I Hate How Much I Still Want You

STOP THE CARRIAGE—

STOP!

Stop just— just wait, please, I beg of you!

What am I doing here?

What are you doing here is a far more important question— and I deserve an answer. Do you honestly think this will solve anything? Running from your problems, from this— us?

Why? W-Why are you doing this?

You know as well as I do that the armies to the south draw nearer every day that passes. If you truly cared about duty and honour, you’d be staying here protecting your own people, your family. We… we’ve talked about this, many times. I know you might hate me right now; I know we said we would never speak again but— but when I found out what you were planning on doing, I had to… I had to stop you.

I-I’m sorry…

But meeting the enemy on a battlefield in their own territory will solve nothing. I don’t care if you say that there are hundreds of you, armed and ready to fight. There are thousands of them… and you will be outnumbered and overwhelmed, long before you have driven your sword through even one of them. You will die for nothing!

How could you do this? You told me you wouldn’t do this, that you would never throw your life away for something as petty as this – politics you said were ridiculous in their beginning, just old men squabbling over food and land and power.

You said you’d stay…

Get out of the carriage. Please.

You… you can’t go – not yet – not until you’ve heard everything that I have to say.

I know… I know I shouldn’t be here. Do you think this is what I want? To be here, fighting with you over something so stupid, something I thought you had the sense never to do. I know you told me you never wanted to see me again. Believe me, I intended to keep my promise.

But I don’t care anymore, alright?

Come back with me.

Forget everything I said, everything that happened between us. Just come back to our home, to the lake, to the future we were ready to build before everything fell apart.

I know you say it is too late – that the damage has been done, the die cast, the prophecy written. But I refuse to accept any version of a life lived in your absence.

Don’t make me say anymore… please. Not here, not in front of all these grizzled soldiers. This is humiliating enough as it is. Just come back with me…

You won’t? God, I hate you. I despise you so much—

Why are you being so cruel? You do not know the dangers that wait for you out on those moors. I know… you are strong and able; you are a better fighter than any I’ve ever known, I don’t doubt that you will be brave and valiant. But this is not your fight.

Your fight is here, with me – fighting for us, our future, our… love.

Do you honestly want me to do this here— because if you think I’m too afraid, I am not.

I may be embarrassed in this moment, but it is you that was always so afraid of what they might think. I can see now that you still are; it’s in your eyes, in the trembling of your hand as you stay your blade. You are terrified. I know it is not me you fear.

No… you fear how I make you feel.

Come with me, let us be done with all this madness…

No?

Fine. You leave me no choice. If you wish for an audience, you shall have one. But I am not the same girl you left behind. I am not ashamed of our love, even if you still are. I do not intend to hold back until you have heard every word. Then, if you still wish to waste your last days fighting a bloody battle only to die a coward, that is your choice.

I did not marry him.