"Corsairs are a superstitious lot." Eruphel's voice as she walks down the hall, can be heard even through the closed door of Farielle's room. "But superstition is often based in truth. There are many who will not fight with anyone foreign, because they do not trust them. But certainly slaves are not brought along, usually." Eruphel's voice stops outside the door, and then there's a knock. A count to two, then the door is opened. Eruphel looks in, to see what state Farielle is in.
Farielle is lying on the bed - perhaps she was napping, but her eyes are open and her head turned towards the door when it opens. The tiniest of frowns, perhaps only an illusion, mars her face.
"Farielle? You have a visitor..." Eruphel says softly, before moving into the room, leaving room for the healer to come in behind. "This is S'aria." she says, smiling.
The girl's eyes move beyond Eruphel to the doorway, waiting to see who S'aria might be.
But before she can come into view, Farielle has glanced out the window; the sun is slanting low, but not quite down. Still...
She stands up. "Good afternoon, lady." And goes to light the first lamp, and then the next. Eventually, all of them are burning - the wicks turned low - but definitely alight.
Gliding into the room behind the majestic Eruphel is that diminutive of S'aria dressed almost exactly the same as when Farielle met her, save for the fact that she has a new amulet. The young Easterling has a jar of very fine Gondorian minced meats brought into the the city by the merchants in her hands as well as a satchel that swells of medicinal ointments and herbs dangling from her shoulders.
S'aria's dark eyes settle on the pale woman's form as a sincere smile weaves onto her lips, the girl tilting her head to the side. She speaks in perfectly fluent Westron: "Greetings again, m' lady. I was hoping we could get to know each other on better terms this time...", she states. Holding the jar up for the other to see, "I asked some of the other Gondorians in the city. They said these might be a treat a Gondorian lady would enjoy..."
Eruphel smiles, on the verge of laughing as S'aria sweeps in. Her chuckle dies down and she speaks. "Farielle, much as I would love to keep you in a good mood, I have some questions to ask." She looks around, noting to herself she needs to have a seat brought in, since the girl gets so many visitors. "The men who took you. Did you like them?"
Farielle finishes her task and returns to sit on her bed, looking at S'aria with a puzzled frown. It clears after a moment as she remembers the woman. But no expression comes to take its place. "What is it?" she asks as the other woman holds up her jar.
Her gaze moves to Eruphel and now something does come into her face - something sick and confused. "No." It is one word, spoken with little expression, but somehow manages to convey a depth of horror. "Why do you think I would?"
"I did /not/ think you would." Eruphel says, her voice serious. "And as such, I was hoping you could recall some things about them, or where they took you, or anything noteworthy that would allow me to find them and exact my revenge." Serious indeed is her tone, and her face as well.
S'aria seems curious too about Eruphel's line of questioning, but she is not going to question the Lady of the tower. The Priestess places her bag down in the corner of the room, crouching down as she reaches inside, searching for something. She gives Farielle a gentle smile, a patient look on her face.
"Well unless they were tricking me... They said you call it minced meat. And you Northern folk eat it during the winter or when you are traveling because it does not spoil quickly. Did I make a mistake?" she asks, rising to her feet. She has a bundle of herbs wrapped in paper in one hand as she offers the jar to the pale-skinned women.
"Go ahead, any food at this point is almost as good as any medicine I can get you. I am just going to get some hot water so I can brew this for you..." And she turns to see if she can wave down a servant, giving Eruphel some time to question the girl uninterrupted.
Farielle looks away, the fine tremor that had disappeared over the last week or so returning to her hands, so that she clasps them together in her lap. Until S'aria holds out the jar - she takes it and holds it instead. "No. You were not mistaken." Almost blindly, she looks around her room; then her gaze lands on the spoon on the plate beside her bed, and she takes it, holding it in one hand, forgotten again.
"It was dark," she answers Eruphel at last. "Always. I don't know where I was. At first... " She takes a breath and shuts her eyes. When they open a moment later, they are calm, and her voice is dispassionate. "They tied me to a chair. Or the bed. All the time. And I couldn't see anything ever; I was always blindfolded. I don't think there was much of a door though. I never heard it be locked. There was someone named Massai. Later, there was a door. I think they put drugs in my food. I tried to not eat, but..." Now she shivers, a spike of terror almost breaking her stillness.
"I - I can't remember for sure. Everything is broken into pieces and I don't know what was real and what wasn't. I saw Lord Alphros, but they say that cannot be. I am sorry, Lady." A pause, then, she offers, "Vain - his voice is wrong. Not - not like a man's voice."
The Seaward lady listens intently, her eyes narrowing as she listens details of import, and murmurs 'Massai' to herself. Questions arise, but she tries to keep them short and to the point. "What was Vain's voice like, then? Did you travel for long between the time they took you and the time they tied you? How were you found?"
"It was - wrong." Farielle's eyebrows pinch together as she struggles to describe something indescribable. "Like, someone not a man was speaking. Tinny?" Thinking like this, abstractly, helps her stay distanced from the swirling memories. "Not long... " She looks up and tries to smile before her eyes go distant again. "I threw a rock at him."
And now the frown grows perplexed, and there is a hint of suspicion working its way to the front of the girl's mind. "They took me out of the city and gave me to Lojrul. I think. I was still seeing things, but I am sure I remember that. He said, the deal was you hand her over to me. Why would they take me only to give me back again?"
"Ransom, possibly. There were claims that this was the work of the Eye." Eruphel feels better...feels like there's some progress. Eruphel considers some more, then says, "Starting tomorrow, I will have you taught how to wield a dagger, so you can defend yourself in dangerous moments."
S'aria returns with a steaming bronze teapot of water, the herbs already stewing within letting off an enticing, aromatic smell. The Easterling girl gives Eruphel a bow of her head out of respect, "I hope I am not interrupting, Lady Eruphel...", she says as she makes her way over towards Farielle. The priestess looks into Farielle's eyes and smiles ecouragingly, curiosity dancing in her gaze.
"You should drink this too if you can... It is very bitter, but it should help you get some of your energy back and take care of any poison that is left in your body." Her brows furrow as she sets the teapot down near the bed, turning to look between the other two, her slender hands weaving together. "Perhaps it would do the lady good to talk of something besides her ordeal for now..."
"Yes - he shouted that," Farielle remembers. She looks a little startled at the news of dagger lessons, opening her mouth as if she will speak - but S'aria returns with the tea, and instead, she wrinkles up her nose. "Healers always are making bad-tasting things." But obediently, she pours a little into the mug and takes a sip, still cradling the potted meat in her lap.
"Yes, likely it would," Eruphel agrees with S'aria. "But it might do her better to see those men hanging by their necks in the Square of Judgement." Eruphel turns and takes a pace or two, the small room giving her no place to pace. "This is enough for now, Farielle. S'aria, I leave her to your tea and healing ways." she says, before stepping out of the room, assumably to make good with this new information.
"Well... Maybe it is just our way of getting revenge since no one is every happy to see us," remarks the Easterling with a playful smile forming on her lips. The girl sits down on the bed, her slender beskirted legs dangling over its edge. "I wanted to apologize for what happened when I first met you, Lady Farielle. I fear I almost made things worse," says the girl as she lowers her head a little, giving her nose a wrinkle. She straightens up giving the other girl a wink, a hint of amusement sparkling in the girls dark eyes. "Don't you worry, I am under orders not to bring up that subject again with you. Though if ever you are curious you are welcome to ask questions."
Farielle shivers a little. "I don't want to see them ever again. Not even hang... especially not hanging!"
Eruphel leaves and the girl draws in a deep breath, very carefully not edging away as S'aria sits on her bed. "Thank you," she says politely, and one by one forces her fingers, white where they clutch the pot of meat, to relax.
Those curious dark eyes watch every move of the Gondorian, the Easterling's lips pursed gently with thought. A bemused grin splits her lips, giving a flash of white teeth. "What are you so scared of? You and I have more in common than you think... We are both foriegners in a distant land far away from home. We both were forced to leave our home... into a life we did not perhaps welcome at first..." She sits up a little, tilting her head over so slightly to the side, then extends a hand for the spoon and the other for the jar continuing, "The difference is here you outrank me... I am not much higher than a servant in Haradaic culture."
Farielle looks up from her hands, having successfully unclenched each finger. Her gaze drops to the other girl's hand, and after a pause, she offers the jar. What she is afraid of... there is no answer to that, or none that Farielle will give this stranger. "I outrank no one," she says flatly. "I am, as I was reminded just recently, property."
"It's not as simple as that... You're simply too important so these rude Haradim keep you under lock and key," explains the Priestess as she carefully opens the jar. Licking her fingers a little bit, she inserts the spoon into the jar, before offering it back. "Just try ordering the servants around, they will listen to you. Why, all you would have to do is tell Lady Euphel that having my neck severed from my body would make you feel better and I am sure she would gladly do it for you. Not to mention Lord Alphros... That's power."
S'aria's eyes darken a little bit, "Me? The Haradrim turn their heads when I walk down the streets, especially the men. Easterling are slaves here or at best servants. Only the Gondorian slaves seem to think I am worth flirting with... If the Church keeps me here I will probably have to marry one..." Judging from that frown and how she pulls her knees to her chest, this does not appeal to her much.
But Farielle shakes her head. "I have no desire to tell anyone to cut your head off. Or anyone else's, either. And I can order the servants, but they will only do what the Lady has told them to. What good is power, if I can gain nothing I want from it?"
She watches S'aria, tipping her head the smallest amount. "Is that how you judge your worth?" she asks curiously. "By how many men look at you ... that way?"
"Well... that how I was taught when I was growing up," remarks the girl with a hint of a frown, a melancholic look on her face. "A woman's worth is about how many men are seeking after her in courtship. I was used to getting a lot of attention back..." She pauses on the name, her eyes flickering to Farielle and she seems to question naming it directly, "where I was before Umbar. But here... I guess the standards are a little different."
Her dark eyes harden. "I am not going to let that stop me from pursuing my ambitions or anything. Its just different... being on the bottom rung of society. Its kind of like your situation, you're not powerless... you just need to learn how to get what you want through different avenues." She bites her bottom lip, trying to seek out the other woman's gaze earnestly. "You are going to have real power, Lady Farielle... there is a lot you will be able to do with it..."
"I /want/ to go home," Farielle says. "Tell me what power will bring me that?" She doesn't ask as if she has any expectation of an answer; almost at once turning the subject. "I don't know what the standards are here." Her voice adds - I don't care. "I would not even marry for another 6 years or so, much less be concerned about if any men were looking at me. I - I would rather they not look at me."
A hint of sadness enters into those dark eyes, a few loose strands of dark hair obscuring S'aria's rounded face, "I would want to go back home too if I was kidnapped." And then the girl lowers her voice as she brings her head closer to the other woman's, adding in a whisper, "And who is to say you cannot seek that as well while you learn to adapt here? The political powers will resist you, sure, but you are going to be the wife of the most powerful man in the city. People will give you favors just to get in a good word in to him..."
S'aria wrinkles her nose, her expression going slightly cold. "It was a long time ago... but I was taken away from my home too. When the Easterling defied Mordor, my clan was crushed and I was among those forced to move several hundred miles in order to settle Nurn in south Mordor where we could be much more easily watched and controlled." There is pain in her expression as she swallows softly, "I had the same attitude at first that you do now... That all I wanted was my home and that I hated those who had done this to me."
Gondorian listens to Easterling. And perhaps is surprised to find any common ground between them. Or perhaps not. Farielle has become quite adept at keeping her expression blank. "I do not understand you," she says after a moment. "People may wish to do me favors, in hopes of currying the good will of Lord Alphros, but how do they think I shall have any influence with him? He does not exert himself to gain my trust or liking; why does anyone think he will listen to anything I say? And even if he did; there is no one who could hope to gain his favor by helping me flee him."
She looks away, down at the jar of meat. Oh. Taking a spoonful, she eats it slowly. Cautiously, "You - did not wish to serve ... him?" She names no names, but her eyes flicker east. To Mordor.
"Of course not! I hated /Him/ more than anyone else... it was all done in his name after all," returns S'arial with a fiery whisper, a flame in her eyes even after a decade as she recalls her youthful rage.
S'aria shifts again, finding a comfortable spot leaning against the bed post. A single dark hair is slid behind her ears, "I was one of the lucky few children to have both her parents with her. But that only lasted a few years... Mother died probably of heart-break and homesickness while my father, a famous warrior in the clan, refused to serve in Mordor's armies. Instead he was forced to farm like a slave... still does to this day. All of this while I was getting beaten almost weekly for various acts of insubordination."
"How old were you then?" Farielle considers S'aria. "You cannot be so old even now."
"Eight when I came there, around nine when my mother died," explains S'aria as she smooths a few wrinkles out of her black skirts. She flashes Farielle a brief grin, "I am in my seventeenth year now, my lady. You cannot be too much older..."
"I am nineteen." Farielle sticks her finger into the potted meat, eating it with a growing appetite. "I miss apples," she says, licking her finger clean. "I /hate/ this place!" The brief outburst is gone in an instant, vanished like a rock sinking into the sea.
A wisp of a frown lingers on S'aria's face, "There are lots of things I still miss about my old home... The horses, the endless open sky..." She turns to the other girl, her eyes distant a cloudy with memories. "Back in the East, our Clan's tents used to be arranged in a circle... every couple of weeks they would roast a giant boar or a deer on the fire. And me and the other girls would dance while the men drank and told stories of the battles or the wild... I think I missed that the most. Its the last time I remember my father and mother ever smiling... They seemed to impressed with me then, what a wonderful wife I would make some day for a nice young Easterling man...", she says with a breathless voice before letting out a sigh.
"Horses," Farielle says quietly, her thin face wistful. She is silent though, otherwise. But when S'aria goes on about her parents, the barrier thickens again. Her voice distant though not uncourteous, the Gondorian says, "I see. If you will excuse me now, I think I would like to rest. Thank you for the meat."
The Easterling youth wrinkles her nose slightly as she senses the Gondorian withdrawing again from her, a hint of frustration in those dark eyes. But she gives the pale-faced woman a patient smile and a nod, "As you wish, Lady. It was a pleasure talking to you..." And then the Priestess hops down from the bed, smoothing out her skirts quickly with her dextrous fingers.
"Horses, we will have to talk about them sometime... They are something I know very well," she says as she gathers her satchel from its place in the corner, her dark gaze lingering on Farielle for a moment with concern. "The drink I prepared for you... if you could just work on finishing it by the end of the day, I believe it will do much to return your energy."
"Very well," Farielle answers. And again, "Thank you." She takes the drink, swallowing with a grimace.