Half a week had passed since waking up and, despite his condition, Aran would have had to admit that those days had been amongst happiest days.  The first couple had been a tad awkward due to his stomach’s rebellious urge to destroy the intimate moment they were sharing, but they shared their meals together and more often than not Cairma would lie next to him as they spoke with a freedom of many things about themselves to one another, things they wouldn’t share with others even as they exchanged the small touches and caresses of those who not only trusted one another but shared something deeper.

 

They spoke of many things, yet they did not pry, only what they freely gave to each other.  Aran knew that it wasn’t because she didn’t trust him that she didn’t speak of certain things, simply that there were certain pains and pieces of her past that she wasn’t ready to speak of.  Rather than question her over such things, he offered things of himself, and in that way they were like onions as they slowly peeled away every skin, discovering more of each other under every layer.  With each newly discovered layer came a deepening of the trust they shared, that and more, and while there were some things that weren’t revealed, it was of little matter compared to what had been given.

 

They talked during all sorts of hours in the day and the night, and it was well past midnight as Cairma laid in his arms with her head resting on his shoulder, speaking of something that had been mentioned once before when they had spoken out of anger rather than the murmur of loving understanding.  “There has been something I have always wanted to ask you about, ever since our argument over Jaz.”

 

Feeling her stiffen slightly, Aran winced, it wasn’t a pleasant topic that day, one they had only touched on the odd occasion.  It had been a difficult time for both of them, especially her as she had felt betrayed and had to bear the weight of her own past upon her at the same time, something she only spoke of in bits and pieces.  Yet it was a layer to be uncovered, if she wanted to reveal it to him.  Stroking her arm gently with his free hand, Aran spoke on.  “You said that he had he was hurt because others had done as he had.  What did you mean?”

 

 

Aran

Tower Guard

 

It was all a dream, it must have been. Cairma had no other words to describe the sense of peace she felt in the past days with Aran. But as the subject changed she felt her skin grow colder - even though she was right against him - at the thought of reliving those horrid years. It had been nearly a year since she had been so very angry at him, so hurt that she felt his untrusting words. And even though neither of them told the whole story, they always kept something back in fear of being rejected.

 

Rejection. She laid her head against his chest with a deeper sigh as if to collect her thoughts. He didn't need to see her eyes to know that she was scared to tell her story. She always had been. She never told anyone of those years that went unnoticed in the world. Her life without purpose and without hope until she came to the Yard and decided to leave it all behind. There had never been an option for her. She had signed her life away the moment she had been conceived to a woman that dared to call herself "Mother". Into that household where she hid from anything that would beat her, that would tell her she was worthless, that she had nothing but to serve. They wanted to break her, use her to their will. But she was strong enough to leave, but too weak to know better. She had given in too easily to it all. Everything had been a mess. It was all a blur.

 

"There is.." She paused, still trying to collect the words that seemed to swim to fast from her. "..much of my past that I never told others. More particularly the four years before coming to the Tower. Mostly because there was no one to share it or look after me. I have told you of my family, or what one may call family." She could feel Aran nod his head as her head became heavier on his chest. She pulled herself a little closer as if he were her only lifeline in a torrent of memories that could as easily overwhelm her and bring her out of this dream. Taking a small breath and letting it out slowly she continued.

 

"I told you that I left on a caravan of a peddler about 5 days out of Kings Crossing. I had to barter my traveling expenses. Too young to for the mans particular tastes, and of the wrong gender, he allowed me to stay as long as I stayed out of his way, kept his horses kept and used traps to catch food on nights when he was too occupied to do so. The days of traveling were long and tiring, but my own silence kept him talking. He enjoyed talking especially about his sales and better deals that he cheated one person or anouther. After a while I started to ask him questions about what he carried. I had no reason not to learn or any idea what to do if i ever left that Caravan, as long as I wasn't in King Crossing. At first he taught me how to barter and play dice. I had very poor luck at it." Cairma chuckled softly at fond memories in the Common Room. "Still do. I then started to help him keep track of what he kept in his Cart, and discovered a variety of dried herbs. Some spices for cooking. But most were poisons."

 

"I had learned at a far too young age not to trust anyone and that anything can be used as leverage. I took to climbing trees to escape my brothers. I took to helping the neighbors to escape my mother. I kept a knife under my pillow that was always sharpened to keep out shadows. I was too young to understand why I did it, but even as I traveled with that Peddler, I didn't feel safe." Her pause for collection brought a few memories, a few nights of being hungry. Of the way the man watched her. Her hair was jaggedly cut and of odd colouring and she barely had the development of a feminine body for one her age. Once in a while when he didn't know she was watching him, she could see the look. The same look from home, from her mother, brothers.. "So I listened well when he told me a little of them. I did not take any, it would have been too easy for him to notice, but i moved them farther from the foods and spices claiming that I would hate to mistake a spice for one of the other bottles, and moved it where it would make more noise to retrieve. He told me of Forkroot and a few others that he carried and I didn't want to be under some draught. I wasn't stupid." She paused as a sliver of anger rose in her voice. how many times had she been dismissed as a stupid girl. but even then she had believed she was, and only fear caused her to make the mistakes she made. She barely noticed Aran's touch or the beating of his heart against her ear as he listened to her intoned words.

 

"We reached Andor. I was not planning to part ways there, but we did. Too young to bother with the Taverns, I borrowed a few poisons and a dagger that looked like it would fetch a good coin as well as a few spices and offered the spices in payment for one night in a real bed with a warm bath. Travel was hard and all I wanted was a night in a place I could feel safe if even for a moment and even with a dagger under my pillow. I had no plan, just a night away. I woke the next morning after the first sleep of actual rest I had in months. The peddler was gone. I had nothing to my name but the dagger and the poisons that I wasn't entirely sure I pocketed in the first place. It made sense at the time.

 

"I remember feeling utterly lost. I was not used to a city that was so big with so many people. Everyone was so cruel and turned me away. I was useless in the kitchens as I was too nervous and tripped over everything. I broke more dishes in that first few days than would pay for decent meals for a month. ...Time just became such a blur as I tried desperately to find a place to even rest. The dagger was stolen by a thief while I slept on night." Her memories started to stagger under her words as she tried to remember what had all happened, but the details had started to blur together too easily. She grew silent as she tried to remember what happened next.

 

 

Cairma

(Pale - Within Temptation)

 

 

The change in Cairma as she contemplated his question was drastic, as if she were withdrawing into her shell.  Yet she spoke, and what she spoke of pulled at the strings of his memory as well as his heart.  He could understand her feelings, the loneliness and the pain of the hopelessness that one felt when there was no way out of it.  Stroking her arm as she fell silent, Aran kissed the side of her temple before he spoke.  “He was missing the top half of his left ear wasn’t he?”

 

Smiling slightly at the startled look he got from Cairma, Aran explained himself.  “He is Calpene, after his home peninsula in Tanchico.  He’s both a smuggler and a poisoner.  You’re lucky he didn’t track you down after running off with his things, he has a filthy temper on him.  He’s still alive as far as I know, but that’s neither here nor there.  But I’m interrupting, unless you want to stop?”

 

 

She blinked carefully at him as he connected a name to a face that she had known even for a short time. To even have him alive was enough to pull at her a little, but not to the point of fearing the knowledge. But even the name wasn't so startling as Aran knowing of him. A connection in her fear brought a level of understanding. Kissing his chest softly she smiled softly, almost as it a memory became the dream instead of something touchable. "I have yet to answer your question." She paused again, "But that is interesting to note. I never knew his name. ..And his poisons were far more potant than what he claimed them to be. He told basics of how to mix and where to put in, but nothing more than a 'scoop of this', or a 'pinch of that'."

 

"Maybe if he taught me better... " Cairma paused as her story continued a little further down the road. "I'm not really sure what had started it. Maybe it had been the few run-ins with the thieves guild in Andor, or other of their kind that did not take to much liking of me. I took up space in their streets, coined from their pockets. I never knew that asking for a coins would cause a ripple in a system so cleverly placed. I got into many scraps that were unfair in numbers. I refused to play their rules any more than them allowing me into their fold. I wasn't Andoran, I didn't know the streets, and I was too old for their games, and too young to be of any standing."

 

In a city that had been so beautiful it frightened her how different it could be if one learned of the connections and the underground patterns of webs that stemmed from the rich to the poor. It had been everywhere. The larger the city the more advanced the system. "It had been a taste, and I didn't want anything to do with it, and I was getting desperate. I didn't fear death, but it never occured to me to take my own life. It was just simply not what one thought about. Or at least I didn't.”

 

“Instead I took one of the small pouches of poison and followed a man. I only wanted to have him sleep so I wouldn't have to harm him. Lift a few coins to barter a bit of food so I could leave Andor." Her eyes shut. "I used too much. It was horrifying to watch. He didn't scream, but the noises he made." Breathe. "I watched what I did and hated myself for it. But fear drove me enough to take what I needed. And I left Andor that night."

 

Each thing that was said was mulled over by Aran as he let Cairma speak without interruption.  This was something he could empathise with though he couldn’t say he entirely understood.  By the time he had begun to use poisons, he had become so used to death that it was just something that happened, generally to people he didn’t particularly care about.  Then again, he hadn’t been in Cairma’s desperate situation and lacked the knowledge when he had used such substances either.

 

There were things he did understand though, Cairma’s loathing she held for herself over it.  Aran didn’t feel the same way about what he had done, perhaps he had killed too many to feel that way.  But there were certain things about himself that he could understand were unacceptable for most, only a few could really understand it that he would care to trust and one of those people was lying right next to him with her head balanced on his shoulder.

 

When she finished up with her explanation that she had left Andor that night, Aran squeezed her arm reassuringly as he pulled her closer.  It was taking a lot out of her, as well as he knew her now he knew that much.  They hadn’t even reached anything he could ascribe to the outburst over Jaz either, meaning there was more to come.  Maybe it would be better if he let her stop for the moment with the way it was hurting her.  “I’m sorry that happened Cairma, but you didn’t mean for that to happen.  You were trying to survive and you were doing what was necessary.”  Another kiss on the forehead.  “If you want to stop now, its alright, we can speak of something else.”

 

His concern broke a smile on her face. She turned her head up and lightly touched her lips to his. "I don't know if I could stop. But if I did I don't know if I could start. But if I did this would be a good time." Cairma blushed a little and turned her head into his chest. "It's such a long story for such a short question. I'm sorry."

 

Pecking her nose, Aran shook his head at her as she apologised. “You don’t have to be sorry, this is your story and you tell it at your own pace and when you want to.  Its just, I know that this is a deep hurt of yours.  Speaking of it is raw, sensitive, and I don’t want to be poking at it if it is going to upset you terribly.  Not if you’re not ready to do so yet, but if you are then I’m still listening.”

 

"You concern is touching, Aran." She smiled even as she said his name. "For someone with deeper scars than mine, you care far deeper than one would have expected of you." her eyes watched him carefully with a mere curiosity and almost wonder. It was quite possible that no one could see Aran the way she did. Possibly no one ever would. "I spoke a little with Anton, back in the blight, while you slept. He spoke of little more than what you had spoke of before this whole mess."

 

Sighing, Aran had known that would come sooner or later, but there were many things that were difficult to speak of, even now when he was past them.  When he should have been past them, even when his father had worked him through them as had his brother, they were things that didn’t go away.  But then, they were things that left him fearless in the face of things that made other people cringe, but that sort of courage came at a price that people never willingly paid.  Not unless they were unabalanced to begin with.

 

Playing with her hair with his free hand, it both distracted and reassured him as he spoke.  “He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t trusted you.  What did he say?  And where would you like me to start?”

 

The change in his voice and even his demeanor nearly made her stiffen if she hadn't already been expecting it from him. She wasn't sure where she wanted him to begin, or if she really needed to hear it. Curious at she was she wanted to understand him better. There was that look in his eyes that scared her even though it was never directed at her. But she knew it could just as easily. Much like he played with her own hair so she played with the small tufts of hair that lightly trained his well developed abdomen. "Tell me of the Pits."

 

He hadn’t expected Anton to have mentioned the pits of all things, as well as Anto-  no, Anton had an intuitive understanding of people and that had only improved with age.  Besides, he had survived that part of his life, even if it was one he didn’t care to think of often. “To explain them you need to know how I got there.  My earliest memories are of my mother and of…  well, she was a whore, and my home was essentially the closet in that room.  When I was six, I watched my mother beaten to death and when I was discovered with her the next morning the madame threw me out, there was no need for me there.”??While he spoke of it like he would have spoken of the weather or the time, there was another edge that was hard to describe underneath it all. “In Foregate after the Aiel left, there were a lot of orphans.  I joined one group led by a boy named Jonas.  He was a year older than me and he was the one who helped us fend for each other, steal what we could and protect each other.  Didn’t always work, but most of us survived.  You don’t have to just watch for other kids though, there are plenty of other things to worry about in Foregate and kids can fetch a price in the right places, and no one’s luck lasts forever.”??”Me and Jonas were both taken, we were sold to a Hell within the Foregate as entertainment.  The pits are for bloodsports, duels and on rare occasions melees, always to the death.  Seeing as children were in such regular supply and no one would miss them, there were many like us who ended up there.  We were stored in single cells, brought out when we were required.”

 

Pausing for a moment, Aran looked down to Cairma’s eyes that were looking up at him with a mixture of emotions he couldn’t quite decipher in the midst of his story.  “You’re brought to a pit and you and your opponent are given a weapon, usually a knife.  You either kill or be killed, and if neither of you die then both are killed.  At first you’re scared, and then as you win your bouts and people cheer your name, you begin to like it.  They’re the only thing that you can look forward to in that miserable existence and to fail is to die.”

 

Bleak was the only way to describe Aran’s voice even as his face remained empty. “I’d been fighting for over a year when I had to face Jonas who had somehow survived as I had.  People chanting our names, willing us on as we circled each other, we hadn’t forgotten each other but if we didn’t…  well, we’d both be dead.  I’m not sure whether I wanted to win or to lose, to force him to kill me or to kill him to live, it just happened and at the end of it he was dead and I was alive.  I’m not sure whether as he looked at me whether he was cursing or thanking me, both or neither, I’ll never know.”

 

Silence, memories of it haunted his mind’s eye as he envisaged Jonas’ rapid breaths as he looked up at him even as the blood ran freely onto the sand underfoot.  They slowed even as the trickle did and then they simply stopped, even as the cheers rang in his ears.  “It was about a year and a half when Anton and my old gang came for me and got me out.  It was a foolish thing for them to do really, but they had fools luck and they got me out.  That is where my story in the Pits ends.”

 

 

Aran & Cairma

(This Night - Black Lab)

 

 

She watched him carefully through out his story as she searched for even some minimal understanding of what he was telling her. There was something in his voice that almost seemed automatic to her, like the story was surreal to him and no longer of relevance. The way he described it became merely a fact instead of an experience, and it caused Cairma to consider and think more into his words than just was on the surface. She wasn't always quick to pick up things in his speech, but a small tickle in her mind told her that there was something she was missing. Did she ask for a story too far forward? Cairma wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, but she could understand the basic semblance of his colder nature. But as she tried to place together more of his and Anton's words it all fit. Not in an entirety, but enough that she did not need to know any more of it. Thinking back a little, she also felt a small semblance of rest as a part of her was relieved that she had been in Andor and not Cairhien during these times. She remembered Andor being a small form of hell, but not nearly as bad as Cairhien after the Aiel war.

 

In deep thought, Cairma turned her head a little and kissed him softly on the cheek. Memories were often simply placed in the mind as a reminder, often disregarded over time, but when resurfaced it could still effect a broken mind. The simple tone in his voice was all too familiar to her, but it was rare to hear it from Aran who always was so full of life. Only once she had heard the darkness in it, and it strung her deeper into him. She had no other way to explain it, but somehow she had to believe that something about him everything about him she was meant to know. Who else could? Placing her head into the crook of his shoulder Cairma sighed breathlessly as she tried to gather her thoughts once more. Things got confusing for a while after she left Andor.

 

"It was in Four Kings that I tried again." Following the road as she left through Whitebridge, avoiding the cities as much as she could. Mostly she remembered being hungry. "It had been weeks since I had a warm meal, one that I stole from a farm house window. My traps were only so good, and I lacked too many tools to pick up anything that was larger than a squirrel, or maybe a rabbit if I was lucky. ..I wanted anything better than what I had. Anything would have done."

 

Cairma's voice changed then as it grew a little more in it's strength. Reliving a little of what Aran spoke of, it didn't feel that she had it so bad. She never knew any of her victims. "He had been a cheery fellow and thought that I was 'cute'. Said that I reminded him of his daughter that passed away recently. I told him that I could not stay, why I don't even remember. But he gave me that same look and I knew I could not trust him. I stayed weary of him, but yet I followed him into his home. The bath was glorious, and the food tasted like the Light itself. I don't know if the story of his daughter was true or not, but he also gave me some clothes. He told stories, many of them, at a drop of the hat as long as he had a willing audience." The man had been arrogant and talked much about himself. Praising her for her silence and how wonderful she was to being such a silent child. Memories brought with it the unease of the evening. "After one last look, he excused himself from the table to relieve himself, or so he said. I moved quickly and put the poison in his wine. I used a little less this time, after all the effect it had the first time, it was far too quick, and I didn't think that I needed to rush." Her voice grew hollow. "I could never have been so wrong."

 

"There is one moment in a person's life that could essentially break them, be it their minds or their hearts. You have become immune to the touch of death. It does not effect you the way it may others. Taking a life does not bother you." She paused in her little side story as her mind echoed the evening. "The meal had ended than after retiring to the Library he showed me how to play stones, also a game I was never very good at. I was playing the waiting game, a little nervous. But nothing happened. An hour passed and it had grown fairly late at this point. He offered me a room for the night. Not thinking he would be awake for much longer, I agreed. I had thought i had given him a sedative, from what my memory had served me, in hopes that once he was asleep he would not wake for a very long time."

 

"He brought me down the long corridor and paused in front of a door with a soft sigh. He sighed and muttered, 'not here'. I asked him why, but he only smiled. Opening the next door he lit the lamps revealing a very beautiful room. But one that struck me as too beautiful." Dark rich silks, crimsons and golds. "Too nervous of him to take too much notice of the room and all that was in it, I entered and he left me there only to return moments later in a robe." She shut her eyes for a moment as the memories of screams echoed in her head. "I don't know what happened after her placed his hands on me. I remember the robe being torn, my clothes were torn, and then him dead on the floor." He voice was merely a whisper. "I remember screaming. A lot of screaming, and then his blood on my hands. I was only 12."

 

A tear ran down her cheek as it went a little unnoticed, but her voice stayed clear. Hollow. "After that I couldn't let anyone close to me. I panicked when someone touched my hand, and felt fear if I was ever hugged. Everything felt vile and diseased with a taint that left a residue that I could not wash off." She paused a little as Aran's fingers still moved through her hair, giving her comfort from her own physical fears. "Although it does not trigger the memory, Jaz triggered the feeling. There was no way he could have known." Her voice sort of meandered off as she grew quiet, reliving the argument in the Yard. What a fool she was.

 

 

Cairma

(Saturnine - The Gathering)

 

 

 

Comforting her as best he could as she spoke, Aran wasn't quite sure how much good it was doing but she was able to finish her tale nevertheless, and enlighten him as to why she had reacted so with Jaz so many months before.  He had suspected that something bad had happened, Cairma's reaction had been so violently strong and primal that there had to have been something more behind it than a simple fear.  It was a story that held similarities to those he had heard from others though its impact upon him was no less for that, it hurt to think that Cairma had to go through such a terrible experience, to have met someone like that who had lured her so.  The one who made her cry even now as a tear slid down her cheek.

 

Simply holding her for a time as stroked her hair and gathered herself, he contemplated the next step of his story.  Or rather, revealing something he had hidden from himself and those around him, those save perhaps two and one of those people was long dead.  It was his own hidden pain, one he had mastered a long time ago but one he never shared with those around him.  Yet he wanted Cairma's understanding, for her to know that he understood what she spoke of as something more than a terrible idea.  It was so easy to give sympathy, but genuine understanding was something else altogether.  Something that, fortunately or unfortunately, he could give as he unsettled the silence softly.

 

"I think it was Lyssa who asked whether I'd been 'trained', and while I was, there was more to it than another skill to learn."  Grimacing at Cairma, there was no easy way to say it and it wasn't something he could so easily shrug off as the pit fights. "Its true that I fought in the pits while I was in that hell.  But, sometimes a spectator likes what they see in the pit and...  Depended who it was really, sometimes you'd be given something to make you a little sluggish and weak in your meal, or if they liked a bit of sport they wouldn't bother, sometimes they'd make you pliable by beating things into you."

 

It seemed like that wasn't what Cairma had been expecting, but he was committed now even though he wanted to take it back. "It wasn't only men but... After I was freed, I couldn't stand to have anyone behind me. When my father took me under wing, he waited until I was old enough to feel certain things, he put me under the tutelage of different people. People that were far kinder to me, over time I unlearned everything I had in that Hell and learned that there was more to it than those feelings I had felt. Pain, fear, hopelessness, rage, hurt, but I don't think I've ever been genuinely close with someone like that before. I think thats part of why I... well, that time when we almost, you know."

 

Snorting, Aran shook his head, all he needed was a stutter to accompany his inability to actually say what he was thinking. He never spoke of it, a habit so ingrained that he didn't even think of it at all where he possibly could. Despite having mastered it, it didn't make the pains any less, it simply meant that he could control them. "I sound like a bashful child, I mean what I felt for you was new, it scared me. I tell you this because, not only did you trust me, but so you know that I do understand what happened to you. You have nothing to be ashamed of, I only wish that you hadn't been hurt like that to begin with."

 

 

Aran

Tower Guard

 

 

 

Cairma was surprised by his admittance as the full weight of it settled in her mind. She, although not completely surprised by this, felt a measure of understanding for him, although the grasp was not quite the same. Reflectively, there could have been the comparisons, or the maybes, where it may have bled into her own life. What if she never escaped her mother? What if Andor had been Cairhien, what if..

 

It was hard for her to think beyond his words. All of it was revolving rapidly in her mind but the time seemed to have completely stop for both of them. Their past had been so bleak, and they both had been so broken, shrugging it off without word. Whether accepted or not it all sat in their past. Cairma surprised herself as the intense need to hold him, and to make him know that she would never hurt him that way, overrode nearly every sense within her. But it was deeper than that.

 

But even as she reached up a little to touch his cheek, running the back of her hand gently against the barest of stubble that had started to grow, she wondered deeply at the man she had sworn to keep only at a distances. One that she knew could break down her walls and would knowingly walk away once it was all over. Cairma felt a little sad by that now that she new a few more pieces to his puzzle. What would happen when they returned to the Yard? Things would go back to the way they were. How would she get past it? Knowing that he could not be there for her. She watched his eyes carefully as within her mind she search for unforgiving answers.

 

She just would. She always did.

 

Instead of steeling her heart to him, she locked it away with her secrets. This one pleasant and memorable. If there was one secret she could keep and be at peace with, it was knowing that Aran loved her. He said it. He told her more than anyone else. Taking all parts of the knowledge of him she imprinted it on her heart. And for now, she would understand this and let him go as he will un-doubtingly do with her. Leaning down she brushed her lips against his, barest, but hardly cheap or without emotion. Soft, delicate, and unlike anything she would ever share with anouther.

 

"To me, Aran, your more than any of that." She smiled softly, never leaving her lips from the touch of his. "But I would be lying if I said I wasn't afraid too."

 

Holding her gaze with his own, there was no urge to look away as Aran looked into her even as he looked upon her. There was no guile in Cairma, no attempt to shield anything from him, only a warmth that matched her words as she looked into him in turn. More than warmth, even as she spoke of fear it was overshadowed by the feeling of safety, of being wanted, needed. What fear could touch this? Cupping her face with his right hand, he caressed her cheek tenderly as he spoke. “Fear has no place here, not between us, not anymore.”

 

Savoring his gentle touch, she chuckled lightly closing her eyes for a moment before returning his smile. Shifting a little on the bed, Cairma caressed the back of his hand that lay against her cheek. There was a small knowing look in her smile as she gazed in his eyes. "With your hands in mind, I have no need to fear." Rubbing her cheek along his hand as she held it within hers, turning to lightly kiss his palm. "And never from you."

 

 

 

 

Cairma & Aran

(Come in Closer - Blue October)