[Deaths] the Morrigan
Title: perhaps that was a bad plan.
'Verse/characters: Death be Not Proud; the Morrigan
Prompt: 19C "searching"
Word Count: 352
Notes: before old soldiers. dormouse_in_tea, when I demanded a spark, said "the impression of a delighted smile and an 'Oh, you DID just do that.'"
There was an interloper around somewhere, bright and distracting and oh so tempting.
Some tracking through the streets, and surprisingly a dress shop, before she found the interloper, small brunette woman in heeled boots and a frothy skirt in gray and dusty rose. Someone's widow, perhaps, come into town to set a web for the next one? Not visibly armed, or hunting; she looked more like she was going to wander into a bakery and sit down with a piece of tirimisu or a filled croissant, nibble at the thing delicately to avoid dripping crumbs on her clothes.
So she waited, held herself still so the humans--and she used to be one of those, before she was trusted with a blade--stopped noticing her, passed by without looking.
Waited, then took a deep breath and drew the blade, let herself resonate with the energy in it, then lunged, aiming for the widow's chest as the woman rounded the corner.
Nothing happened for a long moment, no explosion of threads to wind up around her hand or her blade--and even if the widow had been human, there should have been something--
She opened her eyes, wondering what had gone wrong, froze when she saw the other woman's shark-white smile above the knife pinned perfectly still between two of her fingers.
Oh, God, no one's widow, this.
"I--" she tried desperately, but the lady in the gray skirts held a finger against her lip, shaking her head and still smiling.
"Oh, you did just do that."
The blade shattered in her hand as white threads blossomed, looping through the remains of the steel and reaching out, pulling at the blue threads of her own life, her still-new power.
She let herself fall to her knees, chose not to scream.
The last thing she felt was warm lips on her forehead.
The Morrigan reached up to her mouth, pulled out a robin's egg blue thread, wrapped it around a shard of the child's weapon, let the metal dangle by the thread, spin free.
"Who taught you so badly, child?" she asked, softly, flicked her improvised lodestone.
'Verse/characters: Death be Not Proud; the Morrigan
Prompt: 19C "searching"
Word Count: 352
Notes: before old soldiers. dormouse_in_tea, when I demanded a spark, said "the impression of a delighted smile and an 'Oh, you DID just do that.'"
There was an interloper around somewhere, bright and distracting and oh so tempting.
Some tracking through the streets, and surprisingly a dress shop, before she found the interloper, small brunette woman in heeled boots and a frothy skirt in gray and dusty rose. Someone's widow, perhaps, come into town to set a web for the next one? Not visibly armed, or hunting; she looked more like she was going to wander into a bakery and sit down with a piece of tirimisu or a filled croissant, nibble at the thing delicately to avoid dripping crumbs on her clothes.
So she waited, held herself still so the humans--and she used to be one of those, before she was trusted with a blade--stopped noticing her, passed by without looking.
Waited, then took a deep breath and drew the blade, let herself resonate with the energy in it, then lunged, aiming for the widow's chest as the woman rounded the corner.
Nothing happened for a long moment, no explosion of threads to wind up around her hand or her blade--and even if the widow had been human, there should have been something--
She opened her eyes, wondering what had gone wrong, froze when she saw the other woman's shark-white smile above the knife pinned perfectly still between two of her fingers.
Oh, God, no one's widow, this.
"I--" she tried desperately, but the lady in the gray skirts held a finger against her lip, shaking her head and still smiling.
"Oh, you did just do that."
The blade shattered in her hand as white threads blossomed, looping through the remains of the steel and reaching out, pulling at the blue threads of her own life, her still-new power.
She let herself fall to her knees, chose not to scream.
The last thing she felt was warm lips on her forehead.
The Morrigan reached up to her mouth, pulled out a robin's egg blue thread, wrapped it around a shard of the child's weapon, let the metal dangle by the thread, spin free.
"Who taught you so badly, child?" she asked, softly, flicked her improvised lodestone.