Chapter Text
Prompt: any, any, I am coming home to you / with my own blood in my mouth
He knows it the moment she tries to brush past him with her head down, a creeping wrongness that burrows deeper into him when he catches her arm and her face turns from him, for he’s never known Susan not to hold her head high, come what may. It chills him, despite the warm Tashbaan winds; even as he takes her chin in gentle fingers, even as her defiant eyes meet his, shining, all delicate pride on the verge of shattering.
The blood marking her lip tells its story more clearly than Ed could ever want, but the more he looks, the more he sees: the loose strands pulled from her perfect coiffure, the seam of her dress pulled slightly askew, her hands clenched into fists so tight he fears she may harm herself, and it’s all he can do to temper his own rage, to swallow his revulsion in deference to hers and ask, in the steel-smooth voice of justice, “What has Rabadash done to you, Su?”