Yes. [ There is no hesitation. ] What would her future have been? Inheriting our losing battle, or trying to eke out some life small enough to never touch the horrors all around? If she lived to grow up at all.
[Speaking her as if she existed, as if she had actually lived--maybe it's a mistake. It was a dream, is what Darras has told himself. It was a dream, that they could be happy in amid a series of dangers and horrors, in amid a world threatening to fall to pieces. He stares into the fire.]
One way or another, she would have. She had us. We would have done anything for her.
That resistance was never going to survive, let alone win. Even if we all escaped, what life could we have given her with half the world enslaved and the rest living in fear?
[ Her grip is tight on his knee, fingers curling into the fabric of his pants. She releases them, smooths it flat again. ]
There was a portion of the dream where Flint and I sat on the porch talking while the baby slept. [ She touches the center of her chest in absent indication. ] And when we spoke of the future and I looked at her, all I felt was dread. At what I'd gotten her into. What I might leave her to face. If the choice is ever real--. [ She shakes her head. ]
[Abruptly, Darras leans to set down his wine. He has to lean away from her a little in the process, but that makes it easier to take her hand when he turns back to her.]
Did you feel that when it was us together with her?
[The swamp, the ground squashy underfoot. Lunch and a boat and a map, and the three of them. So much of it has gone soft and unfocused, but the core if it, Darras remembers well.]
[His fingers laced through hers, his rings flashing in the light. Her hand is cool against his, a familiar press.]
I remember we came to a point, when we realized that she was going to be born. And we decided. That wasn't selfishness. That wasn't a mistake. That was hope. And after that--I remember talking with Silver. And she was there. And I told him that I wasn't frightened, because I wasn't. I remember that, not being frightened, because she was the future. She made the world worth living in. She made it worth saving, for her. We need that. All of us, that we, not just you and me. If we don't have that, we don't have anything.
[ She sets down her wine and brings her other hand, still warm from the cup, to join their others, the pad of her thumb stroked into the web between his and forefinger. Her eyes are on their hands, too, and she shakes her head, just once back and forth. As she leans over them, the heavy garnet ring she wears on a chain around her neck swings to press against her sweater from the inside, and the arrowhead on its cord beside. ]
But we were failing her. We were going to fail her. [ She's quiet a moment, like she might say more, that sense of words built up and turned over he's come to recognize. But she swallows them back down and just squeezes his hand. ] We just have to win this war while we still can. And then we can give all this up for good, like we said. Otherwise-- [ she shakes her head again, quicker this time and for longer ] I can't.
[He'd waited through that quiet, holding so she had space to say whatever she wanted to say. They've known each other for so long. The balance that they'd once had, holding back secrets while still showing each other more than they showed anyone else--it's made for a peculiar sort of comfortable, a particular pattern to their relationship. He takes her hands and pulls them to him, turns them so he can kiss her knuckles--one hand, then the other.]
I know. I wouldn't ask you to. That's not what this is. [He presses another kiss to her hand, sealing that promise.] We'll win the war. We'll give it up. We are going to do that, Yseult. We'll have what we want. It will happen. I don't want you to be thinking of the future with fear. She might not be a prediction, a sure thing, but she's our prophecy. You and I will have something after all of this is done. And it will be better for the work that's done here.
[ When Yseult nods it's near enough for her hair to brush his jaw, before she lifts her head to press a kiss to his cheek. The hand she slips free of his hold is only to set on his opposite cheek, thumb swiped tenderly across the bone. She leaves it there for another moment, before drawing away enough to twist and collect her wine again.
And his, too, which she offers back to Darras as she rearranges herself comfortably at his side again. There's an air of closing a file, opening another. ]
[Kissed, and kissed well, Darras takes back his wine. Hot wine and a hot wife, what more can a man ask for?]
You don't want to know how often and how keenly I talk of you outside of dreaming, never mind in dreams where I've become close mates and confidants with someone. You'll push me out that window. After you kiss me agian.
[ She obliges him with another kiss, this one a closed-lip press so she can hum a noise of distaste as she does it. Not at the kiss itself, of course. Everything else. ]
I might just. What have you been telling them about me, precisely?
[He grabs for her hand so she can't flick his shoulder again. And, you know, just because he wants to hold her hand.]
I didn't speak of you that much. Even then, I remember knowing that you didn't want yourself to be too known. I love knowing you, so I know that about you.
They might. [Hope, for two seconds, before he corrects himself:] Likely they won't. But it was only a dream, they'll tell themselves. Or you could give them something to distract them.
[He shrugs, without looking at her, while still looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Very casual and matter-of-fact, this is a serious suggestion--]
Can't you do a handstand and juggle with your feet?
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[Speaking her as if she existed, as if she had actually lived--maybe it's a mistake. It was a dream, is what Darras has told himself. It was a dream, that they could be happy in amid a series of dangers and horrors, in amid a world threatening to fall to pieces. He stares into the fire.]
One way or another, she would have. She had us. We would have done anything for her.
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[ Her grip is tight on his knee, fingers curling into the fabric of his pants. She releases them, smooths it flat again. ]
There was a portion of the dream where Flint and I sat on the porch talking while the baby slept. [ She touches the center of her chest in absent indication. ] And when we spoke of the future and I looked at her, all I felt was dread. At what I'd gotten her into. What I might leave her to face. If the choice is ever real--. [ She shakes her head. ]
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Did you feel that when it was us together with her?
[The swamp, the ground squashy underfoot. Lunch and a boat and a map, and the three of them. So much of it has gone soft and unfocused, but the core if it, Darras remembers well.]
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No. But to consign her to that just because we were happy for a time would be selfish. Like our choice in the last dream was selfish.
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[His fingers laced through hers, his rings flashing in the light. Her hand is cool against his, a familiar press.]
I remember we came to a point, when we realized that she was going to be born. And we decided. That wasn't selfishness. That wasn't a mistake. That was hope. And after that--I remember talking with Silver. And she was there. And I told him that I wasn't frightened, because I wasn't. I remember that, not being frightened, because she was the future. She made the world worth living in. She made it worth saving, for her. We need that. All of us, that we, not just you and me. If we don't have that, we don't have anything.
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But we were failing her. We were going to fail her. [ She's quiet a moment, like she might say more, that sense of words built up and turned over he's come to recognize. But she swallows them back down and just squeezes his hand. ] We just have to win this war while we still can. And then we can give all this up for good, like we said. Otherwise-- [ she shakes her head again, quicker this time and for longer ] I can't.
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[He'd waited through that quiet, holding so she had space to say whatever she wanted to say. They've known each other for so long. The balance that they'd once had, holding back secrets while still showing each other more than they showed anyone else--it's made for a peculiar sort of comfortable, a particular pattern to their relationship. He takes her hands and pulls them to him, turns them so he can kiss her knuckles--one hand, then the other.]
I know. I wouldn't ask you to. That's not what this is. [He presses another kiss to her hand, sealing that promise.] We'll win the war. We'll give it up. We are going to do that, Yseult. We'll have what we want. It will happen. I don't want you to be thinking of the future with fear. She might not be a prediction, a sure thing, but she's our prophecy. You and I will have something after all of this is done. And it will be better for the work that's done here.
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And his, too, which she offers back to Darras as she rearranges herself comfortably at his side again. There's an air of closing a file, opening another. ]
So you were confiding in Silver?
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You don't want to know how often and how keenly I talk of you outside of dreaming, never mind in dreams where I've become close mates and confidants with someone. You'll push me out that window. After you kiss me agian.
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I might just. What have you been telling them about me, precisely?
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Of course I said you've got freckles on the backs of your knees.
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[Very serious. He casts his eyes up toward the ceiling to try to disguise his smile.]
And I talked about how great of a mother you were. Will be.
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I'd rather a dozen poems about freckles than that.
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Really. Even if I'm more complimentary about it? And that's hard to imagine, I know, given how I speak of your freckles.
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[He grabs for her hand so she can't flick his shoulder again. And, you know, just because he wants to hold her hand.]
I didn't speak of you that much. Even then, I remember knowing that you didn't want yourself to be too known. I love knowing you, so I know that about you.
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You do. Only you get to know these things. [ Or so she'd prefer, anyway. ] Though they may not forget the baby.
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Can't you do a handstand and juggle with your feet?
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