Author: JustSkipIt
Rating: R to NC-17
Feedback: Please leave feedback on the Waiting for Dani thread on the Kitten Board.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own Willow and Tara and the Buffyverse. I'm not saying this universe is totally original but I didn't steal it from any author or creator that I know of. No copyright infringement is meant by this fic and I will not make any money from it.
Distribution: Kitten Board, Through the Looking Glass, Mystic Muse. Everyone else, send me a note.

Additional and permanent disclaimer: Yadda yadda. Yadda Yadda. Not comfortable. Power imbalance. Etc.

Gods! Now that girl is pounding on the door. "I've told you that I will eat when I am hungry!" I lack patience and she will lack more than that if she does not leave me in peace. The door opens and I swivel angrily toward it. That is absolute insubordination.

"You've told me no such damn thing, Tara Maclay!" Both the sight and sound of Faith striding through the door and slamming it shut behind her are a shock to me. I roll my eyes at her and turn back toward the window but she crosses the room in four strides and grasps my shoulders. "Dawn is downstairs comforting Merie who looks like she's fought three demons and a cougar tonight. Then she will bring you something to drink." She softens her tone. "When was the last time you ate?"

I can not look at her. "I ate breakfast."

She gets up to answer a knock at the door and brings a tray to set on the table next to me, lifting a cup of warm goat milk to my lips. I try to shake my head but she grasps it in her hands and all but forces me to drink. "There. Now, where is Dani?"

I take the cup from her and set it on the table. "Dani is gone, Faith. Now if you will go as well, I can continue sitting here. I'm quite busy."

She raises a hand and I am shocked as she slaps me on the back of the head. "You're quite busy? You're quite an idiot you mean."

I turn my head to look at her incredulously. "I am the Lady of your Estate."

Faith shows the apparent range of her respect for my position as she sits down and begins to pull off her boots. "Well then, you're quite an idiot, My Lady."

Finally my sister has my attention. I take a drink of the milk and glare at her. "You may check insulting your superior off your list for the day. Now why else are you here?"

She barely considers me as she inspects her feet. "We had to ride like the wind to arrive so early today with no notice. Melanie will be all out of sorts with my sudden departure but Master Stefan's note left me little choice but to come."

"Master Stefan was to exercise discretion in completing the task I assigned him."

She crosses the room to use the wash basin on near the armoire. "He used his discretion to send me this note." She hands me a small scroll.

Faith Dearest,

Please attend Lady Maclay. She is not well and I fear makes ill plans. I have been sent to retrieve Miss T'dre and bring her to the village. This can not bode well.

Yours in all things as this,
Master Stefan Finn

I crumple the scroll in my hand. "He should not have contacted you." The goat milk is good after this many hours without food but the taste is bitter. Perhaps Merie warmed it too much?

I wake many hours later for the sun appears to be high in the sky judging by the light in my rooms. "Faith drugged me."

Dawn bows before shrugging in a motion I know she learned from her Mistress. "She felt you needed the rest. I will fetch her now."

She steps from the room and in moments Faith enters. She looks quite a bit more clean and refreshed and this time extends her mark toward me, waits to see mine, and bows before me. "Lady Tara."

"Miss Faith."

She takes the seat Dawn had occupied and hands me a cup of kaffee and a small plate of dinner which I accept from her, taking a sip. "Is this one drugged as well?"

She smiles. "No, My Lady. I am sorry but you were not going to listen to reason in that state."

I take a few bites of the meat. "I understand." I took another sip of kaffee. "You are too late to stop me."

"Stop you from... freeing Dani? From crushing her heart and ruining her life and prospects?"

"Ruining? Crushing? Are you knackered?" I shake my head. "You can not know what I've done."

Faith stands and slips onto the bed to take my hand in hers. "Please tell me, Tara. What is troubling you so?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me." I look at her and she continues. "Nothing can make me stop loving you. You are my Lady but first you are my sister. So tell me what you've done or what you believe you've done."

I take more bites of the dinner, finally placing slices of the meat between the roll to form a sandwich as I consider her words. I set the plate away from me and then the cup and then begin my confession. "I have... I have used Dani terribly, Faith. Used her as she should never have been used."

"How is that?"

I look away, out the window although the brightness of the sunlight burns at my eyes. "I have shared... have taken... marks-rights with her."

Nothing could have prepared me for my sister's laughter. "Marks-rights?"

My magic begins to bubble quite near the surface in my indignation at Faith's laughter, her seeming dismissal of the sins I have committed and I take a deep breath and invoke an incantation to pull them back. "Yes, marks-rights. I have violated her. Have taken her trust and pride and given her no choice in the matter." I feel particularly crude and continue. "Many times. Many. Many. Times."

Faith pulls back slightly but I can not tell if she is shocked at my words or shocked at my tone. "I believe you've ... what did you call it? Violated her many many times but that's not marks-rights, Tara." She seems to be grinning at finding out that her Lady is so perverse.

I hold up my hand as if instructing a child. "Five marks, Faith. To match the five on her hip. I've taken marks-rights as surely as Lord Finn would."

Faith chuckles. "Lord Finn would take marks rights more surely than you, My Lady. For your marks don't carry the rights." I shake my head and she continues. "Were you not schooled? Your marks don't match her hip - right hand to right hip? - unless you've invented some new position I've never heard of."

I consider this for a moment and admit that she's probably right about the placement of the marks. "Nonetheless, I am her Mistress and she is bound to me. She can't resist me or my wishes so my power over her is as good as marks-rights." I can feel the tears of shame pooling hot in my eyes. "She..."

Rather than laughing my sister takes my hands in hers. "I do not think she would want to resist you, Tara."

"What has she said?" Oh god. Did Faith already know about our relationship?

"She's said nothing. She is the very soul of discretion but no one could mistake the love you two share. I've been praying that you were acting upon it for fear that you might spontaneously combust if not."

A laugh escapes my mouth. "What?"

"Do you think this is the first time this has happened, My Lady?" She looks at me quite like I am the idiot she accused earlier. "How could it? All these hundreds and thousands of Mistresses and their servants, raised together, living together, dressing and bathing together? And all those Lords and Masters not willing to give up their magic users. There's going to be frustration. Creator, I've... well never mind. We're not talking about me."

"This isn't frustration."

"Of course not, Tara. And do you think this is the first time love has happened?" She tipped up my chin with her fingertips. "You love her do you not?"

I smile in spite of myself. "More than my very soul and with every beat of my heart."

Another chuckle. "Perhaps you should have spent a little less time in poetry study and more in common sense." I shoot her a look and she holds up her palms in a playful sign of surrender. "Do you seriously think you are the first Mistress to love her servant? That she is the first to love you so? You don't even listen to your own parents's legend."

"What?"

"When and how was Desiderata freed?"

"How is this even vaguely relevant?" I am tiring of this line of questioning.

"I repeat my question. When and how was Desiderate freed?"

I roll my eyes. "Desiderata was freed in heartbreak the day after I was born. What is your point?" It takes me a moment to grasp what she is suggesting. "You can't be serious, Faith. Desiderata and my mother were ... lovers? And Father was what?"

Faith again shakes her head at my apparent ignorance. "Yes, they were lovers as you put it. You forget that Delam knew them from childhood." She sees the shock and hurt in my eyes. "Lady T'rese loved Father. I know that but they married him also because he was acceptable to Desiderata."

"I'm having a little trouble grasping that my mother and her servant were lovers and that they married Father." I shake my head. "And Melanie and Delam?"

Faith smiled. "I knew you would ask that. I don't believe so and I feel quite sure Delam would have said something if so. Actually, I don't think she's particularly interested in any... I just thought the two of you would find a suitable husband eventually." She shivers involuntarily. "Just not that creepy Master Angel."

"Still, that is entirely irrelevant, Faith." I was losing my patience with my sister treating me as a child and acting as if I had done nothing wrong. She should be shouting at me, be shaking me, and instead she was trying to tell me that what I had done was fine, was in fact usual? "I don't think you are seeing the point. She could not resist me. Whether I had marks-rights over her doesn't matter for I hold her bond. Held her bond. She's been doing... this to please me rather than herself and I can't take that!" My voice is quite high and I feel rather that I am screetching, not sounding like a lady at all.

Faith can see that I am upset and again takes my hands and begins to rub the skin. "Dear Tara, you may be right that she has been acting from the bond but she may also want your relationship just as you do."

I think about this for a moment or two. "I hope and pray you are right, Faith. But can she have the ability to say yes if she doesn't have the ability to say no?"

"And now? Now she has this ability, yes?" I nod my head. "But Tara. My Lady. Can you imagine how she feels?"

I look at my sister in total confusion. To what is she alluding? I explain as if she were simple. "Servants are not often freed while their masters or mistresses are alive. When this is done, both the master and servant will feel a relief followed by exhaustion. For the master, this usually lasts a few hours, for the servant a few days. Both are dependent partially on the strength of the bond and the rank of the pair."

Faith rolls her eyes at me and looks as if she wants to strike something. "I'm glad to know that Tadre lent you a scroll so that you could give me the studied answer."

"Your tone serves you ill, sister."

"Your stubbornness serves you equally ill, sister."

I fix Faith with a stern look (which given that my last statement had no effect on her attitude seems questionable but I can not give up my training and breeding so easily). But something has worked for she softens her gaze on me. "With all due respect, Lady Tara, I am trying to ask you to imagine Dani's current position." I look at her stupidly. "If she loves you, as I believe, you have sent her from you. Forced her to give up the binding, no doubt without asking her wishes."

"She could not have given her wishes had I asked." I feel ashamed to admit that Faith is right but I also know that Dani would have said what she believed I wanted.

Faith nods her head. "Nonetheless, she loves you. You have returned from a grand event you did not allow her to attend. The next day you order her separated from you and unbound without adequate explanation. Am I correct so far?"

I nod my head as I take in what my sister has said so far.

"You have fired her from the only job she has ever held. Removed her from her only family and left her stranded in the village weakened for days with no indication that you love her."

My reply is swift and angry, demonstrating how spot-on Faith's accusations have been. "I have shown her my love too many times in too many years."

Faith brushes my hair from in front of my face. "I have no doubt that you have shown her only love all these years, My Lady. But I am asking you to imagine her feelings right now." The import of what Faith is saying begins to hit me and I ball up the bedclothes in a fist. "She does not know why you have discarded her and she is shamed to have been released from her bond. She can not be bound again..."

"And should not be!"

"Certainly. But tell me what you feel she should do now." I scrunch up my face at her question, trying to understand it. "What job could she take now that she will be known as the servant who was released from her bond without explanation?"

"She could be... she ... I would hire her as a tutor or steward... She..." I think for a moment. "Oh Creator...." It hits me how Dani is feeling. I did not even tell her that I wanted more than anything for her to return to me freely. I've just left her in the village alone, exhausted and weakened, with no indication of what she has done or reason for her dismissal.

I stand from the bed and feel the world tilt beneath my feet. My eyes are blurry with the tears which have somehow pooled there. I spin around and feel Faith steady me. "Tara? Are you with me?"

"I... I must. We need to ... I mean. She's all alone. What does she feel? We must go to the village." I speak so frantically but I can't even tell if Faith can understand my words.

"I don't think you'll need to."

I wasn't even aware that Dawn was in the room but there's that silence with which our servants move once again. I look to see her standing by the window, the same window at which I sat so recently, pointing to something in the courtyard. Faith leads me to the window and I see the most beautiful and heartbreaking sight of my life. Dani is slumped, nearly unconscious, like a child in Stefan's lap while Xander rides next to them on Hope.

My love has returned but I know not to what end.