[Head tilted, he watches her. How calm she is, the tiny smile on her face. The way she sits in the sand as if this isn't the first time she finds herself in a place like this, there's no tugging on the hemline of her dress. No fidgeting with the lowcut front of her bodies. No strained breath from being confined in the restricting fabric.
He pulls off a piece of the buttered roll, popping it in to his mouth, chewing slowly.]
That is what she knew me as, for most of her life. [The Black General of the Second Army, the Grisha General. Kirigan. That is all anyone knew him as, as friends and soldiers died around him, as the world changed but not enough.
But he was no more Kirigan than he was Gleb. Or Eryk. Or a thousand other names and titles that he took for himself along the way. His lips press together, a white line in his pale face, half-hidden by the scruff of beard.]
My real name is- Aleksander. [That slight pause before speaking, eyes cutting from her face to watch the school building in the background.]
no subject
He pulls off a piece of the buttered roll, popping it in to his mouth, chewing slowly.]
That is what she knew me as, for most of her life. [The Black General of the Second Army, the Grisha General. Kirigan. That is all anyone knew him as, as friends and soldiers died around him, as the world changed but not enough.
But he was no more Kirigan than he was Gleb. Or Eryk. Or a thousand other names and titles that he took for himself along the way. His lips press together, a white line in his pale face, half-hidden by the scruff of beard.]
My real name is- Aleksander. [That slight pause before speaking, eyes cutting from her face to watch the school building in the background.]