Post by Muse on May 25, 2013 0:14:38 GMT 10
Title: Beginnings I
Rating: PG
Word Count: 717 according to Wordcounttool.com
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 2B
Summary: Not every situation begins in the best circumstances, and sometimes good things are built out of rubble. It’s the end of the first year of the reign of King Jonathan, and they are carrying on.
Note: I keep seeing the note about incorrect word counts on fic in the arena, and I thought I’d start double checking mine. Normally I just use Microsoft Word, which tells me this is 694 words, but multiple website word counters are telling me 717. So I’m going with that. So sorry for the mods that are checking all of the word counts if mine have been perpetually screwing things up all Smackdown… hopefully that’s fixed now.
There’s starvation throughout the poorest parts of the Corus slums, and starvation means desperation. Theft, robbery, and fighting are reported sporadically as despondency rises. That summer, infection and sickness start to crawl from the sewers in the summer. It’s not just Corus, Buri’s smart enough to realize that, but she hasn’t been far from the capital in months and the statistics and reports about other areas of Tortall remain just that: numbers.
In the year that King Jonathan has ruled, the state of the country has gone from tough to tougher and Buri chafes at the bit. Thayet—Queen, not Princess, now—frets constantly, irritable and worn from carrying her first child, the heir to the kingdom, through the sweltering summer months. She has been absolutely forbidden to go into the City herself, being in as delicate a position as she is carrying the only heir to the unstable Tortallan throne, and she does not take well to this at all.
Buri tries, she really does, but when she cannot stand another moment of the mood swings and the truly bizarre desire for foods Buri wishes she’d never heard of, she flees from the Royal Apartments and bursts into the sunlit, warm air at the base of the Palace.
Here, there are the familiar sounds of stables and workers, of fighters and teachers and guardsmen and horses and Buri slips into the nearest row of stalls.
“Driving you mad, again?”
A head with a pair of cheerful black eyes under unruly black hair follows the cheerful voice out of one stall near the end of the row. Buri laughs and turns.
“Hiding here too, Goldenlake? What have they done to scare you off this time?”
Raoul grins but says nothing, instead shoving at the thick neck of his bay mare and disappearing back into the stall with his mount. Buri, leaning her arms along the bottom half of the door, is persistent.
“You only hide out here when Jon’s being particularly ornery or obtuse, so which is it?” Her fingers pull strands of straw out of the rack wired to the door, idly twisting them around in a four-strand braid she learned from her mother. She forgets that her fingers remember things like this, sometimes, but if Raoul notices what she’s doing he doesn’t mention it. He works a curry brush in strong circles over his mare’s chesnut withers for long moments before he replies to Buri’s question.
“It’s ornery-Jon,” he admits, pausing for a moment and leaning on Desertflame. The horse, clearly put out by the stillness of the brush against her hide, swings her head around and noses at Raoul’s face impatiently, drawing a laugh from Buri as Raoul swats at the mare.
“Alright, alright—get out of here.” He resumes the broad, circular strokes across Flame’s sides again, and continues, “He’s sending the Own out for the rest of the summer, trying to spread our ranks out and provide relief to the worst-hit areas.”
Buri frowns, trying to piece together what Raoul’s saying with what she already knows. “Is the Own even prepared to do this kind of work?”
Raoul snorts, and it’s the only confirmation Buri needs. “Not even close. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of our men resign when they hear we won’t be sitting pretty and looking nice for the ladies. I’ve been working on them slowly, but…” He shrugs. “Jon’s not changing his mind.”
“At least you’ll get away from his temper,” Buri points out.
“Away from his temper, yes.” Raoul replies, “but into a world of troubles; caring for warhorses on scanty provisions, treating chain mail against sweat and rust, trying to pare down the companys’ supplies to the lightest possible—as if that can happen, we’ve got two hundred men in two companies, at the moment…”
With a shudder, Buri dropped the braided straw back into the wire rack. “I don’t envy you one bit.”
Raoul slid the door back, tossing the brush into the tack bucket next to the stall. “Let me know how you manage, with their Royalnesses.”
Buri flashed another quick grin. “You’ll be the first one I complain to.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 717 according to Wordcounttool.com
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 2B
Summary: Not every situation begins in the best circumstances, and sometimes good things are built out of rubble. It’s the end of the first year of the reign of King Jonathan, and they are carrying on.
Note: I keep seeing the note about incorrect word counts on fic in the arena, and I thought I’d start double checking mine. Normally I just use Microsoft Word, which tells me this is 694 words, but multiple website word counters are telling me 717. So I’m going with that. So sorry for the mods that are checking all of the word counts if mine have been perpetually screwing things up all Smackdown… hopefully that’s fixed now.
There’s starvation throughout the poorest parts of the Corus slums, and starvation means desperation. Theft, robbery, and fighting are reported sporadically as despondency rises. That summer, infection and sickness start to crawl from the sewers in the summer. It’s not just Corus, Buri’s smart enough to realize that, but she hasn’t been far from the capital in months and the statistics and reports about other areas of Tortall remain just that: numbers.
In the year that King Jonathan has ruled, the state of the country has gone from tough to tougher and Buri chafes at the bit. Thayet—Queen, not Princess, now—frets constantly, irritable and worn from carrying her first child, the heir to the kingdom, through the sweltering summer months. She has been absolutely forbidden to go into the City herself, being in as delicate a position as she is carrying the only heir to the unstable Tortallan throne, and she does not take well to this at all.
Buri tries, she really does, but when she cannot stand another moment of the mood swings and the truly bizarre desire for foods Buri wishes she’d never heard of, she flees from the Royal Apartments and bursts into the sunlit, warm air at the base of the Palace.
Here, there are the familiar sounds of stables and workers, of fighters and teachers and guardsmen and horses and Buri slips into the nearest row of stalls.
“Driving you mad, again?”
A head with a pair of cheerful black eyes under unruly black hair follows the cheerful voice out of one stall near the end of the row. Buri laughs and turns.
“Hiding here too, Goldenlake? What have they done to scare you off this time?”
Raoul grins but says nothing, instead shoving at the thick neck of his bay mare and disappearing back into the stall with his mount. Buri, leaning her arms along the bottom half of the door, is persistent.
“You only hide out here when Jon’s being particularly ornery or obtuse, so which is it?” Her fingers pull strands of straw out of the rack wired to the door, idly twisting them around in a four-strand braid she learned from her mother. She forgets that her fingers remember things like this, sometimes, but if Raoul notices what she’s doing he doesn’t mention it. He works a curry brush in strong circles over his mare’s chesnut withers for long moments before he replies to Buri’s question.
“It’s ornery-Jon,” he admits, pausing for a moment and leaning on Desertflame. The horse, clearly put out by the stillness of the brush against her hide, swings her head around and noses at Raoul’s face impatiently, drawing a laugh from Buri as Raoul swats at the mare.
“Alright, alright—get out of here.” He resumes the broad, circular strokes across Flame’s sides again, and continues, “He’s sending the Own out for the rest of the summer, trying to spread our ranks out and provide relief to the worst-hit areas.”
Buri frowns, trying to piece together what Raoul’s saying with what she already knows. “Is the Own even prepared to do this kind of work?”
Raoul snorts, and it’s the only confirmation Buri needs. “Not even close. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of our men resign when they hear we won’t be sitting pretty and looking nice for the ladies. I’ve been working on them slowly, but…” He shrugs. “Jon’s not changing his mind.”
“At least you’ll get away from his temper,” Buri points out.
“Away from his temper, yes.” Raoul replies, “but into a world of troubles; caring for warhorses on scanty provisions, treating chain mail against sweat and rust, trying to pare down the companys’ supplies to the lightest possible—as if that can happen, we’ve got two hundred men in two companies, at the moment…”
With a shudder, Buri dropped the braided straw back into the wire rack. “I don’t envy you one bit.”
Raoul slid the door back, tossing the brush into the tack bucket next to the stall. “Let me know how you manage, with their Royalnesses.”
Buri flashed another quick grin. “You’ll be the first one I complain to.