Ridahne could hear Darin moving around in the room. She could tell she was trying to be quiet, but she really shouldn't have bothered. Ridahne had sharp hearing anyway, but she'd been trained to keep an ear open and sleep lightly. Not that she'd really slept much anyway that night. Her face just hurt too much for her to really get comfortable.

[I]Ridahne was lying outside in a woven hammock stretched between two palm trees as she occasionally put a flat, smooth rock to her right jawline. Her whole face seemed to burn and the cool touch of the rock was at least some relief. She wished she could go plunge her face into the cool ocean, but she was told that could be bad for her brand new ojih. She didn't hear the fabric door being pushed aside, nor did she hear the soft footsteps in the packed dust coming towards her until her mother laid a cool hand on the unbandaged side of her face. Ridahne looked up. "I can't sleep."
Ikali sighed. "Neither can I." 
Ridahne studied her mother. She'd begun to notice she had less energy recently, and wore a drawn expression. She and her father were always whispering about something. "Are you...okay?"
The woman smiled, tossing her black hair behind one shoulder. "It's...just a a bit of pain in my stomach. I'm sure you're in worse pain though," she said, playing it off. "How does it feel?"
"Awful," Ridahne admitted with a little smile. "Feels like someone raked my face into the coral."
Ikali sat beside her daughter on the hammock. "Do you regret it, Isfahan?"
Ridahne gingerly shook her head. "No. I'm very proud of it, even the pain. But...did your face swell this much?"
"Oh, yes. For a couple days. It was very brave of you to go through with it. I'm proud of you, Ridahne."[/I]

She was much more used to the pain now. Years of tattooing had toughened her against it for the most part, though no Azurei would ever say it did not hurt to mark an ojih. She just wished that she hurt a little less inside, too.

"Do you remember," she began, her voice low and soft, but cold. "When I first told you what I'd done? I was so ashamed. How could I tell the Seed-Bearer of Astra what kind of criminal I was? Do you have any idea how difficult that was? How much I wanted to deflect, or lie, or do anything but tell you what I'd done? In my mind, I would come clean and tell you, and I thought you would hate me and despise me as the snake everyone thought I was. How could you not? I reasoned that you would cast me aside, you would send me away, and I would be honor bound to return home and submit myself to the executioner's hand. In my mind, if I told you who I was and what I'd done, it would mean my death. And yet I told you anyway." 

She had not moved from where she lay on the bed. "Do you remember," she said again, "that you once accused me of running from my problems? Running from my oath to you, from Ajoran, from my responsibilities...do you remember?" She finally sat up, her face now visible in the soft, wavering light of a few uloia. It was so swollen on one side that it nearly looked disfigured under the clean white bandages, now stained with little spots of black or red or some mix of the two where blood or ink had seeped through.  "I wanted you to be there, Darin. I wanted you to share that moment with me, because you play such a big part in it. Obviously you didn't want to." Her tone was icy but injured. "The thing is, I don't even care that you didn't want to. Alright, maybe a little. But that's not the point. You wanted no part of it--that much I could read loud and clear. You know, I'd understand. Maybe you felt like it was too sacred for you, an outsider, to be a part of. Maybe you find the whole practice disgusting and couldn't bear to watch me stab myself six thousand times in the face with a piece of goat bone. I get it! You wouldn't be the first to feel that way. I'd have been a little disappointed maybe, but I would have understood, and I wouldn't have blamed you for it. [I]If you'd just told me."[/I]

Her eyes seemed to glow in the dim light like two burning embers. "I have laid bare my soul, Darin. I have told you my dark sins and my fears and my hopes and my regrets. I have trusted you to be the one person in this world with power that didn't let me down. I very nearly died for you, and I'd do it again. I still have the scars!" Her voice had risen, but it dropped to a wounded murmur as she said, "And somehow you still don't trust me. You expect vulnerability from me but yet you do not give it to me in return. I am not your servant to be shooed away at your convenience," she said dangerously, tears glinting off the unbandaged half of her face. "I'm your partner. I'm your..." 

The words caught in her throat, and though she didn't feel it in the moment, her heart knew it to be true. "I'm your friend, Darin. I'm here to help you. Why don't you see that? And," she added, her disfigured expression turning dark like a prowling wolf, "If you make for that door, so help me I will chase you down and show you my best impression of Mitaja on the hunt."