As Rachel puts her plan into action, Jaiden is in for a rougher ride than he ever expected with consequences he never dreamed of.

Transcendent — 3:
~She's a Lady~

The first light of dawn broke through the window and chased the darkness from the room. Jaiden woke from his deep sleep and strange dreams. He tried to recall exactly what he dreamed about, but as usual it slipped away from him. For some reason he had never been able to recall his dreams upon waking. He just remembered having them. It was very odd to him as normally he could recall things clearly and accurately with little to no effort.

He quickly climbed out of bed and filled the wash basin from the pitcher of water he kept next to it. The water was cool on his face and chest and left him feeling refreshed and alert. He dressed quickly, straightened up the room and left to get a quick breakfast from the kitchen before starting on his chores.

He was looking forward to the work today as he had a lot to think about. It had taken sometime for him to fall asleep after Rachel's visit to his room. He needed to decide what he was going to do, what he could do and he always felt most relaxed and in control when he was working with his hands. He wondered what Rachel was going to surprise him with today. Knowing her, he knew that whatever she was planning was going to start soon.

Before he could reach the stairs going down to the kitchen, Master Valin came out of the room he shared with Aunt Tess. He was a stocky man in his early fifties and his black hair was thinning out and tinged with gray. His weight seemed to grow in direct proportion with the farms prosperity and judging by his current looks the farm was doing very well indeed.

“Ah good, Jaiden you're up.” He said, his deep voice was entirely too cheerful for the early hour. “Elayne needs some more wood for stoves. I need you to take care of that first thing this morning.”

“Yes Master Valin, I'll start on it right away.”

“Good man.” Master Valin clapped him on the back and continued on down the hallway.

Jaiden waited respectfully for the large man to disappear around a corner before continuing down to the kitchen. Master Valin was a hard man and strict on formalities. He insisted on being treated with the respect due to his station and was fond of pointing out that he had earned everything he had through hard work and determination to succeed.

While Jaiden was convinced that the real key to Master Valin's success was Jedd driving off the local bandits and keeping trouble away, he did have to admit that the farm had come a long way from the time that it was worked only by Master Valin and his two sons. It had nearly tripled in size and now employed a dozen farmhands as well as a number of women who helped Aunt Tess manage the house.

Master Valin's real pride however was the stables and the half a dozen horses it held. Most farmers were lucky acquire a single old horse while Master Valin kept two young Stallions and four mares. In fact, his two sons no longer even lived on the farm, now the were partners in breeding and selling horses. Seth, the older of the two spent much of his time traveling to nearby towns and cities selling while Gavin was in charge of the breeding. The horses on the farm were some of their finest stock.

Jaiden entered the kitchen and was immediately greeted by a hard cold stare from Elayne, the woman in charge of the kitchens. “Good morning Elayne, I promise I'll get to the wood as soon as I've had a quick bite to eat.”

“Ain't nothin' good about this morning, and it ain't the wood that I'm worried about.” She spat back her voice dripping with vehemence. “You've got some nerve comin' in here after what you've done. You want to eat you'll eat what she's prepared.”

Jaiden stared at the usually jovial woman in complete shock wondering what had gotten her into such a mood. Suddenly all the color drained from his face as her words sank in. “Wait... you mean... Rachel's in there? And she's cooking? Not just scrubbing the pots or cleaning the kitchen, but actually cooking?”

“Aye, she came in here early this mornin' insistin' on cookin' a meal for you. She wouldn't take no for an answer and she's made an absolute mess of my kitchens! I'll be expectin' you in here to clean it all up.” Elayne glared at him threateningly.

Jaiden's face took on a shade of green. “I'm... um... suddenly... I think I'm not that hungry after all. You know Master Valin told me to start on that wood pile first thing this morning. I better get to it.”

“Ah no you don't! You ain't gettin' out of this that easily. You sit right there and you wait for that food. Ain't no one else gonna be eatin' it.” Her words were punctuated by a loud crash, a billow of smoke escaping from the kitchen door, and some very unladylike shouts. Elayne's face turned red and she almost ran back into the kitchen. “She'd better not start my kitchen on fire again or you're in for it!”

Jaiden took a seat at the table and sighed. As much as he and Jedd often teased Rachel about her place being in the kitchen the truth was she had been banished from it quite awhile ago after her last attempts at cooking left half the farmhands laid up in bed for a week, and the kitchen almost completely gutted by fire the following week. At the time Rachel was happy to be banished from that work which Jaiden took as a blessing, because no one had ever really been able to stop her from doing something once she had set her mind to it. He winced as shouts drifted out the door of the kitchen.

Jaiden sighed in relief a few minutes later when Rachel came out carrying a large tray with a big smile on her face. For a minute there he had thought the two women were going to kill eachother. Although his relief quickly faded when Rachel set the tray in front of him.

“Good morning Jai. Isn't it a beautiful morning? I hope you're hungry I made this all for you.” she took a seat across from him and watched him expectantly.

“Um... Good morning Rachel. I.. uh.. I'm not that hungry... it's an awful lot of food on that plate. Why don't you help me eat it?” Jaiden asked hopefully.

No such luck, as Rachel shook her head. “Oh no... I couldn't possibly, I have to watch my figure and you need your strength. You've got a lot of work to do today.”

Jaiden looked at the plate in front of him. The black hunk of what he could only assume to be bread looked more like a loaf shaped lump of coal, and he was pretty sure the green things were eggs. How in the world did she manage to make green eggs?? At least the ham looked edible, although he wasn't too sure about that either. Maybe if he dipped soaked the chunk of rock that passed for bread in his milk...

“I do have a lot of work to do, but it would be impolite if I ate while you had nothing.” He tried one more time.

“Jai. I made this all specially for you. Don't worry about me, I already ate something earlier.”

When she put it that way it was hard to argue with her. She probably didn't eat her own cooking though. Then again, maybe she did. Her eyes sure seemed to be twitching a lot. Or maybe she had just gotten something in them.

“Hey, are you ok? Are you feeling alright?”

“Whatever are you talking about? I'm perfectly fine.”

She sounded confused about my question. Either she didn't eat her own cooking, she ate it and has a cast iron stomach, or she was trying to act strong. Judging from the way she kept twitching her eyes when she was looking at him, he guessed it was the later.

He looked over at Rachel who smiled at him expectantly. He swallowed and licked his dry lips. Well... he did owe her something after all that he had put her through. With luck he might get sick and be unable to eat for the rest of the week. Picking up his fork he looked again at the pile of food on the plate and took a big scoop of green eggs, and smiled back at Rachel. Here goes nothing...

“Well? How does it taste?”

Like I just ate a forkful of gravel. How did he know what gravel tasted like? Simple. He ate Rachel's eggs.

“Um... They're good.”

“Oh I'm so very glad you enjoy them. Maybe I'll make them for you everyday.” her face took on a look of concern. “Are you quite alright? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“Oh I'm fine.” Something very odd was going on here. Rachel had never sounded like this before. It was almost as if he was talking to a completely different person. Why was she talking so funny?

*****

Jaiden swung the axe as hard as he could splitting the wood. He paused and took a moment to rest as his stomach felt like it was turning inside out. Rachel had sat there the whole time he was eating watching until everything was gone from his plate. It had taken him nearly an hour, but somehow he managed to get through it all and keep it down. Rachel had clapped and kissed him on the cheek again excited at her first successful meal creation. Once she disappeared up the stairs, Jaiden made a beeline for the door and barely made it outside before emptying his stomach. It had only been sheer will power on his part that had made it possible for him to hold everything down as long as he had. He certainly hoped that she would give up on this soon because he didn't think he could face another one of her meals.

He wondered if Aunt Tess had talked to her last night like she had promised. If she had, then things obviously hadn't gone as well as he hoped. In that case he would have to come up with a solution for the problem on his own. There had to be something that he could do to convince her to give this up without hurting her again.

He thought long and hard about it, but nothing came to him. He supposed that he could just be a jerk and refuse to eat her cooking. She was bound to find out sooner or later that he couldn't eat it. A part of him was telling him to trust her with his secret. But he couldn't do that could he? He just knew if he did that it was not going to end well for either of them.

Maybe the best thing he could do was leave earlier than he had planned. Just pack a bag and slip away quietly during the night. He had already learned a lot for Jedd and could take care of himself. The lessons from Aunt Tess had prepared him well too. He could read and write, he had a good knowledge of the world outside Davenshire. He was convinced that he could make it on his own if it came to that.

Sure Rachel would be hurt, but in the end it would be the best for both of them wouldn't it? He knew that she would hurt for awhile, but maybe it would be the best way for her to be able to move on and to get over him. He was definitly going to miss her when he left, but that would be the case whether he left now or later. Still it felt like the coward's way out. He was going to have to give it more thought.

His stomach finally settled again and Jaiden set back into his work with a fury. He wanted to lose himself in the mindless repetitiveness of the task at hand. There was just too much going on right now that he didn't feel ready to deal with. He felt like he had been tossed in the ocean and swept up in a storm. He need to be calm and rational about all of this.

*****

Rachel stood quietly in her room watching Jaiden out the window as he worked at chopping the wood. He looked just a little ill she thought. OK so maybe the kitchen was a bad idea... cooking had never really been one her strong points. More than once she thought that Elayne was going to skewer her and roast her over the fire.

Everyone always talked about how friendly Elayne was, but Rachel was convinced they just didn't spend enough time around the old sow. Elayne acted like the kitchen was a castle and she was the queen there. Everyone was always supposed to do whatever she told them to do when she told them to do it. She acted like she knew better than anyone else.
Sure she was the cook, but that didn't give her the right to hit girls with spoons. Rachel sat down and winced in pain. Somehow or other she was going to teach that old sow a lesson. She would have loved to have fought back, but Aunt Tess had spoken to her quite sternly about not being welcome anymore the last time she broke one of the stablehand's arms.

Not that he didn't deserve it! All that talk about mounting and then the pinch. Most of the girls secretly congratulated Rachel on that one. Even Aunt Tess seemed sympathetic, which was the only reason she wasn't out the door that time. Rachel had been pretty steamed up by the lecture at first until Jaiden told her what Jedd had done to the boy. She realized she had gotten off easy with only a lecture. He was gone from the farm as soon as his arm was healthy again. She had heard he was now working two farms over but he never came back for any of the classes or holiday celebrations.

Besides Aunt Tess' threat there was another reason that Rachel couldn't fight with Elayne. She had committed herself to being a proper lady for Jaiden and a proper lady would never get in a fight. She should have realized a long time ago that he wanted a really feminine woman. After all, they had been friends for years, as long as she could remember and he had never once tried anything with her. He must have always seen her as one of the boys and never thought of her as a girl.

Well all that was going to change now. She was going to make sure that he noticed her from now on. Of course she was going to have to learn to cook food that was edible. That would mean sucking up to the old sow in the kitchen. Rachel shrugged it was going to be hard for her to do that, but the end result would be worth it if Jaiden liked her cooking.
She looked at the beautiful ornately carved chest in the corner of the room. It had been there as long as she had, inside was all that she had left of her mother and father. She felt a touch of sadness at that thought. She wished that she could remember her parents. She didn't really know anything about them, no one in the small community did. Rachel had been told that she was brought here and left by a man who was supposedly her uncle. He had said that he was left to care for her when her parents died, but that he traveled too much and it was no life for a young girl. He had begged Master Valin and Aunt Tess to take her in, and they agreed. She had been on the farm ever since.

Aunt Tess and Master Valin had been kind to her. They treated her well and looked after her, but they always felt like an aunt and uncle who looked after her because they had to, not because they wanted to. They meant well, but the closeness was just lacking. Over the years she had seen many young people come and go from the farm. Some left to seek their own destinies, some left to find what they could of their past, and others left because they were deemed to be trouble makers or behaved in an unacceptable manner.

To be honest, Rachel sometimes wondered why they still allowed her to stay. She definitely fell outside of the standard behavior that was expected at the farm. Although they were strict with her about things like fighting with the other people there, for the most part they gave her some free reign. She wondered if perhaps her uncle had been paying something to Master Valin and Aunt Tess to keep her there. It would explain why she was given more freedom and chances than the others at the farm.

Aunt Tess had always watched Rachel a bit more closely than the others as well too. At least Rachel was pretty sure that she did anyways. It felt as though for some reason that she couldn't explain Aunt Tess had taken a special interest in her and Jaiden. She often saw Aunt Tess looking at them while they went about their day.
She thought back to the conversation the two of them had the night before. Aunt Tess had come in and asked to talk to her. She wasn't at all surprised to find out that it was about her and Jaiden. She always seemed to know everything that was going on everywhere on the farm.

Aunt Tess had tried to tell her that Jaiden she wasn't interested in romantic relationships at all right now, and that she should just try and be his friend for the time being. She told her that he would probably come around in time and that when the time was right he would let her know. She reminded her that Jaiden loved her dearly and that she was still very important to him. They were family to each other.

Rachel wasn't so sure that Aunt Tess was right. She had talked to Alyssa after the lesson in the classroom and thought what she told her made much more sense than what Aunt Tess was saying. Alyssa had been telling her for years that she was much too boyish if she ever wanted to get a man interested in her, she was going to have to change. Alyssa always tried to look her best even when she was working. She would spend hours painting her face and styling her hair. She always wore a dress or skirts. Most importantly she always had guys following her wherever she went. Yes Alyssa knew what she was talking about and if anyone could give her advice on how to win Jaiden over, it was definitely Alyssa.

Although Alyssa's method wasn't going to see immediate results either. Maybe Aunt Tess had a point after all. Hadn't she told her that Jaiden would eventually come around? Rachel was just going to do what it takes to make sure that it happened sooner rather than later.

Rachel looked again at the chest in the corner of the room. It had been sometime since she last looked at the things inside. It seemed it was about time that she looked inside again.

*****

Jaiden grinned genuinely when Jedd called for the end of combat training for the day. He was sore, exhausted and still a little sick. It had been a long and very tiring day and one that he was glad was almost over. Tonight he wanted nothing more than a long soak in a nice hot bath followed by an early night in bed.

He lowered his sword bowed to Lyal his sparring partner and began to pack up his equipment. Lyal grinned at him as he removed the quilted armor they wore during practice. “Hey Jai. I heard that you and Rachel split up. Seeing as she isn't attached to your hip anymore, I guess it must be true.”

Matt and Glen looked over from where they were also packing up their gear. “Yeah, I heard that too. It was a good move Jai. Now you can find a real girl to take her place. There are plenty around here that would love to take that chance too you know.” Matt said with a wink.

Glen laughed, “It's really too bad that Rachel is so boyish, she's a pretty girl, it's a shame that she wastes her looks.”

Jaiden snarled and had Glen's neck in his hand almost before Glen knew what hit him. His face turned deathly white and his eyes were wide with fright.

Jaiden felt hands grabbing his shoulders and pulling at him, he swung a fist back dropping Glen to the ground in the same motion. Matt staggered back holding a hand over his eye. Lyal stepped in front of Jaiden holding his hands in the air.

“Easy Jaiden, we didn't mean anything disrespectful about Rachel. We were just joking weren't we guys.”

Glen and Matt nodded emphatically. Glen was rubbing at his neck and Matt was still holding a hand over his right eye.
“Yes of course. We love Rachel like a sister too. It was just a harmless joke.” Glen said hoarsely.

Jaiden glared angrily at Glen. “I had better not hear you talk that way about her again. Joke or not.”

Glen swallowed and took a nervous step back. Jaiden took a deep breath and visibly relaxed. “I'm sorry guys. I don't know what came over me. It's been a long day. I think I need to go and lie down for a bit.”

Lyal nodded. “Go ahead and take a rest Jai, I'll clean up the rest of your gear for you. You don't look so well.”
Jaiden nodded and started slowly towards the farmhouse. A wave of dizziness washed over him. Maybe he was going to need that rest this afternoon instead of tonight.

“Of course he doesn't look good. He ate Rachel's cooking this morning.” Matt muttered.

“Not so loud. He'll hear you!” hissed Glen.

Jedd came over to Jaiden frowning and looking a little worried. At least Jaiden thought he was looked worried. “You alright?”

“I'm not sure. I feel a bit dizzy.”

“Is that why you looked like you were going to kill those boys?”

Jaiden looked at Jedd expecting see angry or accusation in his eyes, instead his expression was blank. “I don't know what came over me. They were joking around about Rachel and not too kindly when suddenly I felt so angry.”

Jedd just nodded. “Well get it under control boy. Get back to the house and take a rest, you look like a dead man walking. If anyone gives you a hard time about your work, tell them to take it up with me.”

Jaiden smiled appreciatively. “Thank you sir.” He said as the world suddenly spun. The last thing he heard was a curse from Jedd as the world blacked out.