Laudine's Absolution

Screams of the Past

Screams of the Past

Gael was shocked at just how single-minded a mad woman could be.

For someone who, just a few weeks ago, had been unable to hold a conversation, screamed at random intervals, and was incapable of being around groups of people larger than three, Laudine was remarkably capable of being focused and determined. It was not a skill he would have attributed to the woman he had originally meet.

And yet, he should have known that a paladin would be good at whatever task she set for herself. Even if it was one that was, by all accounts, reprehensible.

As Gael went about his daily tasks, trying to get back into the head space he had briefly lost while kissing her, she was near constantly at his heels. He wasn't sure how she managed to always find him when he was determined to lose her in the labyrinth of the Sacellum, but she seemed to have a supernatural tracking skill. If he didn't already know her to be an empath, he would accuse her of having a hound's nose.

When he finished his morning meditation, she was there, waiting in his room, laid out in his bed. She had brought rope for him to tie her with if she wished.

After he finished cleaning the main alter later that same morning, he turned to find her sitting in the front pews, telling him that the password to stop activities that had gone too far should be 'portrait painting' as she couldn't imagine that being said in sex – willingly forced or otherwise.

Later, after he finished his morning lectures with the acolytes, she caught up to him as he was crossing the courtyards to tell him that she thought it would also be wise to have some kind of gesture to use to stop things in case he wanted to gag her or otherwise block her mouth. She voted that it should be waving of her first two fingers or unclenching a closed fist or something equally easily identifiable.

Later, after the midday meal, when he was sweeping up the paths around the Sacellum, she found him to ask if they could lay some ground rules for what she was or wasn't willing to do. It wasn't a long list, she had assured him quickly, she didn't want to limit his methods of aggression, she just wanted to be safe and there were a few things she didn't want to do. Or, at least, things that she wanted to slowly work her way up towards.

Gael dropped the broom and just walked away.

He had to get away from her. Hearing her talk so casually about sex and being obviously willing to submit to his desires was bad. It was dangerous.

Because he wanted to take her up on the offer.

Each time she managed to track him down, he had to remind himself that putting his hands on her in any way was a bad idea, much less in the ways she was tempting. He was the Sacellum Master and she was a paladin – an emotionally broken paladin under his care. There was no worse pair to succumb to sexual violence and inner darkness.

And he knew this couldn't be good for her. She needed peace and tranquility and calm. He was following the Sacellum approved methods for mental and emotional treatment and that was his final word on the subject.

Laudine, and his own body, had different ideas.

"Would you want to sneak up on me?" She asked him as he was walking back to his rooms that evening after supper.

Gael, who had been convinced he had lost her, kept his serene smile in place, quickly covering up the small hesitation in his steps as she came to walk beside him. He decided to play dumb. "I can't imagine I would want to sneak up on you at all. It's not my intention to scare you."

"Really?" Laudine looked surprised. "Not fear? Is it just pain you want? I'm not saying no but, maybe, just ease me into it a bit-"

"I can't imagine what you're talking about," he insisted, cutting her off before she could follow that line of thinking further.