Later, he will name this his mercy, that he allows Winnifred's slinking, shallow retreat, her shadow paltry like the diminishing gains of winter's last powdered snow.
That he holds himself as solid stone and lets the fox bride break herself on him, her convulsing body thrashing as it's thrown, chest forward, to meet him barrelling — as if the creatures knows nothing of how to proceed with the flesh it has possessed, but understands intrinsically that its deadened weight can serve as a battering ram.
That he lifts his sword, and the pale crescent of Bichen's passing weeps revelation on the bride's cheek, where whiskers peer like fresh spring seeds, half-sown.
That he swings, once. Cuts once. Slays once, cleanly. Tumbled, the soft-whispered scattering of her gore trips on the rounded tip of his boot. He steps back, the rolling swell of her eyes empty and lifeless.
That he wipes the blade of its red toll in the bride's veil, and purposes that same cloth to bind her head away from sight, before calling to Winnie: )
She might have loved you.
( A simple thing, to commemorate the dead in tragedy, in poetry, in reverence. To simplify them abstractly into something too distant to be known.
She might have loved Winnie, given the time. She might have loved anyone. )
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Later, he will name this his mercy, that he allows Winnifred's slinking, shallow retreat, her shadow paltry like the diminishing gains of winter's last powdered snow.
That he holds himself as solid stone and lets the fox bride break herself on him, her convulsing body thrashing as it's thrown, chest forward, to meet him barrelling — as if the creatures knows nothing of how to proceed with the flesh it has possessed, but understands intrinsically that its deadened weight can serve as a battering ram.
That he lifts his sword, and the pale crescent of Bichen's passing weeps revelation on the bride's cheek, where whiskers peer like fresh spring seeds, half-sown.
That he swings, once. Cuts once. Slays once, cleanly. Tumbled, the soft-whispered scattering of her gore trips on the rounded tip of his boot. He steps back, the rolling swell of her eyes empty and lifeless.
That he wipes the blade of its red toll in the bride's veil, and purposes that same cloth to bind her head away from sight, before calling to Winnie: )
She might have loved you.
( A simple thing, to commemorate the dead in tragedy, in poetry, in reverence. To simplify them abstractly into something too distant to be known.
She might have loved Winnie, given the time. She might have loved anyone. )