|
A Tent Full of Misunderstandings |
|
|
|
|
|
|
+++++The air within the small tent was thick with tense silence, but outside, the soldiers shouted and laughed in drunken revelry. There were many things that Emrys had planned to say at that moment. He had constructed an entire an entire speech in his mind. He had revised it and rehearsed it too many times to count while his incessant pacing had worn a groove into the hard earth, but it crumbled apart like dust in his memory. He sat upon the wooden chair unable to move his lips, and lacking every word he had planned to move them with.
+++++Laid out upon Emrys' cot, Robin still had a complexion much like soured milk, but his -No, Emrys reminded himself, Robin was a woman. She had been one all along.- eyes were open and there was a lucid quality to them that had been absent for the past eight days and nights. "You know?" She asked then, ripping at the quiet that hung between them.
+++++"Yes." It was not the answer Emrys had wished to give, but it was the one that fell from his mouth. With a sigh, Robin turned her face from him. She looked small and fragile then, and the thought crossed Emrys' mind that the person before him was not Robin Dufour. The Robin Dufour that he knew was courageous and invincible with a natural, infectious confidence that could be shaken by nothing. And the Robin Dufour that he knew was a man. Emrys shoved the thought from his head. Whether Robin was a man or a woman, Robin was still Robin, and she was laying there because she had gone to battle in his stead.
+++++"Who else knows?" Robin asked, still facing away from Emrys.
+++++"Only Doctor Kent," Emrys replied, "he, he tended to your injuries." Emrys' face flushed as he recalled his own involvement in assisting the doctor and the manner in which he discovered Robin's secret, but he did not mention such things to her. Such a revelation would only worsen the fractured air between them, and besides, it was unimportant.
+++++Suddenly, Robin laughed and turned her head to look at the ceiling of the tent. However, the action seemed to cause her pain. She winced and quickly fell quiet again, reaching her left hand across her body to the spot where the arrow had penetrated the side of her chest. Emrys moved, concerned that the suture had torn or that beneath the flesh, the tip of the arrow that remained embedded there had created further internal injuries. Yet just as quickly, the wince became a bright, joking smile. "I wonder just what sort of a face the others would make if they found out." Robin turned her head back to Emrys, still smiling conspiratorially. "Sir Hayrick's head would likely explode at the mere thought of it."
+++++Emrys smiled along, but his heart was not in it. He still had not said what needed to be said the most. Emrys sighed deeply and clenched his hands into fists. It was strange, yet Emrys had never dreaded diplomatic negotiations half as much as this. Before his nerve left him again, he began, "Doctor Kent has recommended your removal from the battlefield, and I approved his recommendation. I'm sorry, Robin."
+++++The smile wore off of Robin's face, and she regarded Emrys with a flat, unreadable expression. Steadily, she asked, "Was the outcome of your decision based upon my condition?"
+++++"Yes. I assure you that it was wholly with your condition in mind that the recommendation was made and that I approved it." Inwardly, Emrys breathed a sigh of relief. The decision, though necessary, had been a difficult one for him to make. It was plain for anyone to see that being a soldier was more than a mere job to Robin; it was a core part of her life and identity. Emrys felt as if he were informing Robin that he had been forced to amputate her legs, and, for Robin, the information was likely just as difficult a blow to bear. However, she had taken the news well and understood his reasons even without his needing to explain. Or so Emrys thought.
+++++Robin met Emrys' gaze with a glare as hard and piercing as the sword she had so recently worn at her side. And had she been wearing her sword then, she looked as if she would have used it to split him down the middle. "So that's it?" Robin said in a cold, furious voice that Emrys had never heard from her before. "You approve of it, and so I am expected to wordlessly follow along. If I recall correctly, you seemed to approve highly of my qualities as a soldier when you believed that nature had stored my honor in my trousers instead of on my chest. It must have been mortifying for you, to think that someone with my condition could ever lift a sword, let alone wield it."
+++++"Yes, no. I did admire your skill as a soldier. I mean, I do admire your skill." Emrys floundered back in confusion. It was as if they were sparring with swords, and he had met a maelstrom of blows that he could neither dodge nor parry. His head spun as he attempted to come up with a response. The mention of honor and trousers in the same sentence only worsened matters for the young lord.
Naladi · Sun Jan 15, 2012 @ 11:24pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|