Post by devilinthedetails on Nov 26, 2018 3:36:47 GMT 10
Title: Minor Losses
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Minor to Major
Summary: A finger is a minor thing until it is lost, or three ways Gareth's missing finger shaped his relationship with his son.
Counting Fingers
“Father.” Gary’s plea for attention interrupted Gareth’s focus on drafting legislation for the council’s review. They were in Gareth’s study, where Gareth was busy writing laws to govern the country while his six-year-old son was supposedly finishing a mathematics assignment though to Gareth he seemed more interested in posing incessant questions with no discernible connection to mathematics.
“Aren’t you supposed to be solving your mathematics problems for your tutor, son?” Gareth pointed his quill sternly at his six-year-old.
“I am.” Gary’s eyes were a wide, wounded deer brown. “My comment is about mathematics, Father.”
“Very well.” Gareth’s gaze was narrow and suspicious as his thin lips. “I warn you if it isn’t about mathematics I may be tempted to box your ears.”
Mithros above knew that Gareth tried not to physically discipline his son but there were times when his rambunctious boy would test the patience of a god, which Gareth most assuredly wasn’t.
Remarkably unfazed by the threat to his ears, Gary continued cheerfully, “I’m learning about multiples of nine with my tutor, and you can calculate them through ten on your fingers.”
“Can you?” Gareth had never noticed such a thing but Gary was always alert for any trick that might reduce the complexities of mathematics.
“Yes.” Gary bobbed his head eagerly, obviously pleased to have detected a fact that had escaped his father’s observation. “You put down the finger of whichever multiple of nine you’re looking to find, Father. The number of fingers before the lowered one represent the first digit, and the number after the lowered finger stand for the second digit. It’s simple”—
Gary’s excitement dimmed slightly as his eyes flickered to the hole where one of Gareth’s fingers had once been, and he amended in a quieter voice, “It’s simple if you have all your fingers, that is.”
“Indeed,” agreed Gareth crisply. He had recovered from the wound of his lost finger long ago. Now he saw it as a strength, not a weakness. “An excellent reason for you to endeavor to keep all your fingers attached to your body, lad. However will you calculate your multiples of nine otherwise?”
“I’d find another way, Father.” Gary gave his smuggest smile. “I can be very devious when I want to…”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” muttered Gareth sardonically as he returned to his legislation drafting.
Touching Swords
“May I touch your sword?” Gary’s hands tugged insistently at Gareth’s scabbard as they had every morning for a week. Instead of offering a morning greeting, Gary would attack his father’s ankles and beg to touch his sword. Seven was apparently an age of unrelenting exploration as six had been a stage of unabated trouble.
Sighing in surrender to his son’s persistence, Gareth unsheathed his sword and placed the hilt in Gary’s palm, curling the lad’s hand so he held it firmly, and cautioning with a stern glance, “Be careful. You don’t want to cut off your fingers.”
“You cut off a finger, Father.” Gary’s gaze flicked speculatively over the gaping hole where Gareth’s finger had once been as the boy finally found the courage to unleash the curious question Gareth had seen flare in his eyes a hundred times. “Were you careless touching your father’s sword?”
“No.” Brisk as an autumn breeze, Gareth gave the lie he had told to all his pages, ignoring the cutting feeling he experienced whenever his missing finger was called into focus. A finger, he thought, was such a minor detail until you lost it. Then it became a chasm that could never be filled, a question that could never be answered without inviting pity or contempt unless an impressive myth, a protective shell, were created around it to guard it from prodding and probing. “I lost my finger in the Chamber of the Ordeal, son.”
“You did?” Gary’s eyes were so wide that Gareth feared he would drop the sword, chopping off his own toe.
“Yes.” Gareth took advantage of his son’s distraction to pry the lad’s slack fingers from his sword hilt and return the blade to the scabbard that swung from his belt. “That’s why you must train hard to avoid suffering a similar fate.”
“Yes, Father.” For once seeming suitably subdued, Gary nodded and subsided into a rare silence.
Secrets and Lies
“Your son wishes to see you at once, Your Grace.” Timon appeared in the doorway to Gareth’s study with a bow. “He says it’s urgent.”
“Very well.” Resigned, Gareth waved his hand and wondered what mischief his boy had found time to engage in when he should have been performing his duties as a page. “Send him in.”
Timon vanished from the threshold to be replaced by Gary, who stormed into the room, slammed the door shut behind him, and marched over to Gareth’s desk, where he dumped a thick tome that flung dust into Gareth’s face over the scrolls Gareth had been reviewing for the next day’s council meeting.
“What is the meaning of this display, boy?” Gareth arched an eyebrow as he slid the scrolls out from under the book before they could be crushed beneath its weight.
“I was doing some light reading into the last Tusaine war”—Only his son, Gareth thought, would refer to a volume wide as a man’s neck as light reading—“when I found this interesting sentence.”
Gareth followed his son’s accusing finger to the sentence it pointed to although he knew without having to see it how it would read. It would describe how he had lost his finger in a skirmish fighting to press Tortall’s border farther into Tusaine. It would be damning evidence of his lie to cow a thousand pages about losing his finger during his Ordeal. His secret shame would be exposed to his son who never could stop digging through dusty tomes in libraries to find the truth behind every lie.
“It states that you lost your finger during the last war the Old King waged against Tusaine, Father,” explained Gary rather superfluously when the words were staring Gareth in the face as much as they were his son.
“I did.” Gareth’s nostrils twitched as if he were about to sneeze, and he blamed it on the dusty book, not on any guilt he might have felt about lying to his son and all his pages—the lads who trusted him to be their model of knightly honor— over the many years he had been training master. “The truth that I was injured in battle wouldn’t intimidate a fly, so I had to come up with a more impressive story, son.”
“If you were injured in battle that makes you a war hero, Father.” Gary sounded torn between hurt, baffled frustration and admiration. “Being a war hero is impressive and intimidating enough without creating a lie about the Chamber of the Ordeal.”
“Being maimed in battle is shameful, lad.” Gareth’s throat was tightening, choking him with the memory of King Jasson’s advice, the best he had ever received from the Old King, as he lay on his sickbed in Tusaine—doubtlessly the constricting sensation was another effect of the dusty volume Gary had deposited on his desk in a temper. “It is proof of a weakness that must be turned into a strength. A lie is how that weakness is turned into a strength. The Old King himself taught me that in the greatest lesson he ever gave me.”
“If that’s the festering advice he gave you, it’s good the Old King is rotting in the crypts.” Gary snorted, showing as much disdain for his dead superiors as he did his living ones.
“You’ll respect the dead.” Gareth rose to grab his son’s shoulders. He didn’t even have to shake them for his boy to know he was serious as the grave where the Old King was buried. “You’ll also keep my secret to preserve the honor of our family name.”
“Stay silent about your lie, you mean?” Gary’s jaw was clenched mulishly.
“Call it whatever you like, son.” Gareth’s lips thinned. “The bottom line is that you’ll do it for the Naxen name.”
“I’ll keep your secret and stay silent about your lie, Father.” The defiant gleam in Gary’s eyes didn’t dim even as he offered this concession, and Gareth was left with the nasty, clawing feeling of having won a battle but lost another adolescent war with his son. “That’s what being a Naxen is all about, keeping secrets and telling lies about minor details like missing fingers, isn’t it?”
“You’re upset, and that makes you impertinent.” Gareth fought for calm sternness, determined not to match his son’s bitterness with his own. “Go before you say something that will force me to give you a month’s worth of extra etiquette.”
“Yes, Father.” Gary bent into a short, angry bow before stalking out of Gareth’s study in more of a rage than he had been upon entering.
Sighing in a vain attempt to release his weariness, Gareth gazed down at his missing finger, feeling a ghostly itch he couldn’t satisfy. Numb in his bones, he reflected on how something as simple and small as a lost finger could reverberate through generations, shaping his relationship with his son by its aching absence.
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Minor to Major
Summary: A finger is a minor thing until it is lost, or three ways Gareth's missing finger shaped his relationship with his son.
Counting Fingers
“Father.” Gary’s plea for attention interrupted Gareth’s focus on drafting legislation for the council’s review. They were in Gareth’s study, where Gareth was busy writing laws to govern the country while his six-year-old son was supposedly finishing a mathematics assignment though to Gareth he seemed more interested in posing incessant questions with no discernible connection to mathematics.
“Aren’t you supposed to be solving your mathematics problems for your tutor, son?” Gareth pointed his quill sternly at his six-year-old.
“I am.” Gary’s eyes were a wide, wounded deer brown. “My comment is about mathematics, Father.”
“Very well.” Gareth’s gaze was narrow and suspicious as his thin lips. “I warn you if it isn’t about mathematics I may be tempted to box your ears.”
Mithros above knew that Gareth tried not to physically discipline his son but there were times when his rambunctious boy would test the patience of a god, which Gareth most assuredly wasn’t.
Remarkably unfazed by the threat to his ears, Gary continued cheerfully, “I’m learning about multiples of nine with my tutor, and you can calculate them through ten on your fingers.”
“Can you?” Gareth had never noticed such a thing but Gary was always alert for any trick that might reduce the complexities of mathematics.
“Yes.” Gary bobbed his head eagerly, obviously pleased to have detected a fact that had escaped his father’s observation. “You put down the finger of whichever multiple of nine you’re looking to find, Father. The number of fingers before the lowered one represent the first digit, and the number after the lowered finger stand for the second digit. It’s simple”—
Gary’s excitement dimmed slightly as his eyes flickered to the hole where one of Gareth’s fingers had once been, and he amended in a quieter voice, “It’s simple if you have all your fingers, that is.”
“Indeed,” agreed Gareth crisply. He had recovered from the wound of his lost finger long ago. Now he saw it as a strength, not a weakness. “An excellent reason for you to endeavor to keep all your fingers attached to your body, lad. However will you calculate your multiples of nine otherwise?”
“I’d find another way, Father.” Gary gave his smuggest smile. “I can be very devious when I want to…”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” muttered Gareth sardonically as he returned to his legislation drafting.
Touching Swords
“May I touch your sword?” Gary’s hands tugged insistently at Gareth’s scabbard as they had every morning for a week. Instead of offering a morning greeting, Gary would attack his father’s ankles and beg to touch his sword. Seven was apparently an age of unrelenting exploration as six had been a stage of unabated trouble.
Sighing in surrender to his son’s persistence, Gareth unsheathed his sword and placed the hilt in Gary’s palm, curling the lad’s hand so he held it firmly, and cautioning with a stern glance, “Be careful. You don’t want to cut off your fingers.”
“You cut off a finger, Father.” Gary’s gaze flicked speculatively over the gaping hole where Gareth’s finger had once been as the boy finally found the courage to unleash the curious question Gareth had seen flare in his eyes a hundred times. “Were you careless touching your father’s sword?”
“No.” Brisk as an autumn breeze, Gareth gave the lie he had told to all his pages, ignoring the cutting feeling he experienced whenever his missing finger was called into focus. A finger, he thought, was such a minor detail until you lost it. Then it became a chasm that could never be filled, a question that could never be answered without inviting pity or contempt unless an impressive myth, a protective shell, were created around it to guard it from prodding and probing. “I lost my finger in the Chamber of the Ordeal, son.”
“You did?” Gary’s eyes were so wide that Gareth feared he would drop the sword, chopping off his own toe.
“Yes.” Gareth took advantage of his son’s distraction to pry the lad’s slack fingers from his sword hilt and return the blade to the scabbard that swung from his belt. “That’s why you must train hard to avoid suffering a similar fate.”
“Yes, Father.” For once seeming suitably subdued, Gary nodded and subsided into a rare silence.
Secrets and Lies
“Your son wishes to see you at once, Your Grace.” Timon appeared in the doorway to Gareth’s study with a bow. “He says it’s urgent.”
“Very well.” Resigned, Gareth waved his hand and wondered what mischief his boy had found time to engage in when he should have been performing his duties as a page. “Send him in.”
Timon vanished from the threshold to be replaced by Gary, who stormed into the room, slammed the door shut behind him, and marched over to Gareth’s desk, where he dumped a thick tome that flung dust into Gareth’s face over the scrolls Gareth had been reviewing for the next day’s council meeting.
“What is the meaning of this display, boy?” Gareth arched an eyebrow as he slid the scrolls out from under the book before they could be crushed beneath its weight.
“I was doing some light reading into the last Tusaine war”—Only his son, Gareth thought, would refer to a volume wide as a man’s neck as light reading—“when I found this interesting sentence.”
Gareth followed his son’s accusing finger to the sentence it pointed to although he knew without having to see it how it would read. It would describe how he had lost his finger in a skirmish fighting to press Tortall’s border farther into Tusaine. It would be damning evidence of his lie to cow a thousand pages about losing his finger during his Ordeal. His secret shame would be exposed to his son who never could stop digging through dusty tomes in libraries to find the truth behind every lie.
“It states that you lost your finger during the last war the Old King waged against Tusaine, Father,” explained Gary rather superfluously when the words were staring Gareth in the face as much as they were his son.
“I did.” Gareth’s nostrils twitched as if he were about to sneeze, and he blamed it on the dusty book, not on any guilt he might have felt about lying to his son and all his pages—the lads who trusted him to be their model of knightly honor— over the many years he had been training master. “The truth that I was injured in battle wouldn’t intimidate a fly, so I had to come up with a more impressive story, son.”
“If you were injured in battle that makes you a war hero, Father.” Gary sounded torn between hurt, baffled frustration and admiration. “Being a war hero is impressive and intimidating enough without creating a lie about the Chamber of the Ordeal.”
“Being maimed in battle is shameful, lad.” Gareth’s throat was tightening, choking him with the memory of King Jasson’s advice, the best he had ever received from the Old King, as he lay on his sickbed in Tusaine—doubtlessly the constricting sensation was another effect of the dusty volume Gary had deposited on his desk in a temper. “It is proof of a weakness that must be turned into a strength. A lie is how that weakness is turned into a strength. The Old King himself taught me that in the greatest lesson he ever gave me.”
“If that’s the festering advice he gave you, it’s good the Old King is rotting in the crypts.” Gary snorted, showing as much disdain for his dead superiors as he did his living ones.
“You’ll respect the dead.” Gareth rose to grab his son’s shoulders. He didn’t even have to shake them for his boy to know he was serious as the grave where the Old King was buried. “You’ll also keep my secret to preserve the honor of our family name.”
“Stay silent about your lie, you mean?” Gary’s jaw was clenched mulishly.
“Call it whatever you like, son.” Gareth’s lips thinned. “The bottom line is that you’ll do it for the Naxen name.”
“I’ll keep your secret and stay silent about your lie, Father.” The defiant gleam in Gary’s eyes didn’t dim even as he offered this concession, and Gareth was left with the nasty, clawing feeling of having won a battle but lost another adolescent war with his son. “That’s what being a Naxen is all about, keeping secrets and telling lies about minor details like missing fingers, isn’t it?”
“You’re upset, and that makes you impertinent.” Gareth fought for calm sternness, determined not to match his son’s bitterness with his own. “Go before you say something that will force me to give you a month’s worth of extra etiquette.”
“Yes, Father.” Gary bent into a short, angry bow before stalking out of Gareth’s study in more of a rage than he had been upon entering.
Sighing in a vain attempt to release his weariness, Gareth gazed down at his missing finger, feeling a ghostly itch he couldn’t satisfy. Numb in his bones, he reflected on how something as simple and small as a lost finger could reverberate through generations, shaping his relationship with his son by its aching absence.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!