Post by Ankhiale on Dec 12, 2013 18:42:34 GMT 10
Title: There Will Be Horses
Rating: PG-13 just to be safe
For: Tamari
Prompt: #3 - Something about Onua during the Immortals
Summary: Onua is no warrior, but when all hell breaks loose at the end of RotG, she’s there anyway.
Notes and Warnings: Mentions of death (it’s a war) and spousal abuse.
*******
Onua was no warrior. Yet she was K'mir and had been raised as a K'mir; she had hunted with all the other youths and maidens in her cohort, she had brought down mountain pheasants unassisted for her fifteenth name day like every foremother before her. She could wield the bow with the simple confidence of any of the Free People. One didn't have to be as supernaturally skilled as a certain former assistant of hers to be competent, thank the Lords.
Yet the simple fact remained: Onua was no warrior. The first time she had ever killed another human was when she had put an arrow in the heart of her former husband, after she'd run across him by chance, reeling in a cute young lowlander. She had killed him with the bruises he'd left her still yellowing on her body, and then she had fled as far from Sarain as she could, knowing that if the tribes caught her out she would be given to his tribe for whatever justice they settled upon. She couldn't trust them to see the viper that he'd been.
She'd managed to avoid killing people along the road. The long Great Road to Tortall was bandit-haunted, but she had the Gift for staying hidden, and it was enough to keep her, her dog, and her horse safe all the long way. In Tortall, she'd found a new home - made a new home - among other K'mir refugees and their western hosts, and she'd found her skills as a K'miri horsemistress in great demand.
Even working for the Riders, she hadn't had to kill anyone.
But Tortall was at war, savaged by monstrous immortals straight out of legend and more mundane human monsters alike, and Onua found it didn't matter that she wasn't a warrior: she had a bow in her hands and worry and fear tangled into a hot knot of righteous fury in her heart, and the enemy was in her sights.
She whispered a prayer to Chavi West-Wind with every person, mortal or immortal, that she dropped, that the goddess would soothe their angry ghosts and ferry them to the land beyond the mountains where only ghosts go, and she never stopped shooting. When all this was over, she would find Daine and Numair, Buri and Sarge, all the Riders and all her trainees, all fine and waiting for her; there would be time to sit with smoky tea by firelight and time to sleep on the road under the bright stars. She would hang up her bow, for real this time, never to touch it again in anger but only as a proper K'miri woman did, for the hunt. There would be horses.
But that was later. Tahoi leaped to rip a Stormwing to shreds, and Onua turned back to the fray.
Rating: PG-13 just to be safe
For: Tamari
Prompt: #3 - Something about Onua during the Immortals
Summary: Onua is no warrior, but when all hell breaks loose at the end of RotG, she’s there anyway.
Notes and Warnings: Mentions of death (it’s a war) and spousal abuse.
*******
Onua was no warrior. Yet she was K'mir and had been raised as a K'mir; she had hunted with all the other youths and maidens in her cohort, she had brought down mountain pheasants unassisted for her fifteenth name day like every foremother before her. She could wield the bow with the simple confidence of any of the Free People. One didn't have to be as supernaturally skilled as a certain former assistant of hers to be competent, thank the Lords.
Yet the simple fact remained: Onua was no warrior. The first time she had ever killed another human was when she had put an arrow in the heart of her former husband, after she'd run across him by chance, reeling in a cute young lowlander. She had killed him with the bruises he'd left her still yellowing on her body, and then she had fled as far from Sarain as she could, knowing that if the tribes caught her out she would be given to his tribe for whatever justice they settled upon. She couldn't trust them to see the viper that he'd been.
She'd managed to avoid killing people along the road. The long Great Road to Tortall was bandit-haunted, but she had the Gift for staying hidden, and it was enough to keep her, her dog, and her horse safe all the long way. In Tortall, she'd found a new home - made a new home - among other K'mir refugees and their western hosts, and she'd found her skills as a K'miri horsemistress in great demand.
Even working for the Riders, she hadn't had to kill anyone.
But Tortall was at war, savaged by monstrous immortals straight out of legend and more mundane human monsters alike, and Onua found it didn't matter that she wasn't a warrior: she had a bow in her hands and worry and fear tangled into a hot knot of righteous fury in her heart, and the enemy was in her sights.
She whispered a prayer to Chavi West-Wind with every person, mortal or immortal, that she dropped, that the goddess would soothe their angry ghosts and ferry them to the land beyond the mountains where only ghosts go, and she never stopped shooting. When all this was over, she would find Daine and Numair, Buri and Sarge, all the Riders and all her trainees, all fine and waiting for her; there would be time to sit with smoky tea by firelight and time to sleep on the road under the bright stars. She would hang up her bow, for real this time, never to touch it again in anger but only as a proper K'miri woman did, for the hunt. There would be horses.
But that was later. Tahoi leaped to rip a Stormwing to shreds, and Onua turned back to the fray.