Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

They had arrived home on the 33rd of Zi'da and Padraig had continued to worry. She knew that the throw from the horse had banged her head, mostly because she had a splitting headache from the moment she woke in the morning to the time she went to bed at night. But equally, she felt better each trial and she was delighted to be home.

Home.

That was a wonderful word to the former slave and, more than that, it was a beautiful place. The room which he had paid to be built on to the house was incredibly significant to her, it was a place where he had given her time and space to be. In that room, she had been able to think and make her own decisions for the first time in her life. What made it more significant was how very much he loved her and wanted her with him, but had nonetheless put her needs first. So, he had given her the space she needed to work out what it was that she wanted and he had been clear with her every step of the way. Whatever she decided, that was what he wanted for her ~ even if it wasn't him. She could think of no greater love, no better way of expressing it than he had gifted her and, when they arrived back to their small home in Andaris, as much as she had loved her room, Faith had been more than content to move herself and her wardrobe into what had once been his but had quickly become their room.

Waking up in his arms each morning was amazing to her, and she knew it was the same for him. But she wanted to make a gesture. To show him how much his gesture had meant and would always mean.

So, the last few trials she had been busy, but in a surreptitious way. When he'd been in classes, she'd popped out here, during her lunch break from work, she'd gone there. Then, on this particular trial, she'd only had a few breaks of work to do and he'd had to work almost all trial, which was just about perfect. So, she had spent the trial busy and was waiting when he got home. She had, in fact, been dozing quietly. It was unusual for her, but these trials she needed to sleep more; it was the only time that the headaches left her. But the sound of his key in the lock woke her and her smile lit with delight at the sight of him.

As Padraig made his way into the house they shared, the warmth of the fire which crackled in the hearth and the smell of something delicious in the oven assaulted his senses. Faith was finally, it seemed, paying attention to his fussing because she was sitting on the couch with her legs raised and stretched out, a blanket she had made draped over her. Her face evidenced the delight she felt as he walked in, kicking off his shoes and shrugging out of his coat. "Hello you", she welcomed him and there might be just a few things which he noticed in that moment. First, Faith was sitting on the couch. Lounging, in fact. Which was undoubtedly a good thing in his mind, but they didn't have a couch. Or, more precisely, they hadn't that morning when he left. They hadn't had two matching armchairs, either, come to that, but there they were. Arranged around the fire, the furniture had been given crocheted covers, delicate throws and a nice, homely feel. Faith didn't like lace or fuss, preferring plain, comfortable furniture with small and perhaps surprisingly sophisticated touches.

The other thing that he might notice was that she was wearing a strappy vest top and a pair of loose trousers she had made. It didn't bother her at home that this meant her brands were visible, she had most genuinely stopped thinking about them when she was with him. That was a major change, but she had realised that hiding them actually just drew attention to them.

Lounging on the sofa, her face showed the delight she felt at having been able to spring this on him and Faith beamed. It took every ounce of willpower not to jump up and kiss him. But instead, she gave him a moment to take stock of what she'd done in here. Because that was just the beginning and she prayed and hoped that he liked it. She couldn't resist it, though, as he stepped in she stood up, with care in case she did that too fast and got dizzy, and moved over to him, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck and kissing him gently. "I took you at your word when you told me that it's ours. So, I've made some changes", her voice was a whisper and she lingered in her greeting, kissing him slowly. Ironic as it was, she wore an almost constant frown at the moment from the headache which continued, but today that frown was less. Not gone yet, but better. On the low table in the center of the room there was a rolled up piece of parchment, but what it contained, she did not yet reveal, waiting to see what he thought of the changes and what he had to say about them.

He'd be happier if she hadn't insisted on going back to work, she knew. But having taken the time on the campaign, albeit that there was some arrangement somewhere between the Iron Hand and Guiseppe at the restaurant, Faith felt that she had to. Besides, she had asked with a genuine expression of confusion on her face, what on Idalos would she do all trial in the house? There was only so much clearing up and rearranging that she could do, after all. But both Guiseppe and Alfonse had been good about keeping her shifts light which she could not deny she was grateful for. It also meant that she'd been able to arrange what she had. He nearly caught her yesterday, when he'd popped home to make sure she was alright, but thankfully the spare room door was closed and he didn't see it if it wasn't right in front of him.

He looked, of course, at her first and she saw the glance he gave to her clothes. His surprise at what she was wearing, though, was very minor in comparison to his feelings when he saw the furniture. The couch, the armchairs, she wasn't sure that he even recognised that the low table was new too.

Thoughts, or anything resembling lucid ones anyhow, fled from her as his arms wrapped around her and their lips met. She both lost herself and found herself in this man, she knew and the intensity of it delighted and amazed her; sometimes, it terrified her a little too. However, in that moment, it was like coming home. "I don't like to sit idle, you know me." Her eyes watched him as she responded to his point about her being busy, searching his face and she smiled at what she saw there. He liked it. She had been fairly sure that he would, but there was always that niggling doubt. "I made some new clothes for myself, some for you too. I thought it was time to." The brands, the scars on her back and the backs of her legs were part of her, part of who she was and he loved her, accepted her for the whole package that she was. "So I made what I'm comfortable in. Here, with you. And Quattro, of course." Inevitably, the cat was asleep on top of the stove. It loved it there and whilst Faith was worried that she was going to inadvertantly cook the thing, Quattro seemed quite content and moved when she needed to.

"I wanted to buy her some wooby before I did this", she explained. The cat had chewed through one of Faith's high heeled shoes, shoved at the back of the wardrobe and although it was not something she was ever likely to wear, she hadn't been amused. In fact, she had bordered on assertive with the cat and accused Quattro of 'jackassery', whatever that might be. Quattro seemed phenomenally unimpressed. "If she keeps piddling about on that stove, Padraig, she's going to be brown, not white. I thought wooby might help her. But they didn't know what I was talking about." She sighed, a most genuine sigh at their lack of understanding and her lack of ability to explain it. "I think maybe Jamal made the name of it up. I don't know. Do you sell it? It's like a substance that cats love. Wooby." Serious silver-blue eyes regarded him. "It will stop her chewing." That his arms around her did not let go was not lost on Faith and she smiled up at him, dismissing concerns for the cat for a moment. For the first time since her head had impacted with the tree, she wore no frown because she had no headache.

What brought it on? Well, that was obvious to her but he needed it explaining, evidently. "You did. You gave me so much, Padraig, and I know you think it's nothing, but it isn't. You opened your home to me so that it was ours from the trill you wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and told me to take off those ridiculous shoes which the cat has now chewed through. But I've been thinking about what your gift really was and it was space. I'd never experienced that before and it was beautiful. A physical representation of your love for me; what you are prepared to give up for me, to give to me" She appreciated all he'd done more than she had words for, she truly did."So, I made you a space. I don't need it any more, you see." The mark from Famula gave her a constant warmth, but the heat which Padraig's embrace wrapped her in was unlike anything else. "And in doing that I realised I wanted to make that space over there ours. A couch we can both curl up on, together. Not you and I, us. Armchairs which we can squeeze on to together and hide under blankets. Home is about comfort, after all, and I've knelt on enough floors. I want to sit on the couch with the man I love now." She smiled at him, her gaze soft and yet with a certainty which she had not ever had before. The contents of the spare room remained a mystery, as did the parchment on the newly purchased coffee table, but Faith was unwilling to move from here with his arms around her; she was more than willing to wait, happy to luxuriate in his arms awhile.

"Did you have a good trial at work?" Her eyes searched his and there was teasing in her expression. She didn't think he'd be able to stand still for long when there was a mystery to be solved, but she looked at him with an earnest gaze and wondered just how long he'd be able to hold out before asking.

The analogy of a hummingbird might be considered a romantic one by many women, but Faith analysed it with a very literal thought process before coming to a conclusion. "Or a grasshopper, I suppose, since I can't fly", she responded with an entirely serious face. They were never still long and jumped around all over the place, which was more accurate than flight. She had always found it hardest when she had to kneel still and if asked, she would say that was why she moved more now. "I don't know how old I am, but I think I'm about twenty. That's twenty arcs of doing things because I was instructed to by other people. I have twenty arcs of doing the things I want to do to catch up on and that is a lot of doing." Her expression was clear though, she was more than happy to have the catching up to do.

"I didn't think you'd mind", she responded when he queried her making clothes for him. "If there's any you don't like, I can take them into work and put them on the rails there. But yes, just two pairs of trousers and three shirts. They're in the wardrobe. I'll do more if you like." Her face showed her delight, though, as he described the small pouch for the cat "Yes! That's a wooby toy. Filled with wooby. Can you bring one home?" His arms around her, his deep amber eyes looking at her was a mighty powerful distraction, in truth, but she didn't want the cat to chew through anything important.

His mind was too quick, she couldn't hide it from him and he picked up on her words about his space, her space, their space and he spotted the parchment. Immediately, he asked and Faith smiled, hoping that he might have. "I told you, Padraig. You just weren't paying attention. I had plans for my old room." She would have said more, told him what those plans were, what that parchment was, but her ability to form words flew as if on wings as he turned his attention to kissing her neck. She whispered his name in a ragged, emotional outbreath and pulled herself against him. When she felt him nibbling her ear, she was lost to all reason. Had she been able to speak in a vaguely lucid manner, she'd have suggested that she'd show him what she'd done with the spare room, not to mention tell him what the parchment was about. She would show him it and tell him it all. Just....later.

But then, he stopped. Just like that, no reason that she could tell, he stopped.

"What's the matter?" Her voice betrayed the concern she felt and the confusion that went with it. She should have known that the damn strappy top was a bad idea, she thought to herself, trying to get herself under control as she realised that he was frowning and looking at the brands and the scars. She pulled back, yanking herself away from him with a harsher movement than she might have wanted, taking a step backwards and shook her head, her own frown deepening. The brands, he said. She knew it would be, and as he asked if she'd studied them lately she looked at him with an incredulous expression on her face. "No, no I haven't." Why would she, after all? She glanced around, seeking out a shawl or a jumper or something, anything, to wrap up in but she stopped as she realised that he was still talking. "What?" She raised a hand to her nose, pinching it gently, forcing herself to focus. "What are you saying? Say it again, please?"

Her brands, her scars were fainter than before? She looked at him in some disbelief and tried to get ahold of herself. She breathed in, then out again slowly, then fixed him with the kind of expression which would leave him in no doubt that she really meant her next words. "Padraig? I love you with all of me. When you kiss me like that I can't work out which way is what and I could get lost in a pair of socks." Yet another Faith analogy for the trial, it seemed. "Please, I beg you, try and understand that stopping there and having a chat about my brands doesn't make me think that the new clothes are a good idea. I'm sure that you're wrong and I'm delighted that you have paid so little attention that.... oh." The last exclamation was when she turned her arm around and looked at the brand on her shoulder. This one was the oldest of them, the one given to her at birth and it was already more faded than the others, due to it's age. But now? She turned, looking at the Venora rose on her other shoulder and there was no doubting it.

"Did you do this?" Her voice was whispered and she turned to look at him with an incredulous expression and tears standing in her eyes. "Is it some alchemy you've put in my moisturising cream or something? Padraig.. what about the scars? On my back, did you look? Are they still there?" As faint as could be, should he look really hard, yes. But the criss crossing of marks was all but disappeared. Faith twisted around to try and see, but couldn't manage it. "What can you see?"

There was a particular expression which Faith wore when she was trying to work something out. He had seen it much more when she had been his student, of course, but for a moment or two she had the slight frown of concentration and tendency to chew her lower lip which inevitably accompanied a problem in mathematics, chemistry or whatever they'd been studying. It was an entirely logical suggestion, after all, and she should be happy with it. Yet she was left with an inescapable conclusion. "For no reason that I can work out", she explained, her expression earnest and more than a little confused "I prefer hummingbird. But I maintain that grasshopper is more logical. And please, stop saying thank you. It's just about using our skills for us, isn't it? I'll fling together a couple of items of clothing, you bring the wooby." She grinned and looked at him with a teasing expression as she said the last, having accepted that she was either an illogical individual or she was missing some point about either the grasshopper or the hummingbird. Quickly, though, she came to the third conclusion and that was that, of those two options, the answer was, very probably, both.

She had not so much told him anything about the room, of course, more told him that she had plans for it. It was that pesky need to read her mind which he needed to develop and she would have told him that had she not become completely immersed in the feeling of his arms around her and the sheer intensity of her reactions to him. Which meant, also, that when she pulled away, she was upset. But even as she pulled herself away, she knew that it wasn't like him, that he didn't see the scars. Her reaction was to cover herself, but he told her not to and he was trying to get something across to her, with a most determined expression on his face. So, she stood and listened, at least gaining an understanding of what he was seeing, although she really didn't believe it until she looked herself.

When she did, though, there was no doubting that he was right and so Faith moved, letting him guide her back to the fire. As he examined her back, Faith held her breath and pulled her hair forward so that it wasn't in his way. He hadn't done it, so what, or who had? When he answered her, though, told her that the scars on her back were gone, she really didn't know how to react. She had to take a moment, to process the information. So, she took his hands and led him over to the couch that he hadn't yet actually had a chance to sit on. Perching on the edge of it, she turned to him, her hands in his and their knees touching. "I'm sorry. I should have known that wasn't what I assumed it was. That was not an acceptable way to behave, my apologies." That was the easy part, of course. "I know the answer to this, but Padraig, are you sure? I mean if all you can see is a pale thin line then you must be right. It was pretty bad back there, wasn't it?" She didn't know, in truth, how bad it was, but she suspected. "If you didn't put something into my creams or talc or something, then how?" Or perhaps, she thought, there was another question.

"Padraig, I need to ask you something and I don't think it will be comfortable for you. I'm sorry and please, don't answer if you don't want to. But I think if we know when this happened, it might help." She lifted her hand then to his cheek, focusing her attention on him. "I know they aren't important. I know that you look at me and see beauty. I understand what you mean when you say you don't see them, but Padraig, were they like this yesterday? Or the trial before? You're the only person I don't hide them from, so if you do see them, I would just like to know a time frame?" She didn't want to put him in a position of having to say anthing he didn't want to. "Don't answer if you don't want to, nothing you say can change how I feel when you look at me." Unless, she considered, he led with 'well, whilst you were sleeping last night, I was thinking how ugly that one is' or 'funny you should mention that, I was tracing a pattern of a pixie on your back scars'. Those probably wouldn't go down well. But she considered them unlikely.

The kind that didn't go away, except they had? It didn't make anything like sense to her and Faith tried to gather what information she could from him. He pointed out the simple fact of the campaign and how they were both bundled up. At the Inn, though, before they'd left? The point he made about being distracted caused a smile to lift her face, and the realisation, also, "Also, I suppose, that was the first time you saw me, or them, properly." Her expression grew teasing, though, as she added, "Or my dimples. You know, the imaginary ones you made up."

Padraig thought about it and then he came up with an idea. Faith frowned and she considered. When he spoke, though, she nodded and her expression showed her concentration. "It was Moseke. When she had spoken to us all, remember? She said that what we lacked in fighting ability we made up for in intellect and wit, that we all fought for a common cause. When she stepped down from the dais where they were talking, she came down into the crowd." Faith looked at Padraig and she looked embarrassed at her next words. "I was the first person she stopped in front of. She, well she stroked my cheek and spoke to me. 'All will be well', she said and her voice was beautiful, Padraig. 'All will be well. Just have faith.' She said that and I felt this incredible warmth pour through me. It was amazing." Faith lifted her hand to her cheek, where Moseke had touched it and she looked at Padraig incredulously.

"She touched me where the freedom brand should go. Did she.. Padraig did she know?" It was all simply overwhelming for the young woman but in a very good way and she lifted her legs onto the couch and leaned into him. His proximity and the feel of his arms around her calmed her. There were still questions to ask, though and she considered them with care and, of course, her usual unique brand of logic. "So, it is possible that they are fading slowly, or they faded this far in that moment and I simply haven't noticed. I don't think that second option is likely though. You surely would have noticed when I was in the bath with the cat, or in the woods. My arms were bare for both of those, in places, and in a number of my lessons, too." Of course it was entirely possible that Tristan would have noticed too, but Faith thought it was probably best not to mention that. He developed that strange twitch under his left eye whenever she said Tristan's name. Especially when it was in close proximity to words like 'woods' or 'cat'. Now might not be the time to mention that they really should sell or smelt her old collar and that stupid chain he'd bought. They were both silver and good quality. But not now, she considered, sitting together on the couch, his arms around her and trying to work out what was making, or had made, her scars fade and disappear.

"So, I think the thing to do, if you don't mind." She twisted around so that she was facing him. "The thing to do is for you to examine them regularly to gauge if they are fading still? Would you mind doing that?" The brands and scars upset him she knew and she didn't want to do that, but she hoped that if they were, in fact, disappearing, it might be something acceptable to him. Silver eyes searched his in an attempt to gauge his reaction. "Only if you don't mind, really."