[Fic] "Ashes" part 14 -- original
Dec. 9th, 2010 02:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfalling---------------------------------------------
Ashes, part 14
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[Riam shoved himself upright and chased Zalir out of the room, laughing as he ran.]
Tir seated both Zalir and Morgalen to her left at breakfast, leaving Riam to talk to Sular. He wasted a minute indulging in annoyance before asking Sular about her children, which he had meant to do yesterday but forgotten once the boundary tore. Sular gave him a sharp look, but slid into an easy accounting of her life since her last training visit to the holder's compound.
As they left the great hall for the stables, she was halfway through telling him the long, complicated, and ridiculous plan her son was using to learn whether one of his neighbors might be interested in a trial marriage, and the increasingly bizarre non-answers the woman kept giving to his sideways questions. Riam couldn't help laughing at each new reason Sular's son found for doubting the woman's obvious interest and putting off straightforward questions until, as Sular said, both his and the woman's intentions would be more solidly proved than death and sunrise.
"At this point, I think it's become a game between the two of them," Sular concluded. "What I can't figure out is why they think admitting interest would be a bad thing -- they'd be together, after all, and if that's not their goal, I'll cross the border without salt."
"Games take on lives of their own -- just ask Tir some of the things Zalir and I pushed each other into as children," Riam said through the tail end of his laughter. "Maybe you should find a way to trick them into confessing at the same time so they both save face."
"Not more tricks!" Sular said. Then she smiled. "Though now that you mention it, my daughter might enjoy planning around the idiots. My son isn't the only one who inherited his father's mind."
"I think your mind would do just as well -- you're too modest, as always," Riam said as he pushed open the stable door and held it while Tir, Zalir, and Morgalen followed Sular into the high-roofed building, a warm smell of sweat, straw, and earth filling the air.
"Better too modest than too proud," Tir said, tapping Riam's shoulder. "Come on, saddle up. Even summer daylight only lasts so long, and I'd like to get home before dark."
Morgalen had her own horse, a stallion, which had recovered sufficiently from his excitement to consent to being ridden again. Tir and Zalir chose mounts from among the mares trained to stay calm in battle. Sular took a sedate gelding, and Riam, as usual, found himself maneuvered onto a mare one of the stable hands had decided could use a bit of calming.
Horses tended to like Riam, to his everlasting annoyance.
They rode out past the pastures and vegetables gardens to the low, earthen wall around the compound and waited while Zalir swung down from her saddle to unlatch the gate. Once everyone was through, she relatched it and rode back to the front of their little procession. Morgalen nudged her horse up to walk beside Zalir's mare, matching stride for stride along the packed earth of the road that led to the river and the taint-house on its island. The sun shone bright in a cloudless summer sky, now risen above the dark murk of miasma on every horizon, and a gentle wind rustled through the tall grass on either side of the road. Up ahead, a row of trees marked an irrigation ditch; a small cluster of cattle had gathered there to drink and rest in the shade.
Tir took rear guard and motioned Sular over to ask about the crops in the southwest. Riam debated joining their conversation, but he was more interested in plants in the abstract than in detail, so he laid the palm of his hand against his mare's neck, reassuring her that nothing bad or strange was going to happen, before he pressed his heels gently into her sides, urging her forward toward Zalir and Morgalen.
The two women were riding in silence, but it seemed less tense than the silence in which they'd walked away from the map room last night. This was more a case of two people with nothing to say and a warm, bright day to enjoy than two people edging around each other in mutual wariness.
"Oh, good, you don't want to kill each other anymore," Riam said. "That's a good first step. Why don't we try for step two and have a friendly conversation?"
Zalir looked toward Morgalen with a questioning tilt of her head. "Well?"
"Friendly might be too much to ask," Morgalen said.
Zalir laughed. "I know. But Riam is ever-hopeful."
Morgalen's flicker-flash smile darted across her face for an instant. "I begin to see that about him. So. You must have questions about me and Gydra. I may answer some if you ask."
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1) I have decided to keep writing "Ashes" on a catch-as-catch-can basis, and will continue to post it as an unedited rough draft with no regard for chapter breaks. Goodness only knows when (or if) I will finish, but I am afraid the story will fall into hibernation if I don't keep making an effort, and public posting is the best way I know to motivate myself.
2) I made a vague stab at scenic description here, but my geography and climatology continue to be suspect. Sorry. Also, there are going to be a bunch of horses in this story, and I will do my best to have them behave like horses instead of indefatigable robots, but it's been a long time since I had much to do with horses, so again, I am basically making shit up as I go and doubtless getting it wrong quite often.
3) 800 words this section, 18,500 total.
And now to bed.
Ashes, part 14
---------------------------------------------
[Riam shoved himself upright and chased Zalir out of the room, laughing as he ran.]
Tir seated both Zalir and Morgalen to her left at breakfast, leaving Riam to talk to Sular. He wasted a minute indulging in annoyance before asking Sular about her children, which he had meant to do yesterday but forgotten once the boundary tore. Sular gave him a sharp look, but slid into an easy accounting of her life since her last training visit to the holder's compound.
As they left the great hall for the stables, she was halfway through telling him the long, complicated, and ridiculous plan her son was using to learn whether one of his neighbors might be interested in a trial marriage, and the increasingly bizarre non-answers the woman kept giving to his sideways questions. Riam couldn't help laughing at each new reason Sular's son found for doubting the woman's obvious interest and putting off straightforward questions until, as Sular said, both his and the woman's intentions would be more solidly proved than death and sunrise.
"At this point, I think it's become a game between the two of them," Sular concluded. "What I can't figure out is why they think admitting interest would be a bad thing -- they'd be together, after all, and if that's not their goal, I'll cross the border without salt."
"Games take on lives of their own -- just ask Tir some of the things Zalir and I pushed each other into as children," Riam said through the tail end of his laughter. "Maybe you should find a way to trick them into confessing at the same time so they both save face."
"Not more tricks!" Sular said. Then she smiled. "Though now that you mention it, my daughter might enjoy planning around the idiots. My son isn't the only one who inherited his father's mind."
"I think your mind would do just as well -- you're too modest, as always," Riam said as he pushed open the stable door and held it while Tir, Zalir, and Morgalen followed Sular into the high-roofed building, a warm smell of sweat, straw, and earth filling the air.
"Better too modest than too proud," Tir said, tapping Riam's shoulder. "Come on, saddle up. Even summer daylight only lasts so long, and I'd like to get home before dark."
Morgalen had her own horse, a stallion, which had recovered sufficiently from his excitement to consent to being ridden again. Tir and Zalir chose mounts from among the mares trained to stay calm in battle. Sular took a sedate gelding, and Riam, as usual, found himself maneuvered onto a mare one of the stable hands had decided could use a bit of calming.
Horses tended to like Riam, to his everlasting annoyance.
They rode out past the pastures and vegetables gardens to the low, earthen wall around the compound and waited while Zalir swung down from her saddle to unlatch the gate. Once everyone was through, she relatched it and rode back to the front of their little procession. Morgalen nudged her horse up to walk beside Zalir's mare, matching stride for stride along the packed earth of the road that led to the river and the taint-house on its island. The sun shone bright in a cloudless summer sky, now risen above the dark murk of miasma on every horizon, and a gentle wind rustled through the tall grass on either side of the road. Up ahead, a row of trees marked an irrigation ditch; a small cluster of cattle had gathered there to drink and rest in the shade.
Tir took rear guard and motioned Sular over to ask about the crops in the southwest. Riam debated joining their conversation, but he was more interested in plants in the abstract than in detail, so he laid the palm of his hand against his mare's neck, reassuring her that nothing bad or strange was going to happen, before he pressed his heels gently into her sides, urging her forward toward Zalir and Morgalen.
The two women were riding in silence, but it seemed less tense than the silence in which they'd walked away from the map room last night. This was more a case of two people with nothing to say and a warm, bright day to enjoy than two people edging around each other in mutual wariness.
"Oh, good, you don't want to kill each other anymore," Riam said. "That's a good first step. Why don't we try for step two and have a friendly conversation?"
Zalir looked toward Morgalen with a questioning tilt of her head. "Well?"
"Friendly might be too much to ask," Morgalen said.
Zalir laughed. "I know. But Riam is ever-hopeful."
Morgalen's flicker-flash smile darted across her face for an instant. "I begin to see that about him. So. You must have questions about me and Gydra. I may answer some if you ask."
---------------
---------------
---------------
1) I have decided to keep writing "Ashes" on a catch-as-catch-can basis, and will continue to post it as an unedited rough draft with no regard for chapter breaks. Goodness only knows when (or if) I will finish, but I am afraid the story will fall into hibernation if I don't keep making an effort, and public posting is the best way I know to motivate myself.
2) I made a vague stab at scenic description here, but my geography and climatology continue to be suspect. Sorry. Also, there are going to be a bunch of horses in this story, and I will do my best to have them behave like horses instead of indefatigable robots, but it's been a long time since I had much to do with horses, so again, I am basically making shit up as I go and doubtless getting it wrong quite often.
3) 800 words this section, 18,500 total.
And now to bed.
