[Wild Roses]
Title: choice
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Hazel, Lin
Prompt: 52A "fear of the fall"
Word Count: 350
Rating: PG
Notes: well after the wars. Lin anchors with merditha.
She flumphed down on the edge of the bed they shared at the moment, stripping off her boots and rolling up her pant leg to examine a swelling bruise on her calf. Pressed it curiously with a fingertip, choosing not to react visibly to whatever pain came from the motion, then looked up at him, head tilted to one side.
"Shall I stay, or shall I go?"
She near-sprang off the bed as he opened his mouth to reply, too-fast, flicked her fingers just short of his face. Shook her head at him as he blinked at her, shorter than he was in bare feet.
"Don't turn the choice back to me, or ask if this is just for tonight," she turned deliberately from him, showing the nape of her neck between the ends of her flyaway hair and the collarless shirt she wore. Walked back to the bed, sitting and propping up the leg without the bruise, the one-sided rolled-up trouser slightly ridiculous and at odds with the rest of her far-too-serious expression as she looked up at him again, from farther down. "This is yours--your choice to make, and I will abide by it. Shall I stay, or shall I go?"
It was dangerous to want things--safer by far to not-want, to demand neither a presence or an absence, to follow the flow of currents until the time came to strike.
He'd . . reacted a little too strongly, today, for all she'd said nothing at the time and the huntsmen they'd been with too blasé by far to remark on a deader-than-usual not-boar.
Intellectually, it was easy to acknowledge that she wouldn't be a part of an active hunting group if the others didn't trust her to handle herself. That she had fantastic reflexes, and blades to go with them.
Viscerally, he'd reacted. He'd wanted. Her not to die, the danger removed, whatever the very back of his brain had decided in the split second as she'd dodged aside from a charge and he'd moved forward. He'd wanted.
" . . . Stay," he said, soft.
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Hazel, Lin
Prompt: 52A "fear of the fall"
Word Count: 350
Rating: PG
Notes: well after the wars. Lin anchors with merditha.
She flumphed down on the edge of the bed they shared at the moment, stripping off her boots and rolling up her pant leg to examine a swelling bruise on her calf. Pressed it curiously with a fingertip, choosing not to react visibly to whatever pain came from the motion, then looked up at him, head tilted to one side.
"Shall I stay, or shall I go?"
She near-sprang off the bed as he opened his mouth to reply, too-fast, flicked her fingers just short of his face. Shook her head at him as he blinked at her, shorter than he was in bare feet.
"Don't turn the choice back to me, or ask if this is just for tonight," she turned deliberately from him, showing the nape of her neck between the ends of her flyaway hair and the collarless shirt she wore. Walked back to the bed, sitting and propping up the leg without the bruise, the one-sided rolled-up trouser slightly ridiculous and at odds with the rest of her far-too-serious expression as she looked up at him again, from farther down. "This is yours--your choice to make, and I will abide by it. Shall I stay, or shall I go?"
It was dangerous to want things--safer by far to not-want, to demand neither a presence or an absence, to follow the flow of currents until the time came to strike.
He'd . . reacted a little too strongly, today, for all she'd said nothing at the time and the huntsmen they'd been with too blasé by far to remark on a deader-than-usual not-boar.
Intellectually, it was easy to acknowledge that she wouldn't be a part of an active hunting group if the others didn't trust her to handle herself. That she had fantastic reflexes, and blades to go with them.
Viscerally, he'd reacted. He'd wanted. Her not to die, the danger removed, whatever the very back of his brain had decided in the split second as she'd dodged aside from a charge and he'd moved forward. He'd wanted.
" . . . Stay," he said, soft.