31_days | [Dec. 21] [Suikoden III] Detour from Terror

Title: Detour from Terror
Day/Theme: Dec. 21, 2011 "she fears she won't be followed"
Series: Suikoden III
Character/Pairing: Sarah & Sasarai
Rating: PG
Author's comments: More on the AU topic of Sarah surviving the game's ending.

"I don't particularly like saying so, but," Sarah dropped her pale eyes from Sasarai's face down to her folded hands, "Thank you. I was afraid you wouldn't agree to his terms. I found myself being forced to contemplate the possibility that I would wind up in the hands of some more unscrupulous cleric I had never met or...even worse..." Whatever the more terrible horror was, she could not bear to say it.

"Lady Olia?" Sasarai guessed.

Sarah nodded. Her fingers, woven closely together, clenched tighter at the thought. Sasarai didn't have to know much about her past to recognize the terror in her stiff, ashen posture. She had belonged to that woman once. He couldn't claim to know what that must have been like, but he imagined he could guess better now at any other point in his life. Since his appointment as a bishop he had started the gradual process of becoming aware of the world outside of the greenhouse he had been raised in. The recent conflict in the Grasslands had brought him closer to Third Class Citizens than any prior event. ...Even they didn't belong to any particular individual the way Sarah had belonged to Bishop Kaeyani. Third Class Citizens were known and documented. In theory at least, the people handling them couldn't use or abuse them however they wanted (Sasarai was not blind to the truth- not now).

"Perhaps I should clarify," Sarah looked up suddenly, "I don't mean that it was difficult to thank you. Not at all. It was admitting to my fears that troubled me."

"Hee hee," Sasarai was unable to reign in a light laugh, "It's perfectly all right. I understood that much from the get-go."

"What comes after this will be more difficult still... I imagine."