Post by Kit on Mar 8, 2011 23:17:15 GMT 10
Title: Pretty bird
Rating: PG
Word Count: 556
Pairing: Lark/Rosethorn
Round/Fight: 1/B
Summary: Rosethorn sings in Gyongxe
At Discipline, Briar had not known his teacher for her beautiful voice.
Her sly voice, yes. Her jibing and jeering and teasing and tricksome and don’t-you-just-stand there, voice, certainly. Her warm-serious prickle of a voice was one he knew, and the sleepy crabbiness of her morning voice, ever common as he woke her up whilst travelled down this road. There was her mage voice and her hedgerow voice, and all the shades between, “recalcitrant student – boy”, “infuriating kitten,” and “stubborn, stony girlchild.” Ringing cheerfulness, he knew. Weariness and waspishness and sweetness were all a part of his teacher. But he had never thought she could sing.
She sang in Gyongxe.
(And there were no kittens, now.)
She sang bright and brilliant, notes slipping through cracks that had no moss to soften them, and Briar wept to hear it. If he could see her, he would kick her. Shake her until all the songs fell out: songs of harvest and their dances, of loves and their losses. All of them. Prisons were like gangs. She did not understand.
She was his teacher—his sister, his mother, his friend. And if he could only see her he’d get her to stop—to stop—because while she had had always railed against cages, Rosethorn had done it without being caged before. And she would be hurt when she was heard.
Her voice, even raw with use, was as warm as all the colours in her hair at full light. It was the sort of voice that he’d think Lark might have, maybe. Something to slip into your heart and pull at it a bit, to make you think that maybe midnight services weren’t such a bore. But Lark sang like sandpaper. Rosethorn had always said so, laughing, and his other teacher had laughed with her, all dark eyes and knowing things and the truth of it all as easy in her as magic.
(“I was named for other things,” she’d said once. And Rosethorn had actually blushed.)
“Pahan?”
Evvy. Evvy, small and hoarse and still close enough to hear. One cell. One wall. Chamuri was an odd comfort between this in this land that held the language of her birth.
“Yeah?”
“What’s she singing about now?”
Evvy’s Common was still better for swearing and obsequiousness than it was for poetry.
“I wish she’d—”
“We’re all gonna get beat, Briar.”
He shuddered.
“Tell me,” she said, firm. “It’s pretty. Please, pahan.”
Closing his eyes, ignoring new tears there, he listened. And, despite himself, flet a smile crack his face.
“Lark,” he said. “A whole lot of wasted words, but it’s all Lark. I’ll tell you about her.”
Boy and girl listened to the singing woman, and tried not to think of silence.
QC by: journeycat
Rating: PG
Word Count: 556
Pairing: Lark/Rosethorn
Round/Fight: 1/B
Summary: Rosethorn sings in Gyongxe
Come home, pretty bird
it’s past your time
And the world’s spinning cycle
won’t unwind.
Won’t leave you suspended,
hanging on a cloud
It will carry you along, somehow.
At Discipline, Briar had not known his teacher for her beautiful voice.
Her sly voice, yes. Her jibing and jeering and teasing and tricksome and don’t-you-just-stand there, voice, certainly. Her warm-serious prickle of a voice was one he knew, and the sleepy crabbiness of her morning voice, ever common as he woke her up whilst travelled down this road. There was her mage voice and her hedgerow voice, and all the shades between, “recalcitrant student – boy”, “infuriating kitten,” and “stubborn, stony girlchild.” Ringing cheerfulness, he knew. Weariness and waspishness and sweetness were all a part of his teacher. But he had never thought she could sing.
She sang in Gyongxe.
(And there were no kittens, now.)
Come home, pretty bird.
You’ve been too long away
and the brightness of your plumage
won’t suit that winter grey.
Come home to the summer,
that’s where you belong
I missed your pretty song, today.
She sang bright and brilliant, notes slipping through cracks that had no moss to soften them, and Briar wept to hear it. If he could see her, he would kick her. Shake her until all the songs fell out: songs of harvest and their dances, of loves and their losses. All of them. Prisons were like gangs. She did not understand.
She was his teacher—his sister, his mother, his friend. And if he could only see her he’d get her to stop—to stop—because while she had had always railed against cages, Rosethorn had done it without being caged before. And she would be hurt when she was heard.
Her voice, even raw with use, was as warm as all the colours in her hair at full light. It was the sort of voice that he’d think Lark might have, maybe. Something to slip into your heart and pull at it a bit, to make you think that maybe midnight services weren’t such a bore. But Lark sang like sandpaper. Rosethorn had always said so, laughing, and his other teacher had laughed with her, all dark eyes and knowing things and the truth of it all as easy in her as magic.
(“I was named for other things,” she’d said once. And Rosethorn had actually blushed.)
“Pahan?”
Evvy. Evvy, small and hoarse and still close enough to hear. One cell. One wall. Chamuri was an odd comfort between this in this land that held the language of her birth.
“Yeah?”
“What’s she singing about now?”
Evvy’s Common was still better for swearing and obsequiousness than it was for poetry.
“I wish she’d—”
“We’re all gonna get beat, Briar.”
He shuddered.
“Tell me,” she said, firm. “It’s pretty. Please, pahan.”
Closing his eyes, ignoring new tears there, he listened. And, despite himself, flet a smile crack his face.
“Lark,” he said. “A whole lot of wasted words, but it’s all Lark. I’ll tell you about her.”
Boy and girl listened to the singing woman, and tried not to think of silence.
All the birthdays forgotten
And conversations missed
We grow tired and resentful
For those we might have kissed
All the people growing old
And the people growing old
They carry you along
Somehow.
QC by: journeycat