Post by figgsthepirate on Aug 31, 2011 3:57:01 GMT 10
Title: Down Memory Lane
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,875
Card: Summer
Bingo: somewhere new + freedom + picnic + fruit + riding
Summary: Wyldon apologizes, but it doesn’t ring true.
AN: Enter teh romance (kinda).
_______________________
“Stefan! Is that you?”
The young man straightened, pushing a flop of straw-blond hair from his face, and grinned. “By the Trickster! If it ain’t Sir Alanna, back from adventurin’!” He set down his pitchfork and let her jump on him, nearly staggering under her enthusiasm.
“You look so dashing,” she told him, laughing. “How old are you now?”
“Twenty-six,” came the bashful reply. To cover his embarrassment, Stefan reached out and ruffled her coppery hair. “When are you marryin’ our Rogue and makin’ an honest man out of him?”
To his intense surprise, she flushed scarlet and looked away. “We are married.”
Stefan nearly choked on the ever-present stem of hay that dangled from his mouth. “Ye’re what?”
“We got married. In the Desert.” She grinned up at him. “Why are you so shocked? You and ’Fingers have been waiting for it to happen for years.”
“I know.” He shrugged, avoiding her lively purple eyes. Sometimes they unnerved him, though he would never tell George that. “’Tis strange, is all, seein’ Squire Alan all grown and married off.”
She laughed again, shaking her head, and Stefan reached for his discarded pitchfork. “All right, I’ll let you get back to work,” she said apologetically. “It’s good to see you, Stefan.”
“And you, milady,” he answered, dodging her swipe of indignation at the title. He thrust his pitchfork into a bale of hay and paused, some sixth sense warning him of impending danger. But what could possibly be dangerous here? Swinging around, he watched Alanna’s small, muscular form moving towards the door, silhouetted by the summer sun. Then she stopped abruptly smack in the doorway; Stefan could tell by the set of her body that she was already on the defense. He hefted the pitchfork in his strong hands, ready to back her up if necessary.
But it wasn’t Duke Roger, back from the grave a second time; it wasn’t some monster out of story and song. It was just another knight, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed for riding. His face and badge were disguised in the shadow thrown by the stable’s roof, but Stefan had an uncomfortable feeling that he know who it was. Leaning against a support post and turning his face away, he strained to hear what was said.
“Lady knight.” Crisp and cool, stinging like a whiplash, the honorific was turned into an ugly word.
“My lord.” Alanna’s voice was tight with barely-controlled fury; she was a blazing fire to the other’s deep winter.
It didn’t take a lot of effort to guess the identity of the other knight. The Lioness was just as famed for her dislike of the Lord of Cavall as he was for his opposition of her. Alanna and Wyldon had been arch-enemies for as long as her identity had been revealed, and whenever they met, sparks were sure to fly. More than once Alanna’s friends had had to restrain her when she spoke with him, and it was well-noted that Wyldon made a hobby of provoking her infamous temper.
“If you’ll excuse me?” Icily ironic, Wyldon bowed and moved around the woman blocking his way. Apparently he was not in the mood to spar, verbally or literally. After an injured sniff, Alanna stalked outside, leaving Stefan entirely alone except for the horses. And Wyldon, of course.
The hostler stabbed his bale of hay with a little more force than strictly necessary and heaved it over his shoulder, pointedly ignoring Wyldon’s entrance. With brisk movements he tipped the hay bale into an empty stall and began to spread the bedding. But all the focus in the world couldn’t take away the unsettling sensation of eyes on the back of his neck, prickling under his skin.
“Stefan.” It was soft and almost plaintive, so different from the cold arrogance of minutes ago. He could not resist it. Straightening, he braced the tines of his pitchfork against the floor and looked through the open stall door to the man standing outside it.
“How may I be of service, milord?”
Those impassive cheeks twitched. “Your speaking has improved, at any rate, though you’re still as stubborn as ever.”
“You was always t’ stubborn one, if I recall rightly.” Stefan lifted his chin. “I have work to do, milord.”
“I’m sure you do.” Wyldon folded his arms, a subconscious show of discomfort that Stefan knew all too well. “I won’t take much of your time. I just…” His brows flinched into a lightning-quick frown, and smoothed again. “I just wanted to apologize.”
Pale brows, hidden by his thatch of summer-light hair, rocketed high enough to make his blue eyes bulge. “Apologize, hey? For what?”
Wyldon scowled. “You know very well what.”
He managed an easy shrug, and hefted his pitchfork again. “I might, but then, I might not.”
“Mithros, Stefan, have you been taking lessons from Sir Myles? You sound like a bloody theologian.” Wyldon’s mouth snapped shut, and he looked away. “I’m sorry. I really am. You’re entitled to your opinions as much as I.”
Stefan squinted at him disbelievingly. “That’s what you’re apologizin’ for? For disagreein’ with me?”
“Well, yes,” came the startled reply. “Isn’t that what you were looking for?”
The hostler barked a laugh, and continued spreading hay. “I wasna ‘looking for’ anything.”
“Then what do you want?” Wyldon exclaimed, bracing his hands against the stall’s support beams. “I apologized, I admitted I was in the wrong. What else is there?”
Stefan threw down his pitchfork and strode over to stand nose-to-nose with his old friend. “I would be a hypocrite if’n I had my own opinion and refused to let ye have yours. I have no problem wit’ that. But that day in t’ hay loft, ye threw out eight years of friendship for t’ sake of your pride, Wyl. We practically grew up together, but in the end, ye were t’ noble and I was t’ commoner, and that made all the difference, didn’t it?” He stopped, breathing heavily, and forced his eyes to stay trained on Wyldon’s. Letting himself look anywhere else – like at his mouth, for instance – was out of the question.
The knight’s face tightened, but from anger or shame it was impossible to tell. Then, out of the blue, “I’m getting married later this summer.”
Stefan rocked back on his heels, thrown off by the sudden topic change. “Aye? To what poor lass?”
Wyldon snorted. “Vivienne of Genlith. And she’s hardly a ‘poor lass.’ If our courtship is any indication, she’ll be ordering me about instead of the other way around.”
“An’ that’s how it should be,” Stefan muttered, turning back to his work.
“I want you to come to the wedding.”
The hostler froze. “What?”
“I want you to come to the wedding,” Wyldon repeated. “Whatever happened between us, you were my best friend. My brother.” A little bit of the stiffness fell from his voice as he added, “Please say you will.”
Stefan hesitated, feeling his gut clench. He could remember how they met, more than ten years ago now. Wyldon had been a short, scrawny eleven, with a plain face and serious dark eyes, to Stefan’s lanky thirteen. When he’d handed the reins of his horse to Stefan under the watchful eye of his father’s man-at-arms, Wyldon had stopped, hands curling protectively over the strips of leather.
“She doesn’t like new places,” he said, perfectly solemn. “She’ll be lonely.”
Stefan scratched his head, glancing nervously at the man-at-arms and then back to the boy. He was still relatively new to the stables, and he wasn’t sure how to handle homesick mares – or pages. Especially pages. “I’ll see t’ her,” he said at last, trying to speak nicely. “I’ve a nice pony she’ll like. I’ll put ’er in with him.”
The boy nodded. “All right. She’ll like that.” He let go of the reins, but still hesitated. “I’m Wyldon of Cavall.”
Stefan bowed. “Stefan.”
Wyldon cocked his head. “Just Stefan?”
The stable-boy’s lips twitched. “Aye.”
The man-at-arms had come up then and taken Wyldon by the shoulder, leading him away, but Stefan had been heartened by the stubborn set of the boy’s shoulders. He’d made one friend, at least, and that was a start. Stefan had hoped for the lad’s sake that he would make more. A page’s life was no summer picnic, that was certain.
And their friendship had grown from there. With his fingers gripping the pitchfork handle, eyes unfocused, Stefan let his mind wander to the long hours cleaning tack together, or going into the city on their days off, introducing his young friend to the Court of the Rogue. Then the death of his father during his second year, and Stefan sharing the loss of his own family to red fever when he was only a child; Wyldon expounding on the Code of Chivalry to a puzzled, unimpressed Stefan in the hay loft. Lying on the stable roof, watching the stars for the last time before Wyldon rode off to be a squire, and the fumbling, awkward touches and kisses as two boys explored feelings they only half-understood.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Aye. Dunno what your knight-master would say, o’ course…”
“He doesn’t have to know. Besides, it’s not against the law to have commoner friends.”
“I know. He’s just…”
“Conservative. Aye – I mean, yes.” Nervous laughter. “But so am I – so is my father, at any rate. And he’s a Minchi. I’ll learn so much with him. Almost as much as you taught me, maybe.”
Stefan swallowed and felt for his hand in the darkness of the hay loft. When he found it, Wyldon gripped his fingers hard in return, and didn’t let go. “Ye’ll be ’round the palace now and agin?”
“I hope so.” His voice trembled slightly as he whispered to the ceiling, “I’ll miss you.”
“An’ I’ll miss ye, Wyl-boy. But ye’ll always have me to come back to.”
On impulse, Wyldon shifted in the hay and wrapped his arms around Stefan, burying his face in his chest. “I know. And I’ll always come back.”
“I’ll hold ye to that.” Stefan’s arms snaked around his waist, and his breath stirred the hair falling across Wyldon’s forehead. The scent of sweet hay and apples filled the squire’s nose, and he had a sudden compulsion to see what they tasted like.
On Stefan’s mouth, they tasted like summertime and freedom.
Stefan sighed, and turned back. “I can’t. I’ve got duties here, and wit’ the Rogue. And ye don’t want a commoner sittin’ amongst those fine folk when ye say your vows, I guarantee it.”
Wyldon nodded unhappily. “I understand. I –” he gritted his teeth and went on, “I am sorry, Stefan.”
The hostler nodded slowly. “Me too.” But when Wyldon moved as if to take a step into the hay, Stefan turned away again and returned to his work. A friendship between a knight and a hostler wasn’t appropriate, even if he hadn’t been getting married, and they both knew it. Stefan worked busily, even fussily, taking extra care with the hay until he was satisfied. When he left the stall, Wyldon was gone.
It’s for t’ best, he reminded himself, and tried not to feel the hand that squeezed his heart so painfully.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,875
Card: Summer
Bingo: somewhere new + freedom + picnic + fruit + riding
Summary: Wyldon apologizes, but it doesn’t ring true.
AN: Enter teh romance (kinda).
_______________________
“Stefan! Is that you?”
The young man straightened, pushing a flop of straw-blond hair from his face, and grinned. “By the Trickster! If it ain’t Sir Alanna, back from adventurin’!” He set down his pitchfork and let her jump on him, nearly staggering under her enthusiasm.
“You look so dashing,” she told him, laughing. “How old are you now?”
“Twenty-six,” came the bashful reply. To cover his embarrassment, Stefan reached out and ruffled her coppery hair. “When are you marryin’ our Rogue and makin’ an honest man out of him?”
To his intense surprise, she flushed scarlet and looked away. “We are married.”
Stefan nearly choked on the ever-present stem of hay that dangled from his mouth. “Ye’re what?”
“We got married. In the Desert.” She grinned up at him. “Why are you so shocked? You and ’Fingers have been waiting for it to happen for years.”
“I know.” He shrugged, avoiding her lively purple eyes. Sometimes they unnerved him, though he would never tell George that. “’Tis strange, is all, seein’ Squire Alan all grown and married off.”
She laughed again, shaking her head, and Stefan reached for his discarded pitchfork. “All right, I’ll let you get back to work,” she said apologetically. “It’s good to see you, Stefan.”
“And you, milady,” he answered, dodging her swipe of indignation at the title. He thrust his pitchfork into a bale of hay and paused, some sixth sense warning him of impending danger. But what could possibly be dangerous here? Swinging around, he watched Alanna’s small, muscular form moving towards the door, silhouetted by the summer sun. Then she stopped abruptly smack in the doorway; Stefan could tell by the set of her body that she was already on the defense. He hefted the pitchfork in his strong hands, ready to back her up if necessary.
But it wasn’t Duke Roger, back from the grave a second time; it wasn’t some monster out of story and song. It was just another knight, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed for riding. His face and badge were disguised in the shadow thrown by the stable’s roof, but Stefan had an uncomfortable feeling that he know who it was. Leaning against a support post and turning his face away, he strained to hear what was said.
“Lady knight.” Crisp and cool, stinging like a whiplash, the honorific was turned into an ugly word.
“My lord.” Alanna’s voice was tight with barely-controlled fury; she was a blazing fire to the other’s deep winter.
It didn’t take a lot of effort to guess the identity of the other knight. The Lioness was just as famed for her dislike of the Lord of Cavall as he was for his opposition of her. Alanna and Wyldon had been arch-enemies for as long as her identity had been revealed, and whenever they met, sparks were sure to fly. More than once Alanna’s friends had had to restrain her when she spoke with him, and it was well-noted that Wyldon made a hobby of provoking her infamous temper.
“If you’ll excuse me?” Icily ironic, Wyldon bowed and moved around the woman blocking his way. Apparently he was not in the mood to spar, verbally or literally. After an injured sniff, Alanna stalked outside, leaving Stefan entirely alone except for the horses. And Wyldon, of course.
The hostler stabbed his bale of hay with a little more force than strictly necessary and heaved it over his shoulder, pointedly ignoring Wyldon’s entrance. With brisk movements he tipped the hay bale into an empty stall and began to spread the bedding. But all the focus in the world couldn’t take away the unsettling sensation of eyes on the back of his neck, prickling under his skin.
“Stefan.” It was soft and almost plaintive, so different from the cold arrogance of minutes ago. He could not resist it. Straightening, he braced the tines of his pitchfork against the floor and looked through the open stall door to the man standing outside it.
“How may I be of service, milord?”
Those impassive cheeks twitched. “Your speaking has improved, at any rate, though you’re still as stubborn as ever.”
“You was always t’ stubborn one, if I recall rightly.” Stefan lifted his chin. “I have work to do, milord.”
“I’m sure you do.” Wyldon folded his arms, a subconscious show of discomfort that Stefan knew all too well. “I won’t take much of your time. I just…” His brows flinched into a lightning-quick frown, and smoothed again. “I just wanted to apologize.”
Pale brows, hidden by his thatch of summer-light hair, rocketed high enough to make his blue eyes bulge. “Apologize, hey? For what?”
Wyldon scowled. “You know very well what.”
He managed an easy shrug, and hefted his pitchfork again. “I might, but then, I might not.”
“Mithros, Stefan, have you been taking lessons from Sir Myles? You sound like a bloody theologian.” Wyldon’s mouth snapped shut, and he looked away. “I’m sorry. I really am. You’re entitled to your opinions as much as I.”
Stefan squinted at him disbelievingly. “That’s what you’re apologizin’ for? For disagreein’ with me?”
“Well, yes,” came the startled reply. “Isn’t that what you were looking for?”
The hostler barked a laugh, and continued spreading hay. “I wasna ‘looking for’ anything.”
“Then what do you want?” Wyldon exclaimed, bracing his hands against the stall’s support beams. “I apologized, I admitted I was in the wrong. What else is there?”
Stefan threw down his pitchfork and strode over to stand nose-to-nose with his old friend. “I would be a hypocrite if’n I had my own opinion and refused to let ye have yours. I have no problem wit’ that. But that day in t’ hay loft, ye threw out eight years of friendship for t’ sake of your pride, Wyl. We practically grew up together, but in the end, ye were t’ noble and I was t’ commoner, and that made all the difference, didn’t it?” He stopped, breathing heavily, and forced his eyes to stay trained on Wyldon’s. Letting himself look anywhere else – like at his mouth, for instance – was out of the question.
The knight’s face tightened, but from anger or shame it was impossible to tell. Then, out of the blue, “I’m getting married later this summer.”
Stefan rocked back on his heels, thrown off by the sudden topic change. “Aye? To what poor lass?”
Wyldon snorted. “Vivienne of Genlith. And she’s hardly a ‘poor lass.’ If our courtship is any indication, she’ll be ordering me about instead of the other way around.”
“An’ that’s how it should be,” Stefan muttered, turning back to his work.
“I want you to come to the wedding.”
The hostler froze. “What?”
“I want you to come to the wedding,” Wyldon repeated. “Whatever happened between us, you were my best friend. My brother.” A little bit of the stiffness fell from his voice as he added, “Please say you will.”
Stefan hesitated, feeling his gut clench. He could remember how they met, more than ten years ago now. Wyldon had been a short, scrawny eleven, with a plain face and serious dark eyes, to Stefan’s lanky thirteen. When he’d handed the reins of his horse to Stefan under the watchful eye of his father’s man-at-arms, Wyldon had stopped, hands curling protectively over the strips of leather.
“She doesn’t like new places,” he said, perfectly solemn. “She’ll be lonely.”
Stefan scratched his head, glancing nervously at the man-at-arms and then back to the boy. He was still relatively new to the stables, and he wasn’t sure how to handle homesick mares – or pages. Especially pages. “I’ll see t’ her,” he said at last, trying to speak nicely. “I’ve a nice pony she’ll like. I’ll put ’er in with him.”
The boy nodded. “All right. She’ll like that.” He let go of the reins, but still hesitated. “I’m Wyldon of Cavall.”
Stefan bowed. “Stefan.”
Wyldon cocked his head. “Just Stefan?”
The stable-boy’s lips twitched. “Aye.”
The man-at-arms had come up then and taken Wyldon by the shoulder, leading him away, but Stefan had been heartened by the stubborn set of the boy’s shoulders. He’d made one friend, at least, and that was a start. Stefan had hoped for the lad’s sake that he would make more. A page’s life was no summer picnic, that was certain.
And their friendship had grown from there. With his fingers gripping the pitchfork handle, eyes unfocused, Stefan let his mind wander to the long hours cleaning tack together, or going into the city on their days off, introducing his young friend to the Court of the Rogue. Then the death of his father during his second year, and Stefan sharing the loss of his own family to red fever when he was only a child; Wyldon expounding on the Code of Chivalry to a puzzled, unimpressed Stefan in the hay loft. Lying on the stable roof, watching the stars for the last time before Wyldon rode off to be a squire, and the fumbling, awkward touches and kisses as two boys explored feelings they only half-understood.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Aye. Dunno what your knight-master would say, o’ course…”
“He doesn’t have to know. Besides, it’s not against the law to have commoner friends.”
“I know. He’s just…”
“Conservative. Aye – I mean, yes.” Nervous laughter. “But so am I – so is my father, at any rate. And he’s a Minchi. I’ll learn so much with him. Almost as much as you taught me, maybe.”
Stefan swallowed and felt for his hand in the darkness of the hay loft. When he found it, Wyldon gripped his fingers hard in return, and didn’t let go. “Ye’ll be ’round the palace now and agin?”
“I hope so.” His voice trembled slightly as he whispered to the ceiling, “I’ll miss you.”
“An’ I’ll miss ye, Wyl-boy. But ye’ll always have me to come back to.”
On impulse, Wyldon shifted in the hay and wrapped his arms around Stefan, burying his face in his chest. “I know. And I’ll always come back.”
“I’ll hold ye to that.” Stefan’s arms snaked around his waist, and his breath stirred the hair falling across Wyldon’s forehead. The scent of sweet hay and apples filled the squire’s nose, and he had a sudden compulsion to see what they tasted like.
On Stefan’s mouth, they tasted like summertime and freedom.
Stefan sighed, and turned back. “I can’t. I’ve got duties here, and wit’ the Rogue. And ye don’t want a commoner sittin’ amongst those fine folk when ye say your vows, I guarantee it.”
Wyldon nodded unhappily. “I understand. I –” he gritted his teeth and went on, “I am sorry, Stefan.”
The hostler nodded slowly. “Me too.” But when Wyldon moved as if to take a step into the hay, Stefan turned away again and returned to his work. A friendship between a knight and a hostler wasn’t appropriate, even if he hadn’t been getting married, and they both knew it. Stefan worked busily, even fussily, taking extra care with the hay until he was satisfied. When he left the stall, Wyldon was gone.
It’s for t’ best, he reminded himself, and tried not to feel the hand that squeezed his heart so painfully.