Post by rainstormamaya on Feb 16, 2010 8:10:43 GMT 10
Title: All Talk
Rating: G
Length: 784 words
Competitor: Vania
Round/Fight: 1/F
Summary: Royals and lady knights. It’s like fate, or something- but fate has its tragedies.
*****
“You know, your highness,” Kel said, “your family are very worried about you.”
The woman in the middle of the clearing, sitting with her legs crossed and open hands rested palm-up on her knees, sighed shortly and cracked open one slate-blue eye. “Please don’t tell me they were so stupid as to send out search parties.”
Kel had never imagined that so much venom could be put into two such inoffensive words. She dismounted, and looped Hoshi’s reins over a branch. The princess was letting her evil-minded pony run amok, and since the palace animals were so smart these days that probably wasn’t an unwise decision in and of itself, but it was a habit of Kel’s ingrained through years of riding foul-tempered, toothsome Peachblossom, who could do with a little restraint every now and then.
“Not formal ones,” she answered the princess calmly. “Your brother Prince Roald did ask a few of his friends if we’d be so good as to have a look for you.”
Both of the woman’s eyes opened properly, and she huffed a short sigh. “Roald. If he wasn’t my favourite brother I’d damn him for an interfering busybody.”
Kel stayed quiet.
“Not that he isn’t,” the youngest Conté assured her, “but, you know... he does worry about me, so I suppose I can let it pass, because Goddess knows nothing will ever stop Roald worrying.” She curled her hands into fists, and thumped her knees. “He was worried about this, I know... He was just working himself up to speak to me.”
“Is something that matter, your highness?” Kel sat down on a fallen log.
The other woman’s ferociously sullen silence, for some reason, clued Kel in on what she could never have guessed otherwise. She waited, patiently, until Vania sighed, and said: “Someone. Someone I liked, someone I really, really liked, who’s just told me we can never be together so we should stop it.” She got up, dusted the grass off the back of her breeches, and went to catch her horse. “You can tell Doanna of Fenrigh, if you like,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Doanna, and all the other gossiping spinsters who just wish anyone ever made up rumours about them. It’s not as if worse isn’t said about me all the time.”
“I have a similar problem,” Kel said mildly.
Roald’s sister snorted an acknowledgement, looking suddenly, uncannily like her brother faced with Joren’s worst excesses.
“If I might venture a word, your highness,” Kel said after a moment, encouraged by the family resemblance.
The princess waved a careless hand. “Venture away.”
“You may come to think they aren’t right for you,” Kel said softly. “Whoever they are. The obstacles keeping you from them now may seem as if they ruin your life, as if they keep you from being happy forever... but you may find, in a few months’ time, or even perhaps weeks, that it would never have worked anyway.”
The princess turned her head, resting her head on her hands. “Cleon of Kennan,” she said, and it was a statement, not a question.
Taken by surprise, Kel nodded slightly.
Vania tapped her fingers against her forehead, and than sighed and sat ramrod straight, suddenly looking like a princess rather than a very unhappy teenager. “Well. At least my lost love isn’t married, which, I concede, would be... a bit of a downer.”
Kel’s lips twitched.
“Yet,” Vania said softly. “Yet.” She shrugged. “She’s beautiful, in her own way; and brave, and clever, and steady.”
Kel just about kept enough control of herself not to give a sharp indrawn breath. She?
Vania got up and stretched, sinuous, athletic, like a mountain cat: not a lioness, blazing in the shadows, but a panther, living in the shadows, a deeper darkness in the shadows, of the shadows, and needing nothing more. “I should go back.”
And then she chuckled, and fell to her knees before Kel, collapsing in a tangle of limbs and mischief. “Do you want to know what her name was?” she whispered, resting her hands on Kel’s knees and pushing herself up till her face was meagre inches from Kel’s, her smile beautiful and broken.
Kel sat there, frozen, and stared into Vania’s laughing eyes: laughing eyes from which tears fell.
“Fianola,” Vania whispered, and laughed and cried and kissed her. She clung to Kel, head bent, half-curled with bitter sobs that wracked her bones; and Kel put her arms around her, and held her, and rubbed her back and whispered soothing words.
And when people whispered of a young knight’s sudden departure from court, and the bitter vivacity of the king’s youngest daughter, Kel said calmly: “It’s all talk.”
Rating: G
Length: 784 words
Competitor: Vania
Round/Fight: 1/F
Summary: Royals and lady knights. It’s like fate, or something- but fate has its tragedies.
*****
“You know, your highness,” Kel said, “your family are very worried about you.”
The woman in the middle of the clearing, sitting with her legs crossed and open hands rested palm-up on her knees, sighed shortly and cracked open one slate-blue eye. “Please don’t tell me they were so stupid as to send out search parties.”
Kel had never imagined that so much venom could be put into two such inoffensive words. She dismounted, and looped Hoshi’s reins over a branch. The princess was letting her evil-minded pony run amok, and since the palace animals were so smart these days that probably wasn’t an unwise decision in and of itself, but it was a habit of Kel’s ingrained through years of riding foul-tempered, toothsome Peachblossom, who could do with a little restraint every now and then.
“Not formal ones,” she answered the princess calmly. “Your brother Prince Roald did ask a few of his friends if we’d be so good as to have a look for you.”
Both of the woman’s eyes opened properly, and she huffed a short sigh. “Roald. If he wasn’t my favourite brother I’d damn him for an interfering busybody.”
Kel stayed quiet.
“Not that he isn’t,” the youngest Conté assured her, “but, you know... he does worry about me, so I suppose I can let it pass, because Goddess knows nothing will ever stop Roald worrying.” She curled her hands into fists, and thumped her knees. “He was worried about this, I know... He was just working himself up to speak to me.”
“Is something that matter, your highness?” Kel sat down on a fallen log.
The other woman’s ferociously sullen silence, for some reason, clued Kel in on what she could never have guessed otherwise. She waited, patiently, until Vania sighed, and said: “Someone. Someone I liked, someone I really, really liked, who’s just told me we can never be together so we should stop it.” She got up, dusted the grass off the back of her breeches, and went to catch her horse. “You can tell Doanna of Fenrigh, if you like,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Doanna, and all the other gossiping spinsters who just wish anyone ever made up rumours about them. It’s not as if worse isn’t said about me all the time.”
“I have a similar problem,” Kel said mildly.
Roald’s sister snorted an acknowledgement, looking suddenly, uncannily like her brother faced with Joren’s worst excesses.
“If I might venture a word, your highness,” Kel said after a moment, encouraged by the family resemblance.
The princess waved a careless hand. “Venture away.”
“You may come to think they aren’t right for you,” Kel said softly. “Whoever they are. The obstacles keeping you from them now may seem as if they ruin your life, as if they keep you from being happy forever... but you may find, in a few months’ time, or even perhaps weeks, that it would never have worked anyway.”
The princess turned her head, resting her head on her hands. “Cleon of Kennan,” she said, and it was a statement, not a question.
Taken by surprise, Kel nodded slightly.
Vania tapped her fingers against her forehead, and than sighed and sat ramrod straight, suddenly looking like a princess rather than a very unhappy teenager. “Well. At least my lost love isn’t married, which, I concede, would be... a bit of a downer.”
Kel’s lips twitched.
“Yet,” Vania said softly. “Yet.” She shrugged. “She’s beautiful, in her own way; and brave, and clever, and steady.”
Kel just about kept enough control of herself not to give a sharp indrawn breath. She?
Vania got up and stretched, sinuous, athletic, like a mountain cat: not a lioness, blazing in the shadows, but a panther, living in the shadows, a deeper darkness in the shadows, of the shadows, and needing nothing more. “I should go back.”
And then she chuckled, and fell to her knees before Kel, collapsing in a tangle of limbs and mischief. “Do you want to know what her name was?” she whispered, resting her hands on Kel’s knees and pushing herself up till her face was meagre inches from Kel’s, her smile beautiful and broken.
Kel sat there, frozen, and stared into Vania’s laughing eyes: laughing eyes from which tears fell.
“Fianola,” Vania whispered, and laughed and cried and kissed her. She clung to Kel, head bent, half-curled with bitter sobs that wracked her bones; and Kel put her arms around her, and held her, and rubbed her back and whispered soothing words.
And when people whispered of a young knight’s sudden departure from court, and the bitter vivacity of the king’s youngest daughter, Kel said calmly: “It’s all talk.”