[ Silence reigns and spreads and propagates with the end of Winnifred's story. He listens, and downfall of red rain hastens, and the patter of it on their cloth defences threatens siege. He listens, and the girl's empty candour would melt silver on a mirror.
He listens, and he shivers for the ache of her tale, but he denies the instinct to recoil. A man persuaded to his beastly instincts by the game of three, at the provocation of a fourth. The stink of blood and flesh torn raw and the fat of human meat, gravel and gristle, for the win of a woman's hand, at the urging of an... apple. ]
The man stole a wife from her home.
[ Who might have been a mother, she, who might have held a true, soft babe. Might have cradled him to chest and shoulder and given him blessings and a name, the hundredth day after, if only she were not wrested and stolen, if she were not — ]
Imprisoned, dishonoured, perhaps defiled her. [ White of his eyes an animal, sharpened thing. 'Romantic.' ] This is your romance?
no subject
He listens, and he shivers for the ache of her tale, but he denies the instinct to recoil. A man persuaded to his beastly instincts by the game of three, at the provocation of a fourth. The stink of blood and flesh torn raw and the fat of human meat, gravel and gristle, for the win of a woman's hand, at the urging of an... apple. ]
The man stole a wife from her home.
[ Who might have been a mother, she, who might have held a true, soft babe. Might have cradled him to chest and shoulder and given him blessings and a name, the hundredth day after, if only she were not wrested and stolen, if she were not — ]
Imprisoned, dishonoured, perhaps defiled her. [ White of his eyes an animal, sharpened thing. 'Romantic.' ] This is your romance?