Post by max on Nov 26, 2009 21:17:06 GMT 10
Title: Her Earth
Rating: G
Summary: Wyldon the squire, falling in love.
He is fourteen years old when he first sees her. Mercifully, it is the end of spring and he has just been made a squire, though a full quarter remains until he will officially serve Sir Raef haMinch.
A quarter to spend running and hunting and training with the men at arms, and training the latest litter of pups, and caring for the mare’s who’re foaling, and bickering with his brother and sister. Time to learn more of his duties as heir to the fief and feel his obligation to the health of his people and this fragment of the kingdom he will one day serve in its entirety eddy in the place where he imagines his soul rests in his body.
Time to spend as he has spent it every other summer of his life – but all of this changes when Edmond and he turn off the Conte road, crossing through Hannalof borderlands for Cavall’s pass, and some instinct makes him turn.
Between the trees, beneath the dappled light and shade of the forest canopy, she watches their passage, from a space and silence so complete he feels the force of their intrusion like a blow to the gut. Her eyes, unsettlingly blue-grey, seem to reflect the shock of his own passing back at him – the garish jingle of the horses’ tack, Edmond’s song about thyme and heather, the sucking of Starla’s hooves in the mud of the road, his own lungs as they fill and empty and keep emptying out long after he has any breath left – and, absurdly, he feels his skin heat, and knows he is blushing.
He has time to notice that her hair is very dark, that her dress is very white, and that her feet are incongruously bare before Edmond breaks into a gallop, and girl and woods vanish as Starla instinctively follows suit, trees giving way to bare earth and stone as they climb towards the pass and the wide wild sky he has known all his life.
Cavall is in the high country; where the air is always clear and heady with cold and the hills are steep and jagged and the only birds are kites that wheel on draughts of air, far overhead. While too elevated for most crops to grow in abundance, there is the iron mine from which all crown ore is sourced, and the dogs and horses, and the sheep, who graze comfortably in the stark landscape. No one starves in winter.
He has always known how rich his life is - noble-born, in palace training - has never considered himself wanting for anything. There have always been the palace bells to rule his court life, and the chapel bells to set the tone of his days at home. There are his comrades and friends to tussle and learn and, one day, fight alongside with, and his family to support and remind him of where he comes from and who he is.
And what that means.
But that night, in his bed, in the tower room which has been his own all his life, the image of the girl in the woods haunts him, chasing away any chance he might have had of being visited by Gainel. Over and over again he recalls the way she had looked at him, and something in him aches, keeps aching, makes him clumsy and distant, worrying his family. He is meant to be their infallible one.
It is his sister who eventually gives him the antidote to his turmoil. Not entirely – it is impossible – but enough so that he is able to fend off his family’s disbelief, and function satisfactorily.
When the southerly winds carry up the richness of the distant forest to his tower room, and the sky, threatening sudden summer storms with swollen clouds, resembles a particular gaze, he whispers the word, her name – Vivienne –
And is soothed, and can go on.
Rating: G
Summary: Wyldon the squire, falling in love.
He is fourteen years old when he first sees her. Mercifully, it is the end of spring and he has just been made a squire, though a full quarter remains until he will officially serve Sir Raef haMinch.
A quarter to spend running and hunting and training with the men at arms, and training the latest litter of pups, and caring for the mare’s who’re foaling, and bickering with his brother and sister. Time to learn more of his duties as heir to the fief and feel his obligation to the health of his people and this fragment of the kingdom he will one day serve in its entirety eddy in the place where he imagines his soul rests in his body.
Time to spend as he has spent it every other summer of his life – but all of this changes when Edmond and he turn off the Conte road, crossing through Hannalof borderlands for Cavall’s pass, and some instinct makes him turn.
Between the trees, beneath the dappled light and shade of the forest canopy, she watches their passage, from a space and silence so complete he feels the force of their intrusion like a blow to the gut. Her eyes, unsettlingly blue-grey, seem to reflect the shock of his own passing back at him – the garish jingle of the horses’ tack, Edmond’s song about thyme and heather, the sucking of Starla’s hooves in the mud of the road, his own lungs as they fill and empty and keep emptying out long after he has any breath left – and, absurdly, he feels his skin heat, and knows he is blushing.
He has time to notice that her hair is very dark, that her dress is very white, and that her feet are incongruously bare before Edmond breaks into a gallop, and girl and woods vanish as Starla instinctively follows suit, trees giving way to bare earth and stone as they climb towards the pass and the wide wild sky he has known all his life.
Cavall is in the high country; where the air is always clear and heady with cold and the hills are steep and jagged and the only birds are kites that wheel on draughts of air, far overhead. While too elevated for most crops to grow in abundance, there is the iron mine from which all crown ore is sourced, and the dogs and horses, and the sheep, who graze comfortably in the stark landscape. No one starves in winter.
He has always known how rich his life is - noble-born, in palace training - has never considered himself wanting for anything. There have always been the palace bells to rule his court life, and the chapel bells to set the tone of his days at home. There are his comrades and friends to tussle and learn and, one day, fight alongside with, and his family to support and remind him of where he comes from and who he is.
And what that means.
But that night, in his bed, in the tower room which has been his own all his life, the image of the girl in the woods haunts him, chasing away any chance he might have had of being visited by Gainel. Over and over again he recalls the way she had looked at him, and something in him aches, keeps aching, makes him clumsy and distant, worrying his family. He is meant to be their infallible one.
It is his sister who eventually gives him the antidote to his turmoil. Not entirely – it is impossible – but enough so that he is able to fend off his family’s disbelief, and function satisfactorily.
When the southerly winds carry up the richness of the distant forest to his tower room, and the sky, threatening sudden summer storms with swollen clouds, resembles a particular gaze, he whispers the word, her name – Vivienne –
And is soothed, and can go on.