for perforo

[shieldofrohan]

Windfola is waiting, and a swifter steed - even weary - than any of the rebels'. Jaime's horse is less fleet of foot, but still of better stock than most in the camp, and being used to bearing him in full armour, can be pushed harder than perhaps it might otherwise bear. It is a close thing, but they are away, they are alive, and they are within sight of town and safety when she reins in her horse and slips out of the saddle, onto the hard-packed road.

She is still bloody from the fighting, her hair half-untied around her face, her cheeks flushed. Windfola, for his part, stops gladly and stands with his head hanging low, sweat-dark flanks heaving with exertion; even steeds of Mearas stock have their limits, and he has galloped farther and faster than most horses could survive already.

Éowyn, for her part, looks a very different kind of exhausted. She is steady on her feet, at least, but there is a grimness to the set of her jaw, at odds with the triumph she should feel at her successful sortie; her hand grips the reins white-knuckled, and she does not look her husband in the eye.

"I do not mean to drive poor Windfola until he falls." She strokes the horse's neck, closing her eyes a moment. There is a grief in her expression, as there has so often been in these past weeks and months, a look of sorrow for something lost. I do not mean to face your scorn, either, now that you are safe and the work is done. I am too tired. But to say that out loud would be an invitation to such scorn, and she will not open that door. "Nor steal the joy of your return. I will camp here a while; and you go ahead, and home, for you are sorely missed."

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[perforo]

They are good horses, and fast - hers being faster, as he must always grudgingly allow. Leaner and swifter, handled like a narrow blade. A lovely enough thing to behold, though there is no time for standing in awe of beauty. His captivity is broken, his shame briskly forgotten, and for a time there is only the exhilaration of escape. He and his steed are of a like mind in this matter: speed tramples all else beneath it, and his blood is once again a hot rush, a testament to the ugly work of living. But it is living, and that is sweet after having veered so near its opposite.

And it is short-lived, as all of life's thrills must be, and then it seems they are slowing, stopping, waking: there are the lights of home, and he is faced with the stone-blunt truth that he has traded one captivity for another. He glances at his wife, his assessment at once turning wary. Her hair is wrecked prettily about her face, her hand is sure on the crest of her horse's neck, and her voice is level. Here is the even indifference to which he has returned, and the thumping of his heart turns heavily from exertion to anger.

She speaks in kind favor of her horse, though Jaime doubts the beast would ever buckle to his knees. She dismisses herself from the rest of the journey, short as it is, and names herself a thief no more, though she so cleanly robbed the rebels of their crown jewel. She always did have a way of dressing her scorn in smooth finery.

He dismounts, fumbling, from his own horse. The smack of the earth greeting his feet sends a hard jolt into his knees, reminding him of how long he sat idle, though in the grand scheme of men's imprisonment, it was nothing at all. A scowl has crimped his brow, for he never did learn to costume his own pains, and he curls his fingers into his horse's coarse mane. It goes unnamed, as his horses do, though he has come to regard the beast fondly.

"You would cease your thievery so early in the night?" He snorts, giving the silent grounds around them a pleasureless perusal. He is not, he knows, sorely missed - neither at home nor here. His father will simply be glad to know of his return, as a miser is always relieved to have his coffers filled.

"You ought to see me all the way to the doors. Surely you cannot wait to be bathed in wonder and praise. Why else put yourself through the trouble of retrieving me from an unseemly end?"

Surely not for joy, he decides with another baleful glare, guiding his horse abruptly to where it may be tied. Surely not because your heart ached. And that is fine, he sneers in silent reminder to himself, because his did not either. It did not. It did not.

[shieldofrohan]

"What wonder and praise?" She cannot help it; her own long-held anger boils over into a bitter brew, and her tone is snappish, sharp. Her fist tightens still more on the reins, and she feels her teeth grind as she leads Windfola off the path, into a small grove of trees, to let him rest and graze his fill. Her hands shake as she unfastens his bridle, but turning to such work feels preferable, for the moment, to looking up at her husband; for if she looks at him now, sees the scowling scorn she hears in his voice, she will weep, and if she weeps, all is lost. "Your people have neither held in stock for any woman, and least of all for me. Or do you suppose that I am blind to that, that I did not hear them call me an unwomanly beast long before they called me whore? Do you think me fool enough to believe that they will cheer, of a sudden, to see a sword in my hand?"

The bridle is off, and the saddle too, and there is no other work to busy her hands with. She wheels to face him, steeling herself, her jaw taut and her eyes blazing. Anger is the only shield against weeping, and it is a shield that comes readily enough; even knowing she has made mistakes, the wound is open and raw.

"If I sought love and glory, I would have returned home long ago, my lord Lannister, disgraced or not. I have a people who sing songs of me, and I need not fight for wonder and praise; there are people who would forgive me my mistakes, even if you will not. But too many of those I have loved came to unseemly ends, and I could not sit idle while another joined the list." She lets the horse's tack drop among the roots of a tree, and, clenching her fist, makes to stride past him and deeper into the trees. They will need firewood, she tells herself, and that is work enough for now. "That is all, and now you are safe, and you need not linger in company you despise. Besides, you should see a maester; you are wounded."

[perforo]

He could tack and untack a horse in his sleep, and he does not need to mind his hands as they take to that work now. It is a sour mimicry of his wife's distraction: to have a task with the hands is to give the wits a rest. He does not need to hunt carefully for charges to make against her, of course. He knows them, and so does she. They do not need naming. They are as plain as his people's disregard for her, which is better, at least, than their hate. She does not have the appeal of a maiden, and she is also entirely undeserving of a knight's glory. She is something they can never hope to understand, although not one of them seems to hold such a hope. Disdain and cruelty are, as in all things, much easier.

He secures his horse, abandons saddle and bridle without another thought, and turns to find that she has risen to his fury with her own. That is her way - she meets and parries. She is easy to rile, he knows: challenge her honor or her courage or her goodness, and she thrashes like a fish to the bait. He cannot help but smirk, pleased by so familiar a sight.

"Then you are a fool, serving for no reward at all. Your mistakes seem to know no end." But then she makes to leave the fight - she turns to give herself to the trees, instead. His blows are crude, yes, but they are all he has at hand, and he will not have them rebuked. He snatches for the nape of her neck, hardly aware of the aggression that moves his hand. Like the hawk that seizes the hare, sudden and pressing, he lunges forward to deny her an easy retreat. This close, his heart speaks in two languages at once, as it tends to: one breath in rage, the next in delight. His body has been long alone, no matter how he corrals his head and heart away; his cock is starved and eager, lunging as his hand had.

"Do you go to find fairer company, then? A whore in the hall is a whore in the woods, they say." He spares no thoughts on his wounds, finding a swift and sure balm in the bitterness of his words. He would see her weep, or bleed, or scream; anything but her wistful praise of a home lost, and her maddening, polite sense.

[shieldofrohan]

If it is a reaction he seeks, he has it: she turns, glaring up at him, tears standing all of a sudden in her eyes. She is not quite sure why this is the breaking point; why, after all these months of bearing his scorn, this is beyond bearing. For a moment, she is silent, her breath catching in her throat.

Then she laughs, loud and hard and fell, and there is more than an edge of desperation to it; and as she laughs, her hand flashes out, striking him square in the jaw. Not a ladylike slap, not from her: her punch has as much force, as much swift and ruthless efficiency, as the swing of her sword did when she dispatched the guards.

"A whore? I would that I were a whore!" For good measure, she aims a kick at the kneecap he has been favouring. It may not bring him to his knees, but she is at least certain it will hurt. "I would that I were as false and as faithless as you think me! I would have taken a score of lovers by now to salve loneliness, spent no nights alone, felt no grief! I would have revelled in your death, which would end my exile, and before nightfall today, I would have set sail for the Mark with joy in my fucking heart!" The tears have overspilled, even as she laughs another sharp, bitter laugh. The words overspill, too, her voice rising sharp and harsh as once it did on the Pelennor Fields. "O! but you are right, you are right, my mistakes are endless. I have been foolish and reckless and cruel, blind and selfish and weak, but I have never once been false to you, and that is the greatest mistake of all. I wish I had fucked him. I wish I had spread my legs for every man who would have me, and made myself everything you think I am, perjured my honour a thousand times and wasted no tears on a gilded churl who is as faithless as he thinks me. You are right, I am a fool, and you may be grateful for it, because if I were not a fool, you would be a corpse by now."

She gives him another kick in the ankle, hectic spots of fury on her cheeks. "I go to find wood and water, wirþe wanhogan. And fairer company, yes; for loneliness is fairer company than you."