Post by Kris11 on Mar 16, 2011 17:59:12 GMT 10
Title: Something Left to Save
Rating: PG
Word Count: 558
Pairing: Aly/Taybur
Round/Fight: 1/D
Summary: Aly sits with Taybur through the storm, and can't keep quiet about what it's doing to him.
I don’t hate you, boy, I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save. Savior, Rise Against.
Aly always managed to find her way to his side when a storm began. He didn’t know how she had discovered his increasingly panicked reactions when the weather grew rough, but he never asked. Sitting behind him on the desk, Aly’s hands made comforting circles on his shoulders and back as she distracted him from the bursts of light and crashes of thunder outside his office window.
Time passed and they were left with just the sounds of the rain pattering on the windows. He only noticed when her hands left his shoulders. Looking down, he avoided her eyes, even as she moved around his chair to kneel in front of him, her hazel eyes locked on his.
“Taybur,” she said, but he didn’t look at her. She sighed and they sat together in silence.
“There was a battle, once, that a knight I knew in Tortall was part of,” she said, finally. “I heard that they were caught on this bluff for nearly two days, and the bandits were using this particular bird call to signal attacks. Every time they heard that bird call, the soldiers knew that the enemy would be making a pass on the bluff, and that they would have to fight for their lives. They lost nearly half of their Company on that bluff, waiting for reinforcements to come and pull them out.
“Almost a year later, this knight was in the northern forests and heard this bird call. Tortall wasn’t at war, they weren’t even in bandit country; they were on a peaceful escort from Corus to one of the northern fiefs. They had no reason to expect any danger at all. But this bird was native to those forests, and the knight told me that three days of listening to this bird call as they rode towards the fief had him so nervous, he had to be sent back to Corus. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep at night. He snapped at the people he was travelling with, became paranoid of the smallest things. He didn’t want to tell anyone what was wrong, because he thought it was silly, because it wasn’t real.
“When he was sent back to the capital, you know what the healers said? That our minds push these horrible things down so that we don’t have to think about them, but that they can’t do it forever. Then things trigger these memories and the body can’t deal with them. But that knight? He told me, once, that he thought it might have just eaten him up from the inside if he had just ignored it. That he was losing himself slowly, even before his reaction was enough to force him to the healers. He thought he should deal with it on his own, and it nearly killed him.
“He is one of the bravest people I have ever known. More so because he got the help he needed, when he knew he couldn’t do it alone.”
Taybur sat silently. She put her hands on his knees to push herself up off the floor and, with a brief touch on his shoulder, was gone.
The rain slowed to a light tapping and then down to dripping on his windowsill from the roof above.
QC by: journeycat
Rating: PG
Word Count: 558
Pairing: Aly/Taybur
Round/Fight: 1/D
Summary: Aly sits with Taybur through the storm, and can't keep quiet about what it's doing to him.
I don’t hate you, boy, I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save. Savior, Rise Against.
Aly always managed to find her way to his side when a storm began. He didn’t know how she had discovered his increasingly panicked reactions when the weather grew rough, but he never asked. Sitting behind him on the desk, Aly’s hands made comforting circles on his shoulders and back as she distracted him from the bursts of light and crashes of thunder outside his office window.
Time passed and they were left with just the sounds of the rain pattering on the windows. He only noticed when her hands left his shoulders. Looking down, he avoided her eyes, even as she moved around his chair to kneel in front of him, her hazel eyes locked on his.
“Taybur,” she said, but he didn’t look at her. She sighed and they sat together in silence.
“There was a battle, once, that a knight I knew in Tortall was part of,” she said, finally. “I heard that they were caught on this bluff for nearly two days, and the bandits were using this particular bird call to signal attacks. Every time they heard that bird call, the soldiers knew that the enemy would be making a pass on the bluff, and that they would have to fight for their lives. They lost nearly half of their Company on that bluff, waiting for reinforcements to come and pull them out.
“Almost a year later, this knight was in the northern forests and heard this bird call. Tortall wasn’t at war, they weren’t even in bandit country; they were on a peaceful escort from Corus to one of the northern fiefs. They had no reason to expect any danger at all. But this bird was native to those forests, and the knight told me that three days of listening to this bird call as they rode towards the fief had him so nervous, he had to be sent back to Corus. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep at night. He snapped at the people he was travelling with, became paranoid of the smallest things. He didn’t want to tell anyone what was wrong, because he thought it was silly, because it wasn’t real.
“When he was sent back to the capital, you know what the healers said? That our minds push these horrible things down so that we don’t have to think about them, but that they can’t do it forever. Then things trigger these memories and the body can’t deal with them. But that knight? He told me, once, that he thought it might have just eaten him up from the inside if he had just ignored it. That he was losing himself slowly, even before his reaction was enough to force him to the healers. He thought he should deal with it on his own, and it nearly killed him.
“He is one of the bravest people I have ever known. More so because he got the help he needed, when he knew he couldn’t do it alone.”
Taybur sat silently. She put her hands on his knees to push herself up off the floor and, with a brief touch on his shoulder, was gone.
The rain slowed to a light tapping and then down to dripping on his windowsill from the roof above.
QC by: journeycat