[Wild Roses] Trickwood Unification
Title: unexpected losses
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Ruadhan pov, ensemble early trickwood unification
Prompt: 19D "gray"
Word Count: 862
Notes: I am cheating; this is the beginning of the expansion of the river baroness expansion.
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The silence was deafening, after the boom. Almost everyone on the hillside was staring at either the newly dug crater just short of the crest, or the keep the shot had come from, frozen in place.
Up the hill, Ruadhan saw Geoffrey let go of the strings he’d grabbed instinctively, and when Hernén let out a held breath it echoed down the slope as a breeze, ruffling the leaves and shaking dirt from the uprooted tree at the lower edge of the strike.
“I think I like her head on a prow,” Ruadhan remarked aloud, looking at the keep, hand tight on the hilt of his fighting knife.
“Haven’t got the artillery with us to do it right now,” his brother murmured, half-absently, because he was looking at the crater. “Who’d we lose?”
"We'll know soon," Ruadhan replied softly.
The wolves were circling, leggy gray and brown and black shapes inching carefully down into the divot, occasionally up to their bellies in uprooted branches and new-fallen leaves, sometimes only compacting the dirt with their feet.
He thought he recognized a few of them, Ettore and Belladonna among them--it was thought only, between distance and the subtlety of markings, but if they lived they’d be there, and if Belladonna was buried somewhere in the crater’s debris Hernén was still in shock because the storm hadn’t started yet.
One of the wolves started digging at the wall, paws then quickly shaggy elbows deep in loosened, caked-clay soil. An unmoving shape emerged from the dirt, and the other wolves converged, helping, spreading out and finding other bodies, yipping and calling to one another in inhuman tongues. Maybe-Ettore came through the throng, shouldering aside a few smaller wolves, and sat down on his haunches as a pale grey wolf was half uncovered, neck at an obviously wrong angle.
The living wolf shifted, then, definitely establishing himself as Ettore as he crossed his legs, ankles tucking beneath his thighs. He pulled the dead wolf’s head into his lap, petting at its cheeks and the base of the ears.
He didn’t howl, which Ruadhan had . . almost expected, and he found himself suddenly wondering about wolf mourning--maybe Donel knew, through the Bordeaux?
When he glanced around for his brother--no longer next to him--he saw Hernén coming down the opposite slope; he started hiking down the divot himself, digging his heels in deeply to the loosened dirt so he didn’t slip.
Donel and Geoffrey were talking at the crest of the hill, and the assembled living were starting to retreat out of sight-line of the keep, in case Baroness Sidonie Two Rivers decided the first shot wasn’t enough. Good enough, for now.
“Oh, Winter,” he breathed, heard Hernén breathe at the same time, as they came close enough to identify the wolf who lay dead beneath Ettore’s hands.
The packleader’s son.
On second thoughts, a prow-spike was too good for her.
“Bellado--“ Hernén began, as an iron-gray wolf paced past them, shoulders hunched together and her tail at something less than half-mast.
“Leave us, human,” was the reply, and she didn’t even look up as she spoke. “We will find you in a few days’ time.”
His half-brother wanted to argue, to ask, so very badly, but Ruadhan tugged at his sleeve with a flick of power, shook his head when Hernén looked at him. Now wasn’t the time to ask about wolfish burials, or if candles would be appropriate.
Not when Ettore looked like that, and when Ettore’s son’s wasn’t the only body being pulled from the ground.
“Come on, kid,” he whispered in Hernén’s ear, voice pitched not to carry--voice throwing was one of his favourite tricks, though he wasn’t as good as Arianhrod was at speaking to someone she couldn’t see. But then, Arianhrod was Arianhrod.
Which was when he realized that he was thinking of a war, a long time ago, and how Arianhrod had looked for much too long a time afterwards, because Ettore had the same sort of ‘I would tear the world apart if I thought it would bring you back’ look in his eyes, and the same sort of hopeless knowledge that it was impossible.
He couldn’t help his half-sister. But maybe he could help the wolf.
He caught up with Hernén halfway back up the slope, and ignored the look the kid gave him. It wasn’t something you could explain if you hadn’t been there.
Geoffrey and Donel between them had names and numbers by sunset, and by unspoken agreement none of the four of them went to sit by firesides that night, instead lit candles--which Donel’d known existed and Geoffrey’d been able to track down--and spoke names.
If he’d had it, he’d have lit something that smelled of smoky pines and moss, for the boy’s father. Instead he played music--old music, the kind he’d left behind for newer shores, but it was a night for remembering--and sat in the half-dark of the cave lit by candles, alone but for memories.
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Ruadhan pov, ensemble early trickwood unification
Prompt: 19D "gray"
Word Count: 862
Notes: I am cheating; this is the beginning of the expansion of the river baroness expansion.
---------
The silence was deafening, after the boom. Almost everyone on the hillside was staring at either the newly dug crater just short of the crest, or the keep the shot had come from, frozen in place.
Up the hill, Ruadhan saw Geoffrey let go of the strings he’d grabbed instinctively, and when Hernén let out a held breath it echoed down the slope as a breeze, ruffling the leaves and shaking dirt from the uprooted tree at the lower edge of the strike.
“I think I like her head on a prow,” Ruadhan remarked aloud, looking at the keep, hand tight on the hilt of his fighting knife.
“Haven’t got the artillery with us to do it right now,” his brother murmured, half-absently, because he was looking at the crater. “Who’d we lose?”
"We'll know soon," Ruadhan replied softly.
The wolves were circling, leggy gray and brown and black shapes inching carefully down into the divot, occasionally up to their bellies in uprooted branches and new-fallen leaves, sometimes only compacting the dirt with their feet.
He thought he recognized a few of them, Ettore and Belladonna among them--it was thought only, between distance and the subtlety of markings, but if they lived they’d be there, and if Belladonna was buried somewhere in the crater’s debris Hernén was still in shock because the storm hadn’t started yet.
One of the wolves started digging at the wall, paws then quickly shaggy elbows deep in loosened, caked-clay soil. An unmoving shape emerged from the dirt, and the other wolves converged, helping, spreading out and finding other bodies, yipping and calling to one another in inhuman tongues. Maybe-Ettore came through the throng, shouldering aside a few smaller wolves, and sat down on his haunches as a pale grey wolf was half uncovered, neck at an obviously wrong angle.
The living wolf shifted, then, definitely establishing himself as Ettore as he crossed his legs, ankles tucking beneath his thighs. He pulled the dead wolf’s head into his lap, petting at its cheeks and the base of the ears.
He didn’t howl, which Ruadhan had . . almost expected, and he found himself suddenly wondering about wolf mourning--maybe Donel knew, through the Bordeaux?
When he glanced around for his brother--no longer next to him--he saw Hernén coming down the opposite slope; he started hiking down the divot himself, digging his heels in deeply to the loosened dirt so he didn’t slip.
Donel and Geoffrey were talking at the crest of the hill, and the assembled living were starting to retreat out of sight-line of the keep, in case Baroness Sidonie Two Rivers decided the first shot wasn’t enough. Good enough, for now.
“Oh, Winter,” he breathed, heard Hernén breathe at the same time, as they came close enough to identify the wolf who lay dead beneath Ettore’s hands.
The packleader’s son.
On second thoughts, a prow-spike was too good for her.
“Bellado--“ Hernén began, as an iron-gray wolf paced past them, shoulders hunched together and her tail at something less than half-mast.
“Leave us, human,” was the reply, and she didn’t even look up as she spoke. “We will find you in a few days’ time.”
His half-brother wanted to argue, to ask, so very badly, but Ruadhan tugged at his sleeve with a flick of power, shook his head when Hernén looked at him. Now wasn’t the time to ask about wolfish burials, or if candles would be appropriate.
Not when Ettore looked like that, and when Ettore’s son’s wasn’t the only body being pulled from the ground.
“Come on, kid,” he whispered in Hernén’s ear, voice pitched not to carry--voice throwing was one of his favourite tricks, though he wasn’t as good as Arianhrod was at speaking to someone she couldn’t see. But then, Arianhrod was Arianhrod.
Which was when he realized that he was thinking of a war, a long time ago, and how Arianhrod had looked for much too long a time afterwards, because Ettore had the same sort of ‘I would tear the world apart if I thought it would bring you back’ look in his eyes, and the same sort of hopeless knowledge that it was impossible.
He couldn’t help his half-sister. But maybe he could help the wolf.
He caught up with Hernén halfway back up the slope, and ignored the look the kid gave him. It wasn’t something you could explain if you hadn’t been there.
Geoffrey and Donel between them had names and numbers by sunset, and by unspoken agreement none of the four of them went to sit by firesides that night, instead lit candles--which Donel’d known existed and Geoffrey’d been able to track down--and spoke names.
If he’d had it, he’d have lit something that smelled of smoky pines and moss, for the boy’s father. Instead he played music--old music, the kind he’d left behind for newer shores, but it was a night for remembering--and sat in the half-dark of the cave lit by candles, alone but for memories.