Post by indifferentred on Aug 1, 2014 6:27:53 GMT 10
To: Rachy
Message: Happy Ficmas in July! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write some characters that I've not attempted before - hope you enjoy the fic!
From: Indifferentred
Title: The Grown-Up Children
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1, 355
Wishlist Item: 3. Taybur and Winna.
Summary (and any warnings): At the celebrations for Dove's wedding, two of her advisers come to their own understanding.
The little vine-twined structure was barely noticeable if you didn’t know it was there. During the long days of summer, it provided a useful hideaway for courting couples; on this cool spring night, it offered the queen’s stepmother a hideaway of her own. Winna smiled softly at the thought; she had no lover, and decidedly did not want one. Inside, someone had thoughtfully left a cushion, brightly embroidered in the raka style, on the stone seat built into the wall. She sat down, back ram-rod straight as always, and gave a sigh of most unladylike relief.
Away in the ballrooms and salons of the palace, her stepdaughter and her guests and her new husband were making merry; Winna’s work, in organising the whole grand, extravagant affair, was over now and for a few moments at least she would not be missed. When she had left the main ballroom, Dove had been buried deep in conversation with a group of various scholars - Baron Engan and Sir Myles of Olau and Lindhall Reed, from what she could tell - while her newly wedded lord, Prince Jasson of Tortall, had looked on with amusement and not a little admiration. That day’s ceremony had been the culmination of three years’ hard work, on her part and on Dove’s and on those of all her chief counsellors. The Queen of the Copper Isles could not marry just anyone, after all.
A cool sensation, like drops of water, brushed down her cheek. “Winna sad?” asked the little voice. The duchess reached up a hand and stroked her darking softly. “No, Midget. Tired.”
The darking made a sound that was very alike to a sigh. “Sometimes tired seem like sad.”
Winna let out a short laugh. Sometimes having charge of a darking was very much like having charge of a small child. She would have replied, but at that moment, she heard the crunch of gravel outside her hiding place. Midget withdrew from her cheek, tucking itself up into her hair once more. The gravel-cruncher paused outside for several minutes and then a pair of boots, occupied by a tall man in the black garb of the Queen’s Guard, entered. “Hiding away here on your night of glory, Your Grace?” Captain Sibigat’s voice was deep with amusement, and he held two full goblets. They had learnt to like each other, over all those months of arranging Dove’s marriage - working through all the reports and the meetings and the endless discussions of protocol - and Winna would accept his teasings now as she would not have done at the beginning.
“Hardly my glory, Captain,” she smiled and gestured to the space next to her with one graceful hand.
Taybur, bent almost double in the tiny room, sank gratefully onto the bench with an oof of relief (he must have been on duty all day!) and held out one of the goblets to her. She accepted with an incline of her head. “No? This marriage settlement owes so much to you.” Winna flushed and avoided replying by readjusting her gown; dramatic black velvet under a tabard of crinkled silver gauze.
As if in explanation for his presence, Taybur commented, “The Queen’s asking after you.”
Winna rested her head back against the wall, eyes closed. “I have a few more moments, surely?” She opened one eye and asked, “Do you think she has chosen wisely?”
Taybur gave his boyish grin. “Aye - wisely and well. She has her stepma’s wit, at least. Prince Jasson is a good, steady lad from what I can see.” He paused and added, “He’s devoted to her already.” The boy had a reputation for learning and a love of scholarly pursuits; Winna had been reassured over the last few months, chaperoning the Queen and her betrothed to seemingly endless chess matches and university lectures and evenings salons held at the Royal Observatory, but the last of her worries melted away at Taybur’s assessment. Jasson and Dove would do well together.
She let out a sigh, low enough that if Taybur had been sitting any further away, he would not have heard it. “She’s a woman grown - a child no longer. We all must learn to trust her judgement some time.” He was right; Dove was seventeen, edging on eighteen, the wise and benevolent ruler of a kingdom. She had little need for a mother now, and too often Winnamine mourned her loss, and clung a little tighter to Petranne.
She stole a glance at her daughter’s chief bodyguard out of the corner of her eye. “Did you ever think of marriage, Captain Sibigat? Of children?”
“Is that a proposal, Your Grace?” Winna’s eyebrows lifted in quiet appreciation of the joke and her eyes glinted, but they remained fixed on him, demanding a serious answer. Taybur deliberated for a moment and then looked ruefully up through the circular open window-space in the roof. “Once.” She snorted inwardly; Captain Sibigat was too handsome for that to be the whole story. “There was a girl on Ikang, when I was a lad with more muscle than sense.”
“What happened?” she asked, quietly.
“Oh, she married a silk merchant and had ten children.” Was it just her imagination, or did she catch a note of wistfulness in his eyes as he asked? Too late, she remembered what Dunevon had meant to him and felt ashamed.
Any expression of sympathy would have seemed gauche. How was it that he could make her feel so clumsy, like a nobleman’s daughter new at court? “And you joined the Guard,” she said instead.
“And I joined the Guard,” he agreed peaceably.
Winna nodded thoughtfully and they allowed a comfortable silence to descend around them, both watching the stars through the roof. “Have you been happy?”
He shrugged. “As happy as anyone, I suppose.”
“As happy as you would have been if you’d wed your girl on Ikang?”
Taybur chuckled, deep and long. “Much happier, I’d say. Bethari was about as steady as a moonbeam. No doubt she’d have given me trouble enough as we grew older.” He chafed his stubbly chin with his hand for a moment, buried deep in the past, and then asked, “What would you have done, had you not married His Grace?”
Winna’s smile was soft, and Taybur noticed for the first time the beauty that dwelt in that strong, self-possessed face. “Lived out my days in quiet widowhood, I suppose.”
Taybur frowned in confusion and her smile deepened. “You didn’t know that Mequen was my second husband? Oh, yes. My first was much older - not a love match. But he was kind to me, and a good friend.”
“And… Mequen?” Taybur found himself asking.
She looked straight at him. “He saw my soul.”
“I am glad of it, then.” The words surprised Winna, and she saw her own surprise reflected in Taybur’s eyes; they flushed and looked away. Winna fiddled half-anxiously with her eardrops - diamond and jet, last Midwinter’s gift from Sarai and Zaimid and little Mequen. Taybur raised his goblet to her, and she realised that they had not yet drunk. “A toast, then.”
She raised her own goblet, keeping her eyes on the ruby-red wine within. “To our grown up children,” she suggested.
“May they make their own mistakes,” Taybur added gently.
They drank in formal raka fashion, goblet-hands entwined, and Taybur’s grinning eyes caught hers. She swallowed the wine too quickly; he had caught her off balance again. She rose, brushing out her skirts, and he followed suit; so polite and gentlemanly, for a commoner. “I should go and attend to Her Majesty,” she apologised.
He bowed and stepped aside for her to pass. “Of course. Goodnight, Your Grace.”
She paused, rested a hand on his arm. “Winna…?” she murmured, staring down at his boots.
He slipped a warm finger below her chin and raised her face to his own, reading it intently with his eyes for a few moments. What he found there must have satisfied him, for he dipped his head quite slowly and deliberately, and pressed his mouth to hers. “Goodnight, Winna.”
Message: Happy Ficmas in July! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write some characters that I've not attempted before - hope you enjoy the fic!
From: Indifferentred
Title: The Grown-Up Children
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1, 355
Wishlist Item: 3. Taybur and Winna.
Summary (and any warnings): At the celebrations for Dove's wedding, two of her advisers come to their own understanding.
The little vine-twined structure was barely noticeable if you didn’t know it was there. During the long days of summer, it provided a useful hideaway for courting couples; on this cool spring night, it offered the queen’s stepmother a hideaway of her own. Winna smiled softly at the thought; she had no lover, and decidedly did not want one. Inside, someone had thoughtfully left a cushion, brightly embroidered in the raka style, on the stone seat built into the wall. She sat down, back ram-rod straight as always, and gave a sigh of most unladylike relief.
Away in the ballrooms and salons of the palace, her stepdaughter and her guests and her new husband were making merry; Winna’s work, in organising the whole grand, extravagant affair, was over now and for a few moments at least she would not be missed. When she had left the main ballroom, Dove had been buried deep in conversation with a group of various scholars - Baron Engan and Sir Myles of Olau and Lindhall Reed, from what she could tell - while her newly wedded lord, Prince Jasson of Tortall, had looked on with amusement and not a little admiration. That day’s ceremony had been the culmination of three years’ hard work, on her part and on Dove’s and on those of all her chief counsellors. The Queen of the Copper Isles could not marry just anyone, after all.
A cool sensation, like drops of water, brushed down her cheek. “Winna sad?” asked the little voice. The duchess reached up a hand and stroked her darking softly. “No, Midget. Tired.”
The darking made a sound that was very alike to a sigh. “Sometimes tired seem like sad.”
Winna let out a short laugh. Sometimes having charge of a darking was very much like having charge of a small child. She would have replied, but at that moment, she heard the crunch of gravel outside her hiding place. Midget withdrew from her cheek, tucking itself up into her hair once more. The gravel-cruncher paused outside for several minutes and then a pair of boots, occupied by a tall man in the black garb of the Queen’s Guard, entered. “Hiding away here on your night of glory, Your Grace?” Captain Sibigat’s voice was deep with amusement, and he held two full goblets. They had learnt to like each other, over all those months of arranging Dove’s marriage - working through all the reports and the meetings and the endless discussions of protocol - and Winna would accept his teasings now as she would not have done at the beginning.
“Hardly my glory, Captain,” she smiled and gestured to the space next to her with one graceful hand.
Taybur, bent almost double in the tiny room, sank gratefully onto the bench with an oof of relief (he must have been on duty all day!) and held out one of the goblets to her. She accepted with an incline of her head. “No? This marriage settlement owes so much to you.” Winna flushed and avoided replying by readjusting her gown; dramatic black velvet under a tabard of crinkled silver gauze.
As if in explanation for his presence, Taybur commented, “The Queen’s asking after you.”
Winna rested her head back against the wall, eyes closed. “I have a few more moments, surely?” She opened one eye and asked, “Do you think she has chosen wisely?”
Taybur gave his boyish grin. “Aye - wisely and well. She has her stepma’s wit, at least. Prince Jasson is a good, steady lad from what I can see.” He paused and added, “He’s devoted to her already.” The boy had a reputation for learning and a love of scholarly pursuits; Winna had been reassured over the last few months, chaperoning the Queen and her betrothed to seemingly endless chess matches and university lectures and evenings salons held at the Royal Observatory, but the last of her worries melted away at Taybur’s assessment. Jasson and Dove would do well together.
She let out a sigh, low enough that if Taybur had been sitting any further away, he would not have heard it. “She’s a woman grown - a child no longer. We all must learn to trust her judgement some time.” He was right; Dove was seventeen, edging on eighteen, the wise and benevolent ruler of a kingdom. She had little need for a mother now, and too often Winnamine mourned her loss, and clung a little tighter to Petranne.
She stole a glance at her daughter’s chief bodyguard out of the corner of her eye. “Did you ever think of marriage, Captain Sibigat? Of children?”
“Is that a proposal, Your Grace?” Winna’s eyebrows lifted in quiet appreciation of the joke and her eyes glinted, but they remained fixed on him, demanding a serious answer. Taybur deliberated for a moment and then looked ruefully up through the circular open window-space in the roof. “Once.” She snorted inwardly; Captain Sibigat was too handsome for that to be the whole story. “There was a girl on Ikang, when I was a lad with more muscle than sense.”
“What happened?” she asked, quietly.
“Oh, she married a silk merchant and had ten children.” Was it just her imagination, or did she catch a note of wistfulness in his eyes as he asked? Too late, she remembered what Dunevon had meant to him and felt ashamed.
Any expression of sympathy would have seemed gauche. How was it that he could make her feel so clumsy, like a nobleman’s daughter new at court? “And you joined the Guard,” she said instead.
“And I joined the Guard,” he agreed peaceably.
Winna nodded thoughtfully and they allowed a comfortable silence to descend around them, both watching the stars through the roof. “Have you been happy?”
He shrugged. “As happy as anyone, I suppose.”
“As happy as you would have been if you’d wed your girl on Ikang?”
Taybur chuckled, deep and long. “Much happier, I’d say. Bethari was about as steady as a moonbeam. No doubt she’d have given me trouble enough as we grew older.” He chafed his stubbly chin with his hand for a moment, buried deep in the past, and then asked, “What would you have done, had you not married His Grace?”
Winna’s smile was soft, and Taybur noticed for the first time the beauty that dwelt in that strong, self-possessed face. “Lived out my days in quiet widowhood, I suppose.”
Taybur frowned in confusion and her smile deepened. “You didn’t know that Mequen was my second husband? Oh, yes. My first was much older - not a love match. But he was kind to me, and a good friend.”
“And… Mequen?” Taybur found himself asking.
She looked straight at him. “He saw my soul.”
“I am glad of it, then.” The words surprised Winna, and she saw her own surprise reflected in Taybur’s eyes; they flushed and looked away. Winna fiddled half-anxiously with her eardrops - diamond and jet, last Midwinter’s gift from Sarai and Zaimid and little Mequen. Taybur raised his goblet to her, and she realised that they had not yet drunk. “A toast, then.”
She raised her own goblet, keeping her eyes on the ruby-red wine within. “To our grown up children,” she suggested.
“May they make their own mistakes,” Taybur added gently.
They drank in formal raka fashion, goblet-hands entwined, and Taybur’s grinning eyes caught hers. She swallowed the wine too quickly; he had caught her off balance again. She rose, brushing out her skirts, and he followed suit; so polite and gentlemanly, for a commoner. “I should go and attend to Her Majesty,” she apologised.
He bowed and stepped aside for her to pass. “Of course. Goodnight, Your Grace.”
She paused, rested a hand on his arm. “Winna…?” she murmured, staring down at his boots.
He slipped a warm finger below her chin and raised her face to his own, reading it intently with his eyes for a few moments. What he found there must have satisfied him, for he dipped his head quite slowly and deliberately, and pressed his mouth to hers. “Goodnight, Winna.”