He cannot know, she tells herself, how his words will skewer her; how he reaches deep inside her and draws her greatest fears into the light, to writhe and claw at her. She is stone. For the duty of her station, she has made herself stone; for the love of her kin, she has made herself stone; she is cold, and hard, and unyielding, and all that is cast against her she will weather; and grey and unmoving she will linger in slow and inglorious death, beneath the banners of men who lived and felt their blood race in their veins. She will be ground to dust beneath the weight of her duty, and no songs will be written for the walls that stood their place, no child will wonder open-mouthed at the feats of the mountainside; she will wither, and linger, and be forgotten.
He cannot know how she fears it. He cannot know how she has resigned herself to it. He cannot know how, even now, the scream coils in her belly at the thought; how she must choke down the dread of a thousand long nights staring blind into the darkness, knowing that all that awaits is the drudgery of a woman's duty; to tend the wounded and bury the dead, and watch other men ride to glory, and see nothing but the shadows of a silent hall.
In that moment, she hates the man before her as she has hated few others - hates him for being, in his smug and cheerful insolence, all that she is not; and for knowing, somehow, how to hurt her, when she had thought herself numbed to the words of men. How dare he remind her of all that she fears, and knows is inescapable? How dare he do battle with words, when no man will meet her with a blade, or give her leave to fight? She does not wish him dead, she finds; she wishes worse for him. She wishes that he must stay here, bound by rope as she is bound by duty, and feeling his blood grow sluggish and cold in his veins; that he must know the same shadows that haunt her, and come to fear old age and emptiness as she must, and know in his heart that there will be no songs sung of his deeds, no stories told. She wants him to be stone, too; to be driven so hard that he has no choice but to hold his ground and root in place, until armour is all that remains of him, and greater valour is forgotten.
"Dúnhere is a lord, not a knight." It is all she can think to say. A hollow reply, from a hollow stone, through which the wind still howls. She hates him the more for eliciting such a blandness from her. "As for your horse, which is more comely than you and not to blame for his rider, he is well-stabled and brushed down; but when you ride him weighed down with so much armour and make a packhorse of a palfrey, you cannot expect me to judge distance from his weariness. More than company, I deem he desired to be free of the dead weight in his saddle." She folds her arms across her chest, tilting her head a little as she looks down at him. "But if he seeks kindly company, he will find that the mares of this land are both fleeter and fiercer than he is, and gain nothing for his trouble but bloodied hocks. Do you have men awaiting you in some half-hidden place, or did you think to bring them later?"
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sforzinda
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Date: 2021-09-15 10:53 pm (UTC)He cannot know how she fears it. He cannot know how she has resigned herself to it. He cannot know how, even now, the scream coils in her belly at the thought; how she must choke down the dread of a thousand long nights staring blind into the darkness, knowing that all that awaits is the drudgery of a woman's duty; to tend the wounded and bury the dead, and watch other men ride to glory, and see nothing but the shadows of a silent hall.
In that moment, she hates the man before her as she has hated few others - hates him for being, in his smug and cheerful insolence, all that she is not; and for knowing, somehow, how to hurt her, when she had thought herself numbed to the words of men. How dare he remind her of all that she fears, and knows is inescapable? How dare he do battle with words, when no man will meet her with a blade, or give her leave to fight? She does not wish him dead, she finds; she wishes worse for him. She wishes that he must stay here, bound by rope as she is bound by duty, and feeling his blood grow sluggish and cold in his veins; that he must know the same shadows that haunt her, and come to fear old age and emptiness as she must, and know in his heart that there will be no songs sung of his deeds, no stories told. She wants him to be stone, too; to be driven so hard that he has no choice but to hold his ground and root in place, until armour is all that remains of him, and greater valour is forgotten.
"Dúnhere is a lord, not a knight." It is all she can think to say. A hollow reply, from a hollow stone, through which the wind still howls. She hates him the more for eliciting such a blandness from her. "As for your horse, which is more comely than you and not to blame for his rider, he is well-stabled and brushed down; but when you ride him weighed down with so much armour and make a packhorse of a palfrey, you cannot expect me to judge distance from his weariness. More than company, I deem he desired to be free of the dead weight in his saddle." She folds her arms across her chest, tilting her head a little as she looks down at him. "But if he seeks kindly company, he will find that the mares of this land are both fleeter and fiercer than he is, and gain nothing for his trouble but bloodied hocks. Do you have men awaiting you in some half-hidden place, or did you think to bring them later?"