Watchmen Kink Meme 3. Weeeeeeee.
Rules of the meme:
1. Anonymously post a pairing and prompt you would like to see written. Since this is a kink meme, there is supposted to be a kink involved, but normal well-written prompts should work just as well.
2. Anonymous will respond to your post and write it for you! Art and such is also acceptable/awesome. Multiple people may respond to ( Read more... )
He isn't tense when she puts her hand on his shoulder, but she can feel the way sorrow is making his limbs heavy and his blood slow. "Are you one of those guys who doesn't eat when he's sad?"
He chuckles ruefully. "No, I'm one of those guys that eats everything in sight when he's sad."
"Then we better hope Ghost Rat finds a herd of something."
"He might. We're currently on the edge of one of the richest biomes on the continent." And because she's there, and actually listening, he talks to her about the natural history of the region until they're interrupted by Ghost Rat coming out of the dusk with whole brilliant archipelagoes of spattered blood on his face and arms and a small, skinned wild pig slung across his back. He says nothing, just gestures to it and heads for the campfire where William helps him cut it up and sets the pieces over the coals to cook, freeing him to go down to the creek and wash in the secluded, icy-cold rock pool about a hundred yards downstream. Daniel is naming the stars for Laurel as they appear in the dim blue sky when they hear him scream, a long, ragged sound, higher than anything but raw panic. Daniel is gone so quickly that he seems simply to vanish. Laurel follows at his heels, alarm coursing in her blood and leaves whipping her face as they plunge into the creek bed, running and slipping along the stones. The shriek dies away just as they turn the last bend to the rock pool, eyes wild and weapons out.
Ghost Rat doesn't scream. He barely even whimpers when he's wounded, so they can't conceive of anything that would make him sound like this. They're expecting blood, or at least the heavy musk of something large and unfriendly. What they actually find is Ghost Rat hiding behind a boulder, his eyes wide with horror, and Asmoleda sitting in the pool with her legs tangled in her heavy skirt, looking just as shocked. Daniel stares, then rubs one hand over his face. "Laurel, take Lady Asmoleda back to camp."
"What about--"
"He'll be fine." Ghost Rat looks less like he'll be fine than almost anyone she's ever seen, but he calms down a little as Daniel goes to him, and she sighs, offering Asmoleda a hand up. She takes it, looking dazed and a little guilty, and Daniel wraps his cloak around Ghost Rat, murmuring something to him too low to hear.
"Saw me." Ghost Rat chokes, once they're safely gone. "Saw me, Daniel!" He shudders all over, pulling the cloak tighter around himself.
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And now I think I know. And it's kind of brilliant and I'm not sure if I've ever seen this done before.
So there is magic in this world. And Daniel's magic is mostly standard magicpunk sword-and-sorcery magic. The kind we are used to accepting as "real" in fantasy novels.
BUT! The Plains people ALSO use magic, in a way that is based on practices of native cultures, AND THEIR MAGIC WORKS TOO. It has its own rules and methods, and they are all just as real as Dan's kind of magic. If Ghost Rat thinks that a menstruating woman will blunt weapons, it's because IT WILL. People who misunderstand this, like Asmoleda, are portrayed as bigoted and ignorant and possibly not that bright.
I think this is the first time I've seen this done, where tribal people practice magic in a fantasy setting and there's no discrediting of those beliefs and practices. I feel like more often tribal magic is condescended to in fantasy, treated either as mere superstition, or as "a certain primitive magic of their own" that can't be understood by outsiders, or else as some kind of freeform earth-rhythm nu-age bullshit. Here, tribal magic is every bit as real as Dan's court magic, every bit as much of a science, and if Dan knows the rules of both, it's because he's well-educated, not because he's "gone native."
And that's how you're Doing It Right, imho.
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22-26: http://spam-monster.livejournal.com/2938.html?view=7586426#t7586426
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"And then kept watching, because it was Ghost Rat." Laurel says archly, and Asomelda blushes and stares at the ground. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
"There are things that I must tell Daniel." She looks down at her hands. "And I can be safe neither in his court nor at home."
"Safe?" Laurel asks, and Asmoleda's answer is lost in William's questions as he and Byron come barreling along on their way to help them against whatever terror Ghost Rat stumbled upon. Laurel explains as they all walk back to camp together, and watches Byron turn the meat as William creates a little curtained chamber for Asmoleda to take off her wet clothes, which she does in silence. "God, you're as good as a lady's maid." Laurel mutters and William smiles. "Well, I am technically a harem guard. You can't spend that long around the odalisques without picking up their ways."
"Well, let me take her your spare cloak, because I'm pretty sure she'd still count you as a man." She's just pinning it around Asmoleda's bony frame when Ghost Rat and Daniel return. Their eyes meet, and Asmoleda's are filled with mortification and terror. "Relax. If anything, he'll just avoid you." Asmoleda nods, fretfully looks over her improvised gown for the umpteenth time, and then straightens her back, deftly rearranges her hair in a way Laurie would kill to be able to do, and steps out. Ghost Rat is crouched on the opposite side of the fire, still wrapped in Daniel's cloak and gnawing a chunk of meat behind his mask. Daniel gestures to a smooth rock beside him, and Asmoleda sits down, looking around nervously.
"Why are you here?"
She takes a deep breath and explains it to him as best she can. As in any court, there are some in the royal circle who have a vested interest in Queen Susan's failure to recover, and she has the sinking feeling that Moloch was in the pay of certain elements who would love to re-establish Hyperborea, even if they have to steal a kingdom to do it with. There's a distinct overlap between these two groups, and it's almost entirely populated with people who don't stick at hiring assassins and will need Asmoleda out of the way to make everything go smoothly.
Daniel just stares, head aching as it tries to work out all the connections between the western coast and Hyperborea, both before and after its dissolution at the hands of far-north nomads and its own dissipated royalty. "Oh, god." He buries his hands in his hair. "So your third cousin is plotting to finish the job on my mother and weasel her way into my father's bed, while my uncle's bid for the throne was actually orchestrated by Hyperborean reconstructionists?" He groaned, raising his goggles to rub at his eyes. "Fuck me." He muttered, and then "Pardon me, your highness."
Laurel can't get over the novelty of it: a girl who actually blushes when someone curses, instead of bringing it on artificially. "If you're going to be traveling with us, you're going to have to get used to it, I'm afraid."
"Who says she is?" Daniel growls.
"Please." Laurel rolls her eyes. "We can't send her back."
"Why not? No one's got any reason to kill her."
"Daniel, Asmoleda's family isn't part of the cabal. They need new blood more than they need a new kingdom. Do you see where this is going?"
He groans again. "Dammit."
Ghost Rat takes first watch that night, hidden up in the tree as he scans the tranquil night for danger. Finding none, he lets his gaze sweep over the camp, where William is curled around Byron, and Daniel is sleeping fitfully in his guilt. Laurel and Asmoleda are directly below him, and he shudders. It had been all right when he was alone in the forest and not meeting women every day, or just with Laurel, protected by his responsibility to her. But now he is abruptly reminded of all his frailties and unbound, invisible wounds.
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...Duude. Does Hyperborea owe any inspirations to a certain other island kingdom known for strange magics, wanton cruelty and dissipated royalty (especially its last scion, the non-pigmented dude with the badass sword)? If not, that's cool, just saying.
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I have no idea. I just took the name Hyperborea because I don't think I've seen it used since Flash Gordon.
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"What'd he say?" Laurel asks William as Asmoleda retches, Daniel gingerly holding her hair back.
"It doesn't really translate, because we actually have a word for the kind of person who kills unarmed girls in their sleep."
Ghost Rat comes back from sweeping the area, shaking his head when Daniel looks at him over Asmoleda's heaving shoulders. Hyperborean assassins tend to work alone (just like other assassins) but sometimes move in pairs. If Ghost Rat hasn't found this one's partner, he probably isn't around to find. He grabs the body by the ankles and hauls it out of Asmoleda's sight, crouching by it and methodically going through pockets and pouches, hurming quietly to himself as he works.
Now as they cross into the blasting sun of the plains, Laurel claps her hands to her ears as Ghost Rat whistles for Horse. They see her a long way off, and wait for her since it's time for the midday meal anyway. Asmoleda does her best not to stare at Daniel as he slices cheese and cured meat with the cheerful demeanor of a content housewife. Over days in the forest, his spirits have returned a little, since after all, he's actually doing something about what's bothering him, and going into the wilds in the doing.
She's still amazed at how capable his hands are. He's the only noble she's ever met with callouses. Certainly, her brothers have sword practice, but they also have pumice stones and unguents, and personal attendants. Asking around, she had discovered that Daniel gets by with only a pageboy, and she can scarcely believe it, thinking of her own two ladies-in-waiting, all three of their personal maids, and the whole ranking of women in the princesses' quarters, loved and loathed according to their merits.
"Here." He hands her a crusty round of bread, two slices of meat, and a wedge of cheese. She takes them into her lap, sure that she'll never get used to eating from her knees or the blade of a knife, and thanks him. His dark eyes have rested more kindly on her since she became too fatigued to try to charm him.
Not that flattery and witty allusions make any sense on a journey like this. Ghost Rat's silence and rare, dry jokes make sense. Daniel and Laurel's perpetual natural history lesson makes sense, and so do Byron's quiet northern songs. Time passes faster when she rides beside him to hit the notes he can't reach and remember the words have escaped his poor, battered mind. Each night when they stop, Laurel shows her another way to break a man's arm, and even if she can't remember them all and is scandalized that Laurel does, she appreciates the gesture of concern for what it is, and does her feeble best to move the right way.
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Ghost ranges ahead for days, ostensibly to scout (which does, galloping back to report to whoever is closest before flying away again) but really needing to get away from Asmoleda's ice blue eyes, that... touch him, in a way they really shouldn't. He's never been in love and he doesn't think this is it, but it's something, and it crawls up and down his spine in a way that's worse because it doesn't hurt. As they pass the edge the Western Wood, he leaves Horse to graze and runs in to see if his house is as he left it. The journey was fast on the way out, with Daniel and Laurel and Archie, but it's even quicker for Ghost Rat, who makes the trip without once touching the ground, running and leaping and scaring the life out of squirrels and nests of baby venomwings.
His warning still stands, and his things are still there. In a strange fit of something like homesickness he curls up in his hammock for a moment, then snatches up his one book in the indecipherable northern tongue and leaves, bolting his way back through the trees and meeting up with Horse again. That night he gives the book to Byron to decipher, and then vanishes into the shadows when Asmoleda comes to help. It's worse when she's close, and even when Laurel touches his arm in concern, it burns and he has to pull away, trembling all over. He hates to ask Daniel for more blood, but he's afraid he'll have to.
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Then again, since she does appear to have infected him with a bad case of cooties, I'm guessing he wouldn't be keen on her attentions even if she did warm up to him.
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It's noon and he's about to turn back when she rises out of the grass like a vision, smiling serenely with hate burning in her red eyes. Albinism is rare on the plains, but not unheard of. Among the Hyperborean upper castes, it's more common than it really should be. He freezes like a rabbit, and Horse rears in fright.
"There you are." A blast of wind nearly knocks him to the ground, but he grips with his knees and hangs onto Horse's mane as she screams in rage, trying to trample her opponent like a snake. Her hooves strike a shielding spell, and Ghost Rat barely keeps his seat, guiding Horse off and away to keep her from breaking a leg. He slides off her back and slaps her haunch, sending her back to the others, war fans out as he faces the witch. He can feel the weakness on him, and he can see it reflected in her eyes. A woman of any description is the last thing in the world he should be fighting right now, and they both know it.
"If you just gave up and knelt at my feet, it would spare you a fraction of the pain I have in store for you."
"Wasn't whelped to give up." He hurls one fan and has the satisfaction of making her dodge it, and then it's all over because every bit of strength goes out of every limb. It takes five minutes of bone grinding, tendon strumming horrible screaming effort for Ghost Rat's knees to give out. He can barely breathe, eyes wide and taking in every detail of her deep-green leather boots as she comes to stand over him. It's a stupid move, which just makes it more infuriating that she can get away with it.
"I'm going to take your heart, little savage." She says in a voice like poisoned honey. "And I'm going to take it slowly."
"W-why?" He growls, still unable to raise his head. "Partner got cleaner death than he deserved."
"He. Was. My. Brother." Every word hurts in a way nothing has since he was old enough to get out of his mother's tent and fend for himself. "And you pawed him over for trinkets and left him to rot in the forest." Ghost Rat would deny this if he could, but something seems to have knotted up his insides. "You will kill your friends for me, and I will tear you apart." Making him stand is like trying to pull a gold ingot from the mud of a river, but soon he's on his feet, and by the time the others come for him, he's moving as smoothly as ever.
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I really love the little bits of magic you're weaving into the whole story, especially the level of detail of the magic and how much it all means to Ghost Rat. The "blood of a man whose mother loved him" bit from the previous part really delighted me.
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