[Wild Roses] Trickwood Unification
Title: can't kill it with fire, so--
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; probably Ruadhan
Prompt: celeloriel: "black vines"
Word Count: 447
Notes: So when I looked at the other end of the couch and said "so what am I writing?" my most esteemed roommate, one billradish by handle, told me the Trickwood Unification. Blame her.
The vines were shriveled, black and gray and only faintly touched with green, like they'd been through a fire--borne out by the crisped trees they were climbing--dried-looking leaves like vanilla beans showing through the red needles of the pines.
One of the outriders looked up suddenly, head twisting back slightly to track some sound, then froze, eyes huge. "Flood and fire," she muttered, then, in a voice that sounded forcibly calm, called "Everyone get out--away from the vines."
Which was inevitably when the first vine shivered free of its support, draped itself like a wave at a barrier across the path they'd come up, accompanied by a shower of dead pine needles.
"Fire?" he asked the nearest other rider, as a currently four-legged wolf flinched back from another falling vine, her nose describing a short sharp arc to keep it away from the plant.
"They like it," the rider replied, knees clamped too tightly against his horse's sides, making the mare shy and nearly buck. "Makes 'em drop seeds."
He clucked under his breath, frowning, wishing Ulysse or Hernén was with them, wishing for--"Rain?" he asked suddenly, and the wolf snorted, nearly making his horse shy.
"They don't like that. Like winter even less."
The group was surrounded now with fallen black vines, hanging innocuously like the burnt remnants of some extravagent thicket crisped by fire, but from the steady low cursing someone had been nicked by a vine and was regretting it strongly.
He closed his eyes, drew in his head a view of the mountain they'd seen that morning, the high alpine lakes fed by glaciers and stubborn snow still clinging to the slopes, remembered the thought of how cold they had to be.
Reached, scooped mental hands together, pulled, tossed--
Someone yelped as the first drop hit, and he opened his eyes in time to see a very upset trout land on the wolf's back, accompanied by a full and proper skyburst of freezing rain.
The vines hissed, writhed, steam rising where the water struck them, leaves curling tighter, trying to minimise exposure, and he kneed his horse forward, heading for the granite outcrop visible past the dying pines.
The rest of the group fell in behind him, some laughing, others hissing as much as the vines at the feel of winter rain through summer clothing.
But they got away with two minor burns and an irate horse who'd tried stomping a vine with a shod hoof and gotten nothing but a warm foot for the effort. He'd take chattering teeth and the nagging feeling that his sleeping pad was soaked through instead of whatever the vines had been offering any day.
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; probably Ruadhan
Prompt: celeloriel: "black vines"
Word Count: 447
Notes: So when I looked at the other end of the couch and said "so what am I writing?" my most esteemed roommate, one billradish by handle, told me the Trickwood Unification. Blame her.
The vines were shriveled, black and gray and only faintly touched with green, like they'd been through a fire--borne out by the crisped trees they were climbing--dried-looking leaves like vanilla beans showing through the red needles of the pines.
One of the outriders looked up suddenly, head twisting back slightly to track some sound, then froze, eyes huge. "Flood and fire," she muttered, then, in a voice that sounded forcibly calm, called "Everyone get out--away from the vines."
Which was inevitably when the first vine shivered free of its support, draped itself like a wave at a barrier across the path they'd come up, accompanied by a shower of dead pine needles.
"Fire?" he asked the nearest other rider, as a currently four-legged wolf flinched back from another falling vine, her nose describing a short sharp arc to keep it away from the plant.
"They like it," the rider replied, knees clamped too tightly against his horse's sides, making the mare shy and nearly buck. "Makes 'em drop seeds."
He clucked under his breath, frowning, wishing Ulysse or Hernén was with them, wishing for--"Rain?" he asked suddenly, and the wolf snorted, nearly making his horse shy.
"They don't like that. Like winter even less."
The group was surrounded now with fallen black vines, hanging innocuously like the burnt remnants of some extravagent thicket crisped by fire, but from the steady low cursing someone had been nicked by a vine and was regretting it strongly.
He closed his eyes, drew in his head a view of the mountain they'd seen that morning, the high alpine lakes fed by glaciers and stubborn snow still clinging to the slopes, remembered the thought of how cold they had to be.
Reached, scooped mental hands together, pulled, tossed--
Someone yelped as the first drop hit, and he opened his eyes in time to see a very upset trout land on the wolf's back, accompanied by a full and proper skyburst of freezing rain.
The vines hissed, writhed, steam rising where the water struck them, leaves curling tighter, trying to minimise exposure, and he kneed his horse forward, heading for the granite outcrop visible past the dying pines.
The rest of the group fell in behind him, some laughing, others hissing as much as the vines at the feel of winter rain through summer clothing.
But they got away with two minor burns and an irate horse who'd tried stomping a vine with a shod hoof and gotten nothing but a warm foot for the effort. He'd take chattering teeth and the nagging feeling that his sleeping pad was soaked through instead of whatever the vines had been offering any day.