[She has striven to be everything that woman who had borne her wasn’t, so that she might prevent becoming her- just at a different stable, for a different master. She had chosen loyalty and servitude to keep her arms, she had let the master convince her she and the others were better than the Armless to keep her head high, she had cared for her coat and her hair to not look like a broken nag who’d foaled too many times, and she’d… she’s sharpened herself to dangerous. She was beautiful, and there was no changing that, but she would be so sharp and hard that anyone who tried it would come back bloody and regretful-
But the story Set weaves is beautiful.
His eyes closed, her slumped against the icy wall shivering intermittently… his words are warm. He speaks of a child not his blood but loved by him and who she assumed is his fellow goddess, a wife or sister or both. Of a boy who was smart and curious and loving in turn, the kind of boy… she thinks, the kind of son Gonta had been to Matsukaze. Was he not always waiting patiently, showing off eagerly when he learned a new medicinal plant, throwing himself into the tasks around the village to be worthy of the respect his father commanded? Had he not… made her almost think that if she were to have a child, that if that child might be born free, from a partner she chose…
Set’s eyes are open again. His hand hovers between them.
no subject
But the story Set weaves is beautiful.
His eyes closed, her slumped against the icy wall shivering intermittently… his words are warm. He speaks of a child not his blood but loved by him and who she assumed is his fellow goddess, a wife or sister or both. Of a boy who was smart and curious and loving in turn, the kind of boy… she thinks, the kind of son Gonta had been to Matsukaze. Was he not always waiting patiently, showing off eagerly when he learned a new medicinal plant, throwing himself into the tasks around the village to be worthy of the respect his father commanded? Had he not… made her almost think that if she were to have a child, that if that child might be born free, from a partner she chose…
Set’s eyes are open again. His hand hovers between them.
- and she takes it, slowly and quietly.]