[Wild Roses] Sun Queen

Jan 28, 2010 18:37

Title: bait
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Phoebe, Ulysse
Prompt: 93D "iron"
Word Count: 530 670
Notes: So way back in the day, the illian asked if the lady mage queen had ever had to teach or tutor anyone.

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He's not the first, by a long shot, but he might be among the more stubborn. The boy's picked up enough to scrape by, to get himself and a boat anywhere he wants to be, and she just knows his father would leave it there, because his father, well.

His father discovered just how deep of water he was dancing over, on just how thin of ice, when this son of his who is not hers came into the court at the last Day of Equals and knelt in front of the thrones and asked for a place to stay. His mother was dead, he'd explained, and a pirate's son had no great standing at home, without the pirate to bank on.

The King had looked at her profile--as had every member of the court, waiting for the lightning or the bloom of fire-flowers--but all she had done was look back at her husband, and intone "Your son asked, husband mine."

So Aifiric had given the boy a place to sleep and a family name to wear, closed court early, and fled her presence with as much haste as he could muster without actually looking like he was fleeing the oncoming storm.

She's not angry at the son, and less angry at the father than he thinks she is, but she won't enlighten him on that subject.

Much as she won't enlighten him on the subject of how, exactly, his bastard son knew where to go, and when, and could manage it on his own, when his mother--sea lover and sailor though she was--had been only mortal, without a tinge of desh-blood in her background.

Her husband's brother may suspect, but her husband's brother suspects many things he never sets out to prove, and speaks of fewer when he's angry at Aifiric, too. And Iarlaith is, angry as much on her behalf as he is at his brother for chasing a pair of pretty hips and not telling his Hand about it.

None of which is getting this stubborn, sea-touched child taught to call himself up a wind or a current or a rope of nothing but thoughts and intent, so she looks up at him again--Winter she hates that Matilda bred height into Ian's children and to all intents and purposes it's a Sabaey trait now, too, as much as Ian's smile--and says, iron in her tone, "Sit down, Ulysse."

She's finally found the right harmonic, because he does, throws himself into the soft chair opposite her and gives her a teenager's glare, arms crossed tight over his chest.

Phoebe raised Arianhrod. Ulysse's glares aren't going to ruffle her. All she says is "Thank you. I think, due to your status in the court, that it is very possible some advantages are being denied you."

"Really," he replies, glare intensifying.

"Therefore," she continues, ignoring that, "I thought I would offer to teach you a few tricks your grandfather invented, and a few other tricks others have developed since then."

"Why should I care?" he asks, not really paying attention, but when the salt-scented breeze curls from one end of the room to the other, ruffling his hair back from his face, then stops, as she lets her hand fall back to the arm of her chair, he stares, then slowly starts smiling.

And oh, that's a Sabaey smile, for all his dark hair and olive-wood skin, as he leans forward, hands uncurling to lie along his legs, and says "Do that again?"

She smiles back, because she's always been weak to the Sabaey smile and this is an example worthy of Ian himself, and does so.

By the end of the afternoon, he's mastered calling up a weak breeze, and she's summoned paper and graphite so he can start working on the math for some of the other tricks she means to use as bait for a path for a young sea-mage Sabaey prince, in lieu of a king's forgotten mortal bastard.

She's not letting Aifiric off that easy.

phoebe, sun queen, ulysse, list d, wild roses

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