Post by devilinthedetails on Feb 21, 2023 1:48:24 GMT 10
Title: A Short Conversation on the Subject of Jousting
Summary: Wyldon and Raoul discuss jousting and Kel. Set during Squire prior to Wyldon's first tilt against Kel.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: References to sexism.
A Short Conversation on the Subject of Jousting
Lord Raoul of Goldenlake visited Wyldon’s tent with an unusual and unexpected request. Not that progressives, in Wyldon’s experience, ever made any other kind of request. As far as Wyldon could discern, they delighted in the unexpected and the unusual. In provoking scandal and lurid speculation wherever they went. They could no more resist being unconventional than they could cease breathing.
Wyldon found such peacock behavior bewildering. Being of a far more staid disposition. Unlikely to defy tradition, and even less likely to announce with great fanfare such a deviation from custom should he make it. He was generally opposed to change, and those who felt the tremendous need to cause it everywhere. Leaving fires burning for others to put out with cold buckets of water.
“You want me to joust against her?” Wyldon arched an inquisitive eyebrow at Goldenlake though he kept his tone level as he gestured for his manservant to pour them both glasses of juice. Goldenlake, he was well aware, did not drink wine. Not after overcoming a nasty addiction to it that had sometimes made him belligerent as a wild boar roaming the Royal Forest.
Wyldon wouldn’t have set Mindelan to tilting against him until her third year as a squire at least, but he did believe that a knightmaster’s judgment about training his particular squire should be honored. That nobody knew the individual squire as well as the knightmaster. The knightmaster knows best. That was a truism. A tradition Wyldon held sacrosanct as any other. Still, asking for clarity wasn’t an insult. A discourtesy. A trespass on the grounds of custom.
“That’s what I said, Cavall.” Goldenlake nodded. Serious as Wyldon had ever seen him. Which Wyldon chose to regard as a sign that the Knight Commander of the Own hadn’t taken complete leave of his senses. Was still what could be classified as sane.
“I won’t go easy on her,” Wyldon warned gruffly. Sipping at his juice. He thought that it tasted too sweet. Wished it had been bitterer on his tongue. Like a hard to swallow truth. “I never have, and I never will.”
Once that would’ve been because he was hostile to her. Determined to prove to her that it was wrong for her to seek to do a man’s duties. An immoral transgression against propriety and the natural order of the world. Now it was because he respected her too much to treat her as some soft, fragile creature who might shatter like porcelain if not treated with tender care.
Not that Wyldon had ever been good at tenderness. Brusque crispness had always come more naturally to him. His demeanor shaped by curtness. Cut with knife-sharp edges to draw blood from the unwary.
“I don’t want you to.” There was a mischief in Goldenlake’s grin that reminded Wyldon of a rambunctious puppy caught chewing a hole in a leather boot even though the puppy understood it would end in a scolding. “Nor would she. She realizes she’ll improve most if she learns from the best.”
Wyldon grunted his acknowledgement that Mindelan did not, in fact, wish to be coddled.
Goldenlake must have interpreted the grunt as license to continue for he went on, still wearing his saucy smirk, “I’m not the best with the lance. You are.”
Wyldon knew what people said about him at tournaments such as these. That he was the strongest and fastest knight in Tortall with his lance. That he had the most powerful and well-trained horses in the lists. That he had an uncanny sense of exactly where to hit to unseat any opponent who rode against him. He would’ve had to be deaf to avoid such comments that could have swelled any man’s head.
“We don’t know that.” Wyldon scowled. Expressing a grievance that stretched back a decade. A sore point that had festered for that long. “Because you refuse to challenge me after I unseated you ten years ago.”
“Of course I haven’t.” Goldenlake was vexingly unapologetic. Merrily flippant in his unrepentant cowardice. “I might’ve been born with rocks for brains according to my dear mother, but I can recognize when I’m outmatched.”
“You might not be outmatched now.” Wyldon scratched at the shoulder that felt as if it would never move quite right after a hurrock savaged it. A wound sustained protecting royalty during the ten years since Goldenlake had last challenged him. The shoulder that would always ache–according to the healers–when there was damp in the air. When snow or rain was about to fall. More accurate in its predictions than many weather mages. Pain more powerful than magic. Wisdom gained through lost blood. As it always was in a warrior’s life. “At any rate, I wish you would ride against me. I would appreciate the competition. The challenge.”
Wyldon was bone-certain that no knight entered a tournament without craving the competition. The adrenaline rush that accompanied the oncoming challenge. The cresting roar of the crowd that could just be heard over the pounding of one’s own pulse in one’s ears. The thrill of victory that was felt most keenly when one danced on the cliff’s edge of defeat.
Nobody became the best in anything, Wyldon was quite convinced, without reveling in those sensations. Longing for them in their absence with a hunger that drove unstinting training regimens.
“You might appreciate the competition and the challenge. My poor pride would not. It’d be in shambles after another joust with you.” Goldenlake’s laugh invited Wyldon to share the joke as did the flash of humor in his black eyes. “Thus, you see what a wicked knightmaster I am. Sending my squire into a battle where I fear to go myself.”
Summary: Wyldon and Raoul discuss jousting and Kel. Set during Squire prior to Wyldon's first tilt against Kel.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: References to sexism.
A Short Conversation on the Subject of Jousting
Lord Raoul of Goldenlake visited Wyldon’s tent with an unusual and unexpected request. Not that progressives, in Wyldon’s experience, ever made any other kind of request. As far as Wyldon could discern, they delighted in the unexpected and the unusual. In provoking scandal and lurid speculation wherever they went. They could no more resist being unconventional than they could cease breathing.
Wyldon found such peacock behavior bewildering. Being of a far more staid disposition. Unlikely to defy tradition, and even less likely to announce with great fanfare such a deviation from custom should he make it. He was generally opposed to change, and those who felt the tremendous need to cause it everywhere. Leaving fires burning for others to put out with cold buckets of water.
“You want me to joust against her?” Wyldon arched an inquisitive eyebrow at Goldenlake though he kept his tone level as he gestured for his manservant to pour them both glasses of juice. Goldenlake, he was well aware, did not drink wine. Not after overcoming a nasty addiction to it that had sometimes made him belligerent as a wild boar roaming the Royal Forest.
Wyldon wouldn’t have set Mindelan to tilting against him until her third year as a squire at least, but he did believe that a knightmaster’s judgment about training his particular squire should be honored. That nobody knew the individual squire as well as the knightmaster. The knightmaster knows best. That was a truism. A tradition Wyldon held sacrosanct as any other. Still, asking for clarity wasn’t an insult. A discourtesy. A trespass on the grounds of custom.
“That’s what I said, Cavall.” Goldenlake nodded. Serious as Wyldon had ever seen him. Which Wyldon chose to regard as a sign that the Knight Commander of the Own hadn’t taken complete leave of his senses. Was still what could be classified as sane.
“I won’t go easy on her,” Wyldon warned gruffly. Sipping at his juice. He thought that it tasted too sweet. Wished it had been bitterer on his tongue. Like a hard to swallow truth. “I never have, and I never will.”
Once that would’ve been because he was hostile to her. Determined to prove to her that it was wrong for her to seek to do a man’s duties. An immoral transgression against propriety and the natural order of the world. Now it was because he respected her too much to treat her as some soft, fragile creature who might shatter like porcelain if not treated with tender care.
Not that Wyldon had ever been good at tenderness. Brusque crispness had always come more naturally to him. His demeanor shaped by curtness. Cut with knife-sharp edges to draw blood from the unwary.
“I don’t want you to.” There was a mischief in Goldenlake’s grin that reminded Wyldon of a rambunctious puppy caught chewing a hole in a leather boot even though the puppy understood it would end in a scolding. “Nor would she. She realizes she’ll improve most if she learns from the best.”
Wyldon grunted his acknowledgement that Mindelan did not, in fact, wish to be coddled.
Goldenlake must have interpreted the grunt as license to continue for he went on, still wearing his saucy smirk, “I’m not the best with the lance. You are.”
Wyldon knew what people said about him at tournaments such as these. That he was the strongest and fastest knight in Tortall with his lance. That he had the most powerful and well-trained horses in the lists. That he had an uncanny sense of exactly where to hit to unseat any opponent who rode against him. He would’ve had to be deaf to avoid such comments that could have swelled any man’s head.
“We don’t know that.” Wyldon scowled. Expressing a grievance that stretched back a decade. A sore point that had festered for that long. “Because you refuse to challenge me after I unseated you ten years ago.”
“Of course I haven’t.” Goldenlake was vexingly unapologetic. Merrily flippant in his unrepentant cowardice. “I might’ve been born with rocks for brains according to my dear mother, but I can recognize when I’m outmatched.”
“You might not be outmatched now.” Wyldon scratched at the shoulder that felt as if it would never move quite right after a hurrock savaged it. A wound sustained protecting royalty during the ten years since Goldenlake had last challenged him. The shoulder that would always ache–according to the healers–when there was damp in the air. When snow or rain was about to fall. More accurate in its predictions than many weather mages. Pain more powerful than magic. Wisdom gained through lost blood. As it always was in a warrior’s life. “At any rate, I wish you would ride against me. I would appreciate the competition. The challenge.”
Wyldon was bone-certain that no knight entered a tournament without craving the competition. The adrenaline rush that accompanied the oncoming challenge. The cresting roar of the crowd that could just be heard over the pounding of one’s own pulse in one’s ears. The thrill of victory that was felt most keenly when one danced on the cliff’s edge of defeat.
Nobody became the best in anything, Wyldon was quite convinced, without reveling in those sensations. Longing for them in their absence with a hunger that drove unstinting training regimens.
“You might appreciate the competition and the challenge. My poor pride would not. It’d be in shambles after another joust with you.” Goldenlake’s laugh invited Wyldon to share the joke as did the flash of humor in his black eyes. “Thus, you see what a wicked knightmaster I am. Sending my squire into a battle where I fear to go myself.”
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!