[Wild Roses] another bit from the second war
Title: this is not the end
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Hazel, Fintain
Prompt: Hazel - non list request
Word Count: 450
I saw the triangular leaves out of the corner of my eye, and slowed down, enough that my father registered it, slowing himself, then stopping and turning back to me, his head tilted at the angle that said 'I have no idea why you're doing what you're doing. What's going on?'
"There's ivy growing here," I told him, pointing at the vines, and waited.
He blinked at me a few times, obviously waiting for me to finish my thought, but my thought's finished, and if my father spent more time with--no, not with me, because I don't need him the way I used to, I'm not a little girl anymore--if he spent more time in the Trickwood, he wouldn't need more words.
We blinked at each other a few times, then I scowled, set my hands on my hips. "Give me a shotgun, daddy. There's ivy growing here."
Ivy sinks its roots deep, sends its vines high, pushes its tendrils into living wood or into the supports of house and dock alike, strangles the structures that lift it up into sunlight. The riders in the Trickwood kill it when they find it, pull down the vines and fire the roots, because if you don't it takes root again, and comes back bigger than it used to be, and it's worse if you leave it alone.
He didn't like giving me the gun, really didn't like how fast and easily I checked it over, cracked it open and loaded it with the snow and silver shells that spelled out white phosphorus in the code of Uncle Hérnen's woods. He'd probably ask someone--maybe even Sascha, who'd laugh at him until she started sneezing--who taught me guns.
This from the man who hugged me hello smelling of black powder and fire spells. I snapped the stock closed harder than I needed to, felt wood creak under my fingers, and I forced myself to walk slowly as I went to tear the ivy down.
I'd do the same to the war that's taking my father away from me again, sending me back to Uncle Hérnen and Conall and Isael, away from the walls and roads I can skate on, the Cousin I love. But I can't tear a war down like ivy, can't pile it up together over its roots and burn it clean with a leaf-chased gun.
I want to, though. Want to hear laughter, not whispers. Want to watch people dancing, and my father doing tricks under the Keep's skylights.
I pushed the gun, emptied of the shells I'd used, back into my father's hands, and walked ahead of him, towards the stone keep he'd leave me in.
Again.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Hazel, Fintain
Prompt: Hazel - non list request
Word Count: 450
I saw the triangular leaves out of the corner of my eye, and slowed down, enough that my father registered it, slowing himself, then stopping and turning back to me, his head tilted at the angle that said 'I have no idea why you're doing what you're doing. What's going on?'
"There's ivy growing here," I told him, pointing at the vines, and waited.
He blinked at me a few times, obviously waiting for me to finish my thought, but my thought's finished, and if my father spent more time with--no, not with me, because I don't need him the way I used to, I'm not a little girl anymore--if he spent more time in the Trickwood, he wouldn't need more words.
We blinked at each other a few times, then I scowled, set my hands on my hips. "Give me a shotgun, daddy. There's ivy growing here."
Ivy sinks its roots deep, sends its vines high, pushes its tendrils into living wood or into the supports of house and dock alike, strangles the structures that lift it up into sunlight. The riders in the Trickwood kill it when they find it, pull down the vines and fire the roots, because if you don't it takes root again, and comes back bigger than it used to be, and it's worse if you leave it alone.
He didn't like giving me the gun, really didn't like how fast and easily I checked it over, cracked it open and loaded it with the snow and silver shells that spelled out white phosphorus in the code of Uncle Hérnen's woods. He'd probably ask someone--maybe even Sascha, who'd laugh at him until she started sneezing--who taught me guns.
This from the man who hugged me hello smelling of black powder and fire spells. I snapped the stock closed harder than I needed to, felt wood creak under my fingers, and I forced myself to walk slowly as I went to tear the ivy down.
I'd do the same to the war that's taking my father away from me again, sending me back to Uncle Hérnen and Conall and Isael, away from the walls and roads I can skate on, the Cousin I love. But I can't tear a war down like ivy, can't pile it up together over its roots and burn it clean with a leaf-chased gun.
I want to, though. Want to hear laughter, not whispers. Want to watch people dancing, and my father doing tricks under the Keep's skylights.
I pushed the gun, emptied of the shells I'd used, back into my father's hands, and walked ahead of him, towards the stone keep he'd leave me in.
Again.