[Wild Roses] Trickwood Unification
Title: wake up calls you don't want
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Ruadhan, Donel
Prompt: 67D "drum"
Word Count: 1695
Notes: Based on a comment I tossed zero_pixel_coun's way after she gave me "escaped horses & ensuing panic" for a spark.
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It wasn't the distant drumming of thunder that woke him from exhausted sleep, but Donel cursing viciously, somewhere out of ordinary hearing. Not roaring, not yet, but he knew that tone--
When he finished waking up, he found he'd got his boots on and grabbed a Sabaey-weight rifle before he'd started running.
Running was keeping him warm, which was a good thing because he hadn't stopped for an overshirt or the sword that had been sitting next to the guitar case an arm's reach from his bedroll. He felt naked, for all that he was fully dressed by anyone else's standards.
One more hill, though, and there Donel was, flanked by wolves and only barely keeping his nails on his temper in deference to them. He counted five, though one peeled off from the group before he got to his brother, and the other four were tensed to run, too.
An old dead branch crunched under his boot, and Donel turned around snake-fast, biting off whatever remained of his latest curse. They held a stare for a second, Ruadhan panting from the run and all but steaming, Donel flat-furious but busy with scheming, too.
His brother snorted once as he gave Ruadhan a head-to-toe that lingered on whatever sleep had done to Ruadhan's hair, then looked down at the four wolves that were tensed by his legs.
"You, get up the ridge," Donel commanded, and the leggy grey wolf he pointed at vanished in a scrabble of claws on gravelly soil. "You and you," he continued, pointing to another grey and a brindle, "try to get ahead of them--if you can't, keep them together."
They disappeared too, running flat-out for the trails, and Ruadhan was pretty sure at least one of those hadn't been Bordeaux because Bordeaux didn't tend to come in brindle, and what were Hernén's wolves doing taking orders that easy from Donel?
"And me?" the last wolf asked in a hoarse mezzo, giving Ruadhan a faint questioning look around the stare she was directing up at Donel. She wasn't Bordeaux either, though by her colouring she could easily have been, but there was nothing but impatience in her stance.
"You have the joy of getting to my brother and telling him that we're chasing horses instead of joining him. Get," Donel growled in a final tone, and she took off in her own scrabble of claws and stones, though hers was finished in a skrash of branches as she bypassed the hill-trail.
Ruadhan was about to ask what had happened when Donel turned back to face him directly and he took an involuntary step backwards, hand tightening on the rifle stock. Punching his brother in the jaw with a rifle stock was better than needing to shoot him somewhere unimportant, but Ruadhan still didn't know what in Lost Winter was going on and it'd be stupid to lay out the man who obviously did--
"You been teaching your horses to jump hedges?" Donel growled, voice dropped deeper than he'd used with the wolves, familiar rumble before the explosion.
"No?" Ruadhan hazarded, because he didn't think he had been, and that was the sort of thing a man would remember.
"Winter." Donel turned away, took three long steps and punched a pine tree at shoulder-height hard enough he dented the rough bark. "I haven't been, and you haven't been, and if anyone else has I'll skin them, because whichever of the goat-fathered horses went over the gate tagged it hard enough that it went down, and--"
"and they stampeded," Ruadhan finished, light dawning, then cursed himself.
Cutting himself off mid-word so he didn't accidentally set something on fire, "Do you--"
"Bordeaux's looking for potential sabotage, but until we catch the horses it's not going to do a lightning-struck bit of good, now will it." Donel punched the tree again, visibly got a grip on his temper, then walked back towards Ruadhan. "Wall or Hold?"
Ruadhan blinked, then snorted. "I'm far too drown'd tired to play holder, Dón. Especially with you; I'll be the wall, you can be king of the mound."
He felt for the rifle's strap, then ducked through the loop and let the gun hang where his guitar usually did; it made him feel marginally less naked. He stretched, just a little, felt again how very, very tired he was, then flashed a quicksilver smile at his brother. "Got a new trick off Ulysse anyway--he claims he got it off one of his kids he stuck on pirate-chasing. Where do you want me?"
Donel threw him a worrying grin, malice sparking in his eyes behind the challenging curve of his mouth. "Trust me?"
Ruadhan grinned back, ignoring the tired groan from his bones. "Better trust yourself, brother mine--I'll be back to get you if you miss."
"Deal," Donel agreed as he grabbed Ruadhan's shirt and the rifle's strap in strong hands, threw him sideways towards a tree that disappeared as his brother's trick took effect.
He stumbled as he landed, but didn't go down, managed to avoid putting his arm through another tree as he finished fading in.
Extracting himself from the thicket he'd been tossed into, ignoring the twigs that he knew were caught in his hair, he checked the rifle absently, and looked around.
Downslope, for certain, and closer to the thunder of the horses, but beyond that he had no Winter-kissed idea where he was.
Didn't matter, though, not with this trick. Not with this bottleneck, and the open space he was standing in now.
He took a deep, deep breath, let it out, took another, and as he breathed that one out let the spell blossom in his head as he spread his hands and closed his eyes.
Not a wall in truth, no, but a transparent shimmer, air thickening like honey on a sunny day in front of him.
Ulysse had said the trick was strong enough to catch a ship in full sail; he'd have to trust it was strong enough to catch a string of panicky horses, herded by terror and terrain and the smell of pursuing wolves.
He couldn't help opening his eyes as the thunder got closer, trying not to shiver or chatter his teeth, hands still outstretched to give the visual cue of a wall as well as keep the spell in place. His horses, at the very least, hated magic they couldn't see, and he had no reason to think Donel's or the others were any better about it.
He upshifted his voice as the horses came into view, started waving his arms and yelling. There was no point in roaring at already-scared animals--they had enough to deal with--he just needed to get the nonsense phrases that meant 'hey, I'm a human, best pay attention' loud enough to jar them out of the herd-running.
A milky horse screamed at him, appeared to be putting on an extra spurt of speed as she headed straight for him.
Then she hit the wall, stride slowing abruptly until she hung in the air with one hoof touching the ground, eyes rolling.
The rest of the herd followed, and very nearly drove him to his knees as the kinetic energy hit the secondary layering of the spell that redirected incoming energy into strengthening the spell's hold. Several horses managed to half rear, another was arrested halfway through a fall that would have broken at least one of her legs and probably two or three.
Ruadhan, panting again like he'd run the whole way to get there, leaned over, hands propped on his knees, and eyed the horses, trying not to glare like a predator.
When he had something like his wind back, he started up with the cheerful tenor nonsense again, watching for flicking ears and eyes as he moved among the slowed bodies. He put his upper back into the shoulder of the falling horse, shoving with his legs against her mass until she wobbled back towards upright, then carefully relaxed the spell slowly enough that she took her own weight on her feet with no more than a tiny stumble.
"Good girl," he soothed, scratching at her mane, then strung her a lead out of wishes and tied her to one of the trees to keep her out of harm's way as he went back to the others.
"Hey," he told one of his own remounts, reaching up and flicking the roan gelding's nose so the horse could drop back onto all four feet, "you know better than that."
The gelding whuffed at him, for all he knew complaining about the spell, the treatment, the company the gelding was being obliged to keep, or just passing the blame. Any or all was a possibility.
"Yeah, yeah, tell me about it," he told the gelding, reaching up and hooking a couple of fingers through the chin-strap of the gelding's halter. "You and your friends got me out of a warm bed, you know."
He tied the gelding up next to the mare, then, leaning against the gelding's side, he announced "So are you sending people with gear, or am I supposed to get them all home on my lonesome?"
"Shut up, Ruadhan," Donel replied reflexively, then extracted his brain from the tone to process the words. "Anyone missing?"
"If so I can't hear them running. I need three people, saddles and reins for all of us, and lead-rope for the whole lot at the least, Dón. They're not happy with how I caught 'em and they're going to get less so once I start getting them loose and checking over for injuries. We've almost certainly got a few."
"Wonderful," his brother muttered. "Tell me you've got your keys on you."
"They're in my coat," Ruadhan had to reply, wishing he had it.
"I hate today. Alright, light me a beacon and I'll get someone out to you. Can you mock up a corral for them in the meantime?"
".. Hadn't thought of that," Ruadhan admitted. "I'll see what I can do. Bordeaux find anything yet?"
"Yes," his brother said, then the bastard dropped the connection.
Ruadhan stared at the empty space in front of him, then cursed feelingly and went to go fake up a corral so he could let the Winter-kissed horses go before they dropped him in his tracks with sheer weight of effort.
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Ruadhan, Donel
Prompt: 67D "drum"
Word Count: 1695
Notes: Based on a comment I tossed zero_pixel_coun's way after she gave me "escaped horses & ensuing panic" for a spark.
---------
It wasn't the distant drumming of thunder that woke him from exhausted sleep, but Donel cursing viciously, somewhere out of ordinary hearing. Not roaring, not yet, but he knew that tone--
When he finished waking up, he found he'd got his boots on and grabbed a Sabaey-weight rifle before he'd started running.
Running was keeping him warm, which was a good thing because he hadn't stopped for an overshirt or the sword that had been sitting next to the guitar case an arm's reach from his bedroll. He felt naked, for all that he was fully dressed by anyone else's standards.
One more hill, though, and there Donel was, flanked by wolves and only barely keeping his nails on his temper in deference to them. He counted five, though one peeled off from the group before he got to his brother, and the other four were tensed to run, too.
An old dead branch crunched under his boot, and Donel turned around snake-fast, biting off whatever remained of his latest curse. They held a stare for a second, Ruadhan panting from the run and all but steaming, Donel flat-furious but busy with scheming, too.
His brother snorted once as he gave Ruadhan a head-to-toe that lingered on whatever sleep had done to Ruadhan's hair, then looked down at the four wolves that were tensed by his legs.
"You, get up the ridge," Donel commanded, and the leggy grey wolf he pointed at vanished in a scrabble of claws on gravelly soil. "You and you," he continued, pointing to another grey and a brindle, "try to get ahead of them--if you can't, keep them together."
They disappeared too, running flat-out for the trails, and Ruadhan was pretty sure at least one of those hadn't been Bordeaux because Bordeaux didn't tend to come in brindle, and what were Hernén's wolves doing taking orders that easy from Donel?
"And me?" the last wolf asked in a hoarse mezzo, giving Ruadhan a faint questioning look around the stare she was directing up at Donel. She wasn't Bordeaux either, though by her colouring she could easily have been, but there was nothing but impatience in her stance.
"You have the joy of getting to my brother and telling him that we're chasing horses instead of joining him. Get," Donel growled in a final tone, and she took off in her own scrabble of claws and stones, though hers was finished in a skrash of branches as she bypassed the hill-trail.
Ruadhan was about to ask what had happened when Donel turned back to face him directly and he took an involuntary step backwards, hand tightening on the rifle stock. Punching his brother in the jaw with a rifle stock was better than needing to shoot him somewhere unimportant, but Ruadhan still didn't know what in Lost Winter was going on and it'd be stupid to lay out the man who obviously did--
"You been teaching your horses to jump hedges?" Donel growled, voice dropped deeper than he'd used with the wolves, familiar rumble before the explosion.
"No?" Ruadhan hazarded, because he didn't think he had been, and that was the sort of thing a man would remember.
"Winter." Donel turned away, took three long steps and punched a pine tree at shoulder-height hard enough he dented the rough bark. "I haven't been, and you haven't been, and if anyone else has I'll skin them, because whichever of the goat-fathered horses went over the gate tagged it hard enough that it went down, and--"
"and they stampeded," Ruadhan finished, light dawning, then cursed himself.
Cutting himself off mid-word so he didn't accidentally set something on fire, "Do you--"
"Bordeaux's looking for potential sabotage, but until we catch the horses it's not going to do a lightning-struck bit of good, now will it." Donel punched the tree again, visibly got a grip on his temper, then walked back towards Ruadhan. "Wall or Hold?"
Ruadhan blinked, then snorted. "I'm far too drown'd tired to play holder, Dón. Especially with you; I'll be the wall, you can be king of the mound."
He felt for the rifle's strap, then ducked through the loop and let the gun hang where his guitar usually did; it made him feel marginally less naked. He stretched, just a little, felt again how very, very tired he was, then flashed a quicksilver smile at his brother. "Got a new trick off Ulysse anyway--he claims he got it off one of his kids he stuck on pirate-chasing. Where do you want me?"
Donel threw him a worrying grin, malice sparking in his eyes behind the challenging curve of his mouth. "Trust me?"
Ruadhan grinned back, ignoring the tired groan from his bones. "Better trust yourself, brother mine--I'll be back to get you if you miss."
"Deal," Donel agreed as he grabbed Ruadhan's shirt and the rifle's strap in strong hands, threw him sideways towards a tree that disappeared as his brother's trick took effect.
He stumbled as he landed, but didn't go down, managed to avoid putting his arm through another tree as he finished fading in.
Extracting himself from the thicket he'd been tossed into, ignoring the twigs that he knew were caught in his hair, he checked the rifle absently, and looked around.
Downslope, for certain, and closer to the thunder of the horses, but beyond that he had no Winter-kissed idea where he was.
Didn't matter, though, not with this trick. Not with this bottleneck, and the open space he was standing in now.
He took a deep, deep breath, let it out, took another, and as he breathed that one out let the spell blossom in his head as he spread his hands and closed his eyes.
Not a wall in truth, no, but a transparent shimmer, air thickening like honey on a sunny day in front of him.
Ulysse had said the trick was strong enough to catch a ship in full sail; he'd have to trust it was strong enough to catch a string of panicky horses, herded by terror and terrain and the smell of pursuing wolves.
He couldn't help opening his eyes as the thunder got closer, trying not to shiver or chatter his teeth, hands still outstretched to give the visual cue of a wall as well as keep the spell in place. His horses, at the very least, hated magic they couldn't see, and he had no reason to think Donel's or the others were any better about it.
He upshifted his voice as the horses came into view, started waving his arms and yelling. There was no point in roaring at already-scared animals--they had enough to deal with--he just needed to get the nonsense phrases that meant 'hey, I'm a human, best pay attention' loud enough to jar them out of the herd-running.
A milky horse screamed at him, appeared to be putting on an extra spurt of speed as she headed straight for him.
Then she hit the wall, stride slowing abruptly until she hung in the air with one hoof touching the ground, eyes rolling.
The rest of the herd followed, and very nearly drove him to his knees as the kinetic energy hit the secondary layering of the spell that redirected incoming energy into strengthening the spell's hold. Several horses managed to half rear, another was arrested halfway through a fall that would have broken at least one of her legs and probably two or three.
Ruadhan, panting again like he'd run the whole way to get there, leaned over, hands propped on his knees, and eyed the horses, trying not to glare like a predator.
When he had something like his wind back, he started up with the cheerful tenor nonsense again, watching for flicking ears and eyes as he moved among the slowed bodies. He put his upper back into the shoulder of the falling horse, shoving with his legs against her mass until she wobbled back towards upright, then carefully relaxed the spell slowly enough that she took her own weight on her feet with no more than a tiny stumble.
"Good girl," he soothed, scratching at her mane, then strung her a lead out of wishes and tied her to one of the trees to keep her out of harm's way as he went back to the others.
"Hey," he told one of his own remounts, reaching up and flicking the roan gelding's nose so the horse could drop back onto all four feet, "you know better than that."
The gelding whuffed at him, for all he knew complaining about the spell, the treatment, the company the gelding was being obliged to keep, or just passing the blame. Any or all was a possibility.
"Yeah, yeah, tell me about it," he told the gelding, reaching up and hooking a couple of fingers through the chin-strap of the gelding's halter. "You and your friends got me out of a warm bed, you know."
He tied the gelding up next to the mare, then, leaning against the gelding's side, he announced "So are you sending people with gear, or am I supposed to get them all home on my lonesome?"
"Shut up, Ruadhan," Donel replied reflexively, then extracted his brain from the tone to process the words. "Anyone missing?"
"If so I can't hear them running. I need three people, saddles and reins for all of us, and lead-rope for the whole lot at the least, Dón. They're not happy with how I caught 'em and they're going to get less so once I start getting them loose and checking over for injuries. We've almost certainly got a few."
"Wonderful," his brother muttered. "Tell me you've got your keys on you."
"They're in my coat," Ruadhan had to reply, wishing he had it.
"I hate today. Alright, light me a beacon and I'll get someone out to you. Can you mock up a corral for them in the meantime?"
".. Hadn't thought of that," Ruadhan admitted. "I'll see what I can do. Bordeaux find anything yet?"
"Yes," his brother said, then the bastard dropped the connection.
Ruadhan stared at the empty space in front of him, then cursed feelingly and went to go fake up a corral so he could let the Winter-kissed horses go before they dropped him in his tracks with sheer weight of effort.