[Wild Roses] Sun Queen
Title: appendix v.ii
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses [Sun Queen]; Aifiric, Phoebe
Prompt: 81D "pen and paper"
Word Count: 225
Notes: when poked with a stick, coastal_physics gave me 'ball lightning' as a spark. Early in their marriage.
Winter, he thought, and could only muster a sort of pleasure that he hadn't said it aloud.
She was a mage. He'd known that as long as he'd been alive, tiny redheaded woman his mother had tried to ignore as unimportant, irrelevant but that he had never been so foolish about.
But there was a world of difference between the intellectual knowledge that he'd asked a mage to be Queen, to help him hold the thousand slipping threads that were his throne, and standing in her study and watching ball lightning hover over her head to light the bookcases she was searching with an easy eye.
Something crackled by his ear, and he automatically swatted it with a flick of attention.
A second ball winged across the room, caught and held in place by her turning and lifting a finger at it, then her eyebrow at him.
"Sorry," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "It surprised me."
She chuckled, which surprised him more. "Sorry. It's a bad habit of mine," she replied, and nodded to the bookshelves. "Ian's?"
"Some of them," he agreed, "some are Iarlaith's. Some are mine."
"Our agreement--" she began, hesitant, and broke off when he half-smiled.
"Lady," he said sincerely, "treat this library as your own. Those books have no bearing on our bargain."
Her smile was as startling as her laughter.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses [Sun Queen]; Aifiric, Phoebe
Prompt: 81D "pen and paper"
Word Count: 225
Notes: when poked with a stick, coastal_physics gave me 'ball lightning' as a spark. Early in their marriage.
Winter, he thought, and could only muster a sort of pleasure that he hadn't said it aloud.
She was a mage. He'd known that as long as he'd been alive, tiny redheaded woman his mother had tried to ignore as unimportant, irrelevant but that he had never been so foolish about.
But there was a world of difference between the intellectual knowledge that he'd asked a mage to be Queen, to help him hold the thousand slipping threads that were his throne, and standing in her study and watching ball lightning hover over her head to light the bookcases she was searching with an easy eye.
Something crackled by his ear, and he automatically swatted it with a flick of attention.
A second ball winged across the room, caught and held in place by her turning and lifting a finger at it, then her eyebrow at him.
"Sorry," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "It surprised me."
She chuckled, which surprised him more. "Sorry. It's a bad habit of mine," she replied, and nodded to the bookshelves. "Ian's?"
"Some of them," he agreed, "some are Iarlaith's. Some are mine."
"Our agreement--" she began, hesitant, and broke off when he half-smiled.
"Lady," he said sincerely, "treat this library as your own. Those books have no bearing on our bargain."
Her smile was as startling as her laughter.