, these same principles were mirrored on a much more minor scale, a scale that somehow, over the arcs, the salty bard had found more sensible to justify over the blatant wrong of slavery. Yes, he’d overstepped, yes, he’d been overwhelmed, and yes, his coping mechanisms were piss poor on occasion—well, always: too sensitive for his own good, to prone to turning inward in destructive ways—but there surely was a medium between the extremes he felt he lived in and she was suggesting, even if it was his own misinterpretation to make.

She could just fire him instead. Not drag this out. For Immortals’ sake.

“M’thinks I should hear y’ out, aye, but—” the seafaring musician exhaled, looking down at his hands, at his sandals, at the floor, at anything else to look away from her. It wasn’t that he didn't need to change, he did. He knew it. It stared at him in the mirror. It thrummed with his pulse. It grated in the baritone of his voice. He couldn’t be a candle burning at both ends forever, regardless of how fun the ride was. He’d probably sailed that current long enough. He knew.

But.

He had concerns:

“—I don’ know if I’ll agree with ‘t. I get that you've got a big heart—a servant's heart, eh?—an' that maybe y’ care tho’ I don’ deserve it after what happened—thank y’ much—but, I—I don’ know. I jus’ don’ know. You’ve jus’ told me your history o’ freedom ‘s short—an arc—are y’ jus’ as put together on th’ inside as y’ show on th’ outside? Jus’ ‘cause y’ can put everythin’ into boxes an’ barrels, does that make it right? Or good? Or better? Physical healin’ isn’t everythin’. Is this th’ blind leadin’ th’ blind here?”

[Faith Augustin]

Sometimes, Faith thought, she just didn't understand people. When she had been a slave, if she had been asked a question then it was expected and demanded that she answered it. Yet, Pash asked a question, didn't he? Do you, either? He has asked that and she had answered, yet he squirmed in his chair like he wanted to escape a boring class. It appeared to be one of those questions which was asked and an answer was only required if it was to agree with the opinion of the person asking.

However, if his first question was in fact a poorly disguised, and ultimately futile, attempt at garnering her agreement, it was his next question which gave rise to a raise of her eyebrow. Faith had that rare gift, the ability to quirk a single brow and she utilised it to the fullest as he asked her if she was proposing that she would teach him oppression. His frown at the mention of Padraig's perspective was not lost on her. However, she did not speak for a moment, letting him fidget and squirm before finally he would continue.

Continue he did, and Faith sat with her hands folded and watched him. Until he finished, with his beautiful analogy about the blind leading the blind. Once he had finished, Faith was quiet for a moment. When she did speak, her voice was quiet and calm, she smiled slightly. "There is nothing more to hear me out with, Pash," she said, looking at him. "I made an offer, you jumped to a hundred different conclusions, most of which are incorrect if I am understanding them. The offer remains."

Faith's gaze was calm on him. Did he not see that there was only one of them shuffling, mumbling, hissing out words and overflowing with unchecked emotion? There was only one person in this room who was oppressed, but as was so often the case, he was in a cage of his own making.

Sitting back, she looked at him and considered her words. It was probably near to a half-bit before she spoke. To address those conclusions individually," which was almost certainly best, she thought. Looking at him Faith wondered just how to say this in such a way that she was not going to offend him. "I might be wrong about what it is that you can do, Pash, about Empathy, but there is one thing that I know without a doubt." In fairness, she considered, there was more than one, but this was the relevant one to this moment. "Seeing something is not understanding it. You have seen slavery, for example, all of you who were on that island. But there is a reason why only one of you jumped in front of that girl."

She watched him and smiled, giving ever such a slight shrug of her shoulders, "Am I what I seem to be to you? No, of course I'm not. Because I don't know you and I choose which parts of me I show you." Faith's smile was very genuine when she spoke. "Am I emotionally completely sorted and absolutely in control at all times? Thank all the Immortals no. I am terrified of heights, I find it incredibly hard to sit still when I'm relaxed. I still wake up sometimes and am afraid that this freedom has all been a dream. And I love Padraig in a way that physically hurts it is so intense. When I thought that he had slept with Yolande, because I did not understand what had happened, only that you had seen something when you intruded, I felt like I would break into a thousand pieces there and then."

There was no accusation, no concern from her about that. Both Padraig and Pash had been talking about something they knew , she had stepped in to the middle of a conversation and suffered a miscommunication because of it. "I was in so much pain that I had to use one of the techniques I know to put the emotion to one side, so that I could function. I had to function or people might have died." All simple enough. Faith breathed in then and told him the simple truth. "We went home and tended to Luna and when finally she was asleep and we were alone, I sobbed and he held me while I did. Because I needed to. It had to come out, it always does." She smiled, but was not seeing Pash or even the room as she spoke the simple truth for her. "And he always holds me when it does."

She shook her head slightly and tried to understand what it was that drove the man in front of her to speak as though he knew. "I told you Padraig told me about what happened from his perspective and you frowned. You frowned because his perspective is wrong. To you, it is. I'm sorry, Pash, but seeing his emotions does not give you the right to tell him how he experienced them, to tell him what he felt." She smiled and held out her hands. "Thanks to the blessing I have, I can feel Padraig's emotions, and hear his thoughts when we are close enough together. Not look at them, feel them. They wash over me like waves and they are beautiful."

There was a single point to what she said and it was clear to her. "When he told me what he experienced, how he experienced it, he was telling the absolute truth. Surely, that has to have more validity than what you saw when you consider we are talking about his experience? Maybe, just maybe, love conquered on that trial." Was that such an unlikely thing? No, she did not think so. Not when one considered what they had already overcome between them. Whether Pash believed it or not, well that was up to him and not her business or her concern. They knew, that was all that mattered.

"It would be easy to think that, because you can see others emotions you understand them. But put that sentence out there in the cold light of the trial and examine it. Truly. It's nonsensical. " Once more, Faith smiled, her expression genuine. "I'm not trying to offend you and if I do, I'm sorry. But you take a look into my husband's emotions and see how someone has messed with them, and you put it right. For that, we are both grateful. But that doesn't mean you understand how he experienced it. You know that I was once a slave and assume that means I'm messed up?" It was all just backwards logic as far as Faith could see, the assumption that seeing something meant you understood it better than the person who experienced it? It was like watching a slave being beaten and saying you understood pain. It was, in short, nonsense. "The only thing I would ask is that you consider before you suggest that I would ever teach oppression. It's offensive, please don't suggest it again."

Faith leaned forward and, for the second time, kissed him on the cheek. "Bottom line, the offer is open, it will remain so. However, the other reason I've asked you to pop in is the same as I've done or will do with everyone else. We've done well last season, there's a bonus for all of the employees, it's in your salary and I think we'll do the same this season how things are going, so look forward to the next salary, too." Faith waited to see what he would say, if anything. It was possible he would decide he would walk, she supposed and if he did that was his choice. She'd be sad to see him go if he chose that, not just because of how well he had gone down with the clientele. "It's my way of saying thank you for what you do here. It's appreciated."

[Pash Raj'oriq]

Suddenly, strangely enough, Pash’s hands craved a hammer. He knew what to do with one of those. Once he’d proven himself too untamable for Ne’Haer’s well-structured educational system, his father took him to the shipyard. A lanky, restless thing, he was allowed to climb through ship skeletons and fetch tools. Traek would tell him things like how many nails he wanted and show the boy with his thick, calloused fingers how long of ones he needed, making the boy sit to count them, one by one, into his patient, rough palms when he returned. Back and forth across the shipyard—in the rain, in the sun, in the cold—the boy went on adventures and yet learned the ways of the world while he did so, helping his father and uncles work without anyone ever calling it work or even calling it school. Eventually, he proved himself old enough and strong enough to have his own hammer, to fetch his own nails, and to shape wood into skeletons and skeletons into ships.

A hammer served two purposes: one could put something together with it or one could tear something apart.

Faith was the hammer, but which purpose was she serving?

He said nothing. He didn't interrupt and he didn’t squirm. What was there to say, really?

So he listened, but he could not hide his discomfort from his face—there truly was a reason the tall Biqaj was abysmally terrible at cards. He thought about the first day of Ymiden and meeting Kali’rial in the Square after work, how she’d spent all of Ashan awkwardly avoiding him after all they’d shared at (and after) the World’s End Festival and yet how she was suspiciously jealous of him dressed in his nice clothes as if he’d been out carousing with someone else for all those ten-trials without her. Oh, how he’d angered her in the moonlight in front of the fountain, telling her how he thought her grandparents had sheltered her and shut her in to protect her from their hurt over the loss of her parents, how she’d heard him say her Elders were wrong when he’d only meant her elders. How the mouth that had kissed him had insulted him, and yet how quick she had been to forgive him, even though they’d both come to realize they did not see eye to eye.

It was fine to disagree, acceptable even, and, occasionally a little attractive so long as the discrepancies weren’t total depravities instead. Her anger had washed over him and he had felt it. He had considered it a storm worth weathering because he thought he knew—and he had been correct—what kind of sunlit shores lay on the other side.

Faith’s comment about Padraig being the only one capable or willing to step in front of the slave girl stung. More than stung. It hurt. It twisted his face and he bit his lip because he was not going to cry—again—over all those things that had happened, not now, not here. He’d done that already and washed it all away with far more alcohol than he should have. Maybe he deserved those words, that comparison. Still, tears welled anyway because this was not a hand he could win, but he held it together and again did not blurt out his vehement objections, no matter how hotly they burned his throat in hopes of dripping off his tongue. Maybe he could, indeed, never compare to a man whose Immortal favor allowed him to create weapons of light and lead strangers boldly down cliff sides. Maybe, just maybe, for all that Empathy had given him, it had secretly taken away his ability to feel the depths of things Padraig felt. Or, at least, maybe that was the ultimate fear that kept him awake at night, that drove him to drink too much, and that kept him from really committing his heart to anyone. So, maybe, just maybe, he deserved that. Maybe it was true. His words had been equally unkind and he knew it. But maybe, just maybe, Faith was also biased. She had every right to be.

The beams of the hull of his chest ached anyway. They’d ached for trials now, and he inhaled as if he had something to say, only to exhale with a deliberate slowness to keep himself from saying it. He didn’t step in front of that slave, no. Instead, he foolishly had stepped into Delta’s head, into her tangle of feelings that he’d vastly underestimated and been completely ill prepared for. To stop her. To calm her. To help her. He did not put his body on the line, no, not like Padraig.

He had put his heart. His sanity.

And he had failed.

Had he told anyone? No. Only Kali knew that. Only Kali knew about the wash of someone else’s feelings that had consumed his senses and broken his spirit, that had left the bitter taste of overstepping in his mouth despite his best intentions at the time. He had not found it in himself to tell anyone else, mostly because he knew they wouldn’t understand. Obviously, no one did. This proved that. No one but another Empath, really, but it’d been arcs since he’d been around one of those—well, one he could talk to anyway. Clearly whoever had been the Empath on the Immortal’s Tongue was not someone he could confide in. Then again, Ari’nne and himself hadn’t really worked out, either. He’d hoped she’d been the only price he’d had to pay for the spark with a life of it’s own inside him. Sometimes it felt as though he was still paying, that he would keep paying. It was probably true.

So did he assume every other slave was messed up? Damn right he did.

The truth was simple: so was everyone else to some degree. Sometimes more. Sometimes less.

“I’m sorry for my choice o’ words. I didn’t want t’ hurt you, no’ really.” Pash finally said, quietly, after weathering the storm of his own inviting. He did not feel like searching for sunlit shores, but he gripped the rigging of the little sloop of his heart for hope that they existed over the horizon. He reached for his lute and held it, which may have had all the appearances of him preparing to get up and leave. He did not. Instead, he set the instrument in his lap as if he were about to play it, cradling it instead as if it was an old friend, as if he needed a hug. For a moment, he thought of all the times he’d wanted to smash it to bits—the trials his fingers couldn’t get the chords right, the trials his mind couldn’t put together the song he wanted, the trials he’d not made a single coin to eat on—and how every time he’d reach that point he wanted to break the beautiful old thing, he’d think of his grandfather. How the old man had made the lute himself, laid the mother-of-pearl into the hand carved patterns of waves, stringed it, played it, loved it, and then given it to him. Every time he thought on those things, he couldn’t bring himself to smash it. He often realized he needed a walk instead.

“Y’ said yourself, seein’ somethin’ isn’t the same ‘s understandin’ it. So,” one calloused hand lifted from his lute to wave between them, fingers waggling, “here we are, lookin’, eh? When we both understand, then I’ll take y’ up on your offer, then m’haps we’ll be in a place o’ learnin’ instead o’ here. Until then, m’haps we both need to do more than jus’ look, y’know, at each other. Because I’m no’ gonna learn if I don’ wanna listen, an’ you’re no’ gonna teach me anythin’ ‘f y’ don’ really know where I’m lackin’. Aye, I know, I know, it looks pretty damn obvious t’ me, too—b’fore y’ go sayin’ that to me because I get it—but, still, there’s more here,” he hooked a thumb to his chest for emphasis, “than jus’ what y’ see on th’ surface, too. So we’re even there.”

Pash stood then. He had to work, not escape. This was an impasse and he wasn’t going to overstep today. He hovered, though, in order to finish hearing Faith out, in order to make sure she was not, in fact, going to tell him he knew where the door out of the restaurant was and that he should use it. Because he didn't want to. While it was an exceptional kindness for her to follow up so much heaviness with monetary gain, the talk of a bonus did not stir Pash in the ways that were, perhaps, more expected or accepted by most,

“Y’know, to be honest, short o’ payin’ th’ harbormaster an’ eatin’, I’m no’ here for th’ coin. I may be Biqaj, but I don’ chase nel. I don’ have room for much anyways. Give m’ bonus to someone who needs it, I know y’ probably have some list o’ folks tucked away for that sort o’ thing. Y’can thank me by lookin’ past all this salt an’ sea spray so y’ can really make sure y’ see what needs fixin’. An’ I can promise I'll do th’ same in return.”

[Alistair]

Faith

Knowledge
Persuasion: Making an offer of help
Rhetoric: Factual accounts
Storytelling: The story of who I was
Storytelling: Telling an emotional story without emotion

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Fame: +1 (giving a bonus), +1 (giving the refused bonus to charity)
Devotion: N/A

Points: 15

Pash

Knowledge
Rhetoric: Listening to difficult life stories
Intimidation: Rudeness as self-defense
Deception: Minimizing one’s internal struggles
Persuasion: Let’s get to know each other better first
Etiquette: Apologizing when you’re hurtful
Etiquette: Respectfully declining a bonus

Faith: Blessed by Famula
Faith: Blessed by Vri
Faith: Trained as a slave in Athart
Faith: Met free people for the first time on 20 Ymiden 716
Faith: Set free on 121 Vhalar 716
Faith: Moseke healed her brands
Faith: “There is a reason why only one of you jumped in front of that girl."
Padraig: Faith’s tutor before fiancé

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Fame: N/A
Devotion: N/A

Points: 15

Comments: If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please let me know.