There is more he craves than company, to be sure; that whimsical, heartfelt desire for affable companionship is blindsided by needs much more compelling: glory, renown, fear and praise. He does not worry that he will ever find himself wanting for company; he is too revered a hero in his own lands, to respected a knight and a man. He will never be without admirers, though if by some farce he did find himself robbed of that far-flung retinue, he would be well-surrounded by detractors. If he should not have the company of men who wish to be him, he would still have the company of men who wished to kill him, and in its way, to be the target of that focus is just as satisfying, if not more so. He did not require a squadron of riders at his back to make him feel a worthy conqueror, and he did not need to engage her men to feel himself a capable warrior. He had not needed, clearly, the benefit of copious forethought on any point of his jaunt.
He decides that she will not understand this, and also that she would not care to hear it, for how she peers back over her shoulder, how she sighs, tiring of this circular charade she has found herself in. It is no matter to him - he would sooner pester her with philosophical chatterings and jabs at her morose bearing than be hurried along to his decisive fate. She is quiet for a time - thinking of ways she herself might like to see him silenced for good, perhaps? - and he wonders why she does not rejoice in her right to simply hand him off to someone who would not entertain his jesting. Someone who would see him promptly dealt with, someone surly enough not to regret the riches lost in such a wasteful death.
She grants him nothing illuminating, choosing instead to maintain her trust in her noble Lord Done Here, impressing upon him the generosity he presently enjoys when he could have been captured by any other lurking hill-fiend. An Orc? A Dingledun? His eyes travel the lines of her face, the weary way her fingers slip across the bridge of her nose, the miserable air that seems to weigh upon her like a rain-drenched shawl of wool. She looks like she could have lived a half dozen lifetimes already, and found in none of them even an accidental brush of joy.
"It would seem I owe you a debt, then. I thank you kindly for sparing me the atrocities of your Orcs and Dungledongs, though I can scarce imagine their sullen faces to be more frightening than what I have found here." Maybe they would have been kind enough to at least pit him in some sort of honest combat rather than leave him bound. Maybe they would have returned his banter, or at least struck him for it, rather than glare down sanctimoniously. He would have preferred the outright danger.
"You would have made a most effective septa, I think." This is not a compliment, and his eyes do not make it one as they crawl down and then back up her stiff body, returning after a moment to her incessant questioning. "I came because I wished to see. I came because I wanted to know for myself what sort of friend or foe we might find here. I came because I was hungry for a fight, or, if I found none, then I had hoped to find something which would make me feel my blood. I came without asking myself why. If you haven't looked into a mirror lately, I would advise that you cautiously take a glance so that you will know what berating yourself with too many questions will do to a body."
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sforzinda
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Date: 2021-09-25 08:59 pm (UTC)He decides that she will not understand this, and also that she would not care to hear it, for how she peers back over her shoulder, how she sighs, tiring of this circular charade she has found herself in. It is no matter to him - he would sooner pester her with philosophical chatterings and jabs at her morose bearing than be hurried along to his decisive fate. She is quiet for a time - thinking of ways she herself might like to see him silenced for good, perhaps? - and he wonders why she does not rejoice in her right to simply hand him off to someone who would not entertain his jesting. Someone who would see him promptly dealt with, someone surly enough not to regret the riches lost in such a wasteful death.
She grants him nothing illuminating, choosing instead to maintain her trust in her noble Lord Done Here, impressing upon him the generosity he presently enjoys when he could have been captured by any other lurking hill-fiend. An Orc? A Dingledun? His eyes travel the lines of her face, the weary way her fingers slip across the bridge of her nose, the miserable air that seems to weigh upon her like a rain-drenched shawl of wool. She looks like she could have lived a half dozen lifetimes already, and found in none of them even an accidental brush of joy.
"It would seem I owe you a debt, then. I thank you kindly for sparing me the atrocities of your Orcs and Dungledongs, though I can scarce imagine their sullen faces to be more frightening than what I have found here." Maybe they would have been kind enough to at least pit him in some sort of honest combat rather than leave him bound. Maybe they would have returned his banter, or at least struck him for it, rather than glare down sanctimoniously. He would have preferred the outright danger.
"You would have made a most effective septa, I think." This is not a compliment, and his eyes do not make it one as they crawl down and then back up her stiff body, returning after a moment to her incessant questioning. "I came because I wished to see. I came because I wanted to know for myself what sort of friend or foe we might find here. I came because I was hungry for a fight, or, if I found none, then I had hoped to find something which would make me feel my blood. I came without asking myself why. If you haven't looked into a mirror lately, I would advise that you cautiously take a glance so that you will know what berating yourself with too many questions will do to a body."