Chivalry

[archiveofarethusa]

Lysander's father taught him to do what needed to be done, and he had learned his lesson well, but his mother had taught him to treat ladies with respect, and he'd seen too many men go down with their trousers to not learn him that respect. He had killed and maimed but one woman each. He slit the throat of a woman who saw him murder a copper, some poor dame who had the misfortune of being some hotshot politico's wife. He maimed Mrs. Roberts just one door over, as murder had seemed too generous even though the crazy bitch had as good as given him leave to do her. She spat upon his beloved wife at the supermarket, utterly without provocation, and proclaimed to her, "You will go to hell for standing by your devil of a husband, and don't think you don't deserve it. I knew that you were rotten the moment I laid eyes upon you. What are you doing here, where there are children? You should be ashamed."

So, utterly without warning, Mrs. Roberts woke up one morning sans tongue. He could have had her awake and screaming, but he required her to be in horror, not terror. A woman like her would think of divine wrath before anything rational came to her mind, thinking she was the sinner. Lysander wished he could have been there in her head when it happened. As things stood, he was also satisfied with the way the woman couldn't even look at Holly, which was how things should always have been. He had been there to see the way the woman had looked at her before, the way she still looked at his son and daughter as if she didn't care he was there to see, and so had no care to see her cringing now. She was lucky her hideous eyes were still firmly stuck in her skull.