[Deaths] Eduard De'Ath & the Morrigan
Title: rasp, rasp
'Verse/characters: Deaths; Eduard De'Ath, the Morrigan
Prompt: 72B "serenity"
Word Count: 518
Notes: after mutual bribery, before a breath of wind.
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She'd taken a suite at one of the better hotels, but left rather more than half her purchases scattered around his sitting room and library, padded in tissue paper and lurking in their boxes waiting for unwary feet.
In that they were much like their owner. The second time he found her curled up asleep in the other library chair he nearly had a heart attack; the first time he'd been too tired to even jump, having discovered that coffee and fury made a wonderful substitute for sleep, but only for a while.
By the fifth he'd grown accustomed to it, though not to finding finger-sized blades stashed down the sides, or tripping over a whetstone mixed into a frothy morass of tissue paper in the hall.
She bought replacements for the things she finished--which he appreciated, since if he wasn't actively shaking the last of the tin into the grinder he rarely processed how much coffee he had left--added more things than he anticipated but fewer than she would if she were living in the guest room, fell asleep briefly on any soft surface, curled up like a bipedal crow until she erupted into motion again.
He hadn't noticed the change as it'd happened, which was an ugly thought, but he could remember her being like this when she shared a city with him and his brother, or him while he was planning a campaign. Laughing and talking and hunting every night, splashing energy around like a bird in a puddle and just as unmalicious about it, uninterested in how the plan was progressing unless it involved her directly.
She hadn't acted like that around him in years--not since he'd retired, he theorised, let alone since Edmund had been reported dead. She'd been friendly, sometimes smug, sometimes pushy, always happy to argue about something but not underfoot as she was now.
He was going to have to keep a closer eye on that from now on; she was still a little more the woman she'd been than she let on or admitted to. He'd known she was capable of mourning, with Edmund--he hadn't noticed that she was mourning him, too.
The day he rose honestly before her--he'd been to bed the previous night, even--he decided to go through and sharpen everything in the flat that needed it.
More than he'd thought, he found as he collected everything and brought it all into the sitting room, just within line of sight to the chaise she'd collapsed on still dressed in last night's clothes. He was going to need a wheel for the oldest sword, and wasn't that a horrifying realisation, but the majority needed only some meditation with a whetstone, and he was certainly capable of that.
He noticed when she stirred, but only absently, intent on smoothing out an old waver along an edge. When she smiled, eyes only at half-mast, sighed, rolled over, curled up again on the chaise, he paused the stone's path, glanced over at her.
It shouldn't surprise him, that she found the sound of a blade being sharpened soothing, but it did.
'Verse/characters: Deaths; Eduard De'Ath, the Morrigan
Prompt: 72B "serenity"
Word Count: 518
Notes: after mutual bribery, before a breath of wind.
---------
She'd taken a suite at one of the better hotels, but left rather more than half her purchases scattered around his sitting room and library, padded in tissue paper and lurking in their boxes waiting for unwary feet.
In that they were much like their owner. The second time he found her curled up asleep in the other library chair he nearly had a heart attack; the first time he'd been too tired to even jump, having discovered that coffee and fury made a wonderful substitute for sleep, but only for a while.
By the fifth he'd grown accustomed to it, though not to finding finger-sized blades stashed down the sides, or tripping over a whetstone mixed into a frothy morass of tissue paper in the hall.
She bought replacements for the things she finished--which he appreciated, since if he wasn't actively shaking the last of the tin into the grinder he rarely processed how much coffee he had left--added more things than he anticipated but fewer than she would if she were living in the guest room, fell asleep briefly on any soft surface, curled up like a bipedal crow until she erupted into motion again.
He hadn't noticed the change as it'd happened, which was an ugly thought, but he could remember her being like this when she shared a city with him and his brother, or him while he was planning a campaign. Laughing and talking and hunting every night, splashing energy around like a bird in a puddle and just as unmalicious about it, uninterested in how the plan was progressing unless it involved her directly.
She hadn't acted like that around him in years--not since he'd retired, he theorised, let alone since Edmund had been reported dead. She'd been friendly, sometimes smug, sometimes pushy, always happy to argue about something but not underfoot as she was now.
He was going to have to keep a closer eye on that from now on; she was still a little more the woman she'd been than she let on or admitted to. He'd known she was capable of mourning, with Edmund--he hadn't noticed that she was mourning him, too.
The day he rose honestly before her--he'd been to bed the previous night, even--he decided to go through and sharpen everything in the flat that needed it.
More than he'd thought, he found as he collected everything and brought it all into the sitting room, just within line of sight to the chaise she'd collapsed on still dressed in last night's clothes. He was going to need a wheel for the oldest sword, and wasn't that a horrifying realisation, but the majority needed only some meditation with a whetstone, and he was certainly capable of that.
He noticed when she stirred, but only absently, intent on smoothing out an old waver along an edge. When she smiled, eyes only at half-mast, sighed, rolled over, curled up again on the chaise, he paused the stone's path, glanced over at her.
It shouldn't surprise him, that she found the sound of a blade being sharpened soothing, but it did.