Post by Kit on Apr 21, 2013 1:51:26 GMT 10
Title: Age and treachery (and small glories)
Rating: G
Word Count: 521
Pairing: Kel/Lalasa
Round/Fight: 1/B
Summary: Lalasa’s sight fails her, but there is still plenty to see,
The needle has heated to match her blood. Lalasa can barely feel it, though her muscles still tell her that she grips its tiny length between thumb and forefinger. Sighing, she takes that knowledge and prays—to the Goddess, to the thread, to herself—for patience. And she squints.
She has always done this. The small grimace of concentration was as much muscle memory as the work of her fingers, or a response to unknown figures that might attack from behind, and so the change had been a gradual one. She did not realise that she squinted to bolster her sight until it was already cracking to pieces, a single needle making blurry copies of itself, and a window’s light throwing itself into her face like sparks.
("Eyes are like window glass," Neal had told her, wringing his hands before running them through his hair as if he was still a harried child awaiting punishment. "Yours are… cracked. That is a terrible analogy. I’m so sorry. It’s…”
“It serves me well enough,” she’d told him. “How are you at—”
“—glazing?”
“What can you do?”)
Her free hand rises to her head, palm pressing against aching, heavy lids. There has never been much anyone can do. Small spells and strong lenses, each lasting her a month until new cracks appear.
“Love?”
The other woman’s voice is soft, but steady. Lalasa imagines her filling the doorway, as tall and straight as she as ever been, even forty years after Lalasa had first seen her as a gangling, strange girl with a mouth too big for her face.
“I’m fine,” she says.
“Liar.” Her lover is closer now. Her step sounding unevenly on the wooden boards of Lalasa’s workroom. Hip injuries have never stopped her, but they speak in her gait. Lalasa sighs the other woman lays a hand gently on the back of her neck. She leans back, meets the small intimacy with trust, and glories a little in it even as her head pounds. Callused fingers press gently into muscles she had given up for wire. “You need to turn in.”
“I need to finish this — it’ll be a moment.” Lalasa changes her grip on the needle, licks two fingers to pinch the thread—green silk and almost alive, rich as it is with dye—her eyes closed. She groans in relief as the thread slides through as if the past hour of effort was all in her own head. “Perhaps,” she says, trying for tartness and rather hating the breathless relief that colours it, “Your Nealan will stop telling me I’m blind ig I can finish his daughter’s dress.”
Kel’s laughter is abrupt, and still holds the sharp undertone of surprise it always had when Lalasa makes her laugh. It can’t always be rare, she thinks with some asperity, hands a blur now that she can use weight and the cloth and her fingers instead of splintered sight.
And yet, Keladry of Mindelan, hero of the realm and the best training master a generation of Knights has ever known, has always treated their shared laughter as rare, and precious with it.
Growing old with this woman is a glory.
Rating: G
Word Count: 521
Pairing: Kel/Lalasa
Round/Fight: 1/B
Summary: Lalasa’s sight fails her, but there is still plenty to see,
The needle has heated to match her blood. Lalasa can barely feel it, though her muscles still tell her that she grips its tiny length between thumb and forefinger. Sighing, she takes that knowledge and prays—to the Goddess, to the thread, to herself—for patience. And she squints.
She has always done this. The small grimace of concentration was as much muscle memory as the work of her fingers, or a response to unknown figures that might attack from behind, and so the change had been a gradual one. She did not realise that she squinted to bolster her sight until it was already cracking to pieces, a single needle making blurry copies of itself, and a window’s light throwing itself into her face like sparks.
("Eyes are like window glass," Neal had told her, wringing his hands before running them through his hair as if he was still a harried child awaiting punishment. "Yours are… cracked. That is a terrible analogy. I’m so sorry. It’s…”
“It serves me well enough,” she’d told him. “How are you at—”
“—glazing?”
“What can you do?”)
Her free hand rises to her head, palm pressing against aching, heavy lids. There has never been much anyone can do. Small spells and strong lenses, each lasting her a month until new cracks appear.
“Love?”
The other woman’s voice is soft, but steady. Lalasa imagines her filling the doorway, as tall and straight as she as ever been, even forty years after Lalasa had first seen her as a gangling, strange girl with a mouth too big for her face.
“I’m fine,” she says.
“Liar.” Her lover is closer now. Her step sounding unevenly on the wooden boards of Lalasa’s workroom. Hip injuries have never stopped her, but they speak in her gait. Lalasa sighs the other woman lays a hand gently on the back of her neck. She leans back, meets the small intimacy with trust, and glories a little in it even as her head pounds. Callused fingers press gently into muscles she had given up for wire. “You need to turn in.”
“I need to finish this — it’ll be a moment.” Lalasa changes her grip on the needle, licks two fingers to pinch the thread—green silk and almost alive, rich as it is with dye—her eyes closed. She groans in relief as the thread slides through as if the past hour of effort was all in her own head. “Perhaps,” she says, trying for tartness and rather hating the breathless relief that colours it, “Your Nealan will stop telling me I’m blind ig I can finish his daughter’s dress.”
Kel’s laughter is abrupt, and still holds the sharp undertone of surprise it always had when Lalasa makes her laugh. It can’t always be rare, she thinks with some asperity, hands a blur now that she can use weight and the cloth and her fingers instead of splintered sight.
And yet, Keladry of Mindelan, hero of the realm and the best training master a generation of Knights has ever known, has always treated their shared laughter as rare, and precious with it.
Growing old with this woman is a glory.