Post by wordy on Jul 31, 2012 15:05:44 GMT 10
Title: Cloaks and daggers
Rating: PG
Team: Pots/DL
Prompt: cloak and dagger
Word count: 672
Summary: An overactive imagination.
The baron introduces them, because if Neal has learnt one thing—hypothetically, of course: if Neal has only learnt one thing—as the Lioness’s squire, it is that you can never have too many connections.
It’s not yet sunrise and his feet are wet in his boots, and Neal is immeasurably sure that he has far too many illegal connections than he knows what to do with.
But, ducking his head as George leads him through the doorway, into a room that is warm and glowing and not a little ale-spattered, Neal thinks that The Dove is not the worst place he has ever spent the night. Or morning, his brain corrects slowly.
And so George introduces them as they sit by the fire. The man is blond and tall and so much a man that it seems almost incredible that he smiles the way he does, but Neal has also learnt—by miracle alone, Alanna assures all who care to listen—that there are times best met with silence.
“So,” says the man, pointing that smile at Neal. “A knight in the making.”
Neal can feel George watching them, and wonders what his reaction should be. A drunk in the making, is what he thinks at first, considering the amount of good ale slopping from the blond man’s mug. “Yes,” he says, instead, and bites his tongue.
They talk some more, or, rather, Neal employs his new-found listening skills. The man is one of George’s, and positioned somewhere high-up. He has a familiar look to him, as though Neal wouldn’t have thought it odd to see him wandering around the palace grounds. Only after George bids the man goodnight (good morning) and drags Neal outside once more does Neal unleash his tongue and fix the baron with a pointed stare.
George raises his eyebrows, attempted innocence. “I know that look, my lad. It can never hurt to keep some birds in the air.”
“In the palace?” Neal asks, still dubious. It has never been admitted, exactly, at the Swoop, but he has pieced together who exactly the baron answers to and—perhaps more importantly—who he doesn’t. There are whispers.
“Close enough.”
Neal takes that to mean the palace is well and truly looked after. Another disturbing thought.
“Don’t go worrying your head over spies and such nonsense,” says George as they start to walk. “Larse knows where his duty lies, and you can trust me on that.”
Neal wasn’t expecting it, then, to be accosted by a certain blond Rider some days after his knighthood. The stables are not as close to the Riders’ as Larse tells him, but even that small falsehood is not enough to distract him.
“A knight,” says Larse, raising an eyebrow and leaning on the door to the stall beside Neal’s. “And what ‘in the making’ are you now, Queenscove?”
It seems, in retrospect, that he had been quite mistaken. Alanna had told him, many times, about her husband’s love for dramatics. Perhaps the problem was not that he had taken her words to heart, but that he had taken them and run with them to the point of absurdity. It was entirely too easy to see cloaks and daggers at every corner when that was what you were expecting.
The realisation makes him feel foolish.
But if he mistook some things for others, then there is one thing that he didn’t mistake at all. It isn’t much of a surprise when Larse reaches out and stills his hand in his currying; Neal’s breath seems to shatter in his throat and yes, he hadn’t been imagining that smile, not even at all.
It’s far later in the morning than the morning they first met, and if Neal has learnt the wisdom of silence he’s also learnt the wisdom of opening his mouth when he should and maybe letting more than his tongue run away with itself, even if comments about making hay are rather weak in comparison to…comparison to…
Well, sometimes words don’t even matter.
Rating: PG
Team: Pots/DL
Prompt: cloak and dagger
Word count: 672
Summary: An overactive imagination.
The baron introduces them, because if Neal has learnt one thing—hypothetically, of course: if Neal has only learnt one thing—as the Lioness’s squire, it is that you can never have too many connections.
It’s not yet sunrise and his feet are wet in his boots, and Neal is immeasurably sure that he has far too many illegal connections than he knows what to do with.
But, ducking his head as George leads him through the doorway, into a room that is warm and glowing and not a little ale-spattered, Neal thinks that The Dove is not the worst place he has ever spent the night. Or morning, his brain corrects slowly.
And so George introduces them as they sit by the fire. The man is blond and tall and so much a man that it seems almost incredible that he smiles the way he does, but Neal has also learnt—by miracle alone, Alanna assures all who care to listen—that there are times best met with silence.
“So,” says the man, pointing that smile at Neal. “A knight in the making.”
Neal can feel George watching them, and wonders what his reaction should be. A drunk in the making, is what he thinks at first, considering the amount of good ale slopping from the blond man’s mug. “Yes,” he says, instead, and bites his tongue.
They talk some more, or, rather, Neal employs his new-found listening skills. The man is one of George’s, and positioned somewhere high-up. He has a familiar look to him, as though Neal wouldn’t have thought it odd to see him wandering around the palace grounds. Only after George bids the man goodnight (good morning) and drags Neal outside once more does Neal unleash his tongue and fix the baron with a pointed stare.
George raises his eyebrows, attempted innocence. “I know that look, my lad. It can never hurt to keep some birds in the air.”
“In the palace?” Neal asks, still dubious. It has never been admitted, exactly, at the Swoop, but he has pieced together who exactly the baron answers to and—perhaps more importantly—who he doesn’t. There are whispers.
“Close enough.”
Neal takes that to mean the palace is well and truly looked after. Another disturbing thought.
“Don’t go worrying your head over spies and such nonsense,” says George as they start to walk. “Larse knows where his duty lies, and you can trust me on that.”
Neal wasn’t expecting it, then, to be accosted by a certain blond Rider some days after his knighthood. The stables are not as close to the Riders’ as Larse tells him, but even that small falsehood is not enough to distract him.
“A knight,” says Larse, raising an eyebrow and leaning on the door to the stall beside Neal’s. “And what ‘in the making’ are you now, Queenscove?”
It seems, in retrospect, that he had been quite mistaken. Alanna had told him, many times, about her husband’s love for dramatics. Perhaps the problem was not that he had taken her words to heart, but that he had taken them and run with them to the point of absurdity. It was entirely too easy to see cloaks and daggers at every corner when that was what you were expecting.
The realisation makes him feel foolish.
But if he mistook some things for others, then there is one thing that he didn’t mistake at all. It isn’t much of a surprise when Larse reaches out and stills his hand in his currying; Neal’s breath seems to shatter in his throat and yes, he hadn’t been imagining that smile, not even at all.
It’s far later in the morning than the morning they first met, and if Neal has learnt the wisdom of silence he’s also learnt the wisdom of opening his mouth when he should and maybe letting more than his tongue run away with itself, even if comments about making hay are rather weak in comparison to…comparison to…
Well, sometimes words don’t even matter.