"you are better than i." ( from keira to abel, i modified it because she a lady )
the song of achilles meme( ACCEPTING ) - @zloslwy @calonda
Abel’s eyes snap from the oil lights of the village in the distance to look at the blonde woman. He had been absently thinking, thinking how when he was a child, he and his sister would go out, away from Beauclair and ‘into the wild’. Or so they thought it was wild. It was outside of the city walls and outside of their house, away from most of the colourful skirts, away enough that the music could barely be heard. Émilie had said once how they seemed like stars from where they stood; Abel had never really seen them in that way, he still didn’t, but the image never really left his brain after that, not even until today. On the days that he returned to Beauclair after a mission, even when approaching such a small settlement in the middle of nowhere, he could not stop himself from thinking on those moments when he was nothing, but a boy with the desire to be able to fit into the armour that he had seen other Knight Errants wear.
They both sat over a hill, the wind starting to get quite unpleasant even with the fire in front of them. His red cloak was around her form. He had not recalled what they had been talking about before being lost in thought, or if they had even been talking about something. But her words had come as a surprise. Had they been drinking and had he not an inkling that Sorceresses could not get drunk as easily as he could, Abel might have even tricked himself into believing that she did not mean those words. Yet brown eyes do not look at him; they look at the distant lights with her chin resting against her knees as her whole form was hidden by the soft fabric. Red was not her colour.
“Better at what?” he hums with a small and soft smile, his head leaning towards her. His armour was put away, for but a second to allow him a moment of respite and rest. The white shirt rested against his skin and despite the gooseflesh beneath, he didn’t shudder, he could barely feel it as icy blue eyes were on her form “Sword fighting and making a fool of myself in front of you?”
His voice lowers as he leans in further, the edge of his eyes show wrinkles that her skin would likely never know. Wrinkles of skin that spent time in the sun and of a body that doesn’t forgive each passing day over his bones. Still, he did not care. His eyes were on hers, hers as they slowly moved to see his even if her face did not turn. It was incredible that even in that darkness, one that he knew tended to dull colours, Keira’s eyes still held the golden tones, the brown remaining as beautiful as if under the early morning day light “Or perhaps simply better in the ablity to profusely annoy you? Though, the latter doesn’t necessarily need much talent.”
Head tilts to the side, eyes moving to the village once again. A pause as his hand moves to move curled hair away from his forehead; an absent gesture. Icy blue eyes, duller in the light of the flame, return to her even if his head doesn’t tilt to face her directly. An edge of a smile growing larger on one side of his face than the other.
“I still feel that I have a special knack for it.” he turns to look at her once again, mirth pouring out of his eyes and the small dimples on the side of his mouth “Would you deny it?”
Maybe she would, or perhaps she would simply continuing staring back at him. Stuck in between wanting to give him a verbal lashing or roll her eyes. Both of which would be familiar and expected. Expected unlike this. Abel would not pretend to understand, or to know her. Know what she had done in her past to assume that he was better than her, better than her at anything. His hands land on the grass next to his body and he shifts himself closer to where she stood.
“You are doing yourself a great disservice, Keira. To compare yourself to someone like me.” he leans forward, forward enough so that he could be see her eyes fully and she could see his if she so wished. The smile remained on his lips. His words are spoken in a manner that doesn’t hold self pity, but fact. He always had a hard time dealing with people, be them more… explosive like Keira or soft. He had a hard time with it but no problem getting his hands dirty with blood. He had tried protecting his sister, tried to follow what his parents had asked him to do to help her. Abel was still sure that he had lead her to her death, one way or another, without really being able to explain it. If nothing else because of his inaction, for not doing something about it. Abel found it hard to believe that Keira, regardless of what skeletons lingered in her past, held that sort of weight in her chest. Other weights, surely, everyone did. But to compare herself to someone like him? Some so vibrantly intelligent, a force of life, talented, wise even if her wisdom came with teeth?
Truly, how could someone like him even be put in comparison to someone like her? His hand touches the side of her face, brushing away a few strands of vivid gold, holding it behind her ear “You are… far better than I could ever hope to be.“