Jahana walks, numb, from House Atianna. She cannot quite process what has just happened. She asked for it, but never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined ...

She swore. She swore that she would never commit her life to another. It had been done to her once before and she escaped it, though not without her scars.

She finds her way to the Lion, her current home, where she plans to ... she doesn't know what she plans to do. Both buoyed and sick at heart, she steps to the bar.

"You're late," comes a cry from across the room. "Everyone has been waiting for you!"

She rises and takes her place at the center of the room. "It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that I am ill and unable to give you my very best today. Therefore, you shall have none of me, for you only deserve the best." With groans of disappointment, she walks back to the bar.

"A bottle, my sweet lolly. Something will put to ground even the most pernicious of ghouls." The barmaid swings something over the wooden top that Jahana, with all her travels, has never seen before. She takes it, saying, "Put it on my tab. I'm retiring for the night, should anyone ask. *Though I doubt they will,* she thinks, especially after the announcement she made.

She heads upstairs, holding her gut and hoping for all the world that she doesn't misstep so badly as to fall on her face any further than she believes she already has.

Once in her room, she spins ... and spins ... her heart so light that she cannot bear it. She is overwhelmed that the Lady of House Atianna has blessed her, offered her grace. Shew could not have asked for more!

So she'd offered it

Jahana's knees buckle and she crumples to the floor. The bottle, slipping from her hand, rolls away. She curls around her knees and begins to sob. She gave her life away on a whim, on an emotional high. Shame boils in her blood ... and fear. Would she survive her choice?

She's not sure how long she lay there. Time has no meaning when you are that deep into the dance with the skeletons in your closet. She knows the bottle is empty ... and so is she. The rollercoaster high of being given what you want and the terror inducing plunge follows have left her battered to her core. She's not sure she's not also physically bruised.

The dawn creeps through closed shutters. Its pink glow tinting her lodgings with the promise of new life. She hates it right now. It cuts her to the quick as she wakes with the taste of her words, and bad booze, on her lips. She crawls from the heap in which she had found herself over to the bed. Slithering under the blanket, she pulls them over her head. The dark is a welcome friend, hiding her fears and tears in equal measure.

How? How had it come to this? She defied her father and her uncles. She defied even her liege lord. She would not do their bidding, to be subservient to some unknown suitor they had picked for her. She was not, would never be, that.

They beat her for it; tried to break her completely. She still bore scars hidden by folds of fabric and well placed lighting. They did not hit her in the face, lest they mar her beauty. That simply would not do.

And not all the scars were on the outside. Demeaned, disgraced, she was left so unraveled on the inside that it took years to rebuild. Years, and a new identity ... one she swore would never be that again.

As she lay there weeping, she prayed to any gods that would listen that her heart would not lead her astray the way those who said they loved her once did.

Hours pass. Her eyes and cheeks crusted with salt. At some point, she slept, vivid dreams encroaching on what should have been restful slumber. She rises slowly from the bed and trudges to the wash basin. As she splashes her face, she peers into the looking glass at her reflection.

She notices a glow - small, subtle, gentle. It's nothing overt. Between her emotional state and her inebriated state, she may have missed it, but for the fact that it was in her own bloodshot eyes. She sees ... she isn't sure ... hope? Blessing? Something else?

She feels her soul flutter in her chest. *This time its my choice,* she thinks. "My choice!" she repeats aloud and lets it settle in. MY CHOICE!! she cries to her reflection, to the skeletons, to the world.

She stands there, breathing ragged as though she had swum all the seas in all the world. She makes a decision. She will find joy here. She bows her head, trying to gather her thoughts, before she faces the world.