[I]He destroyed her.[/I]

Ridahne actually looked up from her tattooing, all the casual joviality sucked from her face. Her first reaction was to condemn this man for leaving his family, for just discarding his partner so flippantly. And then a horrible, crushing thought came to her: Was that what she'd done to Ajoran? It was different because she didn't just disappear--he knew exactly what happened and where she had gone. But in their final moments together, she had renounced him all the same. Decades of courtship and she had callously pushed him away. But it was for his own good. He would be better without her. He needed someone who would not drag him down, someone who could support him in his ambitions instead of cause him trouble. Someone he could wake up to and be proud of. 

[I]"I don't understand, Ridahne...you could be pardoned if all goes well. Pardoned. I would wait, you know." 
"I know you would. That's the problem. If a leg goes septic you must cut it away to save the body. Don't, and the body dies. You must cut me away, Ajoran." She took off the necklace she wore--a carnelian spiral carved by Ajoran himself--and pushed it into his hands. Worn as a pendant, it was something like a sign of betrothal except not so formal, and once married she was to wear it in her ear in place of the bone one she'd worn since childhood. "I can't keep this, Ajoran." 
He would not take it. "Did you not hear me? I said I'd wait for you to do this task, Ridahne. To come back and be pardoned. You can come home and I can keep my position."
"Ajoran, no, I--"
"All these years..." he said, an edge creeping into his tone. Ridahne cringed at the hurt she felt in that tone. "Did they mean nothing to you that you can just--"

Ridahne burst, slapping his chest with an open palm. "It means the world!" she shouted. "And that's why I can't let you waste your life away waiting for me to 'redeem' myself." Tears streaked her inked face. "When I come back, IF I come back, I will be allowed to live but nothing will undo what I've done. Nothing. You can't change that and it's a weight around your neck you don't need."
"I don't care about that, Ridahne." 
Her voice grew cold, but her eyes still flowed with tears. "You should. Take it." She tried to push the carved stone into his hand again but he pulled way. 
"No." His voice was also cold, defeated. Wounded. "Keep it, even if you never wear it. It was made for you. It wouldn't be right to give it to someone else."[/I]

---

She still had it. She wore it around her neck still--mostly for safekeeping--but she did not often let it show if she could help it. Like her past, it was complicated. Ridahne shook her head slightly, obviously trying to ward off a train of thought, and went back to her inking. "Well, if you DO find him, I will hold him down." She offered a weak smile.

In regards to Darin's question about tattoos, Ridahne shook her head. "All of them? No. Some are just...art. Many are ones I got during significant points in my life but the designs mean nothing in particular. This one is one of those." Tap tap tap. She was quick and confident with the little bone needle, her hands steady and practiced despite the pain. "The face ones, they are called ojih, and they do mean something. All of those ones do. There are some things in life that are significant enough to define who you are, and those things get put into the ojih. Good things, bad things--doesn't  matter. The symbols are universal to a degree, enough that to someone who knows what they're looking at, they can be read. A stranger can look at me and know I am a Torzinei and I am from Atakhara just by looking at this," she tapped the large bone earring dangling from her stretched right earlobe, which was carved on the flat face that hung down. "That isn't part of the ojih, not really, but it sort of is in a way. The ojih could show though if I..." she considered, trying to give general examples instead of more specific, personal ones. "Was wed or not. Or my profession or status I've achieved. It would show great achievements maybe, or rank or...well..." she shrugged. "Crimes."