Work Text:
Snow Angel
Margaret was provoked.
Ask anyone who had bothered to watch and they would say that the Musketeer had every reason and then some to strike when she had the chance -- really, Missandei had been irking her all day, wheedling at every button she knew of the gunslinger’s. Which, Margaret would never admit, was pretty much every button she had.
From the start of their strange contest of a rocky friendship, Missandei knew exactly all the ways to wind Margaret up, make her tense and spitting mad when normally she held together like fine china.
The most infuriating aspect of her particular weakness for the Arbalest? She knew exactly none of the ways to get beneath Missandei’s skin in return.
It drove her absolutely mad.
“My snow-woman is clearly superior,” Margaret huffed, her fine leather boots all but ruined by the snow, though she paid them no mind. After Missandei had slyly commented that the highborn woman had no concept of ‘wintery fun’ earlier that morning, well, what choice did Margaret have except to get the least bit dirty and prove the Arbalest wrong?
“You’re blind,” laughed Missandei in that irritating way that crawled right beneath Margaret’s skin. “Frippery doesn’t mean ‘superior’.”
She said it all matter-of-fact, all confidence and broad smiles and broader shoulders that straightened at Margaret in defiance, in challenge. Missandei was the blind one, Margaret thought to herself, frustrated at the choice of words that were so obviously directed at her. Apparently, Missandei thought to bring her down a peg by yet again commenting on Margaret’s slight habit of ostentation. After all, the brigand woman absolutely loved to use Margaret’s noble stature against her, as if Margaret felt an ounce of shame about her heritage and upbringing (she didn’t) or might falter in her skill and propriety (she wouldn’t).
“Just because you wouldn’t know class if it struck you between the eyes,” Margaret emphasized her point with a jab of her long forefinger towards said area on Missandei’s face, which was quickly swatted away. “Doesn’t mean my snow-woman has to suffer for it.”
Missandei bit her lip thoughtfully, sizing up Margaret’s lump of womanly-shaped snow in comparison to her own… more conventional snow-person, and for a brief moment, Margaret felt almost as if she were the one being scrutinized by those dark eyes. She fidgeted in a rather improper way, hands at her hips and heel tapping a hole in the snow beneath them, nearly cold if not for the sterling impatience bubbling deep in her bones.
It’s not that she needed Missandei’s approval, nor would she ever in her right mind want it -- the ex-merc had no sense of decency that Margaret cared to entertain, obviously -- but by the Light, she would have it.
“It has a certain appeal to it, a certain finesse ...” continued the archer, hand at her lips which were pursed in consideration. She was out of her Arbalest plate and leathers, but was still adorning her usual jodhpur knickers and matching green bandana, now bundled in a rather decent coat that might have done a great many favors for Missandei’s full figure, if Margaret stopped to admire it. She wouldn’t, not without first being declared the victor in their little competition.
And even then, if there were anything to admire in the first place, Margaret would most definitely keep that to herself -- and regardless, there was too much at stake for weakness now.
After a long pause, Missandei walked up to the rather ladylike snow-woman of the Musketeer’s design -- decorated in dead leaves and pretty pebbles, topped with Margaret’s precious plumed hat and cut in a rather feminine shape -- and circled it appraisingly. The gunslinger bristled, not liking how on display she felt as opposed to her snow-construction one bit, and drawled, “Shall I give you two a room?”
“Now, now, Mags, it's not me who could use a shag,” the woman grinned, and Margaret shivered at the use of her terribly unbidden nickname, then rolled her eyes at the crude remark that sullied it. Here she was under scrutiny by a woman who was of lower-middle class at best, yet was the hardest damned person to please in all her life. “Tis pretty for a snowman, but…”
“But?” Margaret scoffed hotly, feeling bare without her hat and blowing a red strand of hair from her face in frustration. “But what? ”
What on earth could Missandei have found to critique the Musketeer’s perfectly sleek snow-woman with just a glance? Especially in comparison to her own particularly bland one, standing next to Margaret’s and easily a head shorter, without any form of decoration save for a wide bottom and a serious-looking face of coal and rocks.
With a smirk, Missandei placed a firm hand at the snow woman’s trimmed chest, elegant in shape and Margaret narrowed her eyes at the other woman, who simply shrugged and said, “But what does finesse matter without a solid foundation?”
Margaret just barked out a laugh, demeanor crumbling from something regal to her more authentic self, etiquette melting before her innate spitfire nature, cracks in her securities that only Missandei seemed to be able to uncover and prod at, the ruthless woman. She distracted from the chinks in her facade with barbs and insults, a familiar coat of armor that protected her even more than steel ever could.
“You must be mistaken, surely. People care about style , not menial groundwork,” Margaret said between laughter, “Being an ex-merc, I can see why you might not have an eye for sophistication , but -- ”
At the insult, Missandei rolled her dark eyes and pushed on the snow-figure, right at the very center, right at its core as if she seemed to know precisely what it would do to the entire form’s structural integrity, and sent it crashing down to the earth below in heaps of snow. The pebble and leaf finery that had previously begemmed the snow-woman now lay amidst the destruction, appearing as if nothing more than trash in the ice, topped with a dirty hat and wilted plume.
“Now, what were you saying about menial groundwork?” Missandei grinned at her.
Blood boiling, Margaret huffed, stomping her tall boots through the snow to reach down in the muck and pluck out her hat, shaking it loose of snow and pebbles and leaves before placing it damply, proudly , on her head. “Cheating! I should have expected as much from you.”
“Merely proving my point,” the Arbalest stated, as if she hadn’t just rudely upset the past hour of Margaret’s precious time. “You’re welcome to similarly try and push mine over, though.”
Margaret tutted and turned to size up Missandei’s snow-woman, realizing the archer probably wasn’t bluffing in her endless, muted confidence. Missandei was never bluffing, unfortunately, and only ever took a stand when she was certain of her skill -- which was more often than not, and not merely bluster like Margaret’s could sometimes secretly be. It irritated the gunslinger to no end. While she certainly wasn’t above punishing Missandei’s snow-woman in a similar fashion, a quick glance told her that it would take more effort than Margaret was willing to put in to do so.
Far be it from her to make a fool of herself, lest she risk amusing Missandei by trying.
“No, I think not,” sniffed Margaret hotly, thin red brows furrowed in as prim a way as she could manage. “Debasing art is something I would expect from a rotten scoundrel mercenary, no less. If anything, you’ve shown an absolute lack of respect for beauty in general.”
Missandei just laughed in that terrible way that hinted she saw right through Margaret, right down to her noble bones that shook with the lovely sound.
“Forgive me, m’lady,” she bowed, deeply, irritatingly, very much void of any respect and purposefully prodding at one of Margaret’s many buttons all over again. Margaret’s breath was hot on her face with each exhale, nose numb and pink, but she didn’t dare risk losing face by rubbing at her freezing cheeks to warm up. Missandei continued, voice lilting sweety, coyly, “I did not mean to step on the lady’s fragile toes by winning the very competition she insisted upon having.”
A sharp exhale, then, and Margaret rolled her eyes, forcing her teeth not to chatter as she said, “That was hardly a competition. If you’re hungry for sport, then ice skating is the true test of one’s ability.”
~~~~~
Margaret had skated her whole life, every winter like clockwork and sometimes, on extra crisp spring mornings before the nuns would chase Margaret out, her mother would excuse her from her rigid studies to glide the polished floors of the abbey in her stockings. She had a solid twenty years of grace and poise under her belt, skates like an extension of herself, coordination and composure like a second skin, just now with longer legs and sharper sass.
Today was no different as she took to the ice, movements smooth as freshly churned butter, blades cutting through the silky top layer of powder dusting and sending snow spraying beneath her feet with every elegant turn.
She might have been showing off, maybe, but if she was, then it certainly wasn’t because she lost the supposed snow-woman building competition to Missandei.
An absurd consideration, regardless of what the archer might think.
“Will you ever dare to join me?” Margaret called out, cocky enough that even she could hear the smug smile in her voice from across the frozen lake, where Missandei still stood at the edge of, awkwardly so. Not very ladylike behavior of a noblewoman, but Margaret could hardly be blamed after having her snowman so rudely toppled by the Arbalest. “Or would you prefer to go ahead and name me the rightful winner this round?”
“Hah!” Missandei shouted back, voice strung as taut as her bowstrings. “You think to intimidate me with your pretty moves? Well, think again.”
Margaret ignored the spike of pleasure she felt at the not-compliment from the other woman, focusing instead on how Missandei shifted forward on her skates, arms out as if to hold something. When they touched the ice of the lake, Missandei lurched forward, just barely staying upright through sheer force, it seemed.
It was… a surprisingly clumsy display for the Arbalest’s usual sturdiness and precision; Margaret supposed she shouldn’t be surprised, considering Missandei had to go out and borrow someone’s skates in the first place.
It was almost amusing, deeply so, if not for the lack of challenge it brought her.
Missandei flailed her way to Margaret, a strangely endearing triumphant smile on her face, teeth white as snow and glinting in astonished pride as she righted herself.
“ There ,” she breathed, nearly onyx eyes alight on Margaret’s greens. “Not so hard, is it?”
Margaret didn’t laugh, didn’t crack a single joke, despite her inner competitive spirit barking mad with sweeping victory at Missandei’s skating inexperience -- which was very much unlike her, and for a brief moment, Margaret resented her reluctance to rub the archer’s face in her obvious loss. But with Missandei’s ochre cheeks darkening with a pretty flush, whether from exertion or embarrassment, eyes wide and determined, Margaret couldn’t bring herself to search for those hidden buttons that might prod too roughly in the unexpectedly tender moment.
Neither of them liked to show weakness, and even less so to each other, so the brave face Missandei was clearly sporting clamped Margaret’s mouth shut of any sass she might have otherwise.
Just this once, anyway.
“Clearly not for the likes of you,” Margaret spoke, compliment wrapped in as much frosty detachment as she could manage. She was still herself, after all, and this was still a lowly brigand who thought herself as high and mighty as a noble marksman, trained from youth. There were still expectations to uphold between them. “Now, follow my lead.”
Missandei didn’t ask for a lesson, but Margaret wasn’t going to wait around for her to -- else they’d be here until the ice melted. The tall woman skated a few yards away, lean thighs propelling her onward, gliding in a shallow arch to show Missandei how to move forward without the strange scooting motion she had done to get onto the ice that children used when first starting. It was the very basics, and Margaret had never considered herself a good teacher considering she was far too impatient to bother, but… thankfully, Missandei was a quick learner.
She almost made it easier to instruct, despite her body being shorter and broader than Margaret’s, grace traded for unflappable tenacity.
Certainly not in a bad way. Not by any means, Margaret thought distantly.
Margaret watched her with a critical eye, nodding her approval whenever Missandei moved in a particularly inspired way, careful not to give the Arbalest too much praise. She didn’t want the other woman getting a bigger head than she already had, but she also couldn’t deny the wave of mirth that washed over her whenever Missandei got something perfectly.
After a good hour of simple back and forth movements, one and then the other, lead for lead, Margaret finally cleared her throat and said, “Not bad… for a mere merc, anyway.”
Cheeks still an embarrassed-tinged ebony, Missandei just laughed. “I’m flattered…” She came to a stop -- a rough, slightly wobbly stop -- in front of Margaret with a wide smirk. “Coming from an uppity rich girl, that is.”
“Uppity?” Margaret scoffed, feeling her old, competitive ways creeping back into her veins with hot, quick pulses. “I’ll show you ‘uppity’.”
She slid herself to the outskirts of the lake for a wide berth, watching Missandei staring for a heated second, then Margaret shifted her weight, pushed forward and vaulted into the air with a flying spin and a half, landing on backwards momentum and a wide grin. Missandei’s face went slack with awe for just a moment, just long enough to send Margaret’s heart fluttering with a tiny bit of amour-propre vanity as she spun again, precise in her movements.
Shameless, Margaret let out a laugh -- an honest one, nothing sharp or deflective; she genuinely enjoyed skating and hadn’t done so in years, and feeling the icy wind part to her made her feel powerful, in control yet loose and playful all the same. Certainly things she hadn’t necessarily felt before around the other woman, who laughed in return from the sidelines.
“You like what you see yet?” the redhead called across the pond, spreading her arms in showmanship. “Can we finally agree I’m the winner and be onto some hot toddies? Loser pays, of course.”
“You forget we’d be tied again, Mags,” Missandei huffed, and the gunslinger watched as the novice woman took a similar position at the edge of the lake. “And we can’t have that , now can we?” With a dramatic pause, Missandei glanced over to her with a teasing smile, placed a skate behind herself, and pushed off.
Margaret held her breath without realizing it, eyes trained on the archer’s form as she copied the Musketeer’s movements across the lake, nearing the center where Margaret had jumped into the air. It wasn’t sloppy, per se, because nothing Missandei did was sloppy for being an ex-brigand, military or no, but it was a poor imitation of what Margaret drilled for years and a noticeable sphere of anxiety welled up within her as she watched, heavy as a musket ball.
It’s fine , she chided herself. She was well-versed in first aid and really, the worst Missandei could do was fall, maybe hurt her leg, perhaps break an arm or sever an artery or --
Missandei jumped into the air with powerful legs, untrained but determined nonetheless, spun once, landed on shaky skates, spun again, wobbled back and forth with arms outstretched, spinning a third and final time before she cried out and careened towards the edge of the lake.
Watching the Arbalest, her bottom lip sucked between her teeth, Margaret was honestly impressed that the woman had managed to stay upright at all, until --
Crash!
With a clamor, Missandei hit a hard patch of ice with an unbalanced skate, slid sharply towards the edge of the lake and fell , rather luckily, into a pillowy snowbank. Margaret nearly sighed in relief, until she saw the way the snowbank began to crumble beneath the stirred weight of the Arbalest and, as if in slow motion, slid down a soft slope beyond where Margaret could see.
An undignified sound escaped her throat as she cried out, “Missandei!” and skated towards where the other woman disappeared down the slope, quick and steady on her feet despite the concern she felt. While the Arbalest was nothing but capable and could surely handle a fall, knowing the rot of the Hamlet could mean anything from their snow-women brought to life by means of an Eldritch god to a snow-portal of Damnation itself come to swallow Missandei whole. It was really best practice to expect the worst in this squalid hellhole, she’d learned.
Margaret reached the spot where Missandei had fallen and crept down it carefully, stopping to remove her skates lest she find the archer with one by accident. The snow there was upturned from the woman’s unexpected descent, but was otherwise… devoid of life.
“Missandei?” called Margaret with a suspicious voice.
Something was amiss, and the Musketeer suddenly dearly wished that she hadn’t left her weapons at the opposite side of the lake.
However, winter blue jays were chirping around her, which was a good sign that nothing too foul was lurking about. Still, the tried and trained hunter within her was on high alert, wincing every time her socked foot crunched through the snow, eyes narrowed to a point that skimmed the crisp white surrounding her for a sign of life. Had Missandei run off somewhere? No, she would’ve seen the tracks, surely. Was she unconscious, then?
The thought sent a spike of worry through her. Despite their warring rivalry and her normal snide attitude saved just for Missandei, Margaret certainly didn’t want true misfortune befalling the Arbalest.
After months of banter and bickering, of lofty victories and surprising losses, a secret admiration had bloomed within Margaret. It had been easy when she first arrived at the Hamlet to see Missandei as nothing more than a military brat and ex-mercenary, rough around the edges and untrained in true sportsmanship. For all intents and purposes, a less refined version of Margaret, as far as she had been concerned.
Mark after mark, though, Missandei had proven herself equal and -- in very rare instances, Margaret would begrudgingly admit -- sometimes came out the better between the two long-range specialists. It was enough to drive the Musketeer to near obsessive competition.
The Heir never sent them out together on an expedition, seeing as how similar they were in function, which left them to explore their heated tug-of-war within the Hamlet’s grounds themselves. Missandei was always game for whatever Margaret threw at her, no matter how ridiculous or on the spot it had been -- anywhere from darts in the tavern to picking off bandits on the Old Road whenever Vvulf ventured too close. Fondly, she remembered how Missandei had smiled at Margaret’s impromptu drinking contest once, and later smiled again when she tucked Margaret to bed, declaring the night another tie between them.
Now if only she could find the blasted woman, perhaps they could finish this tie once and for all and enjoy a drink or three.
“I swear to the Light, Missandei,” Margaret spoke loudly, firmly, brows drawn in either concern or irritation. She hadn’t decided yet, still waiting to see if she’d need her first aid satchel or a well-placed fist instead. The bottoms of her leggings were past the point of being soaked by the snow, freezing her from toe to nose, and she cursed. She would not bow to the cold while on the hunt, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel it, despite the Arbalest calling her an ‘ice queen’ that very morning. “If you’re not in a world of pain, you will be when I -- ”
A hand broke through the snow, clutching Margaret around the ankle.
It took twenty-seven years worth of decorum and harsh marksman training to keep the Musketeer from screaming in near bloody murder, kicking the appendage currently hooked around her ankle, and running for the hills. Instead, she tried to lunge away but the grip was too strong and rather than nimbly prancing backwards, merely sent herself falling on her rump into the plush snowfall.
A moment later, the snow beneath the outstretched arm shifted, swelled, then fell away to a laughing Missandei, still partly covered in snow.
“I thought a noble lady was above swearing to the Light?”
“You fink!” Margaret shouted, heart still trembling from the adrenaline; at least she didn’t feel the cold setting in, despite being half-buried in it thanks to the other woman. “You absolute rotten fink! And here I was worried , curse you!”
Missandei didn’t even have the audacity to look abashed, merely glowed with laughter. It should have felt mean, should have sent Margaret into a tirade, should have done anything but make Margaret feel warm inside -- especially with the cold now drenching her bottom. But she couldn’t help the laughter from cracking her open in return, splitting her at the tightly-laced seams, relief and mirth flooding her and relaxing her into the pillowy white until their fit of giggles had passed and they eventually sobered.
“So you do care, Mags,” Missandei said with a smile, hand still on Margaret’s thin ankle. “I’ll have to remember that.”
Margaret was at least able to roll her eyes per usual and scoffed, “I never said that. ”
The hand moved away then, instantly replacing the warmth it had held to Margaret’s ankle with the unwelcomed cold of the snow, and Margaret shivered; Missandei’s voice was still playful, though, still lilted with a cheated personal victory as before. “Guess I’m not sorry for scaring you, then.”
A huff stirred the chill air past Margaret’s lips like a pale fog and she almost wished she could take her words back. “Well, shame on you. It doesn’t change the fact that I still won this quarrel.”
Missandei picked herself up and dusted the clinging snow from her coat and pants before turning to Margaret. “That means we need a tie breaker, then.”
“And what might you have in mind?”
“Something we’re both good at,” Missandei smiled broadly, teeth as white as the snow still in her hair, stark against the black braids pulled back into a tie in an austere, but classic style. The archer reached a hand out to Margaret, who grasped it and was pulled to her feet with a rush of strength from the other woman -- Margaret always seemed to forget just how strong Missandei was.
“A test of accuracy.”
~~~~~
The sun was past its high point in the sky now, signaling the end of day approaching by the time the two women had gathered enough target-items deemed appropriate for their accuracy competition and placed them on the rotted wood fence of the farmstead.
Wine bottles, pinecones, dented buckets, discarded gourds and pumpkins and mealy apples, even an old saggy boot that belonged to the Highwayman was at their disposal.
“You ready?” Missandei smirked from her side, patting one last bit of snow into a ball.
They each had a good three dozen or so snowballs all piled up next to them -- not that Margaret would need that many for a simple accuracy competition, of course, but she wasn’t going to stop packing snow into clumps of ammo until Missandei did. To the other woman, Margaret matched her smirk and finished her final snowball, then said, “I’m ready to win once and for all, dear Missandei.”
“Heh, we’ll see about that, princess.”
Thirty items in total were lined up on the fence, fifteen targets each, nice and neat. Margaret grabbed a snowball from her pile, hefting it in her hand to measure the approximate weight, lined up the shot with a practiced eye, and without further ado, launched the ball towards her first target.
As expected, it knocked off the bottle with a dull thump and sent it careening into the snow below.
Margaret grinned at Missandei, less of a lady and more of a hunter sighting its quarry, all teeth and bravado as she watched the archer roll her eyes and grab her own snowball. In a similar fashion, albeit different from the way Margaret managed, Missandei set her sights and took aim, breathed out, then pitched her own snowball at her own first target.
The bucket clanged with the impact, square in the center, and bounced off easily.
“ Hah ,” Margaret shrugged, unimpressed; the bucket was rather large, afterall, as were Missandei’s ammo rounds -- she’d be more surprised if the brigand woman missed. “Even the Leper could have hit such a target.”
That seemed to strike a nerve, and Missandei rolled her eyes, quickly lining up her next shot. Half a pinecone, from the looks of it, which the woman hit just as effortlessly.
“You were saying?”
They continued like that, one after another, each point for point, tally for tally, never missing or faltering. Never even breaking a sweat. Margaret knew by now -- knew long ago, really -- that Missandei was very much her equal in every way that mattered both on and off the battlefield and frankly, anywhere the Arbalest lacked, she made up for in sheer fortitude.
Missandei was quick-witted, dependable, somehow always where one needed her to be at a moment’s notice. She was serious and surprisingly playful all at once, seeming to read the room far better than Margaret managed, seeming to meld into the rowdy setting of the tavern with ease. The Arbalest was the only one to coax Margaret from the outskirts of the group like the pull of a magnet, dragging the wallflower from its tall vines back down to earth by prodding Margaret’s many buttons with an uncanny precision.
She was kind and soft-spoken, fierce and confident, patient beyond words.
...Especially with the likes of Margaret.
Truthfully speaking, Missandei was all of the things that the Musketeer wasn’t, which gave her more fuel for the fire and a strange determination to win their little snow-joust; they were neck and neck, down to the final two targets with the other thirteen laying in the snow. This time, when Missandei turned to face her, Margaret blew a stray red hair out of her face and grabbed two snowballs instead, one in each hand.
Margaret would finish this with the style that Missandei lacked if they were both to tie scores for the umpteenth time; it seemed the only chance to ever impress the other woman --
-- so of course fate would have it that Margaret missed .
After her shot, only the Highwayman’s boot remained upright on the post, as weathered and obstinate as the man himself, and Margaret glared at it, as if to push it over from the force of her frustration. With it, with Missandei, with herself.
“Tough break, Mags,” Missandei clicked her tongue, and Margaret felt her eyebrow twitch. Then, Missandei took her sweet time lining up her next shot with a snowball, chewing her lip, tilting her head, making a general show of things as if to further prod at Margaret’s shortcomings. When she finally did release the snowball, it landed square against the wilted squash, sending it flying with a pristine accuracy. The archer turned to her and bowed , the frigid ponce, then grabbed a final snowball and said, “At least we’ll have a winner now.”
And Missandei had the audacity to call her an ‘ice queen’ just that morning.
A sudden idea formed in Margaret’s mind, something uncouth and impolite and so very perfect , and she glanced to her own forgotten pile of snowballs . She had been meticulous in crafting them, ensuring just the right loft and uniform streamlined shape that it would be a waste not to use them, right?
Besides, Missandei had dealt some underhanded tactics all day; if anyone could appreciate a bit of trickery, it would be the Arbalest, right?
If anything, perhaps Missandei would be impressed that she had stooped to her level.
Self-convinced, Margaret quickly grabbed a snowball and took aim -- not at any target atop the fence, no, but at her dear archer who was too distracted on winning the contest to notice --
Missandei’s final shot went wide as Margaret pegged her with her own ammo, snowball pelting the Arbalest right in the back.
A breath passed, tense for a long minute, as Missandei straightened and stared at the last bottle still upright on her side of the fence, matching the Musketeer’s missed shot as well -- they were still tied and for just a moment, Margaret wondered if she went too far. Missandei’s shoulders were pinched, coat dusted with powder from Margaret’s snowball, and worse was that the archer was quiet.
She had expected vile curses, expected Missandei’s (slightly justified, perhaps) ire, expected a tirade about how Margaret was no better than her , no better than a cheating, low-born mercenary. She deserved it and more, nearly begged for it, demanded it, until --
Something smacked her square in the face, pushing her back a step, stunning her.
A snowball…!
Margaret reached up and wiped the snow from her face with a dainty hand, uncovering a glare that could surely melt the cove itself of any frost and ice entombing it. Past the powder that coated her eyelashes, past the numbness of her nose, the red of her cheeks, past her irritation and buried amusement, Margaret stared down the other woman, watched as Missandei tried, failed, to hide a laugh behind her hand. Wordless, Margaret bent and grabbed another snowball, but this time, Missandei was at the ready and barely managed to sidestep a second assault.
“A sore loser, are we?” the Arbalest spoke with laughter in her voice as she grabbed another snowball from her own pile.
A huff, a dodge, and Margaret grinned back. “Last I checked, we were still tied .”
Back and forth, they lobbed snowballs at one another, laughing and cackling and gushing honeyed insults as resolute as their failing aim. Their piles dwindled, a spray of white was kicked up from scampering feet, scarring the layered earth in their fervent battle for dominance.
“ Ignorant heel! ”
“ Stuck-up prude! ”
Out of ammo, Missandei lunged for Margaret’s remaining snowball, her precious key to victory, and the redheaded woman acted on impulse, manners gone and melted with her patience.
If ever questioned, Margaret had never once in her life tackled someone without first being thoroughly provoked. Quite frankly, she had never actually tackled anyone nor did she ever intend to, but Missandei was clearly of a different pedigree than anyone else Margaret had encountered before, bandit or baron or otherwise. Her buttons were raw and ached with the cold, but Margaret felt alive all over from the competitive ire pulsing heat in her veins, blushing her cheeks and turning her grin mad.
They fell in the cold together, Missandei blindsided by the gunwoman’s antics just as much as Margaret was, tumbling as one sprawl of chaos, world a mess of light and dark and laughter. Chill and warmth, arms and legs, tufts of ivory thrown about them like a winter mosaic. When they righted, Margaret huffed her irritation to see Missandei atop her, daring to be the winner in their impromptu scuffle in the fresh powdered snow.
Missandei grinned down at her, lips just on the edge of a smirk, breath heavy and stirring the air. “Spoiled brat as ever, Mags.”
The shrug she gave in return was nearly nonchalant if not for being on her back, pressed into the snow with Missandei’s arms buried on either side of her, propping herself up over Margaret. Margaret tried to sound unaffected by their proximity, cleared her throat, all but whispered, “Merely taking a page from your book, Miss.”
“And now you’re playing at being a snow angel, I see.”
It was a statement more than a question -- perhaps even a compliment -- and Margaret felt her cheeks warm in stark contrast to the rest of her body currently adrift in the pillowy frost. “‘ Snow angel’? What happened to ‘ ice queen’ , hmm?”
The soft laugh that earned her melted the snow all around them, for all Margaret knew, and the shiver that tore through her had nothing to do with the chill.
“You can be both , from what I know of you,” Missandei simply shrugged, as if it were an indisputable fact. A fresh wave of -- of something, something warm, something tender, something hardly felt in Margaret’s tightly-laced life before she made her debut in the Hamlet, it pounded at her chest. With a curt tut , Margaret realized what it was that she felt beneath Missandei’s dark gaze, what she had felt growing within her once-impenetrable walls like a beautiful weed for months, ever-resistant to the normally harsh conditions of Margaret’s psyche.
Vulnerability.
Margaret shied away from the sudden realization, chewing her lip thoughtfully and squirming from the pointed weight of Missandei’s sniper-like attention. “Don’t think this means you’ve bested me, Light forbid,” Margaret helplessly reached for a shallow barb, realizing that her voice skewed and blunted the challenge, but desperate for familiar terrain nonetheless.
Thick, drawn brows and lush, pursed lips made Margaret instantly want to kick herself with regret. A pause between them then, swollen with tension, saturated with that terrible, wonderful weed that grew without Margaret’s permission and made her anxious for Missandei’s next words, spoken with aching slowness and consideration. Not a jab or insult, not a veiled-compliment or derisive flattery. Something far worse.
“Is it that terrible?” came Missandei’s voice, warm on Margaret’s cheeks and cold in her clenching heart; that same vulnerability that the Musketeer feared seemed to bloom within Missandei’s voice in a rare, fragile moment shared between them like a secret. “For me to be your equal?”
Time froze like the wintery lake, stretched into something tangible. Fragile.
An ugly pain etched its way into Missandei’s face, crumpling it, just slightly, just enough for Margaret’s well-trained eyes to catch and hold and regret.
She was unanchored, suspended in that delicate moment beneath Missandei, heart pounding and unsure of how -- how very much she wished she could explain. Even with time seemingly frozen, it wasn’t enough to untangle herself from the corset of her past, from the finery of the ice queen, from every mindset drilled into her for years.
But a beat later, Missandei was pulling back, withdrawing, defeated, and Margaret forced herself to be vulnerable.
“ It is -- ” she said in an exhale while she grabbed the other woman's sleeve, and Missandei stopped short, eyes shocked, and Margaret rushed her next words. “When everything you’ve been groomed to be for the last twenty seven years is perfect. ”
Missandei remained still, neither coming close nor retreating further but sparing her undivided attention, so Margaret took a deep, shaky breath that didn’t seem to fully reach her lungs and continued, both shameful and desperate. Desperate to be understood, for Missandei to understand. To understand that she was an ice queen because that’s all she knew. “When you’re rewarded for first place and punished for second -- ” Margaret gasped out, embarrassed, vulnerable, but pressed on. “When friends are a weakness and allies are an exploit -- ”
Another breath, trying to summon her meager courage, her confidence that always waned in comparison to Missandei's. "I wasn't allowed equals, Miss. So to finally have one… To finally have you... "
As fate would have it, a quiet, gentle snowfall broke their precious intermission, nearly interrupting them, but Missandei had her full attention now; Margaret’s heart was pounding, and she was sure the Arbalest could hear it in the silence of her guilt. “It's terrible when you have to be perfect for someone but you’re not. ”
She said it like a filthy secret, quiet so that she wouldn’t dirty the snow and rot the earth, so that she wouldn’t open Missandei’s eyes to the truth of her imperfections.
To distract herself, to distract them both , Margaret reached up carelessly, already wrought open and raw and bare, tight corset finally unlaced and left in a tangled heap that she didn't know what to do with. Margaret let her bare hand move from Missandei’s sleeve to her head, where there were airy, dainty snowflakes in Missandei’s hair, tufts of white in stark contrast to the braided black strands, and Margaret brushed them away gently.
That hyper-focused attention Missandei was so natural at, it was turned on her, and Margaret tried not to flinch from it -- a lady did not flinch or cower or retreat, after all. But she wasn’t Margaret the Lady or Margaret the Hunter, not now, not beneath that stare.
In this moment, all she was… was vulnerable.
“Mags,” Missandei breathed her nickname, once hated but now the only thing Margaret could cling to, stripped of her veneer that she was. “I do think you’re perfect.”
Something clenched painfully in Margaret’s heart and all shades of decorum blended to pink cheeks and warm breaths between them. She was suddenly too aware of how close they were, how inappropriate their proximity was and yet how much Margaret needed to be closer ; her heart was pounding with both want and fear of that want.
What felt like an eternity passed as Margaret processed that, processed the honesty and the authenticity in Missandei’s words, and when she could finally move, Margaret didn’t know what she was doing until she felt their lips meet.
The contact sapped Margaret of rational thought, pulsed an all-consuming heat in her veins, thrummed in her chest --
Missandei froze, stilled above her as if she were the ice queen, and Margaret quickly pulled away at the first sign of resistance, the cold parting the air between them achingly.
No , Margaret thought desperately, pressing herself back into the snow as if to bury her embarrassment. Tufts of white still fell around them, peaceful if not for the turmoil she just caused. She mentally kicked herself -- of course she was weak at the first sign of affection from the other woman, true affection not clothed in an insult or competition, of course Margaret took it too far.
Back in the world of nobility, romances were often arranged for political moves, always lateral or upwards. While Margaret still had her fun with the endless hopefuls her parents threw at her that she eventually scared off one way or another, it didn’t stop her from occasionally looking downwards at the rugged stableboy -- or the bashful maid -- with wishful thinking.
She had been too tightly-laced to seriously risk her reputation back then, but now her laces were undone.
And the one who had so meticulously unthreaded her now stared down at her, stunned.
“I’m sorry -- ” Margaret quickly tried, words suddenly slowed and sticky and bitter in her mouth like blackened molasses. She swallowed the nerves stuck in her throat and tried again, hands firmly in the snow by the sides of her head. “I misunderstood -- ”
Whatever she thought she misunderstood was lost as Missandei bent low to kiss her again, mouth finding hers easily and sparking that flame back in the Musketeer’s veins instantly.
Margaret gasped into the kiss, fears and hesitance turned inside out, but slowly melted into the Arbalest.
Missandei was slow with it, taking control and Margaret was happy to let her. She felt blissfully powerless beneath the other woman and allowed herself to be, to revel in those soft lips that pressed and worked and wanted . Wanted her. Margaret shivered at the thought, hands opening and closing, feeling only wet ice in her grasp, and moved to fill them with Missandei instead.
They stayed like that, warm despite the snow, vulnerable and novel and needy. Margaret found that Missandei did , in fact, have buttons of her own -- an entire myriad of buttons that reacted every time Margaret licked at her bottom lip or ran her hand down the length of Missandei’s spine. She sought and found each one of them with a hunter’s interest, or as many buttons as she could find while out here in the snow, and Margaret savored each way Missandei unraveled in turn for her.
Eventually, the snowfall began to come down harder, covering the Arbalest’s broad back with fresh powder and threatening to bury them both to be found in the spring, so they reluctantly broke apart with hot breaths clouding the space between them.
The cold chilled Margaret’s face even harsher without Missandei there, and she couldn’t help the frustrated pout she felt curling her tingling lips, which caused the archer to huff a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” the Musketeer demanded, nearly forceful if not so breathless.
“Nothing.” Missandei rolled her eyes when Margaret leveled an unconvinced look at her, brow raised, and Missandei continued with a pretty flush on her cheeks, “Just that I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.”
Margaret was momentarily taken by surprise from the confession, thinking back to their long-standing rivalry; she had never suspected Missandei of being anything other than vaguely amused or clearly irate by Margaret’s presence. Even from day one on the stagecoach together, their roles had always seemed obvious enough that Margaret never thought to look closer at Missandei’s smiles. Perhaps she should have.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Missandei shrugged, sending a fresh dusting of snow off her shoulder, and said, “I figured you were too prim and proper for an ex-merc.”
Prim and proper? Margaret snorted at that, impatient and suddenly combative -- if the Hamlet’s two opposing snipers could have instead been warring for a different kind of dominance this whole time, it wasn’t solely because Margaret was prim and proper . “Perhaps I thought an ex-merc would have no interest in an ice queen. ”
As was frequently becoming the case, Missandei merely laughed a sweet sound when Margaret instigated a fight and sidestepped it entirely. “I believe I also called you a ‘snow angel’ earlier.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Margaret muttered, suddenly embarrassed.
The other woman seemed to notice, because Missandei’s expression softened as she shifted her weight to one arm and ran a cold finger down Margaret’s equally cold cheek. They both shivered from the strange contact, new and addictive, and Missandei’s words were as soft and quiet as the snow that fell around them. “Well, now you have me, Mags.”
Margaret’s heart pounded at the implications of that, the heady look in Missandei’s dark eyes -- Margaret liked those implications, and ran a thin hand down Missandei’s back, relishing the way the other woman responded to her. After so many months upon months of being at Missandei’s mercy, at being riled by every little thing the Arbalest did, at having all of her buttons exposed and prodded by the archer -- Margaret felt a nagging thrill and impatience at finally being able to find Missandei’s.
“ Good ,” Margaret couldn’t help the smirk at her lips, and Missandei returned it with one of her own. “I’ll decide what to do with you when we’re warm, alone , by the fire. Perhaps with some hot toddies to further warm us.”
They’d break their ongoing tie later, Margaret reasoned. For the first time in her life, Margaret had something she cared about more than winning.