Post by Kit on Mar 30, 2011 23:48:28 GMT 10
Title: Distillation
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 448
Pairing: Crane/Rosethorn
Round/Fight: 1/F
Summary: They are nearer the abyss than they know. Niva and Isas, at the beginnings of a project that shall consume their lives.
“I don’t think you can.” Niva grins, shaking her head, still unused to the feeling of cool air against the back of her neck, instead of heavy hanks of hair. Isas had spluttered to see her, called her mannish even as he tried to touch her, and in pulling back and laughing at him she felt lithe and alive and free for the first time since learning the two of them were to stay in the exhausted mausoleum of Lightsbridge for another term.
She had felt free then, and some of that sweetness lingered now, fizzing in her mouth and her cheeks and down to her chest while he took refuge in his angles and his eyebrows and consequence.
“Don’t think I what, you farmer?”
“Can beat me. No matter what your pet teacher says.”
“Master Mountainstrider is—”
“—clearly overcompensating.”
“That wasn’t even clever.”
Niva laughs “I don’t feel it, in this place,” she says. “But I still think I’ll do better in his secret project.”
“You know about that?” Isas is pale above his usual sallow tones, as if agitation has been broken over his face.
“He just invited me. Complete with a comment that you shall, of course, 'Instruct me in the pertinent matters.'"
“I would rather instruct leprous urchins in the removal of lice. Besides.” His turn to grin, wicked and brief. “You cannot possibly better me. I’m months ahead.”
Niva rolls her eyes, and then reaches up to cover his with her small hand, all ivories and pinks, the calluses he always associates with her touch lost now, after months without a garden. She blinds him, and leans into him, and he feels the rush of sharper senses that had always been the old perfume game, though the only scents here were clean marble and stone; old food from neighbouring corridors and old indigo from a battered rug, as well as the hyssop he used in his own hair and the bergamot from hers. There is her breath and their bodies, blended just a little from this one, familiar motion.
He shudders. She grazes his lips with hers, burning and too-brief and he is half sure he can hear their heartbeats, racing and slightly out of measure. “I shall move beyond you,” she whispers, half a tease and half a promise, and neither of the two novices realise that they are being watched.
If they can extract as much from the world around them as they can from one another, there is hope. Xiyun Mountainstrider shakes his head, barely smiling, as he brushes away his simple scrying spell and signs his approval of the novices’ continued stay.
QC by: journeycat
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 448
Pairing: Crane/Rosethorn
Round/Fight: 1/F
Summary: They are nearer the abyss than they know. Niva and Isas, at the beginnings of a project that shall consume their lives.
“I don’t think you can.” Niva grins, shaking her head, still unused to the feeling of cool air against the back of her neck, instead of heavy hanks of hair. Isas had spluttered to see her, called her mannish even as he tried to touch her, and in pulling back and laughing at him she felt lithe and alive and free for the first time since learning the two of them were to stay in the exhausted mausoleum of Lightsbridge for another term.
She had felt free then, and some of that sweetness lingered now, fizzing in her mouth and her cheeks and down to her chest while he took refuge in his angles and his eyebrows and consequence.
“Don’t think I what, you farmer?”
“Can beat me. No matter what your pet teacher says.”
“Master Mountainstrider is—”
“—clearly overcompensating.”
“That wasn’t even clever.”
Niva laughs “I don’t feel it, in this place,” she says. “But I still think I’ll do better in his secret project.”
“You know about that?” Isas is pale above his usual sallow tones, as if agitation has been broken over his face.
“He just invited me. Complete with a comment that you shall, of course, 'Instruct me in the pertinent matters.'"
“I would rather instruct leprous urchins in the removal of lice. Besides.” His turn to grin, wicked and brief. “You cannot possibly better me. I’m months ahead.”
Niva rolls her eyes, and then reaches up to cover his with her small hand, all ivories and pinks, the calluses he always associates with her touch lost now, after months without a garden. She blinds him, and leans into him, and he feels the rush of sharper senses that had always been the old perfume game, though the only scents here were clean marble and stone; old food from neighbouring corridors and old indigo from a battered rug, as well as the hyssop he used in his own hair and the bergamot from hers. There is her breath and their bodies, blended just a little from this one, familiar motion.
He shudders. She grazes his lips with hers, burning and too-brief and he is half sure he can hear their heartbeats, racing and slightly out of measure. “I shall move beyond you,” she whispers, half a tease and half a promise, and neither of the two novices realise that they are being watched.
If they can extract as much from the world around them as they can from one another, there is hope. Xiyun Mountainstrider shakes his head, barely smiling, as he brushes away his simple scrying spell and signs his approval of the novices’ continued stay.
QC by: journeycat