?- Scheherazade -

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Sam had been casually with sipping her soup listening to Jamie intently explain his story. She found she could understand him so much better. A fact that made her smile to herself.?

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She also found it fascinating that the young man had carried on the tradition of his family in this day and time. Especially when so many young people were giving up family traditions and going in for their own place in the world. The fact that Jaimie had stayed on as a servant at a quaint castle run by and eccentric old laid was a tell in and of itself. It also spoke to his character. And then he said something that she didn’t expect.

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Someone like you…The statements stung. It didn’t sound at all generous. Sam didn’t like the way it made her feel. Someone like her??

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“Someone like me…hmm…what does that mean, Jaimie?” She said the hurt in her voice. “You don’t know anything about me, Jamie but yes it might shock you to know that, like you, completely understand being bound to something. To make decision purely based on your responsibilities other. To have those need you. To want to be needed. But as you said. You have chores to do and apparently I’m keeping you from them. My apologies I was hoping we could be friends, but you have rightly set me straight.”

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Sam set her cup down back on the tray. “You can take the tray, Jaimie. It appears i have lost my appetite.” She moved away from the chairs towards the balcony to look out the window.

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(Jaimie, Callum)

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The young ghost was taken aback by Scheherazade's seeming rebuke, wondering what he might have said or done to provoke it.? It took him a moment to realize his error, at which his puzzlement turned to mortification.?

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"As... as ye wish, Mistress Sam," Jaimie said hurriedly, picking up the tray, clearly distressed, so much that the cups and saucers rattled in his hands.? "Ah forgot that ye didnae ken... that ye aye dinnae realize..."? He stopped.? He was only making it worse.? He wanted to flee the room in his embarrassment.? Laird Callum would likely be furious.??

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"Ah'm sorry, mistress," he muttered abjectly as he headed for the door.? Completely forgetting the tray he was carrying as he sought to pass through it.? "Ah'll git oot o` yer--"

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The tray collided with the solid reality of the door even as the young ghost vanished through it, sending the tray and everything on it crashing to the floor inside Scheherazade's room.? Jaimie instinctively wished himself to the undercrofting in the bottom of the keep, huddling in the darkness.? "Ah'm sorry, Laird Callum," he wailed, clutching his arms around his knees.? "Ah'm sorry."

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