FIC: Green-Eyed (Sharpe)
Title: Green-Eyed
Author: Galadriel (caras_galadhon)
Fandom: Sharpe
Pairing: Ramona, Harper/Sharpe
Rating: G
Archive: Lothlorien and sons_of_gondor.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Disclaimer: I may march over the hills and far away alongside Richard Sharpe, but Bernard Cornwell, the lucky, lucky man, owns the rogue, not me.
Summary: Soldiers were honest men, more honest than most.
Notes: Written for the seans_50 November Film Challenge using Sharpe's Mission as inspiration. Also written for the "Green" challenge prompt (#9) at sharpe_thinking and for stormatdusk, as an extremely late Halloween treat I owe her for "knocking" on my virtual!door last year. D'oh!
Green-Eyed
By Galadriel
Ramona was not an especially jealous woman. You couldn't live the life of a camp follower, marry yourself a soldier and expect to stay sane if you interpreted every look as meaning more than it did. Soldiers were honest, in a way most men were not. Oh, they stole and fought and blasphemed against the good Lord above, but at their core they were honest men; honest enough to admit their failings rather than hide them. Honest thieves, brawlers and violators, more comfortable in their sins than the sinners above them; the officers, gentlemen, lords and poets that murdered more than men without a thought, and then wiped their hands clean, as if blood and manners did not leave their stain.
And that was why the gypsy girl meant little to Ramona. She was as a seed stuck in Ramona's teeth, causing bad digestion and worse temper, but she'd known Patrick had a wandering eye from the first moment she'd caught herself reflected back in it. It wasn't the ones Patrick watched that she needed to be wary of; it was the ones he carefully ignored.
And so it was that Ramona came to know that her Patrick was not wholly her own. That his heart was half-promised to someone else, the same tall, blond Major Patrick's gaze carefully avoided while she and their babe were near. The same man his eyes followed when he thought he was alone, lighting up as bright as any candle, desire nurtured in the dark. And worse still, that very same flame blazed in the Major's eyes too, only banked to dark embers when she trespassed on their private moments, lust hidden under guilt and deceit; but who they were deceiving, Ramona didn't think they truly understood.
Soldiers were honest men, this Ramona knew. But it was the lies they told themselves that you really had to watch out for.
END
(November 30, 2009)
Crossposted to seans_50, sons_of_gondor, sharpe_thinking, sharpe_archive, rareslash.
Author: Galadriel (caras_galadhon)
Fandom: Sharpe
Pairing: Ramona, Harper/Sharpe
Rating: G
Archive: Lothlorien and sons_of_gondor.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Disclaimer: I may march over the hills and far away alongside Richard Sharpe, but Bernard Cornwell, the lucky, lucky man, owns the rogue, not me.
Summary: Soldiers were honest men, more honest than most.
Notes: Written for the seans_50 November Film Challenge using Sharpe's Mission as inspiration. Also written for the "Green" challenge prompt (#9) at sharpe_thinking and for stormatdusk, as an extremely late Halloween treat I owe her for "knocking" on my virtual!door last year. D'oh!
Green-Eyed
By Galadriel
Ramona was not an especially jealous woman. You couldn't live the life of a camp follower, marry yourself a soldier and expect to stay sane if you interpreted every look as meaning more than it did. Soldiers were honest, in a way most men were not. Oh, they stole and fought and blasphemed against the good Lord above, but at their core they were honest men; honest enough to admit their failings rather than hide them. Honest thieves, brawlers and violators, more comfortable in their sins than the sinners above them; the officers, gentlemen, lords and poets that murdered more than men without a thought, and then wiped their hands clean, as if blood and manners did not leave their stain.
And that was why the gypsy girl meant little to Ramona. She was as a seed stuck in Ramona's teeth, causing bad digestion and worse temper, but she'd known Patrick had a wandering eye from the first moment she'd caught herself reflected back in it. It wasn't the ones Patrick watched that she needed to be wary of; it was the ones he carefully ignored.
And so it was that Ramona came to know that her Patrick was not wholly her own. That his heart was half-promised to someone else, the same tall, blond Major Patrick's gaze carefully avoided while she and their babe were near. The same man his eyes followed when he thought he was alone, lighting up as bright as any candle, desire nurtured in the dark. And worse still, that very same flame blazed in the Major's eyes too, only banked to dark embers when she trespassed on their private moments, lust hidden under guilt and deceit; but who they were deceiving, Ramona didn't think they truly understood.
Soldiers were honest men, this Ramona knew. But it was the lies they told themselves that you really had to watch out for.
END
(November 30, 2009)
Crossposted to seans_50, sons_of_gondor, sharpe_thinking, sharpe_archive, rareslash.