The table serves him, the sole object in the whole of Rohan which does exactly as he likes. It holds blunt and solid against her floundering weight against it, and it will hold just as resolute and mute for any work accomplished upon its face. He feels the collision of her legs against the wood, can feel it in the way her breath flutters in panic in her throat, and he holds his grip firm, steadier in his subduing of her than he has been in any other trial imposed upon him here. For courtesy he had not managed to hide his disgust, and for nobility he had not tamed himself to gentle tolerance. For this, though - to feel her futile fight against the vice of his fingers, and to hear ribbons of fear in her voice - for this he manages a cool patience.
"I am not going to kill you. That is how I know you are afraid." If he had not known it by the collapse of her pride into frantic, animal flailing, he would have known it in this: her people are cast too cleanly in iron to be afraid of death. Renowned warriors that they are, why should they ever cower before the threat of bodily pain? Death would come as an honor, or at least as a guest not turned away at the door. An agreed upon exchange for the gift of life. They did not fear its repayment. Iron does not fear the work it is made for.
But she was not made for this. He releases her throat, but only so that the hand knotted into her hair can wrest her over, presenting for his pleasure her back. Her gown shields her still, but it, like her virtue, will give easily enough. There is a wink of pain at his knee, he thinks, where her reckless foot has caught him, but he is so adamantly braced that the pain has nowhere to sink. He is lean, but every lean muscle strains forward now to hold her pinned. His nails bite into her scalp, holding her head to the table as if he were holding a detested head beneath a drowning tide. His free hand dives for her skirts, snatching a hurried handful so that he might bare her properly.
"Every mark you leave upon me will be counted, and that will be the number of days that we keep your brother alive once he is mine. When he, too, is realizing what it means to be afraid, wishing for death." Should she be too indignant to perform her own suffering, she might be provoked by vicious threats against those she holds dear. And she does, from what he'd been told and only half cared to hear, love her absent brother. Another man who will not be enlisted to come charging to her aid. His fingers close like rabid jaws around the meat of her thigh, wrenching one leg from the other as he shoves forward between them, eyes aglow like a pyromancer's accidental concoction.
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sforzinda
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Date: 2022-01-31 06:42 am (UTC)"I am not going to kill you. That is how I know you are afraid." If he had not known it by the collapse of her pride into frantic, animal flailing, he would have known it in this: her people are cast too cleanly in iron to be afraid of death. Renowned warriors that they are, why should they ever cower before the threat of bodily pain? Death would come as an honor, or at least as a guest not turned away at the door. An agreed upon exchange for the gift of life. They did not fear its repayment. Iron does not fear the work it is made for.
But she was not made for this. He releases her throat, but only so that the hand knotted into her hair can wrest her over, presenting for his pleasure her back. Her gown shields her still, but it, like her virtue, will give easily enough. There is a wink of pain at his knee, he thinks, where her reckless foot has caught him, but he is so adamantly braced that the pain has nowhere to sink. He is lean, but every lean muscle strains forward now to hold her pinned. His nails bite into her scalp, holding her head to the table as if he were holding a detested head beneath a drowning tide. His free hand dives for her skirts, snatching a hurried handful so that he might bare her properly.
"Every mark you leave upon me will be counted, and that will be the number of days that we keep your brother alive once he is mine. When he, too, is realizing what it means to be afraid, wishing for death." Should she be too indignant to perform her own suffering, she might be provoked by vicious threats against those she holds dear. And she does, from what he'd been told and only half cared to hear, love her absent brother. Another man who will not be enlisted to come charging to her aid. His fingers close like rabid jaws around the meat of her thigh, wrenching one leg from the other as he shoves forward between them, eyes aglow like a pyromancer's accidental concoction.