Feeling drained, but much better after letting her pent up tension out after laughing so hard, Elissa finally forced herself to get up and stand. Her knees still wobbled unsteadily, and her hips were stiff and dull feeling. To be honest, Elissa found it quite odd, not really being able to feel her backside at all. It was almost as if her mind was telling her that hips and rear had disappeared, even though her eyes plainly showed she was still all attached and together.

Unsteadily, she wobbled a few steps forward to close the distance between herself and Stone, before placing both hands atop his massive shoulders to help steady herself. Slurring her words slightly, she asked, “How long dub dib stub last?”

“Babble balbba bay,” Stone spittled senselessly, flopping his hands slowly up and down.

“Uh hu,” Elissa nodded. “That makes absolute sense.” Sighing slightly, she couldn’t help but half smile to herself at how silly the slack-jawed large man looked in front of her. “For starters,” she laughed lightly, “let’s see if we can stop you from drooling all down your own chest.”

“Ibbb bee obbaa,” Stone assured her, spraying drool left and right as he flopped his arms down to let them rest limp at his side.

“It’ll probably be okay,” Elissa agreed, nodding her head up and down, thinking that she almost knew what he’d tried to say this time. “But that’s still no reason to let you catch flies with your mouth, or keep spitting and sputtering all over everything. Hold still,” she demanded firmly, as she steadied herself with one hand across his massive shoulders and then used her other to pull the wisp-thin dress up over her shoulders.

Standing naked in the moonlight, painted white from head to toe, Elissa shivered slightly at losing what little covering she had – no matter how little that actually was – but then she quickly tried to shrug off her own discomfort. ‘It’s not like the damn thing was hiding me from being seen,’ Elissa reminded herself, ‘and it’s not like it’d protect me in the slightest bit – my ass can attest to that! And it’s not like I’m doing this just to show myself to him! I’m just getting tired of watching him drool and slobber all over the place,’ she reassured herself.

Sighing slightly, Elissa was once more thankful to the paint which hid the red blush that was spreading warmly throughout her body as she wrung her dress up in her hands, until it resembled a long, twisted makeshift rope of sorts. Trying hard not to blush, or to think about which parts of her body she was shoving right up to his face, Elissa leaned forward and wrapped it around Stone’s jaw and head several times, before tying the ends up in a knot.

Taking a step back, she half smirked as she unconsciously placed her hands on her hips and inspected her handiwork. “There,” she said, triumphantly, “that’s better. You look like you might have the world’s biggest toothache now, but at least you’re not spraying everything with spittle anymore.”

At that moment, the moon chose to come out from behind the few clouds which were lazily wandering across the sky, and it’s warm pale light shined fully and reflected wonderfully across Elissa’s fully exposed and naked form. Seeing Stone’s eyes widen slightly in appreciation – the only noticeable sign of movement in his whole, huge body – Elissa felt herself growing flush with embarrassment once again. Quickly sitting down, she pulled her long white hair around to the front of herself, and then crossed her arms and placed her hands in her lap to conceal as much of herself as possible. “So… umm…” Now that she wasn’t hurting so badly anymore, and now that she’d came to realize that Stone wasn’t a complete and utter villain, Elissa really didn’t know what to say or do.

Sighing slightly, while squirming uncomfortably, Elissa finally forced herself to start talking. “So..,” she really didn’t know where to begin or what to actually say. “Umm.. How long will this medicine last,” she finally asked.

Wrinkling his brow slightly, Stone grunted softly – unable to talk from where she’d wrapped his jaw shut – and then slowly pointed up to the moon with one hand. Waiting a moment to make certain that Elissa was following where he was pointing, he nodded slightly and then moved his hard in an arc from right to left, until he pointed to the ground.

Biting her lip gently in concentration, Elissa tried to puzzle out what he was telling her. “Until the moon goes across the sky and then settles back behind the earth,” she reasoned, questionably.

Stone nodded his head slowly up and down in ascent, never blinking and never moving his stare away from her. To be honest, Elissa found his whole still manner surreal; almost unnatural even, and it made her rather uncomfortable on many different levels. If she’d never been chosen in the festival for him, Stone would’ve been one of those few, rare people that she would’ve went out of her way to avoid. It’s not that he was necessarily bad or anything, but that unblinking, unmoving, unwavering stare was just…

‘…Well, just downright creepy,’ she thought belatedly to herself. Sighing slightly, Elissa took a deep breath and tried not to let the feeling bother her. ‘May I have the Courage to work past my own weakness,’ she prayed inwardly. ‘The Honesty to admit that the feeling is probably all mine and not something Stone intends at all. The Faith in the gods to accept their will and to trust that they would not have allowed me to end up with a dark spirit, Grant me the Loyalty necessary so I can fulfill my obligation for this week – or for however long my service may continue,’ Elissa cringed inwardly even thinking about it, but refused to let her own doubts stop her any longer. ‘And grant me the Power to grow and change so that I may treat Stone with the full Courtesy which he deserves, as my chosen master during this uncertain time of tribulation.’

Opening her eyes after her brief inner prayer, Elissa took another deep breath and then flicked her head left and right to shake her hair back behind her shoulders. Moving her hands, she deliberately moved them from her lap and rested them at her sides, knowing full well that she was allowing Stone to see her fully in the moonlight. “So… ummm….” No matter how much she tried to convince herself that she was going to be strong and bear with her fate, Elissa still couldn’t help but squirm slightly, uncomfortably, from side to side.

“You said you knew this place,” she finally asked, after a long awkward pause. “Right?”

Stone simply nodded his head slightly, never taking his unblinking gaze from her naked form.

“And you said this was home,” Elissa stated, forcing herself to hold still and stop squirming. She really wanted to just wrap her arms around her chest, squeal like a young child, and hide herself, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to give in to her weakness like that. For at least the next week, she was supposed to do her best to serve the one she’d been chosen for by the gods, and giving in to her own embarrassment was serving her own desires, not his. ‘Not that I’m even one hundred percent certain that he even desires to look at me either,’ Elissa lamented inwardly. ‘He’s just so hard to read. I don’t really have a clue what he’s thinking at all!’

Showing no signs that he had the slightest clue about her own inward confusion, Stone just nodded lightly and then held a thumb up in confirmation.

“So, you know this place,” Elissa mused ruefully, “and you consider it to be a home of some sorts. What home? Whose home? Is this your home,” she finally asked, frowning slightly.

Blinking once at all the questions, Stone finally just nodded and held up his thumb again.

“So this is your home,” Elissa pressed.

Stone just slowly nodded again, slightly lifting his head up and down in confirmation.

“Where?!” Elissa asked, exasperated, waving her arms back and forth. “There’s no house here. No fields. No crops. No people. How can you call this a home? Where’s the home?”

Once again, Stone blinked several times at the barrage of questions. When she was finished, he slowly held up one massive hand, pointed a single finger out into the distance, and then slowly moved it from side to side, before pointing back to himself. Lifting both massive shoulders afterwards, he half shrugged, as if he didn’t know any better way to explain what he was trying to say than that.

Taking a deep breath, Elissa slowly closed her eyes and then laid back on the grassy field and crossed her arms behind her head. Trying hard not to think about how the moonlight was dancing across her stretched out body, she instead tried to pull together what Stone might be trying to tell her. Several long moments of silence passed, until she could hear him starting to get up and move around once again.

A moment later, Stone crossed the short distance between the two of them and stretched out beside her, causing Elissa to catch her breath and stiffen up reflexively. Turning to face her, he slid his massive frame up tight beside her, wrapped one arm loosely around her waist, and then slowly rested his huge head gently down across he shoulder.

For several long moments, Elissa held herself stiff as a board, wincing inwardly every time his warm breath brushed across her bare breasts and caressed her nipples. It wasn’t until she suddenly heard him snore slightly that she half jerked and got embarrassed at herself once again. ‘Fat lot of courage and grace I’ve got,’ Elissa chided herself. ‘I tell myself I’m going to be strong and bear with whatever happens, and then I freeze up like a lock that’s been underwater for a month, the first time he gets close to me.’

‘Maybe,’ Elissa thought ruefully, ‘there’s more to this Festival of Chance than what it seems. The priests say it’s to help the high class of society get to know the low class better, but maybe – just maybe – it’s also a way for us to get to know ourselves better as well. I never would’ve imagined I’d ever be so weak or helpless, as I’ve felt in these last several hours,’ Elissa admitted silently to herself.

‘This isn’t me,’ she thought firmly. ‘This isn’t my family, or what we stand for.’ Half snorting with disgust at her own perceived inner weakness, Elissa slowly and deliberately took Stone’s arm from where it was wrapped across her waist and moved it until his massive hand rested directly across her left breast. ‘For at least six more days, I belong to him,’ she reminded herself firmly. ‘I’m not going to live those days in fear and cringe each and every time he looks my way, or touches me. I’m not that weak!’

‘I’m not,’ she insisted to herself, stubbornly, half curling his fingers around her breast, before moving her arm to rest it back under her head once again. ‘What will be, will be,’ she promised, ‘and I’ll bear it with all the virtues of a Silverstar. And if I can’t,’ Elissa snorted, ‘then I don’t deserve the name, the freedom, or the authority that goes with it.’

‘Either I’ll fulfill my duties as a graceful servant for this week,’ Elissa promised herself stubbornly, ‘or else I’ll end up just giving myself to Stone and live out the rest of my life as a worthless slave. Without honor, without virtue, what use is freedom?’

Snorting in annoyance to herself, Elissa resisted the temptation to move Stone’s hand someplace even more private and personal, just to show that she could and would endure it gracefully. Laying with her arms crossed behind her back, she tried hard to not disturb Stone as she stared up at the stars and tried to sort out her own tangled feelings and whatever he’d been trying to tell her about “home”.