If the spread at breakfast had been a feast, dinner was an absolute banquet. The two were served a Cornish hen each in addition to a hearty beef stew, which Gail found to have a quite satisfying spiciness. There was rice and a dish of roasted vegetables, and interspersed between were many of the fruits and pastries that had been served at breakefast.
And Gail indulged. It was unbelievable in hindsight just how much she was able to pack down, and Ramon took notice. He watched in…actual admiration, if he were honest, as she demolished the hen and inhaled the stew. And that was in between bites of rice and vegetables AND while carrying on conversation. Where was it all going? This woman was NOT human. He refused to believe it.
"I didn't realize I was so hungry!" She cleaned a wing to the bone in a single bite, "I guess I never did finish my sandwich at lunch."
Ramon gave a barely audible mumble of acknowledgement as he took a timid slurp from his stew. He picked at his meal while watching her consume hers, and, after a few moments of consideration, he narrowed his eyes with an upward twitch of his mouth, "Oh, I had nearly forgotten to ask! How is your bite. Is it healing nicely?"
He knew the answer to this. He had seen the unbandaged arm, a pink, slightly raised scar there that now looked months old in not even two days.
Gail looked at him with wide eyes, a cheek full of chicken, before swallowing to answer, "It's heeling alright," she set her forearm on the table next to her plate, "Definitely leaving a scar but…eh! Not a big deal."
"Curious…" Ramon raised a brow, spoon hovering near smirking lips, "A scar after less than forty-eight hours. Unusual, do you not think?"
She attempted not to emote, but the subtle grimace was caught by her host, "Sure, I guess. I've always healed fast. Just lucky, I guess." She turned to her glass of wine, taking a suspiciously long sip.
"Lucky…" Ramon nodded pensively, "GIFTED, I would say. Blessed beyond that of the average…HUMAN BEING."
She covered her guilt with a playful smile, "What? You sayin' I'm some kind of alien?"
Ramon shrugged, lifting his knife to cut a slice from his hen, "Perhaps YOU should tell ME."
She shrugged, "I have an efficient immune system. What's to tell?"
White teeth flashed from behind dark lips, "Efficient immune system? Come, now, Gail, you are more scientifically minded than I. And even I am perfectly aware how impossible it would be for someone to recover so quickly from an injury like that. UNLESS…that someone is something more than human."
Gail's eyes were on her nearly cleared plate, flashing quickly between it and her dinner companion for a split second, before remaining on him, pursing her lips together and holding her hands out with a shrug, "I don't know what to tell you… I mean…I AM adopted. Maybe my parents landed themselves a changeling?"
Ramon's bright gold gaze penetrated into her for several long seconds as he raised his wine to his lips, swirling the glass while inhaling its scent, sipping slowly, letting it sit on his tongue, and finally swallowing.
Gail shook off the awkwardness of his accusing stare by attempting to change the subject, "Oh! Speaking of my parents, did you look into getting ahold of a phone for me to talk to my mother?"
He gave her a look that told her this conversation was certainly not over before raising himself with a nod, "Arrangements have been made for you to attempt to speak with her tonight."
She nodded, taking the response as a win for now, and exhaled slowly, relieved that she wouldn't leave her family hanging for much longer, "Thanks. I'll be surprised if they haven't already got a search party looking for me…"
Ramon's eyes did, however, remain curious. "You said you were adopted…"
She straightened in her chair and nodded, "I was. Didn't know my biological parents for very long. They, uh…went missing. I was almost five. Only just barely remember them."
Ramon nodded, his stern expression softening slightly, and Gail noticed his face twitch with an emotion she couldn't quite place. She remembered what Luis had told her.
"What-um…I-I mean you don't have to say, obviously, if you don't wanna tell me, but, uh, what…what happened to YOUR parents?"
His expression didn't change, as if he had anticipated the question, and he seemed to be staring pensively, "A heartbreaking story…" he glanced briefly toward her, "…but I wouldn't want to further sadden the conversation…"
"Sometimes it's good to talk about sad things."
He tilted his head.
"But like I said…" she gave a light scrunch of her shoulders, "…you don't have to if you don't want."
There was another long silence, and just as she thought he had decided against it, he proceeded. "My mother died when I was twelve," he tapped a blue fingernail against his glass. "She was struck with an unknown illness…at least, that's what my father and the doctor told me. It all happened very suddenly. She began vomiting one night at dinner and hardly stopped until three days later when she passed."
Gail bit the inside of her jaw at the thought of such an agonizing death, "…fuckin' sucks…" she mumbled to herself before speaking up, "…I'm sorry."
Ramon nodded, the pensiveness remaining until there was a sudden flash in his eyes as he perked slightly, "Then at fifteen, I shot my father in the chest for poisoning my mother with powdered castor beans."
Gail's eyes flew wide as he openly admitted what she was certain she'd have to dig for. "Holy shit…seriously? You think your dad did it?"
His now angry eyes seamed dark save for the golden glow of his irises, "Think? I KNEW he had done it!" he hissed, his delicate jaw clenching, "I saw the grounds left in her wine glass after she had dropped it. I had known what had happened to her from the start, but my father and the doctor insisted it was an internal bacterial infection. It was Isidro and Pesanta that found a castor bean, still intact, on the duvet in my parent's chambers." He nearly shook with rage, the disgust seeping through his voice, "He killed my mother for saving from the brink of death the son he had ALWAYS despised!"
Gail was leaned forward, any concern for table etiquette thrown out the window as her arms rested on either side of her plate, glass, and cutlery, "…damn…I thought I'd had it rough…" she raised her eyebrows, "So…you almost died?"
Ramon nodded again, "I was sick for two years straight. Bed-ridden for almost eight months. The doctor believed it was caused by a heart deformity that had accompanied my…small stature…at birth. By age eleven, I was at death's door…but my sainted mother saved me," there was now a softness in his eyes, as the hint of a reminiscent smile played at his lips, "She saw Lord Saddler's holy power, and it is because of them that I live today!"
Her brows knit as Gail took this in. A small, sick little boy, unloved by his father… Perhaps there were other sides to the story, but that didn't change the fact that he had been a vulnerable little kid with a mother desperate to save her child.
"Wow," she sat back in her chair with an exhale, "I mean…I guess I would'a killed my dad too, if he had done all that."
"Well…" he looked into his glass as he swirled it again, "…sympathy for a malformed, DEMON child is not abundant in this backward village…"
"I can't imagine…"she shook her head, "…that's so fucked…"
"It is indeed…fucked," he raised his glass to his lips to drain the rest of his wine. "But Lord Saddler was there to help me pick up the pieces. He was and is my salvation…of mind, body, and soul," golden eyes sparkled as they met hers, "If only you were able to see the way that I can. To feel his grace flowing through your veins. It's like nothing you've ever felt in your life, Gail!"
She held his gaze with a sadness, "I guess that explains a lot," her eyes fell for a few seconds before returning a concerned look, "But…forcing people to throw away their free will…how can that be right?"
"Las plagas purifies the soul!" His hands pressed tightly to the cravat at his chest, "Is it not to their benefit to save them as quickly as possible?"
Her brows knit slightly in thought, "But…what if you're WRONG?"
The wrinkles in Ramon's forehead became more defined in offense, "I have born witness to the full extent of my master's God-given might. How could I POSSIBLY be wrong?"
Gail looked at her half full glass of wine, "I've known powerful people before, believe it or not. Not sure how they stack up against Lord Saddler, but it was enough to appear supernatural, too. People in power, they…they don't tend to be on the honest side. Usually, there's something they're not telling you."
"My Lord has been NOTHING but transparent with me," a fist was now balled tightly next to his dessert fork, "He is more a father to me than my own flesh and blood has ever even ATTEMPTED to be! He has given me EVERYTHING! He has given me my LIFE!"
"I understand that!" Gail exhaled slowly, attempting to calm rapidly heating debate, "All I'm saying is…things aren't usually that black and white. I mean …how can you possibly know FOR SURE that a parasite, even a powerful one, has anything to do with your s-"
"How can YOU know anything about it?!" He was suddenly out of his chair, hands slamming to the table as he crouched over his rattled setting, faced in her direction, "YOU cannot possibly know what I have seen! What I have FELT! Who are YOU to tell ME who is honest or not when you have LIED to me from the BEGINNING and CONTINUE to keep things from me!!"
Ramon felt much larger as Gail felt herself shrink in her chair. Clearly, this conversation could get them nowhere. Not right now. She sucked on her lip, glancing up at him from beneath dark lashes before he huffed a sigh and sat down hard in his chair, continuing his meal in irritation.
Her eyes shifted from her own leftover scraps of food to him and back, opening and closing her mouth a couple of times before finally speaking, "Listen, I…I didn't mean to upset you…I…" she paused, thinking of how to proceed as Ramon busied himself with tearing the flesh from a drumstick with his teeth.
"I don't really believe in God…in ANY god really," she shrugged, "It took a long time for me to come to terms with that. I mean, I did believe in my early childhood, at least, so far as a child has the capacity to understand what "god" means. Then…things happened…a lot of really confusing and complicated things. When my adoptive family came into the picture…who are EXTREMELY religious, by the way. Ya know, I love 'em with all my heart, but they are…THE stereotypical southern bible-thumpers. By the time they adopted me, I was so screwed up and confused…I tried to believe, I just…couldn't. I can't."
Ramon's attention was on her now, as he had lowered the half-eaten drumstick back to his plate, but he didn't interrupt.
She shook her head before raising it to him, "You've probably got more hard evidence than most to back you up, though, I WILL give you that…"
He sighed again, looking visibly conflicted, before finally committing to a reply, "It was…difficult for me to believe growing up as well…in the Catholic god particularly. My father especially made every attempt to drill it into my skull, though deep down, he had resided himself to the fact that I was hell-spawn directly OPPOSED to any sort of saintly teaching…WHICH he quickly became quite comfortable in reminding me of after murdering my mother."
"God or no…" Gail softly interjected, "…no one deserves to hear that. Especially from a parent. Course, that's completely aside from the fact that it's complete bullshit, obviously."
Ramon produced a laughing scoff, "Is it?"
It was said under his breath, and now he was the one to seem to shrink in his chair as if he hadn't meant to say it out loud. After a few seconds of thought, Gail answered anyway.
"It is." The statement was calm but firm, "That's one thing I DO know for sure. And if a god would be so cruel as to create someone in a way that makes it that hard to escape an actual HELL…" her shrug this time was entirely dismissive as she raised her glass, "…then screw 'em…"
Ramon's eyes widened a bit at the irreverence as she chugged the rest of her wine, her nose scrunching as she slammed the glass back to the table, only barely lightly enough that it didn't shatter.
"Now how about that phone call?" Gail smiled, attempting to lighten the mood, "I really hate leaving mom to worry, and she's probably havin' a coronary by now."
The castellan nodded, "Let's not keep her waiting any longer, then."
