[Wild Roses]
Title: the game we play.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Arianhrod
Prompt: 31B "sport"
Word Count: 409
Notes: follows *!!!!!*. The mice continue to have a Bad Day.
She didn't bother asking about the vanilla or the rum; by the time she'd been shown to her quarters it was obvious that someone was playing with the staff of the keep, and had been for some time before her arrival.
By the time her clothes were unpacked, her Hand had kicked an obviously terrified mouse out of the sitting room twice. The third mouse actually made it under her skirts, while one of the staff was in the room asking if they could fetch her anything.
The woman's face had drained of all colour just before Arianhrod heard the scuff against her boot. As she knelt, sweeping the layers out of the way to make a tunnel into her cupped hand, she caught a glimpse of the woman biting at her own knuckles, obviously waiting for the--or wanting to--scream.
Instead of screaming, she coaxed the mouse onto her palm, stroking its trembling back with the back of one of her fingernails, and held it until the pressure of the spell driving it at her lessened. When she let it go, it disappeared into a crack between two stones.
If she'd been at home, she would have expected the housekeeper or at least one of the braver maids to have approached her after the story of the mouse had time to circulate. Here, instead, the staff did their best to hide the effects of whatever mage was playing with them, and never spoke a word to their mage-guest.
It rapidly became a second game, of sorts. As she negotiated with the men, playing out her options and discussing theirs, she often found herself layering gentle keep-away spells on the walls and floors of whatever rooms she was in. Listening spells--which she tried setting twice before giving up--got her only the sound of footmen's laughter, and once a woman sighing.
Her Hand had struck up a friendship with the scarred local--she had the impression they'd bonded over difficult women but hadn't asked--and he was able to relay that the vanilla incidents had lessened as the mage started focusing on her, instead. That there were fewer fights among the staff she heard from her own staff as they murmured to each other in mild bewilderment, as much out of their element in a different court as the locals were in the game the other mage was playing.
Without permission to go hunting, she'd have to settle for being a lightning rod.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Arianhrod
Prompt: 31B "sport"
Word Count: 409
Notes: follows *!!!!!*. The mice continue to have a Bad Day.
She didn't bother asking about the vanilla or the rum; by the time she'd been shown to her quarters it was obvious that someone was playing with the staff of the keep, and had been for some time before her arrival.
By the time her clothes were unpacked, her Hand had kicked an obviously terrified mouse out of the sitting room twice. The third mouse actually made it under her skirts, while one of the staff was in the room asking if they could fetch her anything.
The woman's face had drained of all colour just before Arianhrod heard the scuff against her boot. As she knelt, sweeping the layers out of the way to make a tunnel into her cupped hand, she caught a glimpse of the woman biting at her own knuckles, obviously waiting for the--or wanting to--scream.
Instead of screaming, she coaxed the mouse onto her palm, stroking its trembling back with the back of one of her fingernails, and held it until the pressure of the spell driving it at her lessened. When she let it go, it disappeared into a crack between two stones.
If she'd been at home, she would have expected the housekeeper or at least one of the braver maids to have approached her after the story of the mouse had time to circulate. Here, instead, the staff did their best to hide the effects of whatever mage was playing with them, and never spoke a word to their mage-guest.
It rapidly became a second game, of sorts. As she negotiated with the men, playing out her options and discussing theirs, she often found herself layering gentle keep-away spells on the walls and floors of whatever rooms she was in. Listening spells--which she tried setting twice before giving up--got her only the sound of footmen's laughter, and once a woman sighing.
Her Hand had struck up a friendship with the scarred local--she had the impression they'd bonded over difficult women but hadn't asked--and he was able to relay that the vanilla incidents had lessened as the mage started focusing on her, instead. That there were fewer fights among the staff she heard from her own staff as they murmured to each other in mild bewilderment, as much out of their element in a different court as the locals were in the game the other mage was playing.
Without permission to go hunting, she'd have to settle for being a lightning rod.