[Witches' Horses] Falcons' Feathers
Title: unexpected
'Verse/characters: Falcons' Feathers Part 1-B; Irina
Prompt: 58F "puzzle"
Word Count: 1588
Notes: Follows unwelcome; most of this appeared in the spark A horse, a rider, and a clever jeweler.
This is pretty choppy, and I'm rusty as hell, so this is in part a post-of-intent. Note to self: Radish's "just a trinket, nothing more" and M's "the overwhelming feeling that it's all pointless" and "when one really ought to be triumphant, but is too tired" sparks for when I come back to this.
---------
They were finally settled into the new house, finally done with the unpacking and the re-organising and the agonised decisions about what decorations should go where, and Irina couldn't distract herself anymore. Without the constant pulling of things needing to be done, everything she'd left behind came crashing down around her shoulders.
She wasn't needed in the house, so she had the time to go riding, but nowhere to go. She would have thrown herself into the stable--she'd kept the gloves that let her work on engine parts without risking hardening her hands too much--but every single time she went into the stable, the stablehands reminded her all over again to take her time, to keep the reins close, not to frighten the traffic outside.
Sulking in her rooms was no better. Saint Nicolai kept company with Saint Ilya. For every Saint Anna story, every Saint Zhenia, there was the option of turning back in the book, re-reading Olga's revenge, and trying not to bite her nails for the sheer burst of desire in her heart.
For all her faults--and Olga had many, before she converted to the faith and became Saint Olga--Olga had won.
Irina hadn't. It had been her choice. But oh. She missed riding an argument in three dimensions like she missed the smell of smoky tea and clean sweat and the annoying sound of heartfelt laughter in her ears.
--sulking in her room also meant that her sisters and her mother knew where to find her. She only ever got a day, perhaps two, to marinate in her regrets before someone came to drag her out. She drank sweet tea and practiced her needlework and her skill at reading old stories aloud to her sisters, her mother, and one memorable evening her father, too.
It was surprisingly difficult to keep the rise and fall of someone else's storytelling style out of her voice, the hawks' wings and pomegranates out of her embroidery.
--
Lyudmilla and Mother had left to supervise obed, which left Irina and Tatiana alone. Irina promptly gave up on the old chemise she'd been fighting with and started contemplating her escape. Where she'd go, she had no idea, but anything had to be better than looking at the chemise she'd torn wrestling.
Tatiana had just as promptly put her own sewing down, curling her legs up beneath her as she paged through a catalog.
They'd sat in semi-companionable silence for a while when Tatiana said "Oh, Irina, you should see this--" and held out her catalog towards Irina.
Irina made a face at her sister. It was a clothes catalog, probably full of cotton and coral and red-shot shawls, the sort of things Tatiana and Lyudmilla--and Mother--adored and Irina despised.
Unless there were terem-grown pearls involved. There usually weren't.
Tatiana successfully smothered a snicker before it escaped her; Irina could remember when Tatiana had laughed so loud no one had ever wondered where she was, but she hadn't laughed that hard in years, had reduced herself to smiles and titters for the sake of their father's visitors. For the sake of her marriage prospects, and even the thought made Irina itch for the stable.
"Trust me, Ira?" Tatiana asked gently, stretching her arm a little further, and Irina got up, crossed the carpeted floor, took it. Eyed the page her sister had left open for her.
After a second she sat down at the foot of Tatiana's couch, hard.
"Doesn't that look like that necklace you lost?" Tatiana was saying, "The pretty gold-and-black one--I always wondered where you'd gotten it."
Irina did not raise her hand to the top of her chemise to clutch at a pendant that wasn't there anymore, but her fingers tightened on the edges of the catalog. "It does," she managed, and Tatiana grinned.
"Father's going into the city this week," she suggested, and Irina blinked.
--
When their father asked, days later, what the four of them would like in his personal allotment, Lyudmilla wanted a silver-and-black shawl, one that matched the embroidery on her new dress. Tatiana wanted a new dress. Mother wanted strawberries, preferably fresh. She'd been having a craving, and for some reason that made their father grin at her.
With the strawberries as a guide, Irina felt slightly less bad about handing her father the catalog Tatiana helpfully passed her, smiling encouragingly, and asking for a feathered bead.
"Hooof," he muttered when he saw the prices, but smiled. Kissed her forehead. "I'll see, milaya moya."
She tried not to show the nervousness while he was away, but it got harder the longer he was gone. She eventually wound up climbing the maintenance shafts, learning the layout, stopping every so often to make sure no one would catch her at it. Horses were hard enough, but everyone knew she loved horses, loved riding, would spend every day in the stable or the saddle if she could. Getting found climbing around in the ducts by anyone whether it was staff or her family would raise . . questions.
She was reading with Tatiana when he came home, and everyone gathered in their mother's sitting room, books and embroidery abandoned.
First came Mother's strawberries, delivered with a flourish of the refrigerated container. Then Lyudmilla's shawl, which she clutched to her breast possessively and declared perfect. Tatiana's dress, which she unwrapped immediately to hold up against herself.
Then a box for Irina, a jeweler's box, and her heart climbed into her throat when she rose to come and take it from his hand.
It was heavy. Far heavier than her old necklace had ever been, and she knew her face was asking the questions her voice couldn't choke past her throat.
"I'm sorry, my dove," he said as the latch opened, "they didn't have any of your feathers."
The pearls were lovely, perfectly matched and almost as pale as her hair, and she thanked him prettily for them. Wore them in her hair almost every day, even when she went out riding and they pressed into her head like a reminder of long-ago fights.
The next time he went into the city, they went through the ritual again. Mother wanted a new rug, Tatiana a new shawl, and Lyudmilla asked for coral hairpins, or earrings if there were no pins. Irina asked for a feather again, trying hard to sound like it didn't matter very much.
He brought her real feathers, iridescent green and black ovals done up as earrings. They nearly matched one of her strings of pearls, and she wore both to obed for a week.
The third time--oh, the third time, he brought her back a little red khokloma box and a triumphant smile.
Fighting tears, she threw her arms around his neck.
--
She had the bead, and it looked right. Worryingly right.
She didn't have a way to read it, though, had no way of knowing if it was actually real. She'd snuck the modifications to her horse--the ones she'd found, anyway--back onto his horse, the same night she'd pretended to forget her necklace amongst his blankets. Had watched the perimeter mirrors for weeks afterwards, hoping and not hoping to see a foreign horse blip onto the display.
She'd cut the thread, the way they'd needed to, and had struggled not to cry.
And now she had something that looked like her old necklace. Longer chain, thinner gold, that slipped over her head twice if she wanted it to, or hung down nearly to her belt if she didn't. She pinned it to her dress on the days she wore it long, to make sure it wouldn't swing around and smash on a wall.
"It does look like feathers," Tatiana exclaimed one morning over breakfast, swooping in to peer at it, "The drawings didn't do it justice."
"Thank you, Father," Irina said again, reaching up to touch the bead, and got an indulgent smile over his teacup.
--
Borrowing the parts to modify the compound-only singer in her room took a while, and some fast talking. But she was well known to be horse-mad, and wanting to build a smaller version of a horse's communications system wasn't really very far of a stretch.
Also some sitting through lessons she didn't really need, but she could hardly confess her teacher now, and the review was strangely nice.
Eventually, it was finished. Sitting back from the communication rig overflowing what should have been her cosmetics table, she glared at it for a long moment. Tried to see if she'd left anything out. Checked connections one last time, made sure it had power.
Then, as carefully as she could, she pried open the end of the gold-plated wire holding the pendant to the chain, flattened it out, slipped the bead off the wire.
Took a deep breath, then dropped the bead into the top of the rig.
Rattles and chirps emitted from it for a while, the bead settling into place and then powering up as the golden designs bridged the gaps she'd built into the rig.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then--and she was still shocked that it worked, even with every sign she'd had that it was real--an 'I'm listening' from a horse's system sang out from the speakers.
"I cannot believe you did this," she said, and familiar laughter bubbled out, wrapped around her like a familiar coat.
"I told you we'd figure something out," he replied, voice gentle under the laughter, and she bit her index finger hard to keep from crying.
'Verse/characters: Falcons' Feathers Part 1-B; Irina
Prompt: 58F "puzzle"
Word Count: 1588
Notes: Follows unwelcome; most of this appeared in the spark A horse, a rider, and a clever jeweler.
This is pretty choppy, and I'm rusty as hell, so this is in part a post-of-intent. Note to self: Radish's "just a trinket, nothing more" and M's "the overwhelming feeling that it's all pointless" and "when one really ought to be triumphant, but is too tired" sparks for when I come back to this.
---------
They were finally settled into the new house, finally done with the unpacking and the re-organising and the agonised decisions about what decorations should go where, and Irina couldn't distract herself anymore. Without the constant pulling of things needing to be done, everything she'd left behind came crashing down around her shoulders.
She wasn't needed in the house, so she had the time to go riding, but nowhere to go. She would have thrown herself into the stable--she'd kept the gloves that let her work on engine parts without risking hardening her hands too much--but every single time she went into the stable, the stablehands reminded her all over again to take her time, to keep the reins close, not to frighten the traffic outside.
Sulking in her rooms was no better. Saint Nicolai kept company with Saint Ilya. For every Saint Anna story, every Saint Zhenia, there was the option of turning back in the book, re-reading Olga's revenge, and trying not to bite her nails for the sheer burst of desire in her heart.
For all her faults--and Olga had many, before she converted to the faith and became Saint Olga--Olga had won.
Irina hadn't. It had been her choice. But oh. She missed riding an argument in three dimensions like she missed the smell of smoky tea and clean sweat and the annoying sound of heartfelt laughter in her ears.
--sulking in her room also meant that her sisters and her mother knew where to find her. She only ever got a day, perhaps two, to marinate in her regrets before someone came to drag her out. She drank sweet tea and practiced her needlework and her skill at reading old stories aloud to her sisters, her mother, and one memorable evening her father, too.
It was surprisingly difficult to keep the rise and fall of someone else's storytelling style out of her voice, the hawks' wings and pomegranates out of her embroidery.
--
Lyudmilla and Mother had left to supervise obed, which left Irina and Tatiana alone. Irina promptly gave up on the old chemise she'd been fighting with and started contemplating her escape. Where she'd go, she had no idea, but anything had to be better than looking at the chemise she'd torn wrestling.
Tatiana had just as promptly put her own sewing down, curling her legs up beneath her as she paged through a catalog.
They'd sat in semi-companionable silence for a while when Tatiana said "Oh, Irina, you should see this--" and held out her catalog towards Irina.
Irina made a face at her sister. It was a clothes catalog, probably full of cotton and coral and red-shot shawls, the sort of things Tatiana and Lyudmilla--and Mother--adored and Irina despised.
Unless there were terem-grown pearls involved. There usually weren't.
Tatiana successfully smothered a snicker before it escaped her; Irina could remember when Tatiana had laughed so loud no one had ever wondered where she was, but she hadn't laughed that hard in years, had reduced herself to smiles and titters for the sake of their father's visitors. For the sake of her marriage prospects, and even the thought made Irina itch for the stable.
"Trust me, Ira?" Tatiana asked gently, stretching her arm a little further, and Irina got up, crossed the carpeted floor, took it. Eyed the page her sister had left open for her.
After a second she sat down at the foot of Tatiana's couch, hard.
"Doesn't that look like that necklace you lost?" Tatiana was saying, "The pretty gold-and-black one--I always wondered where you'd gotten it."
Irina did not raise her hand to the top of her chemise to clutch at a pendant that wasn't there anymore, but her fingers tightened on the edges of the catalog. "It does," she managed, and Tatiana grinned.
"Father's going into the city this week," she suggested, and Irina blinked.
--
When their father asked, days later, what the four of them would like in his personal allotment, Lyudmilla wanted a silver-and-black shawl, one that matched the embroidery on her new dress. Tatiana wanted a new dress. Mother wanted strawberries, preferably fresh. She'd been having a craving, and for some reason that made their father grin at her.
With the strawberries as a guide, Irina felt slightly less bad about handing her father the catalog Tatiana helpfully passed her, smiling encouragingly, and asking for a feathered bead.
"Hooof," he muttered when he saw the prices, but smiled. Kissed her forehead. "I'll see, milaya moya."
She tried not to show the nervousness while he was away, but it got harder the longer he was gone. She eventually wound up climbing the maintenance shafts, learning the layout, stopping every so often to make sure no one would catch her at it. Horses were hard enough, but everyone knew she loved horses, loved riding, would spend every day in the stable or the saddle if she could. Getting found climbing around in the ducts by anyone whether it was staff or her family would raise . . questions.
She was reading with Tatiana when he came home, and everyone gathered in their mother's sitting room, books and embroidery abandoned.
First came Mother's strawberries, delivered with a flourish of the refrigerated container. Then Lyudmilla's shawl, which she clutched to her breast possessively and declared perfect. Tatiana's dress, which she unwrapped immediately to hold up against herself.
Then a box for Irina, a jeweler's box, and her heart climbed into her throat when she rose to come and take it from his hand.
It was heavy. Far heavier than her old necklace had ever been, and she knew her face was asking the questions her voice couldn't choke past her throat.
"I'm sorry, my dove," he said as the latch opened, "they didn't have any of your feathers."
The pearls were lovely, perfectly matched and almost as pale as her hair, and she thanked him prettily for them. Wore them in her hair almost every day, even when she went out riding and they pressed into her head like a reminder of long-ago fights.
The next time he went into the city, they went through the ritual again. Mother wanted a new rug, Tatiana a new shawl, and Lyudmilla asked for coral hairpins, or earrings if there were no pins. Irina asked for a feather again, trying hard to sound like it didn't matter very much.
He brought her real feathers, iridescent green and black ovals done up as earrings. They nearly matched one of her strings of pearls, and she wore both to obed for a week.
The third time--oh, the third time, he brought her back a little red khokloma box and a triumphant smile.
Fighting tears, she threw her arms around his neck.
--
She had the bead, and it looked right. Worryingly right.
She didn't have a way to read it, though, had no way of knowing if it was actually real. She'd snuck the modifications to her horse--the ones she'd found, anyway--back onto his horse, the same night she'd pretended to forget her necklace amongst his blankets. Had watched the perimeter mirrors for weeks afterwards, hoping and not hoping to see a foreign horse blip onto the display.
She'd cut the thread, the way they'd needed to, and had struggled not to cry.
And now she had something that looked like her old necklace. Longer chain, thinner gold, that slipped over her head twice if she wanted it to, or hung down nearly to her belt if she didn't. She pinned it to her dress on the days she wore it long, to make sure it wouldn't swing around and smash on a wall.
"It does look like feathers," Tatiana exclaimed one morning over breakfast, swooping in to peer at it, "The drawings didn't do it justice."
"Thank you, Father," Irina said again, reaching up to touch the bead, and got an indulgent smile over his teacup.
--
Borrowing the parts to modify the compound-only singer in her room took a while, and some fast talking. But she was well known to be horse-mad, and wanting to build a smaller version of a horse's communications system wasn't really very far of a stretch.
Also some sitting through lessons she didn't really need, but she could hardly confess her teacher now, and the review was strangely nice.
Eventually, it was finished. Sitting back from the communication rig overflowing what should have been her cosmetics table, she glared at it for a long moment. Tried to see if she'd left anything out. Checked connections one last time, made sure it had power.
Then, as carefully as she could, she pried open the end of the gold-plated wire holding the pendant to the chain, flattened it out, slipped the bead off the wire.
Took a deep breath, then dropped the bead into the top of the rig.
Rattles and chirps emitted from it for a while, the bead settling into place and then powering up as the golden designs bridged the gaps she'd built into the rig.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then--and she was still shocked that it worked, even with every sign she'd had that it was real--an 'I'm listening' from a horse's system sang out from the speakers.
"I cannot believe you did this," she said, and familiar laughter bubbled out, wrapped around her like a familiar coat.
"I told you we'd figure something out," he replied, voice gentle under the laughter, and she bit her index finger hard to keep from crying.