The wavering feminine voice pierced unwelcomingly into Misty's subconscious; parting foggy clouds of confusion that had settled around her brain. "Are you awake miss?"

"Violet?" Misty murmured, half in, half out of reality. As the voice laughed sweetly, Misty's eyes opened to slits of teal and white. Black…white… The intense light from the window nearby made the back of Misty's forehead throb, cursing that it was so bright on a winter morning. "Violet? Ash?"

Panicked, she sat bolt upright, to come face to face with a young girl, hair obscured by a nun's whimper.

"Milady, your travelling companions are safe and well. You were the only casualty," she stated carefully, rising from her kneeling position by the side of the hard bed Misty had been lying on, and smoothing down her black overdress; crystal rosary beads swinging at her side.

"Casualty?" Leaping up on shaky legs, and gingerly touching the back of her head, where dried blood was matted into her hair, Misty attempted to intimidate the young nun by pointing her finger and narrowing her eyes. "Where is my sister?"

Tutting her tongue against the roof of her mouth exasperatedly, the nun paced over to the hyperventilating red-head and tartly slapped her round the face. Immediately she reeled backwards, clapping her hand to her mouth and cursing inaudibly underneath it. Dropping the sweet martyr-like voice, she spoke to Misty frankly, wringing her worn hands tiredly as she spoke.

Misty's brain digested this information slowly. Yes…yes she could remember…very vaguely. It was almost like dream she'd had in her childhood… but slowly, slowly everything came into focus as her head twinged with stabs of pain less and less.

Suddenly, the door to the small room burst open, and Violet practically flew into the room, screeching to a halt by the bed. Ash awkwardly lingered in the doorway.

"Misty! Oh thank the Lord you are awake I just got told I've been so worried," Violet babbled on excitedly, not even pausing to breathe. Misty smiled at her elder sister, then let her eyes stray to the darkened doorway, where her sleepy eyes met Ash's heavy ones, that dropped away from the gaze as he turned from the door and walked down the corridor.

~*~

It was definitely abnormally bright out here for December…

But it was bitterly cold…most probably going to be a white Christmas after all.

And he, the great soon-to-be Knight had just panicked and sat completely still when those Italian forces had attacked. He saw slight Violet wrenched from her horse's back, and then it rearing angrily as it was forcibly mounted. Misty had kicked out at the man trying to grab her, but pushed her heavily backwards, and she fell to the ground, hitting her head backwards with a sickening crack. And then quiet.

They left, laughing at their game. And she lay so still on the road…and he had just sat there, through it all.

"Hi there," came a familiar, yet unfamiliar voice. Ash looked up as a young man, just a couple of years older than himself, dunked an armful of easels and oil paint next to him. "You look like you could use some cheering up, friend!"

~*~

The Reverend Mother placed a cool, wrinkled hand on Misty's forehead.

"Bless you dear child," she smiled, after Misty thanked them warmly. "It was not we who kept you safe but the Lord." Misty fidgeted uneasily; she had never been around religion that much with Sir Thomas running the household.

"Though my sister and I are most grateful for your hospitality," Misty began, "we feel we must leave as soon as grace may have it. We are on a rather important pilgrimage and in our lands current state of unrest we wish to move quickly." The Reverend Mother nodded in agreement, and the apprentice nun from before escorted Misty and Violet out of the room, kissing the Reverend Mother's hand in respect as she left, staring at them meaningfully to copy her actions.

"Pretty child - lovely manners…" The softly lilting voice came from the corner of the room thoughtfully.

"You see a way to make money out of her?" the Reverend Mother asked her niece, jovially.

"Not at all auntie," replied the young lady, uncrossing her legs and leaning forwards on the wooden chair. "I like that girl; got some fire in her. Her sister's probably like her - they could travel with us for a while, for protection auntie-"

"They shall not, Duplica!" rasped the old nun, outraged. "I shall not have those respectable young ladies degrade themselves by even being seen travelling around with you and those gypsies of yours! To think you could have led a life of service, married to the Lord, but you had to run off with that farmer - and now where is he child? Where is he now? Leaving you pregnant and unmarried - a niece of my own…and now you travel around in a rickety caravan when you are…how many…6 months en enfant? Singing for your food like a common woman of the gutter!"

The old lady's words droned on and on, unrelenting as Duplica remained perfectly still on the chair, not one tear escaping her large brown eyes, and one arm reaching down to protectively pat her rounded abdomen. Now she was even more certain the red-head and the rest of her companions would travel with her…

~*~

Ash watched as his new friend's charcoal flew across the white page, the carefully smudged lines taking the form of a girl's face, with large smiling eye. The black smudged fingers stopped moving and Tracey held back the front bits of his dark green hair as he slowly blew the excess dust away.

"You have talent, I’ll say that," Ash said respectively. "It's a clear resemblance to the good nun that was looking after Lady Misty." Tracey nodded, holding the paper at arms length and scrutinising it carefully.

"It's no use," he began, as he opened his folder and showed Ash various charcoal sketches, oil paintings, pastel watercolours, all of the same subject. "I can't seem to get that thing."

"Thing?" Ash repeated blankly.

"The thing that makes her so perfect…" Tracey stated dreamily. Ash stared at him for a minute, then burst out laughing.

"You're in love with a NUN?! Lord, friend, that's even more hopeless than me being in love with the Queen of France!" His giggles subsiding quickly, he looked at Tracey's saddened face. "Um, I mean, I know just how you feel…"

"I love her so much, I would marry her tomorrow!" Tracey declared, smiling. "And she loves me too, she won't come out and say the words, but her heart speaks to mine… She is only in the stage of apprentice… she has not yet taken her vows…" Ash looked at Tracey warily, sweatdropping.

If this is what being in love does to a person…I hope I never fall in love, he thought.

~*~

Sister May teased a lock of her brown hair out from underneath the suffocating whimper and twirled it around a finger on her free hand as she continued picking tomatoes from the Monastery garden. Straightening up, she put her hand on the base of her spine as she looked out into the reddening sky. A smile played on her lips. Tracey…the Monastery painter…he was probably out in the hills somewhere, being artistic as he put it.

Then why wasn't she?

Pulling off her whimper in defiance, and throwing it into a corner of the shrubbery, May slipped out of the garden door and wandered through the field. It was in fallow that year, and had nothing but a soft carpet of clover growing there, so May slipped off her tight fitting black shoes and walked barefoot.

She really wished things could be different. She loved the Reverend Mother, whom she looked upon as a true mother, but how she wished, how she wished she wasn't living in this convent. She dreamed of having her own little home with a man who loved her, her own children and not to spend her days quietly in prayer with no real friends; constricted by rules and fear.

Watching him devotedly decorate the halls, and pitch in with various odd jobs, May could always find delight in watching him perform the most menial and monotonous tasks…slipping into a sinful fantasy world where she was in his arms, and he was kissing her in the loving way her father used to kiss her mother before they both died, leaving her with no one but the church to turn to.

Still, they couldn't change her dreams or control what she thought…

"And maybe…just maybe…" May said out loud to the wind, "as long as I only keep it in a secret part of my head, there will be a little world where I live happily ever after, eloping from her prison of a home in the middle of the night with her dashing and charming painter!"

Misty looked sadly at her new friend after overhearing these words.

"Sister May?" she said quietly as the young woman spun around guiltily. "What's it like to be in love?"

"Oh, Lady Misty!" May was flustered, her hands rose to her head in a vain attempt to conceal her lack of a whimper. Terrified, she flung herself to the floor at the feet of the younger girl. "Forgive me. I will do penance."

"I shall not speak a word of this," Misty reassured her gently, pulling her from the ground. "Tell me, please." May paused, hesitantly.

"You know what you feel like after you spin around and around in circles?" she answered, holding her arms out and demonstrating. "You feel like that all the time, but you do not get ill… and you think about that person every moment of the day, and you truly feel you'd do anything in the world for them. Anything at all…" May's voice lowered to a whisper. "Oh, but sometimes it hurts so bad…"

"What does?" Misty asked concerned, touching May’s shoulder.

"Scared about what?" Misty asked soothingly.

"I'm scared that I'll go to Hell," May whispered between tears. "Even when I'm saying Penance he's in my head, and he won't go away…and I don't think I want him to anyway…"

"May, what about all the other people in the world who are not priests or nuns? My parents, your parents…did your parents go to Hell? Do you think that May?" May shook her head.

"Exactly!" Misty interrupted. "Love is not a sin. If you and your painter love each other, everything will be fine…you can both travel with us as long as you need to; friend, this is your chance…Violet, Ash and I - we are leaving tomorrow with Mistress Duplica and her friends…you can come with us…we can take you away from all this…both of you."