Post by gemma on Jul 2, 2010 14:56:24 GMT 10
Title: Odile
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Summary: Pirisi considers the end of her life.
The Palace of Black Swans, a triumph of Hatari architecture, was greatly diminished. It was a morgue on an unimaginable and luxuriously appointed scale.
The atrium, Pirisi noticed, had finally been filled to capacity with stinking corpses. The pile had begun with the servants as the graveyards overflowed with victims of plague. The noble dead were not subjected to the disgraceful anonymity of a mass grave. The niceties of rank were observed only so far as to leave the nobles where they died.
Outside the hushed walls of the impromptu mausoleum, anarchy reigned. The common folk were whipped into frenzy by fear and into action by the ravings of a few bigots. The Tsaw’ha who contradicted stereotype by not immediately fleeing before the plague were rounded up and slaughtered like cattle.
It took the better part of a month for the mob to dare the palace gates, which trembled beneath the strength of their combined fists.
Their feet would slap against the black stone pavers as they flooded the grounds. Her death was writ for any novice to see, in omens bold and dark in dregs of smoky tea.
But how best to spend the coin of her life? There was no sense in negotiating the price. Her children, her blue-clad babes awaited her in the afterlife, Oti willing. Their deaths, at least, were neither torturous nor bloody. They fell ill and forty-eight hours later, almost simultaneously, their last breaths slipped away.
They were dead, but her last child, not the fruit of her loins, no, but her child nonetheless… she still lived. Her young charge, the poor orphaned Sandry with her child’s enthusiasm for the mimander’s craft...
Those two foolish creatures who called themselves her parents were benign in their neglect. They frittered their allotment of days in pursuit of pleasure and joy and now their accounts had been called due. They died as they lived, clasped together and leaving dear Sandry in the care of her nurse.
It was impossible to disdain them, the fools, for there was no meanness or venom or spite in Clehame fa Landreg and the Baron. It was obvious to any hamot with eyes that they loved that little girl.
A little girl who sat quietly on a sumptuous divan, a pale shadow of her usual self, sundered by the specter of death wearing familiar faces. Sandry waited, oh-so patiently, as Pirisi decided how best to protect her charge.
Poison was swift and painless and would take them forever beyond the reach of the grasping hands and snarling voices that sought blood and vengeance. Tempting. But Pirisi did not think she had it in herself to take another human life. The only thing worse than the act itself… would be to attempt it and fail.
She could put herself between the child and the mob. Give Sandry a few precious moments to run… fight… flight… and there was the answer. The mouse cannot outrun the goshawk, but it can hide, it can burrow. Pirisi had to hide the mouse. Not just behind a door, but behind a door that was no longer a door.
She knelt before the divan, looking into the fey blue eyes of her charge and taking her hand.
“Come, little love. We are going now.”
No answer but a small nod. Sandry must not know what she is planning… that rash streak of nobility that her parents never displayed but she had in abundance… it would be her death. So it must not be allowed to surface.
A roar echoed through the hallway as the gate gave way. Pirisi broke into a run, dragging Sandry who held, of all things, a basket of embroidery thread in her other hand.
There. On the right. She flung the door open. No windows. No one could penetrate the hiding place from the outside while the mob still reigned. She would be safe until sanity returned and help arrived.
If help didn’t arrive… if she wasn’t found… Pirisi shoved that thought away. Eventually the magic would fade and she could seek help on her own. Angry shouts were getting closer, though the hallway was still empty.
“Trader watch over you at home and at sea. May fair winds speed you home, my darling.”
She kissed Sandry’s forehead, which wrinkled as she heard the familiar prayer.
“Quick, in here!”
Sandry jerked as Pirisi all but shoved her into what appeared to be a coat closet and slammed the door.
Tiny, ineffectual fists beat on the other side as magic veiled the door from sight and sound. The faint pounding stopped as the spell settled into place.
“I’ll draw them off,” she whispered at the keyhole. The veil only worked one way, after all.
She ran, willing them to catch her.
They did.
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Summary: Pirisi considers the end of her life.
The Palace of Black Swans, a triumph of Hatari architecture, was greatly diminished. It was a morgue on an unimaginable and luxuriously appointed scale.
The atrium, Pirisi noticed, had finally been filled to capacity with stinking corpses. The pile had begun with the servants as the graveyards overflowed with victims of plague. The noble dead were not subjected to the disgraceful anonymity of a mass grave. The niceties of rank were observed only so far as to leave the nobles where they died.
Outside the hushed walls of the impromptu mausoleum, anarchy reigned. The common folk were whipped into frenzy by fear and into action by the ravings of a few bigots. The Tsaw’ha who contradicted stereotype by not immediately fleeing before the plague were rounded up and slaughtered like cattle.
It took the better part of a month for the mob to dare the palace gates, which trembled beneath the strength of their combined fists.
Their feet would slap against the black stone pavers as they flooded the grounds. Her death was writ for any novice to see, in omens bold and dark in dregs of smoky tea.
But how best to spend the coin of her life? There was no sense in negotiating the price. Her children, her blue-clad babes awaited her in the afterlife, Oti willing. Their deaths, at least, were neither torturous nor bloody. They fell ill and forty-eight hours later, almost simultaneously, their last breaths slipped away.
They were dead, but her last child, not the fruit of her loins, no, but her child nonetheless… she still lived. Her young charge, the poor orphaned Sandry with her child’s enthusiasm for the mimander’s craft...
Those two foolish creatures who called themselves her parents were benign in their neglect. They frittered their allotment of days in pursuit of pleasure and joy and now their accounts had been called due. They died as they lived, clasped together and leaving dear Sandry in the care of her nurse.
It was impossible to disdain them, the fools, for there was no meanness or venom or spite in Clehame fa Landreg and the Baron. It was obvious to any hamot with eyes that they loved that little girl.
A little girl who sat quietly on a sumptuous divan, a pale shadow of her usual self, sundered by the specter of death wearing familiar faces. Sandry waited, oh-so patiently, as Pirisi decided how best to protect her charge.
Poison was swift and painless and would take them forever beyond the reach of the grasping hands and snarling voices that sought blood and vengeance. Tempting. But Pirisi did not think she had it in herself to take another human life. The only thing worse than the act itself… would be to attempt it and fail.
She could put herself between the child and the mob. Give Sandry a few precious moments to run… fight… flight… and there was the answer. The mouse cannot outrun the goshawk, but it can hide, it can burrow. Pirisi had to hide the mouse. Not just behind a door, but behind a door that was no longer a door.
She knelt before the divan, looking into the fey blue eyes of her charge and taking her hand.
“Come, little love. We are going now.”
No answer but a small nod. Sandry must not know what she is planning… that rash streak of nobility that her parents never displayed but she had in abundance… it would be her death. So it must not be allowed to surface.
A roar echoed through the hallway as the gate gave way. Pirisi broke into a run, dragging Sandry who held, of all things, a basket of embroidery thread in her other hand.
There. On the right. She flung the door open. No windows. No one could penetrate the hiding place from the outside while the mob still reigned. She would be safe until sanity returned and help arrived.
If help didn’t arrive… if she wasn’t found… Pirisi shoved that thought away. Eventually the magic would fade and she could seek help on her own. Angry shouts were getting closer, though the hallway was still empty.
“Trader watch over you at home and at sea. May fair winds speed you home, my darling.”
She kissed Sandry’s forehead, which wrinkled as she heard the familiar prayer.
“Quick, in here!”
Sandry jerked as Pirisi all but shoved her into what appeared to be a coat closet and slammed the door.
Tiny, ineffectual fists beat on the other side as magic veiled the door from sight and sound. The faint pounding stopped as the spell settled into place.
“I’ll draw them off,” she whispered at the keyhole. The veil only worked one way, after all.
She ran, willing them to catch her.
They did.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!