νενικήκαμεν.

           “Oh, come on, that can not be all you’ve got,” the warrior taunted, eyes gleaming as she lowered the sword and regarded her opponent. “I was expecting a real challenge.”

“Did you really have to do that in front of me?” 

            “You there! You seem perfectly capable of showing me where to find the nearest authoritative figure—ah, don’t look at me as if you have never witnessed a woman with a sword before.”

Norah wasn’t sure what made her go off. If the northern accent of the other woman, or the words she spoke with it. “Do I look like a maid to you?” 

“Is there really need for such a fuss?” Spoke out the young man as he  laughed. “Come, sit with me. Forget for a little while.”

Tibalt scoffed. “When they let us go. They aren’t letting us out, Norah,” he said, glancing back at her. Her hair was his focal point–her white-blonde braids glowed, shining like a star in the darkness. (He needed her.) “This all ends with the Vitellos losing their heads. Even the children. And the knights loyal to their house? I’ve a feeling we’ll be given the option to join the new ruling house, or perish.”

“Shit,” she whispered in a chuckle as she frowned. She had always considered that chance, yet him saying it out loud still gave her a soft headrush. Norah leaned on the stone wall and slid down to sit on the floor in the corner of her cell, her arm resting on the bars separating her from Tibalt’s. 

“They’re all the same,” the former knight replied and shrugged. “The Balors, the Argos, the Vitellos---” She then faintly smiled and looked at him, curious, as she suddenly remembered. “Aren’t you joining the Odells, though? Y’know... By marriage?”  

“What questions,” Galen replied in an attempt at lightness, side-stepping them for the moment. It was somehow harder to watch Norah’s weak attempt at a smile than to endure the cursing and insults he’d gotten from others. He’d told her months ago that he would be honest with her; where were they now? “I’m not sure,” he replied finally, returning her brittle smile. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt genuinely happy, at least for more than an hour or two. But happiness had always been a fleeting thing reserved for singular moments rather than long stretches of time, hadn’t it? And what he wanted was far too complicated a question to even attempt answering. What did he want, really? If only he knew. “But no one I care for is dead at the end of this, so I count that a blessing. Where do you plan to go from here, Ser Percy? I doubt they’ll keep you overlong.” 

His avoiding to answer plainly, fell quite heavy and wrong on her. As she got on her feet and gave quick steps to lean on the bars, she had to repeat herself it wasn’t his fault, that she would have done exactly the same in his place. Norah wrinkled her nose at his reply, and briskly shook her head as if he had given the wrong answer. As far as she knew, mostly from her experience witnessing the changes in power, this was not the end. “I don’t know. I only know how to fight,” she answered, resting her forehead on a bar. She had avoided to think of this, considering she might not even live through it. “I guess I’ll lend my sword for money.” 

“Quite certain,” Hamish said, glaring back at her only for a moment before a hesitant smile broke out on his face. Mother had sent Norah over, most likely, but Hamish found he did not mind. So long as she didn’t bring up his humiliation at the hands of Everett, he would even be pleased. He watched her and the little bottle with curiosity plain on his face, though when she handed it to him he touched it very gingerly.

Better to be careful whenever handling anything “witchy” from the Lorland, however fascinating it was. He took a cautious sniff and looked up in surprise. “Horse hair,” he said, flushing lightly. Sometimes, when he felt particularly sad or overwhelmed, he would wrap his arms around Liberty’s neck and press his face into the horse’s mane. It always made him feel better. “And, er, spiced wine and old parchment and… hm. A whiff of lavender.” Mother and the scent of old books he could identify easily; the lavender, he was not quite certain about.

Regardless, it was a splendid gift. Hamish once again smiled up at Norah, more genuine this time. “Very nice. Your friend will love it, I’m sure.” He was only a little reluctant when he held it out for her to take back.

“D’you really think so?” She raised an eyebrow and looked at the bottle quite suspiciously, taking it back. Norah wanted to smell it one last time, still not sure what scents she was perceiving. The smell of wet grass was as clear as in a battlefield under the rain. There was a softer scent she thought to be the salve or balm her mother and brothers used to ease the pain of the wounds gotten while fighting. And the last one was quite mild, it was something she couldn’t understand, perhaps related to someone, but she didn’t want to delve deeper. The knight shrugged her thoughts off and put the small cork back to its place. 

“Because it looks like my friend’s a dumbass who doesn’t get when people give him pretty things.” She said and grinned, as she handed him back the potion.

She was running out of ideas. They had played dumb games and they’d had small talk, there was not much they could say, but Gods knew she did not want to stop talking to him. All the others were jailed with their families or acquaintances. Only a few were thrown down there by themselves, and so Norah was thankful that his cell was next to hers, and that she wasn’t left completely alone. 

“I’m not some child who needs to be checked on,” Hamish groused. Perhaps he was glad to see her, though, even when she was acting more than a little odd. In response to her question, he sputtered: “What are you doing? I’m plenty decent!” A certain amount of nudity couldn’t be avoided whenever his healers poked and prodded at him (he was even somewhat used to it by now), but the rest of the time he preferred at least a modicum of modesty. 

“Plenty decent, you sure?” Norah took a peek, or rather, she glared at him through her fingers. “D’you think I want to check on you? I know you’re fine,” she joked, and snorted as she lowered her hand, reaching for the pouch attached to her belt, taking a little glass bottle from it. “I bumped into one of the priestesses during one of my rounds,” she said, showing him the bottle full of a silverish liquid. “I saw you were reading something about their temple, the other day, so I asked her if she had anything I could give to a friend. Y’know, something witchy.” The blonde woman opened the bottle and softly sniffed the scent of the substance, and she tried to stop the smile pulling her lips. “It’s supposed to smell like things you like. Don’t drink it, though. She said it’d be dangerous to drink it.” She carefully handed him the potion. “What does it smell like?” 

Galen stepped into the dungeons with a tired set to his mouth, quiet as he adjusted the heavy basket on his arm. It was full to bursting with fresh bread and wineskins full of cool water, the least he could do. ( The free folk had won, they had, but it still rang a bit hollow. Something didn’t feel right. ) 

He began handing out what he had, gently side-stepping pleas and demands alike. He was already weary by the time he was halfway through, but diligently pulled a loaf of bread from his basket. “Here,” he said as kindly as he could muster, meeting familiar eyes through the iron bars. He ignored the guards, free folk who gazed at the kindness with vague disapproval. They deserve to suffer, they’d said when he stepped inside. You do not need to help them. 

Of course he did. Most of them were innocent in all the ways that mattered most. And if he didn’t, well. He doubted anyone he knew of the free folk would. “I have food and water.” 

There was a strange sensation bothering her, and it felt stronger when she saw Galen helping the prisoners. These situations were more than common. She had witnessed things like this before, yet she had never been in such a spot. The worse part was that she had always known this was a possibility. How could she blame him, when her own head had been full of doubts many times before?

She looked at him from where she was sitting, on the floor at the bottom of her cell, resting her elbow on her knee. “Are you happy?” Norah smiled weakly, though it faded away in an instant. There was no resentment in her voice, despite the severe expression on her face. “Did you get what you wanted?”

Preston trailed after her like a dog on a leash. He was rewarded by the sight of her infamous chariot. It was golden, and it glinted in the candlelight in all of its glory. “Is this the chariot?” It was an idiot question of course, but Gods, yes. He didn’t give a flying fuck that they were in a barn, although the thought of it perhaps annoying Norah did cross his mind. 

“I ALWAYS win,” he replied as he backed her into the chariot. “I enjoy the feeling too much, don’t you?” He swept her blonde hair away from her face, and he brushed harmless kisses down her jawline.

The chariot. She nodded, her eyebrows raised in pride. “Yeah, it is. Very smart, Argo,” she answered, suppressing another grin, yet his reply had surprised her and she knew she wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer, and so a playful smile betrayed her, as she stared into his eyes. 

Damn him. Norah stepped back, not willing to fight him now, and enjoying the strange annoyance of how small he made her feel, even when she sat on the back of the chariot. Her pulse fastened and her breathing deepened at the smooth caress with which he moved away her hair. She was used to play along, to kiss and touch were mere signs of affection, yet such a gentle, intimate gesture was something utterly new. But damn him. “Well,” she sighed with a simper, as her legs trapped him and her fingers moved up his chest, to his neck, reaching for his hair to pull him away. “I won’t let you win.” 

At the sound of knocking on his chamber door, Hamish’s head snapped up. Though his last dose of milk of the poppy had worn off enough to hit the sweet spot in which his mind was no longer too addled but the pain had not yet become entirely unbearable, his heart had begun racing and he needed a moment to reassure himself it was not a wildling at the door. (Surely they wouldn’t knock.)

Hamish fiddled with the novel in his lap. Both his humiliation at the hands of Everett and his anxiety about the recent news of the wildlings had made him none too eager to leave his chambers the past week - or to face anyone at all, for that matter. He did not care that it was childish. Not much, anyway. He just wanted to be left alone. He called out: “Go. Away!”

“Oi, what the hell?,” she said as she opened the door, lifting one of her hands to cover her eyes. Hamish certainly had nothing she hadn’t seen before, but she respected him enough to keep at least a small sense of privacy. “Just came to check on you. Y’know, duties and stuff.” She knew he wouldn’t get in trouble, but she also knew the wildlings were weird and could hide in practically anything, anywhere. Norah walked in, slowly, with her free hand stretched out to replace her sight, to avoid colliding with some table or chair. “Are you decent? I want to-- Oh,” she chuckled when she almost tripped with something on the floor. “--show you something.”

“You think I have puppy eyes?” Hamish said with a bright, surprised smile. She was jesting, of course, but he found himself oddly pleased nonetheless. By her invitation, as well. Hamish did not usually drink; he disliked the loss of control, and his sometimes required use of milk of the poppy had left him with a reluctance to muddle his mind further. But then again, he’d never been invited to go out drinking with someone before. “If you do not mind, sure.”

“Sometimes,” she replied with a half smile, looking at him sideways. The blonde knight was somehow surprised he accepted her invitation. It was not common for knights to hang out with the high royalty, let alone a female knight with the prince. “Of course not! You’ll have to pay for the second round, though.”