corrielle

Day 9

In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Title: Rules of the Game
Fandom: Willow
Rating: R
Pairing: Sorsha/Madmartigan
Summary: Two vignettes. Two points of view. One true love between a princess and her accidental hero of a husband.
Author's Notes: Over the Christmas holidays, it came to my attention that Rae had never seen Willow all the way through. This was something we had to fix at once. Willow is one of those movies that permeated my childhood to such a degree that I can't even begin to talk about how much it influenced me. I love it still, and there's not nearly enough fic for it. On the drive home after we'd rewatched, these two snippets insistently suggested themselves to me.

He sometimes forgets she grew up with soldiers, and her mouth is as vulgar as any man's. The first time her practice blade smacks against his thigh at full speed, he curses loudly, but bites off the end when he remembers it's his wife he's cursing at. She only smiles and steps back, arms open, inviting his attack. Later, when she is on her back, blunt end of his wooden blade at her throat, she spits out a string of words so vile that the other men in the practice yard look at her askance. He grins and offers her a hand up.

"It's good we never crossed blades in earnest," he says. "I would have ended up missing a leg, or you a throat."

"It would have been a shame about your leg," she says with mock sympathy.

"It would have been a shame about your throat," he says, and his eyes linger on the trail his lips traveled down her pale, white neck the night before.

At this, she blushes.

For all her swagger, for all her confidence with a sword, she can be oddly shy when they are alone. She comes to their bed with curious, unpracticed enthusiasm, but the first time their eyes meet while they are making love, her eyes go wide and her breath catches in her throat. She turns her head to the side and stares at their clasped hands as the red flush of embarrassment creeps over her face and neck.

He wants very badly to tease her about looking away, but he knows he shouldn't. She's trusted him enough to show him weakness, and he refuses to repay her trust with shame. Instead, he kisses her copper hair at her temple as their bodies move together, and she tightens her grip on his hand.

Someday, she will look back at him as he takes her, but until then, he supposes he'll have to make do with the smooth lines of her neck, the spill of her hair on the pillow, and the way her lips curve slowly into a contented smile.

For now, it is more than enough.

*****

She has never been a proper girl. Since she can remember, she has been more concerned with sharp swords, good armor, and well-trimmed fletching than she has been with hair and shoes and dresses. Her mother taught her nothing of what it meant to be a woman, and the soldiers who raised her only taught her coarse jokes and a rudimentary knowledge of what men and women did when they went to bed together.

None of them ever taught her to flirt, and it irks her. Not only because it is something other women in the castle seem to do as easily as breathing, but because her husband also seems to be quite accomplished at it. With a few strokes of his fingers against the back of her hand, a palm against her waist, a whispered word at the right moment, he can easily undo her, and what's worse, he is insufferably aware of it.

Sometimes, she feels as if she's been set the task of playing a very important game, but someone has forgotten to explain the rules to her.

So, she does what any swordsman would when faced with a new opponent's unfamiliar style. She observes, and she learns.

The trick, she gathers, is to touch and smile and move in a way that is both extremely intimate where the two of them are concerned and completely innocent to anyone else passing by. She tests her guess by brushing her fingers down the lower half of his spine while they sit next to each other at dinner.

Later, when the two of them stand before the great fire in the hall in a circle of lords and ladies, she reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear, and she lets her nails graze the side of his neck as she brings her hand down. His eyes flutter closed for a moment, but he doesn't miss a beat of the conversation.

When they go up to their chamber, a servant is hastily building up their fire. She sits on the bed to wait and stretches languorously, arching her back and making sure that her dress pulls taut against her chest. She pretends not to notice him staring.

As soon as the servant leaves, he mutters, "Finally," and then he's next to her, kissing her insistently, mouth hot on hers as he unlaces the front of her dress. As she steps out of her clothes and lets him pull her into bed with him, she allows herself a satisfied smile.

She's beginning to understand the rules of the game.