Post by wordy on Jul 10, 2012 11:22:29 GMT 10
Title: Gift
Rating: PG
Prompt: #72 All in a day's work
Summary: He can't follow in footsteps that are no longer there.
It was difficult work, until you got the hang of it. Now it was merely tedious. Neal put down another newly-made batch of bruise balm, and rubbed his temples with his fingers. His magic flared emerald for a moment, before fading. He sighed.
"Working hard, I see."
Neal opened his eyes and glared at his father. "I'm taking a break. I find it difficult to believe that they work their students to exhaustion at the university."
"Well, they certainly don't allow them three days to make half a dozen barrels of bruise balm."
"It's only been two days."
Duke Baird raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Neal watched as he moved about the room, shuffling papers and doing nothing in particular. "Are you looking for something, or being a nuisance on purpose?" asked Neal. His tongue had lost its control around his father long ago: about the time he first started his page training, in fact. The Stump is a bad influence on me, he thought.
"You'll be a squire soon," said his father, turning and leaning against his desk. "The big examinations are at the end of the year."
"Unless I repeat." I might even do it, he thought. Just to spite Lord Wyldon.
It was an amusing thought.
His father's gaze was directed skywards, no doubt asking the gods for patience. Neal knew that look intimately. He picked up another jar.
"I suppose the day was going to come, eventually," said Baird. "I can't have you around forever."
His father left, and Neal sighed, putting a hand to his eyes. He missed them, not constantly, but there were times when he remembered.
I may not be around forever, he thought, turning his attention back to the bruise balm, Gift flaring, but no sword or lance is going to take me away. I swear to that.
Rating: PG
Prompt: #72 All in a day's work
Summary: He can't follow in footsteps that are no longer there.
It was difficult work, until you got the hang of it. Now it was merely tedious. Neal put down another newly-made batch of bruise balm, and rubbed his temples with his fingers. His magic flared emerald for a moment, before fading. He sighed.
"Working hard, I see."
Neal opened his eyes and glared at his father. "I'm taking a break. I find it difficult to believe that they work their students to exhaustion at the university."
"Well, they certainly don't allow them three days to make half a dozen barrels of bruise balm."
"It's only been two days."
Duke Baird raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Neal watched as he moved about the room, shuffling papers and doing nothing in particular. "Are you looking for something, or being a nuisance on purpose?" asked Neal. His tongue had lost its control around his father long ago: about the time he first started his page training, in fact. The Stump is a bad influence on me, he thought.
"You'll be a squire soon," said his father, turning and leaning against his desk. "The big examinations are at the end of the year."
"Unless I repeat." I might even do it, he thought. Just to spite Lord Wyldon.
It was an amusing thought.
His father's gaze was directed skywards, no doubt asking the gods for patience. Neal knew that look intimately. He picked up another jar.
"I suppose the day was going to come, eventually," said Baird. "I can't have you around forever."
His father left, and Neal sighed, putting a hand to his eyes. He missed them, not constantly, but there were times when he remembered.
I may not be around forever, he thought, turning his attention back to the bruise balm, Gift flaring, but no sword or lance is going to take me away. I swear to that.
