Drabble
It is a delicate process, like peeling the flesh of a bruised fruit as she strips each layer of armor. An honour, she reflects, casting a bland gaze upon her withered form. Tomorrow is the final of the ten-day competition, and arduous has it been on her body, each tendon injected with the burn of a sun-ripe pepper; such overload is enough to heighten her senses, adrenaline pumping, a heady guise hooding true exhaustion.
Blood weeps, thick like sap from chipped bark, the pale birch retaining it's mighty stance though it's golden leaves had long since joined the rot of the forest floor. Hand cinched, locked in the shape of a hilt, calloused palm smoothed by the burn of rope. An injury unworthy of a third-place finish, she laments, cradling her shoulder; it wasn't the first time her arm dislocated, that being a distant Spring day, all of which she could recall was the sting of the frost seeping into her tight boots, and agony as the healer wrenched her shoulder back in the socket. There once was a time where she could outlast even the most vile-tempered bronco. Now the most vile-tempered beast she had to navigate was Lord Daliron after a quart of ale; at times standing firm before him, his title permitting him no exemptions of her duty to protect her Lord. She scoffs, the decadence of the Silvak clan made her soft.
Fingers dappled in a mixture of blood and grit press palm-fulls of cusc against lesions; a Marquinic salve mixed of juniper oil and thick, crystallized snow. Hissing rasped breaths, she quietly repeats a mantra; dizzy words she recalled from a dream, or was it heard on the ancient breeze traveling through the haughty boughs of wayward jack-pines? Beyond and unbeknownst, Sinitar watches, eyes like the winter sky, as spied through the damp of a crystalline glass. Turning his nose to the scent of sweat and the clamour of armor as the other knights doff and patch themselves.
"So this is it for a Marquinic knight's celebratory retreat?" He says, voice disjointed in such a place, ribbons of silk tumbling across a field of battle; a sound she enjoyed, like the mourning dove's call to dawn after a restless night-- and many-a-night had she spent void of rest to know the sound well. Accompanied in tell-tale harmony, the creak of fine leather boots.
"My Lord?" Twisting, the line of her spine serpentine pulls at the musculature of her back. A wicked spell, she casts bloodshot eyes upon him. Hair of fallible silver, the crest of his nose, stark, casting shadows upon his dimly-lit face like the crags of mountains. A weak attempt to bow her head in greeting, like an injured dog begging. "What brings you here?"
"Why," the wolf bites through his teeth, netting the words as they follow. "I am here to congratulate my knight on her spectacular showing at the day's events."
A dry huff of laughter cut short by a sting emanating from her ribs. Haleth clutches her side, breathing the words carefully. "About as spectacular as food on a plate, or wine in a glass. And here I was worried, contemplating how cushioned I've become in my years servicing you. What a relief that you are daft to my failures." A pause as she looks beyond him, brows knit in confusion. "Hithon was to return by your side, is he not with you?"
"I dismissed him." Voice telling of his disapproval. "This doting that you're doing here is adorable, if demeaning. I needn't a babysitter." His gaze passes over the tips of his gloved hands, no doubt the nails beneath are perfect. "Besides, your brother looked like he could use his own respite. The affairs of the day turned him as green as the paint he prefers."
"He has always stood for beauty above bloodshed. Sometimes I wonder how he and I are of the same ilk."
"I think the very same of myself and my brothers."
A shared silence between the two as Haleth packs snow upon her flank. The cusc has a mountainous, acrid aroma as it melts and seeps between her fingers, stinging as it settles into the cracks of her hands.
"Why are you tending your own wounds? Where is your paige?" Sinitar asks.
"Here in my homeland it is considered an honour to return from battle and clean ones wounds. Blood, and the continual flow of it is life. Much like spring after a barren winter. It is a sign that we survived."
He turns his nose at the statement, lip raised to a judgemental quirk, it is a foreign concept. "In Ur-Shairyll this:" a waved hand towards herself, and loosely the others, "is the mark of someone who cannot afford something more luxurious. By far the best part of a faire is being tended to by the family's servants. Oiled massages and manicures, hair masks and the like." What is more rejuvenating than a good dose of attention?
"This egregious pageantry of yours never fails to astound me." Is what she says, although her mind, and bold and careless is the thought, imagines to ask if he would spend the night using his pretty hands to drip fancy oils upon her, and if he could then use his equally pretty body to massage it in.
"I'm glad I impress you." A smile flutters along the words. His gaze flicks around the dim space. Walls of large onyx stone drip in the humid air, like the beads of sweat corralling down the curve of her back. Puzzled, he asks, "where is the bath? You reek of blood and equine."
"Here? There are none. The elves have springs nearby with healing properties that drawn baths cannot attempt to replicate. That is where the knights go in the evenings. I intend to go there too once I gather myself."
Sinitar scoffs, so theatric in his sway that the jewels layered upon his furs jingle and chime. "I will not permit my Knight to be seen wandering in such a disheveled state." A brush of his knuckle upon the ridge of her bruised jaw. A welcome touch, one of the scant physical connections they share. He inspects her like one scrutinizes fine muslin, and she permits the breathlessness his proximity brings. "Word will spread that I do not have the coin to ensure your proper care."
Haleth knows his tone well, a haughty sound punctuated with assertion. None would think such. It would be worth explaining that culturally, it is different in Marquinia, grit is worn with pride, yet that thought fades to more interesting, alluring imaginings. Through the dappled fog of mercury-glass she watches as his fingers slip from the protection of dark navy gloves and sift, unannounced, and with no permission granted, into her hair. Protest fizzles dry in her throat, and she, a beast caught in a snare, remains frozen before the hunter, shivering as he threads through the tangled mess of obsidian curls.
The air in the quarters tightens. Sinitar unaware of the gravity of his misstep, stubborn preference to act in the opulent ways of his homeland. Haleth is not free of guilt, for it feels overwhelmingly blasphemous to pull away. Her sickening heart froths, wrenches her throat, twists through her with desirous shame.
"My Lord-" a voice disjointed from her embered soul.
His tongue clicks, focused. "If your hair is less like a nest of plague, at the very least they wont think so little of me when you're walking about."
"Yes, of course." Relenting. Too exhausted, yet too overwhelmed to deny that girlish dreamed-of affair.
In Marquinia, such tenderness is enacted by the lovers of knights. An entirely secretive and complicated affair, as knights swore oaths of devotion only to the banner of their Keep and the flags they are paid to serve. She has suffered enough this day, she thinks, so what if she indulges in this innocence? It would be easy enough to brush off, blaming it on his ignorance to their customs. The room steals glances, hushed gossip, such a public statement of a Lord doting intimately upon his Knight is not unnoticed.
Every twist and tug of her hair urges obedience, the crack of a whip demanding that her attention return to him. In moments like this when she saw him close, she imagined him porcelain, not pristine fine dining-wear, but the kind marred by wayward forks and knives. She could trace the beauty of those lines endless, after all, she too was chipped. Lips part, a silent sigh, the burn of his proximity is more excruciating than her wounds.
"Your hair has gotten quite long." He murmurs.
"I have been meaning to cut it ." She replies.
"A shame it isn't longer."
Oh, to forego shame. Blessed is the holy silk of his fingers. Blessed is he. Lay curse upon her oath, for if he uttered so, she would bury her knees within the dirt and gift him violent devotion beyond any earthly pact or pledge. The steam which trails from her breath would burn the shape of her lips upon his skin, then all Regency and Lords, and even the stern master of her Keep should understand the chasm of devotion that he has dredged so deep within her.
"Ur-Shairyllian style." Haughty satisfaction drips from his voice as he finishes the task. The sleek braid glides over his ring-adorned knuckles as he admires his craftsmanship, breathing the sweet scent lingering upon his cuticles. "So there is no question which Lord you are pledged in service to."
"Undying service." A whispered confirmation, eyes locked tight to the worn wooden seat visible between her thighs. Dread, the moment has ended, moreover dread, her obligation would never be triumphed by her filthy, sickening desire.
The last of her wounds are stifled quickly, swift she returns to layered clothes under his watchful eyes. What suffering to dress in what she wished he would remove, slow, below the unfiltered moonlight, on sheets and furs worth more than her bloodline.
"Enjoy the banquet tonight." Haleth hums, distinct in her effort to sound indifferent.
"Yes, another night of raucous celebrations." Uninterested, clearly. Knights were barred from celebration until the closing festivities. A process, as far as he understood, put in place to cease conniving Lords from altering the odds of competition. "Wouldn't your attendance make the evening all the more interesting?"
"Why is that? So that fine Lords may seduce me with the lure of free alcohol and charming smiles?" Her bloody finger echoes across the line of his jaw, touching him, and yet he is untouchable. She laughs, as if it would erase what penetrates her unstable sanity, as if it would aid her restraint, "Believe me when I say, in the past I was one of very such victims. Pay deep caution, I could easily fall victim again."
They linger outside, bathed in the final light of the sun before it dips below the bowl of the horizon. Crickets and the chorus of distant frogs usher in a fog to shroud their feet. They share a brief sense, gazing deep into the patterns of familiar eyes. Sinitar is too proud, regal, puffed in furs that double his size, an air of wealth that holds him lofty above her beaten visage. He is the golden brass bell, she is the crumbling stone which holds him aloft.
"Enjoy the night with my dear brother." Haleth relents, "I assure you that in locations of less bloodshed he is excellent company." A raised hand to cease protest, to halt herself from entwining as a rampant vine through his bones. "He needs a night away from the fumes of paint."
"If I must." He sighs.
The trees creek, shifting as the cool air of night envelops them. Though it darkens, the eyes of the mountain tops stand vigil, watching them.
"I appreciate this." She says, running a soft touch over her hair. "I hope you could braid it once more."
"Ur-Shairyll suits you still," He says. "The style, that is. Even here." Haleth looks different in her homeland, he thinks, eyes somehow more verdant, matched to the stifling forest which surrounds the city proper, hair as saturated as the gargantuan boulders of granite that line the roads, flesh as effervescent as the mist that rolls down the mountain each morning. Hands return to the shield of gloves. If he is to entertain her brother, he must move along. "Congratulations once more. A third place showing is better than anything Enelden could do, and he, more or less, competes for a living."
The sight of her faint smile lingers in his mind after they depart. It would have to suffice, echoing in his mind until late when he lay restless and lonesome upon his bed, eager for the morrow.
