(no subject)
Title: Hunting
Rating: K+ (Suitable for ages 13 and above)
Disclaimers: None.
Original pen-date: 4 February 2011
Summary: Show the Colours AU; a young Adam Starling goes hunting with his brothers and lives to regret it. Vermont, 1795.
Author's Note: Written for a Kink meme on DreamWidth. Prompt - childhood injury - any character.
He was too young to be hunting, according to his elder brothers. They were forever trying to find ways to keep from being saddled with responsibility for him. Adam supposed it was because they were so used to coming and going as they pleased. Having to look after a boy - a helpless boy, as Nathaniel put it - would mean less unfettered freedom. But Adam was insistent and eventually their father told Ethan and Nathaniel that on their next foray higher up the mountain, they were to take their brother with them.
"The boy needs to learn some time," were his final words on the matter. It was settled.
It was well before dawn when Adam and his brothers departed for the trek up the mountain. They took nothing except what they could carry, for the journey was, as ever, made on foot. To Adam's disappointment, he was given only an axe and a haversack laden with food. His brothers carried heavier loads, including their long muskets. It was hardly fair in the nine year-old's eyes, but he dared not complain, lest they decide he was better left behind.
They were a long day's travel from home when it happened. Adam had been following behind his brothers, keeping in the same narrow trail as they, the better to mask their tracks. His gaze was momentarily directed downward, for he was taking care to place his feet in the same places as Nathaniel, when the branch snapped back sharply into his face. The stinging slap of the needled pine bough made him cry out and the unexpected force put him off-balance. The next thing he knew, he was falling backward, having stumbled on his own feet trying to recover.
His graceless tumble down the hillside was halted with a painful jolt at the base of a towering evergeen. Something in his arm had made a horrble crunch on the impact, and instant blinding pain shot through the limb. The eldest brother, Ethan, was quick to lope doiwn to the sobbing boy's aid. Nathaniel was nowhere to be seen, having remained higher up the hill. Little time was wasted in giving Adam a healthy dose of whiskey to help dull the pain. As the boy's weeping petered out, Ethan splinted the injured arm as best he could and hefted his brother onto his back for the climb back up the hillside.
There was no question that they had to return home. Nathaniel's mean-spirited trick had cost them a hunt. It was the last time Adam ever asked to accompany his brothers into the wilderness.
Rating: K+ (Suitable for ages 13 and above)
Disclaimers: None.
Original pen-date: 4 February 2011
Summary: Show the Colours AU; a young Adam Starling goes hunting with his brothers and lives to regret it. Vermont, 1795.
Author's Note: Written for a Kink meme on DreamWidth. Prompt - childhood injury - any character.
He was too young to be hunting, according to his elder brothers. They were forever trying to find ways to keep from being saddled with responsibility for him. Adam supposed it was because they were so used to coming and going as they pleased. Having to look after a boy - a helpless boy, as Nathaniel put it - would mean less unfettered freedom. But Adam was insistent and eventually their father told Ethan and Nathaniel that on their next foray higher up the mountain, they were to take their brother with them.
"The boy needs to learn some time," were his final words on the matter. It was settled.
It was well before dawn when Adam and his brothers departed for the trek up the mountain. They took nothing except what they could carry, for the journey was, as ever, made on foot. To Adam's disappointment, he was given only an axe and a haversack laden with food. His brothers carried heavier loads, including their long muskets. It was hardly fair in the nine year-old's eyes, but he dared not complain, lest they decide he was better left behind.
They were a long day's travel from home when it happened. Adam had been following behind his brothers, keeping in the same narrow trail as they, the better to mask their tracks. His gaze was momentarily directed downward, for he was taking care to place his feet in the same places as Nathaniel, when the branch snapped back sharply into his face. The stinging slap of the needled pine bough made him cry out and the unexpected force put him off-balance. The next thing he knew, he was falling backward, having stumbled on his own feet trying to recover.
His graceless tumble down the hillside was halted with a painful jolt at the base of a towering evergeen. Something in his arm had made a horrble crunch on the impact, and instant blinding pain shot through the limb. The eldest brother, Ethan, was quick to lope doiwn to the sobbing boy's aid. Nathaniel was nowhere to be seen, having remained higher up the hill. Little time was wasted in giving Adam a healthy dose of whiskey to help dull the pain. As the boy's weeping petered out, Ethan splinted the injured arm as best he could and hefted his brother onto his back for the climb back up the hillside.
There was no question that they had to return home. Nathaniel's mean-spirited trick had cost them a hunt. It was the last time Adam ever asked to accompany his brothers into the wilderness.