Wild Roses fic prompt 092 "Christmas"
Title: longest night
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Isael, Conall
Prompt: 092 "Christmas"
Word Count: 608
Rating: G
Notes: First war; the Trickwood, for a given definition of ‘safe’, was a sanctuary for anyone who could persuade Hernén that they weren’t going to deliberately set anything to eat people (or if they were it wasn’t going to be HIS people). I continue to do weird things to the holiday prompts.
It was cold, here--his father said that if you walked far enough, even winter faded, but he hadn't seen it yet--bitterly wet with the sort of sleet that snuck in beneath every layer put up against it. It had been snowing, earlier, just barely cold enough to form fat white flakes that clung to the branches of the trees surrounding the dug-into-hillside structures they were living in, this week.
He couldn't see the sky except as a great shapeless mass beyond the not-quite black outlines of evergreens. Which was irritating, when he was wondering why a chorus of wolves were howling, out of sight.
And why the huge black-on-black wolf who described himself as Isael's cousin wasn't out among them.
Conall was a frustration--so much a part of something Other, and at the same time very, very familiar. He spoke what had been, at home, the language of the church and rituals, with the same lazy colloquial grace Isael's father always had, mixed in with words and concepts and gestures Isael was barely beginning to grasp. He was a werewolf, his poses and body-language achingly like the wolves of home. And yet, here he was, flopped across an overhung threshold like a deeper black shadow, instead of out with the unseen singers.
Isael deliberately stepped off the branch strewn pathway and squelched into mud, slogging slightly across newly-melted ground towards the wolf. The ground would probably refreeze later, announcing his footprints until the next melt, but the big black head had lifted, one ear cocked, at the sounds of his feet.
He didn't really want to think about the way his cousin grinned up at him, all long red tongue and white teeth in dark gums, so he only flopped down crosslegged next to the wolf as Conall shifted to make space.
"Why aren't you out there?" he asked, jerking his head towards the dark.
"They're Dad's, not mine," Conall replied, sitting up on his haunches, then shifting to a pose like Isael's, gloved hands propped on his knees, though Conall was hatless. Isael wore a heavy knit cap one of Conall's father's rangers had passed him during the first cold snap and never asked to be returned, pulled low over his hair to try to block the wet. Conall, on the other hand, had only pulled his hair out of the low ponytail he habitually wore it in, coarse black strands flopping over his ears and the collar of his coat.
"They can be your father's without being yours, too?" he asked, curious. Most of the wolves he'd known would have accepted pack of their family (and especially someone within their family they considered alpha to self) as pack of themselves. New difference, this.
Conall chuckled. "If everyone who was my father's were mine too he'd probably kill me for trying to usurp," entirely without rancour, "and I'm more useful as a runner than stationed. Most of the packs are stationed, or they have their own territories already and we just settle people in around them." He considered the dark beyond the dim lighting of the buildings, head tilted to one side, then snorted. "I didn't realise it was so late in the year--they're singing for the longest night."
Isael blinked at the side of his head. "It's solstice?"
"'ccording to the locals, oui, t'is," Conall turned his head to meet Isael's eyes, smiled, the tips of his canines tucked behind his lip. "May the end be in sight."
Of the winter, or of the war? Isael wondered, but smiled back, careful to keep his own teeth in the safe range, and echoed the words of what might be sentiment or unfamiliar ritual.
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Isael, Conall
Prompt: 092 "Christmas"
Word Count: 608
Rating: G
Notes: First war; the Trickwood, for a given definition of ‘safe’, was a sanctuary for anyone who could persuade Hernén that they weren’t going to deliberately set anything to eat people (or if they were it wasn’t going to be HIS people). I continue to do weird things to the holiday prompts.
It was cold, here--his father said that if you walked far enough, even winter faded, but he hadn't seen it yet--bitterly wet with the sort of sleet that snuck in beneath every layer put up against it. It had been snowing, earlier, just barely cold enough to form fat white flakes that clung to the branches of the trees surrounding the dug-into-hillside structures they were living in, this week.
He couldn't see the sky except as a great shapeless mass beyond the not-quite black outlines of evergreens. Which was irritating, when he was wondering why a chorus of wolves were howling, out of sight.
And why the huge black-on-black wolf who described himself as Isael's cousin wasn't out among them.
Conall was a frustration--so much a part of something Other, and at the same time very, very familiar. He spoke what had been, at home, the language of the church and rituals, with the same lazy colloquial grace Isael's father always had, mixed in with words and concepts and gestures Isael was barely beginning to grasp. He was a werewolf, his poses and body-language achingly like the wolves of home. And yet, here he was, flopped across an overhung threshold like a deeper black shadow, instead of out with the unseen singers.
Isael deliberately stepped off the branch strewn pathway and squelched into mud, slogging slightly across newly-melted ground towards the wolf. The ground would probably refreeze later, announcing his footprints until the next melt, but the big black head had lifted, one ear cocked, at the sounds of his feet.
He didn't really want to think about the way his cousin grinned up at him, all long red tongue and white teeth in dark gums, so he only flopped down crosslegged next to the wolf as Conall shifted to make space.
"Why aren't you out there?" he asked, jerking his head towards the dark.
"They're Dad's, not mine," Conall replied, sitting up on his haunches, then shifting to a pose like Isael's, gloved hands propped on his knees, though Conall was hatless. Isael wore a heavy knit cap one of Conall's father's rangers had passed him during the first cold snap and never asked to be returned, pulled low over his hair to try to block the wet. Conall, on the other hand, had only pulled his hair out of the low ponytail he habitually wore it in, coarse black strands flopping over his ears and the collar of his coat.
"They can be your father's without being yours, too?" he asked, curious. Most of the wolves he'd known would have accepted pack of their family (and especially someone within their family they considered alpha to self) as pack of themselves. New difference, this.
Conall chuckled. "If everyone who was my father's were mine too he'd probably kill me for trying to usurp," entirely without rancour, "and I'm more useful as a runner than stationed. Most of the packs are stationed, or they have their own territories already and we just settle people in around them." He considered the dark beyond the dim lighting of the buildings, head tilted to one side, then snorted. "I didn't realise it was so late in the year--they're singing for the longest night."
Isael blinked at the side of his head. "It's solstice?"
"'ccording to the locals, oui, t'is," Conall turned his head to meet Isael's eyes, smiled, the tips of his canines tucked behind his lip. "May the end be in sight."
Of the winter, or of the war? Isael wondered, but smiled back, careful to keep his own teeth in the safe range, and echoed the words of what might be sentiment or unfamiliar ritual.