Fic: Cargo, Ch. 1
Pairing: Ulki/Janaff
Rating: PG
Warnings: Er. Rating likely to go up.
Summary: A poorly timed surveillance mission lands Janaff on a ship carrying exactly the sort of merchandise his king had feared:
Author's Notes: I can't believe I wrote this. I promised myself I wouldn't write this. Dammit. ;_;
If it gets longer than four parts, hit me. Five parts, put me out of my misery. And if you think you know where I'm going with this... there's a 99.9% chance that you're right. ^^
=====
Cargo
=====
“There’s gonna be a storm,” Janaff remarked casually, glancing back the way they’d come.
Clouds were gathering above the horizon to the south, an ominously bruised shade of purple, and the sea was beginning to shift restlessly under stronger winds. In spots, it had already begun to rain; Janaff could see the ripples that the droplets made as they hit the water.
“Oh?” Ulki asked, tone distant. He did not even turn to gauge the extent of the impending fit of weather, gaze focused instead upon the ship that appeared to him as little more than a distant black smudge on the water.
“Just thought you should know,” Janaff said. And then, as he turned his attention back toward the object of their surveillance: “There’s another beorc on the deck, now. Big guy, plain clothes. No armor.” The hawk fell silent for a moment, watching. “Looks pissed about something. It’s pretty funny, actually, the way he’s waving his arms around.”
Though the older laguz could no more pick out the motion on the deck than Janaff could overhear the ongoing conversation, he kept his sights trained steadily on the ship. “Some of their cargo has gone missing,” he informed his partner, words low and even.
Murky green eyes flickered to the grim expression that had crept onto those angular features. “Any word on what they’re carrying?”
“Not yet,” Ulki replied.
They were silent a moment more, watching and listening; the wind picked up around them, tousling hair and ruffling feathers. Far below, the water began to cap into tips of foam, restless and dark.
“New guy’s headed back below deck,” Janaff said at length. It was not a terribly bright day, but he lifted one hand, regardless, to shield the stormy light from his eyes. It was a gesture of habit more than necessity. “Everyone else is going crazy, running all over the place.”
Ulki nodded once, absently. “He’s having them search the ship.” A pause; a tightening of those thin lips. “The merchandise was expensive.”
There was an edge to the words, subtle and dangerous. Not that Janaff blamed him, if the ship was carrying what they expected it to be.
Because Begnion’s apostle had made progress since the war had ended, certainly- but a lot of beorcs had a lot of money tied up in the slave trade, and old habits died hard. To say that Janaff was proud of his king wanting to help that death along- well. That wouldn’t have done the feeling justice.
It was the gust of wind that reminded Janaff about the worry that had flitted earlier through his mind- not a simple breeze, but something strong enough to make both hawks flap double-time to stay in place.
He half-turned, glancing back toward the south to check on the progress of the storm.
“Hey,” the younger laguz said, and put a hand on his partner’s arm. “Hey- we gotta go.”
Ulki’s eyes didn’t leave the ship. “We still don’t know for sure.”
If Janaff hadn’t understood the frustration that lay carefully hidden below those words, he might have been irritated by the delay. Instead, the edge that laced his response was more nerves than anger. “We’re already cutting it close.”
It was the tone that caught Ulki’s attention- turned his head to follow his companion’s gaze. Dark eyes, usually so hard to read, widened almost imperceptibly. “When did…?”
There was a flash of a grin, sharp and not entirely at ease. “Came on quick, didn’t it?”
And indeed the storm had.
What had been a small patch of darkness, threatening at the corner of the sky, had swept out over the sea; it churned the waves beneath it, and even as they watched, an arc of light flickered amidst the blackness and was gone.
Janaff saw reluctance in his companion’s expression, but a second more and it was gone- eclipsed, as the older hawk’s personal opinions usually were, by the course that logic dictated.
“Let’s go,” Ulki said.
Almost before the words had left his mouth, pale skin was being replaced by feathers, and Janaff followed not far behind, slipping as easily as his partner into a form better equipped for the speed that they needed. The pair wheeled as one, cut through the air as a shark cuts through water- powerful and graceful, something at once both beautiful and deadly.
That those massive wings struggled against the wind they bore their owners into served to leave little doubt in either hawk’s mind as to the sheer force behind the storm- or the depth of the threat that it presented. For as they retraced their path back toward Phoenicis, it became clear all too quickly that, however fast their progress, the squall would outdistance them to land.
Not only that, but it was rushing out to greet them.
They prepared as best they could for the moment that their flight would meet the clouds. Tightened up the muscles in their wings, lowered their heads, braced for the touch of rain against dry feathers.
Perhaps, had their previous surveillance position allowed them someplace to rest, it might have been enough.
But the wind struck with the force of something physical, and wings that were beginning to ache from hours already aloft shuddered under the strain of it. As one, they wavered- and with a hand as capricious as a child’s, nature batted them apart, two massive creatures of the skies tossed carelessly aside.
Janaff wheeled hard to one side in an attempt to stay upright, wings beating furiously against the raw strength pressing in on him. In vain, he attempted to aim himself back toward Phoenicis- into the wind- and was very nearly ripped from the sky, spun half-around before his body seemed to register the efforts of his wings and right itself.
It was only then, thoughts reeling with the realization that he might not be able to make land, that he noticed his partner was gone.
It came with a sweeping chill of shock, and for the space of several seconds, the hawk’s wings struggled frantically to keep him in place, to keep him still so that he could search. It was impossible to tell anything at all, though, with the clouds pressing in around him, dark and heavy, cutting his vision to a fraction of what it ought to be.
The wind rattled against him again, harsh and unforgiving, even as his mind recognized the fact that, if he didn’t get himself turned around, he would be stranded over open water. At very least, he ought to be making progress- as Ulki must be.
As Ulki should be.
The cry bubbled up unbidden from within him- it was the call of a hawk, shrill and piercing, a sound that carried far and clear on a calm day.
But the storm stole it from him as it left his beak, reduced the noise to something insignificant, and he knew, even as a new gust of wind set him struggling frantically to stay aloft, that it had gone unheard. In the roar of the squall, Ulki’s ability would doubtless be as useless as his own.
It was an alarming notion, and one that Janaff didn’t have time for.
Because the wind had him at its mercy- drove pounding rain against his back, caught ceaselessly at his tail feathers. Every new flurry forced him along with it; fighting would mean being crushed, or swept aside, or perhaps toppled into the stormy, dark waters that he knew were somewhere below.
Time had no meaning. Minutes became measured only in the steadily worsening ache in his wings and the deeper, slower exhaustion that had descended beneath it- a warning that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his animal form indefinitely.
So intent was Janaff upon simply surviving that when the impact came, it took him by surprise.
The wind wrenched him backwards, harsh and sudden, and the blow came from behind. There was a shuddering crack that the hawk felt more than heard, and then a wall of pain was splintering out through his right wing, sparking in the base of his skull.
It was sharp enough to steal the breath from his body, paralyzing in its intensity. Those massive wings refused for several seconds to work at all, and before he could correct the problem- before he could think, beyond the pain- he was tumbling downward, falling past the object that the storm had crushed him up against.
The shape of it registered as those murky green eyes focused dizzily- tall and proud, the swirls of the wood prominent, dark.
The wind must have changed directions, Janaff’s mind suggested faintly, as it hovered on the verge of greying out. How else could he have hit a tree?
It was his last thought as he came crashing to the deck below, rain-drenched feathers giving way to skin once more.
-end chapter 1-
Rating: PG
Warnings: Er. Rating likely to go up.
Summary: A poorly timed surveillance mission lands Janaff on a ship carrying exactly the sort of merchandise his king had feared:
Author's Notes: I can't believe I wrote this. I promised myself I wouldn't write this. Dammit. ;_;
If it gets longer than four parts, hit me. Five parts, put me out of my misery. And if you think you know where I'm going with this... there's a 99.9% chance that you're right. ^^
=====
Cargo
=====
“There’s gonna be a storm,” Janaff remarked casually, glancing back the way they’d come.
Clouds were gathering above the horizon to the south, an ominously bruised shade of purple, and the sea was beginning to shift restlessly under stronger winds. In spots, it had already begun to rain; Janaff could see the ripples that the droplets made as they hit the water.
“Oh?” Ulki asked, tone distant. He did not even turn to gauge the extent of the impending fit of weather, gaze focused instead upon the ship that appeared to him as little more than a distant black smudge on the water.
“Just thought you should know,” Janaff said. And then, as he turned his attention back toward the object of their surveillance: “There’s another beorc on the deck, now. Big guy, plain clothes. No armor.” The hawk fell silent for a moment, watching. “Looks pissed about something. It’s pretty funny, actually, the way he’s waving his arms around.”
Though the older laguz could no more pick out the motion on the deck than Janaff could overhear the ongoing conversation, he kept his sights trained steadily on the ship. “Some of their cargo has gone missing,” he informed his partner, words low and even.
Murky green eyes flickered to the grim expression that had crept onto those angular features. “Any word on what they’re carrying?”
“Not yet,” Ulki replied.
They were silent a moment more, watching and listening; the wind picked up around them, tousling hair and ruffling feathers. Far below, the water began to cap into tips of foam, restless and dark.
“New guy’s headed back below deck,” Janaff said at length. It was not a terribly bright day, but he lifted one hand, regardless, to shield the stormy light from his eyes. It was a gesture of habit more than necessity. “Everyone else is going crazy, running all over the place.”
Ulki nodded once, absently. “He’s having them search the ship.” A pause; a tightening of those thin lips. “The merchandise was expensive.”
There was an edge to the words, subtle and dangerous. Not that Janaff blamed him, if the ship was carrying what they expected it to be.
Because Begnion’s apostle had made progress since the war had ended, certainly- but a lot of beorcs had a lot of money tied up in the slave trade, and old habits died hard. To say that Janaff was proud of his king wanting to help that death along- well. That wouldn’t have done the feeling justice.
It was the gust of wind that reminded Janaff about the worry that had flitted earlier through his mind- not a simple breeze, but something strong enough to make both hawks flap double-time to stay in place.
He half-turned, glancing back toward the south to check on the progress of the storm.
“Hey,” the younger laguz said, and put a hand on his partner’s arm. “Hey- we gotta go.”
Ulki’s eyes didn’t leave the ship. “We still don’t know for sure.”
If Janaff hadn’t understood the frustration that lay carefully hidden below those words, he might have been irritated by the delay. Instead, the edge that laced his response was more nerves than anger. “We’re already cutting it close.”
It was the tone that caught Ulki’s attention- turned his head to follow his companion’s gaze. Dark eyes, usually so hard to read, widened almost imperceptibly. “When did…?”
There was a flash of a grin, sharp and not entirely at ease. “Came on quick, didn’t it?”
And indeed the storm had.
What had been a small patch of darkness, threatening at the corner of the sky, had swept out over the sea; it churned the waves beneath it, and even as they watched, an arc of light flickered amidst the blackness and was gone.
Janaff saw reluctance in his companion’s expression, but a second more and it was gone- eclipsed, as the older hawk’s personal opinions usually were, by the course that logic dictated.
“Let’s go,” Ulki said.
Almost before the words had left his mouth, pale skin was being replaced by feathers, and Janaff followed not far behind, slipping as easily as his partner into a form better equipped for the speed that they needed. The pair wheeled as one, cut through the air as a shark cuts through water- powerful and graceful, something at once both beautiful and deadly.
That those massive wings struggled against the wind they bore their owners into served to leave little doubt in either hawk’s mind as to the sheer force behind the storm- or the depth of the threat that it presented. For as they retraced their path back toward Phoenicis, it became clear all too quickly that, however fast their progress, the squall would outdistance them to land.
Not only that, but it was rushing out to greet them.
They prepared as best they could for the moment that their flight would meet the clouds. Tightened up the muscles in their wings, lowered their heads, braced for the touch of rain against dry feathers.
Perhaps, had their previous surveillance position allowed them someplace to rest, it might have been enough.
But the wind struck with the force of something physical, and wings that were beginning to ache from hours already aloft shuddered under the strain of it. As one, they wavered- and with a hand as capricious as a child’s, nature batted them apart, two massive creatures of the skies tossed carelessly aside.
Janaff wheeled hard to one side in an attempt to stay upright, wings beating furiously against the raw strength pressing in on him. In vain, he attempted to aim himself back toward Phoenicis- into the wind- and was very nearly ripped from the sky, spun half-around before his body seemed to register the efforts of his wings and right itself.
It was only then, thoughts reeling with the realization that he might not be able to make land, that he noticed his partner was gone.
It came with a sweeping chill of shock, and for the space of several seconds, the hawk’s wings struggled frantically to keep him in place, to keep him still so that he could search. It was impossible to tell anything at all, though, with the clouds pressing in around him, dark and heavy, cutting his vision to a fraction of what it ought to be.
The wind rattled against him again, harsh and unforgiving, even as his mind recognized the fact that, if he didn’t get himself turned around, he would be stranded over open water. At very least, he ought to be making progress- as Ulki must be.
As Ulki should be.
The cry bubbled up unbidden from within him- it was the call of a hawk, shrill and piercing, a sound that carried far and clear on a calm day.
But the storm stole it from him as it left his beak, reduced the noise to something insignificant, and he knew, even as a new gust of wind set him struggling frantically to stay aloft, that it had gone unheard. In the roar of the squall, Ulki’s ability would doubtless be as useless as his own.
It was an alarming notion, and one that Janaff didn’t have time for.
Because the wind had him at its mercy- drove pounding rain against his back, caught ceaselessly at his tail feathers. Every new flurry forced him along with it; fighting would mean being crushed, or swept aside, or perhaps toppled into the stormy, dark waters that he knew were somewhere below.
Time had no meaning. Minutes became measured only in the steadily worsening ache in his wings and the deeper, slower exhaustion that had descended beneath it- a warning that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his animal form indefinitely.
So intent was Janaff upon simply surviving that when the impact came, it took him by surprise.
The wind wrenched him backwards, harsh and sudden, and the blow came from behind. There was a shuddering crack that the hawk felt more than heard, and then a wall of pain was splintering out through his right wing, sparking in the base of his skull.
It was sharp enough to steal the breath from his body, paralyzing in its intensity. Those massive wings refused for several seconds to work at all, and before he could correct the problem- before he could think, beyond the pain- he was tumbling downward, falling past the object that the storm had crushed him up against.
The shape of it registered as those murky green eyes focused dizzily- tall and proud, the swirls of the wood prominent, dark.
The wind must have changed directions, Janaff’s mind suggested faintly, as it hovered on the verge of greying out. How else could he have hit a tree?
It was his last thought as he came crashing to the deck below, rain-drenched feathers giving way to skin once more.
-end chapter 1-