Post by Seek on Mar 9, 2011 6:23:07 GMT 10
Title: Duty
Rating: G
Word Count: 337 words
Pairing: Jon/Zahir - Team Bend-A-Lot
Round/Fight: 1/A
Summary: Ordeal I: the Ordeal, from the squire’s perspective. Four possible roads at Zahir’s Ordeal, and perhaps all of them happen. Perhaps none of them do.
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If you will not bend, the Chamber whispers, then you will break, son of Barzun.
The pressure increases, threatening to force him to his knees, threatening to crush him and to slam him against the ground. Zahir will later swear by his ancestors that for a few moments, he felt as if he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, as his knees crept inevitably lower, as the Chamber ground him lower and lower until he touched the flagstones.
Defeat, then. He all but bit his lip, screaming silently in defiant fury, until he sees the figure before him. He does not know if this is part of the Ordeal. His knight-master, the Voice stands there, clear blue eyes glancing at him and through him, and no part of Zahir is left unknown. It has always been that way: in communing with the Voice, the Voice knows the heart and minds of the Bazhir.
But I am more than the Voice of the Tribes, Jonathan says – or the Chamber says through him. I am the Northern King. Do I command your fealty or your obedience?
Never, not as the Northern King, Zahir wants to speak, and then clamps his hand over his mouth before he can speak. He must be silent in the Chamber of the Ordeal!
Well? Will you take my hand? What is it to be, Zahir ibn Alhaz? What will you make of yourself?
Startled – these are the same words that Jonathan once said to him, when he took Zahir as his squire – Zahir reacts instinctively. Such, Amir would have told him, are the wisest decisions made, through the sleeping mind which sees through to the nature of all things.
He does what he did then. He takes Jonathan’s hand, kisses it.
This is the Northern King, the Voice of the Tribes.
This is his knight-master.
And this is his king.
He is Zahir ibn Alhaz, son of the headman, son of the Bazhir, and knight of the realm of Tortall.
QC by: journeycat
Rating: G
Word Count: 337 words
Pairing: Jon/Zahir - Team Bend-A-Lot
Round/Fight: 1/A
Summary: Ordeal I: the Ordeal, from the squire’s perspective. Four possible roads at Zahir’s Ordeal, and perhaps all of them happen. Perhaps none of them do.
-
If you will not bend, the Chamber whispers, then you will break, son of Barzun.
The pressure increases, threatening to force him to his knees, threatening to crush him and to slam him against the ground. Zahir will later swear by his ancestors that for a few moments, he felt as if he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, as his knees crept inevitably lower, as the Chamber ground him lower and lower until he touched the flagstones.
Defeat, then. He all but bit his lip, screaming silently in defiant fury, until he sees the figure before him. He does not know if this is part of the Ordeal. His knight-master, the Voice stands there, clear blue eyes glancing at him and through him, and no part of Zahir is left unknown. It has always been that way: in communing with the Voice, the Voice knows the heart and minds of the Bazhir.
But I am more than the Voice of the Tribes, Jonathan says – or the Chamber says through him. I am the Northern King. Do I command your fealty or your obedience?
Never, not as the Northern King, Zahir wants to speak, and then clamps his hand over his mouth before he can speak. He must be silent in the Chamber of the Ordeal!
Well? Will you take my hand? What is it to be, Zahir ibn Alhaz? What will you make of yourself?
Startled – these are the same words that Jonathan once said to him, when he took Zahir as his squire – Zahir reacts instinctively. Such, Amir would have told him, are the wisest decisions made, through the sleeping mind which sees through to the nature of all things.
He does what he did then. He takes Jonathan’s hand, kisses it.
This is the Northern King, the Voice of the Tribes.
This is his knight-master.
And this is his king.
He is Zahir ibn Alhaz, son of the headman, son of the Bazhir, and knight of the realm of Tortall.
QC by: journeycat