A Grandfather's Caution, PG-13 (#142)
Mar 21, 2021 2:45:12 GMT 10
Seek, mistrali, and 1 more like this
Post by devilinthedetails on Mar 21, 2021 2:45:12 GMT 10
Title: A Grandfather's Caution
Rating: PG-13 for references to sexism.
Prompt: Beware
Summary: Wyldon has advice and warnings for his granddaughter.
A Grandfather’s Caution
Wyldon rode beside his granddaughter along paths that cut through swaths of fertile fieldland radiant with golden grain. Fief Jesslaw was, praise be to the gods, situated on the side of the eastern hills that received an abundance of rain in spring and summer rather than the side closer to the Tusaine border that was prone to famine and drought. The promise of a bountiful harvest come the fall was all around him even as the hot high summer sun beat down on his neck and back, burning through his shirt.
The only sounds between him and the girl with her untamable brown curls fighting to escape their ponytail riding beside him were the clopping of their horse hooves. That silence was unusual. Normally Ceinwen--that was the girl’s name because her parents had seen fit to give her an impossible to spell and pronounce one from the wild hill country that had once been Barzun and now was Tortall’s contested borderland instead of a solid, respectable one as could be found in Tortall’s heartland--would be chattering his ears off with any thought that chanced to cross her mind.
Squirrels she saw scampering across the road. Birds singing in the trees. Petty quarrels she’d had with her siblings. Crazy plans she had for the future. A constant stream of babble that Wyldon wouldn’t have imagined he would miss until it was gone because Ceinwen had inherited her father’s tendency toward ceaseless, excitable rambling that could be as strangely endearing as it was irritating.
“Grandfather.” Ceinwen finally spoke into the silence between them. “I wanted to tell you that I plan to begin page training in the fall.”
So, it was plans for her future that she wanted to talk about, but not crazy ones. Serious ones if her rock-steady tone was any indication.
Wyldon felt rather as if he had been trampled by his own stallion. During his visits, he had spent much time giving Ceinwen lessons on archery and horseback riding as he had taught Margarry when she was a little girl growing up in Cavall, but it had never occurred to him that he might be providing Ceinwen with some of her first knighthood instruction. It had never entered his mind that his granddaughter would ever want to do anything as dangerous as train as a knight because at his core he was too conservative to anticipate how much change would be embraced by his own family members.
A heartbeat later, he chided himself for being an old, blind and deaf fool. Of course Ceinwen wanted to be a knight. She was always talking about how the person she admired most was Keladry of Mindelan, Commander of the King’s Own and winner of so many jousting tournaments. For so long, he had thought nothing of Ceinwen’s adulation of Keladry of Mindelan, because after all even he admired Keladry. Now though he saw it as a clear signpost that pointed Ceinwen on a path to knighthood.
“Women can become knights now, and I can’t say that, on a whole, they become worse knights than the men who become knights.” Wyldon scratched his hurrok-scarred shoulder, thinking that this was a concession that only Keladry of Mindelan with her unshakeable, quiet determination and courage could wring from him after years of patiently proving him wrong in all his assumptions about her and women. After Keladry, there had been more women earning their shields, and so far Tortall hadn’t collapsed, and the world, though altered, still seemed to be spinning on its axis.
His shoulder reminded him that he had to warn the girl in front of him about the monsters she would have to face on her journey to knighthood. Fixing his dark eyes on his granddaughter’s wide gray ones he wondered if decades ago Piers of Mindelan had needed to caution Keladry of Mindelan about him. If he had been the monster for a young girl to fear. A figure of terror rather than of justice and protection as a knight should have been.
“Beware of men like me.” Wyldon offered Ceinwen the only gruff advice that he could. “Or men like I used to be. Men like I was who will demand that you prove yourself twice as good at fighting as men in order to be treated as equal to a man.”
Ceinwen stared at him with surprise, apparently unaccustomed to seeing him as a monster to be distrusted or fought against.
“HaMinch is fairer than I was about girls training to be knights.” Wyldon could give his granddaughter that much hope at least. “And you’ll meet men like your father too. Men who’ll support your right to be a warrior if that’s what you want to do.”
As if it were yesterday instead of many years ago, Wyldon remembered a boy with wild curls and shining gray eyes insisting that he wasn’t being fair when he berated Keladry of Mindelan for vomiting after her battle with the bandits because she had saved “all our bacon.” The boy who had stood at the Vassa and the cusp of manhood, arguing even though he was in no position to do so that Wyldon couldn’t yell at Keladry because she didn’t deserve it.
The world, it occurred to him in his peculiar, reflective mood, would be a better place if there were more men with Owen of Jesslaw’s raw courage and honesty in it even if Jesslaw was an unrepentant, irredeemable hellion with a lamentable lack of self-control.
“There aren’t any men like Da,” Ceinwen’s cheeky comment and broad grin made an odd counterpoint to Wyldon’s musings. “Just like there aren’t any girls like me. We’re one of a kind, Da and me.”
“That’s a good thing.” Wyldon scowled at the girl, not willing to tolerate sass from anyone, even his granddaughter. “The world can only handle so much chaos, and you two produce chaos wherever you go.”
Rating: PG-13 for references to sexism.
Prompt: Beware
Summary: Wyldon has advice and warnings for his granddaughter.
A Grandfather’s Caution
Wyldon rode beside his granddaughter along paths that cut through swaths of fertile fieldland radiant with golden grain. Fief Jesslaw was, praise be to the gods, situated on the side of the eastern hills that received an abundance of rain in spring and summer rather than the side closer to the Tusaine border that was prone to famine and drought. The promise of a bountiful harvest come the fall was all around him even as the hot high summer sun beat down on his neck and back, burning through his shirt.
The only sounds between him and the girl with her untamable brown curls fighting to escape their ponytail riding beside him were the clopping of their horse hooves. That silence was unusual. Normally Ceinwen--that was the girl’s name because her parents had seen fit to give her an impossible to spell and pronounce one from the wild hill country that had once been Barzun and now was Tortall’s contested borderland instead of a solid, respectable one as could be found in Tortall’s heartland--would be chattering his ears off with any thought that chanced to cross her mind.
Squirrels she saw scampering across the road. Birds singing in the trees. Petty quarrels she’d had with her siblings. Crazy plans she had for the future. A constant stream of babble that Wyldon wouldn’t have imagined he would miss until it was gone because Ceinwen had inherited her father’s tendency toward ceaseless, excitable rambling that could be as strangely endearing as it was irritating.
“Grandfather.” Ceinwen finally spoke into the silence between them. “I wanted to tell you that I plan to begin page training in the fall.”
So, it was plans for her future that she wanted to talk about, but not crazy ones. Serious ones if her rock-steady tone was any indication.
Wyldon felt rather as if he had been trampled by his own stallion. During his visits, he had spent much time giving Ceinwen lessons on archery and horseback riding as he had taught Margarry when she was a little girl growing up in Cavall, but it had never occurred to him that he might be providing Ceinwen with some of her first knighthood instruction. It had never entered his mind that his granddaughter would ever want to do anything as dangerous as train as a knight because at his core he was too conservative to anticipate how much change would be embraced by his own family members.
A heartbeat later, he chided himself for being an old, blind and deaf fool. Of course Ceinwen wanted to be a knight. She was always talking about how the person she admired most was Keladry of Mindelan, Commander of the King’s Own and winner of so many jousting tournaments. For so long, he had thought nothing of Ceinwen’s adulation of Keladry of Mindelan, because after all even he admired Keladry. Now though he saw it as a clear signpost that pointed Ceinwen on a path to knighthood.
“Women can become knights now, and I can’t say that, on a whole, they become worse knights than the men who become knights.” Wyldon scratched his hurrok-scarred shoulder, thinking that this was a concession that only Keladry of Mindelan with her unshakeable, quiet determination and courage could wring from him after years of patiently proving him wrong in all his assumptions about her and women. After Keladry, there had been more women earning their shields, and so far Tortall hadn’t collapsed, and the world, though altered, still seemed to be spinning on its axis.
His shoulder reminded him that he had to warn the girl in front of him about the monsters she would have to face on her journey to knighthood. Fixing his dark eyes on his granddaughter’s wide gray ones he wondered if decades ago Piers of Mindelan had needed to caution Keladry of Mindelan about him. If he had been the monster for a young girl to fear. A figure of terror rather than of justice and protection as a knight should have been.
“Beware of men like me.” Wyldon offered Ceinwen the only gruff advice that he could. “Or men like I used to be. Men like I was who will demand that you prove yourself twice as good at fighting as men in order to be treated as equal to a man.”
Ceinwen stared at him with surprise, apparently unaccustomed to seeing him as a monster to be distrusted or fought against.
“HaMinch is fairer than I was about girls training to be knights.” Wyldon could give his granddaughter that much hope at least. “And you’ll meet men like your father too. Men who’ll support your right to be a warrior if that’s what you want to do.”
As if it were yesterday instead of many years ago, Wyldon remembered a boy with wild curls and shining gray eyes insisting that he wasn’t being fair when he berated Keladry of Mindelan for vomiting after her battle with the bandits because she had saved “all our bacon.” The boy who had stood at the Vassa and the cusp of manhood, arguing even though he was in no position to do so that Wyldon couldn’t yell at Keladry because she didn’t deserve it.
The world, it occurred to him in his peculiar, reflective mood, would be a better place if there were more men with Owen of Jesslaw’s raw courage and honesty in it even if Jesslaw was an unrepentant, irredeemable hellion with a lamentable lack of self-control.
“There aren’t any men like Da,” Ceinwen’s cheeky comment and broad grin made an odd counterpoint to Wyldon’s musings. “Just like there aren’t any girls like me. We’re one of a kind, Da and me.”
“That’s a good thing.” Wyldon scowled at the girl, not willing to tolerate sass from anyone, even his granddaughter. “The world can only handle so much chaos, and you two produce chaos wherever you go.”