[Witches' Horses] Witches' Horses
Title: questions that aren't questions
'Verse/characters: Witches' Horses; Sinclair, Sergeievich
Prompt: 69B "play"
Word Count: 282
Notes: Follows . . hel.
He'd ducked out of the door before he noticed the group at the end of the stable, and spared a mental curse as he recognised the white-blond hair in the center of the pack. At least they weren't wearing the official ranks and colours, even if they did know he was there.
"Stand by to run," he whispered, mouth barely moving.
I'll fry them first, she replied. I'm not losing you.
"That'd tip our hand a little too far. They don't have anything solid yet, or he'd be wearing the silver and pissy as fuck about it. So they need access to me to get to you--they lay hands on me, you run, Grammont. He'll lay a board before he plays."
She whited out the screen of his eyepatch in a burst of angry static, but didn't argue further.
Which was good, because the General's honour guard was in hearing range, their commander nearly so.
He put his hands in his pockets--half the guard tensed, but didn't lay hands on their swords, not yet--and lifted his free eyebrow in a mask of polite interest as the General stopped in front of him.
"You're the rider of Le Chevalier de Grammont?" General Sergeievich asked, tones making it a sentence more than a question but uncertainty in the pronunciation reinforcing the question.
"And the captain," he agreed, noting the tiny flinch at the military title in the mouth of a civilian.
"A word, if the time is convenient?" The General gestured down the hallway to an open door--looked like a tack repair room temporarily repurposed for the war-hero's use.
"Your time is far more valuable than mine," he replied, just as politely, and preceded the soldiers down the hallway.
'Verse/characters: Witches' Horses; Sinclair, Sergeievich
Prompt: 69B "play"
Word Count: 282
Notes: Follows . . hel.
He'd ducked out of the door before he noticed the group at the end of the stable, and spared a mental curse as he recognised the white-blond hair in the center of the pack. At least they weren't wearing the official ranks and colours, even if they did know he was there.
"Stand by to run," he whispered, mouth barely moving.
I'll fry them first, she replied. I'm not losing you.
"That'd tip our hand a little too far. They don't have anything solid yet, or he'd be wearing the silver and pissy as fuck about it. So they need access to me to get to you--they lay hands on me, you run, Grammont. He'll lay a board before he plays."
She whited out the screen of his eyepatch in a burst of angry static, but didn't argue further.
Which was good, because the General's honour guard was in hearing range, their commander nearly so.
He put his hands in his pockets--half the guard tensed, but didn't lay hands on their swords, not yet--and lifted his free eyebrow in a mask of polite interest as the General stopped in front of him.
"You're the rider of Le Chevalier de Grammont?" General Sergeievich asked, tones making it a sentence more than a question but uncertainty in the pronunciation reinforcing the question.
"And the captain," he agreed, noting the tiny flinch at the military title in the mouth of a civilian.
"A word, if the time is convenient?" The General gestured down the hallway to an open door--looked like a tack repair room temporarily repurposed for the war-hero's use.
"Your time is far more valuable than mine," he replied, just as politely, and preceded the soldiers down the hallway.