Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 5)

Ky finally understood him.

Was that an option for her, too? To just toss the hare aside and not have to eat anything tonight? To let her hollowness morph from emotional into physical emptiness? It seemed fitting.

She looked down at the meat. Or, perhaps, maybe she should keep it. Maybe she should cut an even bigger slice. Maybe that would help the wolves catch her scent if she went wandering off into the darkness to go find them.

Gaius glanced back at Ky, ignoring Sara's glare. "Not hungry?" he asked her, nodding at the little silver of meat in her hand. He could relate, but he wasn't sure she ought to follow his path. Should he be a grown-up and eat something so she'd follow his example?

She glanced at him, only barely keeping her face neutral rather than twisting it into the scowl she felt in her soul. How was Gaius of all people going to judge her for not eating? She'd probably eaten more at the adoption dinner alone than she'd seen him eat in the entire time they'd spent together. Including the meeting that ended the war. She briefly considered turning a snippy 'are you?' back on him to call out the hypocrisy. But she didn't quite have the courage to be a bitch just then. And she had the presence of mind to recognize that he was, again, not to blame for her feelings and she shouldn't be lashing out at him. "No."

"Mm, pity." Gaius turned away and reluctantly cut himself a generous slice. Sara gave a snort of disbelief, which he rewarded with a large bite into the meat. It tasted of nothing to him, and the texture turned his stomach, but he chewed as little as he could get away with and swallowed it. His shoulders jerked as his gag reflex nearly triggered, but he kept it down and went back for more.

She watched him in silence. Was he trying to bait her into getting hungry? Because it wasn't going to work. Him finally getting some calories in him for the first time this week was good for him, and she wasn't going to be guilted into eating just because he was fighting his eating disorder on her behalf.

It wasn't as if she'd caught her lack-of-hungry from him. Or her desire to self-harm, however passively, by refusing to eat.

Gaius made eye contact with her, shoulders jerking again on the second bite. This one was more difficult; the more he ate the less he wanted, and not in a happy filling kind of way. He felt ill even after eating so little, but he'd be damned if he stopped now. If he could eat, so could she. She had no excuse.

(they've got such a pissing contest going on xD)

She stared at him challengingly, meeting his gaze. What a change this was, from when she'd been terrified of breathing in front of him. Turned out a near-death experience -- well, she supposed, two near-death experiences -- was all it took to make her angry enough at him that she didn't have any time to be scared of him anymore.

Tadaaki felt the tension and didn't have any idea where Ky had found the balls to be so defiant of Gaius. She was the one who'd warned him to be careful around Gaius. Submissive. Obedient. And here she was defying him, somehow, even though he hadn't told her to do anything.

Ky was getting annoyed. He was manipulating her. She knew damn well he was manipulating her. He knew he was manipulating her. And yet it was fucking working. She huffed a sigh and resentfully took a bite of the meat, expression tight as she maintained her not-quite-glare.

Spoiler

Tadaaki rn xD

(Gaius: *in a staring match with his adopted niece as he eats way too much food for his shrunken stomach* Is this good parenting?)

"Ha," Gaius said simply, then rose and stumbled toward the woods, heaving out the contents of his stomach the moment he was far enough away and grabbing a tree to steady himself. Sara watched him, face tight but trying hard not to have any expression.

(Gaius: I have figured out teenagers, yes)

Ky gritted her teeth as she chewed, agitated. She couldn't help but feel like an asshole that she'd pushed him to the point of vomiting in an attempt to prove a point. But, then, he was a grown-ass man who could make his own choices. Hell, he made choices for an entire realm. It wasn't like it was her fault that he forced the matter. They could have both sat and watched the rest of the family eat and been fine. She wasn't sure she wanted to have much in common with him, but she'd be fine with this overlap. Some uncle-niece bonding, as it were.

The 'hah' rang in her ears. She'd just caved. Like she always fucking caved. To literally everyone ever. Like she'd keep caving. She be a weak, stupid, easily manipulated idiot for the rest of her wretched fucking life.

She pushed herself to her feet suddenly and strode towards the trees in the opposite direction than Gaius had gone. Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck all of them. They'd see how much she'd cave this time.

"Ky, come back," Sara called as two guards fell in behind her, one male and one female. Gaius was still collecting himself, shivering violently by the tree as he tried to quell the nausea.

"I have to pee," Ky muttered, throwing the rest of her meat down on the ground, turning a glare on the guards. "Pretty sure I can manage that on my own, I don't need help."

"We'll stay nearby even so," the female guard said warily. "We have strict orders miss, you know that."

"Well, I order you to stop," she said, wondering if that would work. She still wasn't sure how this whole noble thing worked, but she felt like perhaps it meant that she was able to make her own demands as well, seeing as she was now a Lord's daughter. Surely that held more authority than a guard.

The guards glanced at each other, then at Sara. Sara gave Ky a long, conflicted look, then dipped her head.
"Be back in five minutes, no more," she said to Ky, and the guards backed off.

Spoiler

Ky was flushing, but was delighted that that had somehow worked. She dipped her head. "Yes, ma'am."

She wasn't coming back.

She turned back towards the woods and strode further into the darkness.

Five minutes. That wasn't much of a head start, but hopefully, it may be enough. If she was lucky. She waited until she was certain her dark outline wouldn't be visible to the people sitting at the fire, since she assumed they were probably watching her go, then cut to the right and stopped by a tree with low-hanging branches. She hefted herself up a few branches and then crawled down the length, crawling onto another tree and another, staying off the ground and hiding all traces of her foot prints, until she was convinced it'd be hard to find her trail again, then dropped back to the ground and stalked away.

She didn't know where she was going. Or what she was going to do. Perhaps she'd just keep walking until she ran into a wolf or mountain cat or (oh gosh I've already forgotten) Goat Man himself. Or maybe she'd take off her coat and bury herself in the snow and see how long it would take her to freeze to death. Maybe there was a pond nearby that she could jump into? She heard hypothermia set in quick up here.