He chuckles, a dry sound— made so from the unfamiliarity of disuse, not for lack of water.
“So it must be,” determined well before he even speaks, settling straight-backed in his seat to let his arms fold easily. The air is fragrant with something, baked bread and the faint wafting of roasted herbs— much a relief after so long a day. He wonders, distantly, how Emperor Gramis must fare in his frailty, for he spent himself no less. “For you stand now where few ever have before you, and few ever will again. At the crown of an empire.”
Not just the city sprawling around them, millions of flittering lives visible from where they're seated, but the expanse beyond.
He says empire, and Jone looks down from the balcony on instinct. Empire, the thing she feared in her youth, and she looks down: it's just people. That's all Fedlhelm was, all Videreyn is.
It's all so stupid.
"I used to like that," Jone admits carefully. Her expression is the level, even thing that lives beyond the shores of her poor sense of humor. "Being a creature to envy... I relished it. But now it seems more distraction than glorious."
Jone eyes the food, taking care to slowly pick the correct fork. "I am more troubled by how to eat this... roll. Dumpling?"
She knows how to eat those with her hands, but is currently convinced that's the wrong answer in the strange game of courtesy they play. It would be annoying, if Jone did not love winning so much.
"I have learned not to believe in grand concepts. Better to give loyalty to people. The deserving."
She does not specify who is and who is not deserving. If Gabranth is afraid to touch his boot to her shoe-- as annoying as that is-- it is not a safe place to speak of deep truths. Yet they are unwatched, at least in this moment. Her gaze flickers to him, pointedly.
Gabranth answers that question for her: reaching across to take one roll between his notched fingers— splitting it open to reveal a pocket of glistening meat inside.
A fair attempt, Jone.
“People are fleeting. Ideals would serve you better: a cause, a flag, a nation— those are far more difficult to kill.”
Not impossible, but more difficult.
Even so, he does not miss her intent when she emphasizes to whom she swears allegiance. Selfishly, it is not an unwelcome thought.
She squints at him, canny and beckoning. Oh, so now she can use her hands. Yet she repeats his motions with care, before selecting a fork at random to skewer the meat with.
"Ideas die quickly in the hearts of weak men."
She looks away from him, down to the food she's sawing in to. Probably the wrong knife, too, but this one is the sharpest. "Look at Videreyn," she says, "it was founded on lofty principles, all failed. A cause is only as good as those who uphold it."
“Fortunate then that Archades possesses no such weakness.”
Aside from the senate, perhaps, though he is biased in his estimate of them: he, a hound to the royal family and their decrees, is no friend to dignified bones in lengthy cloaks. They would see him no differently in turn.
“You move too harshly. Your meal is not your enemy.” His mouth twists barely when he speaks. Fond sentiment.
"You're talking yourself up, now," Jone says, but she doesn't correct him. The chain of loyalty stretches far; she prioritizes him, which means she prioritizes his priorities. Otherwise, it's beneath what little honor she has; people must be met in kind, if they are to be met truly.
"Right, right," Jone mutters, selecting a different knife. The meat isn't rough, anyway; it's been cooked to a tenderness that leaves it almost falling before her fork, much less the knife. "You ordered this? It's new to me."
She isn't sure what the rich ate in Fedlhelm; maybe it was what the rich ate in Archades. Maybe Gabranth actually has preferences. Wonders may never cease.
That draws his stare for a beat, hazel eyes glancing up from beneath the shade of long lashes. He'd not truly considered her full stance on the matter before speaking— which, for him, hardly stands as an uncommon practice.
It is not that he does not know what to make of it, it is that he does not know how to embrace her devotion where it courses through him.
"Was it more familiar to you, what we ate before, in Videreyn?" He turns his fork, finishing off one course and leaving pause for yet more. Meager means are not his while he remains in capital. "A fine steak is common within most regions, after all, no matter how it is prepared."
Jone remembers cutting everything into tiny pieces first isn't considered good manner, so she finally begins eating, a little faster than one ought to. She's getting there, but it's a slow process, especially in light of her earlier experiences with food.
"If it was not fried or battered-- or both-- I hardly took notice of it." She couldn't afford it. "You've better taste than I."
There's a half-moment where it seems as though Jone is trying to decide something, before she looks Gabranth in the eye and winks. Yes, it's worth it to turn that innuendo in, damn whatever mood it'll put him in.
Not a poor one, it seems, for all that he could grimace or growl from where he’s seated, he only flashes the edge of a dull smile. The memory of one. Rare favor.
“Of this I am aware.”
Perhaps that says much of her, as it speaks much of him in turn.
“Your wounds, they do not trouble you?”
He’d been concerned during the ceremony and subsequent meeting— he expected her to tire quickly, yet no sweat peppers her brow as she sits at table with him, no strain apparent in her bearing. Either she masks its presence well, or she is healing. Well and truly.
Oh, so he likes being reminded of getting blown. That shouldn't surprise her. Why does it surprise her? She has really got to stop overthinking this bastard.
Jone finishes a mouthful of food just as he asks, literal and figurative rumination interrupted by a fair question. She leans over a bit so she can pat her wounded side-- lightly, but still more than she would have managed otherwise.
She takes a drink before answering. "I'll have a pretty scar to add to all the ugly ones, nothing else."
He is, for all his layered demands, a simple man at heart. A well-kept, well-guarded secret.
"There is no such thing as an ugly scar," he scoffs, ignoring a beautiful mirror-like dessert flecked with gold as it's set before them, its shining surface catching both city lights and stars alike. A master stroke of work from whichever chef was responsible for its creation, no doubt.
And to Gabranth, it is merely another meal, as he pays it no heed.
"All are triumphs. Proofs of conquest in survival."
Jone, meanwhile, stares at her food with confusion. She's supposed to eat this? But it's so pretty.
Luckily, Gabranth distracts her before she has to decide what spoon to destroy it with. Jone snorts, shaking her head. "No, Gabranth. Some really are... are evils writ upon the body."
Slipping back into that Archadian way of speech may be more convincing. It certainly has more decorum. She should try to keep up more, in his presence, but he makes her so bloody comfortable, these days.
He does not comprehend it. His scars— the ones that run deep— don’t mirror the marks on his body. The two are ever divided, and so to his simplistic heart her promise makes no sense in any way he can tangibly grasp.
But he trusts her. And the weight in her voice, her accent as it slips through. A choice.
His brow twists, and then he finally moves instead to study the custard-like confection before them, cutting clean through one of its unbroken edges with a spoon. There is no portion to be taken away, no plates for their own servings. An intimate dessert. The staff chose presumptively, he thinks.
Jone takes a careful spoonful, mirroring Gabranth. The desert is sweet, but not overmuch, a gentle sort of sugary flavor that melts pleasingly over her tongue. It mostly distracts her from memories of knives held when she was defenseless, rocks thrown, furniture she was thrown into.
Jone takes another spoonful of the desert-- it really is lovely-- before sitting back and thinking on how to answer. "I agree that wounds in battle are no thing to be ashamed of," she concedes lightly, "but scrabbles to escape, petty squabbling, traps and mistakes... I hold no pride in the evidence of marks."
“Then I’ll not question your interpretation.” He determines, already having long since abandoned any attempts to eat what remains of that dessert: it is far too sweet for his taste.
Most things are, in fact.
“But whatever the road it was you traveled to bring you here, I am glad to know it ended with you at my side. Emperor Gramis was correct in his choice, and his words today were no less far-sighted than that initial shrewd decision.”
He leans back in his seat, his arms folding. He'd not been called upon to offer his own endorsement at either the ceremony or its aftermath, and so instead he grants it here, in relative privacy and relative silence, witnessed only by a sprawling city with no visible end.
“You are a credit to the Magistrate. Let no one say otherwise.”
Jone takes another swipe at the desert. It is a bit sweet, especially for her unsophisticated palate, but she's mostly entranced by the look of it. Somehow that makes up for it.
"I'd point out some examples, but that would be quite untoward," she says dryly, without looking up from the sparkling gold flecks under her spoon.
She can't keep from smiling at his compliment, and the smile can't keep from going wry. "Ah, but if I cared what pettiness was said of me, I'd stoop to the tedious lows of defending myself against fools."
It is no sweetness, he wears no smile. Where this carries potential for humor or a jabbing sentiment, Gabranth is firm-edged, in expression and posture alike.
He means this. As surely as any oath. It is unmistakable.
“It is not pointless. A slight made against you is a slight made against us all.” This is no vain chivalric venture, he does not make this offer to defend a woman that cannot defend herself; he would do no less for Ghis or Drace— they would do no different for him, even if the creature throwing stones were as lowly as any gutter rat.
There is a lesson to be learned here, and though he is certain she draws nearer to it every day, he does not know if she yet grasps it.
“Our dignity, our honor, remains ever shared. I beg you not forget it.”
I beg you? Jone turns her head with a look of concern.
"Something so zealously protected is often fragile," she murmurs. She can't eat any more of the desert; it's making the roof of her mouth ache. She pushes it gently aside. "But your judgement has never lead me astray."
So it's presumably worth it, to strike out in haughty pride. People are the same everywhere.
“Pride is fragile. It was for pride that I slew every living creature that bore witness to your fall.”
The necessity of it, so precious a thing, demanded he do no less— even before seeing to her treatment. Had she died there, it would have been vital that not one soul lived to speak of it. To mark her human. Fallible. A stain on her memory and efforts.
As much as Jone is aware she should be disgusted by the loss of life-- she isn't. They were all cunts. Gabranth did her a massive favor, and she didn't even realize until now, weeks later.
Gratefulness rises within her, far too earnest to bear, and she tempers it by imagining herself ripping off his clothes.
"I think we have different understandings of pride," she says evenly, though she's looking at him again as she sips her wine, calmly appreciative. "I like yours far better."
He does not need to know her perspective to know he is right in this, and thus he does not ask for it, instead focusing on the favor of her stare. The approval that lingers there.
At times she is so much the stray. An animal untamed, unused to the fine surroundings that now house it. This has only made him pleasantly certain of the fact that he does enjoy her company— no matter the difficulties that sometimes arise for their differing approach.
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“So it must be,” determined well before he even speaks, settling straight-backed in his seat to let his arms fold easily. The air is fragrant with something, baked bread and the faint wafting of roasted herbs— much a relief after so long a day. He wonders, distantly, how Emperor Gramis must fare in his frailty, for he spent himself no less. “For you stand now where few ever have before you, and few ever will again. At the crown of an empire.”
Not just the city sprawling around them, millions of flittering lives visible from where they're seated, but the expanse beyond.
“So many envy you.”
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It's all so stupid.
"I used to like that," Jone admits carefully. Her expression is the level, even thing that lives beyond the shores of her poor sense of humor. "Being a creature to envy... I relished it. But now it seems more distraction than glorious."
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—a sentiment interrupted by appetizers and a fresher course of drinks, servants waved away with an easy hand.
“Does that truth now trouble you?”
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She knows how to eat those with her hands, but is currently convinced that's the wrong answer in the strange game of courtesy they play. It would be annoying, if Jone did not love winning so much.
"I have learned not to believe in grand concepts. Better to give loyalty to people. The deserving."
She does not specify who is and who is not deserving. If Gabranth is afraid to touch his boot to her shoe-- as annoying as that is-- it is not a safe place to speak of deep truths. Yet they are unwatched, at least in this moment. Her gaze flickers to him, pointedly.
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A fair attempt, Jone.
“People are fleeting. Ideals would serve you better: a cause, a flag, a nation— those are far more difficult to kill.”
Not impossible, but more difficult.
Even so, he does not miss her intent when she emphasizes to whom she swears allegiance. Selfishly, it is not an unwelcome thought.
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"Ideas die quickly in the hearts of weak men."
She looks away from him, down to the food she's sawing in to. Probably the wrong knife, too, but this one is the sharpest. "Look at Videreyn," she says, "it was founded on lofty principles, all failed. A cause is only as good as those who uphold it."
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Aside from the senate, perhaps, though he is biased in his estimate of them: he, a hound to the royal family and their decrees, is no friend to dignified bones in lengthy cloaks. They would see him no differently in turn.
“You move too harshly. Your meal is not your enemy.” His mouth twists barely when he speaks. Fond sentiment.
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"Right, right," Jone mutters, selecting a different knife. The meat isn't rough, anyway; it's been cooked to a tenderness that leaves it almost falling before her fork, much less the knife. "You ordered this? It's new to me."
She isn't sure what the rich ate in Fedlhelm; maybe it was what the rich ate in Archades. Maybe Gabranth actually has preferences. Wonders may never cease.
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It is not that he does not know what to make of it, it is that he does not know how to embrace her devotion where it courses through him.
"Was it more familiar to you, what we ate before, in Videreyn?" He turns his fork, finishing off one course and leaving pause for yet more. Meager means are not his while he remains in capital. "A fine steak is common within most regions, after all, no matter how it is prepared."
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"If it was not fried or battered-- or both-- I hardly took notice of it." She couldn't afford it. "You've better taste than I."
There's a half-moment where it seems as though Jone is trying to decide something, before she looks Gabranth in the eye and winks. Yes, it's worth it to turn that innuendo in, damn whatever mood it'll put him in.
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“Of this I am aware.”
Perhaps that says much of her, as it speaks much of him in turn.
“Your wounds, they do not trouble you?”
He’d been concerned during the ceremony and subsequent meeting— he expected her to tire quickly, yet no sweat peppers her brow as she sits at table with him, no strain apparent in her bearing. Either she masks its presence well, or she is healing. Well and truly.
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Jone finishes a mouthful of food just as he asks, literal and figurative rumination interrupted by a fair question. She leans over a bit so she can pat her wounded side-- lightly, but still more than she would have managed otherwise.
She takes a drink before answering. "I'll have a pretty scar to add to all the ugly ones, nothing else."
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"There is no such thing as an ugly scar," he scoffs, ignoring a beautiful mirror-like dessert flecked with gold as it's set before them, its shining surface catching both city lights and stars alike. A master stroke of work from whichever chef was responsible for its creation, no doubt.
And to Gabranth, it is merely another meal, as he pays it no heed.
"All are triumphs. Proofs of conquest in survival."
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Luckily, Gabranth distracts her before she has to decide what spoon to destroy it with. Jone snorts, shaking her head. "No, Gabranth. Some really are... are evils writ upon the body."
Slipping back into that Archadian way of speech may be more convincing. It certainly has more decorum. She should try to keep up more, in his presence, but he makes her so bloody comfortable, these days.
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But he trusts her. And the weight in her voice, her accent as it slips through. A choice.
His brow twists, and then he finally moves instead to study the custard-like confection before them, cutting clean through one of its unbroken edges with a spoon. There is no portion to be taken away, no plates for their own servings. An intimate dessert. The staff chose presumptively, he thinks.
“Do you regret many of them, then?”
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Jone takes another spoonful of the desert-- it really is lovely-- before sitting back and thinking on how to answer. "I agree that wounds in battle are no thing to be ashamed of," she concedes lightly, "but scrabbles to escape, petty squabbling, traps and mistakes... I hold no pride in the evidence of marks."
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Most things are, in fact.
“But whatever the road it was you traveled to bring you here, I am glad to know it ended with you at my side. Emperor Gramis was correct in his choice, and his words today were no less far-sighted than that initial shrewd decision.”
He leans back in his seat, his arms folding. He'd not been called upon to offer his own endorsement at either the ceremony or its aftermath, and so instead he grants it here, in relative privacy and relative silence, witnessed only by a sprawling city with no visible end.
“You are a credit to the Magistrate. Let no one say otherwise.”
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"I'd point out some examples, but that would be quite untoward," she says dryly, without looking up from the sparkling gold flecks under her spoon.
She can't keep from smiling at his compliment, and the smile can't keep from going wry. "Ah, but if I cared what pettiness was said of me, I'd stoop to the tedious lows of defending myself against fools."
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It is no sweetness, he wears no smile. Where this carries potential for humor or a jabbing sentiment, Gabranth is firm-edged, in expression and posture alike.
He means this. As surely as any oath. It is unmistakable.
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battles you to the death in a fight to never sleep
There is a lesson to be learned here, and though he is certain she draws nearer to it every day, he does not know if she yet grasps it.
“Our dignity, our honor, remains ever shared. I beg you not forget it.”
glad (????) our insomnia synced up.
"Something so zealously protected is often fragile," she murmurs. She can't eat any more of the desert; it's making the roof of her mouth ache. She pushes it gently aside. "But your judgement has never lead me astray."
So it's presumably worth it, to strike out in haughty pride. People are the same everywhere.
Go team crippling exhaustion
The necessity of it, so precious a thing, demanded he do no less— even before seeing to her treatment. Had she died there, it would have been vital that not one soul lived to speak of it. To mark her human. Fallible. A stain on her memory and efforts.
“And I would do so again, gladly.”
collapses.
As much as Jone is aware she should be disgusted by the loss of life-- she isn't. They were all cunts. Gabranth did her a massive favor, and she didn't even realize until now, weeks later.
Gratefulness rises within her, far too earnest to bear, and she tempers it by imagining herself ripping off his clothes.
"I think we have different understandings of pride," she says evenly, though she's looking at him again as she sips her wine, calmly appreciative. "I like yours far better."
perishes but strongly and coolly
He does not need to know her perspective to know he is right in this, and thus he does not ask for it, instead focusing on the favor of her stare. The approval that lingers there.
At times she is so much the stray. An animal untamed, unused to the fine surroundings that now house it. This has only made him pleasantly certain of the fact that he does enjoy her company— no matter the difficulties that sometimes arise for their differing approach.
“It is only natural that you would.”
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types tags from the wilderness
wilderness tags back.
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finds typo in my prior tag, promptly expires
resurrection scroll tyvm.
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