She was so tired, and his reaction made her bow her head, a twinge of embarrassment settling in her stomach. She was tired of fighting with him - maybe not literally, but they had waged a ωαя in their engagement, and while Amelia was too prideful to surrender to him, she could not deny that it had lost its novelty long ago. All she wanted was some sort of a foothold, a sign to tell her that she was not foolish in reaching for his heart. She did not ask him for the world or the moon on a ball of red string; all she asked him for was some inkling that they might maybe, one day, work their way to happiness. тσgєтнєя. “Perhaps,” she agreed softly, gazing at the grass and then forced herself to lift her chin, straightening out her spine and casting a smile on him. She’d been doing this so long that the cheeriness of her grin might have even fooled herself.
He may not have intended to throw her a bone, but she latched onto it like a lifeline, like Amelia was drowning in the seas and the stars and his hand would save her from the flames that threatened to engulf her very being. Perhaps she had been foolish in how she had tried to seduce him – perhaps she had been foolish all along, but his voice was soft and rough and sweet and she wanted nothing more than to take his hand and walk with him for longer than half a heartbeat. It felt like every time she turned he was gone, his presence nothing more than a man shaped figure of smoke, and she was so, so, infinitely tired of that. All Amelia wanted was a husband who would linger.
“And if all she does is fight me? I don’t want to be the cause of breaking someone,” Amelia argued, soft and quiet and still glowing from the compliment he had cast in her vague direction. Still, for all her arguing, she did as she was bid, and gently pressed her heels into Lisette’s side, turning the reins to the left, towards Tibalt. To her infinite shock and delight - gods, how she had needed a victory - the mare obliged, and walked around the knight in circles. Amelia’s grin was no longer forced, instead pleased with the easy gait of her horse, and she fought the urge to crow like a child. “You’ll make a horseman out of me yet, Tibalt Barclay.”
No one understood why he reacted the way he did to her. Not Astrid, not Hector, and certainly not Amelia herself. It was beyond explanation, the conclusions that he’d drew in his own head. But one thing was for certain in it, and that was the ultimate belief that he was doing what was best for her.
Amelia was the most gentle thing, let alone person, that he’d ever encountered. Being the wife of a Knight wasn’t a life she was made for, let alone deserved. Truthfully, he believed it wasn’t something that ANYONE deserved, but there was something especially cruel about dooming Amelia to it.
From birth, Tibalt cared for few. He loved his mother and father, but in the way children were required to love their parents. He wasn’t raised with a soft hand and kind words, though he vaguely remembers hushed arguments between his parents on such topics. And in the end, his father’s argument prevailed, and at just six he was sent away to train. There was no other way for the Barclay men.
But if there’s one thing he remembers, it’s the devastation his mother faced when he left. Her broken face is as etched into his memory as the scars are on his body, and it was then, on the ride to the Keep that he made a promise, to himself and the Gods, that he would never doom a woman to that life. The life of losing a husband and a child to the sword.
He watched her trot with a sadness, almost. Longing, maybe. Oh, how he wanted to be the man that she thought she loved, and the one he knew she deserved. He thought that the mare wasn’t the one in danger of being broken.
He offered her a soft, but hollow smile as he bowed at his waist, satisfied by her quick progress. “It seems that you’ve no more use for me, My Lady. I’ll leave you to it.”
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