Post by max on Jan 12, 2015 19:57:00 GMT 10
Title: Nettie Moore
Rating: PG
For: wordy
Prompt: Briar/Sandry
Summary: A scene in a garden
Notes and Warnings: Sorry this is so short, man. The rest wouldn't flow ~~
The last memory of his mother is nothing but the memory of a memory. His name is Roach and he has been with the Thief Lord long enough to have worn the clothes he came with to rags, but when the girl who had taken care of such things pulls the shreds of his shirt over his head and gives him another, he breathes in the last of a sweet smell he will one day know to be roses and the fuzzy impression of a woman with dark hair pinned out of her face will arise inside of him with the inhalation. Then the girl says, ‘Now scoot else you’ll catch it,’ and the idea of the woman is replaced by more immediate concerns – and when he pauses in his gardening at the age of eighteen, he breathes in the same elusive scent and realises this is all he now has left of her.
The pain of it is as piercing as it is unprecedented. His pruning shears drop from his hands while the threads that bind him to his foster sisters flare with the violence of the loss realised. Across the city in Rainen Alley Daja brings her staff up into the guard position, spinning for the non-existent assailant before recovering and apologising to a frightened vendor. Closer at hand, Sandry abruptly brings her mare around without a word spared to her guards and hurtles up from the wharves towards Cheeseman Street while, weakly, he tries to reassure her through their connection that there is no need.
Of course, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, erstwhile Clehame of Landreg and most obstinate witch he has ever known is a force unto herself, so in the ten minutes in which he does nothing more than numbly gather his clippings together she reaches the house, strides through into the garden, and takes his hands in her smaller, finer pair.
What was that?
If it had been Daja or Tris, they would have waited until he wanted to tell them, but it isn’t in Sandry’s make-up to wait for anything.
He gives it to her in senses, because the words are too hard to form.
She gives him her handkerchief, and when she takes his hands and squeezes again he notices that she hadn’t had time to remove her riding gloves in her rush to come to him: where her fingers brush against the callouses on his palms, the broken skin tingles.
You will always have us, Briar.
It doesn’t need to be said but she does anyway. He thinks of thanking her, or telling her he already knows. Both answers redundant and inadequate – there are scars in all their palms that do more than nominal confirmation ever could – and so instead and at a loss he kisses the backs of her gloved hands, and the leather is soft, and warmed by her skin.
She smiles supportively and as if this makes everything all right again – and even though his hands are grimy with garden and green with tattooed foliage, reciprocates with a butterfly-light brush of her lips against his knuckles – and it does.
The scent of roses is everywhere and he cannot remember his mother, but in the shade and sweetness of the flowers with his foster sister - suddenly - it no longer matters.
Rating: PG
For: wordy
Prompt: Briar/Sandry
Summary: A scene in a garden
Notes and Warnings: Sorry this is so short, man. The rest wouldn't flow ~~
The last memory of his mother is nothing but the memory of a memory. His name is Roach and he has been with the Thief Lord long enough to have worn the clothes he came with to rags, but when the girl who had taken care of such things pulls the shreds of his shirt over his head and gives him another, he breathes in the last of a sweet smell he will one day know to be roses and the fuzzy impression of a woman with dark hair pinned out of her face will arise inside of him with the inhalation. Then the girl says, ‘Now scoot else you’ll catch it,’ and the idea of the woman is replaced by more immediate concerns – and when he pauses in his gardening at the age of eighteen, he breathes in the same elusive scent and realises this is all he now has left of her.
The pain of it is as piercing as it is unprecedented. His pruning shears drop from his hands while the threads that bind him to his foster sisters flare with the violence of the loss realised. Across the city in Rainen Alley Daja brings her staff up into the guard position, spinning for the non-existent assailant before recovering and apologising to a frightened vendor. Closer at hand, Sandry abruptly brings her mare around without a word spared to her guards and hurtles up from the wharves towards Cheeseman Street while, weakly, he tries to reassure her through their connection that there is no need.
Of course, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, erstwhile Clehame of Landreg and most obstinate witch he has ever known is a force unto herself, so in the ten minutes in which he does nothing more than numbly gather his clippings together she reaches the house, strides through into the garden, and takes his hands in her smaller, finer pair.
What was that?
If it had been Daja or Tris, they would have waited until he wanted to tell them, but it isn’t in Sandry’s make-up to wait for anything.
He gives it to her in senses, because the words are too hard to form.
She gives him her handkerchief, and when she takes his hands and squeezes again he notices that she hadn’t had time to remove her riding gloves in her rush to come to him: where her fingers brush against the callouses on his palms, the broken skin tingles.
You will always have us, Briar.
It doesn’t need to be said but she does anyway. He thinks of thanking her, or telling her he already knows. Both answers redundant and inadequate – there are scars in all their palms that do more than nominal confirmation ever could – and so instead and at a loss he kisses the backs of her gloved hands, and the leather is soft, and warmed by her skin.
She smiles supportively and as if this makes everything all right again – and even though his hands are grimy with garden and green with tattooed foliage, reciprocates with a butterfly-light brush of her lips against his knuckles – and it does.
The scent of roses is everywhere and he cannot remember his mother, but in the shade and sweetness of the flowers with his foster sister - suddenly - it no longer matters.