Page 71 of A Spark So Bright
Dark thoughts. He didn't want to think about the other trolls he had killed in that place, or the mercy kills he'd performed when he had seen a mortal wound that would only fester and slow their death. He'd been trapped only for a little while, and still he had been made to do awful, terrible things.
No, he wouldn't think about that here. Not while he had to focus and look for signs that they were going to be well.
Noticing another crosshatched design, he kept moving and started talking. That was, after all, what he was best at.
"Ragnar and I grew up apart from the others. I told you that. But we've been blessed with a lot of support from this community. When I was younger, though, I hated that. I couldn't get away with anything without someone telling our parents.And if I wasn't lucky, then it would be the neighbor who managed the situation themselves."
"Did they beat you?"
"Gods, no. They would humiliate me. I remember the first time I tried to steal from a shop owner. Just took a piece of bread off a cart and started walking away with it, all thinking that no one would see me because I was small." Gunnar snorted. "She grabbed me by the ear and announced to the entire street that I was going to become a thief when I got older."
He still remembered the shame that had made his cheeks burn dark green.
"And then?" Rose asked. "Were you... banned from the street?"
"No, she handed me the bread and kicked my butt until I went home to my father. She still moves her bread away from me when I walk by, but if I buy something from her, she always sneaks me extra just so she can tease me about being a thief." A soft smile crossed his face. "She even hand stitched me a shirt that saysthiefon the front in the black tongue. I wear it with pride on the anniversary of that day every year."
Rose had stopped moving. She stood there, staring at him with her brows furrowed and her hands clenched into fists. He couldn't tell if she was mad or frustrated. "I don't understand. I stole like that when I was a child too, even though Astrid told me not to. They put me in the stocks for a week. People threw food at me, and that was the only thing I could eat at night when Astrid came up to feed me. Rotten food that had been thrown by people who had known me my entire life."
Gunnar’s heart shattered for her. How could anyone live like that? "Children need their communities," he said quietly. "They will make mistakes, and they need more than their parents to prove to them that those mistakes aren't the end of who they are. Yes, she'll tease me about it until the day I die, but she doesn'thate me for the mistake. I'm sorry they did that to you, but they never should have. You were starving and needed help. Someone should have seen that."
Tears made her eyes glitter in the wisp-light. But she did not let them fall. Not his brave girl. She swallowed them down and nodded. "I still don't understand, but I think I am coming to realize that Trollveggen is far safer than anywhere I have been before."
"No one will hurt you here if you make a mistake. They'll tease you mercilessly until you want to strangle them for it, but that doesn't mean you will be shuffled to the side or that they don't want you to do well." He patted the mountain, his palm slapping against the stone near their heads. "This mountain is full of love, Rose. That's why none of us are willing to leave it."
“But mistakes…” Rose shook her head. “Some of them are unforgivable.”
She stared at him like her soul ached. He hated seeing her like this, but also knew she needed to hear it. And then it clicked why she was so upset. He took another step closer to her. Another.
He didn't know if she would want to be touched after that kiss, but he knew that she was very likely to be hesitant. She didn't even try to move away from him though, and he took that moment to take the liberties he'd always wanted to take.
Gunnar scooped his hand beneath her hair at the back of her neck, holding on to her and drawing her face toward his. He pressed his forehead against hers, so that his words would perhaps vibrate through her. "I do not blame you for the fall," he murmured. "It was a mistake on my part, if I'm being honest. I shouldn't have tried to move you so forcefully."
"I shouldn't have been standing on that cliff edge scaring everyone," Rose whispered. "I didn't know anyone would care, honestly. Or that anyone was watching. I wasn't going to doanything. I just... I like to feel alive sometimes. And if that ends up being me standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling like I could fall at any moment, I see nothing wrong with that."
He did. But mostly because it terrified him that she'd make a wrong step and end up tumbling over the edge. They were fears he knew he couldn't force her to understand, however.
Breathing out, he tried to be as reasonable as he could be while also being terrified of what that meant for him in the future. "I can bring you places where you'll feel alive, Rose. But please, don't stand on cliff edges anymore. Look at where I brought you now."
Gunnar withdrew and gestured with his arms around them. He made it very clear that this cave was an adventure, and if she didn't think so, then she wasn't looking hard enough.
She twisted her lips to the side. "Really, Gunnar? We're lost and might never get out of here. Now is not the time for jokes."
"Sounds to me like it's the perfect time for jokes. You can't take anything too seriously, especially in life threatening situations." He backed away from her as he spoke, mis-stepped, tripped over a slippery stone, and fell against the wall hard.
Damn it, that was supposed to look a lot better than it had ended up.
Rose sighed and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. "Would you like me to go in front? Perhaps I am the steadier one."
He shook his head, trying hard not to rub at the sting in his shoulder from where he'd bumped it a little too hard against the rock wall. "No. I think I can lead just fine."
But he noticed when he turned around that there was the smallest, softest smile on her face. Not the kind of smile she'd given when she was wandering, which wasn't really her, anyway. A smile that was for him. Because she found him funny.
And he could admit to himself, quietly in his own head, that knowing she thought he was amusing was the best kind of feeling.
Twenty-Eight
Rose
