Post by max on Feb 25, 2014 15:56:41 GMT 10
Title: Only Ones Who Know
Rating: PG
For: wordy
Prompt: 4. Briar/Sandry
Summary and Warnings: Sandry throws a party. Briar’s got her back.
Sorry it took so long! I’ve been horribly busy in the last few days with my family and what this has meant is that apparently I’ve written too much to fit into this fic, given the time constraints (because I’m not about to give you a 7k unedited tome even though I kind of want to except that I kind of don’t), and so I am probably going to have to make a series of this or something.
But sorry again man. I hope you like it!
Discipline is a safe harbour she becomes ever more grateful to have had the older she becomes, even as it recedes like a relinquished shoreline across the malleable emptiness of the sea. The three and a half years she had spent with her foster family strange, beautiful flotsam that returns to her, a string of gilded images shoring up her heart against the implacable currents of loyalty and expectation that have existed long before ever she knew of her magic – and indeed, before she was born at all. She is a Lady of Toren; sovereign family of the Duchy of Emelan. At twenty one this is irrefutable; the blue depth of her blood precedent over the blue light of her power, along with everything else.
And Discipline. As mythical to her now as the islands in the old legends, the whitewashed walls and the bonds she had forged there from something so pure she has never been able to touch its like again (another, more palpable legend). A dream she keeps herself from dwelling in – there are so many other threads she has a duty to keep hold of, after all. No time to spare searching for what was long ago borne into the past.
Sometimes it might not feel like enough, but that doesn’t mean she ever forgets it.
The ambassador returns her hand, having bestowed on her his perennial compliment (As radiant as your mother, Lady Sandrilene) and at her back, she hears her brother sigh.
Can’t believe how you put up with all this clack.
She smiles in spite of herself, galvanised this one rare night by Briar’s presence. The distaste he harbours for the folderol of the aristocracy and private (acerbic) commentary a bulwark as reassuring as the hand resting on the high back of her chair.
At least you look lovely, she consoles, to be greeted by a soft snort. It had been Lark who had suggested the shades of gold; colour that would set off his eyes and her hair alike – and an assertion delicate (deliberate) enough to compel the attention of her cousin’s spies and vassals, besides.
‘I am honoured by the remembrance, Saghad fer Bolk,’ she replies to the old man in Namornese, before releasing him to greet her uncle; already envisioning what he will record of her appearance in his memorandum without bitterness. It had taken them the same power they had used to combat earthquakes and forest fires to defy the will of the Empress – and she had woven charms for attention into everything they wear tonight, herself.
A lull follows the ambassador’s reception, and Briar takes the intermission to reach his hand down to her shoulder, squeezing gently. Perfunctory, just like the way she looks back at him, and smiles on beatific cue, but on the dais, no one else is close enough to them to catch this subtlety. Topazes enhanced to bestow charisma upon their wearers glitter from the intricate panels of embroidery transepting his tunic and she keeps her eyes fixed firmly on his own to avoid being caught in Evvy’s work the way everyone else within an eight foot radius of them has been, and even as he tells her aloud that it’s nearly time for the first dance (in a tone so un-Briar like it would make her check him for concussion in any other circumstance; if not for the way his eyes glint maverick-game when he winks almost too quickly even for her to catch), Don’t look now, comes the sardonic comment, but everyone’s watching.
‘How splendid,’ she breathes, and smiles so wide her mouth stretches almost into a grimace. She has never been in love in the way of the old tales, but enough magic has been woven into their appearances, she hopes, to supplement this lack.
In all seriousness, thank you for doing this.
Then his thumb brushes the tendons of her throat, a tenderness unsought – and never allocated: for the first time since they began preparations for the Midsummer Gala at all (the elaborate charade of a mage-match beau, to dispel the clamours of the nobility of five lands from obstructing her life any further than they have since she reached her majority as one of the greatest heiresses of her generation) his eyes sincere in their caring.
Whatever it takes to keep you here.
And for a moment, the steady link of their gazes feels like a mooring line; tangible as his fingertips against her skin.
Rating: PG
For: wordy
Prompt: 4. Briar/Sandry
Summary and Warnings: Sandry throws a party. Briar’s got her back.
Sorry it took so long! I’ve been horribly busy in the last few days with my family and what this has meant is that apparently I’ve written too much to fit into this fic, given the time constraints (because I’m not about to give you a 7k unedited tome even though I kind of want to except that I kind of don’t), and so I am probably going to have to make a series of this or something.
But sorry again man. I hope you like it!
Discipline is a safe harbour she becomes ever more grateful to have had the older she becomes, even as it recedes like a relinquished shoreline across the malleable emptiness of the sea. The three and a half years she had spent with her foster family strange, beautiful flotsam that returns to her, a string of gilded images shoring up her heart against the implacable currents of loyalty and expectation that have existed long before ever she knew of her magic – and indeed, before she was born at all. She is a Lady of Toren; sovereign family of the Duchy of Emelan. At twenty one this is irrefutable; the blue depth of her blood precedent over the blue light of her power, along with everything else.
And Discipline. As mythical to her now as the islands in the old legends, the whitewashed walls and the bonds she had forged there from something so pure she has never been able to touch its like again (another, more palpable legend). A dream she keeps herself from dwelling in – there are so many other threads she has a duty to keep hold of, after all. No time to spare searching for what was long ago borne into the past.
Sometimes it might not feel like enough, but that doesn’t mean she ever forgets it.
The ambassador returns her hand, having bestowed on her his perennial compliment (As radiant as your mother, Lady Sandrilene) and at her back, she hears her brother sigh.
Can’t believe how you put up with all this clack.
She smiles in spite of herself, galvanised this one rare night by Briar’s presence. The distaste he harbours for the folderol of the aristocracy and private (acerbic) commentary a bulwark as reassuring as the hand resting on the high back of her chair.
At least you look lovely, she consoles, to be greeted by a soft snort. It had been Lark who had suggested the shades of gold; colour that would set off his eyes and her hair alike – and an assertion delicate (deliberate) enough to compel the attention of her cousin’s spies and vassals, besides.
‘I am honoured by the remembrance, Saghad fer Bolk,’ she replies to the old man in Namornese, before releasing him to greet her uncle; already envisioning what he will record of her appearance in his memorandum without bitterness. It had taken them the same power they had used to combat earthquakes and forest fires to defy the will of the Empress – and she had woven charms for attention into everything they wear tonight, herself.
A lull follows the ambassador’s reception, and Briar takes the intermission to reach his hand down to her shoulder, squeezing gently. Perfunctory, just like the way she looks back at him, and smiles on beatific cue, but on the dais, no one else is close enough to them to catch this subtlety. Topazes enhanced to bestow charisma upon their wearers glitter from the intricate panels of embroidery transepting his tunic and she keeps her eyes fixed firmly on his own to avoid being caught in Evvy’s work the way everyone else within an eight foot radius of them has been, and even as he tells her aloud that it’s nearly time for the first dance (in a tone so un-Briar like it would make her check him for concussion in any other circumstance; if not for the way his eyes glint maverick-game when he winks almost too quickly even for her to catch), Don’t look now, comes the sardonic comment, but everyone’s watching.
‘How splendid,’ she breathes, and smiles so wide her mouth stretches almost into a grimace. She has never been in love in the way of the old tales, but enough magic has been woven into their appearances, she hopes, to supplement this lack.
In all seriousness, thank you for doing this.
Then his thumb brushes the tendons of her throat, a tenderness unsought – and never allocated: for the first time since they began preparations for the Midsummer Gala at all (the elaborate charade of a mage-match beau, to dispel the clamours of the nobility of five lands from obstructing her life any further than they have since she reached her majority as one of the greatest heiresses of her generation) his eyes sincere in their caring.
Whatever it takes to keep you here.
And for a moment, the steady link of their gazes feels like a mooring line; tangible as his fingertips against her skin.
