Post by indifferentred on Aug 25, 2013 7:34:11 GMT 10
Title: A Step-By-Step Guide On How To Crash and Burn
Rating: PG-13
Category: Tortall <1000 words
Length: 701
Original and Subsequent Haunts: Goldenlake Olympics 2012
Summary: The dissection of a collapsing relationship between Thom of Pirate's Swoop and Cathrea of Cavall.
Notes: References to sex. Originally entered as part of the GL Olympics last year.
Neither of them had really expected it to last. Oh, they had pretended, of course: Thom had written bad poetry on her hair and shining eyes, and Cathrea had fooled herself into believing that the distasteful dreams of screams and barbs with which her Sight presented her were just that. They had spun out their thread from tart half-arguments in crowded palace ballrooms - as he worked for his black robe and she became the temple ambassador everyone had expected of her - to hasty kisses and fast undressings in the forgiving blackness of his rooms, both recognising their wrongs in pursuing this course, and yet unable to pull themselves back from the brink. And now the Graveyard Hag’s celestial scissors were sawing at the clumsy knots they’d tied to keep themselves afloat on this sea of toxic need and everything was unravelling.
They had not been easy, the past few months.
Cathrea had tried, tried to distance herself, tried to remember her vows to the Goddess, made when still an innocent, but all the same she had found herself eventually on his doorstep, with a whispered admission of desire on her lips, and he had wordlessly taken her hand and led her inside. The secrecy; the lies, so difficult at first and then so effortless; the snatched and contrived meetings in large groups, hiding in plain sight; the desire and heat of Thom’s bed; and then, later, the guilt of having betrayed all that one had once held dear. “They don’t own you,” Thom had snapped sullenly, on an occasion when she had, by the slightest tilt of her head, evaded his kiss as they woke and stretched in his narrow bed. He had apologised later (Cate, my darling, forgive me? It’s so difficult - ), but neither of them had quite been able to forget the fact that it was their first quarrel, a frisson of ugliness that had haunted his rooms for weeks afterwards.
It had been she who had snapped next, at a ball to celebrate the birth of Prince Roald and Princess Shinkokami’s second child, a boy. Thom had danced with a young damsel in the middle of her first season, and made her laugh, and Cathrea had been ridiculously jealous. As a Daughter of the Goddess, Thom knew she was not free - was she a mere amusement to him, a way of staving off the chills of loneliness while he scouted amongst the debutantes for a bride? He teased her when she mentioned it, said that no deb’ would ever put up with his messiness and odd experiments, but it was just another reminder of all the obstacles in their way.
The end, when it comes, is even nastier than they had expected. A wrong word, a shared glance at an inopportune moment, and suddenly her father has discovered them. The thread snaps, their precarious hold on respectability crumbles, and Cathrea’s mind dreams of Thom’s fiery hair, dissolving into the sharp tang of blazebalm. Piqued by her father’s attacks on his honour, he furiously proposes marriage; shocked, she refuses him before she has really had time to think.
“Thom - “ she stops, the words jumbling in her mouth, choking her. “Thom, I am a Daughter of the Goddess, I am not free. This has been foolishness, you must see that I cannot - “
“All I see is that you are sacrificing your happiness to remain tied to a set of vows you no longer believe in! I thought you were braver than that, Cate.” His rebuke stings, and her heart wants to take her words back, but her head - the bit of her that always stays cold and detached, even when she is lying in Thom’s arms, the bit of her trained at her father’s knee in honour and duty and a noble’s word - locks her in place as her lover vanishes in a swirl of black robes and the world falls down on her shoulders.
He rides for the Swoop the next day, and she returns to the temple, taking shelter from her destruction inside white marble walls and routine.
But still, in her ears, she hears the ringing of Thom’s thunder-voice and the crack and boom of an invisible implosion.
Rating: PG-13
Category: Tortall <1000 words
Length: 701
Original and Subsequent Haunts: Goldenlake Olympics 2012
Summary: The dissection of a collapsing relationship between Thom of Pirate's Swoop and Cathrea of Cavall.
Notes: References to sex. Originally entered as part of the GL Olympics last year.
Neither of them had really expected it to last. Oh, they had pretended, of course: Thom had written bad poetry on her hair and shining eyes, and Cathrea had fooled herself into believing that the distasteful dreams of screams and barbs with which her Sight presented her were just that. They had spun out their thread from tart half-arguments in crowded palace ballrooms - as he worked for his black robe and she became the temple ambassador everyone had expected of her - to hasty kisses and fast undressings in the forgiving blackness of his rooms, both recognising their wrongs in pursuing this course, and yet unable to pull themselves back from the brink. And now the Graveyard Hag’s celestial scissors were sawing at the clumsy knots they’d tied to keep themselves afloat on this sea of toxic need and everything was unravelling.
They had not been easy, the past few months.
Cathrea had tried, tried to distance herself, tried to remember her vows to the Goddess, made when still an innocent, but all the same she had found herself eventually on his doorstep, with a whispered admission of desire on her lips, and he had wordlessly taken her hand and led her inside. The secrecy; the lies, so difficult at first and then so effortless; the snatched and contrived meetings in large groups, hiding in plain sight; the desire and heat of Thom’s bed; and then, later, the guilt of having betrayed all that one had once held dear. “They don’t own you,” Thom had snapped sullenly, on an occasion when she had, by the slightest tilt of her head, evaded his kiss as they woke and stretched in his narrow bed. He had apologised later (Cate, my darling, forgive me? It’s so difficult - ), but neither of them had quite been able to forget the fact that it was their first quarrel, a frisson of ugliness that had haunted his rooms for weeks afterwards.
It had been she who had snapped next, at a ball to celebrate the birth of Prince Roald and Princess Shinkokami’s second child, a boy. Thom had danced with a young damsel in the middle of her first season, and made her laugh, and Cathrea had been ridiculously jealous. As a Daughter of the Goddess, Thom knew she was not free - was she a mere amusement to him, a way of staving off the chills of loneliness while he scouted amongst the debutantes for a bride? He teased her when she mentioned it, said that no deb’ would ever put up with his messiness and odd experiments, but it was just another reminder of all the obstacles in their way.
The end, when it comes, is even nastier than they had expected. A wrong word, a shared glance at an inopportune moment, and suddenly her father has discovered them. The thread snaps, their precarious hold on respectability crumbles, and Cathrea’s mind dreams of Thom’s fiery hair, dissolving into the sharp tang of blazebalm. Piqued by her father’s attacks on his honour, he furiously proposes marriage; shocked, she refuses him before she has really had time to think.
“Thom - “ she stops, the words jumbling in her mouth, choking her. “Thom, I am a Daughter of the Goddess, I am not free. This has been foolishness, you must see that I cannot - “
“All I see is that you are sacrificing your happiness to remain tied to a set of vows you no longer believe in! I thought you were braver than that, Cate.” His rebuke stings, and her heart wants to take her words back, but her head - the bit of her that always stays cold and detached, even when she is lying in Thom’s arms, the bit of her trained at her father’s knee in honour and duty and a noble’s word - locks her in place as her lover vanishes in a swirl of black robes and the world falls down on her shoulders.
He rides for the Swoop the next day, and she returns to the temple, taking shelter from her destruction inside white marble walls and routine.
But still, in her ears, she hears the ringing of Thom’s thunder-voice and the crack and boom of an invisible implosion.