[Wild Roses] Some Kind of Love Song
Title: call
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Takashi
Prompt: 49B "burned"
Word Count: 562
Notes: Probably within (other option is just after) the sketch the game we play.
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The Ambassador seemed to have given up on the listening spells. He couldn't be certain of that, not yet, but she'd been stomping around her quarters two nights ago, when she should have been smug as a cat with a flopping trout for the concessions she'd won that day.
He hadn't managed to place his own listening spells in her space, but he could listen to the servants in a way she wasn't allowed to. Advantage of not being there on official business: fox one, human null.
It might be his only major advantage in this game, given how easily she ripped down his spells and how he couldn't even get onto the same storey as her quarters without setting off an alarm that made his teeth rattle. Even with a close-fit borrowed skin and his tails tightly woven, he'd had to duck fast to avoid the invisible roll of her left-behind power.
He had the servants, she had the lords. He had the spaces within the walls, she had the beginnings of the walls themselves--which he only knew because he'd been walking upstairs in a housemaid's borrowed skin and skirts and had put his hand in the same place the girl always did to gain momentum at the beginning of the trek.
As his hand closed around the railing, something impressed in the wood caught at his fingers, then something sharp pierced right through the outer half-illusory skin and into the pad of his index finger. He yelped involuntarily, but hung onto the soprano as he jerked his hand away from the railing to examine his fingers.
It was just a splinter, he saw, and plucked the wood out of his finger with the housemaid's nails. After a moment, remembering whose skin he was wearing, he carefully put his hands well to either side of the spot he'd just used, then leaned over the side of the rail, extending one leg for counterbalance. Ignoring the faint draft on his leg from the movement of the skirt, he peered at the rail.
That was a compact little tracing spell, squared neatly off at the corners and excised lines clear. He blinked at it, wondering when on earth the Ambassador had had enough to time to stand there and carve the railing, then lowered his leg and rotated himself back onto the stairs. Tugging his bodice back down over his belly, frowning, he thickened the skin between the air and his own skin and pressed the pads of his fingers to the top of the railing, ignoring the twinge from the pierced one, and cheated himself a little momentum for the stairs.
Wouldn't do to be caught standing there like a rabbit in someone else's skin, after all.
Better than in his own--he'd have to remember to keep a skin on all the time, just in case she'd left more than just the one.
He couldn't help the grin forming beneath the housemaid's faintly disgruntled expression. He'd seen her after stubbing her toes--his fault--smacking herself in the face with a cupboard door--not his fault but very funny--and she defaulted to annoyed when she was in just a little pain.
Graffitti was upping the game, he thought, trying not to shake with laughter at the mental image of the dignified lady Ambassador with a carving knife and tin of paint. He'd have to reciprocate.
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Takashi
Prompt: 49B "burned"
Word Count: 562
Notes: Probably within (other option is just after) the sketch the game we play.
---------
The Ambassador seemed to have given up on the listening spells. He couldn't be certain of that, not yet, but she'd been stomping around her quarters two nights ago, when she should have been smug as a cat with a flopping trout for the concessions she'd won that day.
He hadn't managed to place his own listening spells in her space, but he could listen to the servants in a way she wasn't allowed to. Advantage of not being there on official business: fox one, human null.
It might be his only major advantage in this game, given how easily she ripped down his spells and how he couldn't even get onto the same storey as her quarters without setting off an alarm that made his teeth rattle. Even with a close-fit borrowed skin and his tails tightly woven, he'd had to duck fast to avoid the invisible roll of her left-behind power.
He had the servants, she had the lords. He had the spaces within the walls, she had the beginnings of the walls themselves--which he only knew because he'd been walking upstairs in a housemaid's borrowed skin and skirts and had put his hand in the same place the girl always did to gain momentum at the beginning of the trek.
As his hand closed around the railing, something impressed in the wood caught at his fingers, then something sharp pierced right through the outer half-illusory skin and into the pad of his index finger. He yelped involuntarily, but hung onto the soprano as he jerked his hand away from the railing to examine his fingers.
It was just a splinter, he saw, and plucked the wood out of his finger with the housemaid's nails. After a moment, remembering whose skin he was wearing, he carefully put his hands well to either side of the spot he'd just used, then leaned over the side of the rail, extending one leg for counterbalance. Ignoring the faint draft on his leg from the movement of the skirt, he peered at the rail.
That was a compact little tracing spell, squared neatly off at the corners and excised lines clear. He blinked at it, wondering when on earth the Ambassador had had enough to time to stand there and carve the railing, then lowered his leg and rotated himself back onto the stairs. Tugging his bodice back down over his belly, frowning, he thickened the skin between the air and his own skin and pressed the pads of his fingers to the top of the railing, ignoring the twinge from the pierced one, and cheated himself a little momentum for the stairs.
Wouldn't do to be caught standing there like a rabbit in someone else's skin, after all.
Better than in his own--he'd have to remember to keep a skin on all the time, just in case she'd left more than just the one.
He couldn't help the grin forming beneath the housemaid's faintly disgruntled expression. He'd seen her after stubbing her toes--his fault--smacking herself in the face with a cupboard door--not his fault but very funny--and she defaulted to annoyed when she was in just a little pain.
Graffitti was upping the game, he thought, trying not to shake with laughter at the mental image of the dignified lady Ambassador with a carving knife and tin of paint. He'd have to reciprocate.