Post by Cass on Mar 15, 2011 12:22:36 GMT 10
Title: Second Choices
Rating: PG
Word Count: 603
Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon
Fight: 1C
Summary: Kalasin's knightmaster is unexpected.
Notes: I apologize for my titles, seriously.
-
Kalasin is able to train for a knight and still have a finalized marriage contract with Kaddar-- even though he ends up becoming emperor much sooner than planned thanks to Daine the Wildmage and the Graveyard Hag. She suspects it was him who didn’t mind the knight-princess aspect and that it was more his mother and uncle, though it now means waiting years for her, three more than he had planned. However he has written to her already, a kind letter in neat cursive saying that Carthak needs a strong woman like her at its helm.
He’s nice enough, but Kalasin is more concerned on who will be her knightmaster, now that she’s passed all her exit exams. If Father hadn’t taken Zahir he would have taken Roald, not waited around for her-- Jonathan wouldn’t have wanted claims of favoritism and besides, she wouldn’t have accepted and he knew it. Lord Raoul takes on Keladry, which Kalasin approves of because Kel deserves someone as good and idealistic and kind as Raoul. Aunt Alanna takes Nealan of Queenscove, and she sincerely hopes that the wry boy won’t end up dead at the hands of his knight-mistress.
Uncle Gary is the one to finally ask her.
Lord Wyldon is the one to advise her not to take it.
She knows why Gary had asked. Father might have had a quiet word with him, said he didn’t want his oldest daughter in combat. Ha! Fine predicament that, when Mother goes into it all the time. Yet of course Mother isn’t the one who might be empress of Carthak one day. Mother had already done her duty, had already spat out half a squadron of heirs.
Mother wants her to go with Uncle Gary too. It might have even been Mother who’d convinced him.
She’d talked about it with Kel, right after the debacle with Lalasa Isran and that horrid Joren of Stone Mountain. Kalasin had stopped by to see if she was alright and Kel had been surprisingly open, had wondered if this would just make it harder for her to get a knight-master.
“Father won’t call in favors for you,” Kalasin had said, the picture of bluntness, but Kel had known it for truth it was. Her probation had always been a sticking point between the two of them, a class division between the nobility and the crown, though Kalasin knew that Kel was angrier at Lord Wyldon and the king than she was at her fellow page. She’d slowly forgiven Lord Wyldon but had much less so forgiven the king, and at the very least Kalasin approved of that.
“I wouldn’t expect him to,” Kel had responded, her Yamani stillness disrupted with exhaustion.
“If he does for me, it’ll be with a desk knight,” Kalasin said bitterly. Kel had nodded.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said, “but what if it was my only offer?”
“You would still be a knight at the end, desk warrior or no. You wouldn’t be shipped off to Carthak.”
“I want to be in the field to help people,” Kel had muttered softly. “I’m sure it can be done from a desk, but I want to see everything for myself.”
“Good for you,” Kalasin had replied, and meant it.
And now Kel was with Lord Raoul, her reasonable dreams fulfilled, and Kalasin was the one cast adrift.
“If I could, I would take you,” Lord Wyldon had told her in all seriousness. “You’d do anyone proud, Squire Kalasin.”
So they are his words that she holds close to her heart when she tells Gary she will accept his offer.
QC by: jazzyjess
Rating: PG
Word Count: 603
Pairing: Kalasin/Wyldon
Fight: 1C
Summary: Kalasin's knightmaster is unexpected.
Notes: I apologize for my titles, seriously.
-
Kalasin is able to train for a knight and still have a finalized marriage contract with Kaddar-- even though he ends up becoming emperor much sooner than planned thanks to Daine the Wildmage and the Graveyard Hag. She suspects it was him who didn’t mind the knight-princess aspect and that it was more his mother and uncle, though it now means waiting years for her, three more than he had planned. However he has written to her already, a kind letter in neat cursive saying that Carthak needs a strong woman like her at its helm.
He’s nice enough, but Kalasin is more concerned on who will be her knightmaster, now that she’s passed all her exit exams. If Father hadn’t taken Zahir he would have taken Roald, not waited around for her-- Jonathan wouldn’t have wanted claims of favoritism and besides, she wouldn’t have accepted and he knew it. Lord Raoul takes on Keladry, which Kalasin approves of because Kel deserves someone as good and idealistic and kind as Raoul. Aunt Alanna takes Nealan of Queenscove, and she sincerely hopes that the wry boy won’t end up dead at the hands of his knight-mistress.
Uncle Gary is the one to finally ask her.
Lord Wyldon is the one to advise her not to take it.
She knows why Gary had asked. Father might have had a quiet word with him, said he didn’t want his oldest daughter in combat. Ha! Fine predicament that, when Mother goes into it all the time. Yet of course Mother isn’t the one who might be empress of Carthak one day. Mother had already done her duty, had already spat out half a squadron of heirs.
Mother wants her to go with Uncle Gary too. It might have even been Mother who’d convinced him.
She’d talked about it with Kel, right after the debacle with Lalasa Isran and that horrid Joren of Stone Mountain. Kalasin had stopped by to see if she was alright and Kel had been surprisingly open, had wondered if this would just make it harder for her to get a knight-master.
“Father won’t call in favors for you,” Kalasin had said, the picture of bluntness, but Kel had known it for truth it was. Her probation had always been a sticking point between the two of them, a class division between the nobility and the crown, though Kalasin knew that Kel was angrier at Lord Wyldon and the king than she was at her fellow page. She’d slowly forgiven Lord Wyldon but had much less so forgiven the king, and at the very least Kalasin approved of that.
“I wouldn’t expect him to,” Kel had responded, her Yamani stillness disrupted with exhaustion.
“If he does for me, it’ll be with a desk knight,” Kalasin said bitterly. Kel had nodded.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said, “but what if it was my only offer?”
“You would still be a knight at the end, desk warrior or no. You wouldn’t be shipped off to Carthak.”
“I want to be in the field to help people,” Kel had muttered softly. “I’m sure it can be done from a desk, but I want to see everything for myself.”
“Good for you,” Kalasin had replied, and meant it.
And now Kel was with Lord Raoul, her reasonable dreams fulfilled, and Kalasin was the one cast adrift.
“If I could, I would take you,” Lord Wyldon had told her in all seriousness. “You’d do anyone proud, Squire Kalasin.”
So they are his words that she holds close to her heart when she tells Gary she will accept his offer.
QC by: jazzyjess
Lovely fic, Cass.
