MABEL
Mabel had no need to repeat the utterance in a round of echoes; her eyes narrowing again, suspicious and forlorn all at once. Perhaps one day she’d learn how to better contain herself – from the shudders that rack her ribcage, from the sedition spreading into her form, from the portions and pieces of vengeance that inch out from her bones.
Besides, this other woman apparently had some need to prove herself too – sauntering, pandering to an audience already whittled away at the seams. The Ascended’s jaw clenched at the notions, at the presumptions, a dangerous narrowing of her eyes flickering again. Hadn’t she survived LongNight and monsters? And here was this stranger, drawing assumptions about her abilities? She almost snarled. She almost growled. She almost seethed. Instead, the notions came out in a mulish, bitter derision. “I didn’t say that.” The girl thought of whetstones, of sharpening, of knives thrown, of merely yearning to slash them across the throat of her sister’s murderer. “Just that I want to be better.” The waves bounded against her – she could hear them crawling back in – and she felt like a leaf. “We should all aim to improve.”
But then she quieted at the acceptance, as if she was perhaps a little pebble or stone, barely worth a glance. “Thank you.” And then her eyes went back to the world, to the surroundings, meandering further inward, where the forest lined the sand far more. “I want to know more advanced techniques. I’ve had several help me,” and sometimes she was successful, sometimes not. “But I don’t think I’m enough yet.”
Besides, this other woman apparently had some need to prove herself too – sauntering, pandering to an audience already whittled away at the seams. The Ascended’s jaw clenched at the notions, at the presumptions, a dangerous narrowing of her eyes flickering again. Hadn’t she survived LongNight and monsters? And here was this stranger, drawing assumptions about her abilities? She almost snarled. She almost growled. She almost seethed. Instead, the notions came out in a mulish, bitter derision. “I didn’t say that.” The girl thought of whetstones, of sharpening, of knives thrown, of merely yearning to slash them across the throat of her sister’s murderer. “Just that I want to be better.” The waves bounded against her – she could hear them crawling back in – and she felt like a leaf. “We should all aim to improve.”
But then she quieted at the acceptance, as if she was perhaps a little pebble or stone, barely worth a glance. “Thank you.” And then her eyes went back to the world, to the surroundings, meandering further inward, where the forest lined the sand far more. “I want to know more advanced techniques. I’ve had several help me,” and sometimes she was successful, sometimes not. “But I don’t think I’m enough yet.”
Let's go to war to make peace
Let's be cold to create heat
Let's be cold to create heat
