His carriage clatters to a sudden stop, and he pokes his head out of the window.

And someone had collapsed right in the middle of the road. Which is not good. 

He steps out to investigate, make sure she isn't drunk or dead or blocking traffic to make a point. 

Good news! She's not dead. But oh boy does she look close to it. She doesn't look half starved, she looks all the way starved. 

She needs to be not in the middle of the road, blocking traffic by dying. She needs to be somewhere cooler than the street. He has access to both of those things: his carriage!

He picks her up-- he is just going to ignore what looks suspiciously like blood seeping through the back of her clothes-- and carries her into the carriage. It's awkward, because even though she is light, she is also a very dead weight. But she's in and lying on a seat and not a road, so that is a solid improvement on her situation. 

Mariam has a vague impression of being carried by someone very warm, which is nice.

And then she is put down and the warm goes away! This is no good at all. She flops in the rough direction of the warm. 

Do not fall off the chair--

He awkwardly catches her in his arms. Now she is more or less on the seat, and he is more or less on the floor, but that's fine! She hasn't broken any bones, which was the main goal! 

The warm came back! 

Mariam has an incoherent sense that she's not supposed to like the warm, but she's too tired and hungry and almost-unconscious to remember why, so instead she insistently plants her face on wherever the nearest warm is. 

He is holding this half starved stranger now. This is his life. 

He calls for the driver to head to the Three Judicial Offices, because it is both the appropriate place to take a potential victim of a crime, and also contains food. 

Mariam wakes up enough to process some of what's going on and jerks herself away from the person holding her. There is, as far as Mariam knows, absolutely no way that someone could hold her that isn't a sin. 

And out of his arms she goes!

"Are you alright?"

He's a man! He's Chinese! She's in a carriage with a strange Chinese man! He is going to seduce her or rape her or worship a demon at her!

Her expression is one of sheer terror. 

If he was on a street, passed out, and found himself in a moving carriage, he would be concerned too.

"You're safe. We're just taking you to the Three Judicial Offices."

Is that a brothel? (Mariam doesn't pay very much attention to the government; foreigners in Chang'an handle their crimes internally.)

"I would like to go home, sir," she says, more because she's supposed to and less because she expects it's going to help. 

"Let's get some food into you,  and then I can take you back."

"Sir, today is Friday in the Christian calendar, and I fast on Fridays."

"Is the fainting also scheduled for Fridays?" he asks gently.

"I'm sorry I fainted in the road, sir," she says, "normally I don't leave my house."

This is longer than Mariam expected to be alone with a strange man without having to fight to defend her chastity, which is good, because while Mariam knows that her chastity is more valuable than her life and she should be willing to defend it to the death, actually she's very tired and she's not sure that she's up to more than, like, light shoving. 

... well. That makes a certain sort of sense. 

"You can't worship when you are dead. Let me feed you."

"When I die, if God chooses to take me to Heaven I'll worship Him without ceasing. --My confessor told me to fast and I'm not supposed to disobey him. And through fasting I've disciplined my flesh such that I don't feel hunger."

A treacherous part of Mariam's brain is suggesting that if she was kidnapped-- well, it would still be her fault, because she's supposed to defend her religious practices to the death as well, but it's at least significantly less her fault if someone kidnapped her and forced her to eat at swordpoint.

Yeah, right, she doesn't feel hunger. "I will explain the situation personally to him. He will understand."

Mariam tries to work out whether this strange man is likely to know what her confessor would demand of her, and whether it would be practicing the virtue of obedience to submissively go along with him regardless, and whether even if she's supposed to defy this man for God she could reasonably claim to have been mistaken and therefore not to have committed a sin, and whether there is anything in this conversation she's supposed to be willing to die about (it turns out, on reflection, Mariam is supposed to be willing to die about a lot of things).

However, it turns out that, instead of any of this, her decision is made by the fact that she's very tired and doing things requires energy.

The treacherous part of Mariam's brain elaborates that it wouldn't be that bad if this man raped her a little bit. He had a very nice smile. This is the kind of thought process that means that she needs a knife.

She is agreeing to eat food! ...not disagreeing with the concept of eating food! Success! 

Now, to tactfully bring up the blood. "We also have doctors at the Three Judicial Offices, if you would like to see one." 

Mariam shakes her head. "I just need a change of bandages, I can do that at home."

"We have a woman--" they don't have a woman doctor, Leng Yue is out in the jianghu "--coroner, if you want to make sure things are healing alright." 

She shifts. Thinking about her injury is drawing her attention to it and it hurts. "It's fine, the wounds are shallow."

"I'd worry in case it got infected." Also why is an injured starving person wandering around the streets, when by all indications, she isn't a beggar? 

"If God is displeased with me He'll punish me."

"Would he be displeased by medical attention?" 

"Are there... demons involved? I mean. Gods other than Him."

"Precisely zero gods or demons are involved. Just someone trained to understand injuries looking at your back, and maybe writing a prescription."

"For... magic?"

"To promote healing or prevent infection." And balance the temperature of the body and yin and yang energy, but not magic. 

Mariam thinks that her confessor or her parents or someone should have told her what to do in a situation where she was talking to someone she neither was supposed to obey nor had power to compel obedience from. Other than dying.

Her confessor hadn't precisely forbidden her from seeing a doctor. It was just self-indulgent and a waste of money that could go to the poor. And if it was just herbs, and it was being paid for by someone who wouldn't give money to the poor regardless, it wasn't a sin.

And she'd already stopped fighting on the food.

"I can see a female doctor if you want me to, sir," she says. 

"I'll let her know when we arrive."

Which they do shortly! 

The Three Judicial Offices looks like an overgrown family residence, with a fair amount of uniformed guards bustling from place to place. 

Mariam has no idea what a brothel looks like and so doesn't know whether to be reassured. There are certainly fewer women than she generally understood brothels to have. 

She waits patiently for the man to tell her what to do. 

He leads her to what looks alarmingly like a repurposed shed. "Chu Chu, I have someone for you to examine. --who's alive. That will be an interesting change of pace." 

A woman is sitting at a table, sharpening a knife on a whetstone. "Oh, it's nice to meet you, miss." 

"It's nice to meet you too," Mariam says, because this seems like the next sort of thing to do.

"What is the problem you are having?"

"I scourged myself this morning and I'm bleeding through my bandages."

Jing Yi takes this as his cue to exit the building.

"I can certainly take a look at that."

"Is the door lockable so no one can come in?"

"Certainly."

Door is closed and locked.

Mariam takes off her dress and underthings. 

She's extraordinarily thin, almost emaciated. Chu Chu could use her as an educational demonstration to teach about the skeleton. Her back is very badly scarred-- more scar tissue than unscarred flesh. Her breasts are also scarred. 

Chu Chu is very good at being professional and respectful, the fact her patients are usually not breathing any more not withstanding.

She undoes the bandages.

Though with this patient-- she's probably going to stay breathing, for awhile. But if she eats any less food, or disease spreads through the capital, or even if she trips and falls badly and breaks a bone--

It's swollen and red and hopefully if she regains her strength she can fight off that infection.

A lot of the scarring is new, and she honestly can't tell if this is because it is all recent, or if the old scar tissue has been scourged off. 

She puts on fresh bandages.

"You can re-dress, miss" she says, as she writes a prescription on a piece of paper. (It's for general good health and strength, and helping restore vitality after losing blood.)

Mariam puts her clothes back on, wondering if this process is to make sure that she doesn't have any diseases that will infect her clients in the brothel. She's not sure why else anyone would care. 

She hands her the prescription, and opens the door for her to leave. 

Jing Yi is no longer hovering outside the door. 

There is no man here, and Chu Chu is unarmed. This seems like the best chance to get away (and so preserve her purity and her chastity and obey her confessor) without... actually... dying in defense of her chastity, a prospect Mariam is broadly against.

(It's probably sinful or at least foolish that she's broadly against it-- if she dies a martyr she will live forever in bliss with God, and if she stays alive she might sin and be cast into Hell-- but she still doesn't want to die.)

And so Mariam makes a run for it.

She lasts about thirty seconds before her vision blacks out and she collapses to the ground unconscious. 

AAAAAAAAAAA

NO

She usually works with dead people, but she would like it if her patients didn't try to help her with that.

She runs back into the autopsy room and grabs the first pillow like object she can find. 

She puts it under Mariam's legs in the vague hope it will get blood going to places it should be,  and checks she hasn't cracked her head open.

Mariam's head continues to contain its contents. 

Well, that's a good start!

Jing Yi comes around the corner, carrying buns (all the better to make sure she actually eats them)--

--and she's on the floor again.

"What happened?"

"I opened the door and she just started running, I'm so sorry, I would have stopped her if I could--"

Mariam gradually resurfaces to consciousness, if not to ability to move. She concludes that this is very possibly the least dignified resistance to pagan oppressors of all time. 

Jing Yi holds a bun out in her general direction. "Please do not kill yourself."

"I am so so sorry--" All injuries to patients are fault, even if they are the ones who tried run while having no blood in their blood. 

Mariam can't move so the decision of whether or not to eat the bun has been taken from her. 

"Chu Chu, could you get some water?" he says, trying to stem the possibility of panic.

She runs off, and thankfully does not faint in that process, because if two people fainted in the one courtyard, then that would start to look like a problem. 

"Okay, you do actually need to eat, otherwise you are not getting up off that floor." This is not the most dignified thing he has ever done, but it is probably medically necessary. He pulls his sleeve back, tears off a piece of bun, and puts it into her mouth. 

The bread is soft and savoury and still hot from the oven, and stuffed inside is a little bit of finely minced spiced meat. 

...oh.

This is the most delicious thing that Mariam has ever had in her life. This is probably the most intense physical pleasure that Mariam has ever had in her life. Every thought in her mind has been replaced with an unthinkably intense craving, like all of the hunger that she had driven away through motification of the flesh over the past six years had suddenly appeared and she was experiencing it all at once. She doesn't know whether to savor it or to swallow it as quickly as possible, but her mouth is making the decision for her, she swallows it in two bites and then she licks and sucks Jing Yi's fingers to try to get every remaining fleck of the meat. 

He is having No Reaction to the possibly dying girl licking his fingers. 

"Please don't eat me," he says, as he feeds her another piece. 

Mariam whimpers as the spices hit her tongue. Her eyes flutter closed; she's feeling too much to see at the same time. Every time she swallows the hunger becomes more all-consuming.

He has Never Reacted to Anything In His Life. He is a Master of Self Control. (He's seen people fake looking that hungry, he hasn't seen someone actually that hungry, and-- well. There's only so many expressions a human face can make.)

Chu Chu comes around the corner with cups of water.

And sees Jing Yi handfeeding the patient. Which. Uh. He seems to have it under control?

"Ihaveareporttowrite--" she says, and skedaddles back to the coroner's shed. 

When she finishes the next piece, she says in a very broken voice, "please--"

This is a very medical thing-- the Medical-est Thing He Has Ever Done-- so it is not weird to be doing this in the middle of a courtyard. He is just being chivalrous to a lady in need. Nothing more or less. 

He tears off another piece. "Okay, okay, I can only do this so fast," he says, laughing as he feeds her another piece. 

She moans. "It's so good."

"There's more where that came from. Or other flavours, if you want to try them." See, this is why he likes to eat every day. It's just more fun than not doing that. 

"I haven't ever had anything that tastes that good."

Well, this is a problem that he is capable of fixing! "Do you know if you like sweet or savoury things more?" 

"...I don't know that I've had anything really sweet?"

"Well good for you, I came prepared." (ie, He grabbed whatever was easiest to grab from the kitchen in a panic.)

He feeds her some of a different bun. The bread is softer, and slightly sweet. Inside is a dark red paste that tastes rich, and sweeter than anything she has had before. 

?!?!!!?!?!?!!!!!?????!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????

"Well, I'm glad you like it. Proves you are a woman of good taste." 

"I didn't know anything could taste like that."

"There's a whole world of flavours out there." 

"Gluttony is a sin," Mariam protests half-heartedly.

"Two buns isn't really gluttony. Ten, maybe, but not two or three." 

"It's gluttony to eat outside of meals, or to eat more food than you need, or to eat food with sauces and seasonings, or to seek out better quality of food because it tastes good, or to eat too eagerly."

Judging by her expression, Mariam is planning to commit that last one. 

And he is very happy to assist! 

"I feel like this has to count as a meal." 

"Meals are at appropriate mealtimes," she says, "and it's halfway through the afternoon."

"Ah, but you haven't eaten anything else today, so it's still technically breakfast." 

"That's not how it works," she says, eyeing the remaining buns with undisguised lust. 

"No, I'm pretty sure it is," he says, feeding her another piece of the red bean bun.

Then he will have someone kneeling before him moaning in lust around his fingers.

You know. Medically. 

Well, you can tell it's medical by the fact he is doing it in public with no shame. 

Experience has taught him that she probably isn't going to bite his fingers off, but seeing how enthusiastic she is--

She is very lucky that he is noble enough that he will risk his fingers for maidens in distress.

"You know, a few buns isn't a proper meal. I could take you somewhere for one,  before I take you back to your house."

"...does it taste this good?"

"It tastes even better."

Involuntary noise. 

"...I am being tempted by demons," she says, in the tone of voice of someone being tempted successfully.

"I solemnly swear no demons will be involved in any of the food preparations."

"It is a very bad sin to eat food offered to idols," Mariam says. She tries to stand up and collapses to the ground.

He will simply help her up in a gentlemanly manner. (Goodness, she is skin and bones. He simply has to get her to eat more food. ...for compassionate and medical reasons.)

She leans on him as she walks. She feels a shiver pass through her when he touches her; it feels like her skin is buzzing. 

He calls for a carriage and helps her up into it. 

If she's a sucker for sweet things, he knows just the place and... it isn't technically in the pleasure district. Just close to it. 

Mariam completely misses his courtesy here, because she doesn't understand the geography of Chang'an and is also fully intending to prostitute herself for red bean paste. 

"What's your name?"

"I'm Jing Yi. And you are--?"

"Haddad Mariam."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, even if we are doing it in the wrong order."

"I've never ridden in a carriage before."

"So that's, what, three new things you have done today?"

"Being touched by a man I'm not related to, riding in a carriage, seeing a doctor, eating buns..."

He's not sure which of that list to be most baffled and concerned by. "You haven't been touched by a man not in your family?"

"...yes...?"

"No one ever... held your hand? Even when you were a little kid?"

"Adults shouldn't be affectionate with children, it weakens them and accustoms them to pleasure," Mariam says earnestly.

...

What is even the correct response to that. 

What is that facial expression????

"You naturally want to hug children," Mariam explains further, "but you should resist the urge so that it doesn't lead them to Hell."

"You think hugging. Will lead you to Hell." He's trying to think of how, in the normal course of things, hugging your children could ever lead you to hell and is just blanking. You hug your child and it fills you with an inexplicable urge to kill your own father. What. 

"Because if adults are too affectionate children won't be aware enough of their own sinfulness and won't be dependent enough on God."

"So you can't... hug them... while telling them about sin?" 

"Do Chinese people hug their children all the time???"

"Not all the time, but not... never?" 

"Well, you don't want to do it never. Just... in moderation? And I don't know why strange men would hug me anyway, it's not like you let your children spend time with them."

He is questioning her sense of moderation, seeing as her sense of moderation is causing her to not eat, semi regularly. 

"You don't have family friends or teachers?" 

"...my mother has female friends? I have a confessor?"

"Does your father have friends?" 

"...yes but I wouldn't dare to speak to them, I'm a woman."

"Does he not trust his friends?"

In lieu of an opinion, Mariam is blushing furiously. 

"Do you want me to--" how is he even going to end that sentence? "--deal with his friends?" 

Jing Yi doesn't want to put her in a brothel. He wants to keep her as a concubine? Ruin her and then abandon her? Something? And... because he has some kind of property interest in her now... he is concerned about how her father's friends treated her? Except they mostly ignored her so she's not sure what even the most jealous man would object to. This day is not typical and normally Mariam is very modest and demure. 

"I... don't know what you'd want to do?"

"What do you want me to do? If they are actually fine, I'll leave them be. You just make them sound-- not fine." 

"I mean, they never spoke to me, but they shouldn't speak to me, because men who are alone with women they aren't related to--" And instead of completing this sentence Mariam blushes furiously.

"Men who are alone with women they aren't related to should exert some self control." 

"If a woman is alone with a man who isn't a member of her family she's basically saying that she wants to-- And if she's touching him then it's certainly-- And trying to get men to, to-- you know-- is also a sin--" Blushing has been working as a means of communication so far!

"You've touched me. Do you think tempted me into sin?" 

"...yes? I mean-- I assume you're going to--"

Noooo, even if it is really tempting to ask Would you like me to?, that is a bad idea.

"To think you think so little of my self control."

"You took me to a doctor and you're feeding me...?"

"Because you fainted in the street."

"Do you feed everyone who happens to faint in the street?"

"So far I have a 100% strike rate."

"I am... very confused about what's going on. You don't have any reason to lie to me about your intentions but I don't understand... why... you're doing the things you're doing..."

"Am I not allowed to be virtuous?"

"You worship demons!"

"No?"

"You call them gods but actually they're demons and you're going to be tortured for eternity in Hell unless you repent," Mariam says. 

"Nothing is eternal."

"That is a lie from the demons," Mariam explains. 

And this is where he wishes he remembered more of the metaphysical things he was taught. "Do you have any evidence that things can be eternal?"

"...I'm a woman, I didn't learn apologetics. The encounters I have with demon-worshipping pagans are supposed to be very different."

Oh thank goodness, they're a matched set. "Were you expected more demon summoning? A bit of light arson?"

"Well, typically the pagan falls in love with the woman's beauty and radiant purity, and then he tries to have sex with her, and she refuses. And then he tortures her or tries to throw her to the lions, but she remains pure and refuses him. She prays and a miracle happens, like spontaneous earthquakes or all her wounds healing or the lions being as gentle with her as doves, and in one case she suddenly grew a beard? And then sometimes her faith converts the pagan, and sometimes she escapes, and sometimes she dies and goes to Heaven."

Oh. Um. She was supposed to pray when she was kidnapped by a pagan. That was something she could do no matter how tired she was.

...But if she prayed then there might be a spontaneous earthquake and there would be no delicious food and no rape of any sort. 

This, Mariam knows, is called Demonic Temptation. 

O Lord, please send me a miracle to free me from the sinful plans of Jing Yi, Mariam prays, absolutely aware that God can tell she doesn't mean it. 

He laughs. "Where would I even get lions?"

"Most of the stories are told about a place thousands of li from here. The Emperor has been very tolerant of Christians in his country." 

"And I think he's the only one that really has access to lions,  so I think you're safe on that front."

"Mostly Chinese men just kidnap good Christian girls and send them to work in brothels."

"Do you know anyone this has happened to?--That's not a joke, investigating kidnapping rings is part of my job."

???!!??!??!?!

"You... care?"

"Yes?"

"China doesn't care about people who aren't Chinese."

That is a dumb thing to say to someone who could casually kill you and no one would care, even if he mostly seems to want to feed you buns. 

"I care about the rule of law, and that Chang'an is a safe city to live."

"I don't know anyone this happened to, this kind of thing is why women mostly aren't allowed to leave the house."

"I'll keep an eye out anyway."

The carriage pulls to a stop. "And we're here."

The building is two stories, the ground floor containing a restaurant and first floor looking like rooms to stay in. There's a faint sound of music, and even the air smells sweet.

Hm yeah Mariam isn't going to be ravished. Right.

She gets out of the carriage.

Jing Yi leads her in and gets her a table. 

The music in the corner is coming from a woman with a pipa, playing a slow and relaxing tune.

"Now, I could describe what you can get, or I can surprise you."

"I don't know how to make food decisions, the subject has never really come up."

"Oh, you're going to have fun."

He flags down a waiter and orders an amount of dishes that only makes sense if you haven't eaten all day. 

Mariam hasn't eaten all day! She hasn't really eaten in several weeks.

She's squirming with anticipation. This entire restaurant smells so good. Her mouth is watering. 

Soon, a whole bunch of plates arrive, containing tiny cakes and delicate fruit arrangements and every variation on the theme of "What if we put red beans in it?"

Mariam selects the nearest cake.

It's moist and covered in a sweet syrup.

Jing Yi is looking at her encouragingly.

Well, it's not like she can go to Extra Hell.

She takes a bite.

It is incredibly sweet, with a light and airy crumb, and faint after-taste of roses.

Throughout her life, Mariam has lived primarily on coarse bread and unspiced vegetable stew. On feast days, she has a meat stew, also unspiced, which she had previously remembered as the culinary high point of her life. 

She has hever had anything fall apart so delicately in her mouth, like it's almost melting. She has never tasted anything so sweet, that made some primal part of her brain go good good calories good give me calories. And she has never had food that tasted of roses. 

The Virgin Mary is associated with roses. She is called the Rose of Sharon. Where Jesus is frightening and God vengeful, Mariam has always thought of Mary as kind and loving, perhaps even indulgent to the girl who shares her name. When Mariam smells roses, she feels at home.

She looks almost at peace.

He has never seen someone look like they are enjoying food as much as Mariam is right now. It makes him want to keep feeding her and feeding her.

"This place is good, isn't it?" 

"Yes. Does the Emperor eat here?"

"Oh, no, the food at the palace is even fancier than this." 

Unexpected vistas of food deliciousness are expanding before Mariam, and instead of trying to comprehend them she will eat something with red beans in it.

It's sweet and creamy and rich and so, so good.

Jing Yi nibbles in solidarity. 

"There's so many different ways things can taste."

"This is why I try and eat things other than bread."

Mariam decides that she is going to take one bit of everything. 

It is like the cooks were trying to find every possible texture you could pair with sweetness, along with every other flavour you could pair it with: bitter-sweet and acid sweet and hot sweet and floral sweet...

Mariam makes exuberant noises at each new discovery and excitedly points them out to Jing Yi. She is particularly delighted by anything that tastes like flowers.

He is definitely not filling that information away for the future, because this is unlikely to come up unless she faints in the street again.

"I should probably be taking you back to your home."

"...you should?" Mariam says.

"Well, I have to eventually, I have to maintain the reputation of my countrymen." 

"...but you didn't even, um. You know." Furious blushing.

"...taken you on a walk under the moonlight?" 

"My parents are going to think that we, um. Performed the marital act?"

"I can come up with an elaborate cover story, if you want." 

"...like what?"

"You were witness to a crime, and I needed your help to complete my investigation and catch the wrongdoer." 

"I... guess I might get away with that...?"

Mariam feels strangely disappointed that Jing Yi was telling the truth the whole time.

"If you've got a better suggestion, I will take it." 

"I don't want you to have trouble just because I helped you eat." 

"I mean, I should confess my sin to my confessor and he'll make me do penance."

"I can give you a cover story for that too? You tripped and fell on some cake. A terrible accident, really." 

"God would know!"

"I'm sure he'd prefer his followers awake." And alive. "They're more useful that way." 

"I'm not sure that He really cares about us being useful? I think He wants us to lose everything about ourselves that doesn't make us a perfect instrument of His will, but I'm not sure if He cares about whether we're... good at things... once we've done that. He's all-powerful, He can accomplish whatever He wants to accomplish without us."

Do not look concerned do not look concerned. "I usually prefer instruments of my will to be awake, but what would I know, I'm not him."

"Anyway, I disobeyed Him, so if I don't want to go to Hell I'd have to confess and then my confessor would set me... a month of fasting, probably? This is a very serious rebellion. Longer, if I pretended that you didn't... you know... with me."

"A month?" Haha, no she isn't. Her confessor is going to find he has serious trouble doing that (just give him a minute to work out how.)

Mariam considers this. 

"You could... perform the marital act.. with me, and then I could confess to it, and then I wouldn't have to lie or be punished for lying when I tell the truth."

???? "That is... an action we could take, yes."

"Well, let's find a bedroom."

...hang on. "You know, it almost sounds like you want me to."

"Yes? I don't want to have extra penance for doing something that I didn't even do?"

"You know. Just taking advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself."

"I'm already going to Hell because I haven't repented yet," Mariam points out.

"Hang for a sheep as much as a lamb?"

"Yes!"

When she thinks about it this system doesn't seem very well-designed. 

This is a bad idea, but the fun kind of bad idea. "I was trying to maintain my reputation of self control," a reputation he definitely has, do not question him, "but with someone as pretty and fun to watch as you, I might get tempted."

"...aren't men always tempted?"

"I think you might think that because you are especially tempting."

Wow okay it turns out that being an object of lust feels way better than she'd expected it to. There's a warm glowy feeling of being special and wanted. She suddenly understands all of her confessor's warnings about how women deliberately want to elicit lust in men, a thing which previously she had only done because it was basically impossible to exist and move through the world without eliciting lust in men. She's squirming in her seat. 

...She's going to take her headscarf off. And... run her hand through her hair?  

Well, if there's recently revealed hair available--

Ruffle ruffle ruffle.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sin is the best life decision actually. 

"You are adorable." 

Wiggles. 

"That is flattery," Mariam opines, "which is also a sin."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm a pagan then, so I can say that I think you look radiant as much as I like." 

She grins. "You... have a nice smile?" she tries.

"I'm glad you think so. You do too. It goes all crinkly at the corners, and makes me want to squish your cheeks." 

She wiggles harder (and also squirrels away her newfound knowledge of what might be involved in The Marital Act). 

"I should probably go get that room like you suggested." 

He goes and organises that. 

She is going to lick sauces off plates while he does that. 

He returns, having rented a room.

He hold out his hand. "Ready to do some more sins?" 

"Yes!"

He takes her hand and leads her upstairs. 

The room contains an assortment of chairs and an absurdly large bed. There is a balcony, but the doors have been left only open a crack, to let in a cool breeze. 

Mariam flops onto the bed.

...

Bed is soft. Bed is so soft. Mariam is going to roll back and forth rubbing her face on the bed, which is soft. And bounce a bit experimentally.

She is dangerously adorable. 

He sits down on the edge of the bed to give her plenty of space to roll. "Don't tell me beds are a sin too." 

Here are some facts about Mariam:

1. Mariam is not typically allowed more than six and a half hours of sleep a night, with a two-hour break for prayer in the middle.
2. Mariam has had five hours of sleep a night for the past three weeks, while she was living on bread and water. 
3. Mariam sleeps on the floor and certainly has never had a bed as comfortable as the beds in the nice part of Chang'an's pleasure quarter.
4. Mariam has just had a very large meal.

In short. Mariam immediately falls asleep.

...okay, so in hindsight, this was very predictable. 

He snuggles up next to her and holds her. She's too bony for that to be comfortable, but it just makes him want to do it more because now he's worried she's cold. 

Mariam is too unconscious to notice this.

If left undisturbed she's going to sleep for about sixteen hours. 

Which is kind of a problem, because after he sleeps eight hours, he realises that he has a job he needs to do, which is not conducive to staying in bed with a determinedly unconscious person. 

He sneaks out of the bed as best he can, and the realises halfway through write a note that she's probably not even literate so that won't help. He pays for three nights (...how long can someone sleep?) and leaves the proprietor with instructions to tell her if she wakes up that he's at the three judicial offices and she can go there, but also is going to come back. 

And so Mariam wakes up alone.

...Wait, she was unconscious for the marital act?! That's no fair! She wanted to get to experience it and not just have a baby!

Mariam should go home now. She's had some sleep and some food, so she won't faint embarrassingly. No one is holding her captive, even in the broadest definition of "holding her captive", because no one is here. She could disappear, confess, endure her penance, and return to her normal life (possibly with a baby).

She pokes her head out the door to see if someone will make her decision for her.  

Jing Yi spends the entire day making sure no one starts an organised kidnapping ring or blows Chang'an up or some such waiting for Mariam to show up, which she doesn't. 

It is technically possible that she is still at the inn? Also possible she could have left, which is totally her perogative but he would at least like a chance to say goodbye. But still-- he did say he would be back, she could still be at the inn, so he races back to the inn--

--and ends up running up the stairs just as she pokes her head out the door.

"Ah, you're still here!" 

"I just woke up."

"I haven't left you waiting then."

She goes back inside. 

"...can we try doing the marital act again while I'm conscious? I want to know what it... is."

She doesn't know? Of course she doesn't know. He will simply have to be a gentleman and introduce her.  "This is why I waited until you were conscious."

"You mean you didn't?"

"You looked like you really needed to pass out, and I wasn't going to be a cad and interrupt you?"

"...oh, is it not the sort of thing you can do to someone who is asleep?"

"You... could? But I don't see why you'd want to."

Mariam shrugs helplessly. "You seem to have a lot less desire to do it than I was led to believe men have."

"I am horrifically picky in that I only want to do The Marital Act with people who are awake the whole time and want to, and if I get to be even pickier they should be beautiful." Forehead kiss.

Wiggles!

"...so what do we actually. Do."

"Hmm, I think the best way to explain is to demonstrate." He wraps his arms around her waist. There's so little of her that she feels remarkably fragile. Delicate.

Beat.

"Please tell me you at least know what a cock is."

"...not... with that word for it?"

Oh, she definitely knows nothing. Nooooted.

"We will go slow, and I wont do anything that will get you pregnant."

"There are options that don't get you pregnant? I mean I know you don't get pregnant every time..."

"As long as I do not put my cock inside you and do not spend, you cannot get pregnant." (Does he trust himself enough to pull out? Yes, but with Mariam-- he wants to be extra careful, seeing as she can't judge the risk for herself.)

This explanation raises further questions! Mariam doesn't know most of the nouns or the verbs in that sentence! She is somewhat concerned that "inside" is involved at all!

She looks at Jing Yi in the hopes that he'll just start doing it and then things will be clearer.

That face. "I can demonstrate things that definitely won't make you pregnant."

He kisses her on the lips. 

This Mariam was broadly aware of, even though she kind of thought of it as being like spitting in your mouth.

...it's much nicer than mouth spitting. 

It is so much nicer than mouth spitting! It's warm and soft and your faces are so close.

He slowly backs them up in the direction of the bed.

She pulls him down onto the bed. She understands this part!

She's a quick learner! And isn't this all nice and fun and cozy to be pressed up together.

He starts working his mouth down to her neck. 

First finding: lots of things can be kissed!

She applies this finding by kissing the top of Jing Yi's head.

That's a very good experiment. 

She can feel him smiling against her collar bones. 

Oh! There's smiling involved! Mariam didn't realize that there would be smiling involved.

Sin, Mariam had felt, was like the opposite of virtue. Virtue hurt immensely and broke you down and made you weak, but you felt the grim knowledge that you were doing what was right and pleasing God, and over time you grew in ability to ignore the pain and endure and keep moving no matter what, which was what God wanted you to be. She hadn't much experience with sin, but assumed it was the opposite: intensely pleasurable, but with a sick sense of wrongness to it. Like the way it had felt when her confessor ordered her to stab herself with an acupuncture needle-- not pain, the needle hurt less than scourging, but the sense that something was inside her and it shouldn't be there.  

But with the food and the sleep and now the fornication, it's just nice. It doesn't feel wrong at all.

She kisses his cheek and giggles. 

She looks relaxed! She looks happy!

She should look like this all the time and never be about to faint from hunger--

Cheek squish. "Your laugh is nice."

Cheek squishes!!! She knew they were involved in the marital act.

"Thank you!"

"I want to make you sound like that all the time, but I think--" he starts punctuating each word with a kiss "that would count as being distracted."

Mariam should be wearing less clothes. Much less clothes. He starts gently unwrapping her. 

This Mariam also knew was involved, given how often she was told she had to cover herself to keep men from lusting. 

She cooperates with being undressed. 

So cooperative! So very kissable!

Less clothed, it's even more obvious how much she's been through. She's still beautiful. There's no "but" or "however," she just is. 

How does she feel about her breasts being kissed? Yay or nay?

She makes a surprised happy noise about it and wiggles.

(Her breasts are very scarred. Looks like a knife.)

... he should not have expected anything different. Of course the Christians are stabbing themselves.

If it makes her do happy wiggles, he will simply have to keep doing it,  and do it with more gusto.