015 | Teresa of the Faint Smile 04

[priscilla]

Summary First Appearance: N/A At the top of a mountain, Teresa calls Clare over to look at the mountain village below. That, she says, is Rokut. It's the location of her next mission, and it's where they'll be parting ways. The news distresses Clare, but Teresa tells her she'll be happier there than she could be on the road with Teresa. Clare disagrees... vehemently, but Teresa insists, and promises she'll find a family for her instead of just running off. Even so, Clare cries herself to sleep that night at the campfire. It seems strange to Teresa, who still believes that living a normal life would be preferable to living with her. Finally, Teresa moves away from the camp and stands in a nearby clearing. Once alone, she regards the seemingly empty woods and asks them what they want. As it turns out, she's talking to Rig, the bandit with one arm. He comes out into the clearing, and he is not looking well. His face is veined, and he's drooling. His arm wound is heavily infected. She warns him that if he tries to kill her, she'll fight back regardless of what the rules say... but instead of attacking her with an intent to kill, he pushes her to the ground and begins tearing at her clothes and shouting that he'll make her suffer. Teresa decides she doesn't care and just lies there, wondering if this is the kind of person she is sworn to protect. Rig rants a bit about wanting to see Teresa's superior face twisted in pain but ultimately he's the one who ends up bleeding when Clare hits him on the head with a stick. He knocks Clare to the ground and begins kicking her repeatedly, until Teresa grabs his sword from his hip and puts it to his neck. He asks what she's doing - if she kills him, she'll be executed by the others. Irritated, Teresa corrects his assumptions: it may be a rule, but whether she follows it or breaks it is still her own damn choice, so he ought to get out of there. Frightened by the intensity of her stare, Rig hobbles off into the woods while Teresa chastises Clare for getting involved. Still, she reaches out to pull Clare to her feet. But Clare doesn't need help. She propels herself from the ground and onto Teresa, struggling to form her first words in years: Doesn't it hurt? Clare's speech shocks Teresa, who didn't realize Clare could speak. But when she realizes what Clare is asking, she assumes Clare means her stigmata, and explains that no, it doesn't. It just looks painful. Clare, however, explains her true meaning, through her sobs. From the moment she saw Teresa, she recognized that Teresa lived in constant, unbearable pain. She saw it in Teresa's eyes: the loneliness, the loss, the sadness. It looked as though she was in so much pain that she couldn't stand it. In that moment, Teresa remembers how they met. How Clare repeatedly tried to cling to her, even as she kicked the child away. And she realizes that Clare was not trying to comfort herself. She was trying to comfort Teresa. Recognizing a kindred soul: another person who lost everything and was forced to live roaming from place to place with no family, and no hope, she tried to give Teresa the affection and love that no one had given her. The realization at last breaks through Teresa's stony walls, and she falls to her knees and hugs Clare, crying. Notes and Comments 01. Teresa states that whether to obey the rules or not is her choice... which is true. But she presents it as a choice between following the rules and living or breaking the rules and dying... which isn't as true. However, at this time, it may well have been true in her mind. Teresa is presented as a character without much hope or passion for life. She wanders from town to town, sleepwalking through her battles and pushing her limits with the Organization because she has no reason for living and no real interest in whether she does or not. For this reason, too, she doesn't even bother to resist a rape attempt: there's no way her choice was be raped or kill this man. It would be profoundly simple for her to knock him out or otherwise incapacitate him, but she chooses not to because she doesn't care. It's easy to believe, in this moment, that she would let the Organization lop her head off, if she broke the rules. Ironically, by the end of this chapter, it's probably not true anymore. Fact-Checking N/A ☩ ☩ ☩ Back