Post by Shhasow on Mar 20, 2011 7:37:36 GMT 10
Title: Voice Lessons (14)
Rating: R
Word Count: 703
Pairing: Jon/Zahir
Round/Fight: 1/A
Summary: Zahir’s sleeping mind awakens. Rating for many deaths.
Previous Chapter - Chapter Thirteen
It was a chaotic battle, and Zahir hoped that not all fights were like this one.
Their plan shot to hell, their planned ambush turned into a counter-ambush, the Riders and Zahir fought for their lives. On horseback in the trees and not the open trail as planned, they were at a severe disadvantage against an enemy that melted nimbly back into the shadows.
To his horror, Zahir saw a Rider fall, then another. It seemed impossible, as if they were playing a child’s war game, as he had back in his tents as a child and then as a page. That ominous red spreading over skin and staining clothes was not blood. He wanted to shout at them, the people who had cheerily welcomed a noble interloper, to tell them that this wasn’t funny.
Somehow, as his sword arm lifted and fell and blocked and cut, Zahir found that he wanted Jonathan.
As if thinking about the man had summoned them, memories played out in Zahir’s mind until they were a mismash of Jon’s words and images.
I’m trying to waken your sleeping mind...
You’ve got to relax...
Stop thinking and concentrate...
Wake up!
His mind cracked in two, maybe three. Zahir couldn’t tell, but something or things shifted, and the world slowed and became different.
The forest began to fill with red, dangerous fog that coalesced into the shapes of men. As Zahir watched, he realized that they were men, or at least forecasted their movements. Bandits, real and solid, followed precisely, as if the bloody clouds directed them as puppets.
A scraggly-haired barbarian that rushed him with a long, two-handed sword; Zahir could tell where he would move next. The red cloud formed arms and legs and torso, and Zahir could even make out the man’s savage expression. He saw the arms lift, and then the bandit’s real arms lift, and realized that the man was about to attack him.
Then, it was as if a cloud of white drifted in front of him, and as the man moved - slowly, much too slowly - Zahir saw white arms wielding a blade and executing a perfect block. The white was his own path, he realized distantly. It was the best counter to block the strike and save his life.
Zahir impassively felt his sword raise up and deflect the blow that still seemed much too slow, and then he followed up by watching the white cloud of a ghostly arm slipping between the bandit’s defenses, and reciprocated it more smoothly than he’d ever practiced.
Next he saw a giant man bare his teeth at the closest Rider, and he saw that the bandit was about to skewer the Rider Commander in his undefended back.
Zahir let himself fall into the lull and flow of the white clouds. He blocked the blade, killed the man, then danced away as he followed the correct path into the knot of attackers. Zahir lost count of the number of men he killed or the number of blows thrown at him that seemed to move through water.
At the end, Zahir blinked, and everything shifted back to normal. No clouds, red or white, and a crippling, agonizing pain in his head. He sat down hard on the the ground and cradled his head in his hands. Voice gathered around him, wonderous wonderful alive voices, and they gently lowered his upper body to the ground.
Zahir didn’t look up when he heard the thundering hooves of horses on the trail, not even when the Riders gasped that the king was here and how did he know?
“Your squire saved our lives, Your Majesty,” admitted Evin, the commander of the Rider’s group. “I can’t explain how he moved so quickly or how he knew who was in most danger, but I turned around and saw him kill a bandit who attacked my back. I would have died without him.”
“Jon?” The world was fuzzy. The trees above him moved in a circle; they couldn’t really do that, could they?
“I’m here, squire.” Jonathan sounded more sober than he remembered.
“How?”
A soft cool hand landed on his forehead, and Zahir felt safe. “I knew you needed me.”
QC by: journeycat
Rating: R
Word Count: 703
Pairing: Jon/Zahir
Round/Fight: 1/A
Summary: Zahir’s sleeping mind awakens. Rating for many deaths.
Previous Chapter - Chapter Thirteen
It was a chaotic battle, and Zahir hoped that not all fights were like this one.
Their plan shot to hell, their planned ambush turned into a counter-ambush, the Riders and Zahir fought for their lives. On horseback in the trees and not the open trail as planned, they were at a severe disadvantage against an enemy that melted nimbly back into the shadows.
To his horror, Zahir saw a Rider fall, then another. It seemed impossible, as if they were playing a child’s war game, as he had back in his tents as a child and then as a page. That ominous red spreading over skin and staining clothes was not blood. He wanted to shout at them, the people who had cheerily welcomed a noble interloper, to tell them that this wasn’t funny.
Somehow, as his sword arm lifted and fell and blocked and cut, Zahir found that he wanted Jonathan.
As if thinking about the man had summoned them, memories played out in Zahir’s mind until they were a mismash of Jon’s words and images.
I’m trying to waken your sleeping mind...
You’ve got to relax...
Stop thinking and concentrate...
Wake up!
His mind cracked in two, maybe three. Zahir couldn’t tell, but something or things shifted, and the world slowed and became different.
The forest began to fill with red, dangerous fog that coalesced into the shapes of men. As Zahir watched, he realized that they were men, or at least forecasted their movements. Bandits, real and solid, followed precisely, as if the bloody clouds directed them as puppets.
A scraggly-haired barbarian that rushed him with a long, two-handed sword; Zahir could tell where he would move next. The red cloud formed arms and legs and torso, and Zahir could even make out the man’s savage expression. He saw the arms lift, and then the bandit’s real arms lift, and realized that the man was about to attack him.
Then, it was as if a cloud of white drifted in front of him, and as the man moved - slowly, much too slowly - Zahir saw white arms wielding a blade and executing a perfect block. The white was his own path, he realized distantly. It was the best counter to block the strike and save his life.
Zahir impassively felt his sword raise up and deflect the blow that still seemed much too slow, and then he followed up by watching the white cloud of a ghostly arm slipping between the bandit’s defenses, and reciprocated it more smoothly than he’d ever practiced.
Next he saw a giant man bare his teeth at the closest Rider, and he saw that the bandit was about to skewer the Rider Commander in his undefended back.
Zahir let himself fall into the lull and flow of the white clouds. He blocked the blade, killed the man, then danced away as he followed the correct path into the knot of attackers. Zahir lost count of the number of men he killed or the number of blows thrown at him that seemed to move through water.
At the end, Zahir blinked, and everything shifted back to normal. No clouds, red or white, and a crippling, agonizing pain in his head. He sat down hard on the the ground and cradled his head in his hands. Voice gathered around him, wonderous wonderful alive voices, and they gently lowered his upper body to the ground.
Zahir didn’t look up when he heard the thundering hooves of horses on the trail, not even when the Riders gasped that the king was here and how did he know?
“Your squire saved our lives, Your Majesty,” admitted Evin, the commander of the Rider’s group. “I can’t explain how he moved so quickly or how he knew who was in most danger, but I turned around and saw him kill a bandit who attacked my back. I would have died without him.”
“Jon?” The world was fuzzy. The trees above him moved in a circle; they couldn’t really do that, could they?
“I’m here, squire.” Jonathan sounded more sober than he remembered.
“How?”
A soft cool hand landed on his forehead, and Zahir felt safe. “I knew you needed me.”
QC by: journeycat
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!