Armen wakes the next morn to find Mariette hovering over him. Her face riddled with concern as her brow furrows up and head is cocked to the side; one ear flattened against her head. "Mariette...What doth you loom for?"

  Mariette blinks in confusion, her head gently shaking as she processes the query. "Did you not beckon me over?"

  "No?" he yawns, unsure of what she was asking.

  "I heard you call my name... Did you not mean to?"

  "Oh..." Armen could feel his cheeks warm with embarrassment, thankfully hidden by his helm. "I must have murmured in my sleep. I apologize. I know not why I called your name." Truthfully, he wasn't sure, but he had an inclination of what he was dreaming if it were lucid enough for him to say her name.

  Mariette watches, still perplexed, as he rolls over onto his knees and sits on his ankles, bowing his head and praying silently. She stands idly behind him, waiting for him to finish praying so she may inquire of him that she may mend his still torn tabard. It bothered her that still the mail hauberk and black cloth of his heraldry remained torn by the beast from when he first arrive upon the stoop of the convent.

  "Armen?" she finally musters the courage, growing impatient at his lengthy worshiping, "If it is no bother to you... Might I mend your cloth? Still there is a tear in it from so long ago, I wish it were back into its proper form."

  He stands and about-faces, allowing Mariette to garner an easier view of the ripped and now terribly frayed edges of the shred. The layers of tabard, mail, and finally tunic underneath gave way to his scarred flesh below it all. She bends down and inspects it closer, fingers deftly holding the edges where she would seam it together, pondering the best stitch utilized for such a long overdue mend of fabric that grew looser with every passing day. "It should only take me a day, if I have the threads for it. Or perhaps a patching would work better, the edges are tufted."

  "I suppose a patch would work just well. You needn't toil over my apparel too greatly, but I would welcome the help."

  "Of course, it is no trouble at all. I am happy to mend your garments. Earnest, such mangled clothing is so unsightly. Now..." she pauses, plucking the hesitation from her mind in asking, "remove them, please."

  Mariette stares with a sheepish excitement as Armen disrobes his tabard, then hauberk, and as he begins to pull the hem of his tunic up, giving her a glimpse of his navel, he pauses and clears his throat. Mariette, abashed, blushes under her fur and averts her gaze, "So sorry. I thought nothing of it."

  Though she turns away, she does sneak a peek over her shoulder as the tunic comes up over his head, allowing her a quick sight of his pale flesh and firm musculature. So supple did his biceps flex as his arms contracted in the short process. As the cloth were pulled from his head, she snaps back around to appear innocent from her gawking. Her tongue darts out to lick her chops unwittingly.

  After Armen announces that she may look again, she turns half expectantly to see his barren chest and fair skin, and is slightly disappointed that he had donned his chainmail over his form, hiding himself from her hungry eyes.

  "Lord! What do I dare to think! I am a woman of the cloth, I cannot sully my mind with such things!" she berates herself internally, attempting to clear her mind from her lusty thoughts. "Remember, Mariette, this is trial from the Lord. Of course you would like to look, for it leads to much more than that. Of which you must resist the temptation entirely...yet..."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  In her deliberations, she hadn't noticed Armen standing before her with his clothes held for her to claim. Statuesque he stood, with arm outstretched and bundled cloth in his grasp, patiently waiting for her to retrieve herself and take the fabrics.

  After a moment, she notices the bundle that hovers at her, silently beckoning her action. She clasps hands to the top and bottom of it, allowing her fingers to touch his knuckles and letting them linger for a moment too long. As she pulls the fabric into herself, she dips her head gracefully while mentioning, "I will need a needle and thread. And also a spare cloth if you have any in your satchel..."

  "I'm afraid not... but I would think the market may have those things. I shall see, and return with the items or a suitable substitute in a short while."

  After he leaves for the market, Mariette sinks into the bed and sighs. She finds her mind wandering about Armen. About how he has spent the past days so rapt of her wellness. Then she thinks of why he was; about the terrorizing event that led to now... Her fingers gingerly prod at her face and eyes as she recalls her abuse. If Armen were only a few moments later, she would be sullied by those thugs. How much had she come to depend on his intervene anymore? Were she truly such a delicate flower that is unable to help itself? A tear beads in her eye and she sniffles, thinking of how so easily those monsters had subjugated her; her own kin. Those that she would have held as her brethren, until they revealed their malign natures. Who could she hold in her relations if not even her own people? So often did mother warn of humans and their ilk, yet the only one that had rescued her was a human against her own kind.

  It was mortifying to think of how close she was to being violated in such a grievous manner, to be used like a toy and then tossed aside. It was further frightening that she felt a swell of satisfaction at watching those manolons be slaughtered like pigs. Knowing entirely well that she was supposed to forgive the sinner, and not hold vengeance in her heart for them; that vengeance belonged to the Lord. Yet, in the many times she has thought of it since it happened: she was glad that Armen had gutted them, crushed them, brutalized them. It gave her a small giddy joy in knowing they suffered greatly by her grievance with them.

  The one that she regret, however, was that boy. She held no ill against him, at first she hated him the same as the other three, as she thought more, however, she came to understand his own plight as well. He seemed like a genuine boy, scared not too unlike herself in that moment. Scared in protesting, let alone aiding her. Just a boy that made the mistake of longing for easy money, and caught up into something worse. A tear sops the fur upon her cheek as she thinks of him, and worse yet, his younger brother whom would never know why he died like a wretched animal.

  She holds her face in her hands and weeps, for both the loss of a life that she felt should have lived, and for her own inability to avoid the entire ordeal. If it weren't for her being a frail and pathetic thing, the boy would have lived, and she would not have the lingering wound of being a victim. She simply could not shake the guilt of it all, every time she wandered back there in her head, she crushed herself and was able to do naught but weep. Thankfully, she was able to hide it from Armen by lamenting in the dead of night. She wanted to worry him as little as necessary, and he was already under a great deal of yet; her own frailty wouldn't serve.

  The only reprieve that she could attain was upon William's visits, and of daydreaming Armen. The latter being her favored. The way he said so little, and yet so much in the same sentence. How his muscles played underneath that taught, bald skin. Like a tan plum, firm and smooth. She particularly lingered over his shoulders and traps. How they were little melons of flesh that pulsed atop his arm, or the gentle taper of a triangle in his back. Despite only seeing his flesh once, it were branded into her. Mariette rubs her thumb and two forefingers together and she tries to imagine the pads as his body. Fantasizing that she was touching the nakedness of his skin.