[Witches' Horses] Chevalier de Grammont
Title: soon to be finished business
'Verse/characters: le Chevalier de Grammont; Sinclair, Grammont
Prompt: 72D "mislead"
Word Count: 435
Notes: Sometime after humans are weird.
---------
Grammont was uncharacteristically quiet as they limped out past the belt of mined-out asteroids into the darkness beyond them, listening for the hoof-beats following them.
They'd scattered three false trails on the way out, but their follower hadn't been fooled long; Grammont had tossed up the information on a mirror for him as soon as she'd heard them, every time.
Their follower didn't know how good her ears were--they were hanging back out of normal range, hoping to catch Grammont unawares.
"Alright, slow tumble?" he asked aloud as they finally cleared the last of the beacons announcing location and weather information and a mirror cleared of its count of listening ears.
She obliged beautifully, tripping over her front hooves and trying to correct in a burst of ice-fueled power. When she finished, they were spinning slowly at a nauseating partial angle, neither head over heels nor pitching but a combination of the two.
When their follower appeared on the mirror at a resolution within the parameters they'd set up together to figure out where she was supposed to be hearing things and her rider should be available for speech, he grinned wide enough to pinch the glued skin on his cheek.
They were moving in for the kill, or the recovery of their goods--not that they'd believed him when he'd told them there was nothing to take--speeding up as they spotted the Chevalier de Grammont's crippled tumble on their own mirrors.
"Now?" she asked, when their follower got close.
"Not yet," he murmured, ignoring the way her tone had smoothed out, no human-like inflections in her voice.
When their follower got close enough to see with an old-fashioned telescope, if you knew where to look, he took his hands out of the reins, tucked them into the straps holding him in place, ostentatious show that she was in control again. "Now."
She fired her lightning drive. White light overwhelmed every mirror he'd installed, until they went dark from the load. He heard an angry popping noise coming from two as they cooled.
She'd had mirrors already, though, and he could watch her flicking herself out of the tumble and into a tight circle that took them past the other horse so smoothly he would never have guessed she was even moving.
The lightning stopped, as quickly as it had begun, and they hung in the black, watching the other horse stumble, drunkenly, then begin tumbling itself.
It shuddered a few times, then he could watch the tumble start to correct as the humans aboard the horse got a backup generator online.
He pulled one hand out of the straps, but Grammont flicked on the singer before he could reach the toggle.
"I told you to leave us alone," he informed the crippled horse conversationally.
'Verse/characters: le Chevalier de Grammont; Sinclair, Grammont
Prompt: 72D "mislead"
Word Count: 435
Notes: Sometime after humans are weird.
---------
Grammont was uncharacteristically quiet as they limped out past the belt of mined-out asteroids into the darkness beyond them, listening for the hoof-beats following them.
They'd scattered three false trails on the way out, but their follower hadn't been fooled long; Grammont had tossed up the information on a mirror for him as soon as she'd heard them, every time.
Their follower didn't know how good her ears were--they were hanging back out of normal range, hoping to catch Grammont unawares.
"Alright, slow tumble?" he asked aloud as they finally cleared the last of the beacons announcing location and weather information and a mirror cleared of its count of listening ears.
She obliged beautifully, tripping over her front hooves and trying to correct in a burst of ice-fueled power. When she finished, they were spinning slowly at a nauseating partial angle, neither head over heels nor pitching but a combination of the two.
When their follower appeared on the mirror at a resolution within the parameters they'd set up together to figure out where she was supposed to be hearing things and her rider should be available for speech, he grinned wide enough to pinch the glued skin on his cheek.
They were moving in for the kill, or the recovery of their goods--not that they'd believed him when he'd told them there was nothing to take--speeding up as they spotted the Chevalier de Grammont's crippled tumble on their own mirrors.
"Now?" she asked, when their follower got close.
"Not yet," he murmured, ignoring the way her tone had smoothed out, no human-like inflections in her voice.
When their follower got close enough to see with an old-fashioned telescope, if you knew where to look, he took his hands out of the reins, tucked them into the straps holding him in place, ostentatious show that she was in control again. "Now."
She fired her lightning drive. White light overwhelmed every mirror he'd installed, until they went dark from the load. He heard an angry popping noise coming from two as they cooled.
She'd had mirrors already, though, and he could watch her flicking herself out of the tumble and into a tight circle that took them past the other horse so smoothly he would never have guessed she was even moving.
The lightning stopped, as quickly as it had begun, and they hung in the black, watching the other horse stumble, drunkenly, then begin tumbling itself.
It shuddered a few times, then he could watch the tumble start to correct as the humans aboard the horse got a backup generator online.
He pulled one hand out of the straps, but Grammont flicked on the singer before he could reach the toggle.
"I told you to leave us alone," he informed the crippled horse conversationally.