Post by rainstormamaya on Apr 23, 2010 8:36:20 GMT 10
Title: More Alike Than We Know
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,547 words
Summary: The aftermath of Pirate’s Swoop on a dangerous bit of wall: Alanna and Dren have more in common than just their status as twins. And what is that blasted baby dragon’s name, anyway?
Author’s Notes: In my May You Live In Interesting Times AU. Daine has a twin, Dren, and Numair is a woman, Giacinta.
****
Alanna almost tripped over the boy, sitting in the lengthening shadows as the cleanup of Pirate’s Swoop went on around him. He had chosen a spot on the walls where the parapet had been broken down, and was staring out to sea, the dragonlet wrapped in a horse blanket and asleep on his lap.
“What are you doing?” Alanna demanded, and gentled her tone when she saw the blank look on his face. Shock? “Dren, are you all right?”
Dren was stroking the dragonling’s head. He glanced up at her, blue eyes wide and surprisingly innocent in a bruised, blood-marked face that was too drawn to belong to one so young. Silently, he shrugged.
For want of anything else to do, Alanna sat down beside him. “You did well, according to Sarge. Never lost your nerve.”
Dren grunted. The baby dragon whuffled in her sleep, and he looked down at her, checking she was all right. The sun was setting, orange on the midnight sea, lighting up the pitiful fragments of boat the kraken had left behind. The villagers would do well on salvage in the days and weeks to come, Alanna thought, and was pleased to think of Tortallan windows getting new shutters and Tortallan children new toys made from the remnants of Carthaki war barges- and the extra firewood would help for the winter, too.
“You’ve got a smart kid, lady knight,” Dren said unexpectedly. “Been bringin’ me and Daine creatures to fix. Sorted out a little area for us to handle ’em.”
Alanna smiled. “Thom’s a good boy. I keep telling you to call me Alanna, though.”
Dren’s eyes flicked towards her, and then he fixed his eyes on the crown of the dragonlet’s head and was silent.
Alanna thought about pushing the point, and then decided to let him stay quiet; she was too tired to try and wring her proper name out of a boy who wrote the book on stubbornness. Instead, she looked at the little dragon. Daine, shattered after her exertions during the battle, had grabbed Dren’s wrist for a moment and stared into his eyes before passing out: Dren had gaped at her, then shook his head, tucked her blanket gently round her, and moved off with some purpose, having understood Goddess-knew-what from that wide-eyed stare. The next thing Alanna knew, she and George were paying host to a baby dragon, of all things. Dren had not been inclined to stand still to talk, so anyone wanting him to answer questions had had to follow him around while he made up a bottle for the little thing, found a spare horseblanket, bathed it and fed it. Nor had the answers been particularly helpful. What’s that? A baby dragon. Where’s it from? Dragon we helped. Why have you got it? Daine told me to. How did Daine tell you to? She just did. Why did Daine tell you to? Don’t know. What’s it called? Don’t know. What are you going to do with it? Don’t know.
Alanna scowled. There had been far too many questions unanswered. Maybe Daine would be able to answer a few when she was fit again, always supposing she was actually prepared to talk.
She was thinking so deeply that she was caught entirely off guard when Dren said: “I’m thinking about the future.”
Alanna, slumped against the wall beside him, abruptly sat up straight. “What? I thought I told you and Daine, you don’t need to worry about that. You have a place to stay wherever you need it in Tortall. You two saved all our lives, you saved the queen’s life and the heir to the throne’s, and we don’t forget a service like that.”
Dren looked at Alanna, and she saw shadows in his greyish-blue eyes. “I always think about the future.”
Alanna peered into his face, looking at the weary lines there and tired set of the mouth. She could see the flicker of copper magic in him, if she exerted her Gift. It was worn down to a nub: he probably couldn’t so much as get up, and he might well be too addled to think properly. “Is Daine thinking like this?” she asked, to buy time.
Dren shook his head. “She doesn’t need to.”
“You’re twins,” Alanna said, not without a pang of bitterness. “Wherever you go, you go together.”
“I think you know that better than most folk,” Dren said softly, and rested his chin gently on the dragonling’s head.
“Yes,” Alanna said, “I do,” and kept to herself every false comparison she’d made between herself and Thom, Dren and Daine. It was difficult not to, even though she knew that their circumstances were fundamentally different: she found herself comparing herself and Thom to every pair of twins she met.
“Daine wants to go with Giacinta,” Dren explained, “and I don’t.”
“Don’t you?” Alanna demanded, staring at him sharply.
Dren shook his head. “Mistress Salmalín doesn’t care for anything ’cept learning, not really. Oh, she’ll put what she knows to use, fair ’nough, if her country needs it. But you’d need a catapult to rouse her from her books and get her out of doors, and I like the indoors fine but I don’t want to live my whole life there. I’m not the gifted one, either. It’s Daine who has this magic in spades, always has done. I’m more-“
“Normal,” Alanna completed, and reached out to ruffle his hair. She smiled slightly, almost grimly, which would have surprised anyone but George. “You and I are more alike than we know.”
Dren returned the smile. “Maybe.”
“Is there any other reason you don’t like Giacinta?”
“’S not that I don’t like her, lady,” Dren said, toying with the little dragon’s blanket. “’S that she doesn’t understand, and she wants me to be someone I’m not.”
“Giacinta had to run from her home, too,” Alanna reminded him.
Dren shot her a look that said it’s not the same. “D’you know when Giacinta killed her first man?”
Alanna tapped her fingers on the stone beneath her, and raised censorious ginger eyebrows. This was an odd direction for the conversation to be going in. “No.”
“Me neither. But I was thirteen,” Dren said, quietly, without a hint of pride in his voice- but without shame, either. “I was thirteen, ’n I killed six men, maybe more. And today I killed more’n that, to defend people I care about. Giacinta wants me to pretend that I’m still a child, that I can’t kill. That I haven’t.” He shrugged. “Daine c’n do that, because Daine’s ashamed of what she did when she ran mad,. I can’t.”
Alanna looked at him for a long moment, and then, cautiously, put an arm around his shoulders. It felt too familiar, but she needed to let the boy know she understood somehow, and just words weren’t going to be enough: she suspected he’d had enough words to last a lifetime. “I think none of us guessed what that meant,” she said, as quietly as he had. “Not at first. We just thought you were... children, you know? But you aren’t, you least of all. Giacinta doesn’t mean you to pretend to be what you aren’t.”
“She doesn’t mean it on purpose,” Dren told her, rather confusedly. “She just looks at me like it’s not right for me to hide my trail, or keep a bow handy, or carry a knife. Like I’m too young.”
“She’s the only one who can help you train your magic,” Alanna pointed out.
Dren nodded. “’n I can’t go untrained. I know that now. And... I want t’ use it, I want t’ be able to use it for other people ’n animals, but... I don’t want to spend my life learning about it.”
Alanna thought of a boy called Alan who told himself the Gift was cheating, and tightened her grip on Dren’s shoulders. “You don’t have to.”
“Good,” Dren said.
There was another long pause. They watched the sun setting, the slivers of molten gold sinking beneath the horizon, the first stars blazing white in the sky.
“What do you want to do?” Alanna asked.
Dren pursed his lips. “I want to go with Onua. Help her with the ponies, teach the Riders how to handle them. Take Daine with me, ’cause she’s good with them, and look after her, see her right.” He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
Alanna moved her arm, which was getting stiff. “I can think of worse plans.” We’re twins! Let’s swap. I can be a knight and you can be a mage. What could possibly go wrong? “But you might have to put up with Giacinta for a while.”
Dren grunted.
After a while, he said: “Can... Daine and I come here, sometimes?”
Alanna treated him to a paint-stripping glare. “Hasn’t George already told you you have a home here?”
Dren half-grinned, his mouth twisting. “He told Daine, before she fell asleep.”
Alanna punched his shoulder gently. “You’re both welcome, whenever you need a home. The children will always be pleased to see you, and so will George, and so will I.”
Dren smiled. Alanna heaved herself to her feet with a groan, and held out a hand to Dren. “Come on, Veldren Sarrasri. Let’s get down from this stupid wall before we fall off it.”
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,547 words
Summary: The aftermath of Pirate’s Swoop on a dangerous bit of wall: Alanna and Dren have more in common than just their status as twins. And what is that blasted baby dragon’s name, anyway?
Author’s Notes: In my May You Live In Interesting Times AU. Daine has a twin, Dren, and Numair is a woman, Giacinta.
****
Alanna almost tripped over the boy, sitting in the lengthening shadows as the cleanup of Pirate’s Swoop went on around him. He had chosen a spot on the walls where the parapet had been broken down, and was staring out to sea, the dragonlet wrapped in a horse blanket and asleep on his lap.
“What are you doing?” Alanna demanded, and gentled her tone when she saw the blank look on his face. Shock? “Dren, are you all right?”
Dren was stroking the dragonling’s head. He glanced up at her, blue eyes wide and surprisingly innocent in a bruised, blood-marked face that was too drawn to belong to one so young. Silently, he shrugged.
For want of anything else to do, Alanna sat down beside him. “You did well, according to Sarge. Never lost your nerve.”
Dren grunted. The baby dragon whuffled in her sleep, and he looked down at her, checking she was all right. The sun was setting, orange on the midnight sea, lighting up the pitiful fragments of boat the kraken had left behind. The villagers would do well on salvage in the days and weeks to come, Alanna thought, and was pleased to think of Tortallan windows getting new shutters and Tortallan children new toys made from the remnants of Carthaki war barges- and the extra firewood would help for the winter, too.
“You’ve got a smart kid, lady knight,” Dren said unexpectedly. “Been bringin’ me and Daine creatures to fix. Sorted out a little area for us to handle ’em.”
Alanna smiled. “Thom’s a good boy. I keep telling you to call me Alanna, though.”
Dren’s eyes flicked towards her, and then he fixed his eyes on the crown of the dragonlet’s head and was silent.
Alanna thought about pushing the point, and then decided to let him stay quiet; she was too tired to try and wring her proper name out of a boy who wrote the book on stubbornness. Instead, she looked at the little dragon. Daine, shattered after her exertions during the battle, had grabbed Dren’s wrist for a moment and stared into his eyes before passing out: Dren had gaped at her, then shook his head, tucked her blanket gently round her, and moved off with some purpose, having understood Goddess-knew-what from that wide-eyed stare. The next thing Alanna knew, she and George were paying host to a baby dragon, of all things. Dren had not been inclined to stand still to talk, so anyone wanting him to answer questions had had to follow him around while he made up a bottle for the little thing, found a spare horseblanket, bathed it and fed it. Nor had the answers been particularly helpful. What’s that? A baby dragon. Where’s it from? Dragon we helped. Why have you got it? Daine told me to. How did Daine tell you to? She just did. Why did Daine tell you to? Don’t know. What’s it called? Don’t know. What are you going to do with it? Don’t know.
Alanna scowled. There had been far too many questions unanswered. Maybe Daine would be able to answer a few when she was fit again, always supposing she was actually prepared to talk.
She was thinking so deeply that she was caught entirely off guard when Dren said: “I’m thinking about the future.”
Alanna, slumped against the wall beside him, abruptly sat up straight. “What? I thought I told you and Daine, you don’t need to worry about that. You have a place to stay wherever you need it in Tortall. You two saved all our lives, you saved the queen’s life and the heir to the throne’s, and we don’t forget a service like that.”
Dren looked at Alanna, and she saw shadows in his greyish-blue eyes. “I always think about the future.”
Alanna peered into his face, looking at the weary lines there and tired set of the mouth. She could see the flicker of copper magic in him, if she exerted her Gift. It was worn down to a nub: he probably couldn’t so much as get up, and he might well be too addled to think properly. “Is Daine thinking like this?” she asked, to buy time.
Dren shook his head. “She doesn’t need to.”
“You’re twins,” Alanna said, not without a pang of bitterness. “Wherever you go, you go together.”
“I think you know that better than most folk,” Dren said softly, and rested his chin gently on the dragonling’s head.
“Yes,” Alanna said, “I do,” and kept to herself every false comparison she’d made between herself and Thom, Dren and Daine. It was difficult not to, even though she knew that their circumstances were fundamentally different: she found herself comparing herself and Thom to every pair of twins she met.
“Daine wants to go with Giacinta,” Dren explained, “and I don’t.”
“Don’t you?” Alanna demanded, staring at him sharply.
Dren shook his head. “Mistress Salmalín doesn’t care for anything ’cept learning, not really. Oh, she’ll put what she knows to use, fair ’nough, if her country needs it. But you’d need a catapult to rouse her from her books and get her out of doors, and I like the indoors fine but I don’t want to live my whole life there. I’m not the gifted one, either. It’s Daine who has this magic in spades, always has done. I’m more-“
“Normal,” Alanna completed, and reached out to ruffle his hair. She smiled slightly, almost grimly, which would have surprised anyone but George. “You and I are more alike than we know.”
Dren returned the smile. “Maybe.”
“Is there any other reason you don’t like Giacinta?”
“’S not that I don’t like her, lady,” Dren said, toying with the little dragon’s blanket. “’S that she doesn’t understand, and she wants me to be someone I’m not.”
“Giacinta had to run from her home, too,” Alanna reminded him.
Dren shot her a look that said it’s not the same. “D’you know when Giacinta killed her first man?”
Alanna tapped her fingers on the stone beneath her, and raised censorious ginger eyebrows. This was an odd direction for the conversation to be going in. “No.”
“Me neither. But I was thirteen,” Dren said, quietly, without a hint of pride in his voice- but without shame, either. “I was thirteen, ’n I killed six men, maybe more. And today I killed more’n that, to defend people I care about. Giacinta wants me to pretend that I’m still a child, that I can’t kill. That I haven’t.” He shrugged. “Daine c’n do that, because Daine’s ashamed of what she did when she ran mad,. I can’t.”
Alanna looked at him for a long moment, and then, cautiously, put an arm around his shoulders. It felt too familiar, but she needed to let the boy know she understood somehow, and just words weren’t going to be enough: she suspected he’d had enough words to last a lifetime. “I think none of us guessed what that meant,” she said, as quietly as he had. “Not at first. We just thought you were... children, you know? But you aren’t, you least of all. Giacinta doesn’t mean you to pretend to be what you aren’t.”
“She doesn’t mean it on purpose,” Dren told her, rather confusedly. “She just looks at me like it’s not right for me to hide my trail, or keep a bow handy, or carry a knife. Like I’m too young.”
“She’s the only one who can help you train your magic,” Alanna pointed out.
Dren nodded. “’n I can’t go untrained. I know that now. And... I want t’ use it, I want t’ be able to use it for other people ’n animals, but... I don’t want to spend my life learning about it.”
Alanna thought of a boy called Alan who told himself the Gift was cheating, and tightened her grip on Dren’s shoulders. “You don’t have to.”
“Good,” Dren said.
There was another long pause. They watched the sun setting, the slivers of molten gold sinking beneath the horizon, the first stars blazing white in the sky.
“What do you want to do?” Alanna asked.
Dren pursed his lips. “I want to go with Onua. Help her with the ponies, teach the Riders how to handle them. Take Daine with me, ’cause she’s good with them, and look after her, see her right.” He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
Alanna moved her arm, which was getting stiff. “I can think of worse plans.” We’re twins! Let’s swap. I can be a knight and you can be a mage. What could possibly go wrong? “But you might have to put up with Giacinta for a while.”
Dren grunted.
After a while, he said: “Can... Daine and I come here, sometimes?”
Alanna treated him to a paint-stripping glare. “Hasn’t George already told you you have a home here?”
Dren half-grinned, his mouth twisting. “He told Daine, before she fell asleep.”
Alanna punched his shoulder gently. “You’re both welcome, whenever you need a home. The children will always be pleased to see you, and so will George, and so will I.”
Dren smiled. Alanna heaved herself to her feet with a groan, and held out a hand to Dren. “Come on, Veldren Sarrasri. Let’s get down from this stupid wall before we fall off it.”