Reflections (Summer Challenge, FotD, Chocolate Chip Mint)
‘Verse: The Sun, Radiant
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #13 (Throwing shadows on our eyes), Flavor of the Day (xyst: a garden walk planted with trees), Chocolate Chip Mint #17 (familiar)
Rating: PG
Title: Reflections
Summary: Tumultuous times.
Notes: Next piece, Gavin wakes. I think. Sorry it’s slow going, I’m not feeling particularly plotty right now.
There was nothing for it. The wash-weed would help her cope, but it was still a drug, and she had to be alert and in control to convince Gavin’s entourage that the attempt at his life was not her fault, or worse, her doing. Right now, she needed to calm their nerves more than her own.
She managed to slip away the third day, after the council-advisors (she still didn’t understand how they had so much influence over the running of the country; they were a bunch of squabblers and power-grabbers) had stopped threatening war. She was glad, at least, that none of her own people took them seriously, and that Ravir wasn’t back yet, as promising a return to a centuries-long feud in the very country you’ve warred with was not a good idea. Ravir would have torn them apart the instant they threatened his queen, but in Arambh advisors had no real power to make decisions of that kind, and as the real King was still unconscious (though recovering), her court thought their posturing was mere words.
Ruhana knew better. She had observed how Gavin acted around the four councilors he had brought with him, and found he lent an ear to their word far more than she would have done with anyone but her own consorts - and even then, Ravir and Vas didn’t profess to know as much on such a variety of subjects as those men did.
Gavin was getting better, at least. Not yet awake, or at least not aware; he’d woken several times according to the reports, in a fever-haze, and she had seen it herself once when she tore herself away to observe his condition herself. His eyes, blue but strangely clouded, wide open and flicking about, but without aim. Then he started the shakes, and the healers swooped in. Standing off to the side, Matthew’s eyes boring into the back of her skull, him looking even more angry and helpless than she felt, she realized she was out of place in her own palace. The war-touched guard wasn’t helping, but he looked ready to collapse so she let it go.
The next day, two days and a night without sleep, he had collapsed.
Now, on the third day, haughty ‘advising’ westerners fading from her mind, Ruhana’s feet carried her down a tree-shaded path in the garden. The orange trees smelled so wonderful this time of year, blossoms waving gently in the light wind, and Ruhana stopped to lift her nose to one. The orange harvest would be plentiful this year, she thought.
Her feet carried her down the familiar path to the central fountain. She stopped, still half in the shade, to scan the walls. The watch had doubled under her order until Ravir was back (or his fate was known, but she didn’t say that) and she counted a dozen guards on that single stretch of wall, and more surrounding, at every entrance, even the ‘secret’ ones.
Content her safety was not in danger, she approached the fountain - a grand luxury in this region’s climate - and perched herself on the edge, facing out to stare at the place where Gavin had fallen. There wasn’t any blood there, not anymore since the servants had come and scrubbed it clean, but she thought she could still hear him gasping for breath under the sound of the fountain, if she listened hard.
Behind her, water trickled down the petals of the lotus, symbol of rebirth.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #13 (Throwing shadows on our eyes), Flavor of the Day (xyst: a garden walk planted with trees), Chocolate Chip Mint #17 (familiar)
Rating: PG
Title: Reflections
Summary: Tumultuous times.
Notes: Next piece, Gavin wakes. I think. Sorry it’s slow going, I’m not feeling particularly plotty right now.
There was nothing for it. The wash-weed would help her cope, but it was still a drug, and she had to be alert and in control to convince Gavin’s entourage that the attempt at his life was not her fault, or worse, her doing. Right now, she needed to calm their nerves more than her own.
She managed to slip away the third day, after the council-advisors (she still didn’t understand how they had so much influence over the running of the country; they were a bunch of squabblers and power-grabbers) had stopped threatening war. She was glad, at least, that none of her own people took them seriously, and that Ravir wasn’t back yet, as promising a return to a centuries-long feud in the very country you’ve warred with was not a good idea. Ravir would have torn them apart the instant they threatened his queen, but in Arambh advisors had no real power to make decisions of that kind, and as the real King was still unconscious (though recovering), her court thought their posturing was mere words.
Ruhana knew better. She had observed how Gavin acted around the four councilors he had brought with him, and found he lent an ear to their word far more than she would have done with anyone but her own consorts - and even then, Ravir and Vas didn’t profess to know as much on such a variety of subjects as those men did.
Gavin was getting better, at least. Not yet awake, or at least not aware; he’d woken several times according to the reports, in a fever-haze, and she had seen it herself once when she tore herself away to observe his condition herself. His eyes, blue but strangely clouded, wide open and flicking about, but without aim. Then he started the shakes, and the healers swooped in. Standing off to the side, Matthew’s eyes boring into the back of her skull, him looking even more angry and helpless than she felt, she realized she was out of place in her own palace. The war-touched guard wasn’t helping, but he looked ready to collapse so she let it go.
The next day, two days and a night without sleep, he had collapsed.
Now, on the third day, haughty ‘advising’ westerners fading from her mind, Ruhana’s feet carried her down a tree-shaded path in the garden. The orange trees smelled so wonderful this time of year, blossoms waving gently in the light wind, and Ruhana stopped to lift her nose to one. The orange harvest would be plentiful this year, she thought.
Her feet carried her down the familiar path to the central fountain. She stopped, still half in the shade, to scan the walls. The watch had doubled under her order until Ravir was back (or his fate was known, but she didn’t say that) and she counted a dozen guards on that single stretch of wall, and more surrounding, at every entrance, even the ‘secret’ ones.
Content her safety was not in danger, she approached the fountain - a grand luxury in this region’s climate - and perched herself on the edge, facing out to stare at the place where Gavin had fallen. There wasn’t any blood there, not anymore since the servants had come and scrubbed it clean, but she thought she could still hear him gasping for breath under the sound of the fountain, if she listened hard.
Behind her, water trickled down the petals of the lotus, symbol of rebirth.