there are some, she knows, who wouldn’t want her doing this. who’d think she just needs to find a village and settle there, find someone who’s willing to take her in and build a home. but it’s not that easy; bea has nobody, now, no family left, and a home isn’t about walls or strangers—it’s about love, family, and that’s gone, leaving a great gaping hole in the centre of her chest that hurts when she breathes. it’s not safe, anyway. she has magic, and it’s not safe anywhere.
it’s better to keep moving. it’s better not to stop. it’s better to keep surviving, even if that means learning how to kill a man. bea doesn’t want to ( her father would not have wanted her to ) but she wants to die even less.
can i practise with you? the question ties her tongue and bea wants to scream, because she knows what she wants to say, she knows he’s not going to hurt her ( she doesn’t trust him, but she doesn’t trust anyone ) but they still sit heavy, and she can’t make them come. can i practise with you? a single nod, she has a question, and bea takes a deep breath, remembers how gwaine’s looked out for her, hasn’t minded her tagging along with him, thinks about how he’s a good enough fighter that she feels as close to safe as she is likely to ever get. come on, she can do this. ❝ canipractisewithyou? ❞ so it comes out as one long word, and she can’t meet his eyes, and she’s twisting her knife the way she dos when she’s nervous. but at least it comes out.
HE HAD lived a life where mouths formed the shape of cruelty faster than they did kindness. he’d seen people tear kids like her apart without an ounce of hesitation ( * villages burned every day, all that mattered was where you are when that happened ). age was a deterrent, but it wasn’t absolute. hadn’t he been a child, long ago ? homes were flimsy little things that could come crashing down with a wave of the hand. the orkneys were familiar with surviving ( * not killing, not all of them. not yet. ) they all knew about the world out there. about how it didn’t care about them & gwaine had done his best to keep them alive. happy was perferrable loved was the ultimate goal. but he wasn’t a man of great ambitions. he’d take alive over anything else.
when he thought about where he’d be, about what he’d be doing out here, on the road when the only person he had to look out for was himself, he hadn’t envisioned this. he was stumbling in this world, path as fluid as the very winds that carved the mountains themselves. he was unreliable. he wasn’t the type people could trust easily ( * or at all ) & it was something that gwaine could understand. why trust anyone at all ? why place your safety in the hands of the wind ?
& yet, & yet he was a soft hearted man. the words it took a while to distill & untangle the weave into a sentence. & fuck, he really wanted this kid to make it. gwaine stood up to his full height, hands raised & empty ( * that didn’t mean a man’s harmless, gareth. he’s never unarmed so long as he’s still blinking ). ❛ at your service, kid. come at me. ❜
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