Post by Seek on Apr 27, 2013 4:05:53 GMT 10
Title: Pigeons II
Rating: PG
Word Count: 509
Pairing: Beka/Rosto
Round/Fight: 1C
Summary: Reversal!verse. Rosto and Beka are attacked by pigeons.
Warnings: Hitchcock. The Birds. Enough said.
-
I left Scanra for Tortall because I didn’t fancy starving to death. I didn’t fancy getting knifed by some rusher who needs that last crust of bread either.
And in Tortall, it looks like I’m doomed to die because of a flock of angry, sarden pigeons.
The gods, I think, must be laughing at me. Maybe I’ve angered the Crone somehow. Or the One-Eyed god, the one who stands guard over crossroads. Beka stands in the middle of the tumult—we both do, bent over trying to shield ourselves from sharp beaks and claws. I’ve seen crows pick at the bodies of the dead before; it’s a ghastly sight and I’m not sure which disturbs me more—the idea of this happening to me when I’m still alive, or to Beka.
I think ruefully that it would have been awfully nice to die pretty.
There’s no point in drawing my daggers to fight off a flock of rabid pigeons. Beka grabs me by the shoulder and shouts, “Rosto!”
I think I’m dead. The mot just used my name. “What?” I drawl. “Cooper, the time to remember my name isn’t when we’re getting mauled to death by your pigeon friends here.”
“Your name. The Piper. Can you play?”
“Yes, my mother—”
“Tell me about your sarden mother later! Play!”
“Play what?”
“Your pipe, you great looby!”
Looby. Aniki uses cabbage head. I wonder if they’ve been exchanging notes behind my back. I would fire back a quip but the urgency of our situation and in Beka’s voice strikes me, so I don’t say anything, I fumble for where I’ve kept my pipe, produce it, and play. I trust Beka.
I play a lullaby. The soft, comforting lullaby that was the first song I’d heard, the first my Ma taught me to remember and to play. The song I grew up to. I shut out everything else, and focus on the song, note after note.
The fury of beaks and claws dips, and then stops completely. Beka slowly takes her hands away from her ears; only now do I realise they were there. I say, as lightly as possible, “Was I this bad, love?”
We’re both in frightful shape, if how Beka looks is any indication of myself. Feathers drift to the ground all around us; cracked corn spread, half-abandoned. She’s bleeding from multiple scratches.
She takes a half-hearted swipe at me. “No,” she says instead. “You should have heard them. They were screaming.”
My blood runs cold. I know who they are. What I can’t understand is what changed, what sent them over the edge. Why they sought us out, why they sought to harm the only one who can hear them in this city.
But I’m a Dog, and I know what the questions that folk don’t often remember to ask are. So I ask her, “What were they screaming?”
She looks at me in the eye, and I almost make the godsmark anyway, such is the disquiet I see in her eyes. “Murder,” she says. “Poison. Vengeance.”
Rating: PG
Word Count: 509
Pairing: Beka/Rosto
Round/Fight: 1C
Summary: Reversal!verse. Rosto and Beka are attacked by pigeons.
Warnings: Hitchcock. The Birds. Enough said.
-
I left Scanra for Tortall because I didn’t fancy starving to death. I didn’t fancy getting knifed by some rusher who needs that last crust of bread either.
And in Tortall, it looks like I’m doomed to die because of a flock of angry, sarden pigeons.
The gods, I think, must be laughing at me. Maybe I’ve angered the Crone somehow. Or the One-Eyed god, the one who stands guard over crossroads. Beka stands in the middle of the tumult—we both do, bent over trying to shield ourselves from sharp beaks and claws. I’ve seen crows pick at the bodies of the dead before; it’s a ghastly sight and I’m not sure which disturbs me more—the idea of this happening to me when I’m still alive, or to Beka.
I think ruefully that it would have been awfully nice to die pretty.
There’s no point in drawing my daggers to fight off a flock of rabid pigeons. Beka grabs me by the shoulder and shouts, “Rosto!”
I think I’m dead. The mot just used my name. “What?” I drawl. “Cooper, the time to remember my name isn’t when we’re getting mauled to death by your pigeon friends here.”
“Your name. The Piper. Can you play?”
“Yes, my mother—”
“Tell me about your sarden mother later! Play!”
“Play what?”
“Your pipe, you great looby!”
Looby. Aniki uses cabbage head. I wonder if they’ve been exchanging notes behind my back. I would fire back a quip but the urgency of our situation and in Beka’s voice strikes me, so I don’t say anything, I fumble for where I’ve kept my pipe, produce it, and play. I trust Beka.
I play a lullaby. The soft, comforting lullaby that was the first song I’d heard, the first my Ma taught me to remember and to play. The song I grew up to. I shut out everything else, and focus on the song, note after note.
The fury of beaks and claws dips, and then stops completely. Beka slowly takes her hands away from her ears; only now do I realise they were there. I say, as lightly as possible, “Was I this bad, love?”
We’re both in frightful shape, if how Beka looks is any indication of myself. Feathers drift to the ground all around us; cracked corn spread, half-abandoned. She’s bleeding from multiple scratches.
She takes a half-hearted swipe at me. “No,” she says instead. “You should have heard them. They were screaming.”
My blood runs cold. I know who they are. What I can’t understand is what changed, what sent them over the edge. Why they sought us out, why they sought to harm the only one who can hear them in this city.
But I’m a Dog, and I know what the questions that folk don’t often remember to ask are. So I ask her, “What were they screaming?”
She looks at me in the eye, and I almost make the godsmark anyway, such is the disquiet I see in her eyes. “Murder,” she says. “Poison. Vengeance.”