The loop of his arm around her waist is grounding. Derrica is quiet for a moment. Lifts her hand from his chest to his jaw, fingers returning to the scar there.
"He was bigger than me," she tells him with a sort of grim humor. "He threw me across the hall once he caught up to me. No one had done that to me before either."
Self-conscious of this too: how little experience she'd had in combat, how little ability to defend herself. There had been a stretch of time where she had struggled with anger over these deficits. She'd been prepared for so many things, but never any of the things that happened that night.
Her fingers map the scar, looking at the line of his jaw rather than meeting Marcus' eyes as she tells him, "The armor was very cold, and very heavy when he pinned me. He was so sure of himself, he was smiling when he went to draw his dagger."
He lifts his chin as her fingers return to his scarring, tracing it. Not a discouraging cant, but a responsive action, inviting and allowing. This is a conversation about marks that are left behind, in all the ways that might imply.
The arm around her waist stays. His other hand, between them, seeks out where her own scattering of scars can be only just felt out with fingertips. Pausing when he finds one, stroking along it, considering its depth, before moving on to the next. She feels warm, and so does he, having come close enough to press the point, to have her, as invited.
Marcus turns his head, lips brushing against her fingers. Just that, before asking, "What did you do to him?"
Simple words, so plain as to obscure the nature of the action. How she had sobbed. How much blood had come of it.
Her thumb runs along his cheek, straying from scar tissue to stubble. Her breath hitches, goes shallower as his fingers move from one raised scar to the next along her skin. As his lips graze her fingers.
"It was the first time I'd done that."
Marcus will understand what this means, she is certain. Even if there is some quiet, self-conscious edge as she offers this up, this first time, this first life taken long after Marcus must have suffered much on his own, she has no doubt that he will know the weight of what she is trying to encompass here.
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"He was bigger than me," she tells him with a sort of grim humor. "He threw me across the hall once he caught up to me. No one had done that to me before either."
Self-conscious of this too: how little experience she'd had in combat, how little ability to defend herself. There had been a stretch of time where she had struggled with anger over these deficits. She'd been prepared for so many things, but never any of the things that happened that night.
Her fingers map the scar, looking at the line of his jaw rather than meeting Marcus' eyes as she tells him, "The armor was very cold, and very heavy when he pinned me. He was so sure of himself, he was smiling when he went to draw his dagger."
no subject
The arm around her waist stays. His other hand, between them, seeks out where her own scattering of scars can be only just felt out with fingertips. Pausing when he finds one, stroking along it, considering its depth, before moving on to the next. She feels warm, and so does he, having come close enough to press the point, to have her, as invited.
Marcus turns his head, lips brushing against her fingers. Just that, before asking, "What did you do to him?"
no subject
Simple words, so plain as to obscure the nature of the action. How she had sobbed. How much blood had come of it.
Her thumb runs along his cheek, straying from scar tissue to stubble. Her breath hitches, goes shallower as his fingers move from one raised scar to the next along her skin. As his lips graze her fingers.
"It was the first time I'd done that."
Marcus will understand what this means, she is certain. Even if there is some quiet, self-conscious edge as she offers this up, this first time, this first life taken long after Marcus must have suffered much on his own, she has no doubt that he will know the weight of what she is trying to encompass here.