Fic: Three nights under a reckless waxing moon
Fandom: Nightrunner series, Lynn Flewelling. Alec/Seregil.
Wordcount: 2134
Summary: As per Traitor's Moon: "...and once, floundering half-dressed in deep new snow under a reckless waxing moon that had broken their sleep for three nights running."
Notes: For rogerik in Yuletide 2007, originally posted here.
i.
When Seregil woke for the fourth time that night Alec was gone, and that was enough to have him on his feet in the shuttered dark, feeling the fear of old times. Though the sheets were still warm, and the fire put off a well-tended heat, he cast about the tiny cabin with a wrenched heart `til he barked a shin and the irritation scolded away that first seize of anxiety. Padding across the wooden slats to the door in naught but his shirttails, Seregil poked his nose out into the midwinter cold and was rewarded with a set of fresh tracks out to the shed that stabled their horses and chickens. Yellow lamplight glowed, casting warm shadows upon virgin snow, thigh deep and silver under the light of the thickening moon.
Seregil dressed and booted himself, trying to be satisfied with Alec's presence out in the shed and failing. He wanted him close. They'd been tossing all night, the both of them. Seregil with dreams of the rush of an inbound tide, and a plague of scuttling crabs boiling out of broken waves like an arachnid army. He had crushed their shells with his boots, sweating and tossing in his sleep, though there were always more.
He stepped out into the midwinter chill: solstice had only just passed, with the two of them eschewing the Mourning Night tradition. No northern-bred boy worth his salt would extinguish all light, all flame, in the dead of winter in the snowy cradle of a mountain valley; and Alec refused to hear of it. "You'll be wearing me for a blanket," he said, arching his brows at Seregil's automatic grin, "and it won't be as pleasant as it sounds." So they'd left the fire burning, and Seregil had wrapped himself around Alec regardless.
Inside, Alec was perched on a three legged stool, Patch mouthing his hair as he mended a bit of bridle. The brown mare was doe-eyed for a scrap of leather, but Alec ignored her well enough, looking up as Seregil slipped through the door. "You too, eh?" Alec's voice was quiet, his hands continuing their work.
Seregil stepped into the lesser chill of the hay-smelling shelter, and hung his arm around a postern, feeling warmed just by merit of the boy's presence. He and Alec had built this little shed up from a half-rotted frame in the fall, after they'd cleared out the cabin of mice and spiders. Hard honest labour. He'd enjoyed it as he enjoyed few things: thoroughly and with gratitude for the thoughtlessness of the work. "I keep dreaming about the Helm," he sighed.
Alec looked up, sharp, and Seregil smiled and waved a hand to relieve the worry. "Not that kind of dream. Just the crabs coming up out of the ocean. And the crows that day."
Alec nodded. "I dream about killing Ashnazai. Choking him with my own chains until my wrists bleed," he said, just as conversational. They didn't talk about the scene under the mountain very often, but when they did there was nothing to hide.
Seregil grimaced in empathy. The dreams before had been worse, much worse. But these somehow made sense. As much as dreams ever did. "Will you come back to bed?" he asked, and stepped forward to interject his hands between Patch's questing mouth and Alec's fine pale hair. It had grown long, these months past.
Alec looked up, turned his face to kiss Seregil's right palm. "No, not tonight." He smiled, apologetic.
But Seregil shrugged, and found another stool. And without saying much else took to polishing some tack himself. Grateful for the rag in his hands and the saddle on his lap, grateful for all of it.
ii.
The second night it was the reflection off the snow that woke him. Seregil had left the shutters open, watching the stars appear in the sky as he fell asleep just after dusk. The both of them had been exhausted by sundown, a little touchy with so little rest the night before.
But Alec awoke full and tense, as the wash of white lit the room to daylight quality. Seregil lay with his mouth slightly open, breathing softly, motionless beside him. Still fully clothed, his face tilted to the window, to the rippled glass warping the swollen moon into a melting silver coin.
Alec slipped off the bed. It couldn't be much past midnight. He sank to his haunches in front of the dying fire and warmed his toes on the hearthstone, listening to Seregil breathe, half-wishing he'd wake up. So they could bicker meaninglessly, or perhaps put their mouths to better use. But also, Alec was content in the quiet and the dark.
In the shadows of the river rock hearth his eyes picked out the familiar shape of his sheathed sword - the one Seregil had bought for him all those months and months ago. He hadn't touched it since he'd set it there upon their arrival. Seregil's own refusal to wear a blade, much less use one, discouraged his own practices. Instead, Alec spent most of his time with his bow, taking down the odd elk or fox, selling pelts for goat's milk or dried fruit down in the village.
He missed the damn thing. In the shadow, Alec leaned and snagged the scabbard, put a palm over the almost unfamiliar grip. The cross guard plain and functional, the pommel weighted just as necessary, he pulled the blade out slow, slow so that no ring or whine echoed to monger war with Seregil. Watching the orange smear of the embers reflect, he shifted to sit cross-legged before the fire, resting the blade across his knees.
He thought of Beka Cavish, leading her riders at the front lines of the war, or often beyond the lines, in the back countries of Plenimar, haunting the enemy lines for the Queen. And of Thero, apprenticed now to Magyana, softer and warmer than he ever was before Nysander taught them all that one last, cruel lesson.
Alec ran his thumb down the blade's edge and let the shame gnaw at his guts. Hiding here with Seregil, fucking and rubbing like wild beasts, while what remained of their acquaintance - their friends, their allies - dedicated themselves heart and soul to the fight. To the Queen and to Skala. They both knew it wasn't right. Or at least, he hoped Seregil occasionally thought of the war, the dying and the dead.
Light and warm as a summer breeze, Seregil's hand on his shoulder from behind startled him. He didn't jump, only just barely stiffened. Guilty, with the sword in his hands.
Seregil said - unlacing his breeches, toeing off his wool socks - "Do you even remember how to use that thing, tali?"
And Alec took up the scabbard again and sheathed it, saying, "I hope so. I'd rather not go through all the bruising again. And I suspect Beka's too busy to spare the time now."
Seregil chuckled, but they did not talk about it again. Instead, they sat up with a deck of cards until the moon went behind the trees and the darkness returned and allowed them their sleep again.
iii.
The third night they woke in unison. Seregil muttering, and Alec lying with his heart pounding, convinced he'd heard a step under the window, the jingle of tack and regimental steel.
"You hear something?" he asked Seregil, voice still thick with sleep, and now a sort of excitement.
"Outside," whispered Seregil, already rolling out of bed. He'd heard the hollow laugh of the dra-gorgos, the whisper of its shadow feet. Pulling on whatever shirt lay on the floor, finding his slim dagger in the kitchen near the block of wrapped cheese. Passing Alec's over as well.
They stepped silent, hovering by the door, but whatever sound it was that had woken them did not come again.
Seregil passed a hand over his face and eyed Alec with half a smirk. "Are we so out of practice?" he murmured.
Alec shook his head, frowning. Took a step and opened the door, slipping out into the night in his breeches and boots, stalking down into the trench they'd paved in the snow to the shed. The fat whole moon lent too bright a glare to allow the boy a shadow to hide in, but Seregil stepped out to the creaking stoop as well and looked around.
Nothing to hide from. So his senses told him, which he trusted as much as his gut, which said likewise. Still, he signaled to Alec, and made a quick padding sweep around the cabin: looked into the shadows of the trees beyond the clearing, listened to the rasp of the creek down the slope. No black figure, no laughter.
Alec met him halfway, where the moon's angle had the cabin casting a shadow crisp as ink on the snow. Their footsteps opened like wells, soft wet white falling into their boot tops, starting to melt. Alec scowled and shook his head at the trees, "I swear I heard them out here. Joking, or-" he looked around again, his brow smoothing into a stark disappointment that he could not hide. "I don't know."
Seregil laughed himself, to cover his own worry at Alec's expression. "Aren't we the frightened city folk? Jumping at shadows. Dreaming up monsters."
Alec tried to look sheepish, shrugging away whatever he'd heard. The footstep of a friend? A welcome visitor? Seregil could not deny his own tripping heart, terrifying dreams of a black figure that lurched and bent itself in angles. He sheathed his dagger in his wet boot as Alec turned to head back inside.
The set line of the boy's shoulders, though, gave Seregil a thought that had him rolling his eyes at himself even as he scooped up a handful of snow. He balled it, and hit the back of Alec's head in an easy, gentle arc that ended in a small puff of sparkling flakes.
Alec turned like a struck stag, affronted, and was instantly elbow-deep in snow, pelting Seregil with much better aim and ammunition. Outmatched, Seregil broke and ran after the first half dozen hits, angling for the shelter of the shed, but barely making it halfway before Alec tackled him like one of Micum's hunting hounds, their weight sinking them into the snow until Seregil could see only faded stars and that huge moon hanging overhead.
He squirmed under Alec: cursing as snow trickled down over them in tiny avalanches; grinning at Alec's vengeful smirk. It wasn't half a minute before wrestling turned to writhing.
Quick thrusts, the slide of bare skin against thin cloth made problematic as their few garments soaked through with cold, but Alec had learned certain efficient tricks of late that made Seregil gasp like a virgin while his blood turned to steam in his veins.
Hot and half-frozen at once, Seregil put his mouth to good use as Alec curled above him, breathing hard. Gods be damned, though his toes fell off in his boots he would made this memory a good one. Ease that look of guilt and worry off the boy's face, at least for a little while.
After, inside, Seregil's teeth chattered like hooves on cobblestone as Alec stoked the fire and put a pot of snowmelt on to boil. "Illior's fingers," he growled, as Alec threw another one of their sleeping rugs over him, "You'll be the death of me."
Alec snorted, crawling in under the rug with him, naked as a babe. "You brought it on yourself, picking a fight in these temperatures. On open ground. Clear as daylight."
Seregil shook his head and wrapped more limbs around him. "Old men like me should stay where we belong, next to the hearth."
Alec didn't smile, his body going awkward, stiff under the blankets. And as quick as that, their sanctuary was a prison again, and Seregil the jailer. "We're not old men," Alec muttered, turning his face down so Seregil couldn't see his expression. "So what does this make us?"
Seregil stroked one pale cheekbone, trailing a thumb over the fuzz of golden hair at his chin, fingertips over to an earlobe. "We've earned this, tali. We've done more for Skala than anyone will ever know, and look what we've lost for it."
Alec shifted, his bones impatient, unyielding. He did not respond. And in the orange glow of the firelight Seregil could easily guess the accusations bitten back, muzzled for his sake. "They will come when they need us," he reassured again. He had to believe it.
Not till the moon set and the fire died down and the shadows crept back in did Alec's body relax, so that they both slept, and did not dream.
Wordcount: 2134
Summary: As per Traitor's Moon: "...and once, floundering half-dressed in deep new snow under a reckless waxing moon that had broken their sleep for three nights running."
Notes: For rogerik in Yuletide 2007, originally posted here.
i.
When Seregil woke for the fourth time that night Alec was gone, and that was enough to have him on his feet in the shuttered dark, feeling the fear of old times. Though the sheets were still warm, and the fire put off a well-tended heat, he cast about the tiny cabin with a wrenched heart `til he barked a shin and the irritation scolded away that first seize of anxiety. Padding across the wooden slats to the door in naught but his shirttails, Seregil poked his nose out into the midwinter cold and was rewarded with a set of fresh tracks out to the shed that stabled their horses and chickens. Yellow lamplight glowed, casting warm shadows upon virgin snow, thigh deep and silver under the light of the thickening moon.
Seregil dressed and booted himself, trying to be satisfied with Alec's presence out in the shed and failing. He wanted him close. They'd been tossing all night, the both of them. Seregil with dreams of the rush of an inbound tide, and a plague of scuttling crabs boiling out of broken waves like an arachnid army. He had crushed their shells with his boots, sweating and tossing in his sleep, though there were always more.
He stepped out into the midwinter chill: solstice had only just passed, with the two of them eschewing the Mourning Night tradition. No northern-bred boy worth his salt would extinguish all light, all flame, in the dead of winter in the snowy cradle of a mountain valley; and Alec refused to hear of it. "You'll be wearing me for a blanket," he said, arching his brows at Seregil's automatic grin, "and it won't be as pleasant as it sounds." So they'd left the fire burning, and Seregil had wrapped himself around Alec regardless.
Inside, Alec was perched on a three legged stool, Patch mouthing his hair as he mended a bit of bridle. The brown mare was doe-eyed for a scrap of leather, but Alec ignored her well enough, looking up as Seregil slipped through the door. "You too, eh?" Alec's voice was quiet, his hands continuing their work.
Seregil stepped into the lesser chill of the hay-smelling shelter, and hung his arm around a postern, feeling warmed just by merit of the boy's presence. He and Alec had built this little shed up from a half-rotted frame in the fall, after they'd cleared out the cabin of mice and spiders. Hard honest labour. He'd enjoyed it as he enjoyed few things: thoroughly and with gratitude for the thoughtlessness of the work. "I keep dreaming about the Helm," he sighed.
Alec looked up, sharp, and Seregil smiled and waved a hand to relieve the worry. "Not that kind of dream. Just the crabs coming up out of the ocean. And the crows that day."
Alec nodded. "I dream about killing Ashnazai. Choking him with my own chains until my wrists bleed," he said, just as conversational. They didn't talk about the scene under the mountain very often, but when they did there was nothing to hide.
Seregil grimaced in empathy. The dreams before had been worse, much worse. But these somehow made sense. As much as dreams ever did. "Will you come back to bed?" he asked, and stepped forward to interject his hands between Patch's questing mouth and Alec's fine pale hair. It had grown long, these months past.
Alec looked up, turned his face to kiss Seregil's right palm. "No, not tonight." He smiled, apologetic.
But Seregil shrugged, and found another stool. And without saying much else took to polishing some tack himself. Grateful for the rag in his hands and the saddle on his lap, grateful for all of it.
ii.
The second night it was the reflection off the snow that woke him. Seregil had left the shutters open, watching the stars appear in the sky as he fell asleep just after dusk. The both of them had been exhausted by sundown, a little touchy with so little rest the night before.
But Alec awoke full and tense, as the wash of white lit the room to daylight quality. Seregil lay with his mouth slightly open, breathing softly, motionless beside him. Still fully clothed, his face tilted to the window, to the rippled glass warping the swollen moon into a melting silver coin.
Alec slipped off the bed. It couldn't be much past midnight. He sank to his haunches in front of the dying fire and warmed his toes on the hearthstone, listening to Seregil breathe, half-wishing he'd wake up. So they could bicker meaninglessly, or perhaps put their mouths to better use. But also, Alec was content in the quiet and the dark.
In the shadows of the river rock hearth his eyes picked out the familiar shape of his sheathed sword - the one Seregil had bought for him all those months and months ago. He hadn't touched it since he'd set it there upon their arrival. Seregil's own refusal to wear a blade, much less use one, discouraged his own practices. Instead, Alec spent most of his time with his bow, taking down the odd elk or fox, selling pelts for goat's milk or dried fruit down in the village.
He missed the damn thing. In the shadow, Alec leaned and snagged the scabbard, put a palm over the almost unfamiliar grip. The cross guard plain and functional, the pommel weighted just as necessary, he pulled the blade out slow, slow so that no ring or whine echoed to monger war with Seregil. Watching the orange smear of the embers reflect, he shifted to sit cross-legged before the fire, resting the blade across his knees.
He thought of Beka Cavish, leading her riders at the front lines of the war, or often beyond the lines, in the back countries of Plenimar, haunting the enemy lines for the Queen. And of Thero, apprenticed now to Magyana, softer and warmer than he ever was before Nysander taught them all that one last, cruel lesson.
Alec ran his thumb down the blade's edge and let the shame gnaw at his guts. Hiding here with Seregil, fucking and rubbing like wild beasts, while what remained of their acquaintance - their friends, their allies - dedicated themselves heart and soul to the fight. To the Queen and to Skala. They both knew it wasn't right. Or at least, he hoped Seregil occasionally thought of the war, the dying and the dead.
Light and warm as a summer breeze, Seregil's hand on his shoulder from behind startled him. He didn't jump, only just barely stiffened. Guilty, with the sword in his hands.
Seregil said - unlacing his breeches, toeing off his wool socks - "Do you even remember how to use that thing, tali?"
And Alec took up the scabbard again and sheathed it, saying, "I hope so. I'd rather not go through all the bruising again. And I suspect Beka's too busy to spare the time now."
Seregil chuckled, but they did not talk about it again. Instead, they sat up with a deck of cards until the moon went behind the trees and the darkness returned and allowed them their sleep again.
iii.
The third night they woke in unison. Seregil muttering, and Alec lying with his heart pounding, convinced he'd heard a step under the window, the jingle of tack and regimental steel.
"You hear something?" he asked Seregil, voice still thick with sleep, and now a sort of excitement.
"Outside," whispered Seregil, already rolling out of bed. He'd heard the hollow laugh of the dra-gorgos, the whisper of its shadow feet. Pulling on whatever shirt lay on the floor, finding his slim dagger in the kitchen near the block of wrapped cheese. Passing Alec's over as well.
They stepped silent, hovering by the door, but whatever sound it was that had woken them did not come again.
Seregil passed a hand over his face and eyed Alec with half a smirk. "Are we so out of practice?" he murmured.
Alec shook his head, frowning. Took a step and opened the door, slipping out into the night in his breeches and boots, stalking down into the trench they'd paved in the snow to the shed. The fat whole moon lent too bright a glare to allow the boy a shadow to hide in, but Seregil stepped out to the creaking stoop as well and looked around.
Nothing to hide from. So his senses told him, which he trusted as much as his gut, which said likewise. Still, he signaled to Alec, and made a quick padding sweep around the cabin: looked into the shadows of the trees beyond the clearing, listened to the rasp of the creek down the slope. No black figure, no laughter.
Alec met him halfway, where the moon's angle had the cabin casting a shadow crisp as ink on the snow. Their footsteps opened like wells, soft wet white falling into their boot tops, starting to melt. Alec scowled and shook his head at the trees, "I swear I heard them out here. Joking, or-" he looked around again, his brow smoothing into a stark disappointment that he could not hide. "I don't know."
Seregil laughed himself, to cover his own worry at Alec's expression. "Aren't we the frightened city folk? Jumping at shadows. Dreaming up monsters."
Alec tried to look sheepish, shrugging away whatever he'd heard. The footstep of a friend? A welcome visitor? Seregil could not deny his own tripping heart, terrifying dreams of a black figure that lurched and bent itself in angles. He sheathed his dagger in his wet boot as Alec turned to head back inside.
The set line of the boy's shoulders, though, gave Seregil a thought that had him rolling his eyes at himself even as he scooped up a handful of snow. He balled it, and hit the back of Alec's head in an easy, gentle arc that ended in a small puff of sparkling flakes.
Alec turned like a struck stag, affronted, and was instantly elbow-deep in snow, pelting Seregil with much better aim and ammunition. Outmatched, Seregil broke and ran after the first half dozen hits, angling for the shelter of the shed, but barely making it halfway before Alec tackled him like one of Micum's hunting hounds, their weight sinking them into the snow until Seregil could see only faded stars and that huge moon hanging overhead.
He squirmed under Alec: cursing as snow trickled down over them in tiny avalanches; grinning at Alec's vengeful smirk. It wasn't half a minute before wrestling turned to writhing.
Quick thrusts, the slide of bare skin against thin cloth made problematic as their few garments soaked through with cold, but Alec had learned certain efficient tricks of late that made Seregil gasp like a virgin while his blood turned to steam in his veins.
Hot and half-frozen at once, Seregil put his mouth to good use as Alec curled above him, breathing hard. Gods be damned, though his toes fell off in his boots he would made this memory a good one. Ease that look of guilt and worry off the boy's face, at least for a little while.
After, inside, Seregil's teeth chattered like hooves on cobblestone as Alec stoked the fire and put a pot of snowmelt on to boil. "Illior's fingers," he growled, as Alec threw another one of their sleeping rugs over him, "You'll be the death of me."
Alec snorted, crawling in under the rug with him, naked as a babe. "You brought it on yourself, picking a fight in these temperatures. On open ground. Clear as daylight."
Seregil shook his head and wrapped more limbs around him. "Old men like me should stay where we belong, next to the hearth."
Alec didn't smile, his body going awkward, stiff under the blankets. And as quick as that, their sanctuary was a prison again, and Seregil the jailer. "We're not old men," Alec muttered, turning his face down so Seregil couldn't see his expression. "So what does this make us?"
Seregil stroked one pale cheekbone, trailing a thumb over the fuzz of golden hair at his chin, fingertips over to an earlobe. "We've earned this, tali. We've done more for Skala than anyone will ever know, and look what we've lost for it."
Alec shifted, his bones impatient, unyielding. He did not respond. And in the orange glow of the firelight Seregil could easily guess the accusations bitten back, muzzled for his sake. "They will come when they need us," he reassured again. He had to believe it.
Not till the moon set and the fire died down and the shadows crept back in did Alec's body relax, so that they both slept, and did not dream.