sixappleseeds asked:
gurguliare answered:
it COULD be a pairing but i will not inflict that on you:
As a kid, Ivan had thought Cousin Miles might be good for something: not when Miles was five and always either in the hospital or launching himself hospital-ward (ward-ward?) from a homemade trebuchet, and not when Miles was twelve and conscripting him and Elena for blood feuds—but at some point, Ivan was sure, he must have believed in a use Miles had. It couldn’t have been that Miles was one more body between him and the throne, because Miles’s height meant that flung crowns tended to miss him; it couldn’t have been riding the coattails of a brilliant career, because you only had to look at Miles to see he and everyone who had ever taken an order from him, or given him one, would be courtmartialed before 30. And yet he knew he had had some expectation, or some greedy, absent hope, because why else would he feel—not resignation—but disappointment, as the years slid on and no Miles-given gift came?
Years? What about hours? The water in the pumping chamber bubbled around his face. Maybe he had expected to be useful to Miles. Now that, Ivan thought, was strange.
deepintheshadyglen