Astride Schevlok
Military
Warrior of Skaldia
You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you. - Leon Trotsky
Posts: 41
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Post by Astride Schevlok on Sept 28, 2011 0:24:11 GMT -5
So it seemed we were having peaceful relations with the D'Angeline whelps, judging by the way in which things had gone, though for a rare time in my life, I'd found myself losing large chunks of what was said due to my incomplete mastery of their language.
True that their queen – how could a people even have pride when following a female, I wondered – had spoken some of our language, but that was out of context and not necessarily helpful. What I'd noted, though, through it all, was the quiet dismay that had seemed to overtake Joanna.
I suppose somehow, I was bothered enough to want further information, and it's always best to get it from the horse's, or rather, in this case, the mare's, mouth. Of course, it was all strictly business, I told myself as I made my way to her dwelling place.
All business, and only in the interests of my ambitions, was the excuse. Perhaps I was starting to feel protective of her, though, a little.
No.
The right word was possessive.
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Johanna Reyksol
Citizen
Sister to Eirik Reyksol, native to Skaldia
Posts: 35
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Post by Johanna Reyksol on Sept 28, 2011 16:04:01 GMT -5
I'd started crying as soon as I was alone and the rage went out of me. I understood what my brother had done, could even agree with it at some level, but it still felt like a betrayal. Why hadn't he told me ahead of time, at least? The look on his face told me that it had not even occurred to him to do so, and that hurt most of all. I was a woman, this world belonged to men, I knew that as sure as I knew that the sun would rise again tomorrow despite my private misery. And yet, I expected more from my brother, if no one else.
I let myself cry for several minutes. Really cry, heart-wrenching sobs that frightened the children and would have drawn the other women in like flies if I had not expressly told everyone to keep out. I had to get this out now, because it would never do to cry like this among the D'angelines, who had been our enemies until mere hours ago.
Once that was done, I put the deepest part of the pain away, locked it up tightly. I washed my face and changed my clothes and began to pack. When a child's face peered in through the my doorway, I did not snap nor smile, though when she gave her message that I had a visitor, I did loosen my grip on my sadness for just a moment.
"Send him in," I said, heedless of the gross impropriety of such a thing. Well, after all that had happened, why should I care?
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Astride Schevlok
Military
Warrior of Skaldia
You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you. - Leon Trotsky
Posts: 41
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Post by Astride Schevlok on Oct 1, 2011 0:43:49 GMT -5
The child had returned soon enough, telling me that I would be seen and asking me to enter Johanna's dwelling. This, I surmised, was new, and I wondered if something was not amiss, that made her so terribly forgetful of propriety. Still, I entered, silencing the beginning of a jeer from a neighbor with an angry and menacing glance, and made my way to where Johanna had been sitting.
Freya keep her, she'd been crying, and I had a sense of terrible foreboding which only confirmed by what little information I'd gathered from my observations.
I reached and put a hand on her arm in a gesture intended to be protective. “Johanna,” I said softly, coming to her, putting myself level with her. “You've been crying.”
Of course, I was stating the obvious and was fully aware of it. It had the double advantage of giving her an opportunity to speak and of expressing my concern, whatever it was for, her, my plans, or both.
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Johanna Reyksol
Citizen
Sister to Eirik Reyksol, native to Skaldia
Posts: 35
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Post by Johanna Reyksol on Oct 2, 2011 17:15:09 GMT -5
"Did you know?" The words slipped out unbidden, but I wanted to know if I was the last to know what my brother had planned. Had he confided this in his advisors, shutting me out only to thrust my duty upon me with no preparation?
"Did you know what he was going to do?" I wiped another tear from my eye, angered at this display of weakness that I could not afford and did not want to Astride to see. I was more than this, Oidhinn take them all! I was more than a pretty face, a pair of breasts, more than I had been given credit for and underneath it all I was most angry that I had always gone along with my brother and tried to keep my steel hidden. Look where that had gotten me so far.
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