{"id":12144,"date":"2014-04-12T01:48:27","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T01:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/04\/12\/dukehumphrey-6\/"},"modified":"2014-04-12T01:48:27","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T01:48:27","slug":"dukehumphrey-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/04\/12\/dukehumphrey-6\/","title":{"rendered":"@dukehumphrey"},"content":{"rendered":"

dukehumphrey<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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iamthefirechild<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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When he spoke, Summer jerked her hands away from her face to stare at him. Spirits didn\u2019t speak! And surely if her mind were tormenting her with visions of Humphrey, he would not also be unhappy. She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. \u201cAre you real?\u201d she whispered. \u201cSurely not. You are in the Low Countries, happy and strong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Humphrey couldn\u2019t help but laugh loudly at that, leaning back on the bench. He spent a few seconds enjoying it, but she looked rather not amused at his reaction. \u201cIf you meant it as a joke, it certainly worked\u2026\u201d he said. But she still wasn\u2019t laughing. \u201cSo you meant it. Not as a joke.\u201d He leaned forward once more.<\/p>\n

“Well I am not happy and strong in the Low Countries. For all I know the Low Countries can be burned up and sunk into the Ocean and be cursed forever to hell,” he said, sharply. “I am definitely not happy and neither am I particularly strong. Half a year of poisoning does that to one\u2019s body. And an imprisoned wife does it to the soul.”<\/p>\n

He stared forward thinking of his last words, how this was the first time he said it out loud, where she was. The sky didn\u2019t fall on him yet, he thought. \u201cIt\u2019s my fault, I left her there,\u201d he said, softly, almost as a whisper before he caught himself. \u201cSo how did your life become this miserable?\u201d he asked, turning to her, lifting the widow\u2019s veil from her face.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His laughter hurt. Not as if he were laughing at her, but that the events of his life were so different from what she had believed. His bitter words describing his life hurt worse. Summer pulled her hand back, closing them tightly together in her lap. “I am nothing,” she told him, softly.<\/p>\n

“While you loved me, I was allowed my freedom — my father, my family believed you would protect and take care of me. When we were parted,” Summer closed her eyes, tears sliding down her face, “I was made to marry a young knight. A friend of my brother’s. He died in \/your\/ brother’s war. He left me with nothing. I have no name, no child, no living. I live only on the sufferance of my sister and my father.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dukehumphrey: iamthefirechild: When he spoke, Summer jerked her hands away from her face to stare at him. Spirits didn\u2019t speak! And surely if her mind were tormenting her with visions of Humphrey, he would not also be unhappy. She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. \u201cAre you real?\u201d she whispered. \u201cSurely not. You are … Continue reading @dukehumphrey<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,1043,1044],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12144"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}