[Witches' Horses] Swallow's Tail
Title: that line. that one that just snapped.
'Verse/characters: Swallow's Tail; Sascha, Petrovich, Helena, An Idiot.
Prompt: 54B "greed"
Word Count: 716
Notes: prompted by a request for an extension of the third response to 'gold teeth' as a prompt. This, timingwise, is between offers and heartbeats in the dark.
The half-Siberian has Opinions.
'We're going to have to find a rider, one of these months.' He swallowed a sigh, bracing one foot on the wall opposite as the horse listed, his hands busy with the sealant tube. 'Captain's no better'n I am.'
It could be nerves. None of them liked riding into a strange camp, let alone riding in limping, an air line spitting into the black despite everything he and the captain could do.
The horse was trying, she really was, but she was no reindeer, and she was shaking under her captain's hands as they touched the floor of the stable they'd been given.
Helena was first out the door, still wrapped up in winter gear until she'd confirmed that there was breathable air and a reasonable amount of heat, and even then she kept her gear close. He couldn't blame her; the seals were cheap, barely maintained well enough to function, and the floor rang hollow under his boots when he followed her out.
Whole winter-cursed camp was like that; the locals--all ten of them--weren't much for washing, or maintaining their gear. He found three burst emergency-air tubes before he stopped looking and confined his activities off-horse to arguing with the other non-local crew about how much a replacement line should cost. He'd as soon ask Morozko for a kiss as trust the replacement options the camp claimed they had, for a price.
He bought the line, eventually, for too much but they were leaving and he had no other options and they all knew it.
Then he had the bad luck to lay one of his fingers open when a tool slipped, where the captain could see.
"That needs at least three stitches," the captain said, once they had the thing rinsed out and wrapped, and wouldn't listen when Sascha said he'd rather trust Helena or him for the work, not the local bone-shaker. Helena didn't even bother to pretend to listen to anyone but the captain, said she'd meet them there after she finished locking things down.
So he trailed after the captain, refusing to continue the argument where the locals might hear. The captain, for his part, refrained from calling Sascha on the fact that he was grinding his teeth.
The bone-shaker was just as incompetent as Sascha expected, a barely-functional drunkard with one of those accents that got thicker in his cups and a tremor in his hands.
He gave the captain a very long, silent look over the bone-shaker's head, and the captain had the good grace to look a little embarrassed.
When he looked back at the man bent over his finger, he got a look down the man's shirt, froze, then reached forward with his good hand and yanked.
The bag in the man's shirt came open farther when the shirt tore, dropping clinking metal across the floor, but Sascha wasn't looking at it--he didn't need to. The captain was looking, though, and his face was a picture.
The bone-shaker's face wasn't the right mix of angry and terrified for this. No, he was going to try the placating-guilty smile, the one that said 'here, let me cut you in, friend.'
Blood roared in Sascha's ears.
------
"Okay, there's low, and then there's low," she heard the captain say, somewhere down the hall, but it was Sascha's low, incredibly angry growl that made her abandon the automatic room checks, yank shut doors as she passed them, locking them as quietly as she could.
There was a scattering of gold--oddly shaped--on the floor of the room she found them in, Sascha crowded up into a greasy stranger's space, still growling, with the captain not only not stopping him but crowded up close too, his face closed down and cold.
She was about to demand what in Hell was wrong, when she got a better look at the floor and her stomach heaved. The gold was teeth. A lot of teeth, far more than any even marginal dentist would be keeping in that shape instead of sized blocks. Empress and saints, the thought of reaching into a dead man's mouth and stealing the metal from it--
"No grave for you," someone said, and it took her a moment to realise it was her, as angry as the men. "You'll go to the cold, and the dark."
'Verse/characters: Swallow's Tail; Sascha, Petrovich, Helena, An Idiot.
Prompt: 54B "greed"
Word Count: 716
Notes: prompted by a request for an extension of the third response to 'gold teeth' as a prompt. This, timingwise, is between offers and heartbeats in the dark.
The half-Siberian has Opinions.
'We're going to have to find a rider, one of these months.' He swallowed a sigh, bracing one foot on the wall opposite as the horse listed, his hands busy with the sealant tube. 'Captain's no better'n I am.'
It could be nerves. None of them liked riding into a strange camp, let alone riding in limping, an air line spitting into the black despite everything he and the captain could do.
The horse was trying, she really was, but she was no reindeer, and she was shaking under her captain's hands as they touched the floor of the stable they'd been given.
Helena was first out the door, still wrapped up in winter gear until she'd confirmed that there was breathable air and a reasonable amount of heat, and even then she kept her gear close. He couldn't blame her; the seals were cheap, barely maintained well enough to function, and the floor rang hollow under his boots when he followed her out.
Whole winter-cursed camp was like that; the locals--all ten of them--weren't much for washing, or maintaining their gear. He found three burst emergency-air tubes before he stopped looking and confined his activities off-horse to arguing with the other non-local crew about how much a replacement line should cost. He'd as soon ask Morozko for a kiss as trust the replacement options the camp claimed they had, for a price.
He bought the line, eventually, for too much but they were leaving and he had no other options and they all knew it.
Then he had the bad luck to lay one of his fingers open when a tool slipped, where the captain could see.
"That needs at least three stitches," the captain said, once they had the thing rinsed out and wrapped, and wouldn't listen when Sascha said he'd rather trust Helena or him for the work, not the local bone-shaker. Helena didn't even bother to pretend to listen to anyone but the captain, said she'd meet them there after she finished locking things down.
So he trailed after the captain, refusing to continue the argument where the locals might hear. The captain, for his part, refrained from calling Sascha on the fact that he was grinding his teeth.
The bone-shaker was just as incompetent as Sascha expected, a barely-functional drunkard with one of those accents that got thicker in his cups and a tremor in his hands.
He gave the captain a very long, silent look over the bone-shaker's head, and the captain had the good grace to look a little embarrassed.
When he looked back at the man bent over his finger, he got a look down the man's shirt, froze, then reached forward with his good hand and yanked.
The bag in the man's shirt came open farther when the shirt tore, dropping clinking metal across the floor, but Sascha wasn't looking at it--he didn't need to. The captain was looking, though, and his face was a picture.
The bone-shaker's face wasn't the right mix of angry and terrified for this. No, he was going to try the placating-guilty smile, the one that said 'here, let me cut you in, friend.'
Blood roared in Sascha's ears.
------
"Okay, there's low, and then there's low," she heard the captain say, somewhere down the hall, but it was Sascha's low, incredibly angry growl that made her abandon the automatic room checks, yank shut doors as she passed them, locking them as quietly as she could.
There was a scattering of gold--oddly shaped--on the floor of the room she found them in, Sascha crowded up into a greasy stranger's space, still growling, with the captain not only not stopping him but crowded up close too, his face closed down and cold.
She was about to demand what in Hell was wrong, when she got a better look at the floor and her stomach heaved. The gold was teeth. A lot of teeth, far more than any even marginal dentist would be keeping in that shape instead of sized blocks. Empress and saints, the thought of reaching into a dead man's mouth and stealing the metal from it--
"No grave for you," someone said, and it took her a moment to realise it was her, as angry as the men. "You'll go to the cold, and the dark."