Drabbles, part 3: Chalion and Sayers

[shimotsuki]

There has been a bit of a drabble flurry around lately, which is always fun. I didn't have my act together to do the drabble meme for International Women's Day this year, and I'm feeling slightly bad because I didn't remember to write Remus Lupin even the briefest of drabbles for his 52nd birthday today. ;) But I did have *cough* two more Hobbit Birthday Drabbles left to write...from *cough* last November. (There were some for Downton Abbey and some for Harry Potter, too.)

So, without further ado:

• Chalion: Illvin, sometime before Ista arrives, for philomytha and hrymfaxe | 400 words [double-length because hrymfaxe seconded the prompt ;) ]
  
  Coming Home
  “There! Do you see that pile of stones?”
  
  Goram, comfortable on his mount’s broad back and sleepy from a lunch that had actually been enough to eat, obediently raised his head to look as they rode past. “Yes, m’lord.”
  
  “That’s the border. We’re back safe in Chalion, now.” Lord Illvin’s smile flashed bright in his sun-bronzed face.
  
  Goram liked that smile. Everyone else he could remember had shouted at him and hit him.
  
  “Chalion?” he asked now, tasting the shape of the name on his tongue.
  
  “That’s right.” The smile flashed again. “I’ve brought you home.”
  
  Home.
  
  Goram was Chalionese; he knew that much. He knew that he wasn’t Roknari. And he remembered riding out with Roya Orico’s troops, long ago-he remembered all the fine horses and the red and gold banners.
  
  So that meant that Chalion was home.
  
  Didn’t it?
  
  “Have you remembered any more about where your family lives? Wherever it is, I will take you there.” Lord Illvin’s dark eyes were serious, now, but still friendly. Always friendly.
  
  Goram was never afraid of him.
  
  “No, m’lord.” He struggled to find words, or thoughts for words to lean on. Some piece of him understood that he couldn’t remember, that there should have been more in his head than there was. “It’s like fog at night. Dark.” He frowned. “Cloudy.”
  
  “All right, Goram. Never mind.” The deep voice was still kind. “What would you like to do, then?”
  
  “M’lord?”
  
  Lord Illvin was watching him closely. “You’re a free man now, Goram. You may do as you wish.”
  
  Goram swallowed. He felt his mouth working before he had any words to put into it.
  
  Lord Illvin was patient, waiting, the way Goram would wait for a skittish horse to settle.
  
  You may do as you wish.
  
  “I wish to stay with you, m’lord.” Goram nodded, firmly; for once, he’d found the right words to match his thoughts. “You’ll need a groom for all these horses.”
  
  Lord Illvin looked surprised, like an unbroken colt who feels a bridle for the first time. But then the smile came back.
  
  “If that is what you wish,” he said, “then Castle Porifors-my home-will thank you for your help.”
  
  Goram made a small satisfied noise.
  
  Then, when Lord Illvin said nothing more, he started feeling sleepy again.
  
  ~ * ~
  
• Dorothy Sayers: Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane, crosswords in bed, for etiam_quietus | 200 words | set immediately after "Talboys"
  
  Cross Words in Bed
  Harriet woke, slowly-an unaccustomed luxury. The house was quiet, which meant that Bunter must be feeding the boys breakfast in the kitchen.
  
  She rolled over, blinking.
  
  “Good morning, heart,” said Peter. He had made contact with Bunter somehow, because there was a silver tea tray at his elbow, and he wielded the Times in one hand and his fountain pen in the other.
  
  “Arrogant of you, to do the crossword in ink,” she murmured, sitting up to kiss him.
  
  He arched an eyebrow. “I’m celebrating. This is our first morning in weeks that has not been graced by the presence of the incomparable Miss Quirk.”
  
  “Thanks to you and Bredon running her off,” said Harriet, because she felt that someone ought to. But she said it very mildly.
  
  “Now, let us not have-” Peter paused, to let her guess what was coming next-“cross words in bed.”
  
  Harriet rolled her eyes, obligingly, to reward him for his efforts. And then she wrested the newspaper and the pen from his grasp and set them on her night-table.
  
  “No, let’s not.” Her smile turned sly. “Especially when there are more interesting things to do, in bed.”
  
  ~*~