Ofergyld? This is not a word he recognizes from his wife's armory, that which she has deigned to share with him. Here the fault might be wholly his own, he is not shamed to know; often when she fell to speaking in her own tongue, whether in rebuke or in passion, his senses abandoned him, alongside his ready wit. Little hope was there in such moments for him to retain a true lesson, and the single word which has kept with him most faithfully is one that he suspects his wife would be grateful not to hear him recite in polite company.
But this word lures his curiosity because it is spoken in the wake of his own name, which means it must be an epithet of sorts, a title won which his wife has not shared with him, and his brows raise in happy expectation. Is this a name she has knighted him with, spoken in a smitten pride that she is too coy to speak aloud? Had he taken into consideration the fact that he has never known her to be coy, nor to refrain from speaking her mind when it came to her perceptions of his person or his behavior, he might have ruled this out quickly enough.
"Over-gild?" he repeats, hoping to prompt his wife to an explanation, the possibilities still so tantalizing that he does not hear in his own blundering speech the propensity for insult. Her reaction is only befitting of a revealed secret, which means he must hound his way to the root of it, and he wonders what else she has told her brother of him, of which famous exploits and travels, and whether he will indeed be imposed upon to tell of his more fanciful victories.
There will be praising, too, of her brother's own triumphs, and there is a surly twist in the meat of his chest to know he will not be the sole captor of her attention. He will be a stranger, paling beside the notoriety of her brother the king, and his wife whom he knows not at all, and the people who have come to wish them well, who know not his name. This would never be so, he thinks, in Westeros.
He steps to take his horse's reins from his wife, shifting a measuring glance once more between her and her brother. He is not so well-manned as to dissuade himself from all manner of measuring. "And grim you are, my lady, to hurry your admirers through their tears."
Hauling himself back up into the saddle, he flashes her an impish grin. "Alas, it is a shame you are so weary, for the surest way I know to bring you cheer is also the most rigorous. To your noble home, then, where wine and weariness await."
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sforzinda
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Date: 2021-09-22 04:58 am (UTC)But this word lures his curiosity because it is spoken in the wake of his own name, which means it must be an epithet of sorts, a title won which his wife has not shared with him, and his brows raise in happy expectation. Is this a name she has knighted him with, spoken in a smitten pride that she is too coy to speak aloud? Had he taken into consideration the fact that he has never known her to be coy, nor to refrain from speaking her mind when it came to her perceptions of his person or his behavior, he might have ruled this out quickly enough.
"Over-gild?" he repeats, hoping to prompt his wife to an explanation, the possibilities still so tantalizing that he does not hear in his own blundering speech the propensity for insult. Her reaction is only befitting of a revealed secret, which means he must hound his way to the root of it, and he wonders what else she has told her brother of him, of which famous exploits and travels, and whether he will indeed be imposed upon to tell of his more fanciful victories.
There will be praising, too, of her brother's own triumphs, and there is a surly twist in the meat of his chest to know he will not be the sole captor of her attention. He will be a stranger, paling beside the notoriety of her brother the king, and his wife whom he knows not at all, and the people who have come to wish them well, who know not his name. This would never be so, he thinks, in Westeros.
He steps to take his horse's reins from his wife, shifting a measuring glance once more between her and her brother. He is not so well-manned as to dissuade himself from all manner of measuring. "And grim you are, my lady, to hurry your admirers through their tears."
Hauling himself back up into the saddle, he flashes her an impish grin. "Alas, it is a shame you are so weary, for the surest way I know to bring you cheer is also the most rigorous. To your noble home, then, where wine and weariness await."