The Wolf and The Hare

From SCross

Editor's introduction: This was a long series of roleplays that occupied about three months worth of gaming, and proved to me to be the best narrative I ever explored on Southern Cross. A few terms and caveats that I and Rosabella-player used throughout; to represent Valente's language, we've freely intermixed spanish and italian here and there.

"Poco lepri" means "little hare", and "lobo negro" means dark wolf. Other words are occasionally mixed in at certain points.

So, why should you care to read this?

First of all, the narrative itself is intense; the story of a young woman, badly broken by fate, brought under the wing of a very terrible man, and through him redeemed. It's a story of one woman's coming of age, of what happens once innocence is shattered, but life has to go on? And ultimately, it's a story of the bonds of trust and the strength they build in one another.

Warning: This story contains adult themes, language, violence, sex, and a double scoop of angst.

Contents 1 The First Throat 2 The Second Throat 3 A Wounded Hare, A Vicious Mercy 4 The Cetra's Song 4.1 The Cetra's Song, Part 1 4.2 The Cetra's Song, Part 2 4.3 The Cetra's Song, Part 3 4.3.1 Imagine you are Faruza. 4.4 The Cetra's Song, Part 4

The First Throat

In which a young Viera woman witnesses a murder, and is soundly defeated by the villain.

Mid-evening, and Faruza is quietly hunting, trying an experiment with sylkis greens, irritated at Snipes constantly poaching his bait from the more lucrative chocobo.

Faruza gives a low curse as the only game his bait draws in is a lowly imp.

Rosabella is sitting on a largish rock off the side of the road, apparently finished with her gathering for the day and creating basic materials from her spoils.

Rosabella looks up from her crafting, offering a curt nod to the lupine should he catch her eye, and returns to her work.

Faruza returns the faint nod, the canine studying the Viera with an uncomfortably intense pair of eyes for a long moment, before returning to his work. The sense of a single glance measuring, analyzing, and prioritizing every aspect of you, and dissecting it all under the scalpel-sharp gaze.

Rosabella's skin prickles beneath the weight of the gaze, ears splaying outward as a sign of her discomfort. Acting as though she had not been aware of his measured stare, she continues about her busywork.

Koban has arrived.

Koban walks down the road, his hands in his pockets. He seems to move slowly, keeping one eye loosely on his suroundings.

Faruza is presently moving like a flickering ghost along the treelines, the canine's intensity a tangible prickle under the fur, the northerly wind swirling around ears and ankles in the winter evening, drawing scents to him as he works.

You sniff for local scents.. The room smells normal [Koban]: Smells like a skunk kin. A hint of clover... Clean clothes mixed with metal polish [Faruza]: Smells of a winter storm brewing; an icy clarity in the air, more absence of smell than presence thereof You were smelled by Faruza! [Rosabella]: The scent of warm places, wine, and spices, fading from constant exposure to the cold and snow.

Rosabella is sitting on a rock by the side of the road, a softly glowing, multifaceted synthesis crystal revolving lazily over her lap. She appears to be putting together basic materials, as a practice exercise of sorts.

Koban stands there a moment, just watching the two. He observes Rosa mostly while mostly being a bump in the scenery

The soft shush of snow disturbed by paws is heard; Faruza's silence and stealth almost fit to be an assassin, his presence more a sense of chill menace, the canine emerging from the treeline about thirty feet from Rosabella, crouching down deliberately, watching her and the other interloper as he quietly digs another herb out of the snow.

Rosabella's skin prickles again, ears twitching as the crystal slowly descends into her lap. Once the materials have settled, her head rises, pale green eye fixing on Koban, who has the dubious fortune of standing in front of her. A single, fine white eyebrow rises as she mutely returns his gaze.

Koban looks at Rosa for a few moments... their eyes locked as he continues to give the same emotionally dead look he always has. Then, it happens, a reply to the silence! "... You have a snot on your nose."

Faruza whispers softly, his voice behind Rosabella. "Don't move, Viera." And then a rasp to Koban. "On your way, lad." The rasping whisper of his voice is matched by the quieter rasping whisper of mythril leaving leather.

Rosabella starts at the sound of Faruza's voice, but freezes in place when a sound that can only belong to an unsheathed knife reaches her ears. One steel-gauntletted hand slowly curls into a fist, to the tune of grinding steel links as the chain wrapped round that hand is clenched...

Koban stays silent for a moment. His hand grips to his massive zwiehander on his back, drawing it and quite unserimoniously letting the heavy tip crack the ground with a thud. Staring, he looks at Faruza as he says quite blatantly "No."

Faruza tails arch over his head, a momentary flash of green magic arching from his tails over himself, a low, harsh snarl in the wind. "Double Team." he growls, the tails giving an arcane flutter high overhead, as the magic lashes down over himself, vastly accelerating himself...

Faruza tails lash forward abruptly, the canine little more than a vague, hazy blur in the dimness of the night, another lashing of magic reaching out and coiling around Koban. "You're out of time, pest." he hisses through his teeth, as the magic leaps from him for the skunk-morph. The flows passing through Rosabella, but not intended for her.

Faruza launches forward, the canine blasting past Rosabella, little more than a momentary streak of the north wind, the canine's drawn blade slashing forward...

Koban oddly enough, doesn't seem all that phased. While his blade moves and his body blinks and flutters in the ether of existance, it seems to draw fast enough to block the strike. *CLANK* Blade meets blade in this case.

Faruza frowns in incredulity as the man manages to shift his weight even under the effect of his spell, but his tail is following up the attack, the appendage swinging viciously towards Koban, the whip-crack of the powerful, fast tail crackling in the air.

• FLASH* Clank. His form still blinking in the stasus of odd existance

the time warping magic creates, the blade once again blocks the second strike. He seems to just keep his eye on Faruza, his gaze unwavering in the frozen wastes of both the north, and time itself.

Faruza presses the attack, his blurring speed simply too much for another foe to keep up with, no matter how sucessive the defense; his blade darting again, slashing, Faruza striking with unbelievable speed; little more than a purple and teal blur of malice, his tails a twisting, twirling contrail.

Rosabella's dusky features pale as the cold fingers of magic pass through her, and the ensuing flurry of Faruza and his blades causes only one thought to fill the Viera's mind. Leave. Leave now, leave as quickly as possible. Without a word, synth crystals fall to the snow as Rosa pushes off the rock and pelts toward toen, as fast as her legs can carry her.

Faruza continues to fight with a flurry of slashing blows of his blade, the mythril little more than a silver streak in his hands.

Faruza blade continues to cut into Koban viciously and without reprieve, the canine targeting arteries, tendons, anywhere vital he can reach.

Rosabella skids to a halt in the snow, turning and frowning as she contemplates the fight for an instant. But, an instant is all she needs, before her voice rises in singsing Valente, wrapping tendrils of glowing white and green magic around his body. Once the spell is in place, the Viera tugs up the black-fur veil resting around her neck, pale green eye changing from frightened to flat and dead in the barest instant.

Koban seems annoyed... The bleeding stops as he looks to Faruza. "... Wrong move." He dashes forwards with the blade in two hands. The blade drags across the ground before he moves to strike upward against Faruza's body "Rose's Thorns..." He says this while both narrowed eyes focus on Faruza. (Two-Hands induced)

Faruza is caught by the blade against his right arm, as much to his surprise as anyone else's. This fight just isn't going as smoothly as he's used to, and the surprise that flashes across his mouth for a moment is visible, and no doubt satisfying.

Faruza eyes flash from surprise to fury, and around him, a vicious, howling wind grows, and with his hands and tails outstretch. "Show her your rage, bitch!" he snarls up to the heavens, at something unseen. And at his call, a vicious, massive blast of icy, moist wind scoops out of the heavens, devastating the snowpack and area around Koban!

Koban grunts, blasted with such energies. He falls to one knee, looking at Faruza "... What are you..."

Faruza tails lash out for Koban's throat and jaw, the canine attempting to cleanly, quickly, snap the man's neck. "I am the voice of the North Wind." he rasps. "I am the hound of the Whitehands. And you threatened Temple. Die."

The canine's tails, incredulously, slip off of Koban and slap himself in the backlash! And it's Faruza's turn to look on in shock and whisper: "What are you?"

Faruza lunges forward a moment later, blade moving in to finish the job, shaken but unwilling to be deterred by the man's preternatural fortune.

Koban manages to block with his blade rather quickly. "... I didn't threaten anyone." He stares at Faruza, his eyes unwavering as he may as well be staring into the canine's soul. "I am he who kills the wicked... I only attack those who attack me first. I am an avenger."

Faruza slashes a hand out towards Koban, finishing the issue with a last, howling cut of the north wind at his fingertips, a simple hurricane-like blast of air firing down from overhead, the howling blitz of wind once again devastating the earth around the man with the north wind.

Koban stands there, looking at Faruza still. His blade is stuck within the ground, the skunk-kin barely standing. "... I give you my word on Gaia that I have not done what you think I have... Should I die here, I hold it not against you for the orders given to you obviously by that man." He stares at Faruza "My only regret is that I could not serve my purpose... To protect..." He coughs up blood as he leans on the blade further. "Do what you must. I will not stop you."

Faruza flicks his tails softly. "If you speak the truth, may Gaia bless your soul and forgive me, lad." he rasps back, as the last blast of wind launches from the sky, finishing the affair.

Koban is launched into the air, flying backwards before hitting the snow, looking rather dead. He lays there, while the blade lays on the ground several feet away. If one was to look, it seems the skunk has bandages on his skin... He seems to have been previously injured prior to the fight. Otherwise, there isn't much else to tell. His body torn and bloody, he lays there now a warm corpse amongst the frozen tundra.

Koban of course, by Rosa's grace is healed just enough to remain on this mortal coil. He lays there, unconcious and barely breathing.

Faruza tails lash out at the man as the spell coils around him, Faruza growling as his tails coil around the man's throat again, this time hoping to break it for certain, his glare rising towards Rosabella.

Koban is dead again!

A sickening crack, as the man's neck is broken in Faruza's tails, once /again/ killing the man.

Faruza rasps up towards Rosabella. "You wish me to regard you as his ally?" he growls, his hand reaching out into the air, as though grasping something, and yanking it free. At the same moment, a viciously cold wind directed from the north winds above to try to coil inside Rosabella's throat, to silence her. "Throw down your weapon, Viera, and I may spare you."

(cast Apshyxiate)

Faruza tails give a last few shakes, thoroughly severing Koban's spinal cord and finalizing the inevitable, his tails slowly uncoiling at that point, the canine's eyes regarding Rosabella warily. He's tired from the fight, but already he has a vicious advantage. "Throw your weapon down, kneel." he rumbles evenly. "Or I may let you die the slow death of starving for the air I have stolen from you."

The blue-glowing chain which had been coiled loosely in Rosa's hands falls to the snow with a muted clatter, as her steel-jacketed hands rise to claw at her throat, eye wide and frightened. Though while she may have dropped her weapon, she either refuses to kneel, or is simply too panicked by the vaccuum in her throat to heard the order.

Faruza walks over slowly, or it would be slowly but for his magical acceleration, a tail scooping up the chain idly, coiling it around in his tail. "I said kneel." he rumbles simply, his tone rasping, almost bored, yet malicious.

Faruza pops out a small vial and tosses the contents down as he watches Rosabella clutch at her throat, the bottle meticulously returned, empty, to his satchel.

Rosabella's chest and throat work as she struggles to breathe, but does not yet kneel. The look in her pale eye is a mix of terror and defiance, her trembling hands lowering to slip inside of her cloak.

Faruza notes the hands dissapearing, and with a sad shake of his head, he regards Rosabella, his voice taking on a mournful howling of the north wind. "No, child. Kneel. Lift your chin to my knife, give me your vulnerability. What a sad way to die, next to this man, alone and cold, unmourned. Kneel, little child, and give in..."

(Sadness cast)

A single tear rolls out from the Viera's eye, her knees trembling, lips beginning to take on a faint blue tinge. Her knees tremble, ears lowering, the look on her face changing from defiance to the simple pleading of a woman who simply does not want to die...

Faruza cups his free hand gently against Rosabella's cheek. The touch, surprisingly, gentle, the canine's power undeniable, his confidence, utter. Worst of all, perhaps, is the note of sincere sympathy in his voice. "Come, child. Will you die for false pride?" he inquires quietly. "Was this man your friend? Was he your ally? He threatened many people within the city, you know. He threatened the Governor, which is what brought me here today. You would stand by such a renegade? Why did you run, child? I told you to hold still so as not to harm you, but now, now you seem to have chosen to make yourself an ally of mine enemy." A shake of his head. "Kneel, child, and give your vulnerability to me. Lift your chin."

Rosabella slumps to the ground, shoulders quivering with helpless, breathless sobs, head falling forward in her despair. Tears come more freely now, sliding down her face to fall from the end of her nose.

Faruza crouches down in front of the woman. "Oath to me you will never tell of this day to another in any way, shape, and form, and neither shall I." he rumbles softly, the blade in his hand brushing down to find her throat, the flat of it pressed there. "Will you oath so by your ears, Viera, and your Valentian honor? Nod, if you will." His tone quiet, and surprisingly sympathetic. "You don't wish to die needlessly, and I've no desire to kill needlessly. There is yet hope in this night for you."

Rosabella's dusky features pale, and after only the barest moments' hesitation, she nods, trying at once to be convincing and move her throat away from the blade, with limited success.

Faruza turns the edge of the blade towards her. "If you oath so, touch your neck to my knife-blade." he rasps. "You have my vulnerability of this secret, and you have my trust that you will keep your oath. Give me your vulnerability of your throat, child, and your trust." His voice, startlingly... ritualistic, as if something of great import was passing from his lips.

Rosabella sags forward, pressing her neck to the edge of the knife. If one could see her face hehind the snow-white curtain of hair and the black bandanna, the sheer depth of hopelessness and despair would rock all but the hardiest of souls...

And with the touch of her neck to the blade, Faruza gives a quiet smile, the barest brush of the steel bringing sweet relief; a brush of his fingertips across her lips, and suddenly air can flow again, breath, sweet breath, is hers. Slowly, Faruza draws his blade away and settles it back in his sheath, leaving Rosabella's throat unmarked. "There." he rumbles in quiet satisfaction. "Breathe Her sweet air again, Viera." he murmurs. (Dispelling Asphyxiate.)

A roaring wind picks up behind Faruza, the remains of Koban scattered into fine pink mist by an impossibly raging wind, and then snowed gently over, removing all traces of the battle, save the huge sword left resting beneath the snow.

Rosabella just remains where she is, sobbing silently, her will broken as the snowdrifts pile up around her.

Faruza gently coils a tail around your hands as you sob, and he kneels down in front of you, joining you there in the deep snow. Quietly, the cool haft of his mythril blade finds your hands, and his other tail, the touch delicate, finds your chin, lifting your gaze back to his.

His voice, a rasp of steel on a whetstone: "Trust is the only emotion that can, by it's very nature, be proven." His free hand slips his goggles off, revealing those horrifying eyes underneath. "We prove trust by choosing to make ourself vulnerable to someone." His hands guide your hands, and his dagger, to his own throat. "This is vulnerability." he whispers softly. His throat, gently, pressing to the blade. A single slip of it in your hands, and without question, his life could be undone. "This is my trust."

Rosabella's hand shakes as it grips the knife, and in the depths of her pale eye, the flicker of what could be a very, very bad idea shines... But as quickly as it appears, it is gone, the knife falling from her hand as she curls up in the snowdrift.

Faruza plucks the knife up slowly, re-sheathing it, and without a word his tails coil up around you, lifting you from the snowdrift, and he begins to walk north, away from the city. He says nothing more; the deeds done, the canine's tails shelter from the cold world around, for a time. A few miles north, he stops, and sets up a tent, starting a fire inside, and curling up wordlessly to sleep upon his own bedroll, a second unrolled for you on the other side of the fire. Shelter, warmth, from the killing cold outside, and Faruza swiftly slips off to sleep.

Rosabella remains curled up as she is carried away, oblivious to the world as the tent is set up and the fire built. As Faruza falls asleep, however, the bleak hopelessness fades, replaced with a brilliant, white-hot hatred at this man, who has brought her to heel. Peeking up from her place in the tent, her hands begin to glow with a brilliant blue-white light.... that fades, as she instead crawls to her feet, breaking into a stumbling, uneven run away from the campsite, toward the colony and the safety of home.

Faruza eyes open as you begin to rise, but as you leave to run, he lets his eyes close again. Trust given and received, it is enough.

The Second Throat

In which Rosabella seeks the return of her chain from the villain, and is taught the power of trust.

The very stroke of noon, finds the sun long in the sky this far north, but the day brightly lit, and Faruza's camp tent is tucked into a small thicket of trees, a thin plume of smoke rising from the tent-top. The spot well-chosen; the thicket of trees small, and there's little to no cover on anyone advancing for the half-mile it would take for the next batch of scrub. Not much hunting game out here, but it's within travelling distance of richer plains to the north.

Rosabella wades through the crusty, ice-shelled snowpack, pale eye flat and hard as the capsite slowly comes into view. Hesitating only a moment, she presses forward, the grim set to her mouth and determined air around her hinting that perhaps even the stone walls of the Point would not slow her down, should they spring up in her way.

Glittering at the very top of the tent, some fourteen feet up, is a familiar chain, along with a creche of meat and skins slowly smoking over the fire within. A cool wind brushes around your ankles, and lazily curlicues the snow around you in towards the tent. No signs of life, beyond the slow trail of smoke, from within the tent.

Rosabella comes to a halt a dozen or so paces away from the tent, lips pursing in mild outrage to see the weapon tacked up, as though a form of bait. Taking in a deep, deep breath, the Viera's voice raises in a call that, due to the lazily moving air currents, could carry for some distance. "Signor Magister!!"

A low, idle rumble from within. "Come in."

"No," comes the reply, "I will not, Signor Magister."

A low grunt from within, and a sigh. "Suit yourself." Silence from within. And then more silence, and then the dawning, and probably foolish-feeling realization that he's not moving from within.

Rosabella shifts on her feet, glancing left and right over the snow, but refuses to be daunted. "...You have something that belongs to me, Signor Magister." Gamely, she stays her course, but her voice lacks a touch of the fire within. "I wish for you to return it."

You say, "Does it belong to you?" comes a faintly amused drawl from within. The soft crackle of some wood being added to the fire inside. The smell of tea wafting from the tent, caught by the wind, tea that staple of life for any northerner in their diet. Protein, fat, and tea, the staffs of life for any such native. "Tea is on." "

Rosabella opens her mouth to give voice to a heated reply which, at the unspoken invitation in for tea, dies before a sound can be uttered. After a few owlish blinks, she remembers to close her mouth, and just pulls her cloak closed around her body, completely thrown at his point.

The tent-flap opens, Faruza's right tail holding open the flap. He's clearly seen, sitting in his fur hunting suit, seated comfortably by the fire, watching the kettle steam, his sagegrass cigarette burning slowly ouf of the side of his muzzle, his hideously intense eyes bare. His other tail lazily does a come-hither. "Come in, sit, talk by my fire."

Rosabella frowns deeply, regaining some of her ire. "I have no wish to exchange pleasantries, Signor Magister. I wish only to have returned the weapon you took."

Faruza frowns slowly. "At the time I took it, it was a trophy, legitimately taken from a bested foe. Is that no longer the case?" He shakes his head. "If it is the property of a civil woman, and no foe of mine, then surely I should return it, should I not?" A significant glance from her to the tent-flap, and a slight tilt of his head. "Which shall it be, miss Viera?"

Rosabella's eye widens, then narrows. "If you expect me, Lobo Negro, to look upon you with civility after you shame me so..." Beneath her cloak, her hands can be heard to clench into tight fists--crystal and steel gauntlets make that sort of thing noticeable--and her ears fold back, as though standing in the teeth of a fierce tundra wind, "then you may *keep* your trophy, Signor Faruza. I will return another day to claim it by battle, if this is the way you wish it." Turning her back, she does not wait for an answer as she starts to move away from the campsite.

Faruza chuckles softly. "Shame you?" he rumbles quietly. "Odd. I was told you Valentians took great pride in your understanding of hospitality, much as the good people of the north do." The twist of that verbal knife, a good, hooked barb. "Is this a quirk of Valentian honor I'm unaware of? It's a shaming thing to be invited to tea and meat?"

"The shame," comes Rosa's voice, as chilly as the dancing breezes that carry her reply to the campsite, "is in being forced to break an oath, in order to survive. The day that you claimed your 'trophy,'" she says, spitting into the snow, "is the day you brought shame upon me."

Faruza flicks his tails. "Clearly your shame was not worth more to you than your life, then." comes the reply, his voice carrying just that slight, nettling suggestion that if that was the case, perhaps it wasn't quite as important as she's making it out to be. "I brought shame on you by allowing you to live? Is that your complaint?" he rumbles with a chuckle. "Should I rectify that? Should I slay you? I have no quarrel with you, Viera. Though I admit, I'm perhaps a bit stung by the refusal of my hospitality. I was told Valentians were better mannered than that."

Faruza smiles softly, just the faintest hint of predatory amusement in his teeth. "Or perhaps you're afraid that accepting my hospitality might complicate a view you're very clearly clinging to in the hopes of keeping it simple, mm?"

Rosabella wheels, letting loose a cry of rage, a bolt of lightning lancing from the skies to explode upon the snowpack behind her. "You break my spirit, Lobo Negro, you force me to kneel before you, and now you mock me! Are you mad, that you believe I would accept *your* pleasantries?!"

Faruza holds a hand up, the spell splitting apart at the barest, merest wave of his hand. "Force you?" he rumbles, rising to his feet with a low, loud laugh. "FORCE YOU?" He steps out of his tent, shaking his head and grinning. "You chose, young Viera." he rumbles. "You chose, and you put your throat to my knife. And what happened then?" His eyes locking to yours, and never was a gaze more confident, more predatory, and worst of all, /knowing/. A gaze that pierces souls, and he knows it, and uses it well. Daring you to lie to him, for even an instant.

Rosabella's ears and eye lower, unable to meet the canine's piercing, unsettling gaze. "You knew I would not," she replies, voice low and a touch sullen, "you knew, or you would have not given the knife to me..."

The reply is succinct; the puff of snow as a bronze dagger lands at your feet, handle towards you. Regarding you with that same, intense gaze, never wavering. "Say that again." he rumbles softly. "And see if you can say it without knowing you're lying to yourself."

Faruza turns silently. "I'll be in my tent. When you're done standing out here in the cold, come have a cup." Wordlessly he turns his back and opens his tent flap.

<Weapon> Item Given

Unhesitating, the Viera stoops, pulling the knife out of the snow and striding purposefully back toward the tent. "Tell me why it is that you killed that man," she says from outside the tent. If her tone wavers slightly, then surely it must be that her Fire Amulet isn't working right...

Faruza steps back into his tent, the sound of bone teacups being produced, filled. Silence; clearly Faruza is done speaking to disembodied voices outside his tent, while perfectly good tea begins to steam away inside the two bone cups. The sizzle of meat hitting the coals can be heard, caribou fat sizzling and spitting over the fire, the smoke from within turning greasy and black as it streams out of the tent.

Rosabella waits a moment longer, gauntlet creaking around the handle of the knife, before relenting with an inarticulate noise of exasperation. Pulling back the tent-flap, the Viera ducks inside. "I ask again. Tell me why it was that you killed that man."

Faruza smiles quietly, holding up the two teacups to her, giving her choice of which she'd prefer. "He threatened Governor Temple." he rumbles simply.

Rosabella sits just within arm's reach of the teacups, openly distrustful of Faruza's hospitality. Shifting the knife to her right hand, she leans forward, taking hold of the teacup on the left. "...I did not know this. I would not have interfered," she says grudgingly.

Faruza shrugs softly, and sips from the remaining teacup. The tea inside is black and bitter, strong, made in that northern way. In front of him, the slab of caribou sizzles, and with a quick snatch of his claws, he flips the meat over atop the wood and coals, letting it warm and singe on the other side. "Well, I did tell you not to move." he points out with an arched eyebrow and eloquent shrug. "Come, sit. Tell me, who owns you?"

Rosabella sniffs experimentally at the tea, nose wrinkling at the bitter smell. "I work for Signor Vadrun," she replies, her voice cooling, "he does not own me. Chancellore Temple, does he own you? Is this why you kill for him?"

Faruza smiles softly. "Mmn. I'm dubious, as I don't know many other occasions where vowing your silence to me would break a vow elsewhere, except wherein another man owns you, or whatever construct of trust and vulnerability one titles it under. But, no matter what it is called. And as for Seigneur Temple, no. He works with me. My spear-brother, my partner Seigneur for house Whitehand." he rumbles. "Within the house, I am his superior, though such a thing seldom matters."

Rosabella's prodigious ears lower, her pale eye glinting with renewed anger. "You do not know many things, Signor Faruza, and you will not presume the oath that was broken was to Signor Vadrun." Turning the teacup over in her hands, she falls silent, lips pressed firmly together.

Faruza sips his tea slowly. "My apologies." he rumbles, and most deflatingly, it's a simple, sincere apology. "Vadrun. I don't know that name. Mmn. And what is your name then, Viera? If I'm to have a guest for my tent, best I should know her name." He gives the meat another quick flip with his left hand, using his claws, his other hand upheld to your hand, towards the bronze knife, evidently for spearing and cutting the meat.

Rosabella looks down at the knife in her hand, before uttering a quiet sound of disgust, smoothly reversing it and slapping it into his hand. "...I am Rosabella Lucrezia DiVencenzi, Signor Faruza. We have met before."

Faruza mms softly, accepting the blade, and calmly spearing out the meat. "Apologies. I meet many people; and no few Viera." he murmurs. "I am not the best mind with names." The meat dropped down on a simple wooden platter, and he cuts it in half, spearing his portion up on his knife, and taking a slow bite of the fresh, rare-cooked caribou meat. Simply fire-cooked, and slightly blackened here and there, but delicious for it's simplicity. He hands the platter to you with his free hand.

Rosabella glances down at the platter, holding up a hand in polite refusal. "...I am not hungry, but I thank you for your offer." Arching a slim white eyebrow, she looks up. "Then perhaps you may remember events. You were experimenting with a dangerous magic; I helped put your face back together when it wounded you."

Faruza eyes light. "Ah, yes." he rumbles. "The... well, one of the shatterings, before I put that research to rest for a while." he murmurs. "Well, then I do owe you a debt of gratitude." He stands momentarily, his left tail snaking high, high overhead, the ribbon-like appendage extending out the smoke-hole of the tent. A rattle of chain, and a moment later he draws the metal links back down through the smokehole, and delicately lays them beside you. "As you've managed to finally find a civil manner and talk, then indeed, no longer is this a trophy." He smiles gently as he reseats himself.

Rosabella visibly bridles at the canine's choice of words. "Do not speak to me as a child, Signor Faruza." She picks the chain up, the steel links glowing a cool blue as she winds the weapon around her fist. "It may amuse you to pass idle talk with a woman you have made to cower at your feet, but it does not amuse me."

Faruza sighs quietly. "Then let me move past idle talk and speak succinctly and sincerely then, would that please you?" he rumbles quietly. "Lose your rage, Rosabella. I offered you a chance of survival, and you took it, and then you come to me to talk of shame. You did not seek me out to kill me, or at least, that was not foremost in your mind. You came here to ease your own confusion as to why a man who held your life in his hand, not only spared it, but placed his life into yours. Because you could not fathom why a man capable of such casual murder would do such a thing. Am I correct thus far?"

Rosabella's hand works around the glowing chain, the sound of metal grinding against metal seeming to settle her nerves to a degree. "I came to you, Signor Faruza, to take back what is mine. Perhaps it is that you see a justly won trophy of the battlefield; I do not. I do not claim to understand why it is that you would have me believe that you have offered me your life; If it is of import, I will not deny you your explanations." Raising her head, she nods toward the mountains beyond the canvas walls of the tent. "There is a part of me, Signor Faruza, that would hunger, would need to understand these things; this part died the night I vowed that I would never play the victim again, while I still drew breath."

Faruza mms softly. "It is of import, and my life was offered. I am mortal; a blade in my throat would kill me no differently than you." He frowns softly. "Someone took your vulnerability, and your choice, and they did not offer their own."

Rosabella's eye flashes. "Those men made their choice, Signor Faruza; they have since found Justice." Settling back the Viera looks down at the chain-wrapped gauntlet. "I would not have challenged you this day, Signor Faruza. But, that does not mean that you will be forgiven. You offered me your throat; this does not balance things between you and I. If it is that one day you are stripped of your pride, robbed of breath, made powerless... Perhaps upon that day, we will be even."

Faruza tilts his head softly. "Rosabella, I have no pride to strip." he rumbles softly. "I am the Hound of Whitehand. I am a Tool. I am a creature, who exists for a purpose." He shakes his head softly. "But, no matter. Clearly you will refuse to understand the words I spoke to you in that moment. Justice?" He snorts. "You speak of revenge. You were frightened, and you seek to lash out at that which defeated you, because you are yet afraid. Because you are yet that woman who had that vulnerability taken from her once, aren't you?" He leans forward, those hideous, intense eyes once again focusing on you. "And until you've remembered what it was to give trust, you'll always -be- that woman. This I know. That woman did not die that day, no matter what happened. No. She was merely subsumed by a terrified child, grown fierce and angry. And that child has not yet learned to relinquish that hatred. Thus, to it, I am no different than those man, am I? Because you do not understand trust, and you shy from vulnerability." He gestures to your chain, around your fist. "You fidget, even now, working the denials in your own heart and soul. In seconds the rage will rise in you again, or else you will smother it under the ice. And later, if you were to storm out of here, you would find a place and find yourself falling to your knees, sobbing, wouldn't you?"

Rosabella's eye narrows, as she attempts to hold Faruza's gaze for as long as she can... But, in the end, her ears lower, and she looks to the ground.

"No, Signor Faruza, I will not give myself to tears. I did not when I left you before, and I will not now."

Faruza flicks his tails quietly. "I don't believe your heart would allow you the choice." he rumbles softly. "But whether you gave yourself in to it or not, the desire would be there. And you have naught but many miles of silence, solitude, and solace outside these tent walls." He pours another cup of tea for himself, and refills Rosabella's cup automatically.

Rosabella shifts. "I have lived for days, Signor Faruza unable to cook what I would kill to survive, believing it was only to delay my death a while longer. I have no more use for grief, Signor Faruza, and I would make the journey alone in silence." She does not move to take the teacup, and as she speaks, her thickly accented voice begins to lose its heat, gradually becoming neutral and flat. "I say again, I would not have challenged you this day; I will not, until it is that my spirit cannot be broken with well-chosen words."

Faruza frowns softly. "You will never challenge me again." he rumbles evenly. "And you circle within your own mind and heart, trying to worm your way into a place where you can still hold me at fault for that heinous crime of defeating you fairly, and sparing your life." He sips his own tea. "And if you ever do, Rosabella, I will act with malice instead of mercy. I admit, I had hoped I might come to a pleasant understanding with you. But you seem to have no interest in anything but salvaging the angry child within you. So be it." His hideous eyes narrow. "You think you know sorrow. You think you know fear, and pain? Perhaps you do. But I know trust, I know vulnerability, and I know ~malice~. The first two I have shown you. The third I have reserved." His voice growing to a raspy hiss, that steel over whetstone sound in his voice now. "If I suspect you ever so much as intend to raise a finger against me or mine again, I will unleash that malice."

Rosabella quails under the intensity of Faruza's gaze, shivering at the cruel promise in the canine's voice. Carefully setting the teacup aside, she climbs to her feet, closing her pitch-black cloak over her body in part to obscure the shaking of her hands. "...It is not necessary to be pleasant, Signor Faruza," she says, gaze locked firmly on the floor, the neutrality of her voice cracking with the effort of keeping it so, "I have already glimpsed of your malice, and I believe it to be the truth behind your pleasantries. If you believe that I remain a petulant child, to refuse to trust you... this is why."

Faruza growls. "I have shown you sincere trust from the moment I spared your life, Viera. And I tire of regretting the choice of trusting others, when once I would simply have killed them and be done with it. Do you think what happened to you yesterday was malicious? No, Rosabella. You breathe because of my mercy, because of my trust. But you will refuse to trust me, so be it. Then I cannot afford to trust you. Which places us both in an interesting place." His own voice dropping from a growl to the surface of a frozen lake; flat, cold, dead, utterly featureless. The voice he'd spoken to Koban in, before he'd killed him.

Rosabella's ears droop. "...To me... no. To the man who died... you showed malice, Signor... That I hate you for forcing me to break a vow... this does not change... the oath you took from me." Unlike the belligerence shown by the skunk, Rosa seems instead to marshal her words around the terror that grips her throat. "I have held your silence... It does not matter to me... what it is I think of you... to keep that oath."

Faruza slowly rises, his tails arching under his body smoothly, propelling him to his feet. "There was once a time when I was fourteen, Rosabella DiVincenzi. I was a creature then, a monster in ways you can never understand. There was one of your kind. The daughter of the midwife that birthed me, in fact." he says, his voice not leaving that cold, flat place. "She was the only woman who was ever kind to me. She was the only woman that ever showed sympathy, mercy, for what I was born to be. I remember her in deep sorrow and fondness, Rosabella." he hisses. Taking a few slow steps. Walking around you, inspecting you from all sides. "This was before I knew the meanings of vulnerability, and trust, mind you. Before I learned that when one willingly gives their vulnerability to you, of their choice, it is a gift to be honored. Can you imagine then, Rosabella?" he whispers. "Why do you suppose I remember her with such sorrow and fondness?"

Rosabella blanches at the story, pale eye squeezing shut, ears pressed flat against her head. She doesn't answer the question, but her mute, shivering form hints that she has more than a few vivid theories...

Faruza flicks his tails softly, continuing to slowly circle. "I slit her throat, and raped her, in that order." he rasps softly. "I lured her away. I bound her helpless. I killed her, and I raped her body as she died." he hisses softly. "That was the monster I once was, until but fourteen months ago." He turns away. "Yesterday I had a viera helpless. Another viera woman. Trembling. Sobbing. Wholly in my power. At this very moment one stands trembling behind me, and with but a word I could reduce her to that place again. Answer this question carefully, Rosabella DiVincenzi. Whom do you suppose fares better when they are utterly helpless to me. Those who have chosen to place themselves there, or those I have forced there?"

Rosabella pales further, turning slightly green as the canine's ruthless narrative continues. She opens her mouth to respond, but beyond a quiet, dusty squeak, her throat seems to have tightened too far to allow for words.

Faruza turns again slowly. "Answer. Find your words. The one that has *chosen* to make herself helpless to me? Or the one I have *forced*? It is a choice, always a choice. Naught matters without it." He steps close, his breath washing over your left ear, his intensity painful, his will an impossible, implacable thing. Striking distance, and obligingly, he lifts his chin. His throat bare. Vulnerable. Chosen.

Rosabella's head bows, shoulders quivering. "Th-the o-one..." She pauses, her throat producing a dry, clicking sound as she swallows, "who... has chosen..." Her shoulders hunch, as though fearful of the overpowering, predatory presence that may decide her answer would not be the correct one after all.

Faruza nods softly. "Yes." he whispers, in a voice that is... a benediction. Mixed with quiet relief, like the voice of a father, exasperatedly glad that a child has finally learned a necessary lesson. "I honor the trust of those that choose, Rosabella. The man I hated most in my life, with every drop of my malice, fought me. I bested him. I killed the woman he loved. I stripped his life of all meaning, I destroyed every fibre I could seek that had ever meant a thing to him. Until he was but a shell of a man. So great was my malice. And in the end, he begged me for death, and in doing so, offered me his throat." he whispers. "And when he did, I could bear no more malice. Until that moment I had salivated for his death. But he lifted his throat to me, Rosabella. And before my knife fell, I told him to find the most joyous memory of his life. And when he found it, I froze him in time, and the blade fell. His last memory he brought back to Gaia, Rosabella, was that joy of that memory." He raises his left tail-tip, the velvet-soft point finding your chin, straightening it. "You think you see the malice behind my pleasantries. I show you the rest, now. A vulnerability. A trust. Will you honor it?"

Rosabella catches herself as she starts to reply, her words dying, stillborn, from bloodless lips. Her gaze flickers down to the tail-tip, then up to meet the canine's terrifying eyes. Her chin quivers, body shaking like a leaf in the wind, but slowly, despite the fear that visibly wracks her spare frame, she lifts her chin, tilting her head back until her throat is bared.

Faruza smiles gently. His blade produced, the mythril blade, the killing blade. The edge of it, hard, cool, against your skin. "There is a whispered saying amongst those Whitehands that understand, Rosabella: When there is one blade at your throat..." the blade slowly turning, until the flat of it rests along your throat. A mythril barrier, to the rest of the world. "... there is room for no other blade. Choose those blades well. Tonight... tonight you've chosen well." The cool metal trailing away, Faruza sheathing the weapon again. He smiles as he turns away, crouching down next to the fire again, finishing off the last of his portion of the caribou meat.

Rosabella remains frozen in place as the blade trails along her skin, head tilted upward even as the canine turns away. No tears fall down her cheeks this time, but her pale eye speaks eloquently of the terror of the rabbit that sees a hawk in the trees, and knows of its hunger. Even when Faruza returns to his meal, she remains upright, the folds of her cloak rippling silently as she simply stands there, trembling.

Faruza looks up in sympathy. "Rosabella." he rumbles, and it is the tone of that father, sympathetic, exasperated. "Come now. Sit yourself before you faint, and have a good cry before your heart bursts." he whispers. "You're safe here, with me." Safety amidst danger, security amidst menace.

Rosabella blinks sharply, flinching at the sound of Faruza's voice, lowering her head inch by inch. She remains standing a moment, as though willing her legs to unlock, but soon brings herself down to the floor of the tent, where she brings her knees up to her chest, staring mutely into the middle distance.

Faruza pours you another cup of tea, and quietly he settles on his side on his own bedroll, watching you over the fading fire, a few inches of flame now off the wood and coals, well banked. Letting you process your thoughts and feelings in silence, leaving the very faint crackle of the fire to fill the silence. His talking done for a while. Awaiting your words.

Rosabella remains quiet for a long time, until the faint wisps of steam have faded from the tea. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she stirs, shifting to allow herself to reach out and take up the cup, her hand still shaking, very slightly. "Th-thank you," she says as she pulls her arm back, staring into the dark liquid. The minutes stretch long, as she contemplates the depths of her beverage, before she speaks again. "So... Now I am in your power..." Her voice is dull, lifeless. Not a carefully crafted bravado, or sullen defiance, but the simple emptiness of one who has already heard the final death-cry of hope. "What is it you will do to me...?"

Faruza ear-flicks softly? "In my power?" he rumbles in surprise. "You are in no such thing, child." he rumbles softly. "You are a woman I've exchanged trust with. You're free to return to your life, with the lessons you've learned here tonight. I'll expect you'll respect the trusts, the vulnerabilities, revealed tonight. That's all. I said you are safe here. You are."

Faruza chuckles softly and shakes his head. "I learned long ago the folly of thinking I could keep something that did not wish to be kept. You may remain your own woman, or employed by Vadrun, as you choose. I take no choice from you."

Rosabella's dusky cheeks take on a slight green tinge, thoughts of how, and with whom, that folly was learned rising unbidden to her mind's eye. "Then.... if it is acceptable... I will... return to my home." Swallowing, she starts to climb back to her feet. "For... Forgive me.... for my... rudeness today..."

Faruza notes the tinge, and smiles softly. "It was not like that, Rosabella. A rather boring, mundane event. Ah, no matter. Forgiven, at any rate. You came here to seek understanding. I believe you've found it, and it is a great lump to digest. If you have questions, if you need words, or the safety of that vulnerability, seek me again."

Rosabella shudders slightly, but nods. "Then.... I... Good evening, Signor...." Squeezing her eye shut, she turns, opening the tent flap and exiting with as much grace as hurrying will allow for, and vice versa.

A Wounded Hare, A Vicious Mercy

Here, Rosabella and Faruza have a chance meeting, and having discovered that Rosabella has been shot repeatedly, Faruza offers to help. (Editor's note: Sorry, the beginning to this log got chomped by a computer crash. But, nothing vital was lost.)

Rosabella nods by way of answer. "...But it seems that they are soft, and now do not match the shape that they were when they pierced me. It is... difficult, to remove, the more when it is that they lay close to bone."

Faruza holds a hand out silently for the tongs. "Like an arrowhead with barbs." he rumbles. "You do not take this to a doctor, why?" he inquires. "You will bleed, very much."

Rosabella's ears fold back. "Because I do not wish to submit myself to the doctor." Reaching under her arm, she takes hold of the tongs and holds them to her midsection.

Faruza fingers snap once, sharply. "You did not come back with such a thing to pull those from yourself in front of me meaninglessly, Miss DiVincenzi." comes the wry rasp of the canine. "You need but ask. I've killed enough men and women; I can avoid the arteries that carry your lifeblood."

Rosabella's eyebrow lifts, and she looks away. "...I did not intend to pull them from myself in front of you," she mutters, but hands the tongs over. "...I will make my apologies now."

Faruza accepts the tongs, and rises quietly. "You should have brought this to a doctor." he rumbles simply. "Come, follow. We won't go far."

Faruza pushes open another lodge-door, this one the king's, Faruza walking in as though he owned the place, or at least his intrusion wasn't an issue. He points to the king's bed. "That will do. Expose the wounds for me, I'll get a light." he rumbles, walking over to light the lantern and the hearth, the canine shedding his suit jacket as he goes, stripping down to the white undershirt below, rolling up his sleeves.

Rosabella follows the canine, lips thinned sharply in both pain and irritation, her frown deepening at his curt orders. She pauses, looking down at her clothing and inwardly cursing her choice of fashion. Blowing out a rough breath, she starts to unfasten the buckles keeping her jacket snug on her torso, turning her back to Faruza as she does.

Faruza is as brutally efficient in all things as another; the light produced, set overhanging the bed, and the canine blithely ignoring your increasing nudity. He plucks his knives free of his pockets, carefully cleaning off his bronze dagger first, and then his mythril dagger, setting both down carefully on the bed, alongside the tongs.

Rosabella sheds jacket and hauberk in due time, finally stripping off what was once a white woolen shift, now patched and spotted with stains of crimson, and turns, crossing her arms over her chest. Dotting her body are various bullet-wounds in varying stages of healing, and over her right bicep a line of seared flesh stands out, bright red and dry against her dusky skin. Clad only in a set of white cotton smallclothes, the Viera waits, shivering despite the presence of a Fire Amulet nestled between her breasts.

Faruza gestures to the bed. "Arrange yourself comfortably. If you fear crying out too loudly, advise me." he rumbles. Once you're arranged, he plucks up his bronze dagger, the cut of the undershirt over the sounds made quickly, and without prurient interest, the canine simply pulling the scraps free of the wounds with a grunt of disapproval. His tails work seperately of his hands; coiling around a wine goblet nearby, and a small bottle of Ifrit's Tear, Temple's favored drink, uncapping, pouring, into the goblet, and setting the goblet nearby.

Rosabella hisses, teeth grinding against the pull of fibers from her raw, sticky skin. "...It is not.... the crying out... that I fear..."

Faruza flicks his ears softly. "What is it you fear then, Rosabella?" he rumbles softly, as he next takes a cloth, and dips it in the Ifrit's Tear, fingertips carefully carrying the cloth around the bullet wounds, cleaning around them. The sting of the liquor is vicious, of course, searing, stinging, as it trickles slightly into the first bullet hole.

Rosabella gasps at the first touch of the biting liquid, a bright flare of light and arcane lightning flickering over her hands. With an obvious effort, she forces the spell to the back of her mind, only able to croak out, "Retribution" is response to the canine's question.

Faruza right tail gently coil around your wrist. "None of that." he rasps softly. "I'm about to have metal in your body, and that is not a spell that would be wise to choose." he rumbles. He continues to quietly wash across the bullet wounds, away from them each time, trying to keep the wounds clean. Each time, a few drops of that burning liquor find their way into you, the fire rising, then the alcohol dulling the fire, as it settles into your bloodstream slowly.

Rosabella's head tilts back, arms trembling as they fight to retain her modesty, and a low, pained moan can be heard behind clenched teeth, but beyond that, the Viera seems intent on suffering in relative silence.

Faruza notes your guarding, and shakes his head softly, your modesty not a matter of his concern; but he plucks up the blacksmith tongs and grunts softly. "A clumsy tool. Let us start with the worst, first... if I fail here, I can still stop the bleeding long enough to get you to the hospital if this fails." he whispers. His other tail comes up, and drifts across your lips, not yet clamping down, but prepared for the screams that are to come, or the spells, whichever. The tongs slowly slide in... flesh, softly parting, Faruza forced to use the tongs first to open the wound wider, to let the light see the bullet, amidst the blood.

Rosabella's eye widens, white showing all around the pale-green iris, and she makes a strangled sound in the back of her throat, practically choking on the cries that bubble up within her... Deep in the wound, the dull glint of lead can be seen, lumpy and misshapen, the hard-edged cylinder in the center the only indication of its previous form.

Faruza tails gently clamp, around wrists and mouth, and the canine's eyes look up to study your eyes as you roil through the pain. "Trust in me, poco lepri." he whispers softly. He pulls his hunting claws from his pocket, and shucks them onto his left hand, his right hand keeping the wound wide open. The hunting claws drift down, and then grasp the bullet softly, and with a sickening, meaty sound, is pulled free. Blood wells up immediately, dark, veinous... and Faruza tosses the spent thing aside. "Good, dark blood, not lifeblood." he whispers. The tongs release, and the canine pulls them away, reaching for the cup of Ifrit's Tear. And the worst comes now; Faruza takes out a few herbs from his satchel, and begins to chew, then sips some of the Ifrit's Tear into his mouth, mixing it with the medicinal herbs, which are then carefully spat into the wound, and immediately covered over by both his hands. The pain, harsh, head-swimmingly deep, the grasp of Faruza's tails around your wrists and mouth assured. "Bite down if you must." His tail between your teeth.

Rosabella's back arches, hands shooting out to grab hold of the canine's arms, fingers digging into his biceps as though to tear them from his bones. From deep within her chest comes a high, keening sound, cut off before it may grow too loud. Instead, she takes the offer and bites on the tail, hard, teeth grinding over the tendons that give it structure.

Faruza blood is drawn by the bite, and his only response to the pain is a faint tightness around his eyes, pausing a moment to pull his goggles off to see better. The trickle of his blood, almost precisely like seawater in it's neutral salinity, mixed with the copper of blood. A hand flexes, for just a moment, and he maintains the pressure over the wound for a long minute. Then he lifts his hands, leaving the plug of medicinal herbage and Ifrit's tear in place, and turns his body to cup hands gently around your cheeks. "Breathe, poco lepri." he whispers, and there's the hint of something paternal in that voice. "Deep breaths. Cry if you must; you will burst if you do not give vent to the pain. Nod when you are ready for the next."

Rosabella's chest heaves, hot breath swirling over the ragged bite-wounds in Faruza's tail, her one eye glassy, but at its depth, almost defiant, refusing to allow the pain any more leave to make itself known. After several long moments, her jaws relax slightly, and she gives a shaky nod.

Faruza notes the defiance, and gently, the hand momentarily caresses your cheek. "Good girl." he whispers. The most dangerous of the wounds dealt with, the second is a repeat of the first, though more merciful; the tongs used only for spreading, and by now, the alcohol applied to the wounds is making the world a warmer, mildly dizzier place. His knife pops the two fragments of the next bullet free, his spare tail returning to coiling around your wrists, pulling them up firmly high over your head, enforcing that vulnerability now. It's a ragged, horrible thing; the canine is no doctor, and the wounds will be ugly, and take all the much longer to hurt, and no doctor would approve of a poultice of medicinal herbs chewed up with Ifrit's Tear. But no doctor is here, and Faruza's barbaric 'medicine' is better than letting the bullets stay, at least. By the time the second bullet hole is left, there's just the one remaining, the least worrisome, to Faruza's eyes.

Faruza works with an intense ferocity to his eyes, even more than his usual; a focus, and, across his muzzle, a faint smile in between the focus of his concentration. Everything in this moment triggering him, his belly tightening as he works, his eyes narrowing softly. He could probably learn to be gentler, but that dark, toothily jagged core of him admits... he wouldn't want to be if he knew how.

Rosabella by now, due to liberal internally-taken doses of hard liquor, is swaying against the clutch of Faruza's tail, biting down sharply with each new intrusion of metal over raw, damaged nerves. Only once did the flare of magic begin again, longer to die, and this was when her arms were pulled upward. Now, as though to echo previous, less-auspicious meetings, what awareness lies behind the pain and alcohol seems to flicker and dim, sparked by the occasional surge of memory-driven panic.

Vulnerability. Helplessness. Pain. Someone else's control. Malice... no, this time, malice is missing. The third bullet is a simple job; a quick, fast slit of his knife over the bullet, pressing the mushroomed lead out, and then relief. The biting on his tail is tolerated; despite the bleeding, and the pain of the repeated bites, he makes no complaint, accepting it as the price for the trust. The last thing produced is a sewing kit, and for this, Faruza's tail gently uncoils from your mouth again, the worst of the pain done with, though he ensures your hands are still bound in that other tail. They're startlingly strong, like good rope, clearly capable of singularly supporting his weight if he wished. His hands set the sewing kit down between your breasts, opening the leather, a few bone needles and thread seen. He looks to you quietly, his hands reaching up to take yours, curling fingertips. It's not like Faruza to be so tender, no, and even amidst this tenderness there is jagged edges. "The poco lepri lifts and bares her throat to the lobo negro, and she is spared." he whispers. "Spared until she comes to him wounded. She begins to learn trust."

Awareness returns within the Viera's pale eye, and she turns her head, staring blankly toward the foot of the bed, and the princely furnishings beyond. No fear of the needle does she show, accepting its presence and its eventual intrusion into her flesh without comment. The grip of the tail, this obviously discomfits her, but the words are what strike her, that set her to shuddering and her ears to lower. Mere words, but to her liquor-soaked mind they begin to take on the weight of prophecy.

Faruza notes the shudder, and his hands gently squeeze yours. A tap of his fingertips across your wrists. "These stay here." he whispers, and gently, slowly, his tail uncoils from your wrists. The words quiet, Faruza's own hands slipping to the sewing kit, slowly binding the thread to the pale bone needles. Here, the canine pauses a long moment, studying the needle in his hand. "Thank you for your trust, Rosabella." he whispers, and the words are sincere, gratitude. The needle, unseen, begins to pierce and sew flesh shut neatly. This, unlike the earlier near-butchery, comes with a tight precision. Faruza's sown many skins. Most dead. A few, like this, living.

Rosabella's eye twitches with each pass of the needle, but she says nothing, does nothing, keeping her hands where they are and offering no reaction to the sewing but for the tensing of the skin itself as the sliver of bone comes into contact with it.

Faruza eyes don't move away from his work, but his satisfaction at those wrists remaining where he'd told them to stay, swells him. The work is swift, efficient, and tight; bullet wounds closing. The work is done some five minutes later, and he just as efficiently packs up the tools again, setting them aside, and then laying himself next to you on the bed, a cover pulled up and over your body. Modesty and warmth returned. "Can you find your words, poco lepri?"

Rosabella continues to look blank, silent for a long moment after the question falls from the canine's lips. "...What is it that you wish for me to say?"

Faruza shakes his head softly. "Anything, so long as it shows me your mind remains here." he rumbles. "Out from under that mask, little one. I took my goggles off. You can have your wrists back, by the way."

Rosabella lowers her hands, grasping fitfully at the blankets. Now and again, her ears twitch sporadically, and one gets the feeling that if not for the mask, the outward appearance of nothingness, the Viera would be a twitching, sobbing, cowering mess. "...I am here, Signor Faruza." The effort with which she held back her screams has left a telling mark on her voice, now merely a thickly-accented rasp. "I... It hurt, Signor, this is all."

Faruza abruptly starts forward, and grasps your ears in his hands; not hard, but the motion is abrupt and startling, and suddenly those eyes are inches from yours. Simply staring, hard, those impossibly hard eyes, drilling into you, and you can feel it; the weight of that ferocious honesty, behind his gaze. The masked answer, unacceptable. "Does this hurt?" he whispers. The intonation of his voice indicating the pressure of his gaze, knowing he'll drill through that mask with those eyes alone. "Does this squeeze your frightened heart until you would burst? What do you think I'll do with you, helpless little poco lepri?" he growls.

Rosabella cries out, attempting to push off the bed and make a break for the door; however, both the grip on her ears, and the crushing weight of that inhuman gaze serve to keep her rooted to the spot. Thus, she merely lays where she is held, wide-eyed and mutely trembling, the panic of the rabbit seized in the wolf's jaws evident in every line of her face.

Faruza eyes stay locked on yours, and after a few seconds of your life not ending, of your heart racing in your chest, and those eyes... drilling, the gaze too intense to bear, but it is the mesmerizing gaze of a predator, an entrapment. "-What- will I do with you, Rosabella?"

Rosabella lies trapped under the canine's gaze, terrified and making quiet, mewling noises at the back of her throat. After a few seconds of hard scrutiny, it slowly becomes clear that her mind is, indeed, entirely elsewhere, the fear evoked by Faruza pulling her back to the demons that lurk in the shadowed corners of memory.

Faruza watches this retreat, and immediately, his mind reaches out, telepathic contact, the silent, open connection. Seeing what's being wrought in her mind, under those eyes, locked to yours.

Wrists held together, arms pinned back and held up at an angle that prevent the barest of struggles. Stripped naked, beaten with the very chain the canine claimed as trophy, skin flayed open by the force of the strikes. Four men, names and faces unknown, merely looming shadows in her mind's eye as they take her, violating every inch of her for what seems like an eternity.

Faruza own tension in his body relaxes; and as you fugue into that horrifying memory, Faruza's arms resettle; around your shoulders, hands returning to your ears, his body atop you close, intimately so, but platonic in both nature and intent. His eyes watch as you struggle through the memory, observing, absorbing.

Mercifully, such gripping memories can't retain their hold for long, and before long Rosa's body relaxes, her countenance dazed, unaware... And then reality reasserts itself, and she tries to slide out from under the canine, sobbing and struggling weakly.

"Stop."

The word cuts softly through the air, spoken, tenderly, from one to the other.

Rosabella does.

Faruza meets your eyes. "Am I any of those men, Rosabella? Have you ever known harm from me, in your moments, when your throat was most bare, and you had no defense left to give?"

Rosabella freezes in place, though her tear-streaked eye turns away, cheeks burning in shame. "...There... there are times... when it does not matter..." She tries to find the words, and after several false starts, can only say "there is only the pain... and then the fear..."

Faruza nods quietly. "I hurt you tonight. I frightened you." he whispers. "And this lobo negro enjoyed it, poco lepri. He did not hurt you more than was needed, no, but he drank deep of it, he found it sweet, your pain, your fear." he whispers. "But I did not /harm/. Those men did not understand trust, or vulnerability. I do not take from those that lift their throats to me; I do not try to keep that which will not be kept." His voice, quiet, gentle, if a honing stone can be called quiet, if a blade can be called gentle.

Rosabella cannot help but quail slightly as the gentle steel, the razor's kiss of the raspy voice. "N-no Signor... You have not..." she admits, looking away. "But I have seen you harm, and it is within my heart... That to speak to you is to dance among glass and spears... and to step wrong is to suffer, perhaps to die."

Faruza smiles softly. "You have the tongue of your motherland." he murmurs with a quiet chuckle. "But you fear to step wrong, but there is only one safe path, and I have revealed it to you, thrice now. Would you die for that mask?"

Rosabella's eye closes for a moment. "If it is that you had been stabbed, Signor Faruza, in the stomach... do you let your insides spill upon the ground, to die slowly with your guts to drag upon the dirt? Or do you not try to seal the wound, to take your hands and hold them in their place?"

"I am neither the ground, nor your hands." he rumbles softly. "I am my hands. Those which just finished fishing those bullets from your flesh, and sealing the wounds. Through your pain and fear, I have helped strengthen you anew, Rosabella." His body gently untwines from Rosabella's, and he quietly settles beside her instead, content now that the moment of panic is over. "I understand your reasons, Rosabella. I show you a better path. One more terrifying. One more painful. But it is the only one without harm."

Rosabella shudders afresh at the thought, but smiles faintly. "This path, it will not involve such alcohol again?"

Faruza can't help but chuckle softly, amused by the question. "I say again, if you have wounds for a doctor, seek a doctor. I must keep the wounds from souring your blood somehow, or the pain from killing you."

Rosabella shakes her head. "Doctors I do not trust. They would perhaps ask of me, questions that would get myself or Vadrun killed."

Faruza ear-flicks softly. "Oho?" he murmurs, laying on his back, fishing out a fresh cigarette to light. "Killed. By the church?"

Rosabella blinks, a small line forming between her eyebrows. "What... No, Signor. Not by the Church."

Faruza ear-flicks again softly, taking a slow drag of the sweet smoke, eyes turned up towards the ceiling, his bitten tail brought up absently, pinching off a bit of ash from the tip to rub into the bite wounds. "Whom else would care about the wounds you take in your service to the man, then?"

Rosabella blinks sharply, eye widening as the full import of Faruza's question comes crashing down upon her. For a moment, she tenses, looking ready to bolt again... but slumps in resignation, closing her eyes and looking away. "...The Guard," she says, voice dull in abject surrender.

Faruza mms softly. Noting the play of reactions, a touch of amusement gracing his muzzle. "Do explain." he rumbles simply, exhaling slowly from his nostrils, allowing the curlicues of smoke to rise high overhead.

Rosabella falls silent for a long time, before slowly, hesitantly, but without much hope of escape detailing the precise fates of all four of her attackers.

<OOC> Faruza says, "Ooh, do I get details? :D" <OOC> Rosabella says, "Lots of stabbing; It was her first quadruple homicide, after all." <OOC> Rosabella says, "But, they'd been tied up and *taken* to her by Vadrun."

Faruza listens to it all, the canine patiently smoking throughout all of it. At the end, his question, perhaps, cutting as deep as one would expect from the canine, and his knowledge of the poco lepri. "Was that justice?"

Rosabella looks over, frowning lightly. "...Of course it was. It was what they deserved, and Hades, he shall see to their dead souls properly."

Faruza hmms softly. "Four men raped you and left you for dead, and so you killed them instead." A slow shake of his head. "I do not understand this southern justice. The north is much simpler. We have lived forever with the laws made by the people, and the judges none except the people. One is ostracized for the minor, they are banished for the major, or a spear in the belly for those too dangerous to banish, or those made mad." He sits up, a breeze whisking the ashes off his cigarette towards the hearth.

Rosabella shakes her head. "The law, it is created to serve Justice. But sometimes, it is that the law cannot, or perhaps will not, work towards this cause. This is not the fault of the law, but it is that the unjust, Signor, must face punishment before Justice can be satisfied."

Faruza chuckles softly. "That is a southern way." he rumbles softly. "There is no justice here, there is no such thing amongst my people. There is that which benefits the people, and that which does not. In your lands, a man who sleeps with the wife of a friend is a criminal. In the north, I would be rude not to offer a wife to my spear-brother, if he desired her. In your lands, such matters of parentage and bloodlines... such madness, to turn a child away simply because it was fathered by another. These ways of the south, these are Justice?"

Rosabella snorts. "No Signor, though matters of marriage do not concern me, and perhaps will not. I cannot understand what it is you speak of, for among Viera it is very different. I speak, Signor, of a man who would beat his child, and claim this to be an accident though the child may barely walk. A woman, Signor, who would seek the pity of others for herself, and force onto others grave injury, perhaps poison, that she may grieve and the people would pity her for her suffering. These things, Signor Faruza, are matters of Justice."

Faruza ear-flicks softly, and nods. "Those things I understand." he rumbles simply. "Both would be ostracized, until their behavior improved. In the north, one does not survive on their own." he rumbles simply. Ostracization, a very slow, reversable death sentence, ultimately. Everything in the north is.

Rosabella snorts. "And if the behavior, it did not improve? How many children, Signor, would die before the man takes the spear? How many people to sicken, to suffer, before the woman, she takes the spear?"

Faruza frowns and shakes his head. "Rosabella. If you spent but one day amongst the people of the north, you would know the answers to those questions." he rumbles softly. "If there was a child in the north, /any/ child, harmed as you speak? Every man would raise his spear, every woman, her snow-knife." he rumbles softly. "As for the second, any such madwoman would be put to the spear. Our ways have endured since before Holy, and they endure long after. The lands of the north are simple, but our ways are wise." A faint quirk of his lips. "Why do you suppose a man such as I does not live with his Clan?"

The mild sardonicism of the tone it's own answer: Because there is no place in the clan for one such as he. Except, perhaps, as a dangerous tool.

Rosabella nods slowly. "Yet, even here, if it came to be spoken of, you would stand to face death even as I. Perhaps it is that the House of Whitehand, it could protect you... but, I mourned for Vadrun before, for I know that there is no protection against all."

Faruza chuckles softly. "Rosabella... I don't give a shit that you slaughtered those four men. That was revenge, and it sounds sweet. I'll not speak of it, and I don't know a Whitehand that wouldn't, if they knew, simply shrug and consider it a matter not worth pursuing. If Vadrun helped you in this, then what is there to say? Revenge." he rumbles with a shrug. "Within the city walls, the law of the king and empire. Outside the walls, there is only the law of the spear, and taboo." He rises from the bed entirely, to throw the cigarette butt in the hearth, and then walks back over to you, calmly grasping your coat, without a word, beginning to carefully buckle that coat back around you. Intimacies having long since passed, and the cultural concepts of justice simply too foreign for the canine's nature and culture.

Rosabella frowns lightly, but doesn't pursue the matter, instead standing. "...I wish to thank you, Signor Faruza. I think perhaps I would have died, but for your help."

Faruza finishes buckling up your coat, and nods softly, meeting your eyes. "You put trust in me, Rosabella." he states simply. "And I rewarded that. That is the only justice I live by." He straightens. "See to those wounds carefully. Do not let your blood sour."

Rosabella's lip twitches upward. "It is difficult to get more sour than the drink you were to use... But I shall try. Again, I thank you."

"You're welcome. Go, rest now, poco lepri." he murmurs with a chuckle.

The Cetra's Song

The Cetra's Song, Part 1

(Editor's note: Apologies. Missing a section of log here, trying to track it down. In this case, Rosabella and Chelsie are in mid-discussion, when Faruza comes upon them.)

Chelsie smiles and leans against Faruza a moment, unafraid of the cold hate in his eyes.

Chelsie sighs and her lashes lower before raising and she tuts softly. "I am not ashamed of you. I do not judge you for who you are. You must understand, that everyone is a piece, a part of the whole. What and who you are.. is important. Perhaps not great, perhaps not even legendary. But you /are/ a part of it, and there will never be another like you - in that you are unique. You are you. And you should never be ashamed of that,."

Rosabella just falls silent, staring moodily down into her teacup.

Faruza looks to Rosabella softly. "Rosabella. Chelsie loves and is loved by a creature defined by the very malice of Gaia." he rumbles softly. "I, who have raped, slain, I, who have destroyed everything I could ever grasp, once upon a time in my life... Remember the eyes of my child, Rosabella." he rumbles softly. "She has given me her throat, and I hers. I know trust is hard. But look at Chelsie, and tell me you can believe she is weak, for all her trust, for all her vulnerability."

With his words, as though called by them, a new dawn breaks, throwing light through the windows of the lodge.

Chelsie's eyes lift to Faruza and she strokes his ear lightly before looking back to Rosabella with a gentle smile.

Rosabella practically quails away from the beam of sunlight, unable to look either of them in the face. "I... I cannot...." Swallowing the lump that threatens to rise in her throat, she just sits there in her chair, cowering.

Chelsie tilts her head and looks towards the sun which only seems to make her grow more vibrant. The glow she'd retained in the dimness, the light blue phosphorescence fading to a aura of purity. "What are you afraid of, Rosa?"

Faruza hand gives Chelsie's a very gentle squeeze. Falling silent, letting Rosa speak her own answer.

Rosabella's mouth works for a long time, but in the end she just falls silent, slowly shaking her head.

"May I answer her question?" Faruza rumbles softly to Rosabella.

Chelsie's brows. She seems to consider and looks away. "Without choice I had no fear. And truthfully there is very little that scares me." She looks back to Rosa and smiles with a warm trust and understanding. "But there are some things. You see for a long time I was unable, as Faruza said, to choose. And it was because I couldn't find myself. I was very lost, I was drowning in someone else. And while I am still very connected to it, and I can sometimes get lost in the greatness of it, and the insignificance of myself. I can think and chose for myself now, I can hear myself over the song.." She inhales and then continues. "And I am very afraid of the darkness.." She admits. Then looks to Faruza.

Rosabella just nods silently, wringing her hands together in her lap.

Faruza looks to Chelsie. "The last time Rosabella was utterly vulnerable, she was hurt, very badly. Men took her vulnerability, they took away her choice, and they hurt her. And now her heart aches with fear to be so vulnerable again."

Chelsie looks to Rosabella and then nods slowly in understanding. SHe looks back to Faruza, "She's afraid of the pain then."

Rosabella nods again, tears running down her cheeks.

Chelsie nods once more and looks to Rosabella. "I understand." She says softly.

Faruza nods softly. "A few days ago she came to me wounded, and she chose to trust me with her vulnerability, even through the pain, even though I hurt her with every touch." he rumbles softly.

Faruza looks to Rosabella. "And she learned that night the next lesson, that pain is not always harm, nor is harm always painful."

Chelsie leans on Faruza's shoulder, eyes watching Rosabella with silent understanding. She says nothing verbally, she doesn't need to. She, Chelsie, has been there in her own way.

Rosabella draws in a deep, shuddery breath, scrubbing at her eye. "...I... I trusted.... Signor Faruza... because... will not take from me...." One hand comes up, gesturing uselessly. "....H-he has you.... Signora... and his child... He is happy..."

Faruza frowns softly. "I will not take from you choice." he rumbles simply. And that's all. Everything else, he would take if he needed to, or wished to. Nothing restrains his malice, no. He is the north wind. But he will not take choice.

But he will accept choice.

Chelsie moves from Faruza, her fingers trailing along his shoulder as she moves to Rosa, the aura around her undeniable in it's weight and presence. She wraps her arms around Rosabella and humms softly to her, a strange old song that tugs at the memory like a lullaby sung during stormy nights to all children. Yet never sung from a mothers lips. "Nothing was taken from you." She looks up into Rosabella's eyes. "They tried, but they did not take it. You did not give it."

Rosabella squeezes her eye shut, a surge of pure, animal rage boiling up in her breast, fingernails biting into her palms as she turns her head away. "....No, Signora," she whispers, teeth clenched and throat straining, "they took from me... you have husband... child... never will you know what was taken from me.... For this, Signora... I could... I could hate you..."

Chelsie nods. "You could. I wouldn't stop you."

Faruza voice rumbles softly, like a northern breeze, cool, but carrying the moisture of the sea with it. "And you would not, even though you could." This said, matter-of-factly. "Because she will not take your choice away any more than I."

Rosabella sags within Chelsie's embrace, a toy solder with broken springs. "No," she moans, her voice that of the child, lost and afraid within crushing blackness, "I cannot...."

Faruza rises gently, giving Chelsie a touch on her shoulder. "I will see to Daivat for a while." he murmurs to her, leaving Rosabella in her care for now. He's made his many points. It's time now to let Rosabella see what lies on the other side of that valley of glass and spears, through Chelsie.

The Cetra's Song, Part 2

Chelsie slips a small tile from her pocket, as she cradles Rosabella, letting the frightened child within the Viera hide away. "This was of my people, long ago."

Rosabella's ears perk softly, and she looks out behind her tears at the colorful fragment of tile. "When did you last see them?"

Chelsie chuckles softly, "I don't remember. That was at a time." Her lashes fall over her cheeks. "Before I was able to retain such information." Her eyes open as she moves to the kettle and crouches before it, wings stretching out behind her.

Rosabella nods slowly, looking down at the tile in her hands. "....I am sorry, Signora. I... do not wish to remind you of unpleasant memories."

Chelsie smiles, "You didn't." She says softly and moves over to pluck up the tile. "I don't have unpleasant memories. My life is not, in the larger scope of things, what yours can be... nor Faruza's."

Rosabella starts quietly at the movement, relinquishing the tile as though it burns her. "...I am sorry, Signora, but I am confused... What is it... that you mean by this...?"

Chelsie looks to Rosabella and smiles quietly. The strangely peaceful woman watching Rosa with wide opal eyes. "You will know in time, just remember that you have a part in the song too."

Rosabella just looks.... mystified, looking down at her hands. "...I have not sung, Signora, since it is that I have left Valente." Her voice is low, the mask of cool and utter neutrality gradually returning to her face, even though her voice carries a quiet sadness.

Chelsie smiles quietly and shakes her head, moving off to get the kettle as it squeals angrily indicating it's ready and starts pouring the tea. "How did you meet Faruza, Miss Rosabella?"

Rosabella opens her mouth to answer, then pauses, pale eye flicking toward the canine, quietly playing with his child. "...He..." She swallows, quite obviously nerving herself up. "...I met him in the Barrens, Signora, searching for.... something I had lost." A hot flush rises to her cheeks, her gaze traveling down to her hands.

Chelsie looks over at her, watching her with those warm understanding eyes, sad and pained, wise and deep. She says nothing, just watches the Veira. In a way the gaze is worse to look at than one that is accusing. For it is accepting.

Rosabella looks up, just long enough to see that quiet acceptance, and ducks her head, shoulders hunching deeply, her shamed blush fairly radiating heat. "...I should go, Signora, I..." She shakes her head, biting off the rest and moving to get out of her chair.

Chelsie stands, "You, should sit. I just made tea." She watches the Viera. "Sit down. Rest. You've nothing to fear here." She sets the cup down and over, gently taking the woman's shoulders and looking up at her, wings fluttering lightly in the draw of the fire. "Have no shame around me, Rosabella. Please. I of all people will not judge you for anything, I can not. Please. Do me the honor of remaining until you've finished your tea."

Rosabella stiffens in the gentle hold, eye shining with tears as she looks down at Chelsie. "I... Signora, how..." She blinks, teardrop falling unnoticed down her dusky cheek. "You... you know," she says, voice small and awestruck, as though a child shown the glory of the stars for the first time.

Chelsie smiles softly. "Sit down. And tell me how you met Faruza." She reaches up, gathering the teardrop and brushing it away easily with all the care one would not normally show anyone but family or a loved one.

Rosabella blinks, looking down at the tear, noticing it for the first time. And, sighing to herself, she moves back to the table, casting a short, terrified glance in Faruza's direction. "I... Had met him, once, Signora, but I did not... truly know him... until the day that he killed a man. I attempted to stop him." As she speaks, her ears lower further and further, almost following the curve of her head. "...I was... not successful."

Chelsie nods, "Well, that sometimes happens. Death, that is, in many forms. And he is like a freezing wind, culling the weak when he is set to task." She puts a hand on Rosa's head and smiles, "You've little to fear from him." She looks to the tea and back. "And more to fear from yourself I'd wager. Drink your tea, Miss Rosa. It will calm your nerves."

Rosabella hunches her shoulders again, looking away from the gentle admonishment, taking up her tea and staring into it as though it held the mysteries of life. "I... I have never known anyone... such as you, Signora..."

Chelsie chuckles quietly, "No one else ever will either." She sounds bemused and strokes Rosa's head again before going to make her own tea sitting down. "So what brings you to Highwind Point, if I may ask."

Rosabella sips at her tea, closing her eye for a moment. "...I came... to learn, Signora... I... do not know if you are familiar with the city of Santa Estrella, in Valente?"

Chelsie smiles, "I've passed through it once or twice I believe. But to be honest I've a hard time with identifying one piece of Gaia from another."

Rosabella nods a bit. "I had thought so. It is only... There is a woman there, a Lady of House St. Cloud that would teach at the school I attended... I simply thought one as--" she bites her lip, frowning inwardly at the platitudes that had threatened to spill forth. "....such as yourself, would know of her."

Chelsie smiles softly and she nods once. "I am of St.Cloud. The only one up here, and one of the few left who has not lost themselves into madness."

Rosabella's ears prick up instantly. "Then you would know of her? Many years ago, she came to our lands, wedded to a Valente jeweler... Donnabhann, her name was..."

Chelsie's eyes close and then she nods smiling, "Mistress Donnabhann was my protector for many years. My guardian, until I was called by... stronger forces to return to them."

Rosabella sags back into her chair, looking down into her tea. "She was... an inspiration, Signora... She lived only to keep our city safe, spoke of the virtue of justice... I... For a time, I wished to be like her..."

Chelsie smiles quietly, opal eyes glittering warmly. "Not an unworthy desire, though she had her own demons. We all do.. And one would hope you would seek to make your own path, even if it ran a similar line to hers."

Rosabella settles back, the wind abruptly leaving her sails. "...Once, yes... but... no longer. I... travel another path, now..." Casting about for something else to talk about, she just sips at her tea and remains silent.

Chelsie chuckles quietly. "But the path, it is yours regardless. Why do you look so disheartened by it? Your path, wherever it leads, whenever it ends, is yours and yours alone. And it, like your heart and feelings, are your own. No matter what happens, those are things people can take from you only if you let them."

Rosabella turns the teacup in her hands. "...Because, Signora... My path, now... I come to you, and... I feel myself shamed by it..."

Faruza returns to the conversation after setting Daivat down for a nap, and gently seats himself next to Chelsie, having heard the conversation, but not intruding in it thus far. A look to Rosabella, and he smiles quietly, sadly. "I met Chelsie at a time in her life she had no choices. She lived as a human animal... intelligent, but without consciousness. I took her to a place where her mind could be completed. All I ever desired for her was the ability to choose. I lived long enough without choice in my own life, Rosabella. I could not stand to see her without choice, vulnerable to me without being vulnerable to me." he murmurs. "When she was healed... she chose me. That was enough."

Chelsie looks to Rosabella after watching Faruza walk away, her eyes raise to the Viera and she smiles ever so softly.

Rosabella has dissolved into quiet, shivering sobs at this point, burying her face into Chelsie's shoulder.

Chelsie's hands stroke over the rabbit womans hair. Her eyes lowered, watching her with a small smile. She doesn't say it's alright, she doesn't say that she'll get stronger. She waits a while then starts to sing softly, her voice somehow comforting. "Night lift up the shades, let in the brilliant light of morning, but steady there now, for I am weak and starving for mercy, sleep has left me alone, to carry the weight of unraveling where we went wrong, it's all I can do to hang on, to keep me from falling into old familiar shoes.." She hums for a while, softly murmuring, "Everything changes.." Her eyes closed, the warmth and serenity of her hug soothing, even as it causes one to face the storm outside from the warm protective shell.

Rosabella's crying subsides, but not for rather a long time, after her tears have stained Chelsie's blouse, sheer exhaustion taking hold. "...I am sorry," she murmurs, sniffling as she lifts her head up a bit, fruitlessly smoothing the fabric as though to remove the dark tear-stain.

Chelsie smiles softly and opens her eyes looking at the stain and back up. "For what?" She asks softly petting the ears and hair of the sobbing rabbit woman.

Rosabella shakes her head a bit, trying to regain her composure, and failing rather miserably. "...I... I do not know..." she says, ears lowering. "...I do not know," she repeats, voice falling quiet, the Viera looking away. "...I feel... something is very wrong in me..."

Chelsie smiles, "Perhaps." She shrugs, "But that's really not something you should waste your time speculating on. Faruza has found himself far more comfortable and understanding with time, and pain of his own. He's always felt as if there was something wrong with him. And in many peoples eyes there is, but in reality he is just as he was meant to be."

A glimmer of the old anger flickers in the Viera's eye, but she seems far too exhausted for anything more. "This... this is what was meant for me...?"

Chelsie's eyes glimmer with understanding and she takes the viera's chin and turns it towards Faruza. "He understands. I understand. I feel no anger because I understand why. I have no choice in that, I do not get free will in such a manner. I can be angry, I can fight, but in the end I have very few choices. But I get to understand in return. He doesn't, he can not. His existance, to know only hate, to give pain, to kill and eventually be hunted down like a diseased dog. To serve, to be a servant to it. To the hate, to the pain. Until the day he dies." She looks back at the viera. "Sometimes, the path we were meant for is unfair. And it truly is unfair. But in that... in that you have something."

Rosabella tilts her head, wiping again at an eye gone red and puffy. "...And what is it that I have, Signora? If it is that you know, tell me, for I do not. I know only that I love, but cannot know the love that you enjoy... I hate, but in hate I find no comfort, only fear. I would shed feeling... but fear to lose my soul... I know what I have not, Signora... please, I beg of you, tell me what it is that I have..."

Chelsie smiles softly. "You would be better to ask Faruza, for you have what he has. And he has learned what to fear, and how to use it." She opens her hands and closes her eyes and murmurs, "Now quiet a moment and let me tell you a tale, Beautiful one. Of someone who spoke to me, once before I came here. One who unlike you and everyone else I will never return to. For I have no soul." Her eyes open, "To call my own."

And the Cetra begins to sing.

As I sat sadly by her side, At the window, through the glass

She stroked a kitten in her lap, And we watched the world as it fell past,

Softly she spoke these words to me, And with brand new eyes, open wide,

We pressed our faces to the glass, As I sat sadly by her side.

She said, father, mother, sister, brother, Uncle,

aunt, nephew, niece, Soldier, sailor, physician,

laborer, Actor, scientist, mechanic, priest,

Gaia and moon and sun and stars,

Planets and comets with tails, blazing.

All are there forever falling. Falling lovely and amazing.

Then she smiled and turned to me, And waited for me to reply.

Her hair was falling down her shoulders. As I sat sadly by her side.

As I sat sadly by her side, The kitten she did gently pass,

Over to me and again we pressed Our different faces to the glass,

That may be very well, I said, But watch the one falling in the street.

See him gesture to his neighbours, See him trampled beneath their feet.

All outward motion connects to nothing, For each is concerned with their immediate need,

Witness the man reaching up from the gutter. See the other one stumbling on who can not see.

With trembling hand I turned toward her, And pushed the hair out of her eyes,

The kitten jumped back to her lap. As I sat sadly by her side,

Then she drew the curtains down And said, When will you ever learn?

That what happens there beyond the glass is simply none of your concern?

All Father has given you but one heart. You are not a home for the hearts of your brothers.

And All Father does not care for your benevolence. Anymore than he cares for the lack of it in others,

Nor does he care for you to sit, at windows in judgement of the world he created.

While sorrows pile up around you ugly, useless and over-inflated.

At which she turned her head away, Great tears leaping from her eyes.

I could not wipe the smile from my face As I sat sadly by her side.

Chelsie lifts Rosa's face to her own, she's smiling softly though her eyes are fathomless and filled with sorrow. "Can you see?"

Rosabella listens quietly, gazing into the middle distance as the cadence of Chelsie's words washes over her ears.

Rosabella's eye flicks back and forth, looking into each of Chelsie's eyes in turn. "I... I see," she whispers, "...but I.... do not understand..."

Chelsie shakes her head, "Understanding is not important." She nods once, "That comes in time and is no great boon. But you can see, your eyes are open."

Rosabella nods, resting her head back onto Chelsie's shoulder. "My eye," she murmurs, "it is open... It is only that I cannot see the way... long have I feared the darkness, Signora... How will I not lose my way... myself... If I embrace it?"

Chelsie's eyes close, "I can not tell you that. I've never been touched by the darkness, it is alien to me." She whispers into the Viera's ear, "When Gaia and I sat at the window, and we both cried our tears for the passage of time. When I was given a soul, that was not a soul, when I was made the purifier..the great purifier. I was removed from the darkness. It is the end, it is the beginning, I can never be in it. You must find your way in the darkness yourself."

There is something odd in the way she speaks. Almost as if she were mad to think these things. But it's heavy as if it is the truth could not be anything but the truth.

Rosabella subsides into silence, trying to comprehend the truths laid bare before her, clearly struggling to grasp the magnitude of it all. "...Does it hurt?" Again, that childlike whisper. "The sorrows of the world... How do you bear them?"

Chelsie offers softly, "With acceptance and patience. The sorrows and pain of the world, are heavy. Are overwhelming. But are tempered with love and many other things. They are but one part of a song, of a life."

Rosabella closes her eye. "...Tell me of the others...? Tell me, Signora, of love... I would hear..."

The Cetra opens her mind to the young poco lepri:

At first, it's warm. It's taste, like a drug injected into an IV. Flowing and warm, like blood.

Spreading from there.. all focused into the mind of the Viera. Telepathically expressed without words. Only thought and feeling, the sudden overwhelming clamor of Gaia's Song, and then slowly tuned out... the orchestra, thread by thread, undefinable. Until only a few remain intertwined with one another, like mothers milk flowing through the brain.

Pulled away now, slowly, strand by strand those chords closest to the one that the pained one wants. Hate, so very close, pain, also intertwined, hope, forgiveness, joy, laughter, death... so many tied to the one. And then it comes pure and almost painful. The resounding pulse of love, made of many strands. The parts that make it up peeled away to the very core.

Undefinable, a pulse of a mothers heartbeat in the womb. A ringing of laughter. A clash of confusion. The throat tightening sound of fear and loss. Purity, purely... though the feeling of the love. Unfettered, unabashed, indescribable. There is no possession, there is no confusion, there is nothing... and yet there is everything.

There within the green lifestream in her eyes and the purest taste of something primal and before time. It's overwhelming. It's PAINFUL.

And then it stops, and Chelsie is over by the window, her hands gripping the windowsill.

Rosabella falls to the floor, partly for lack of physical support, partly in prostration as the rush of feelings, of Feeling in all its beautiful, terrifying purity, blasts through her unprotected mind.

For a while, even her breath leaves her body, the Viera curling up on the floor, eyes wide, a single ear twitching now and again. Breath, with awareness, returns in a rush, her muscles easing. "I saw," she whispers. "How... how did I not know this...?"

Chelsie looks over. "Because I only gave you a tiny glimpse. You do not know now, but you see. You do not understand but you see. Can you now feel why understanding is not necessary?"

The Cetra's Song, Part 3

Faruza returns from seeing to Daivat, and gently crouches down, steady hands and tails lifting Rosabella up, returning her gently to the couch, before walking over to brush a hand against Chelsie's back. "Understanding helps only the waking mind. But love is not a matter of the waking mind, but of the body, of the blood, of dreams ancient, older than our bones." he whispers. He strokes his hand up, curling it warmly around Chelsie's throat. "Chelsie is as my sister, Rosabella. I hear but a few strands. The hate, the rage, the anger of it all. Chelsie hears it all. That is what she is. The Bearer of Holy." He smiles softly.

A moment where it sinks in, then; the end of the world rests between these two. THESE two.

Chelsie's chin lifts and her eyes close as Faruza's hand curls about it. She leans into him, into the hand with a ease of trust and a welcoming..wether it be a caress or the grip of death she welcomes it.

Rosabella's head lifts from the floor, looking to Chelsie as though seeing her for the first time. "Espirita Sancta," comes the strangled, reverent whisper, and she rises to a sitting position, just... staring dumbly at the picture the couple presents.

Faruza hand around Chelsie's throat... possessive, his... but his by her choice, made, by the one woman on all of Gaia who would know him, who would understand him, best. And she in turn, the one woman closest to knowing his life, and the flood that is Gaia's will. Faruza nods slowly to Rosabella. "This thing you will never speak of." he whispers. "Or they would come, those that would see the power of Holy in their hands. For her, I took the cut of the one-winged angel's sword, across my breast, here." An opening of his suit coat, the pale pink scar cutting across his chest, a shallow slice. "For her choice. Rosabella... I told you once before. I do not keep that which does not choose to be kept." His claws trailing away from Chelsie's throat.

Chelsie's head tilts slightly and she moves close to Faruza once more. Her hand trailing the scar and her head resting on his chest, wings fluttering softly. She looks to the rabbit eared woman and smiles warmly at her, a direct contrast to her mate. "May you find some comfort in our vulnerability, if you ever fear your own."

Rosabella closes her mouth, lowering her eye and nodding slightly. "I will... I shall keep your secret, Signora Chelsie, Signor Faruza..." Her ears splay out to either side, and she looks around to Daivat's sleeping form.

The child is smiling in peaceful slumber. He's a toddler. Perhaps 3. Though he seems underdeveloped in some ways. Like his speech. His tails resting limp around his legs and his purple curls mussed about his face.

Faruza smiles quietly. "Perhaps one day Daivat will carry Holy, and none better." he rumbles softly. "Gaia has plans for him, that much we know. Gaia touched him, in ways I do not understand. She has a purpose for him."

Chelsie moves over and pours some more tea for Rosabella and offers it to her. "For the headache."

A tiny smile touches the Viera's lips, and she sighs to herself, looking up at Chelsie. "What is it that you mean, Sign--Ah. Ow," she says, rubbing her temple with one hand as she reaches for the tea.

Chelsie tilts her head, "It will pass." She murmurs softly letting the viera take the tea, "It comes after the excitement ends and the body readjusts."

Faruza ear-flicks softly. "Perhaps too early." he rumbles quietly. "I have yet to show Rosabella my own past. But perhaps it will be less overwhelming, after yours, Chelsie."

Chelsie looks to Faruza and smiles and pets the veira before moving over to check on Daivat, fingers brushing at his soft downy curls.

Rosabella blinks, looking up from her tea toward the canine. Mutely, her long ears droop, eye widening, the rabbit watching the hawk descend.

Faruza notes her look, and can't help but chuckle softly. Predatory sense of humour, but he's kind enough today not to press it deeper. "Drink your tea, clear your head for a while, rest if you like, Rosabella. You see some of what Chelsie is... I trust you with what she is, I shall trust you with what I am."

Chelsie looks back to the child, rousing him to nurse. Yes, odd, she's nursing a toddler.

Rosabella takes a sip of her tea, eye wandering toward Chelsie... and back down to her cup again, a faint blush rising on her cheeks. Wincing, she massages her poor, abused temple, attempting to settle her mind down before the coming onslaught.

Faruza pours himself his own cup of tea, taking his time to seat himself comfortably, sipping and simply regarding Rosabella. Seeing her blush towards Chelsie, Faruza smiles quietly. "You'll be a mother yet one day. When you have found your way out of the dark, or a path good enough within it."

Daivat has his roots in northern barbarians, and it shows as he suckles loudly and greedily at his mothers chest, a white lining forming at his lips. Chelsie rocks him lightly and plays with his curls as she looks over towards fruza and Rosa.

Rosabella snorts, taking another sip of her tea. "Of this I am doubtful, Signor Faruza... My kind are not given the luxury of choice that the rest of Gaia enjoys." Wrinkling her nose against the sour thought, she applies herself to her tea, the suckling of the baby at his mother's breast causing her blush to deepen slightly.

Faruza snorts on his own. "Your kind can bear young to other kinds. That much I know. But the fire is not there, I understand. No matter. There are Viera males even in the north, Rosabella. And if it is only children, then you have choices, even if you take no joy in them, only the satisfaction of blood kindled." he rumbles with a shrug. "But even if you can not bear children of your own, there are always foundlings worth the many years of love."

Rosabella frowns lightly. "I have found the one extreme in the act, Signor. I would prefer to know the joy I am told it can bring. However," she says, settling back and looking thoughtful as she sips her tea, "Perhaps one day soon I will ask you to tell me more of the foundling children."

Faruza right tail makes a slight downwards tip-droop, similar to a hand making an "I'll concede that point" gesture. He drains the last of his tea. "There are many, especially after this long winter. If you can gain the trust of a clan or two, there would doubtlessly be foundlings that a family would allow you to mother for as if they were your own."

Rosabella nods, looking down at her lap, as though trying to picture a child resting there. "I would hope to be a worthy mother," she says quietly, patting the armored expanse of her stomach.

Faruza studies Rosabella thoughtfully, lacing his fingers together under his chin. "Mmn." is all he says, wheels turning behind that hard gaze of his, his mouth moued faintly in quizzical thought.

Rosabella looks back up, an eyebrow quirking. "Is something the matter, Signor?" A hand comes up, to touch the baggy, puffy flesh beneath her eye.

Faruza shakes his head slowly. "No." he rumbles quietly. "No. Just thoughts of a gift I might give someone, something you inadvertantly reminded me of. No matter." he rumbles quietly. "But, at any rate, are you ready for another mental round?"

Rosabella's undamaged ear flops forward, her eyebrow rising beneath her headband. "Ah. No, Signor, I do not think I will ever be ready. But, I have asked, and you have offered, and I do not wish time to regret."

A brush of Faruza's mind against Rosabella's, a flood of memories, of images:

Imagine you are Faruza.

Imagine you are one day conceived between two creatures that loathed each other, but did their duty to Gaia, were fruitful, and bore the sight and sound of one another long enough to mate and leave. Imagine an unborn child in a womb, and long before it is born, a voice has sung into it's mind, into it's soul, from the moment of conception. That voice, Gaia's voice. A raging, black torrent of hatred, for everything that has ever dreamed, for everything that has ever changed the face of her, or of her dreams, by that most hideous, unnatural of crimes: thinking.

Imagine you are this child, born wailing, screaming your fear and your anger and your hatred out towards this world, where already for months you have known nothing but a constant, unending, spewing bile of the planet's hate inside you. Imagine this is the birth of a WEAPON; strip it most of it's might and power, but none of it's unending rage, hatred, it's unrighteous fury. Imagine this child born to a mother that was born the same way, by a father born the same way. A child unloved; tolerated merely for the sake of obedience to that hateful, screaming, gibbering black torrential voice in their soul.

Imagine this child a toddler, and knowing already that he was ostracized from his clan; in a society where ostracization is little more than a commuted death sentence, where it is the gravest punishment not requiring a spear in the belly. A child of the clan, yes, but loved by none there, merely a tool for survival.

And this child, now but six, running through the tundra at blinding speeds, howling his hatred, his fury, his own anger merely a tiny pebble next to the mountain of the planet's might. Of running mad through the tundra to escape that howling voice, those chill winds that followed him everywhere, that kept him from ever once, even for a /second/ of his life, hearing or feeling anything but that cold, raging hatred, those screaming orders to kill everything around him that thought.

Imagine this young man at fourteen, advised by uncaring elders to accept the will of the planet as supreme.

Imagine his first murder and his first sexual experience; the young rabbit girl flopping around on his dick uselessly, her throat slit and her cunt raped. In that order. The sex nothing more than the satiation of a physical need. The murder, so much more.

Imagine a young man hearing of magics, magics to the south that bent the will of Gaia. He was a resentful slave to that voice, to that invulnerable, insane voice. And to the south there were magics that could tame that voice, some whispered. Magic that could make the invulnerable master bend to /his/ will.

Imagine the racing run, until lungs bled, until froth flew, until every bone in his body was a stress fracture. Three days and three nights of solid, unending sprinting. To arrive in this southern town. And then, the horror, of learning that these magics were locked in something called books. And turning the full weight of your rage onto a young woman, until she cowed under and taught you to read.

Imagine, a lifetime of that raging voice, slowly muted. A week's worth of study... and then the wrenching, sudden force of will it took to finally drown that voice out with a shout from the soul: He would never again be a slave to that insane, invulnerable, distant master. It would serve him now, that hateful, spiteful bitch would grind under his heel, it would do /his/ bidding.

And that very same, magical day, the very greatest day of your life, a man and a woman offer to hire you into their house. And you are, incredulously, offered vulnerability. A lifted chin to your knife. And for reasons at the time you don't understand why, you find it important to do the same; to touch your throat, willingly, to their knives. Your new masters are something unthinkable: vulnerable. And they give you that vulnerability. They -trust- you.

Imagine your sleep that night. Knowing you have two masters sleeping in a room a thin door away, their throats vulnerable to your knife. Imagine knowing you could slide in and at any moment, kill them both.

Imagine how well you sleep, that night, knowing the comfort that certainty brings you.

The Cetra's Song, Part 4

Rosabella is, once again, knocked over by the force of the thoughts that tear into her mind, her chest locked, throat squeezed closed against breath. Her eye is wide and staring, the pupil a mere pinprick awash in a sea of cold, pale jade. Feebly, her hands scrabble at the unyielding floor, desperate in her blind panic to escape the rush of sensory images, memories impressed upon her in a mere instant.

Faruza tails coil, though gently, simply acting as a barrier to keep the blind, instinctual panic at bay, waiting for realization to sink in. Faruza's mindlink open, and he's there, within his own rocky, barren mind, the canine standing alone in that small island behind the great glass wall of his will, the flow of Gaia's hatred and rage all around him, but no longer allowed to flood him entirely.

"That is what I was, Rosabella, until the day I took my first throat, and in turn gave it." he whispers. "That is still what I am, in many ways, but now... now I understand trust, and vulnerability."

Rosabella's breath comes in a thin rattle, the whistle of air flowing through a throat too tight to allow the breath of life. Thrashing against her bonds, it remains some time before she calms enough to make sense of the canine's words, to allow the black, mad hatred of the planet to die within her mind, alien to her being and starved of connection. Finally, she simply subsides, limp and exhausted, chest heaving, eye blank as she stares up at the ceiling. Through the link, it can be seen that she's aware, simply too strained and exhausted to do more than breathe.

And that is Faruza's existence. That glass wall is not static. It is his will, his constant, unending struggle, through sleep and that waking world, through every emotion he feels, he must keep that barrier in place, or be swept away in that flood once again. That rage would burn the world. That same rage fuels the might of Holy, of every WEAPON.

Rosabella shudders, sprawled upon the floor. Weakly, slowly, she brings her arms up to encircle her chest. "No... no more.... please... I see..."

Faruza keeps the mental connection open, but he lets it fade into silence. Dimly seen, amidst the crags and cracks of the frozen gray stone that lines the blasted wasteland of his mind, tiny green things, the smallest of clovers and arctic flowers, faint, tiny spots of green. The land of his mind is not wholly barren, not wholly lifeless. One must simply look closely.

After a few moments' wonder, the Viera closes her mind's eye, turning away from the link as she averts her face from the canine. In its own way, the cold arctic plain, devoid of shelter and offering solitude only in its crushing emptiness, twists her heart as deeply as the mad rage of Gaia, her attempts to close the link on her side feeble, barely perceptible, and ultimately useless.

Faruza doesn't force the link to remain open; as you twist your mind from it, he lets it gently release, the connection tenuous anyway, requiring your cooperation. He rises quietly, and settles a tail-tip for a moment on Rosabella's shoulder. "You stand only in the shade, poco lepri." he whispers. "You are miles from the bottom of that precipice."

Rosabella shudders on the floor again, her head turning back, eye winding upwards to find Faruza's face. "Must I find the deeper heart of darkness?" comes her answering whisper, tremulous and ragged from the dull edge of exhaustion.

Faruza shakes his head softly. "No." he rumbles softly, crouching down. "There is little of value there."

Chelsie rolls her shoulder, "Not necessarily Faruza. She is not as deep as you, but she is there. She has wandered into your land." Her eyes raise. "Its up to her if she wishes to remain there but she must fully understand it's depth."

Rosabella swallows, a dry click sounding at the back of her throat, ears splaying at Faruza's words. "...Tell me... Tell me what it is I must do, Lobo Negro..."

Faruza eyes slide up to Chelsie's, slowly. "That would require that she be torn of choice, for much longer than she has ever known. I will not do this." he rumbles softly. "And it is to another she serves, not I."

Chelsie smiles, "Shown.. Through you." She murmurs softly. "She stands at the precipice of your mind. I have torn a hole, accidentally but necessarily. Now it is up to you to give her the medicine she will need. The medicine of choice."

A telepathic floating of thought, from the Cetra to the canine: ((Show her Faruza.. There are things you did not I am sure. She walks close to your path, dangerously so.))

Rosabella looks from Chelsie to Faruza, confused, her fear creeping back in through the corners of her mind.

((I showed her all, from my birth, to the moment I took Gabreielle and Gabriel's throat. I know not what else to tell. I don't understand. Give me time. I would do this well, and wisely, Chelsie. The first for me was many stumbling accidents, painful. I do not wholly understand. I won choice, I was not given it by another. ))

Faruza regards Chelsie quietly, a silent conversation flashing between them. Faruza's slight emotional giveaways showing mostly... confusion, hesitation, dismay. Something here has caught him off-guard, and even for himself, Chelsie isn't always easy to understand.

((No. But nor was she born to your path. But she comes close to it. Driven to it not by her own choice, but someone else's. Shamed, hated, full of hate. It's there. Faruza. Are you sure you've shown her everything? Such as what made you who, and what you are, and how you came to choice? And how others choices, those you serve and those who serve you, have formed you?))

Chelsie is watching Faruza with her unwavering loving gaze. His hesitation giving her no anger, not even a tick of impatience. Simply a tiny smile of encouragement.

Rosabella's eye flicks back and forth between the two, eartips quivering. "What...?"

Faruza straightens slowly, and then quietly nods. He looks to Rosabella. "Calm, poco lepri." he rumbles softly. "Chelsie reminds me of other lessons to teach you, though I am not wise enough to know all of their value." he rumbles. "We have many lessons ahead of us. And I think I am tired of picking you up off the floor of my house. Chelsie, can we offer Rosabella a pillow and blanket? Best if she spend the night and we speak with her until sleep takes us."

Chelsie nods to Faruza, "She's welcome in my home." She looks to Faruza, "You know this." She chuckles quietly petting her sleeping child. She hums softly.

Faruza nods softly. "Please fetch the blankets, and have we a sleeping robe for Rosabella to change into, something warm? She will need what security and comfort tonight she can take, and for days to come, perhaps.

Chelsie nods lifting Daivat with one arm, moving off towards a small oaken trunk to gather furs and a robe for the viera.

Rosabella pushes herself off the ground a bit. "...Days...? But Vadrun, Signor, he does not know, he has forbidden me to speak with you--" Her voice begins to rise, words falling over themselves to be spoken. "--how am I to protect him if I disappear?"

Chelsie looks over to Rosabella. She finishes getting the robes and moves over to the viera. "You've come anyway, and it is to late for that. We all do things those we serve disapprove of. Hmm? This is necessary."

Faruza arches an eyebrow. "Forbidden?" he rumbles with a faint chuckle. "And you disobey him to speak anyway? I am flattered. But. I do not intend to keep you here against your will, Rosabella. Calm your panic, calm, poco lepri. You are a guest in our home, you may go as you please. But we have much to discuss, much to explore and ponder. I expect it will take many days. Your lessons began the day I took your throat; they have continued, and they will continue, as long as you wish them. So... calm, accept a robe and a sleeping-fur."

Rosabella sags, her head drooping slightly, her posture marking her total surrender to the forces that seem to desire her to stay here. "....Very well", she mumbles, levering herself off the ground and accepting the robe with a nod.

((more to come))

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