#rhuewrites

She let it fall.

She didn’t need to explain herself or her actions. For the hundredth time. No, this isn’t how things work here. No, she is not the servant, or the maid, or an illegally acquired slave. (The gumption of being told that!!)

Rhue stood still, her arms at her side, and arching an eyebrow. The other woman, the Cousland woman started to screech.

“Those are my clothes in the mud, wretch! How dare you! You are to clean them! Maker damn you!”

A movement from the corner of her eye, she noticed Marta stepped forward. Anya Cousland would never have behaved so in front of Duncan, were he here.

“Rendon, let me introduce you to Warden Duncan,” Teyrn Cousland said as the pair of nobles approached the trio. Cousland, a cheerful noble dressed in colorful attire, a welcoming smile, and warmth that surprised Rhue. Her experience with the children of nobles was quite different.

“Duncan, my old friend, have you met Arl Howe? One of my oldest friends,” Teyrn Cousland asked.

Duncan and the Arl shook hands, Duncan offering a firm hand-shake, but receiving a limp wrist in return. The man barely looked down his beaked nose at Rhue and Marius.

“The pleasure is mine,” Rendon replied with a nasally voice that sounded like the crunch of gravel steeped in slime, but he didn’t spare another moment with the wardens, guiding the Teyrn elsewhere.

“Well,” Rhue murmured under her breath.

I wonder how long before tumblr tags this for being indecent.

New chapter up for Be Careful What You Wish For.

Rhue wakes up with Marius in bed with her, but she’s not about to complain. There is some talking, some smooching, and unexpected company...

Crouching down, Rhue gazed over the scorched earth where fire had once ravaged and seared the ground in a blaze of flames. But when her fingers touched the ash, there was a faint surge of power, blighted energy that she recognized now.

“Looks like darkspawn,” Duncan crouched beside her but didn’t touch the black ash.

“Yeah, they’ve been through here. I can … feel it. The echo of magic here.”

They stood together and looked over the remains of the town. Burnt out husks of buildings still smoky within the charred remains. Wherever the people were, they weren’t here.

Staring at the blank page, Rhue knew she needed to get the words out or she would choke on them anytime a memory, and there were many,  bowled her over, and reduce her into a mess of tears and wailing. If she could get it out now, with the moon and stars as her friends, then she could function better when the harsh judgment of the sun sneered upon her. But every time she stared at the page, and thought of the winter months with … Them … the tears would roll down her cheeks, drip onto the page, and smudge any words she had written.

Most of the time, she wasn’t writing, but drawing nonsensical shapes that always seemed to remind her of them. Fires that had long died out, inn room beds, tents and sleeping bags, the cold wind of winter in her face, but the warmth of their bodies keeping her warm...

Another update to Be Careful What You Wish For so soon after the last update? Surely I jest.

Rhue comes across an unexpected revelation and a kudos from an unexpected place. 

Duncan and Marius sharing a quiet moment in Chapter Thirty-seven of Be Careful What You Wish For.