"the man who sleeps with a machete is a fool every night but one." for Edith from Dain! / @fortunefavcred
❛ Oh ! Well. ❜ That’s not the first time Edith has heard something like that. From her father’s lips, it’s the kind of sentiment that she hadn’t quite understood -- the kind posed in euphemisms. Always be prepared, Edith. That is our job -- to always know what can happen, and to brace for anything that might come our way. That is what our people count on. That is what this family counts on. We live for them, and it is a fool who allows themself to forget that. Are you paying attention? Let me see your notes. And she’d heeded him, she had. Perhaps her records and notes and memorizations and recitations hadn’t been good enough for him, but she’d thought she’d understood.
She hadn’t. Not really.
The world is so much larger than she had ever realized, and so rife with a kind of danger that she had never known. As dire as her father had made it all seem, she had seen her first glimpses of true horror, now, and it was nothing like the home and the title and the responsibility she’d left behind.
But she’s not going to tremble in the face of it. Pride rushes in, and that is her momentary strength. She has her own blade at her side, and if there’s one thing she’s halfway decent at -- if there’s one thing she hasn’t yet failed at -- it’s using it. If she needs to, she can unsheathe it in moments. She’s already prepared for what it feels like to cleave flesh and bone with it, too. If she must. If diplomacy fails. With all the grace of her family’s lineage and her own pride, she straightens her spine and lifts her stubborn chin.
❛ You are correct, ❜ she says primly. ❛ And, as an apology for startling you, I will take that as a warning in good faith and not a threat, sir. ❜
// memes !