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Aug. 28th, 2012 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rapacityinblueTitle: The Snow Maiden
Fandom: The Nightrunner Series
Spoilers: Vague references to the end of Stalking Darkness/Beginning of Traitor's Moon
Rating: PG-13 for implied sex.
Summary: It's cold and snowy and there's nothing to do but tell stories.
Pairing: Seregil/Alec
Word Count: ~2000
Warnings: None
Notes: 500 Themes #16 - Fading Sun. Written forwhiteroadrunning.
The storms built in the west, never a good sign in this part of the country. Most of their weather blew in from the north, racing fast toward Rhiminee, toward the port and the open ocean beyond. Alec taught him that, to trace the currents of weather, to gauge the severity of a blow by the direction it came from.
Despite the lateness of the season, the clouds flashed with lightning, contrast as they boiled up, dark and heavy. The sun was setting in the west, sinking beneath the horizon, and the clouds, when they came, obscured it, making darkness fall fast and ominous.
Seregil was out in front of the cabin, shading his eyes against it, dallying at the task Alec had set him -- chopping wood. For his own sake, he knew. They’d already weathered out a few heavy storms, Seregil whining through them while Alec rolled his eyes and stoked the fire. “A whole village could live off what you insist we burn in a week,” Alec told him, but the sharp words were tempered by a soft smile and Alec’s good nature.
It was true, he did prefer to keep the cabin snug when they were trapped there. It wasn’t so bad when he was able to come out and stretch his muscles, let his blood warm through activity. But the snows kept them well and truly penned, with little more than each other to amuse themselves. It kept him warm for a time, true enough -- but after the first few days, he began to whine. And so the extra wood was for Alec’s benefit, too, so that he didn’t lose his temper and murder Seregil in a fit of pique.
Alec was out, still, checking their snares and trying to bring back whatever game he could find. Their larder was well stocked with what they could store, but there wouldn’t be fresh meat for at least a week, if Seregil was reading the signs right.
As if to underscore his assessment, thunder cracked -- close, almost right overhead, though the clouds still held off a league away. Seregil set his axe to the side and took up an armful of wood, but he lingered outside the door to the cabin. Alec was an excellent woodsman, better far than him. Alec knew the dangers of a storm, and Alec would be back before it blew in.
Still, he couldn’t make himself go in. Not until he saw his talÍ’s form on the horizon, racing the clouds toward the cabin.
The first snow arrived just before Alec, the fakes falling cold and bitter on the back of Seregil’s neck. That was the only warning and then the storm arrived in truth. Thunder roared overhead as the flakes fell, small, each one landing against his exposed face like a dagger. He yelled for Alec, but the wind blew the words back into his mouth.
He needn’t have bothered; Alec found him anyway. One breath he was a shadow just beyond the snow, and the next he was barrelling into Seregil. He was shouting something, his words unintelligible over the roar of the wind.
Together, they tumbled through the door, the wind and snow blowing in with them. “Maker!” Alec cried, once they’d both thrown their weight against it to get closed and barred. “What were you doing out there?”
“Me?” Seregil set down his armful of wood. “I’d like to ask you the same, talÍ. You were gone a full hour!”
Alec gave him a strange look, stamping snow from his boots. “Was I? Hang those things by the fire before they melt on you, or you’ll never get warm, and I’ll never hear the end of it,” he said first, all business. “I’ll get water over the fire for tea, and then we’ll talk.”
As if to underscore his words, a clump of ice frozen to Seregil’s hair chose that moment to release, racing its way down his spine. He let out a yelp, then hurried to obey Alec’s command, trying to ignore the ominous final words. ‘Then we’ll talk.’ For a moment, Alec hadn’t sounded like the beautiful man he’d taken as a lover, the good natured, country fresh boy who’d blossomed in their secluded cabin. His tone was cold and hard, like a man Seregil had known before, recently escaped from the torture chambers of a certain Plenimarian necromancer.
He did as Alec had commanded, stripping his clothes and changing into dry. Alec heated water and brewed them tea, but they didn’t speak of it, even as they sipped their mugs and settled into their bed, sides pressed warm together. This was almost rote, now, how they dealt with the storms. Tucked in the blankets, warming each other, they were more than comfortable, and the cabin held snug as the wind whistled around it.
Seregil held out as long as he could, pushing back his curious nature, but eventually he couldn’t resist. He said, his voice light and teasing, “I notice you didn’t bring us any game.”
Alec, though, didn’t respond to the teasing with a jibe of his on, as he normally would. “I’m sorry, talÍ,” he said, his eyes overwide and apologetic. “I am, truly -- I didn’t get even as far as the first snare.”
At that, Seregil sat up straighter, pressing his back to the wall of the cabin. Their snares were all close, for just this reason: in case a storm blew in suddenly. Alec should have been able to check all of them within a quarter hour, easily, and Seregil assumed he had, and had stayed out to hunt game or follow a track. To hear otherwise -- “What?” he asked, inelegantly, gaping at Alec.
Who hunched down over his mug, more miserable than before. “Was I gone for an hour, truly?” he asked. “It felt like a breath of that.”
Seregil slid an arm around him. “We have jerky set aside, and plenty more provisions,” he reminded Alec. “The lack of a day’s meat won’t hurt either of us. Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
His words seemed to hearten Alec, who sat up more steadily, his voice gaining an even timbre as he spoke. “I set out for the first of the snares, thinking to check tem all and come back, because I saw the clouds massing. I got about a quarter-league into the wood when I heard sobbing. Seregil, there was someone out there.”
It was impossible, of course. Their cabin wasn’t impossible to reach, out here in the woods, but it was as isolated as they could reasonably expect. That, after all, was why they’d selected this place. A place of quiet, a place to heal, for both of them.
“I know how it sounds,” Alec said before he could protest. “I know. But I swear it, I heard someone crying. A young woman, Seregil, on my father’s memory.”
It wasn’t a vow Alec would ever take lightly, but still, it wasn’t possible. “The wind--” Seregil said. A weak protest, he knew it, and so did Alec, judging by the look of sheer disgust his talÍ gave him. He tried again. “The Dravnians tell a story --” he began.
Alec snorted with laughter. Fairly, he thought, because it was like the opening to a joke. The Dravnians told a story for everything, but they told their stories largely to pass time on the cold, snow-bound nights in the mountains. It was as good a way as any to pass the time, so Seregil drew himself up, ignoring Alec’s scoff, and continuing.
“The Dravnians tell a story about the daughter of Father Winter and Mother Earth. Snegurochka, she was called, as beautiful as her mother but as cold as her father. And she lived in peace with both, and where she walked, frost blossoms bloomed behind her.”
Seregil saw, with some satisfaction, that though Alec didn’t face him, his eyes were closed, and he hung solely on Seregil’s words. In the beginning, Seegil had used bits of tales to reward Alec for his good work. Alec listened to every new story, be it myth or history, with the wide-eyed innocence of a child, and he devoured every word.
“One day, Snegurochka heard pan pipes, and she followed them to a meadow where Lel, a shepherd boy, played. He was playing for her mother, trying to entice Mother Earth to warm again and chase away the chill of Father Winter, but instead he lured Snegurochka with his music. She thought it was beautiful, and that he was beautiful, and they spent out the winter together. But because Snegurochka was her father’s daughter, she could not love Lel, and it broke his heart. So as spring came, Snegurochka begged her mother to give her the ability of love.
“Mother Earth resisted mightily at first, because Snegurochka was as she’d been made, and that should have been enough. But finally, she gave way, Snegurochka fell in love with Lel. Summer came, her heart warmed, and she melted away with the last of the frost blossoms.”
Seregil realized as he finished the tale that it was less than warming, especially with the wind beating at their cabin and the cold seeking to creep into their bed. Silence fell in the wake of his words as Alec thought it too, and finally he said, his voice almost light, “And now she cries for her lost beloved, trying to lure honest young men into her grip in the worst of the winter storms?”
The jest worked; it broke the tension of the cabin, and Seregil laughed. “Not that I’ve ever heard,” he said, taking a sip of his tea and settling in beside Alec. He nudged his lover with his knee. “You never finished your story. I think I’d have noticed if you found your crying woman,” he said, his voice wry.
Alec laughed too. “I convinced myself it was nothing,” he said wryly. “And the storm came in fast, so I came running back here. Remember, how I found you with my face?”
“Very well,” Seregil assured him even more dryly. The silence stretched out between them, heavy with the hiss of snow as it settled around the cabin. Finally, Alec said, “It had to be the wind, I know that, but if you’d asked me out there... Seregil, I could have sworn what I heard...” He gave it up, as if he knew it was hopeless, his shoulders falling. “Was it really a whole hour? It felt like only minutes.”
“Maybe I misjudged the time,” Seregil said, although he knew he hadn’t. He’d dare say Alec knew it, too, since he was giving Seregil that look again, the one that said plainly he saw through the older faie’s machinations. But he didn’t press it. As a thanks, Seregil kicked him in the ankle. “Move over,” he said, “this wall is freezing. You can’t have the whole center of the bed.”
Alec flashed him a grin, his eyes glowing. “If you want me to move so badly, you can ask nicely,” he said. Seregil heard the challenge beneath it.
“Or perhaps it’s time I dealt with the matter myself,” Seregil said archly, setting both their mugs safely away before he pounced Alec, pinning him back to the bed. His talÍ put up a good show, fussing and wiggling like an eel to get free, but they both knew it was foregone in the end. Seregil pinned him, and claimed his forfeit, the cold wall soon forgotten.
After, with the blankets heaped around them, they lay tangled together as much for warmth as anything. The fire died low, though the coals at the bottom of the pit still glowed red, and Seregil rested with his cheek against Alec’s shoulder. If he fell asleep listening for the sound of a woman’s tears in the wind, well, he suspected Alec did just as much.
Fandom: The Nightrunner Series
Spoilers: Vague references to the end of Stalking Darkness/Beginning of Traitor's Moon
Rating: PG-13 for implied sex.
Summary: It's cold and snowy and there's nothing to do but tell stories.
Pairing: Seregil/Alec
Word Count: ~2000
Warnings: None
Notes: 500 Themes #16 - Fading Sun. Written for
whiteroadrunning. The storms built in the west, never a good sign in this part of the country. Most of their weather blew in from the north, racing fast toward Rhiminee, toward the port and the open ocean beyond. Alec taught him that, to trace the currents of weather, to gauge the severity of a blow by the direction it came from.
Despite the lateness of the season, the clouds flashed with lightning, contrast as they boiled up, dark and heavy. The sun was setting in the west, sinking beneath the horizon, and the clouds, when they came, obscured it, making darkness fall fast and ominous.
Seregil was out in front of the cabin, shading his eyes against it, dallying at the task Alec had set him -- chopping wood. For his own sake, he knew. They’d already weathered out a few heavy storms, Seregil whining through them while Alec rolled his eyes and stoked the fire. “A whole village could live off what you insist we burn in a week,” Alec told him, but the sharp words were tempered by a soft smile and Alec’s good nature.
It was true, he did prefer to keep the cabin snug when they were trapped there. It wasn’t so bad when he was able to come out and stretch his muscles, let his blood warm through activity. But the snows kept them well and truly penned, with little more than each other to amuse themselves. It kept him warm for a time, true enough -- but after the first few days, he began to whine. And so the extra wood was for Alec’s benefit, too, so that he didn’t lose his temper and murder Seregil in a fit of pique.
Alec was out, still, checking their snares and trying to bring back whatever game he could find. Their larder was well stocked with what they could store, but there wouldn’t be fresh meat for at least a week, if Seregil was reading the signs right.
As if to underscore his assessment, thunder cracked -- close, almost right overhead, though the clouds still held off a league away. Seregil set his axe to the side and took up an armful of wood, but he lingered outside the door to the cabin. Alec was an excellent woodsman, better far than him. Alec knew the dangers of a storm, and Alec would be back before it blew in.
Still, he couldn’t make himself go in. Not until he saw his talÍ’s form on the horizon, racing the clouds toward the cabin.
The first snow arrived just before Alec, the fakes falling cold and bitter on the back of Seregil’s neck. That was the only warning and then the storm arrived in truth. Thunder roared overhead as the flakes fell, small, each one landing against his exposed face like a dagger. He yelled for Alec, but the wind blew the words back into his mouth.
He needn’t have bothered; Alec found him anyway. One breath he was a shadow just beyond the snow, and the next he was barrelling into Seregil. He was shouting something, his words unintelligible over the roar of the wind.
Together, they tumbled through the door, the wind and snow blowing in with them. “Maker!” Alec cried, once they’d both thrown their weight against it to get closed and barred. “What were you doing out there?”
“Me?” Seregil set down his armful of wood. “I’d like to ask you the same, talÍ. You were gone a full hour!”
Alec gave him a strange look, stamping snow from his boots. “Was I? Hang those things by the fire before they melt on you, or you’ll never get warm, and I’ll never hear the end of it,” he said first, all business. “I’ll get water over the fire for tea, and then we’ll talk.”
As if to underscore his words, a clump of ice frozen to Seregil’s hair chose that moment to release, racing its way down his spine. He let out a yelp, then hurried to obey Alec’s command, trying to ignore the ominous final words. ‘Then we’ll talk.’ For a moment, Alec hadn’t sounded like the beautiful man he’d taken as a lover, the good natured, country fresh boy who’d blossomed in their secluded cabin. His tone was cold and hard, like a man Seregil had known before, recently escaped from the torture chambers of a certain Plenimarian necromancer.
He did as Alec had commanded, stripping his clothes and changing into dry. Alec heated water and brewed them tea, but they didn’t speak of it, even as they sipped their mugs and settled into their bed, sides pressed warm together. This was almost rote, now, how they dealt with the storms. Tucked in the blankets, warming each other, they were more than comfortable, and the cabin held snug as the wind whistled around it.
Seregil held out as long as he could, pushing back his curious nature, but eventually he couldn’t resist. He said, his voice light and teasing, “I notice you didn’t bring us any game.”
Alec, though, didn’t respond to the teasing with a jibe of his on, as he normally would. “I’m sorry, talÍ,” he said, his eyes overwide and apologetic. “I am, truly -- I didn’t get even as far as the first snare.”
At that, Seregil sat up straighter, pressing his back to the wall of the cabin. Their snares were all close, for just this reason: in case a storm blew in suddenly. Alec should have been able to check all of them within a quarter hour, easily, and Seregil assumed he had, and had stayed out to hunt game or follow a track. To hear otherwise -- “What?” he asked, inelegantly, gaping at Alec.
Who hunched down over his mug, more miserable than before. “Was I gone for an hour, truly?” he asked. “It felt like a breath of that.”
Seregil slid an arm around him. “We have jerky set aside, and plenty more provisions,” he reminded Alec. “The lack of a day’s meat won’t hurt either of us. Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
His words seemed to hearten Alec, who sat up more steadily, his voice gaining an even timbre as he spoke. “I set out for the first of the snares, thinking to check tem all and come back, because I saw the clouds massing. I got about a quarter-league into the wood when I heard sobbing. Seregil, there was someone out there.”
It was impossible, of course. Their cabin wasn’t impossible to reach, out here in the woods, but it was as isolated as they could reasonably expect. That, after all, was why they’d selected this place. A place of quiet, a place to heal, for both of them.
“I know how it sounds,” Alec said before he could protest. “I know. But I swear it, I heard someone crying. A young woman, Seregil, on my father’s memory.”
It wasn’t a vow Alec would ever take lightly, but still, it wasn’t possible. “The wind--” Seregil said. A weak protest, he knew it, and so did Alec, judging by the look of sheer disgust his talÍ gave him. He tried again. “The Dravnians tell a story --” he began.
Alec snorted with laughter. Fairly, he thought, because it was like the opening to a joke. The Dravnians told a story for everything, but they told their stories largely to pass time on the cold, snow-bound nights in the mountains. It was as good a way as any to pass the time, so Seregil drew himself up, ignoring Alec’s scoff, and continuing.
“The Dravnians tell a story about the daughter of Father Winter and Mother Earth. Snegurochka, she was called, as beautiful as her mother but as cold as her father. And she lived in peace with both, and where she walked, frost blossoms bloomed behind her.”
Seregil saw, with some satisfaction, that though Alec didn’t face him, his eyes were closed, and he hung solely on Seregil’s words. In the beginning, Seegil had used bits of tales to reward Alec for his good work. Alec listened to every new story, be it myth or history, with the wide-eyed innocence of a child, and he devoured every word.
“One day, Snegurochka heard pan pipes, and she followed them to a meadow where Lel, a shepherd boy, played. He was playing for her mother, trying to entice Mother Earth to warm again and chase away the chill of Father Winter, but instead he lured Snegurochka with his music. She thought it was beautiful, and that he was beautiful, and they spent out the winter together. But because Snegurochka was her father’s daughter, she could not love Lel, and it broke his heart. So as spring came, Snegurochka begged her mother to give her the ability of love.
“Mother Earth resisted mightily at first, because Snegurochka was as she’d been made, and that should have been enough. But finally, she gave way, Snegurochka fell in love with Lel. Summer came, her heart warmed, and she melted away with the last of the frost blossoms.”
Seregil realized as he finished the tale that it was less than warming, especially with the wind beating at their cabin and the cold seeking to creep into their bed. Silence fell in the wake of his words as Alec thought it too, and finally he said, his voice almost light, “And now she cries for her lost beloved, trying to lure honest young men into her grip in the worst of the winter storms?”
The jest worked; it broke the tension of the cabin, and Seregil laughed. “Not that I’ve ever heard,” he said, taking a sip of his tea and settling in beside Alec. He nudged his lover with his knee. “You never finished your story. I think I’d have noticed if you found your crying woman,” he said, his voice wry.
Alec laughed too. “I convinced myself it was nothing,” he said wryly. “And the storm came in fast, so I came running back here. Remember, how I found you with my face?”
“Very well,” Seregil assured him even more dryly. The silence stretched out between them, heavy with the hiss of snow as it settled around the cabin. Finally, Alec said, “It had to be the wind, I know that, but if you’d asked me out there... Seregil, I could have sworn what I heard...” He gave it up, as if he knew it was hopeless, his shoulders falling. “Was it really a whole hour? It felt like only minutes.”
“Maybe I misjudged the time,” Seregil said, although he knew he hadn’t. He’d dare say Alec knew it, too, since he was giving Seregil that look again, the one that said plainly he saw through the older faie’s machinations. But he didn’t press it. As a thanks, Seregil kicked him in the ankle. “Move over,” he said, “this wall is freezing. You can’t have the whole center of the bed.”
Alec flashed him a grin, his eyes glowing. “If you want me to move so badly, you can ask nicely,” he said. Seregil heard the challenge beneath it.
“Or perhaps it’s time I dealt with the matter myself,” Seregil said archly, setting both their mugs safely away before he pounced Alec, pinning him back to the bed. His talÍ put up a good show, fussing and wiggling like an eel to get free, but they both knew it was foregone in the end. Seregil pinned him, and claimed his forfeit, the cold wall soon forgotten.
After, with the blankets heaped around them, they lay tangled together as much for warmth as anything. The fire died low, though the coals at the bottom of the pit still glowed red, and Seregil rested with his cheek against Alec’s shoulder. If he fell asleep listening for the sound of a woman’s tears in the wind, well, he suspected Alec did just as much.