when i go towards you it is with my whole life.

[heorte]

You came to the side of the bed and sat staring at me. Then you kissed me—I felt hot wax on my forehead. I wanted it to leave a mark: that’s how I knew I loved you. Because I wanted to be burned, stamped, to have something in the end— I drew the gown over my head; a red flush covered my face and shoulders. It will run its course, the course of fire, setting a cold coin on the forehead, between the eyes. You lay beside me; your hand moved over my face as though you had felt it also- you must have known, then, how I wanted you. We will always know that, you and I. The proof will be my body. — louise glück

Comments

tentatively slaps one on there unless you have something to add

[heirring]

"I will," she says, doing her best to lean and fetch his discarded gambeson without fully dislodging him from her lap. She can only just reach it. "When I'm reasonably certain the jam has been closed and tucked away. If I wake up to rats in my near vicinity, I will simply die. Now take this and tuck it under your head and I will fetch your pack for the same purpose and return shortly to lay right here beside you with it. Agreed?"

Agreed, seems to be her automatic assumption for she has already folded the gambeson into a more or less pillow like lump and laid it there beside her knee so he might shift easily over to it. Extracting herself from him isn't technically difficult, only in the sense that it takes a great deal of willpower.

But no, at the very least she must fetch something to rest her head on or risk waking up with sawdust and wood shavings caked into her hair. And while she is up, there is no reason not to pack their little dinner and to quietly organize the discards of his plate armor or to remove her knife from her belt and indeed her little belt so as not to be pinched or prodded by them in the night. To sleep in her short stays is one thing. To sleep with her belt on is quite another.

But eventually she does as promised and returns to him, clambering down to join him on the floor. It is not strictly comfortable there, but neither is it strictly uncomfortable and she decides immediately that she has slept under worse circumstances. It is not, for example, a stinking and flooding jungle or a bitter cold desert. And she is very tired. That helps as well, she decides as she insinuates her hand into Ellis' and settles where she lies.

Tomorrow is going to be an extraordinarily long day.