—
His regard of the stranger does not change with either the smile or the question the other man turns on him. The general has always been a patient man, for errors came with hasty decisions, and errors for him meant lives.
There are many, he could say, who are not lonely; lovers, children, friends. He had been lonely, an ache that only dulled with her, his head in her lap, her touch rain-light on his skin, her voice the whisper of the wind, of the sea, in his ear. But Martell - Martell isn’t lonely.
“Some are only alone,” he returns, and at last he smiles.
It doesn’t vanish, though he raises a brow at the third question the man asks. He wonders, wryly, if the scarred stranger can only speak in questions - a kind of curse - or if there is some underlying reason he is being pressed for answers both real and rhetorical. If he were still himself, he might have answered curtly, and turned away. But that man is buried (waiting, not dead) and Martell does not mind the question.
“I was tired of walking,” he says, and turns his gaze away from where he’d been idly wondering at the story of each scar the other man bore, on lip and eye and chest and leg, his skin like a well-worn map. “I’m told there’s a city south of here, called Solterra - do you know how much farther?”
@Vercingtorix
There are many, he could say, who are not lonely; lovers, children, friends. He had been lonely, an ache that only dulled with her, his head in her lap, her touch rain-light on his skin, her voice the whisper of the wind, of the sea, in his ear. But Martell - Martell isn’t lonely.
“Some are only alone,” he returns, and at last he smiles.
It doesn’t vanish, though he raises a brow at the third question the man asks. He wonders, wryly, if the scarred stranger can only speak in questions - a kind of curse - or if there is some underlying reason he is being pressed for answers both real and rhetorical. If he were still himself, he might have answered curtly, and turned away. But that man is buried (waiting, not dead) and Martell does not mind the question.
“I was tired of walking,” he says, and turns his gaze away from where he’d been idly wondering at the story of each scar the other man bore, on lip and eye and chest and leg, his skin like a well-worn map. “I’m told there’s a city south of here, called Solterra - do you know how much farther?”
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