"No." She looks sad as she shakes her head slightly. Sad and tired. "That would hardly be you hurting me. It would be me hurting myself, with you as the knife, and that is no new thing." After all, she has walked on the broken glass of him time and again ever since he came to Kirkwall.
"But no, you will not. Someone taught you to store them and keep them as I do, I think, but you will not, not any more than I will." Another slower shake of her head, a small sorrowful self-aware smile. "Not again."
No. She has gathered them all like wildflowers: every flaw she could find in his armor, every quick change of glance, every tense of his graceful fingers, change in his stance; every subject he deflected from, every time he smoothed his face and body like she might her skirt upon rising... but they will sit ever-after in the vast chateau of collected knowledge she had built in her mind. Battle-ready weapons made ornaments to be lifted, oiled, sharpened carefully, and replaced, never knowing blood.
Perhaps because it is the only way she knows how to hold him now.
no subject
"But no, you will not. Someone taught you to store them and keep them as I do, I think, but you will not, not any more than I will." Another slower shake of her head, a small sorrowful self-aware smile. "Not again."
No. She has gathered them all like wildflowers: every flaw she could find in his armor, every quick change of glance, every tense of his graceful fingers, change in his stance; every subject he deflected from, every time he smoothed his face and body like she might her skirt upon rising... but they will sit ever-after in the vast chateau of collected knowledge she had built in her mind. Battle-ready weapons made ornaments to be lifted, oiled, sharpened carefully, and replaced, never knowing blood.
Perhaps because it is the only way she knows how to hold him now.