Work Text:
Movement.
Action.
Always movement.
Always Action.
Sword play with her brother.
A prick. A smear of rust-red blood across her arm. Her cheek. Her wrist.
A press of fingers to the wound. Quick. Heedless.
And then she’s off again.
Parry. Thrust. Parry. Parry. Thrust.
She stumbles back into the dirt until she learns finally to thrust more than to parry. To move far more quickly that her opponent. To spin, to dodge, to weave. To never show the same cheek long enough for anyone to ever land more than just a glancing blow.
“Miss Hobart has told me much about you.”
Parry.
“How thrilling for you.”
Thrust.
If she were holding a rapier, her wrist would be trembling. But there is no rapier. Only herself, and a sea captain, and Vere.
Vere.
Now there’s a blow which has been landed, and landed hard. A crack across her heart. A blow enough to send her stumbling back, fingers smearing with ink that - to her mind - must look enough like blood. Her heart is pouring out across the page (for no confidant can bear witness to this pain, this grief). It must be secret. Kept between herself and her quill.
Her fingers curl against the paper - she will rip it out, pretend it never happened - her fingers curl around the paper, press like fingertips to wound, and she pauses. Black ink in place of rust-red blood.
The only sutures to her pain are these words - her own. The counsel she keeps - her own.
She lets the page rest free.
_____
Mariana comes to visit her so soon after she’d been landed the agony of such a blow. The visitation proves out Anne's fear that no matter how well one can love, being loved is not enough - and never enough with Marianna - to lance the boil that is her loneliness.
Mariana.
Slipping through her trembling, grasping fingers, and then out of her life again.
And now here is Miss Walker.
Anne circles her. Careful, careful with her footwork. Circles her delicately. Abandons her rapier for a pipe and spins up a merry tune upon the flute. Her fingers know the notes. She turns a broad smile. Drawls a witticism. Offers the patient ear of a confidant.
It is much the same as fighting, she has always believed, the art of seduction. It is nothing more than honing the skill of anticipating one’s opponent well before they chance to alight upon a thought themselves.
And Miss Walker - the frail, timid, blushing Little Miss that she is - should charm easily to her flute, should be taken easily in and taken easily under. She lures her with pretty words - well enough rehearsed by now for Anne to delight in the effect of her efforts - and Miss Walker is charmed.
Completely.
Utterly.
Bewilderingly quickly.
And Anne considers it a hit, not from pointed blade, but by the accounting of Miss Walker’s warm smiles, the tilt of her head, the touch of her hand.
And then - and then -
Vere’s invitation. Marriage. The pain of Mariana all over again.
The pain and frustration of Miss Walker leaving. Three weeks in the Lake District, unaccounted for by Anne in all her planning. In her pacing. In her well-measured thrusts and her self-allotted parries. Anne, circling closer, now finds herself out of rhythm. Out balance.
For time is absence. And absence is an unknown. One that Anne cannot control for, one in which Miss Walker might slip away.
Like Vere.
Like Mariana.
And then -
“If you went, the thing that seems complicated might sort itself out.”
Her foot slips.
For a moment her mask does too.
How strange - how strange, indeed. To be given counsel well enough that she, Anne Lister, should find comfort in it. Heed it. Be soothed by it. She who brushes away advisors like gnats about a steed. The men who underestimate her. The sister who nags her. The gossipy swarm of those in Halifax who vex her.
And yet Miss Walker, face tilting up towards her own, speaks so earnestly. Finds the very wound within Anne’s heart and cups it with careful fingers. Does not press. Is given the opportunity, and she does not press.
Anne lowers her rapier. Lowers her pipe.
Stands in shirtsleeves with neither weapon or music between them.
And just for a moment, she lets herself fall.
______
I wanted you to see it. I wanted you to know that I don’t care what anyone says about you.
The letter trembles in her had. She tells herself it is with anger - anger fueled by pure indignation and justifiable outrage. Rather she would like it to be pure. Would like to have justice on the side of her dismay. But there is weakness in her. Weakness that blanks out her mind in its trepidation. In horror. Fear. Hurt (such a damnable emotion, hurt). Miss Walker should cast her out now. Would have the very justice that Anne longs on her side if she were to point with a pretty finger towards the door and see her back through it.
But she doesn’t. She steps closer instead. And Anne trembles.
She has had long, bone-weary days filled with parry, parry, parry. A smear of rust when pricked. A finger pressed to weeping wound. Ink upon the page. The thrust of a blade as sharp as her tongue.
Motion.
To feel nothing.
Action.
To feel something.
Miss Walker meets her mouth with tender longing. The kiss rendered slow and hesitant as her own throat trembles, as her own eyes prick. No rust-red blood, only salted tears that she will not shed.
She steps close and ducks her head down, down until she finds her neck bowed to Miss Walker’s own height. Exposed. Vulnerable. She kisses Miss Walker and pulls away, certain she might lose all sense and finds herself too soon on bended knee, pleading into Miss Walker’s skirts if she does not draw back now.
Love me, love me, love me. Please.
Her heard beats the words she will not allow her head to say. Can only wrap tentative fingers around her pen - begs the pages to grant her heart its only wish - around her rapier - lowered still in confusion and loose within her grip - around her pipe - ah, her pipe. Her flute. Her sirens' call. The familiar notes are reedy now, as thin and thready as her pulse as she walks back to Shibden on trembling knees.
It was only supposed to a seduction.
It was only ever supposed to be her broad smile.
Her drawl of a witticism.
Her patient ear a confidant.
But Miss Walker hasn’t bothered with the game of love and war. She has stepped forward and plucked the dragging rapier from Anne’s grip, has played her own sweet music above the notes of Anne’s well-charmed flute.
She burns the letter.
Parry.
She does not cry to watch it flame.
______
Later, when laughter has rung through the halls of Crow’s Nest and nipped at the heels of Miss Priestley pretense of scandalized indignation, later when they are laying hand and hand on the coverlette of Miss Walker’s bed, Anne gazes at her, eyes unable to leave her face.
If and when you do find someone - someone who will defy the lot of them and make a conspicuous commitment to you - well, then she’ll be a very special and particular kind of person.
I just worry that person doesn't exist.
Not in this life.
She can still feel the warmth of Miss Walker around her fingers. She can still feel the hope blooming in her breast.
She had thrust into Miss Walker. Slowly. Reverently. A thrust with no intent or need to parry. With no intent to prick her and draw forth blood. Instead she’d caught her breath within her own mouth and kissed her as she’d smiled.
Thrust.
There’s something in the word that stops her. She turns it in her mind even as Miss Walker leans in and kisses her knuckles. Even as she watches her with bright, warm eyes.
Thrust. Parry.
Trust. Marry.
And its better, Anne thinks. A better way of being. She feels her shoulders soften.
Miss Walker sighs in happiness. And the hand in her own takes up the place of rapier, of pen, of flute. There is just skin against skin now. Fingers entwining and unwinding, entwining and unwinding.
Movement.
Action.
She holds Miss Walker’s hand and lies still.