Hi, so here is another chapter and again this one takes place strictly between Gisella and Djaq. The next one will also be Djaq's point of view and then we go back to the main plot and back to our other characters.

As always a Disclaimer-Nothing here but Gisella is mine.

TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter including death, war, rape and violence.

Please Read and Review.

And if there is anything in this that is historically accurate I apologise. Also please keep in mind there might be some outdated language as befits the year this show is played out over.

Internal Displacements

Chapter 8-Torn And Frayed.

Djaq wakes up and she and her sister talk, in which the pain of the past is discussed and the battle lines for the future are drawn. Trigger Warnings for the next chapter.

She came to with a blinding headache which considering that she still got migraines after her time in the cave was not a good sign. Staggering into an upright position she looked across from her at the woman who was watching her with a gaze that was both familiar and terribly unfamiliar all at the same time.

Gisella.

So it had not been a dream.

They had both changed Djaq thought looking at her sister. She had cut her hair and had dressed like a boy in muted shades of brown and green and purple and her sister had gone for blood red clothes, her hair long and wild down her back as uncontrollable now as she had been when she had been a child growing stubbornly into womanhood. She gave the impression of deadly skill and purpose just looking at her and Djaq knew that if anyone attempted to take her sister in a fight there would be no compassion given, no quarter proposed and now mercy shown. It was to be brutal and painful and deadly.

And looking at her she thought it was not so much the case that Robin had not found this woman—this hard and cold statue sitting in front of her knives in her lap—it was more that she had never gone after him.

Gisella tilted her head to the side. Her eyes were lined in kohl, her lashes long and black.

"Well?" she said in that light melodious voice. "Not pleased to see me?"

"Gisella. You are…alive"

Gisella smiled those perfect cupid bow lips parting to show white teeth though there was no warmth to the smile.

"Observant as ever dear Saffia"

"I go by—"

"I know what you go by in this wretched place. I know you have taken our dear brother's name as well as everything else that has mattered, our father's work, and his sanctimony. I know all"

"I did not…how are you alive? I thought when the city fell everyone was killed"

Gisella smiled though again there was no humour, all of the emotions that had made her little sister, her little sister had been stripped away almost. It was as if there was a hardened shell where she should be.

No love. No warmth.

Nothing.

"In a way I did die. And now I am reborn"

"Oh for…will you get to the point"

"I survived. Only to be taken capture by a group of English soldiers. One…he was called Gideon. He used me, chained me, beat me, raped and defiled me and all the time told me that maybe that day he would kill me. And he was not shy about his methods, sometimes it was his manhood, his fingers, his sword handle, a broomstick, tools used to repair wagons, but I was a filthy Saracen so what did it matter?"

Djaq was not sure what was worse, the fact that her sister was saying this or the fact that she was saying this in such a matter of fact way. She wanted to interrupt, to tell Gisella to stop speaking, to force her to stop speaking but the way her hard, glittering sister was looking at her she had a feeling if she tried that she was likey to get her hand removed one finger at a time.

"And then I was rescued. And in that rescue the girl I was died and the woman I am today was born"

"The Woman in Red?"

Gisella gave a gentile little shrug.

"So they call me. I suppose I did leave quite a red trail through Constantinople"

She laughed a little and it was high pitched and wild and dangerous like an animal cornered knowing that it had the skill and the sheer bloody determination to fight it's way out.

"And now?"

"Now? Let us say that a girl can take a holiday once in one lifetime"

She grinned and Djaq felt a horrible sense of foreboding. She shifted forwards so that they were facing each other with no fire standing between them. Gisella watched her for a second with no compulsion.

"You are here to help kill the King"

"No. Though I admit that there was a moment where such a thing crossed my mind. This pitiful plan will not work so what is the point of me intervening. No I am here to kill you"

She stopped dead. Gisella got to her feet and she smiled. They were shoulder to shoulder despite the five years between them and Djaq knew looking at her that, her little sister was going to be taller than her in a matter of months. But even a thought as utterly mundane as that did nothing to help comprehend what she had just heard.

"You are here to kill me"

"Yes"

"Why?"

For the first time her sister's mask dropped. She stared at her as if she had just lost her mind and when her mask fell down a little bit Djaq could see the anger that was building behind the pretty face.

"Why? Allah forfend you have not changed, you never had any idea of the consequences of your actions"

"The consequences of my actions? I am not the one slaughtering her way through occupied territories"

"No you are just bedding the enemy"

Gisella took a step closer and the danger was back in her eyes again. She was so feral in this moment that Djaq wanted to take a step backwards and then another and then another but she did not. Gisella was still her little sister. The idea of giving her that kind of power rankled against what they had grown up to be, the roles of big and little sister.

But her sister was not done and her hissing interrupted Djaq's thoughts with all the soft sounds of a poisonous snake getting read to strike it's deadliest blow.

"I see you" she said softly. "I've been watching you. I saw you in that cave and I saw that boy come to rescue you. I saw the look on his face when you played damsel. And you have always played the innocent damsel with me have you not? With father? When he did not want to take you to the battlefields, with Djaq begging him not to go to war…I am not surprised that you have found peasants and soldiers to make you bed with…you accuse me of killing my way through Christendom? Well my dear Saffia…at least I have not slept my way through it"

Her hand came out to slap her sister's face but her sister was now—she supposed—an international assassin and her reflexes were superb.

She grabbed Djaq's arm and then her elbow and twisted it so hard she went to her knees her arm screaming in pain at being forced at the odd angle.

"Do not do that again" Gisella deadpanned letting go and Djaq bit back the immediate cry of pain to focus more on what to say next.

"I did not sleep around with any of them. I have not and I will not"

"Do not kid me. The farm boy looks at you as if he wants to lay you down on a flat surface and do things you should charge him for"

Djaq stared momentarily diverted.

"He does"

Gisella rolled her eyes heavenwards.

"I am not sleeping with any of them. And you cannot kill the King. And you cannot blame me for the way you are"

"I can do both if I so choose. But the first one does not matter. You do not understand sister. We are winning"

"Are we though? Are we?"

Gisella grinned showing her teeth again.

"He's putting up a good fight" she crooned. "But he is tired and the weather is getting to him and his money is being drained. I imagine the inevitable will happen"

"Robin says he will sue for peace"

"Robin says he will sue for peace" Gisella said in a mocking kind of tone. "Well if Robin says that then I must beg for forgiveness. I must throw myself at the mercy of the Gods. For if ROBIN SAYS—"

"Alright I get your point"

"Your English owner will lose his King and his fight. Look around you Saffia, the people are tired of lacklustre. They know we are winning. There is a glory that is Allah and it will not stop because of one King. We are the chosen people. Your English friends will soon realise that. Besides, the man has caused so much bloodshed and pain and loss—how can you not hate the man who had decimated your own people? Or are the English your people now?"

She did not allow Djaq to finish because she turned on her heel. It was a good thing really because Djaq was not entirely sure what she would do if she was given the chance to answer that question.

"I am not to blame for the way that you are?"

"Really, because it was not my insistent that I go to the city and wait out the coming storm, it was you. It was you who insisted that you go with father dressed as a boy and that I would cause distraction, it was you who insisted you were the child he should trust and take and love beyond all others. He never loved you or Djaq. He was weak after mother died and you took advantage of that and you made him your own man, a little clay doll that you could play with and fuck the consequences of those actions to the two small children who did not understand why they were never good enough. You were the stick that we were always measured with and we were never good enough. I had a premium seat in hell because of your insistence that you be the golden child. I cannot forget it and I will certainly never forgive you for it"

She finished this shocking sermon and turned around smiling that same cold, cruel smile that millions of men and woman had looked upon as she had killed them. Djaq was aware she was crying, she was unable to stop at the bleak (and if she was being bitterly honest with herself quite truthful) picture that her sister had painted of a childhood that had always seemed golden to her and had been made of lesser things to her baby sister.

"So you will kill me?"

Gisella laughed.

"Today you mean? No. Not today. Today I will let you go, but I will be here watching you and waiting—because there will be a time dear sister of mine that you will think you have achieved everything you've ever wanted probably with that farm boy and when that happens I will be there to take his head and then yours. And then I will go. And I will be what I have always been, a memory and a ghost. You see you dying, my killing you frees me. And I have to be free"

"I was once in chains too you know"

"I know. And look how well you have done. I bet nobody ever even thought of touching you. Certainly they did not get enjoyment out of your screams and pleads for mercy"

Djaq sobbed. In truth Gisella was right but she could see the picture her sister was creating, a future with Will that one day her sister would take from her because she could. Because the war had divided them so much that they were beyond each other now.

She had never hated anyone more than the King in that moment.

And she had never hated anyone else more than her sister. Who despite it all she stubbornly still loved.

"Please"

Gisella started at her and there was hatred in the lines of the well loved face.

"No"

And then she turned and she was gone like the ghost she had promised she would be.

And Djaq put her head down on the floor of that cave and wept uncontrollably.

And there you go, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I will bring the next one to you as soon as possible.

Next Chapter-Djaq considers all that she has seen and heard as she attempts to bring her past together with her future.