title: mud almost to your mouth pairing: dorothea/ingrid word count: 8,892 of 19,140 chapter: 2/4 summary:
Ingrid shrugs and brings half of the cookie to her mouth. “It sounds trite, but people are complicated.” “It’s not trite,” says Dorothea. Her expression is very odd. There’s something still about it. “I’ve always wondered how you lost someone like Glenn and then decided to become a knight knowing you could lose someone else.” Ingrid feels her face heat. She kicks at the snacks she’d gathered for Felix, checking to see if they’re still under her seat. “I worry, obviously.” She bites in the inside of her cheek. There’s always the thought—the unkind, unfair thought: would he do the same thing for Ingrid? She isn’t sure. “I don’t know. I am what I am because of the good parts, I suppose. The parts of him that I—loved.” The word love feels stale when she says it. A bit like a stone shifted in the dirt. Something unnatural, intentional.














