Post by max on Feb 11, 2010 16:32:07 GMT 10
Title: Creep (soundtrack whoo)
Rating: PG
Length: 758
Competitor: Faleron
Round/Fight: 1/B
Summary: The art of growing up. Growing pains. Shiz.
Probably doesn't follow the canon timeline at all but I don't have my copy of squire on me.
===================================
On a perfect, glowing evening, outside the princess’ (though not his) tent in a circle of swirling Yamani girls, the light catching her perfect skin, the gold in her hair, the lean athletic lines of her body, it occurs to him for the first time that Keladry of Mindelan, bound for greatness, has been damaged by the life she’s chosen for herself, has lost one of the most vital weapons anyone growing up could ever have.
An awareness of her beauty.
It hits him in a sudden bolt as she scrapes her hair back behind her ear quickly, not drawing any kind of pleasure from the gesture or wishing for anyone to notice her hair or the fluidity of her hands, and the guilt of it eats at his conscience.
So it is that later that night when their friends are beginning to fragment away from the group, bound for beds and tents and the lists tomorrow, he finds himself pretending not to see Cleon’s get-out-of-here eyebrow signalling, dropping Cleon off at her brother’s tent, that he takes her hand, pulling her into the narrow gap between two closely picketed tents with the excuse that he knows a short cut.
‘This is silly,’ whispers Kel, and her hand is in his, callouses scraping callouses and the soft skin in between. ‘We’d have got there by now.’ But he can hear the humour in her voice.
‘I got through this morning,’ he replies, equally softly, ducking beneath taut ropes, trying to navigate the hooks and stakes at ground level he can’t see anymore with the loss of the sun, without sending them both (and quite possibly the tents wedging them in as well) tumbling to the ground. ‘This way you don’t have to bypass the – oof!’
Later he will discover that her tunic had caught on a peg and she had fallen onto him, but for now there is only the fragrance of her hair, her eyelashes brushing his face, the laughter thrumming in her throat as she begins to pull herself off him.
‘I suppose I should be lucky I don’t have two left feet on the field –’ but his arms tighten around her, and she loses the train of thought. ‘Faleron…what?’
‘I want you to know something, Kel,’ he tells her, and his voice has gone all hoarse, his heart hammering – fit to match her own in fact, beating against it.
He has kissed other girls of course – the visits made by friends to the princesses who live with you tend to facilitate romance, as does being seventeen generally – but there is something about this that makes him… nervous.
She is not like any other girl he has ever known. Even in this light he can see the scars on her hands as she cautiously tucks feathery strands of hair behind her ears, a crease of confusion between her brows.
‘Seriousl – ’
But then he kisses her, one of his hands lacing up into her hair, the other still wrapped around her waist, softly, sweetly, trying to bring on an epiphany with his lips and tongue and shared breath –
It seems logical at the time.
When she is lying beneath him though, her hands wrapping up around his shoulders (a little breathless, a little hot in the cool of the falling night) and he tries to kiss her again, hot tears meet his skin, and, chagrined, he scrambles off her.
‘I didn’t - hurt you, did I?’ he asks, worried in spite of himself.
‘Hurt – no!’ but she is still weeping, swiping furiously at tears, and, tentatively he reaches over to her again, trying to stem their flow with his thumbs on her flushed cheeks.
‘Then where do we go from here?’
But with his curious sixth, Kel-focusing sense, he suddenly feels her guilt, rolling off her like waves from the sea.
‘Kel…’ and his thumbs reach the corners of her mouth, cupping her chin, trying to push those swollen corners into a smile. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
She manages one word before he walks away, uttered in a tone that makes him ache, hate her, hate himself more, wonder how he could have been so blind, so struck by love (or something), how she couldn’t yet know she was beautiful, considering it all, night falling along with his hope or faith or tenderness, leaving only betrayal streaked across his sky.
‘Cleon…’
She had kissed him back.
Cleon.
She kissed him back.
Cleon –
He doesn’t see Keladry again until after the Scanran war.
Rating: PG
Length: 758
Competitor: Faleron
Round/Fight: 1/B
Summary: The art of growing up. Growing pains. Shiz.
Probably doesn't follow the canon timeline at all but I don't have my copy of squire on me.
===================================
On a perfect, glowing evening, outside the princess’ (though not his) tent in a circle of swirling Yamani girls, the light catching her perfect skin, the gold in her hair, the lean athletic lines of her body, it occurs to him for the first time that Keladry of Mindelan, bound for greatness, has been damaged by the life she’s chosen for herself, has lost one of the most vital weapons anyone growing up could ever have.
An awareness of her beauty.
It hits him in a sudden bolt as she scrapes her hair back behind her ear quickly, not drawing any kind of pleasure from the gesture or wishing for anyone to notice her hair or the fluidity of her hands, and the guilt of it eats at his conscience.
So it is that later that night when their friends are beginning to fragment away from the group, bound for beds and tents and the lists tomorrow, he finds himself pretending not to see Cleon’s get-out-of-here eyebrow signalling, dropping Cleon off at her brother’s tent, that he takes her hand, pulling her into the narrow gap between two closely picketed tents with the excuse that he knows a short cut.
‘This is silly,’ whispers Kel, and her hand is in his, callouses scraping callouses and the soft skin in between. ‘We’d have got there by now.’ But he can hear the humour in her voice.
‘I got through this morning,’ he replies, equally softly, ducking beneath taut ropes, trying to navigate the hooks and stakes at ground level he can’t see anymore with the loss of the sun, without sending them both (and quite possibly the tents wedging them in as well) tumbling to the ground. ‘This way you don’t have to bypass the – oof!’
Later he will discover that her tunic had caught on a peg and she had fallen onto him, but for now there is only the fragrance of her hair, her eyelashes brushing his face, the laughter thrumming in her throat as she begins to pull herself off him.
‘I suppose I should be lucky I don’t have two left feet on the field –’ but his arms tighten around her, and she loses the train of thought. ‘Faleron…what?’
‘I want you to know something, Kel,’ he tells her, and his voice has gone all hoarse, his heart hammering – fit to match her own in fact, beating against it.
He has kissed other girls of course – the visits made by friends to the princesses who live with you tend to facilitate romance, as does being seventeen generally – but there is something about this that makes him… nervous.
She is not like any other girl he has ever known. Even in this light he can see the scars on her hands as she cautiously tucks feathery strands of hair behind her ears, a crease of confusion between her brows.
‘Seriousl – ’
But then he kisses her, one of his hands lacing up into her hair, the other still wrapped around her waist, softly, sweetly, trying to bring on an epiphany with his lips and tongue and shared breath –
It seems logical at the time.
When she is lying beneath him though, her hands wrapping up around his shoulders (a little breathless, a little hot in the cool of the falling night) and he tries to kiss her again, hot tears meet his skin, and, chagrined, he scrambles off her.
‘I didn’t - hurt you, did I?’ he asks, worried in spite of himself.
‘Hurt – no!’ but she is still weeping, swiping furiously at tears, and, tentatively he reaches over to her again, trying to stem their flow with his thumbs on her flushed cheeks.
‘Then where do we go from here?’
But with his curious sixth, Kel-focusing sense, he suddenly feels her guilt, rolling off her like waves from the sea.
‘Kel…’ and his thumbs reach the corners of her mouth, cupping her chin, trying to push those swollen corners into a smile. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
She manages one word before he walks away, uttered in a tone that makes him ache, hate her, hate himself more, wonder how he could have been so blind, so struck by love (or something), how she couldn’t yet know she was beautiful, considering it all, night falling along with his hope or faith or tenderness, leaving only betrayal streaked across his sky.
‘Cleon…’
She had kissed him back.
Cleon.
She kissed him back.
Cleon –
He doesn’t see Keladry again until after the Scanran war.