Putting the Past to Rest

Sarah looks over at Draven, who in turn smirks at her and lets the connection send her the message that he could not speak. When she finally was able to think her own thoughts she looked at Rose before smiling softly and nodding her own head. "I do."
Rose then placed her hands at her sides and sighed deeply, "Very well. I will perform the ceremony to bind the two of you together in marriage, but only after Draven completes the task he is here to do." She then waves her hand dismissively and the two hurried as they left the kitchens and walked around the building. Right before they reached the inn, Draven took Sarah's elbow and guided her around to the side of the building. He placed her against the wall and leaned close to her, whispering so that no one could hear them as they spoke.
"You love me?"
Sarah looked up at him and in his curious face. Biting the corner of her bottom lip, she nodded in answer.
"When did you fall in love with me?"
She shrugged as she then looked down. Mumbling under her breath as she did so, which in turn caused Draven to lean forward, his breath stirring the hair on the top of her head.
"What did you say Sarah?"
Sarah sighed and then spoke louder, though not by much. "I fell in love with you when you saved my life."
"You fell in love with me after I told you that I was in love with you?"
Sarah shook her head as she tried to take a step away from him, only to have him reach out and grab her waist with his hand, keeping her tightly nestled to the front of his body. "I fell in love with you when I woke and found you had fought those men to save my life. I knew that you were only saying that you loved me as a way to shock me into listening to you. And it worked. I was shocked enough to realize that you were telling me that I had responsibilities, and that I couldn't abandon the people who depended on me. But when I saw what you had done to rescue me… THAT was when I started falling in love with you."
He shook his head as he placed his fingers under her chin and lifted her face until she was looking at him. "You don't get it do you? I didn't say that to shock you, I said it because it was true. Do you know how many times I've said that to a female outside of my family? Once. And that one time proved to be a doorway because the girl I said it to cared for me only as a sister to a brother, just as I did, and still do, care for her. I love YOU Sarah, and that is why I want you to come with me. I have an errand to run and I want you there with me when I complete it."
Sarah looked up and him, still frowning in confusion as she nodded softly to him. He stepped away from her and took her by the hand, they both walked into the inn and up to the room that Draven secretly shared with Sarah. Kissing Sarah deeply, he placed his hands on her hips and silently asked her to stay there. She watched as he gathered together his pack and placed several things inside of it, one being a large box that she knew contained the extra cake he had ordered. She saw that he also packed his drawing book inside the bag as well, though she knew that he did not have it when they had left the ship since it had been locked up to assure the safety of the pages and drawings within.
He didn't speak a word out loud, but she heard him speaking to her mentally. He had felt her confusion as she watched him and tried to explain to the best of his ability. She finds out that the cake is for his sister, who died before he had left. The last thing he had told her was that he would bring her a cake from a far-away city. She was buried in the woods just outside of the village, and Sarah's sister Violet was the one who had returned his book to him when he had gone in to wake Sarah up and discovered Violet instead of Sarah.
Sarah looked outside of the windows, towards the woods, and she could see a strange fog lying over the trees. It appeared to be greenish-black, and it moved, slithered over the branches. The ground looked charred from what she could see, and the trees appeared to droop under the weight of their leaves. Draven stopped speaking to her mentally and walked over to where she was at. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her close to him and then silently urged her to follow him.
The travelled outside of the city, keeping to the streets and alleyways as much as possible so that no one would see that Draven took Sarah with him. This errand was to be for him and him alone, but he wanted Sarah with him to see for herself what he was about to do. She could feel his heart was heavy with what felt like grief and guilt, though why he felt guilt, she didn't know. As they neared the woods, Sarah could feel that the strange fog she had seen before was actually Corruption. Something had happened that had caused the air, earth, even the animals that lived there to be corrupted. Twisted magic? Was he here to bless the woods and banish the corruption? Only a priest could do that, and she knew that he was not strong enough magically to be a priest.
They continued to travel, and Sarah remained stunned at the damage that had been wrought by what she had come to see as a horrible spell. She wondered who would have wanted to corrupt so much land, and why, her heart breaking from the pain of the stunted plant-life around her. Finally there came to a clearing where nothing grew. The grass appeared burned badly, twisted into threads of what should have been healthy blades of grass. In the middle of the clearing stood a stone, and from what Sarah could see, it was a tombstone. Motioning for her to stay on the outside edge of the clearing, Draven continued further inside, shuddering with every step he took as he made his way closer to the tombstone.
Coming to the side of the stone, he lowered himself down onto the ground and began taking things out of his pack. The first was the cake. He places the cake on the grave, the dirt still slightly higher than the surrounding land, as if the death had been more recent than the year that Draven had told her had passed. He spoke softly, not cutting into the cake, but setting it down and caressing the tombstone as one might expect of someone who spoke to a small child. She watched as he then took his book and began opening it to the various pages within. He showed the pictures of his crew-mates, talked about the different personalities of each man. Then he showed pictures of her and her sisters. Sarah was surprised once more as he spoke of her, including their current adventure and the pictures he's drawn while she was either distracted or sleeping.