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Etain sat rigid under Mender’s needle, feeling the pull and pinch of it as the medicae stitched up her brow. Etain's face still ached. Her limbs were leaden. She'd likely piss blood by morning. Each joint protesting like rusty hinges. But Agatha’s words settled into her bones like warmth in winter. Like slow coals in a hearth. Eight hundred blades under the Black. Families, traders, and smiths. A place you earned, not one you were born into. It sounded more honest than anything she’d heard in months.
Etain’s knuckles still bore the dirt from the melee field, and as the firelight played along the ridges of her battered hand, she thought about the name she carried, D’Aramond, and all it had bought her. The right to ride. The pressure to win. Her brother inherited their father’s lands, and she was handed a horse and a set of well-worn expectations. She didn’t begrudge Arius. He was never made for battle.
But that left her to sharpen the name on steel and grit.
She didn’t answer straightaway. She looked at the wine, dark and red as heart’s blood, and then at Agatha. At Mender. No masks on either of them. No pretense. Just calloused hands and worn steel. “Not easy’s fine,” Etain muttered. She shifted, jaw tensing slightly as Mender worked a knot through her brow. “Alright, then.” The knight grunted. Agatha’s cup touched hers, and Etain answered with a quiet tap of her own.
“You got me, Captain. Under the Black.” She drank, swallowed, let the wine sear down her throat, and exhaled slow.
Etain’s knuckles still bore the dirt from the melee field, and as the firelight played along the ridges of her battered hand, she thought about the name she carried, D’Aramond, and all it had bought her. The right to ride. The pressure to win. Her brother inherited their father’s lands, and she was handed a horse and a set of well-worn expectations. She didn’t begrudge Arius. He was never made for battle.
But that left her to sharpen the name on steel and grit.
She didn’t answer straightaway. She looked at the wine, dark and red as heart’s blood, and then at Agatha. At Mender. No masks on either of them. No pretense. Just calloused hands and worn steel. “Not easy’s fine,” Etain muttered. She shifted, jaw tensing slightly as Mender worked a knot through her brow. “Alright, then.” The knight grunted. Agatha’s cup touched hers, and Etain answered with a quiet tap of her own.
“You got me, Captain. Under the Black.” She drank, swallowed, let the wine sear down her throat, and exhaled slow.
