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Post by Outisakanobody on Jul 4, 2020 8:56:30 GMT -8
"I developed a strong back." Grace jokes, even managing to laugh. "Maybe that is my way of saying...You get used to it? You, ultimately, will have to find your own ways to cope. But...If I might say, I am not sure the flogging is the best solution."
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Post by rosallora on Jul 4, 2020 8:59:40 GMT -8
[Toustain]
She tightens at the suggestion, even as it makes her back seize up with pain. "It's what I know," she says, and the tone is stern, curt. Grace doesn't understand her sect. She doesn't understand what her faith was like. Grace was a nonbeliever, she didn't get it.
Grace was scared. Scared and sad. Scared and sad and filled with alcohol and still somehow she... channeled the Light.
And that was more than what Toast could say for herself.
"It brings me closer to Her. It's a worldly sacrifice. Vesta deserves to know that I would give up. Anything. Everything. For her. Skin or... my eyes, or my legs, or..."
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Post by Outisakanobody on Jul 4, 2020 9:09:59 GMT -8
"...What I used to know, was wine would make me forget my past. Make that load on my back lighter, for a while. I used to think there was no harm in it. You, however, saw what it did to me. You recognized I was hurting myself. And now, here you are, doing the same thing. Hurting yourself, in an attempt to make yourself better. Does that make sense, to you?"
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Post by rosallora on Jul 4, 2020 9:23:44 GMT -8
[Toustain]
She's caught between indignation and resignation. They weren't the same. Drinking in excess was hardly something that someone of the Light would smile on. Flagellation was a holy act. It was good, it marked penance, it was a way that a vestal could commune with the Goddess on her own. No need for a Perpetua Flammae or anyone higher in the order, just a vestal, and the Bright Flame above.
"What I do is holy," she says quietly. "I reaffirmed my vows. I renewed my dedication to the Goddess. I showed her that I could endure-" Toustain moves her arms, trying to push up again, but only ends up gasping out pain. Her forehead rests against the blankets. "...How... could I be so... weak." Her eyes well up. "Harina was right... I'm just meek... I'm not... I'll never be..." her shoulders shake.
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Post by Outisakanobody on Jul 4, 2020 9:37:45 GMT -8
"Toast, how is 'this' Holy?" Grace asks, pressing a finger into the small of the woman's back, likely aggravating her wounds in a painful, but non damaging way. "Have you ever stopped to consider that what you had been raised to believe was wrong? That maybe, the people that put these thoughts in your head did not care about you or your well being? And instead only wanted to pass on and reinforce their tyrannical traditions?" She was venting, now. It was odd, seeing this woman who was her elder, yet so...blind. How had she gone so long without realizing how rotten the church was? Clearly she'd been made to suffer at their hands, just like Grace had. And yet she...accepted it. Embraced it, where she had turned her back on nearly everything.
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Post by rosallora on Jul 4, 2020 10:09:02 GMT -8
[Toustain]
She makes a strained, wounded sound when Grace applies pressure to her back. "They..." she knows they didn't care much about her. She knew that they pushed her hard, that they left her alone, that they did everything because of the Flame and yet she didn't know why it made them so cruel.
Had it been cruel? Hadn't she needed it?
She needed to be stronger and this was supposed to make her more divine. Flush out the sin in her. Replace it with something worth having, a virtue she was missing. Something she was born without.
Toustain is trying to both think and not-think, caught in the middle of everything. Goddess, it hurt, why did it have to hurt so much. Because it showed discipline. Warriors of the Faith - Roland, Harina, even Grace - they'd felt so much worse. They were stronger for it. Harina had such a deep faith, a binding connection between herself and the Light. Roland was penitent, so honorable and stoic and a good teacher. He could be a leader, he could have a banner, and she would follow it. And Grace... Grace was sober. It was a start, wasn't it?
"It was either the lash or repetition, abbess, and I wouldn't... I wouldn't say the words of the Goddess so meaninglessly. I wanted to feel them. Their... their power." She rubs her face on the blanket, her tears soaking into it. "I knew that physical penance would be better for my faith."
For all the prayers she didn't turn to mush in her head, a great lot of good that'd done when it came to channeling the Light. She was useless.
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Post by Outisakanobody on Jul 4, 2020 10:19:59 GMT -8
"Stop...calling me that. I am not here as your superior. I am here as your friend. Someone who does not want to see you harm yourself for some...foolish show of false faith." Grace pleaded, wishing the placement of the two of them was more conducive to a regular conversation. She would really like to look Toast in the face as she made her please, but she would have to make due.
"Where did all this come from? This...faith earned through pain nonsense? You always spoke to me about love and kindness. Where is that Toast? Where did she go all of the sudden?" Grace pried, wanting to get to the bottom of this abrupt turn of events.
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Post by rosallora on Jul 4, 2020 10:38:42 GMT -8
[Toustain]
She grips the sheet and pushes herself up, an expression of pain unmasked and clear on her face, streaks down her cheeks telling the tale of the tears of the night prior and the ones that would assuredly come in the next few minutes. A bloom of red pushes into the bandages and she doesn't care. It hurts - it all hurts. Her head hurts, her leg hurts, her back hurts, her stomach hurts, it all was one bruise. Ugly, disgusting. She was a bruise.
Grace's words clang against her ears like the church's bell. They vibrate through her, this accusation, this deep and terrible thing that she feels rise up in her, a bile that must be expelled before it feels like it can settle in her stomach.
"My faith is real," she states, and it is a fact. The sun rises, the abbey was made of stone and wood, and Sister Toustain Royer believes in the Goddess.
"My faith... is real."
She rises. Her other questions - she barely hears them. The words Love and Kindness slide off of her so easily. All she can think is that her grip must remain steadfast or it would be pulled from her. It would be ripped from her by those who didn't understand it. She looks at Grace, her eyes... cold. Not understanding. Not taking it in, not wanting to, knowing that she couldn't or she'd come apart all over again. And that moment of strength, of absolute conviction, passes quickly. Fear fades back into her eyes.
"...I'm... I'm taking my leave, abbess." She picks up the cloth from the ground, though it was smeared and speckled with dried blood. Her heart pounds as she wraps it around herself, and as she departs, her body screaming protest with every movement. Pulling the door open causes her shoulder to strain, but she has to. And she leaves, hurried. She hardly knows what to do with herself.
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Post by The Carrying Blade on Jul 5, 2020 9:39:28 GMT -8
Charis would quite obviously see the pockets on Nasuris’s dress, though the woman did also have a bag hanging off her shoulder which blocked her right side where she had hidden the bridle in her dress. Given the woman carries multitudes of stuff such as parchment both in her dress and in her bag, it would be quite difficult to find the stolen item without Nasuris noticing. At the moment all there was to see was a woman filled to the brim with supplies fit for a librarian or scholar.
“Oh that? Well, I can tell you I did investigate the Faulds, I had come from the penance chamber area and had found it in use. But I also noticed the person had walked and dropped all clothing a considerable distance between instead of all at once at the door. Investigative and opportunistic as I am, I merely inspected the armor, seeing if there was anything actually wrong with it. But alas, they seemed in good condition, so I left them alone. If they had something obviously wrong about them, say they were near broken, I would’ve waited around to ask the person if I may have them.” Nasuris explained, secretly smiling inside she knew this would be mostly foolproof. As what she said now was the truth, as the bridle was a bonus from having no valuable loot from haphazardly thrown armor.
“You see I don’t have much if any armor, and given expeditions are a valuable source of knowledge and danger, I would want to acquire some. But at the same time I don’t want to waste money, especially when this place kills so many people on average that armor might be left by the pound it would be more advantageous and cheaper to merely refit or fix them for a much smaller price. Is that satisfactory enough of an explanation to you? Because I have an appointment with someone in the Sanitarium I must attend to and they’ll be terribly sad if I don’t visit them today.” She guilted, using every trick in the book to avoid confrontation and easily leave the area.
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Post by twostepsback on Jul 13, 2020 12:01:29 GMT -8
From a safe distance behind Nasuris, Charissa silently followed the occultist on her trek. Charis knew the occultist was up to something... she just had to figure out what it was.
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Post by The Carrying Blade on Jul 28, 2020 17:05:44 GMT -8
Nasuris sighed as she continued away from the woman, thankfully she had escaped but an irking feeling surrounded her as she left the light bringer. She was quick footed and quiet agile, helped her get away from many things in her life. At first she would exit the Abbey in a hurry, heading out to the main square as she continued to the Sanitarium like she said she would. If she didn’t the girl would return after being invasive and finding out she never went.
But her pace slowed as she walked up the steps to the building, her feet heavy with a weight unbeknownst to anyone watching, a much different look that before when she had basically power walked and sprinted off away from the Abbey. She would then enter the building, having made no detours and made no attempt to check to see if she had been followed.
—To Sanitarium—
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Post by artoriaswalker on Jan 16, 2021 12:45:08 GMT -8
A woman clad in steel would press upon the Abbey doors, taking her first steps within. Closing the door behind her person, she would approach the central hall of the Abbey, taking her seat at the benches.
She would leave her helmet off beside her personal, her black hair remaining tied in a long ponytail. Now drawing her book off from her belt, brushing gathered dirt and grim from the journey off the book; later opening the book up and resting her eyes on the ancient passages. Her face was quaint as of current, calmed by the holy words and doctrine her life was built upon, an escape from the gloom of the hamlet streets. She would briefly break her silence and mutter to herself.
"Home, sweet home." This broke into a quiet chuckle, as her eyes continued to revel in the holy tome.
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Post by artoriaswalker on Jan 16, 2021 22:08:16 GMT -8
With the hours passing in her deep prayer and study of the holy word, she held herself up now, taking moments to reemerge into the world and the environment she was in. Blinking and adjusting she would close her tome, the lock on it clicking quite audibly and repeating once upon her belt. Rising from the bench now, she holds her helmet to her side, walking from the Abbey halls with her head down, and leaving throw its hallowed doors silent with her helmet only slipping on with her exit.
- Thud -
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