#DailyLines #MOBY #WrittenINMyOWNHeartsBLOOD #Book8 #gettingreadytogotowardoesntjustmeanpacking

“You said you were afraid,” I said quietly, eyes on the spools of coarse thread and twists of silk floss I was stowing in a wooden box. “But that won’t stop you doing what you think you have to do, will it? _I’m_ afraid _for_ you—and that certainly won’t stop you, either.” I was careful to speak without bitterness, but he was as sensitive to tones of voice this morning as I was.

He paused for a moment, looking down at his shining shoe-buckles, then lifted his head and looked at me straight.
“Do ye think that because ye've told me the rebels will win, that I am free to walk away?”

“I—no.” I slid the box-lid shut with a snick, not looking at it. I couldn’t look away from him. “I know you have to. I know it’s part of what you are. You can’t stand aside and still be what you are. That was more or less my point, when--.”

He interrupted me, stepping forward and seizing me by the wrist.

“And what is it that ye think I am, Sassenach?”

“A bloody _man_, that’s what!” I pulled loose and turned away, but he put a hand on my shoulder and turned me back to face him.

“Aye, I _am_ a bloody man,” he said, and the faintest trace of rue touched his mouth, but his eyes were blue and steady.

"Ye've made your peace with what I am, ye think--but I think ye dinna ken what that means. To be what I am doesna mean only that I'll spill my own blood when I must. It means I must sacrifice other men to the ends of my own cause--not only those I kill as enemies, but those I hold as friends...or as kin.”

His hand dropped away, and the tension left his shoulders. He turned toward the door, saying, “Come when ye’re ready, Sassenach.”
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