Work Text:
The first thing she cuts out is his tongue.
It should be his hand, it should be both of his hands, because he laid those hands on her Sylvia. Her beloved Sylvia. Her sun, moon, and stars. And laying those hands on any girl, on anyone, who sobbed and trapped-fox-twisted to get away, would be enough for him to deserve seeing his own fingers dangle from her belt. But Sylvia’s never been just anyone, and she should cut off his hands first.
But when his eyes land on hers, when his mouth opens, when he gets out the first choked syllable— “Val—”
The twist of her blade into his mouth is more flinch than fury.
It’s been six months since the exile, since the road of hard-packed dust under her feet, since the bandits and the fistfight, the bargain and the blood in her mouth.
Six months of her men at her back, no matter what. Six months to practice sword fighting and knife-throwing and stepping so light the night itself blankets her tracks. Six months to let her hair grow long and thick; to fix her clothing so it flatters what she wants and flattens the rest; to consider the irony that only in villainous company can she be a gentlewoman.
Six months since anyone used her old name.
She doesn’t want to hear it in her old friend’s voice.
She never will; the word drowns in a gurgle.
His eyes are wide, wild; even with his voice severed, she can see the recognition flashing there.
But then she takes his hands, in a very different sense than the way she used to take his hands when both of them were gentlemen and she could imagine loving no one else more, and then he is bleeding and she signals her men not to touch him where he lays gasping cries into the dirt, because this is not for him, after all.
Sylvia’s back is pressed to the wall; her hair is strewn wildly about her face; she’s shaking with terror. She looks up, and it’s been so long, too long, since they’ve seen each other, and she is breathtakingly gorgeous, but more importantly, she is afraid, and she doesn’t have to be afraid anymore, but how would she know that, when she doesn’t recognize her rescuer—
It’s been such a long time since she looked Sylvia in the eyes. It takes her too long to realize her hair curtains her eyes. It never did that before. She pulls it from her face, and their eyes meet.
She is not a gentleman anymore. She is a highway bandit and a wild woman, and she is not sure which is worse—
But Sylvia’s snarl breaks into something like relief. Tears well in her eyes.
When Sylvia steps toward her, the rest of the world does not exist — not the men or the blade or the once-friend bleeding out beside them.
“Lady,” Sylvia says, and her voice is cracked, but the old humor is there, the playfulness, the teasing, and even if it weren’t, the word itself would be enough. The word, and the recognition in her eyes. “Lady, what is thy name?”
And Valeria smiles.