(no subject)
Cinnamon Swirl #11. Going in Circles
with Hot Fudge, Whipped Cream, and Malt
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : PG
Timeframe : 1252
Word Count : 1696
Malt Prompts : Trick or Treat from last year (from Gandolforf) Someone gets lost on purpose
pfah - going in circles : Reida & Tarek - awkward moment
Pretty much completely frivolous Kairn torture. (though that earth magic might come into use again later) The combination of malt prompts put this idea in my head last winter and now I'm cleaning up my last few cinnamon prompts and for once I am following through on one of my old ideas.
77...78... Eyes on the ground, Kairn measured out even paces. Grass gave way to squishy mud and his boots sank into the ground with a soft squelch with each long stride.
84...85... The ground came to an abrupt stop and so did Kairn. He stuffed his
hands in his pockets and stood for a moment, frowning at the stream. He caught himself thinking that wading across might be a good way to throw Dal off his trail and quickly reminded himself that the bats followed neither smells nor prints. Besides, did he really want to spend the whole afternoon out squatting among the bushes? Wouldn’t being caught quickly be ever so much more convenient?
He turned his back to the stream, thought about just following his own trail the way he’d come and letting Dal find him, and decided having to explain to Berwyk what he was doing so close to home wasn’t the best of ways to spend the afternoon either. So he turned and followed the bank. 86...87...
By the time he’d gotten to one hundred, he’d come to a little grove of trees. The ground sloped down and the stream with it and he could see the pond at the bottom of the hill. He should have brought a pole, at least then the afternoon wouldn’t be a complete waste. Of course, then he’d be just as easily found as if he did turn around now and head back to the manor. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to go sit by the water, he figured.
As he passed beneath the first tree, there was a snap of a twig under his foot and his ankle was rolling and it seemed the ground was shifting. Grumbling at his clumsiness, he looked down to find a web of ropes separating itself from the carpet of fallen leaves. He tried to backpedal, flailing his arms as the netting snapped around him, but it caught him front and back. Cursing, he kept clawing at the ropes in vain as they knocked him from his feet and hauled him into the air and a fresh shower of leaves rained from above.
“That was far, far too easy.”
A tangle of folded limbs, Kairn still had room enough to turn his head at least, and he quickly found Reida striding across the grass and leaves to meet him. All manner of threats and insults came to mind and just as swiftly fled, and all Kairn could manage was “You.”
Reida stopped, not more than a few feet away, planted her fists on her hips, and fixed him with one of her toothy grins. “Well,” she said. “It works.”
“It works?” said Kairn. “What the hell is it?”
“A trap.”
“Obviously.”
Reida rolled her eyes. “Look at the top, where it meets the tree, and don’t ask any more stupid questions or I might have to leave you there until Dal comes to rescue you.”
Kairn followed the netting up. It wound together into a sturdy spiral, speckled with- “Paint?” He snapped back to look at Reida, who was pearly teeth from ear to ear. “This thing’s alive?”
“Hardly. Those are earth forms. There’s another on the branch. They work sort of like magnets. Activate them and-” she clapped her hands together with a loud smack.
“Brilliant,” Kairn said dryly. Though the idea was actually pretty impressive, or it would have been if he wasn’t tied up in the middle of it. “So why here? Why now?”
Reida shrugged. “You’re all busy playing with your little bats. I figured I’d work on something worthwhile.” She gave one of the cords slung beneath him a thoughtful tug and an approving look when it snapped back against his thigh. “And I figured you’d come this way.”
“I’m just supposed to be hiding somewhere so Dal can send a bat to find me. I could have been anywhere really.”
“Oh, please.” Reida sniffed. “You start walking, you’re going to find your way to the pond. It’s like it’s ingrained on your skull.”
Kairn didn’t really have an answer for that, so he just quietly squirmed against the ropes, looking for a more comfortable position. “Alright,” he said after a moment. “So it works. So now what?”
“Now I’ve got pretty little you in a trap. What do you think? Why, the possibilities are endless.” She poked a couple of fingers between the ropes to pinch him under the ribs.
“Hey!” Kairn jumped and the whole contraption swayed violently. “You… uh, you know there’s a bat out there looking for me. And m-maybe if it’s so obvious that I’d go this way, well, Daliver will know that too, and…”
Her smile hadn’t faded in the least. “I doubt the fool’s even got his bat off the ground yet.”
“Y-you can’t…”
“Oh,” said Reida, lounging back against the tree, “I’m sure I could be persuaded to let you out.” She looked him over slowly and wrinkled her nose. “Lose the shirt.”
“What?” The fact that the trap had only just stopped its lurching was enough to keep him from jumping again.
Reida scowled at him a moment, then she quickly brightened and his stomach twisted. “You want to see my other latest invention?”
Kairn was fairly certain he didn’t, but he figured telling her as much would only encourage her.
“Rats,” she said, grin spreading again, “with pincers.”
Swallowing hard, Kairn gave the laces of his shirt a swift and clumsy tug, and Reida threw her head back with a laugh. “You’re so easy,“ she said. He quickly decided the middle of a web of ropes hung from a tree had to be the worst place one could choose for getting undressed. The hem of his shirt was wrapped around an elbow that was thrust through an opening in the net and nothing seemed to want to budge.
“Well?” said Reida, as he paused to contemplate freeing his arm.
“Well, what?” Kairn snapped. “It’s not as if there’s really room in here to move.”
Shaking her head, Reida dug a hand down deep into a pocket. “You know,” she said, making a show of fishing about, “it makes them walk kind of funny, having that extra weight on the front and all. But they’re quite good at operating…” She trailed off, slowly withdrawing her hand as Kairn set to frantically pulling his arm out of the ropes and its sleeve.
“Miss Reida!”
They both snapped to attention, Kairn with his head and one arm out of the shirt and a liberal coating of light scratches and burns to every visible portion of skin, Reida jamming her hands into different, presumably non-rat-bearing pockets. She offered the wiry, hunchbacked Master Tarek a saccharine smile as he waddled up the hill, brows knit and finger waving.
“Miss Reida, what is going on here?”
“Magic…practice…?” Reida dug her hands even deeper into her pockets.
“I thought the task today was bats,” said Tarek. “I see no bats. I see a net in a tree. And Kairn…” he frowned, “…with half his clothes off.” Blushing ear to ear, Kairn fumbled with the shirt, now hanging limp off one arm, pulling it into a pathetic sort of curtain across his chest.
Reida wrinkled her nose at the old man. “I already know how to use a bat. I thought I’d work on something more interesting. Kairn was just helping me, weren’t you, Kairn?”
Kairn opened his mouth to protest, but Reida slipped a hand from its pocket and behind her back, snapped her fingers together like claws. “I…er…”
Master Tarek shook his head. “You may know how to use a bat, young lady, but Daliver…” He sighed. “What do you think Master Berwyk would have to say to this?”
Reida shrugged. “Nice earth forms?” she offered.
“Nice-” Tarek followed her gaze up into the tree. “Well, yes,” he said. “They are quite nice, actually. A bit unorthodox, perhaps, but it does seem to work.”
Master Tarek peered up at the branches for a bit while Kairn shifted nervously against the ropes. Reida shot Kairn a look and pantomimed the pulling away of something at her chest. Kairn looked down at the shirt clutched to his own front and aimed an obscene gesture back at her. He got another claw-like motion in response.
Pulling the shirt tighter to his shoulder just to spite her, Kairn loudly cleared his throat. “Um, Master Tarek,” he said. The old man pulled himself away from his study of Reida’s earth forms on the branch to squint at him. “Could I…get down, maybe?”
“Oh. Yes, of course. Reida, I take it this releases with another earth form?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Reida grumbled. She kicked at the leaves on the ground, sweeping clear a patch of earth already marked with lines.
Kairn saw her boot go down on the form and then he was on his backside in the leaves and a tangle of rope.
“Happy?” said Reida, sourly.
Kairn was scrambling to get his shirt back on, while Tarek lifted the end of one of the ropes to examine its markings. He shook his head. “Clearly, there are better uses you might put this sort of mechanism to than disrupting Master Berwyk’s lessons and cornering Kairn here into disrobing for your amusement. At least I assume that is what has transpired,” he added with a look at Kairn, who quickly nodded.
Reida snickered. “Name one.”
“I think,” said Tarek, dropping the rope and raising a brow at the girl, “that after an evening in your room, pursuing the matter, you should be able to give me at least a dozen.” She muttered something neither of them caught at that. “Come now, you have work to do, and Kairn has a bat to wait for.”
With that, he turned and headed back down the hill and Reida, scowling and grumbling all the way, followed after. Still sprawled on the ground, Kairn eyed the paint streaks on the ropes and the scuffs on his arms and thought heading back when he’d gotten to the stream might not have been such a bad idea after all.
with Hot Fudge, Whipped Cream, and Malt
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : PG
Timeframe : 1252
Word Count : 1696
Malt Prompts : Trick or Treat from last year (from Gandolforf) Someone gets lost on purpose
pfah - going in circles : Reida & Tarek - awkward moment
Pretty much completely frivolous Kairn torture. (though that earth magic might come into use again later) The combination of malt prompts put this idea in my head last winter and now I'm cleaning up my last few cinnamon prompts and for once I am following through on one of my old ideas.
77...78... Eyes on the ground, Kairn measured out even paces. Grass gave way to squishy mud and his boots sank into the ground with a soft squelch with each long stride.
84...85... The ground came to an abrupt stop and so did Kairn. He stuffed his
hands in his pockets and stood for a moment, frowning at the stream. He caught himself thinking that wading across might be a good way to throw Dal off his trail and quickly reminded himself that the bats followed neither smells nor prints. Besides, did he really want to spend the whole afternoon out squatting among the bushes? Wouldn’t being caught quickly be ever so much more convenient?
He turned his back to the stream, thought about just following his own trail the way he’d come and letting Dal find him, and decided having to explain to Berwyk what he was doing so close to home wasn’t the best of ways to spend the afternoon either. So he turned and followed the bank. 86...87...
By the time he’d gotten to one hundred, he’d come to a little grove of trees. The ground sloped down and the stream with it and he could see the pond at the bottom of the hill. He should have brought a pole, at least then the afternoon wouldn’t be a complete waste. Of course, then he’d be just as easily found as if he did turn around now and head back to the manor. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to go sit by the water, he figured.
As he passed beneath the first tree, there was a snap of a twig under his foot and his ankle was rolling and it seemed the ground was shifting. Grumbling at his clumsiness, he looked down to find a web of ropes separating itself from the carpet of fallen leaves. He tried to backpedal, flailing his arms as the netting snapped around him, but it caught him front and back. Cursing, he kept clawing at the ropes in vain as they knocked him from his feet and hauled him into the air and a fresh shower of leaves rained from above.
“That was far, far too easy.”
A tangle of folded limbs, Kairn still had room enough to turn his head at least, and he quickly found Reida striding across the grass and leaves to meet him. All manner of threats and insults came to mind and just as swiftly fled, and all Kairn could manage was “You.”
Reida stopped, not more than a few feet away, planted her fists on her hips, and fixed him with one of her toothy grins. “Well,” she said. “It works.”
“It works?” said Kairn. “What the hell is it?”
“A trap.”
“Obviously.”
Reida rolled her eyes. “Look at the top, where it meets the tree, and don’t ask any more stupid questions or I might have to leave you there until Dal comes to rescue you.”
Kairn followed the netting up. It wound together into a sturdy spiral, speckled with- “Paint?” He snapped back to look at Reida, who was pearly teeth from ear to ear. “This thing’s alive?”
“Hardly. Those are earth forms. There’s another on the branch. They work sort of like magnets. Activate them and-” she clapped her hands together with a loud smack.
“Brilliant,” Kairn said dryly. Though the idea was actually pretty impressive, or it would have been if he wasn’t tied up in the middle of it. “So why here? Why now?”
Reida shrugged. “You’re all busy playing with your little bats. I figured I’d work on something worthwhile.” She gave one of the cords slung beneath him a thoughtful tug and an approving look when it snapped back against his thigh. “And I figured you’d come this way.”
“I’m just supposed to be hiding somewhere so Dal can send a bat to find me. I could have been anywhere really.”
“Oh, please.” Reida sniffed. “You start walking, you’re going to find your way to the pond. It’s like it’s ingrained on your skull.”
Kairn didn’t really have an answer for that, so he just quietly squirmed against the ropes, looking for a more comfortable position. “Alright,” he said after a moment. “So it works. So now what?”
“Now I’ve got pretty little you in a trap. What do you think? Why, the possibilities are endless.” She poked a couple of fingers between the ropes to pinch him under the ribs.
“Hey!” Kairn jumped and the whole contraption swayed violently. “You… uh, you know there’s a bat out there looking for me. And m-maybe if it’s so obvious that I’d go this way, well, Daliver will know that too, and…”
Her smile hadn’t faded in the least. “I doubt the fool’s even got his bat off the ground yet.”
“Y-you can’t…”
“Oh,” said Reida, lounging back against the tree, “I’m sure I could be persuaded to let you out.” She looked him over slowly and wrinkled her nose. “Lose the shirt.”
“What?” The fact that the trap had only just stopped its lurching was enough to keep him from jumping again.
Reida scowled at him a moment, then she quickly brightened and his stomach twisted. “You want to see my other latest invention?”
Kairn was fairly certain he didn’t, but he figured telling her as much would only encourage her.
“Rats,” she said, grin spreading again, “with pincers.”
Swallowing hard, Kairn gave the laces of his shirt a swift and clumsy tug, and Reida threw her head back with a laugh. “You’re so easy,“ she said. He quickly decided the middle of a web of ropes hung from a tree had to be the worst place one could choose for getting undressed. The hem of his shirt was wrapped around an elbow that was thrust through an opening in the net and nothing seemed to want to budge.
“Well?” said Reida, as he paused to contemplate freeing his arm.
“Well, what?” Kairn snapped. “It’s not as if there’s really room in here to move.”
Shaking her head, Reida dug a hand down deep into a pocket. “You know,” she said, making a show of fishing about, “it makes them walk kind of funny, having that extra weight on the front and all. But they’re quite good at operating…” She trailed off, slowly withdrawing her hand as Kairn set to frantically pulling his arm out of the ropes and its sleeve.
“Miss Reida!”
They both snapped to attention, Kairn with his head and one arm out of the shirt and a liberal coating of light scratches and burns to every visible portion of skin, Reida jamming her hands into different, presumably non-rat-bearing pockets. She offered the wiry, hunchbacked Master Tarek a saccharine smile as he waddled up the hill, brows knit and finger waving.
“Miss Reida, what is going on here?”
“Magic…practice…?” Reida dug her hands even deeper into her pockets.
“I thought the task today was bats,” said Tarek. “I see no bats. I see a net in a tree. And Kairn…” he frowned, “…with half his clothes off.” Blushing ear to ear, Kairn fumbled with the shirt, now hanging limp off one arm, pulling it into a pathetic sort of curtain across his chest.
Reida wrinkled her nose at the old man. “I already know how to use a bat. I thought I’d work on something more interesting. Kairn was just helping me, weren’t you, Kairn?”
Kairn opened his mouth to protest, but Reida slipped a hand from its pocket and behind her back, snapped her fingers together like claws. “I…er…”
Master Tarek shook his head. “You may know how to use a bat, young lady, but Daliver…” He sighed. “What do you think Master Berwyk would have to say to this?”
Reida shrugged. “Nice earth forms?” she offered.
“Nice-” Tarek followed her gaze up into the tree. “Well, yes,” he said. “They are quite nice, actually. A bit unorthodox, perhaps, but it does seem to work.”
Master Tarek peered up at the branches for a bit while Kairn shifted nervously against the ropes. Reida shot Kairn a look and pantomimed the pulling away of something at her chest. Kairn looked down at the shirt clutched to his own front and aimed an obscene gesture back at her. He got another claw-like motion in response.
Pulling the shirt tighter to his shoulder just to spite her, Kairn loudly cleared his throat. “Um, Master Tarek,” he said. The old man pulled himself away from his study of Reida’s earth forms on the branch to squint at him. “Could I…get down, maybe?”
“Oh. Yes, of course. Reida, I take it this releases with another earth form?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Reida grumbled. She kicked at the leaves on the ground, sweeping clear a patch of earth already marked with lines.
Kairn saw her boot go down on the form and then he was on his backside in the leaves and a tangle of rope.
“Happy?” said Reida, sourly.
Kairn was scrambling to get his shirt back on, while Tarek lifted the end of one of the ropes to examine its markings. He shook his head. “Clearly, there are better uses you might put this sort of mechanism to than disrupting Master Berwyk’s lessons and cornering Kairn here into disrobing for your amusement. At least I assume that is what has transpired,” he added with a look at Kairn, who quickly nodded.
Reida snickered. “Name one.”
“I think,” said Tarek, dropping the rope and raising a brow at the girl, “that after an evening in your room, pursuing the matter, you should be able to give me at least a dozen.” She muttered something neither of them caught at that. “Come now, you have work to do, and Kairn has a bat to wait for.”
With that, he turned and headed back down the hill and Reida, scowling and grumbling all the way, followed after. Still sprawled on the ground, Kairn eyed the paint streaks on the ropes and the scuffs on his arms and thought heading back when he’d gotten to the stream might not have been such a bad idea after all.