If he cannot bandy with steel, he will bandy with words, and he is delighted to see that he has provoked her proud, surly guard. What further unlordly ire he might have won from the man is lost, for the lady present among them imposes peace with a touch to her protector's shoulder. Jaime rolls unspoken across his tongue the jest he might have badgered her with: the wind which howls between the stones would find greater purchase, I imagine, than anything that has reached between your thighs. Empty, empty as all these people seem to be, but he waits for so many noble, foreign words to be exchanged, tipping his head so golden hair falls away from his brow.
His restraint is a symptom, for the most part, of his wish not to be gagged again. His voice is the only one which has brought him any pleasure since he'd made the doomed mistake of riding into such inviting hills.
A proud thing, she is, and entirely ignorant of who he is, otherwise she might have been clever enough to know to fear him. Even bound, even unarmed. Eyes of mischievous jade study her, noting the haughty lift of her chin, the glum solemnity which her people seem to favor. Her eyes, though, are not wholly bereft of life, to his relief - how morose it would have been to deal with a court of corpses.
He tilts his head then to the opposite side, sure that he must have mistaken what he has seen, that it must be a trick of the light: is there a dab of color at her cheeks? She has just proclaimed herself to be unafraid, so it cannot be the rosiness of fear. Has he struck upon some dishonor deeper than the jest made of her body, the allegiance it might swear him in exchange for an hour of his attentions? He wears a jackal's grin to think this might be so.
Here is a show of some mercy, then: her forgiveness, her tolerance of his supposed ignorance. She grants him her name, one he has never heard among ladies of breeding before, and he cannot help a bark of laughter at the title which binds her to her family. "Sister-daughter? Mustn't you be one or the other?" He squints one eye as if striving to recall to mind a piece of arithmetic taught by his maester. "To be his sister you must share a mother, but to be his daughter, your mother must be his wife, or his whore, at the least. Am I to gather that you have fucked the king, my lady, or your father? I confess I am a bit confused." What answer can there be for her prim composure but vulgarity? They have left him little else.
Indisposed, she says, a word chosen for its shapelessness and its tact. Does this mean the king is ill? Mad? Dead? He flicks his tongue to the corner of his mouth, catches a smear of blood from a blow he seems to have taken to the face, and he is encouraged onward by that thin thread of uncertainty in her voice, something precariously close to hesitation. He watches her fingers curl, the bow of her neck drawn tight. There is more to her weariness, he thinks, than the inconvenience of a prisoner and the tedium of war.
"My body will be hacked and trampled into too many pieces, my lady, to ever be buried." He prefers to think that his eventual death will know no such tired customs as burial or pyre. He climbs her once more with liquid feline eyes, given to no sobering. "How do you mean to kill me?"
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sforzinda
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Date: 2021-09-11 08:15 pm (UTC)His restraint is a symptom, for the most part, of his wish not to be gagged again. His voice is the only one which has brought him any pleasure since he'd made the doomed mistake of riding into such inviting hills.
A proud thing, she is, and entirely ignorant of who he is, otherwise she might have been clever enough to know to fear him. Even bound, even unarmed. Eyes of mischievous jade study her, noting the haughty lift of her chin, the glum solemnity which her people seem to favor. Her eyes, though, are not wholly bereft of life, to his relief - how morose it would have been to deal with a court of corpses.
He tilts his head then to the opposite side, sure that he must have mistaken what he has seen, that it must be a trick of the light: is there a dab of color at her cheeks? She has just proclaimed herself to be unafraid, so it cannot be the rosiness of fear. Has he struck upon some dishonor deeper than the jest made of her body, the allegiance it might swear him in exchange for an hour of his attentions? He wears a jackal's grin to think this might be so.
Here is a show of some mercy, then: her forgiveness, her tolerance of his supposed ignorance. She grants him her name, one he has never heard among ladies of breeding before, and he cannot help a bark of laughter at the title which binds her to her family. "Sister-daughter? Mustn't you be one or the other?" He squints one eye as if striving to recall to mind a piece of arithmetic taught by his maester. "To be his sister you must share a mother, but to be his daughter, your mother must be his wife, or his whore, at the least. Am I to gather that you have fucked the king, my lady, or your father? I confess I am a bit confused." What answer can there be for her prim composure but vulgarity? They have left him little else.
Indisposed, she says, a word chosen for its shapelessness and its tact. Does this mean the king is ill? Mad? Dead? He flicks his tongue to the corner of his mouth, catches a smear of blood from a blow he seems to have taken to the face, and he is encouraged onward by that thin thread of uncertainty in her voice, something precariously close to hesitation. He watches her fingers curl, the bow of her neck drawn tight. There is more to her weariness, he thinks, than the inconvenience of a prisoner and the tedium of war.
"My body will be hacked and trampled into too many pieces, my lady, to ever be buried." He prefers to think that his eventual death will know no such tired customs as burial or pyre. He climbs her once more with liquid feline eyes, given to no sobering. "How do you mean to kill me?"