[Wild Roses] Trickwood Unification
Title: you brought HIM?
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Fintain, Ulysse, Hernén, Ruadhan, Donnel
Prompt: 18C "deception"
Word Count: 650
Notes: This could do with more setting around the dialogue. Sometime mid-Unification. Prompted by a poll response.
Hernén felt his lip curl, just a little, as he saw who was getting off Ulysse's ship, with Ulysse. It was an irrational reaction, and he knew it, but Winter, if he'd been the Sun Queen's son he wouldn't bleed off the way her son did.
Fintain didn't seem to see anything amiss when he brushed past Hernén with a smile and a nod, but Ulysse paused, bumped shoulders, rumbled "Hey. Don't knock firepower you don't have to pay for."
He blinked, startled, half-nodded, and Ulysse passed him by, roaring a deafening greeting up to Ruadhan, who roared back, laughing.
"Wildfires, waiting-to-be-fires or an idiot, first?" Donnel was asking Fintain when Hernén caught up with the group, apparently in all seriousness.
"Who've we got to work with?" Fintain replied, accepting a map from Ruadhan and laying it out flat in the air, small trick of power that Hernén found himself envying.
"Us," Ruadhan replied dryly, smacking Ulysse's hand away from the new guitar case on his back. "Everyone else we've access to is spent elsewhere."
"Alright then." Fintain considered the map, watching Donnel's tidy amendments and symbols as to what was where, then started poking at it himself. "Ulysse, how strong's your freshwater work, these days?"
"Weaker than my salt, but that's always the way. Why?"
"Wildfires--I was thinking the dragons' lake has been high, this year." He grinned up, and Hernén felt his stomach clench suddenly at the man's resemblance to his mother.
Ulysse laughed, cracking his knuckles and starting to fade, but stopped when Fintain held up a hand.
"Hernén," he said, and Hernén suppressed an urge to make a squeaking noise. "You're air, given the chance, oui?"
He nodded, wondering what thread this was leading to--it was almost like watching one of the wood's record keepers weave.
"Can you pull a wind, as well as raise it? Dropping water on fire's all well until it's hot enough to turn it to steam and vapor--if you can pull hard enough to put the fires out until Ulysse can soak everything down, it'll keep them from springing back up or frying someone."
"Hard on anything nearby," Ruadhan pointed out.
"Anything close enough to the sort of fires you're talking about's already dead or will survive a dunking and a gasp of darkness," Fintain replied, and Ruadhan nodded, slowly, tapping his fingers soundlessly against the case.
Fintain turned his eyes back up to Hernén, obviously waiting, and he had to suppress another internal shiver at the resemblance.
"I--yes?" he got out, after a moment, and Fintain grinned, suddenly the laughing idiot Hernén had thought he knew.
"Get these edges first, if you can?" he indicated on the map, the spaces between 'wildfires' and 'waiting to be fires', "I can keep lightning strikes and static from starting something, but wind patterns, no."
Donnel considered the map, eyed Ruadhan, then both started chuckling, low dark sounds. "That leaves idiot duty for us, then, I take it?" the elder of the two princes didn't really ask.
"If you feel so inclined," Fintain said generously, eyes twinkling. "Ruadhan, keep your ears open, oui? In case someone gets clever while we're away."
"Always do," Ruadhan replied easily. "And you're just bein' an ass."
"You wouldn't recognise me if I weren't."
They were still bouncing words back and forth when Ulysse looked up, met Hernén's eye, lit a beacon, and disappeared.
Hernén followed, mind spinning.
"Why isn't he always like that?" he demanded as he popped back in, standing on the edge of a too-dry plain and smelling smoke on the horizon.
"He doesn't need to be," Ulysse replied. "And he learned a lesson in the war--looking harmless is far safer than being a threat. Also tends to put you at someone's back, because they've dismissed you as useless and an idiot despite your bloodlines."
'Like you did,' he didn't need to finish, but Hernén winced anyway, acknowledging the point.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Fintain, Ulysse, Hernén, Ruadhan, Donnel
Prompt: 18C "deception"
Word Count: 650
Notes: This could do with more setting around the dialogue. Sometime mid-Unification. Prompted by a poll response.
Hernén felt his lip curl, just a little, as he saw who was getting off Ulysse's ship, with Ulysse. It was an irrational reaction, and he knew it, but Winter, if he'd been the Sun Queen's son he wouldn't bleed off the way her son did.
Fintain didn't seem to see anything amiss when he brushed past Hernén with a smile and a nod, but Ulysse paused, bumped shoulders, rumbled "Hey. Don't knock firepower you don't have to pay for."
He blinked, startled, half-nodded, and Ulysse passed him by, roaring a deafening greeting up to Ruadhan, who roared back, laughing.
"Wildfires, waiting-to-be-fires or an idiot, first?" Donnel was asking Fintain when Hernén caught up with the group, apparently in all seriousness.
"Who've we got to work with?" Fintain replied, accepting a map from Ruadhan and laying it out flat in the air, small trick of power that Hernén found himself envying.
"Us," Ruadhan replied dryly, smacking Ulysse's hand away from the new guitar case on his back. "Everyone else we've access to is spent elsewhere."
"Alright then." Fintain considered the map, watching Donnel's tidy amendments and symbols as to what was where, then started poking at it himself. "Ulysse, how strong's your freshwater work, these days?"
"Weaker than my salt, but that's always the way. Why?"
"Wildfires--I was thinking the dragons' lake has been high, this year." He grinned up, and Hernén felt his stomach clench suddenly at the man's resemblance to his mother.
Ulysse laughed, cracking his knuckles and starting to fade, but stopped when Fintain held up a hand.
"Hernén," he said, and Hernén suppressed an urge to make a squeaking noise. "You're air, given the chance, oui?"
He nodded, wondering what thread this was leading to--it was almost like watching one of the wood's record keepers weave.
"Can you pull a wind, as well as raise it? Dropping water on fire's all well until it's hot enough to turn it to steam and vapor--if you can pull hard enough to put the fires out until Ulysse can soak everything down, it'll keep them from springing back up or frying someone."
"Hard on anything nearby," Ruadhan pointed out.
"Anything close enough to the sort of fires you're talking about's already dead or will survive a dunking and a gasp of darkness," Fintain replied, and Ruadhan nodded, slowly, tapping his fingers soundlessly against the case.
Fintain turned his eyes back up to Hernén, obviously waiting, and he had to suppress another internal shiver at the resemblance.
"I--yes?" he got out, after a moment, and Fintain grinned, suddenly the laughing idiot Hernén had thought he knew.
"Get these edges first, if you can?" he indicated on the map, the spaces between 'wildfires' and 'waiting to be fires', "I can keep lightning strikes and static from starting something, but wind patterns, no."
Donnel considered the map, eyed Ruadhan, then both started chuckling, low dark sounds. "That leaves idiot duty for us, then, I take it?" the elder of the two princes didn't really ask.
"If you feel so inclined," Fintain said generously, eyes twinkling. "Ruadhan, keep your ears open, oui? In case someone gets clever while we're away."
"Always do," Ruadhan replied easily. "And you're just bein' an ass."
"You wouldn't recognise me if I weren't."
They were still bouncing words back and forth when Ulysse looked up, met Hernén's eye, lit a beacon, and disappeared.
Hernén followed, mind spinning.
"Why isn't he always like that?" he demanded as he popped back in, standing on the edge of a too-dry plain and smelling smoke on the horizon.
"He doesn't need to be," Ulysse replied. "And he learned a lesson in the war--looking harmless is far safer than being a threat. Also tends to put you at someone's back, because they've dismissed you as useless and an idiot despite your bloodlines."
'Like you did,' he didn't need to finish, but Hernén winced anyway, acknowledging the point.