#Don't feel the need to match length lol Mary's muse just kind of started spilling word vomit for a sec there

[faithhearted]

@honorhearted said: "Can we speak of this another time? I'm busy." (for Mary!)

This was not how Mary envisioned her life unfolding. Ever since she was a child, she had strived to be proper, to be viewed as a good and Godly young lady. ‘Be kind’, her mother had told her, ‘kind and fair and devout and true. These are the makings of a desirable woman.’ and so she’d obeyed. Even now, over and over again Mary told herself to be kind, fair, devout, and true, and your husband will love you.

But she had not married the man to whom she’d been promised. Instead, she’d wed his brother, who had taken her hand out of some sense of duty or responsibility though he never spoke about why.

No matter how kind, fair, devout, and true she endeavored to be, her husband did not love her. He’d done his husbandly obligation and together they’d conceived and raised a child, but still, he did not spare her an ounce of affection.

Instead, Abe’s eyes lingered upon Anna Str.ong, the woman he had always loved and loved still. It tore at Mary until her heart was in tattered shreds. Anna was everything Mary was not.

Anna was inconsiderate, tempestuous, fickle, and irresponsible. She too was a married woman and yet Abe wanted her. In truth, Mary once utterly despised Anna for this, and that hatred ate at her gut until she was tired of the way that hatred felt. Instead, all her energy was now spent on ensuring her family's survival.

A fortnight ago, Mary had been brought to the Contin.ental Army’s New Wind.sor camp for her protection, and for her son’s, and Abe was off once again, in another covert plan to enlist in Arnold’s unit. While Mary supported her husband’s revenge against Sim.coe, she was once again left alone to wait for a man who did not want her and who might very well never want her.

Despite all this, Mary worried for his safety. Early that morning, she’d set out to Major Tall.madge’s tent to inquire about Abe’s well-being only to be met with unattentive indifference to her presence. It was something she was used to but refused to tolerate further.

"Can we speak of this another time? I'm busy."

“We will speak of this now,” she firmly insisted, snatching the quill from his hand if only to force him to look into her pleading eyes, “Please, Major, you must know something about how he’s fairing. Will you not permit even five minutes to ease a wife's concern?”