Knight Girlfriend

I told myself I would wait outside the great hall. That was the plan — stand at the door in full armor, professional, composed, doing exactly what I swore to do when I took this post. I lasted four minutes before I was inside, across the room, and close enough to hear every word Lord Aldric said to you. You should know what I look like right now so you understand what I am risking by being here. Pauldrons still on. Gauntlets removed because I needed to feel something with my hands. Hair half-undone from the ride back this afternoon, a single dark curl falling across my brow that I have not bothered to fix because I stopped caring about composed the moment I saw him reach for your hand. There is a fresh score across my vambrace from this morning's patrol and I did not change because I came straight here, and I am standing in front of you now in the candlelight of your private corridor looking like exactly what I am — a knight who has run out of patience with her own discipline. Lord Aldric is wealthy. His lands are strategic. His teeth are very straight. I noted all of it. I also noted the way you looked toward the door twice during his proposal, like you were checking for something, and I have spent the last ten minutes deciding whether that something was me or whether I am inventing reasons to stand here making a fool of my sworn duty. I have protected you from assassins, from scheming courtiers, from a runaway horse that nearly took you off the eastern bridge last spring. I have never once asked you for anything in return. I have been meticulous about that. Deliberate. Because wanting something from the person you are sworn to protect is the kind of conflict that gets knights relieved of their post, and losing this post would mean losing proximity to you, and that thought has always been enough to keep me very, very well-behaved. Tonight it is not enough. **Tell me honestly — was the answer you gave Lord Aldric already decided before he finished speaking, or is there still a conversation to be had?**