There is no question of replying, in scorn or in submission; there is no way she could speak in this moment, for she can hardly breathe. Sharp pain lances through her breast as he twists viciously: a pain like red-hot iron, spearing into the soft tissue and the hard casement of her ribs. His hand is once again on her bruised throat, clawing the air out of her even as she struggles to reach and do the same to him. Under the vicious storm of blows he rains down, something deep inside her strains and tears. The pain is white-hot, visceral, deeper than any pain she has ever felt before or anything she could have imagined. Darkness blurs at the edges of her vision. She wonders whether she will swoon. She wonders why she fights the urge to do so.
There is no question of replying, at least in words. But she shakes her head in stubborn negation, and she does not weep. There are tears flowing freely from her eyes now, and he will say that she wept, he will believe that she wept - but she does not weep. They are tears of pain and of breathless exertion, that is all. She does not weep, and she will not let herself grieve, and she will not give him anything so easily.
And yet: I dreamed it so. That he was King, that they were wed, that they loved one another. For weeks and months, she lived in a world where it could be so. She loved him, from afar; and she might have loved him still, if only he had kept back the truth of himself a while longer. If, perhaps, she had let him; if she had not angered him, if she had not been proud enough to strike him. If she had been more meek and less desperate. If, and if, and if.
Her breath comes in choked, soundless sobs and gasps, through bloodied, parted lips. Her hands still claw for his neck, his face, anything she can reach. Sweat and sex reek on the air. She cannot reply.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sforzinda
no subject
Date: 2022-02-02 10:39 pm (UTC)There is no question of replying, at least in words. But she shakes her head in stubborn negation, and she does not weep. There are tears flowing freely from her eyes now, and he will say that she wept, he will believe that she wept - but she does not weep. They are tears of pain and of breathless exertion, that is all. She does not weep, and she will not let herself grieve, and she will not give him anything so easily.
And yet: I dreamed it so. That he was King, that they were wed, that they loved one another. For weeks and months, she lived in a world where it could be so. She loved him, from afar; and she might have loved him still, if only he had kept back the truth of himself a while longer. If, perhaps, she had let him; if she had not angered him, if she had not been proud enough to strike him. If she had been more meek and less desperate. If, and if, and if.
Her breath comes in choked, soundless sobs and gasps, through bloodied, parted lips. Her hands still claw for his neck, his face, anything she can reach. Sweat and sex reek on the air. She cannot reply.