Will she scream? Weep? His sister seemed prone entirely to tears when he struck her. He does not think either of them capable of lifting a hand against him in turn. His sister for her fear, this woman for her nobility. There is a smirk touching the corner of his lips at the sight of her head being swung away, her feet startled to stumbling beneath her. How easily that nobility can be knocked from its gilded pedestal; how fair the face of honor, which bears so lividly the red mark of his hand.
Too well-mannered is anyone in this hall, he has sneered to find, to parry a blow with a blow. He can sneer at it because there is no personal esteem in their reserve - it is not in deference of his name that they are so tolerant and yielding. It is because they are weak, because they are ignorant, because they are not conquerors. It is well that she does not fly at him, for then he must destroy her, and war in this place would be a distraction from the true war which awaits him. It would be a sorry waste of men who are better arranged fighting his enemies in King's Landing.
Would they come to her aid, if she called for them? Or would their temperate breeding keep them from turning against a guest beneath their roof? At this his baleful smile only narrows, sharpening, and when she meets his eyes again, they are clear of tears. She will not weep, then. Her honor, of course, would not allow it.
But there is a place where finally that honor frays, and her hand does enliven, though not in retaliation at his face. It grabs instead at his wrist, and in answer his fingers only tighten, reeling her in roughly against him. Her words proudly revoke all that was promised between them - gifts, letters, allegiances - as if he had thought for a single moment there was any worthy bargain ever struck. He will have nothing from her destitute table and partake in none of her peasant's frivolity and he will, should one exist, one day take a bride of true beauty. But he will not leave this hall empty-handed - he will not, in any case, be cast from it - and he will not have it be said that it was her own fervent wish that sundered this wedding.
"Your uncle must plead for death every night, knowing that if it does not come, he must wake to yet another morning poisoned by your voice. You have spoken too freely for far too long." She should have been reminded of her station long before now, by a father or an uncle or a brother or any passing lord not yet unmanned by so much nobility.
Now when he pushes forward, it is no longer with a precise destination in mind. There was to be little enough sanctity in the wedding bed before she'd revealed her insolent nature, and there need be none now. Now he is intent only on finding the nearest empty room, no matter how modest or inappropriate a chamber, and he means to drag her alongside with his hand as a biting shackle at her elbow. With his shoulder he shoves against the first door that gives, swinging her around before him.
The smirk has gone from his face, and there is now the curling sneer with which he had looked upon her hall, and her stables, and upon her. There is now, instead of wholly repulsed disdain, something else flickering at its edges - a determination not to be rid of what so insults him, but to reduce it by his own hand to ashes.
"You shall not die a maid, my lady, and you shall not die without giving to me the repentance I am owed. I wonder which you will plead against most ardently."
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sforzinda
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Date: 2022-01-29 05:48 pm (UTC)Too well-mannered is anyone in this hall, he has sneered to find, to parry a blow with a blow. He can sneer at it because there is no personal esteem in their reserve - it is not in deference of his name that they are so tolerant and yielding. It is because they are weak, because they are ignorant, because they are not conquerors. It is well that she does not fly at him, for then he must destroy her, and war in this place would be a distraction from the true war which awaits him. It would be a sorry waste of men who are better arranged fighting his enemies in King's Landing.
Would they come to her aid, if she called for them? Or would their temperate breeding keep them from turning against a guest beneath their roof? At this his baleful smile only narrows, sharpening, and when she meets his eyes again, they are clear of tears. She will not weep, then. Her honor, of course, would not allow it.
But there is a place where finally that honor frays, and her hand does enliven, though not in retaliation at his face. It grabs instead at his wrist, and in answer his fingers only tighten, reeling her in roughly against him. Her words proudly revoke all that was promised between them - gifts, letters, allegiances - as if he had thought for a single moment there was any worthy bargain ever struck. He will have nothing from her destitute table and partake in none of her peasant's frivolity and he will, should one exist, one day take a bride of true beauty. But he will not leave this hall empty-handed - he will not, in any case, be cast from it - and he will not have it be said that it was her own fervent wish that sundered this wedding.
"Your uncle must plead for death every night, knowing that if it does not come, he must wake to yet another morning poisoned by your voice. You have spoken too freely for far too long." She should have been reminded of her station long before now, by a father or an uncle or a brother or any passing lord not yet unmanned by so much nobility.
Now when he pushes forward, it is no longer with a precise destination in mind. There was to be little enough sanctity in the wedding bed before she'd revealed her insolent nature, and there need be none now. Now he is intent only on finding the nearest empty room, no matter how modest or inappropriate a chamber, and he means to drag her alongside with his hand as a biting shackle at her elbow. With his shoulder he shoves against the first door that gives, swinging her around before him.
The smirk has gone from his face, and there is now the curling sneer with which he had looked upon her hall, and her stables, and upon her. There is now, instead of wholly repulsed disdain, something else flickering at its edges - a determination not to be rid of what so insults him, but to reduce it by his own hand to ashes.
"You shall not die a maid, my lady, and you shall not die without giving to me the repentance I am owed. I wonder which you will plead against most ardently."