Bromance Big Bang: I Catch You - Queen's Thief, Gen/Helen [2/2]
Title: I Catch You
Author(s): rattyjol
Artist(s): enochia
Fandom(s): Queen's Thief
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~6500
Characters/Pairings(if any): Gen, Helen, various Eddisians
Warnings/Spoilers: None.
Summary: Conversations between a Queen and her Thief, before they were that. Lessons learned and friendship shared from childhood to adulthood. Pre-series.
Written for the bromancestory Big Bang.
Fanmix by enochia over here: [LINK]
ETA: And some art of my own over here: [LINK]
<-- [PART ONE]
The night was still and silent, as heavy as the blanket pulled up snugly to Helen's chin. She sighed and rolled over, already well on her way back to sleep when a cold breath blew gently on her ear.
She sat up sharply, head swinging about as she tried to filter out shadows in the darkness. There was a quiet laugh from above her and she slumped back into her pillows with a groan.
"Gen," she complained, as the shadow hopped nimbly down from his perch on her headboard and moved to sit cross-legged at the end of the bed. "It's the middle of the night."
"Almost dawn, actually," he said happily. She would never understand how he managed to be so chipper in the middle of the night.
"Unless the villagers have risen in revolt or the palace is on fire, it can wait until breakfast." Helen lay down firmly and pressed a pillow over her ear.
"I could set it on fire, if you like." He bounced in place a little, jostling Helen at the other end of the bed. "Come on, Your Majesty, I'm bored. Wake up!"
Helen's voice rose muffled from under her pillows. "I will have you executed."
"Ah, but you forget, I know your weak spots." A cold draft of air blew up from the far end of the blankets just a moment before two hands grabbed her feet and began tickling mercilessly. Helen let out a smothered shriek and kicked out in retaliation.
"Are you awake now, Your Majesty?"
"Fine!" she laughed, throwing the pillow at him. "Fine, I'll get up!"
"Finally!" He seized her hands and pulled her from the bed, dragging the blankets along with her. Shrugging them off, she seized the tunic and riding trousers that were neatly folded by the wardrobe (Gen's doing, she suspected, and wondered which of her clothes he had chosen to deface this time) and pulled them on over her nightclothes.
"Where are we going?" she wondered aloud, pulled along barefoot after him. Gen turned and put a finger to his lips, trotting along backwards.
Suspiciously, they didn't spot a single guard in their journey through the halls. Helen decided she would have to have a talk with the captain about that.
At the foot of a staircase Gen motioned for her to stop. "Wait here," he whispered.
"Gen, wait--" But he had already melted away into the shadows. Helen sighed.
She was just starting to consider trying to find her way back to bed when Gen reappeared on the stairs above her with a whispered "Boo!" Helen jumped and spun around to glare at him.
"Where have you been?" she demanded under her breath.
"Getting breakfast. Here." He pressed a warm, lumpy bundle into her hands and started up the staircase, pausing to look back down at her. "Are you coming?"
She followed him up that staircase and then another, until finally they emerged onto the roof, where the first rosy fingers of dawn were just beginning to creep around the sides of the looming dark shapes that in daylight were mountains. The first signs of life were already stirring below as the farmers and cooks went about their early business. They sat quietly and watched, nibbling on the fresh bread Gen had smuggled from the kitchens, until the sun had fully risen between mountain peaks.
Helen stood, and Gen bounced to his feet, grinning from ear to ear. "So? What did you think?"
"It was very pretty, Gen," Helen said with a smile. Suddenly she scowled, looking very threatening. "But don't ever wake me before sunrise again."
*
"Eugenides!"
Helen's skirts swished angrily about her ankles as she stormed through the door.
"Shh." Gen leaned back in his chair and held a finger to his lips. "This is a library."
"It's my library. I can yell at people who deserve to be yelled at all I want."
He set the book aside and stood. "If you can find someone who deserves to be yelled at, be my guest."
He had grown over the last few years, but Helen was still a good head taller. She drew herself up to her full height, looking down her crooked nose at him in her most queenly manner. "You disappeared, Eugenides. For two weeks."
"And now I'm back." He shrugged, seemingly indifferent.
"Even your grandfather didn't know where you were," she said, struggling to keep her voice at an acceptable volume. "Your father was about to send squads out looking for you."
"I can take care of myself," he said tightly.
"Eugenides!" She seized his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. "I am your queen. You will do what I say. And I say that the next time you choose to disappear, you tell someone."
"Why? I always come back."
"And what if you don't?" she yelled. "What if you go and something happens? What then?"
"It's not going to happen!" He was shouting now too. "Is your opinion of me that low?"
"I was scared, Gen! Do you understand? I was godsdamn terrified!"
She sat down heavily, anger vanishing like a gust of wind. "What would I do," she said, staring up at him, "if you never came back? What would I do if there was no one to make me laugh, or tell me my dress was stupid, or, or, to tell me I'm being an idiot?"
"You'd probably be a grumpy, badly dressed queen who goes down in history as Eddis the Idiot."
She snorted, but didn't smile. "You're my best friend, Gen. Just . . . promise me you'll always come back."
He covered her hand with his own. "I promise."
*
The trail was steep and narrow, twisting up and across the mountain face. It was unpaved and treacherous with loose stones that often slipped underfoot, and Gen was determinedly not regretting his decision to be gallant.
"I'm sorry," Helen called down to him for the umpteenth time that day as she accidentally kicked pebbles back into his face. He spat out a mouthful of dust and waved her on.
"There's a ledge just ahead to your right," he recalled. "We can stop there." He had only been this way once before, five years past, but this was the Thief's Trail. If he didn't remember the way, who would?
("All Thieves must pass this way twice," his grandfather had said. "Once in life, and once in death.")
Helen was waiting on the ledge when he reached her, her eyes dark with concern. She watched as he slid the straps from his shoulders and set his precious burden down well away from the edge.
"Do you want food?" she offered, opening her own pack.
He waved a hand dismissively from his seat on the edge, his legs dangling over empty air. "I'm not hungry."
"Well now I'm really worried," she said, but the jibe fell flat in the crisp autumn air.
They sat in silence for a while, with the deceptively small, well-wrapped bundle a wall of tension between them, and the only noise the rippling trills and sweeping whistles of choughs wheeling overhead. As Helen wrapped up the rest of the bread and cheese and returned it to her bag, Gen stood, and there was a tired slump to his shoulders that she didn't like.
"Are you sure you don't want me to carry him a little ways?"
"No!" he snapped, too forcefully. He paused, drawing in a breath. "I mean, no, thank you, My Queen," he corrected himself, now too formally. He gathered the bundle up in his arms and slung it carefully over his shoulders, tightening the straps firmly.
Now a little guilty, he turned to face her. "Thank you for the offer, Helen," he said, more sincerely. "But this is something I must do."
"I understand," she said, which was only half true. The lives (and deaths) of Thieves were dotted with traditions and customs, stretching back countless generations, some so ancient that their origins were all but forgotten. Even Gen didn't understand them all, she was sure, but as an outsider Helen hardly had a prayer.
She reached out and touched a thin slice across his forehead, where a loose pebble had struck him on its way down. "But you're going first this time," she said firmly, wiping the blood on her trouser leg. "And that's an order, Eugenides."
The sun was well on its way to the horizon by the time they reached their destination. The Thief's Trail came to an end just below the mountain's peak, where a wide outcropping jutted out well away from the mountain itself.
Wellborn Peak was a low mountain, perhaps half the size of its tallest brothers, and the first snows of the season hadn't yet touched its slopes. The surface of the outcropping was coated with thick, tough grass that could survive even the coldest nights, but would be dead in a few weeks when the snows finally reached it.
The view was spectacular, purple peaks rising all around and fading in the mist as the range stretched into the distance; the sprawling green of the valley below, dotted with fiery autumn colors in the few places deciduous trees would grow. The palace was just visible, walls washed pink in the setting sun.
Helen turned towards Gen, expecting to find him admiring the view, but the exclamation of delight died on her tongue as she saw what had captured his attention.
The rock face behind her had been carved away into a flat slate, and on it had been neatly chiseled a phrase: "A Thief who falls, falls into the hands of his god." The lettering was so old as to be nearly illegible, worn away by rain and wind, and Helen could see that it had been carved over at least once before. Filling the empty space around the words were names, roughly hewn into the rock, some as old as the larger lettering and others much newer. Many of the names were Eugenides, but there were others as well. A few Eugenias, and other names that Helen recognized from old children's stories, such as Macaria, a peasant girl who, after the previous Thief had died without successor, had snuck into the king's bedchambers and waited, crouched atop his dresser, for him to awake with the dawn.
Gen had eyes for only one name, though, etched into the rock with a shaky hand. The letters were deep and fresh, and Gen laid a hand across them as though by doing so he could reach out and touch the person they represented.
"Your mother," Helen breathed. "Gen -- I didn't realize--" She should have guessed, she supposed. Gen and his grandfather had vanished for two days after the funeral, and though she had never been the Queen's Thief, she had been a queen among Thieves.
"Only Kings' and Queens' Thieves are to be scattered here," Gen agreed, his hand dropping to his side. "But so far it hasn't seemed to invoke the god's wrath."
"You know," he continued, kneeling as he unslung the bundle from his shoulders, "I think you're the first ruler of Eddis up here in at least a century. Not many kings are willing to make the trek."
She crouched beside him, watching as he carefully unwrapped layer after layer of cloth. "And queens?"
He offered a crooked half-smile. "The last one is on that wall." He pointed to the slate of names, where Eddia Eugenia was carved into the rock just below the word "hands".
"The Thief Queen?" Helen recalled the legend she had been told of the princess who had stolen Hamiathes' Gift from her father and then returned it before he knew it was missing. "But she lived nearly six hundred years ago."
"Only the Thief and the sovereign can walk the Thief's Trail," Gen explained, staring hard at the last few layers of wrapping. "There aren't many queens who didn't quickly marry."
The conversation had distracted him, briefly pulling his mind away from what was in his bundle, but now the final cloth fell away and the purpose of their long trek was brought back to the forefront.
The bundle had held a small ceramic jar, plain and unadorned. Such a tiny thing, Helen mused to herself, watching as Gen broke the wax seal around the lid. Such a small container to hold a whole person.
Gen reached through the wide brim and took out a palmful of ash. He opened his hand, scattering it to the wind.
Watching the specks vanish into the sky, Helen started when she realized Gen had wordlessly held out the urn to her. She nearly refused -- it was not her grandfather that had died, after all -- but when she met his eyes she found herself reaching to take a pinch of ash.
Gen scattered the rest, one handful at a time, and when the jar was empty he held it out over the edge and let it drop to shatter on the rocks below. His voice was lost in the wind as he turned away, but she thought he heard him whisper a good-bye.
"It's getting late," he said finally. He showed her a small hidden alcove in the rock, just big enough for two people to huddle together against the wind.
"I must sit vigil," he told her, curling his legs beneath him. "You can sleep, if you like."
"I'll sit with you," Helen said, taking the warm weight of his hand into hers. "You can tell me a story, and the night will be over before we know it."
"You know more stories than I do," he complained. It was a lie, but then, it was Gen. She looked at him archly. "Fine," he grumbled, scooting closer. His voice fell into a smooth rhythm as he began. "Long ago, when the world was young, there was a boy who thought he could fly . . ."
Helen woke to silence, and sunlight filtering through her closed eyelids. An extra cloak had been draped across her shoulders as she slept, but Gen himself was no longer with her in the alcove. She shuffled out into the daylight, and found him seated cross-legged near the edge of the outcropping.
"You fell asleep," he complained, without turning around. "Right at the best part."
"I'm sorry." She smiled, fastening his cloak over his shoulders from behind. "Did he ever learn how to fly?"
"Only how to fall."
She sat down next to him, staying carefully clear of the edge. "And was someone there to catch him?"
He turned and smiled back at her, sad and happy and lit by the new day's sun. "Yes."
Author(s): rattyjol
Artist(s): enochia
Fandom(s): Queen's Thief
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~6500
Characters/Pairings(if any): Gen, Helen, various Eddisians
Warnings/Spoilers: None.
Summary: Conversations between a Queen and her Thief, before they were that. Lessons learned and friendship shared from childhood to adulthood. Pre-series.
Written for the bromancestory Big Bang.
Fanmix by enochia over here: [LINK]
ETA: And some art of my own over here: [LINK]
<-- [PART ONE]
The night was still and silent, as heavy as the blanket pulled up snugly to Helen's chin. She sighed and rolled over, already well on her way back to sleep when a cold breath blew gently on her ear.
She sat up sharply, head swinging about as she tried to filter out shadows in the darkness. There was a quiet laugh from above her and she slumped back into her pillows with a groan.
"Gen," she complained, as the shadow hopped nimbly down from his perch on her headboard and moved to sit cross-legged at the end of the bed. "It's the middle of the night."
"Almost dawn, actually," he said happily. She would never understand how he managed to be so chipper in the middle of the night.
"Unless the villagers have risen in revolt or the palace is on fire, it can wait until breakfast." Helen lay down firmly and pressed a pillow over her ear.
"I could set it on fire, if you like." He bounced in place a little, jostling Helen at the other end of the bed. "Come on, Your Majesty, I'm bored. Wake up!"
Helen's voice rose muffled from under her pillows. "I will have you executed."
"Ah, but you forget, I know your weak spots." A cold draft of air blew up from the far end of the blankets just a moment before two hands grabbed her feet and began tickling mercilessly. Helen let out a smothered shriek and kicked out in retaliation.
"Are you awake now, Your Majesty?"
"Fine!" she laughed, throwing the pillow at him. "Fine, I'll get up!"
"Finally!" He seized her hands and pulled her from the bed, dragging the blankets along with her. Shrugging them off, she seized the tunic and riding trousers that were neatly folded by the wardrobe (Gen's doing, she suspected, and wondered which of her clothes he had chosen to deface this time) and pulled them on over her nightclothes.
"Where are we going?" she wondered aloud, pulled along barefoot after him. Gen turned and put a finger to his lips, trotting along backwards.
Suspiciously, they didn't spot a single guard in their journey through the halls. Helen decided she would have to have a talk with the captain about that.
At the foot of a staircase Gen motioned for her to stop. "Wait here," he whispered.
"Gen, wait--" But he had already melted away into the shadows. Helen sighed.
She was just starting to consider trying to find her way back to bed when Gen reappeared on the stairs above her with a whispered "Boo!" Helen jumped and spun around to glare at him.
"Where have you been?" she demanded under her breath.
"Getting breakfast. Here." He pressed a warm, lumpy bundle into her hands and started up the staircase, pausing to look back down at her. "Are you coming?"
She followed him up that staircase and then another, until finally they emerged onto the roof, where the first rosy fingers of dawn were just beginning to creep around the sides of the looming dark shapes that in daylight were mountains. The first signs of life were already stirring below as the farmers and cooks went about their early business. They sat quietly and watched, nibbling on the fresh bread Gen had smuggled from the kitchens, until the sun had fully risen between mountain peaks.
Helen stood, and Gen bounced to his feet, grinning from ear to ear. "So? What did you think?"
"It was very pretty, Gen," Helen said with a smile. Suddenly she scowled, looking very threatening. "But don't ever wake me before sunrise again."
*
"Eugenides!"
Helen's skirts swished angrily about her ankles as she stormed through the door.
"Shh." Gen leaned back in his chair and held a finger to his lips. "This is a library."
"It's my library. I can yell at people who deserve to be yelled at all I want."
He set the book aside and stood. "If you can find someone who deserves to be yelled at, be my guest."
He had grown over the last few years, but Helen was still a good head taller. She drew herself up to her full height, looking down her crooked nose at him in her most queenly manner. "You disappeared, Eugenides. For two weeks."
"And now I'm back." He shrugged, seemingly indifferent.
"Even your grandfather didn't know where you were," she said, struggling to keep her voice at an acceptable volume. "Your father was about to send squads out looking for you."
"I can take care of myself," he said tightly.
"Eugenides!" She seized his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. "I am your queen. You will do what I say. And I say that the next time you choose to disappear, you tell someone."
"Why? I always come back."
"And what if you don't?" she yelled. "What if you go and something happens? What then?"
"It's not going to happen!" He was shouting now too. "Is your opinion of me that low?"
"I was scared, Gen! Do you understand? I was godsdamn terrified!"
She sat down heavily, anger vanishing like a gust of wind. "What would I do," she said, staring up at him, "if you never came back? What would I do if there was no one to make me laugh, or tell me my dress was stupid, or, or, to tell me I'm being an idiot?"
"You'd probably be a grumpy, badly dressed queen who goes down in history as Eddis the Idiot."
She snorted, but didn't smile. "You're my best friend, Gen. Just . . . promise me you'll always come back."
He covered her hand with his own. "I promise."
*
The trail was steep and narrow, twisting up and across the mountain face. It was unpaved and treacherous with loose stones that often slipped underfoot, and Gen was determinedly not regretting his decision to be gallant.
"I'm sorry," Helen called down to him for the umpteenth time that day as she accidentally kicked pebbles back into his face. He spat out a mouthful of dust and waved her on.
"There's a ledge just ahead to your right," he recalled. "We can stop there." He had only been this way once before, five years past, but this was the Thief's Trail. If he didn't remember the way, who would?
("All Thieves must pass this way twice," his grandfather had said. "Once in life, and once in death.")
Helen was waiting on the ledge when he reached her, her eyes dark with concern. She watched as he slid the straps from his shoulders and set his precious burden down well away from the edge.
"Do you want food?" she offered, opening her own pack.
He waved a hand dismissively from his seat on the edge, his legs dangling over empty air. "I'm not hungry."
"Well now I'm really worried," she said, but the jibe fell flat in the crisp autumn air.
They sat in silence for a while, with the deceptively small, well-wrapped bundle a wall of tension between them, and the only noise the rippling trills and sweeping whistles of choughs wheeling overhead. As Helen wrapped up the rest of the bread and cheese and returned it to her bag, Gen stood, and there was a tired slump to his shoulders that she didn't like.
"Are you sure you don't want me to carry him a little ways?"
"No!" he snapped, too forcefully. He paused, drawing in a breath. "I mean, no, thank you, My Queen," he corrected himself, now too formally. He gathered the bundle up in his arms and slung it carefully over his shoulders, tightening the straps firmly.
Now a little guilty, he turned to face her. "Thank you for the offer, Helen," he said, more sincerely. "But this is something I must do."
"I understand," she said, which was only half true. The lives (and deaths) of Thieves were dotted with traditions and customs, stretching back countless generations, some so ancient that their origins were all but forgotten. Even Gen didn't understand them all, she was sure, but as an outsider Helen hardly had a prayer.
She reached out and touched a thin slice across his forehead, where a loose pebble had struck him on its way down. "But you're going first this time," she said firmly, wiping the blood on her trouser leg. "And that's an order, Eugenides."
The sun was well on its way to the horizon by the time they reached their destination. The Thief's Trail came to an end just below the mountain's peak, where a wide outcropping jutted out well away from the mountain itself.
Wellborn Peak was a low mountain, perhaps half the size of its tallest brothers, and the first snows of the season hadn't yet touched its slopes. The surface of the outcropping was coated with thick, tough grass that could survive even the coldest nights, but would be dead in a few weeks when the snows finally reached it.
The view was spectacular, purple peaks rising all around and fading in the mist as the range stretched into the distance; the sprawling green of the valley below, dotted with fiery autumn colors in the few places deciduous trees would grow. The palace was just visible, walls washed pink in the setting sun.
Helen turned towards Gen, expecting to find him admiring the view, but the exclamation of delight died on her tongue as she saw what had captured his attention.
The rock face behind her had been carved away into a flat slate, and on it had been neatly chiseled a phrase: "A Thief who falls, falls into the hands of his god." The lettering was so old as to be nearly illegible, worn away by rain and wind, and Helen could see that it had been carved over at least once before. Filling the empty space around the words were names, roughly hewn into the rock, some as old as the larger lettering and others much newer. Many of the names were Eugenides, but there were others as well. A few Eugenias, and other names that Helen recognized from old children's stories, such as Macaria, a peasant girl who, after the previous Thief had died without successor, had snuck into the king's bedchambers and waited, crouched atop his dresser, for him to awake with the dawn.
Gen had eyes for only one name, though, etched into the rock with a shaky hand. The letters were deep and fresh, and Gen laid a hand across them as though by doing so he could reach out and touch the person they represented.
"Your mother," Helen breathed. "Gen -- I didn't realize--" She should have guessed, she supposed. Gen and his grandfather had vanished for two days after the funeral, and though she had never been the Queen's Thief, she had been a queen among Thieves.
"Only Kings' and Queens' Thieves are to be scattered here," Gen agreed, his hand dropping to his side. "But so far it hasn't seemed to invoke the god's wrath."
"You know," he continued, kneeling as he unslung the bundle from his shoulders, "I think you're the first ruler of Eddis up here in at least a century. Not many kings are willing to make the trek."
She crouched beside him, watching as he carefully unwrapped layer after layer of cloth. "And queens?"
He offered a crooked half-smile. "The last one is on that wall." He pointed to the slate of names, where Eddia Eugenia was carved into the rock just below the word "hands".
"The Thief Queen?" Helen recalled the legend she had been told of the princess who had stolen Hamiathes' Gift from her father and then returned it before he knew it was missing. "But she lived nearly six hundred years ago."
"Only the Thief and the sovereign can walk the Thief's Trail," Gen explained, staring hard at the last few layers of wrapping. "There aren't many queens who didn't quickly marry."
The conversation had distracted him, briefly pulling his mind away from what was in his bundle, but now the final cloth fell away and the purpose of their long trek was brought back to the forefront.
The bundle had held a small ceramic jar, plain and unadorned. Such a tiny thing, Helen mused to herself, watching as Gen broke the wax seal around the lid. Such a small container to hold a whole person.
Gen reached through the wide brim and took out a palmful of ash. He opened his hand, scattering it to the wind.
Watching the specks vanish into the sky, Helen started when she realized Gen had wordlessly held out the urn to her. She nearly refused -- it was not her grandfather that had died, after all -- but when she met his eyes she found herself reaching to take a pinch of ash.
Gen scattered the rest, one handful at a time, and when the jar was empty he held it out over the edge and let it drop to shatter on the rocks below. His voice was lost in the wind as he turned away, but she thought he heard him whisper a good-bye.
"It's getting late," he said finally. He showed her a small hidden alcove in the rock, just big enough for two people to huddle together against the wind.
"I must sit vigil," he told her, curling his legs beneath him. "You can sleep, if you like."
"I'll sit with you," Helen said, taking the warm weight of his hand into hers. "You can tell me a story, and the night will be over before we know it."
"You know more stories than I do," he complained. It was a lie, but then, it was Gen. She looked at him archly. "Fine," he grumbled, scooting closer. His voice fell into a smooth rhythm as he began. "Long ago, when the world was young, there was a boy who thought he could fly . . ."
Helen woke to silence, and sunlight filtering through her closed eyelids. An extra cloak had been draped across her shoulders as she slept, but Gen himself was no longer with her in the alcove. She shuffled out into the daylight, and found him seated cross-legged near the edge of the outcropping.
"You fell asleep," he complained, without turning around. "Right at the best part."
"I'm sorry." She smiled, fastening his cloak over his shoulders from behind. "Did he ever learn how to fly?"
"Only how to fall."
She sat down next to him, staying carefully clear of the edge. "And was someone there to catch him?"
He turned and smiled back at her, sad and happy and lit by the new day's sun. "Yes."