A/N: I've been forgetting these, haven't I. How bad for me. Well, um… Here's Chap. 3…yeah…
Disclaimer: Ok, Thayet, Jasson, Stephan, and Salma are TP's, but Raine, Paige, Yui, and Jasson's personality are mine. The Plot's mine. So there.
Raine: Chapter 3
Date: August 27, 2001
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Raine's eyelids fluttered open. For a brief moment she forgot where she was, and jumped off her bed with her hand clutching the dagger she kept under her pillow. Then she remembered the knife to her throat. The cretin was gone, but not without leaving her with a large gash on her throat. Glancing in her mirror she assessed the damage. It wasn't life threatening.
She heard people yelling and rushing toward her room. Still clutching her throat, she dashed onto the balcony, and dropped into the garden, miraculously landing on her feet. Well, partway. Her ankle made a sickening crunch as she landed, making her cringe. She stood, and hobbled as fast as she could inside the palace.
Mentally thanking her tendency for insomnia, she navigated to corridors blindly, and found herself at Paige's door. She knocked quietly, not knowing why. After a few moments, she turned telling herself that Paige was most likely asleep. She hadn't walked three steps when the door creaked open.
" Raine?" Paige asked groggily, her voice hoarse. Involuntarily, Raine felt tears start to track down her face, and she turned and hugged Paige. " What is it? What's wrong?"
Raine, instead of saying anything, just sobbed harder, her hands drifting back to her throat. Paige ushered her inside, and lit some candles with her gift. Sitting Raine down on the bed, she forced Raine to look up at her. When she didn't see anything immediately wrong with her face, she gave the rest of her a cursory glance. When her eyes focused on Raine's throat, they widened almost inexplicably.
" Jasson!" She yelled, jumping up to grab some water and a rag to clean up the freely flowing blood, and bind the wound. Raine wondered who Jasson was.
Paige's door flew open, and Jai looked in, wide-awake and shaken. Raine realized that Jai was almost certainly a nickname." What?" Paige simply pointed at the still sobbing Raine. He raised an eyebrow at her, but she waved him off, still looking for bandaging.
He crossed the room quickly, and examined her throat with gentle fingers. " Well, she won't die soon, but we need to get her to a healer. Paige had just found the bandages, and handed a sponge to Jasson. He started to clean the blood off from around the wound, while Paige tried to bandage it tight enough to stop the flow, and still let her breathe.
Once that was done, they asked her to stand. By now she had stopped crying, but dry sobs still racked her throat. She tried to stand, and nearly succeeded, but her ankle gave out from under her, and she found herself on the floor. Impatient, Jasson picked her up, and the three rushed to the healer's wing.
* * *
Raine could hear voices outside her little enclosed room. It sounded like Queen Thayet, Duke Baird, and Jai. No, Jasson. She corrected herself. His name is Jasson. Quietly, and painfully, she sat up a little, listening intently.
" She was nearly dead." Duke Baird sounded tired and exasperated.
" Can't I just SEE her?" Jasson pleaded, the exasperated tone in his voice as well.
" Jasson." Queen Thayet snapped. " Duke Baird has been healing her all night long. The both of them need a rest. Drop it."
Raine could imagine that Jasson had pressed his lips in a thin line, and was fighting back his temper. Baird sighed, and Thayet sounded as strained as either of the men. " We'll all see her this evening." She added.
" Fine." Jasson snapped, and seconds later she heard the slamming of a door.
" You're majesty," Baird started. " While I was healing her arms," Raine glanced at her arms, which were in splints. Did she break them and not notice? " I found a rather…peculiar tattoo."
" I don't want to know right now, Baird. Tell me about in a few weeks, I she doesn't tell me herself. I have to go. Jon needs me in the council room. More problems with Scanra." And she too left, although she didn't slam the door. She heard footsteps approaching, and lay back down.
" So you're awake, hmm?" Baird asked, coming over and examining her splints. He removed the one from her left arm, and felt the bone. " Good. It's healed. You're a fast healer young lady." He smiled at her as she shifted uncomfortably.
" Am I going to be okay?" she croaked, her throat hurt really bad. Which wasn't all that surprising, as she hadn't cried since before she left Starbrook. She refused to think of it as home anymore.
Duke Baird looked surprised at the question. " Of course. You won't even have much of a scar on your throat." Raine's hand drifted to where the cold steel blade had been the night before. " As a matter of fact, you'll be leaving here in the morning, and going back to Thayet's service." Raine nodded. " In the meantime, do you think you can do a few things for me?"
Raine nodded again. " I'll go nuts if I have to sit here all day."
The Duke laughed. " All right then." He showed her where he had just gotten a delivery of some healing herbs, and showed her what jars they went in, after they had been ground into a powder. So, Raine spent the rest of the afternoon, a mortar and pestle, grinding herbs.
By dinnertime, she had ground all the herbs, mixed several potions, and neatened all Duke Baird's shelves. She was feeling great. Maybe it was from being useful, or maybe it was that she was high off the herbal scents. Whichever it was, she didn't care.
She went back to her 'room', to rest for a while. The 'room',which was really just a bed with curtains drawn around it, was surprisingly comfortable. She was sipping her soup when Jai burst into the healing ward. " Hello Jai. Excuse me. JASSON." She said coldly, sipping some more. Jasson cringed as he pulled up a chair.
" I guess I should have told you my real name."
" Oh, ya think?" She snapped, slamming down her soup so hard it splattered the tray.
Jai cringed again. * Damnit all. *Raine thought sternly. *Jasson. His name is JASSON. Not Jai. *
" So what else haven't you told me?" Raine demanded, staring at him coldly.
" A few things that aren't really important." He told her quietly.
" Fine." She muttered, picking her soup back up, and sipping it again.
" Will you still call me Jai, though?" He asked her, reaching out for her hand. She let him take it and nodded slowly. " When's Baird letting you leave?"
" Tomorrow morning."
They sat in silence for a while. Jai watching her while she finished drinking her soup. After a while, it totally began to freak her out. " WILL YOU STOP STARING?" She asked, setting the empty cup and tray on the bedside table. Jai laughed at her and instead looked around the room.
Soon enough, Jai had to go because he had work from his classes to be finished. She had just settled down to sleep, when Thayet swept into the room. Raine sat straight up.
" Thayet!"
" Sit down, girl, you'll hurt yourself." Thayet smiled. " Are you all right?"
" As all right as one can be after having a knife to her throat." She replied, smiling.
* * *
Two months later, Raine was back to working in Thayet's chambers. She had luckily had no more nighttime visitors, and life in the palace was going pretty good. She still sewed everyday with Paige while Jai was working on his class work, although she sometimes caught Thayet giving her worried looks when her back was turned, and the rumors floating around were making fellow servants skirt her in the corridors.
Midwinter was approaching. Along with Raine's birthday. Not surprisingly, she wasn't excited. She had always hated her birthday. The only thing that ever happened was that she'd get five more charms for warding off evil spirits.
She ignored the fact that she was going to be turning 16 soon, and just help sew Thayet's dresses for the numerous balls and banquets. When that was done, she cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned. When she wasn't doing that, she went to Jai's room to do some embroidery and gossip. It was at one such session, that she heard even more about he arrival of Sapphire of Starbrook.
" She got here yesterday. And whoo! Is she as sight. She's got really blonde hair that's cut short. And, to top it off, she's got these creepy blue eyes, they're like..."
" Sapphires?" Raine supplied grimly. She knew the description of her younger sister all too well. Paige nodded. " Imagine that."
" Have you met her yet Jai?" Paige asked. He was working with his back to them, and refused to let the two of them see it. He cringed when she asked him that, making Paige giggle. " Come on, let us see what you're working on."
" Yes, you little imp, I have met her, and no, you can't see it." He said, flipping the piece of paper over.
" Oh, come on Jai…" Paige whined, trying to get at it, but she was blocked by Jai's arms. Raine darted in, grabbed it, darted back out, and began giggling evilly.
" Come here Paige." Paige scampered over, and the two of them began cackling like witches. Jai put his head in his hands and groaned.
Raine handed it back to him, still giggling. " The picture's good. It looks almost exactly like her. But your poetry needs some work."
" How would you know if it looks like her?" Jai asked suspiciously. Raine paled.
" No reason." She picked up her embroidery, and began working on a raindrop. The scene was simply a rain cloud, with a lot of drops coming down. Shrugging, Paige too picked up her embroidery, (a starry night sky), and Jai returned to his mediocre poetry.
* * *
It was the week of midwinter festival, and there was a huge ball on the third night, the night before Midwinter's Day. Raine had a new dress, and she absolutely adored it. It was Black with silver edging. It fit and flattered her curvaceous form, although she didn't think so. Thayet and Paige insisted it did, though, so she stopped criticizing herself in public. The sleeves were long, and belled slightly at the wrists. The square neckline was ore what she was worried about. She still had a red scar on her neck from her visitor some weeks before.
She finally decided that she didn't care what other people thought. She was there to protect Thayet, so she would do so. Standing behind her and the king on the dais, she wouldn't be too conspicuous. So she went, and nearly cried from boredom. The king and queen danced only once, which meant the same for her. And when she did dance, it was with a rather tall, redheaded night with gray eyes, who still hadn't found love.
The next day dawned cold, with snow falling on the ground outside. She got up with the sun to deliver everyone's midwinter presents. To the queen she gave a book of Yamani phrases, because she had heard Thayet was looking into learning Yaman; to Jai, she gave a schoolbag embroidered with her rain cloud; and to Paige, she gave a leather-bound journal, which was emblazoned with a quill. She didn't really expect to receive anything, but when she got back, she found a small pile of gifts on her bed. She set them on her dresser, she wanted to savor them later, and went to do her days' tasks.
It was such a busy day, that she was running around, and didn't get a chance all morning and the majority of the afternoon. First she was to go to the tailors, then the page's wing, then work on mending, the list seemed never ending. She finished when it was nearly 3 o clock in the afternoon. Sighing, she set aside the dress she had finished mending, and stretched. She wondered where everyone was. She hadn't seen Thayet for a couple hours, which wasn't all that unusual, but it was a holiday; and when she had gone to mend with Paige, neither she nor Jai had been home.
She headed down to the mess hall to get some food. By the time she had gotten through the line, and eaten, it was 5 o clock. She headed wearily back to her room. As it was wintertime, the sun had already set, so it was dark in the corridors. * Happy birthday to me…* She sang in her head. When she opened her door, half awake, a shout jolted back her senses.
In front of her stood Thayet, Jai, and Paige. All were grinning. Thayet held out a cake with 16 little candles on it. Raine smiled tearily; maybe it wasn't such a bad birthing day after all. For a few hours, everything was fine and dandy. Each one of them had brought her an additional gift. It was the first time that hadn't gotten charms for her birthing day. It was a welcome change. Around 8, though, Thayet had to leave, and Paige suddenly decided that she needed to go do something.
Jai stood there awkwardly. " So…" he said, unable to think of anything to say after three hours of conversation.
" So." Raine countered.
" Well. I guess I had better go… Classes tomorrow." He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. " Happy birthday Raine." Then he practically ran out of the room.
Raine stood there, bewildered for a moment. " Thank you for the Journal." She whispered to the empty doorway.
* * *
For the next week, Raine was happy, near ecstatic. She made a point of wearing the dress Thayet had given her for her birthing day along with the round jade pendant that matched her eyes that Paige had given her. She had gotten the journal from Jai. The gifts she hadn't opened that morning were earrings from Thayet, a book from Paige, and a pen from Jai.
On the last day of December, she went to Paige's room, and neither of them were there, but she let herself in anyway. Paige had told her too, so she didn't feel like she was breaking in. She sat in the window seat, and pulled out the journal and pen. She found the first 6 pages had already been written on. It was a letter from him. She read it, and began writing on the page next to it. It was raining outside, a real thunderstorm for all it was incredibly cold. She found herself using it as inspiration, and writing a poem of all things.
The thunder rolls,
The lightning strikes.
My heart grows cold
On this sleepless
night.
It has all flown
Out of my control
So I watch with a
bitter heart
As the thunder rolls.
" Whoa." She whispered, her pen stopping. " Where did that come from?" She didn't have time to ponder though, because Paige came in right then, practically bursting with news. Raine snapped the journal shut, and listened to her intently. Most of it was about Sapphire.
Then, Paige switched gears, and began complaining about Jai, and all the formal wear she was having to mend. HE did seem to have to go to an awful lot of court functions that most squires didn't. " Honestly. Just because he's the prince and all..." At that moment, Jai walked in.
Raine choked. " HE'S WHAT?" She stared at him.
" Nice going Paige." He growled.
" PRINCE Jasson?" Raine was hysterical. She was close to slapping herself. " Why didn't you tell me before?" She didn't wait for an answer, and fled the room.
" Raine! WAIT!" Jai called after her. She didn't listen, and kept running. She finally stopped in the stables, at Zoe's stall. She grabbed a brush, and started brushing Zoe, though she obviously didn't need it.
* * *
Thayet sat in her office chair. She was going to find out about Raine. It seemed that she had no past. Like she had just appeared out of thin air.
" Yui, I need you to find out where this girl has come from, and why." She told the Yamani in front of her.
Yui Tasuki nodded. " The girl's name?"
" Raine is all she'll tell me. Baird discovered a tattoo when she was attacked those few months ago. He didn't describe it to me; you'll have to ask him. I know she's from Tortall though." Yui bowed, and exited. Thayet had used Yui as a spy before, and trusted her to find results. Once and for all, she needed to know the truth, of Raine.
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Ok, not exactly a cliffy, but it works. I know she seems to perfect for reality, but she won't stay that long very long. * Smile at Ali* Anyway, please R/R. Your feedback totally helps.
~Cass