𝔖he'd dismissed the squire, and his assistants. the freneticism of the melee had long passed under the blue gleam of evenfall, surrendering to torchlight and celebrations enthralling common man and noble alike in the medley of banners spread afield. yet through her the chargers still ran, the pattering of sod and soil flung from the trebuchet of their hooves clattering against her helm like boulders to the curtain wall ringing in her ears even now amid the burgundy silence of her tent. the fault was not in the boy, nor those to keep him. the penny tart tinge of opened flesh still simmered deep behind her nose, the back of her tongue. the numb that came with the recoil of a blade making contact with bone still festered in her hands. think of something else, had been basilia's voice in the whorl of turstin's ear when their father had made her kill the rats they'd caught in the feedbags. she'd wept pitifully into her sister's hair, her bird's heart stumbling for the little pink babies between her father's fingers. think of rubbing dirty horse dust off your hands, the sounds of grass whistles when you blow. her wrists ache, but her hands know where to pluck and pry to bring her armor to pieces. so she sets to task-gauntlets, then the clasps for the vambraces. she only half hears it when the entryway stirs, and the din of drunken holler briefly shoulders through. perhaps the squire, she thinks, returning for something he had left behind. ' worry not, dear boy, i will send what is yours to your private quarters once i have finished. '
@lyonelb // tourney
