[Deaths] well pre campaign
'Verse/characters: Deaths; Julian De'Ath
Prompt: 67A "sword and shield"
Word Count: 515
Notes: after she went west, before the campaign, not story as such.
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The Councils would like to brand me a coward. They're not fools enough to name my uncle so, because even retired his name still commands recognition and if not respect a dash of healthy caution.
My father they call a relic of the past, a Crusader caught in the tracks of a new Roman road, unable to free himself of what we all used to be.
Me, unknown, nameless daughter of the Angel, who went West when the Councils rose instead of following my father in his useless protests?
Coward, me, unable to play an equal field and so retreating from it to huddle over my little colony like a child playing at dolls, easily ignored by the cultured rulers of my race, my calling, my blood.
I am not my father. Would that I were--two of him might win his brother to the field again.
I am not my uncle. Two of him might rule the Councils by now, and the Councils would be a very different thing for it.
I am none of my cousins, who cling to their territories like any other landed lord, who speak carefully with their neighbours like a human lord might negotiate with a city's aldermen. Alone, they will not win a fight, and they have no gift for joining forces. The Angel and the Devil are also the brothers De'Ath, and that name means them as much as any of their others.
The rest of the family is full of proud loners, and I am no exception. I am a De'Ath, and it is shield and sword as well as title. I have all the pride, all the height and the reach any of the others command.
But I am also my father's daughter, my uncle's niece, and it is me alone who was raised by them.
They kept no apprentices, adopted none of their second cousins, members of the cadet branches of the family line. They trained no students except those who came to them adult already, seeking refinements to already developed displays. Some gained polish. Some died in the attempting--no one can call my uncle or my father a naturally patient man--and still others learned caution and that there was truth beneath tall tales and tavern rumours.
I walked young, grew quickly, learned to read from old battle maps, letters my uncle sent to friends and friendly enemies, learned my footwork from my father, learned to ride and to assess a situation in a glance.
Remember, lords, that it was me alone who had their first training with the brothers De'Ath, that they cast no shadows but their own on me.
Remember the stories, lords, and imagine a death--not just death, but De'Ath--who had Engeltod's boldness and Teufeltod's planning steeped like mordants through the fabric of their adult selves.
Call me coward, Council-lords, for picking my ground to be far from yours.
Come and try to touch it, Council-lords. Try to supplant me, plant your own crops, roll over the nations we found already here with your borrowed steel and horses.
Command me, Council-lords.
I dare you.
Prompt: 67A "sword and shield"
Word Count: 515
Notes: after she went west, before the campaign, not story as such.
-------
The Councils would like to brand me a coward. They're not fools enough to name my uncle so, because even retired his name still commands recognition and if not respect a dash of healthy caution.
My father they call a relic of the past, a Crusader caught in the tracks of a new Roman road, unable to free himself of what we all used to be.
Me, unknown, nameless daughter of the Angel, who went West when the Councils rose instead of following my father in his useless protests?
Coward, me, unable to play an equal field and so retreating from it to huddle over my little colony like a child playing at dolls, easily ignored by the cultured rulers of my race, my calling, my blood.
I am not my father. Would that I were--two of him might win his brother to the field again.
I am not my uncle. Two of him might rule the Councils by now, and the Councils would be a very different thing for it.
I am none of my cousins, who cling to their territories like any other landed lord, who speak carefully with their neighbours like a human lord might negotiate with a city's aldermen. Alone, they will not win a fight, and they have no gift for joining forces. The Angel and the Devil are also the brothers De'Ath, and that name means them as much as any of their others.
The rest of the family is full of proud loners, and I am no exception. I am a De'Ath, and it is shield and sword as well as title. I have all the pride, all the height and the reach any of the others command.
But I am also my father's daughter, my uncle's niece, and it is me alone who was raised by them.
They kept no apprentices, adopted none of their second cousins, members of the cadet branches of the family line. They trained no students except those who came to them adult already, seeking refinements to already developed displays. Some gained polish. Some died in the attempting--no one can call my uncle or my father a naturally patient man--and still others learned caution and that there was truth beneath tall tales and tavern rumours.
I walked young, grew quickly, learned to read from old battle maps, letters my uncle sent to friends and friendly enemies, learned my footwork from my father, learned to ride and to assess a situation in a glance.
Remember, lords, that it was me alone who had their first training with the brothers De'Ath, that they cast no shadows but their own on me.
Remember the stories, lords, and imagine a death--not just death, but De'Ath--who had Engeltod's boldness and Teufeltod's planning steeped like mordants through the fabric of their adult selves.
Call me coward, Council-lords, for picking my ground to be far from yours.
Come and try to touch it, Council-lords. Try to supplant me, plant your own crops, roll over the nations we found already here with your borrowed steel and horses.
Command me, Council-lords.
I dare you.