The simple words I need you by my side somehow manage to quietly buoy her up for the remainder of the ride. The fierce kiss she'd been gifted with winds up taking centre stage in many of her idle fantasies, which - unlike the night before - have very little to do with slaughtering the entire royal guard out of petty vengeance. She spends the journey mostly silent - if only because her mind is occupied with other, more wanton things - only making the occasional lewd joke when the opportunity proves too significant not to take.
By the time they reach the mill she's ready to step into the role she'd initially promised; she stands a step behind Lenore throughout the length of her interrogation...although interrogation transpires not to be quite the right word. She listens to the old miller, subtly observes Lenore's expression-- and the tale opens up a space in her which leads to uncomfortable questions. It's less the rampant corruption that shocks her, the rotten black core of the governing body in this town; these are things she knows, bone-deep, from her own experience. It's the genuine concern she sees painted on faces she has been taught are little more than vicious monsters.
Vampires drink people's blood. They eat babies. They descend on unsuspecting villages and murder everyone in sight before engaging in orgies amongst the corpses. Okay sure, she'd always suspected that last one was the product of Drearburh's guards' perverted imaginations. Yet it still makes something go ping! in her head, forces her to wonder how much she might have been wrong about.
By the time Lenore requests she relinquish her sword, Gideon is feeling less incalcitrant than anyone may expect from her. There is - of course - a moment of wary delay. A sidelong glance cast in Zohreh's direction, like she suspects the woman of coveting her sword and planning to squirrel it away from her forever. But she voices no complaints, doesn't even roll her eyes, only hands it over with restrained reluctance.
"I could do with a walk anyway. My butt is killing me after all this riding," she says, because 'of course, my Queen' are words that apparently don't exist in her lexicon. "It can hardly be worse than the way I arrived in Styria."
no subject
By the time they reach the mill she's ready to step into the role she'd initially promised; she stands a step behind Lenore throughout the length of her interrogation...although interrogation transpires not to be quite the right word. She listens to the old miller, subtly observes Lenore's expression-- and the tale opens up a space in her which leads to uncomfortable questions. It's less the rampant corruption that shocks her, the rotten black core of the governing body in this town; these are things she knows, bone-deep, from her own experience. It's the genuine concern she sees painted on faces she has been taught are little more than vicious monsters.
Vampires drink people's blood. They eat babies. They descend on unsuspecting villages and murder everyone in sight before engaging in orgies amongst the corpses. Okay sure, she'd always suspected that last one was the product of Drearburh's guards' perverted imaginations. Yet it still makes something go ping! in her head, forces her to wonder how much she might have been wrong about.
By the time Lenore requests she relinquish her sword, Gideon is feeling less incalcitrant than anyone may expect from her. There is - of course - a moment of wary delay. A sidelong glance cast in Zohreh's direction, like she suspects the woman of coveting her sword and planning to squirrel it away from her forever. But she voices no complaints, doesn't even roll her eyes, only hands it over with restrained reluctance.
"I could do with a walk anyway. My butt is killing me after all this riding," she says, because 'of course, my Queen' are words that apparently don't exist in her lexicon. "It can hardly be worse than the way I arrived in Styria."