[ She stays quiet for a while, looking up at - any of them, she doesn't know his stars. But she knows Simargl, what a name for it - but she can latch onto it. Oh yes, the great wolves that devoured the world. Swallowed it up. Her fingers don't stop the back and forth brush against his hip. Thinks about not telling him any of it. What kind of story is it? Nothing as beautiful as those stars. ]
The fourth day of the siege, a traitor opened the gates of Jhansi. I could barely speak for screaming by orders by then. [ She keeps her voice even, removed, like all of it happened to someone else. An explanation there - why her only instinct anymore is to kill Byerly, to keep anyone at arm's length. ] They came in then, in the dead of night. You see the British, not all of them knew what their forces were made up of. So it was better done when no one on their side could tell the truth of it.
[ Hard then, hard to be removed, hard to keep it out of her mouth, out of her eyes, out of her lungs. That smoke, so much smoke, that sulfuric wretch of gunpowder, the burning of hot metal that was this side of blood. ] There were so many - we were overwhelmed. They were purebloods, not just the halfbreeds. A half-breed can tear a man in half easily. But a pureblood? It takes ten or twelve just to draw one down. Most will die in the effort. That's why the blackwater is so needed.
[ Now her fingers grip, taking hold of him, easy, easy, easy, breath, breath, breath, she can only smell woodsmoke, think instead of the feel of his mouth of his skin, anything at all. Anything had to be better. Worst getting quicker as she talked, not so calm, not so removed. Hard to be. ] Some of the women couldn't kill themselves and their children fast enough. Their limbs were ripped off them, torn, some of them were with child and... [ the woman she remembered clearest, it's muzzle sunk into her belly - full with a child, not three days before. Her eyes blinking rapidly where shock just hadn't let her die, as gore and viscera and what remained of her unborn child was yanked from her. ] - but they were still alive, looking at me - set upon, like a dog had gotten a chicken coop.
[ She turns her face into his shoulder. Doesn't weep, doesn't know how to anymore. Just holds and holds and holds. Tight to him. A fast rhythm to her throat, loud as hoof-beats. ]
no subject
The fourth day of the siege, a traitor opened the gates of Jhansi. I could barely speak for screaming by orders by then. [ She keeps her voice even, removed, like all of it happened to someone else. An explanation there - why her only instinct anymore is to kill Byerly, to keep anyone at arm's length. ] They came in then, in the dead of night. You see the British, not all of them knew what their forces were made up of. So it was better done when no one on their side could tell the truth of it.
[ Hard then, hard to be removed, hard to keep it out of her mouth, out of her eyes, out of her lungs. That smoke, so much smoke, that sulfuric wretch of gunpowder, the burning of hot metal that was this side of blood. ] There were so many - we were overwhelmed. They were purebloods, not just the halfbreeds. A half-breed can tear a man in half easily. But a pureblood? It takes ten or twelve just to draw one down. Most will die in the effort. That's why the blackwater is so needed.
[ Now her fingers grip, taking hold of him, easy, easy, easy, breath, breath, breath, she can only smell woodsmoke, think instead of the feel of his mouth of his skin, anything at all. Anything had to be better. Worst getting quicker as she talked, not so calm, not so removed. Hard to be. ] Some of the women couldn't kill themselves and their children fast enough. Their limbs were ripped off them, torn, some of them were with child and... [ the woman she remembered clearest, it's muzzle sunk into her belly - full with a child, not three days before. Her eyes blinking rapidly where shock just hadn't let her die, as gore and viscera and what remained of her unborn child was yanked from her. ] - but they were still alive, looking at me - set upon, like a dog had gotten a chicken coop.
[ She turns her face into his shoulder. Doesn't weep, doesn't know how to anymore. Just holds and holds and holds. Tight to him. A fast rhythm to her throat, loud as hoof-beats. ]