TOT-Chapter 21: Mother's Child
Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 10:51 pm
Back on Starfare's Gem, Linden sits in her cabin. She is filled with horror about Ceer. She does not blame Cail for his lack of forgiveness. She also cannot forgive. She understands him. However, she is afraid of what Covenant will think of her once he finds out about Ceer.
She goes up on deck to face Covenant's hatred. Covenant is there on the deck. She approaches him but is side-tracked by Pitchwife. ( SRD uses a word at this point which I don't know if anyone has looked up: unhermeneuticable. Whew!) Pitchwife says that TC is telling the story of what happened with Kasreyn. Brinn interrupts him saying that Cail also told of Ceer. The First recommends that she return to her cabin. Brinn says that she should answer for her actions and calls her "Corruption". Pitchwife sticks up for her but Linden is focused only on TC. He is also staring at her as Brinn continues his tirade. Brinn thinks that there should be retribution. He wants her to speak the name of a Sandgorgon.
Linden says no. She then begins a tirade of her own and she blames Kevin's despair on the "purity" of Bloodguard service. How could anyone live up to the Bloodguard, she wonders outloud. No wonder he went crazy! They make people destroy everthing that is not worthy to them! Covenant was not looking at her but listening to the exchange. Something in him snapped and he let out an arc of white gold. But it was gone as soon as it started. He then spots her arm damaged in the flight from Bhrathairealm. She tells him the truth - Cail kicked her to keep her from killing Ceer.
TC has seen enough. Brinn agains demands retribution but TC stops him. "I'm not going to turn my back on her just because she did something I don't understand." I truly love TC at this point. He insists that Brinn and the other Haruchai leave her alone - "Do you hear me?" with a concussion of wild magic. They yield and bow and agree.
Findail shows up again, wanting TC to calm down - not to let the wild magic loose again. TC turns to Linden. It is then that she realizes that he never would have allowed any retribution against her.
They move to a private part of the deck where TC asks Linden why she did it. It is now that Linden finally tells of the death - her murder - of her mother. Told how the melanoma could have been cut out if the doctor's had believed her mother. Told of the religious zealot her mother turned into and the whiner that no one wanted to listen to or help. For a month, 15-year-old Linden had to listen to her mother whine and moan and compalin. The nurses and doctors would only do what was absolutely necessary - everything else was left to Linden. The drooling, the sweat, the mucos of this horrible woman was left to Linden to deal with. She could not even make her mother look at her. Her mother would only say, "Please God, let me die." Linden needed power - she needed to do something. So, she granted her mother's wish. She unhooked her breathing tubes and stuffed tissues into her mothers mouth and let her mother suffocate to death. When she was dead, Linden flushed the tissues and re-hooked the tubes and called the nurses.
It was like that with Ceer, she said. She needed to do something. There was so much blood and Death was power. She gave her mother want she wanted and it was evil. Covenant protests, saying that she was just a child and how she had saved all of them. She denies any action on her part and says that he should let Brinn punish her.
It is at this point that TC says "no. That is not the whole story," Linden is the only woman who was not afraid of him, of his leporsy. "Don't you understand that I love you?"
This takes Linden by surprise. Not only has she lived her whole life without love, but she was expecting TC to reject her once he found out her secret. Instead, it only brought him closer to her.
Covenant, embarrassed and afraid of rejection himself, turns to leave. But Linden catches him, pulls his head down to hers and kisses him.
Let your imagination run wild with what they do next!
The music swells.........
She goes up on deck to face Covenant's hatred. Covenant is there on the deck. She approaches him but is side-tracked by Pitchwife. ( SRD uses a word at this point which I don't know if anyone has looked up: unhermeneuticable. Whew!) Pitchwife says that TC is telling the story of what happened with Kasreyn. Brinn interrupts him saying that Cail also told of Ceer. The First recommends that she return to her cabin. Brinn says that she should answer for her actions and calls her "Corruption". Pitchwife sticks up for her but Linden is focused only on TC. He is also staring at her as Brinn continues his tirade. Brinn thinks that there should be retribution. He wants her to speak the name of a Sandgorgon.
Linden says no. She then begins a tirade of her own and she blames Kevin's despair on the "purity" of Bloodguard service. How could anyone live up to the Bloodguard, she wonders outloud. No wonder he went crazy! They make people destroy everthing that is not worthy to them! Covenant was not looking at her but listening to the exchange. Something in him snapped and he let out an arc of white gold. But it was gone as soon as it started. He then spots her arm damaged in the flight from Bhrathairealm. She tells him the truth - Cail kicked her to keep her from killing Ceer.
TC has seen enough. Brinn agains demands retribution but TC stops him. "I'm not going to turn my back on her just because she did something I don't understand." I truly love TC at this point. He insists that Brinn and the other Haruchai leave her alone - "Do you hear me?" with a concussion of wild magic. They yield and bow and agree.
Findail shows up again, wanting TC to calm down - not to let the wild magic loose again. TC turns to Linden. It is then that she realizes that he never would have allowed any retribution against her.
They move to a private part of the deck where TC asks Linden why she did it. It is now that Linden finally tells of the death - her murder - of her mother. Told how the melanoma could have been cut out if the doctor's had believed her mother. Told of the religious zealot her mother turned into and the whiner that no one wanted to listen to or help. For a month, 15-year-old Linden had to listen to her mother whine and moan and compalin. The nurses and doctors would only do what was absolutely necessary - everything else was left to Linden. The drooling, the sweat, the mucos of this horrible woman was left to Linden to deal with. She could not even make her mother look at her. Her mother would only say, "Please God, let me die." Linden needed power - she needed to do something. So, she granted her mother's wish. She unhooked her breathing tubes and stuffed tissues into her mothers mouth and let her mother suffocate to death. When she was dead, Linden flushed the tissues and re-hooked the tubes and called the nurses.
It was like that with Ceer, she said. She needed to do something. There was so much blood and Death was power. She gave her mother want she wanted and it was evil. Covenant protests, saying that she was just a child and how she had saved all of them. She denies any action on her part and says that he should let Brinn punish her.
It is at this point that TC says "no. That is not the whole story," Linden is the only woman who was not afraid of him, of his leporsy. "Don't you understand that I love you?"
This takes Linden by surprise. Not only has she lived her whole life without love, but she was expecting TC to reject her once he found out her secret. Instead, it only brought him closer to her.
Covenant, embarrassed and afraid of rejection himself, turns to leave. But Linden catches him, pulls his head down to hers and kisses him.
Let your imagination run wild with what they do next!
The music swells.........