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[queenofmay]

Marian has been outside for a long while now. The cloak around her shoulders is thick and long, rippling in the strong gusts of sharp winter wind. It doesn't seem to be effecting her expression as she watches the lake, where the Hope is still frozen

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[queenofmay]

Marian's jaw tightened at the reference. That was a weakness. That entire memory. That and the memories of amnesia, as though they belonged to a different person. As though he'd been. But it didn't change what came to her mind or out of her mouth.

"The man who read to me at my sick bed," Marian repeated, her tone not even attempting kindness at his choice of points. "Is the very same man--"

Who blackmailed her into marriage.

Who was willing to let her father die.

Who burned her house down, after she begged.

The pause is on purpose, her eyes narrowed, tense at the edges, as she looked at him, her tone saying so much more than her chosen words. "--who reinstalled me in my childhood home."

[landlesslord]

"After I burned down Knighton Hall." He knows what he did. "after demanding that you beg me not to."

He doesn't look at her.

"I remember."

[queenofmay]

It's -- She -- He.

She didn't even realize she was this angry about it. It's like an expanding bubble inside her chest. It's an effort not to feel hit by the words even. That he thinks he even has the right to address what he did to them, took from them. Her.

"I don't forgive you. I--" All the things lost. She shook her head, having to move, taking steps forward, before turning toward him. "I haven't even gotten to see it!"

In the imagination, it has been so many things. But the only last memory she has is of marching away, with the smell of smoke everywhere, and the last glance of her house, still half engulfed in the flames he started.

[landlesslord]

Guy doesn't know if she ever did see her former home. He had never taken her back while she was in the castle.

"I know."

He can't say anything else. He's said sorry.

He can't ask her forgiveness, not while he cannot forgive himself.

"I know."

[queenofmay]

"Stop saying that," it comes, all but screamed, out of her mouth, with no filter. Because it sounds like an admission of guilt and apology of remorse at at once. Because he had the gall to look arrogant pleased when the house was burning, and he looks like he might as well be the one burning.

And it shouldn't be her responsibility to care about him now.

[landlesslord]

Sometimes, even though Guy is taciturn in nature, he does not have the good sense to stay quiet.

This is not one of those times.

To say anything would be to diminish her pain.

He remains quiet.

[queenofmay]

She'd covered her mouth, with a still cloaked folded hand, the second it came out. Annoyed, and perhaps embarrassed, at herself for her loss of composure. For letting him, of all people, see how deep that cut ran. When she carefully refused to even think about it in the presence of Vasey or Guy.

To let them have even the smallest next inch inside of her.

It was only a house. Marian's mouth made it halfway through mouthing those words into the cloth before, she shook her head, letting her hand drop and crossing her arms. She won't apologizing for yelling and I should go is far, far too passive and requesting.

What comes next, when she's looking back behind them, at the building instead of him is. "I can't do this anymore. I won't." Not with Guy. Not when she had to go back and face the monster who did burn her house when she walked through the door.

Without even waiting, she started walking back toward Milliways.

[landlesslord]

He suppresses the urge to apologise yet again. It'd only upset her more, he tells himself.

Seeing her like this, though? Reminds him of the journey back from the Holy Land. The months spent drowning in wine and ale. Suffocating in guilt.

He gives her a good headstart and then heads back towards the Bar himself. No use staying out in the cold, even if he was dead.