trouble that does not search words

[sideways]

Title: Trouble That Does Not Search Words
Rating: G
Series: The Riders Series (Carlo Goss, Danny Fisher)
Wordcount: 3,538
Summary: Early into their partnership, Carlo finds himself in a precarious position when Danny is injured.
Remarks: One of my writing goals this year was apparently to finish another Finisterre fic, and upon seeing that I thought: aw, surely I can turn that scene I've been sitting on for like two years now into something, just a nice little 400-700 word scribble as an end of year salute. So I re-read the duology... and then proceeded to write this ambient-centric monstrosity instead, mostly on GoogleDrive and mostly on my phone, for reasons beyond my ken. Still, delighted to have it done! I will carry my torch for telepathic alien horses into the dark.

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Cloud was a storm. Cloud was a thunderhead, a raging burst of <lightnings flashing,> sharp enough that Carlo felt ozone burning up his nose, coughed on the taste of it in his mouth. <Froth and bubble, kick and bite> sang wild across the ambient, and underneath it all - a fearful, rising heartbeat. <Danny. Danny. Danny-> 

 

Carlo groaned out loud. Heaved at the sodden weight in his arms. His foot turned on a loose stone and he stumbled, pain biting into his ankle, but he dug fingers deeper into wet leather and cold skin, braced his knees against the river and pulled. Like a calf slick out of the womb, Danny came along with him, limp and limbs flopping.

 

Spook danced back and forth along the river's edge; now a black nose butting at Carlo's back, now a raised head with ears flattened, staring down the bank. Sensing the other horse coming their way, blazing mad. Sensing the oncoming storm.

 

<Danny,> it howled. <Danny.> 

 

The horse called his rider, and his rider lay where Carlo had dragged him from the torrent, pale-faced and going towards blue-lipped, mouth slack and soundless. Carlo dropped to his knees in mud and pebbles, rolled Danny onto his side.

 

Hell. With the kind of language that would have once seen him smacked hard around the ear, Carlo thought: damn fool sonuvabitch hell of a thing. The fallen tree had seemed a secure enough bridge, and they'd tested it to make that seeming a sureness - humans stepping out first, walking it across and back again before they risked the horses making the tread. There'd been no sign of rocking or shifting then.

 

It had gone with a cracking suddenness. A hairline fracture as secret and malicious as any willy-wisp in the dark, splitting down the middle and dumping the horse and rider still on it down into water running quick and cold with the last of the winter melt. There'd been nothing Carlo and Spook could do but wheel and chase them down. Nothing to do but watch them go under.

 

Dan was born and bred out of Shamesey. A flatlands town. They had puddles in Shamesey; the town gutters ran faster and more fiercely than the rivers did. He'd never learned to swim the way they had to in the mountains.

 

Still, he'd held his own until he hadn't. Carlo had felt the moment Dan's head clipped the rock like a <burst of brightness> rapidly swirling into dark.

 

There was blood at Dan's temple still, diluted by the river water dripping out of his dark hair, clumping in his still lashes. It was bad, but not so bad as to be anywhere near the worst of it. The worst was blue lips and the panicked horse racing ever closer towards them.

 

"Come on," Carlo said, tilting the heavy head, dirty water pooling under it. His own clothes clung to his skin, driving the chill into his bones. "Come on, Dan."

 

The soft nose pushed in again and Carlo planted a hand against it, shoved Spook back. Spook was unhappy to be sitting here, feeling <unsafe.> Wanted <Carlo on Spook, going away.> Spook didn't mind Danny, went along calmly with Cloud more days than he didn't, but he had a memory long enough to hold the feeling of a body gone silent and empty collapsing slowly into the snow, red blooming beneath. He didn't like <wet human male cold on ground.> And he was feeling a hell of a lot of unease over <wet, angry, scared nighthorse charging through the scrub.> 

 

Carlo couldn't say he liked it either, but he wasn't about to leave his partner.

 

<Cloud wanting Danny.> 

 

<Quiet water,> he pushed into the ambient; imaged it like he'd been shown, and he’d had plenty of call to practice while travelling on unfamiliar roads with two male horses, neither of which were notorious for good manners. But it was a bad choice. <Water> came straight back at him. <Water everywhere. Water overhead. Snorting water out of nose. Froth and bubble, legs kicking. Danny.> 

 

Cloud was loud. Loud as his rider, and Danny could shape images real clean when he wanted to. Had a knack for it. Some nights he'd settle down in his pallet and pull out a book, sharing his reading as horses and the other rider were snared into silence, sitting entranced by swirling images of other lands and wild folk, things that only existed in the imagination.

 

Carlo had his own knack, he'd been told. Not that same kind of loudness, but something that came across as heavy.

 

("Like being leaned on, kind of," Danny had said, mostly amicably. "I guess - it's like the way you'd get with the kid, sometimes." Without meaning, Carlo had remembered <Randy being annoying> and <pushing little brother over, sitting on his legs until he cut it out.> 

 

There'd been horses nearby, making it a memory shared. Dan had snorted and said, "Yeah. Like that.")

 

<Danny safe,> Carlo thought, trying to put the heavy-weight into it now, sending hard like it could remake itself into reality. <Danny breathing.> 

 

Wasn't so sure that was the truth, though, and he wasn't calm enough himself to go slipping a lie to anyone, let alone a horse. Felt Cloud's agitation spike higher even as he tugged at the sodden necktie at Dan's throat, pulled it loose for easier air. Shook an unmoving shoulder, chafed it roughly against the cold.

 

Spook huffed sharply then, head pulling up, and there was a crashing sound close by, <horse wanting rider> such an oppressive crescendo that Spook was flickering <horse with rider> behind every thought in defensive counter, protecting his own claim. Spook flared his nostrils, and Carlo caught the thick scent of broken pine and wet horse right as Cloud plowed through the last of the brush, skidding to a halt on the uneven, muddy ground, sides heaving.

 

Danny's horse was a soaked and dirty tangle having fought himself free of the river, the wispy mane plastered flat and dripping down his neck. Black, bottomless eyes were ringed by white, the ears pinned flat against the skull, the head lowered snake-like and searching. A double-image washed over Carlo, a vision of <himself kneeling next to the limp body, smell of blood.>

 

<Cold rain. Lightning.> 

 

"Easy," Carlo said hoarsely. Some instinct kept him in his crouch, said sudden movements might just do him ill. "Easy, Cloud." No change in the electric tension, the storm-haze feeling raising the hairs along his arms.

 

He'd ridden on the road with Cloud these last few months. Shared warmth in shelters, been allowed the privilege of dealing out the occasional chin-scratch and fresh biscuit. But as Cloud took a step forward, still stare-eyed and hackling, raw hostility and prickling fear coming off him in drowning waves, Carlo found himself gripping harder at Dan's motionless arm on reflex, for a second feeling all over again the stupid village kid - staring up at this powerful animal, this alien mind, and appreciating it wasn't in any way tame.

 

Except he wasn't just some village kid out on his own anymore; and, reacting to his fright, Spook threw out a warning of his own - a rolling <threat> built on the back of his inside-self, the horse-shape that could only be glimpsed from the corner of your eyes. It put people on edge sometimes, the way Carlo's horse called himself, but he knew the meaning at the happiest heart of it: catch-me-if-you-can.

 

No playfulness today. Spook wanted Cloud to stay his distance.

 

Which Cloud objected to with vicious offense, having only one interest in mind and no patience for the bodies standing in the way of it.

 

<Thunder. Stinging rain pelting out of thick, black clouds. Danny getting up.> 

 

<Mature male nighthorse.> Spook was stiff-legged and stubborn. <Fierce and fast and strong.> 

 

<Lightning forking jagged at the ground. Smell of burning horse hair. Burned meat.> 

 

"Easy," Carlo said. Heard the shake in his voice and tried to quell it. Knew he needed more than shallow human words, needed to be making calm where there was none. He drew breath and sent, <Grass whispering in a gentle breeze. Spook and Cloud walking in the grass.> God but he wanted <Spook and Cloud at peace.> 

 

Only he couldn't get <nighthorse teeth> and <fear of trampling> and <wanting Danny awake> out of his head altogether, the shake in his thoughts, more dangerous than any physical tremor. The ambient shivered with tension like cables strung too tight across a truck's load.

 

Cloud shook his head, a fine spray of droplets falling over the rocks, and stepped forward again. And stepped once more. <Danny,> he radiated, as scorching as the forge at full heat. <Cloud wanting Danny. Reaching for Danny. Finding only empty space.> 

 

Inside that empty space was the thing Carlo feared above all. It was the thinnest thread of something deeper, something terrible, the threat of a storm to end all storms; so faint Carlo wouldn't have picked it out at all if he hadn't felt it before.

 

It felt like <going-apart.> It felt like <gun,> and Carlo's insides went to water, his calm-sending fraying apart like a rotted sheet.

 

Violence flooded the ambient, dark and murderous, and Carlo threw himself forward over Dan's prone body - as muscles bunched, a horse scream ripped through the air, and salt-iron-blood hit Carlo's tongue like it was his teeth closing in skin and meat. Cloud squalled again, more outrage than pain, moving back as Spook moved in, intent on bulling <thunder-image horse> away from his rider.

 

But it was away from Cloud's rider too, and Cloud was <mad,> Cloud was a maddening gale of <want> and <bite> and <wanting Danny.> Spook skittered just barely clear of snapping teeth that grazed his neck, and then black bodies were rearing, pebbles scattering, hooves skimming the air and striking hard enough to bruise and cut-

 

It was <fight> in earnest, the kind that ended in real injury and maybe death, and Carlo was shouting into it, something wordless and desperate. Scared for Dan and scared for Spook too, who was the older horse and no stranger to facing down something mean over territory, but whose every hurt rattled around in Carlo's own chest 'til his heart could burst with it.

 

Scared for and of Cloud, throwing out that barest flicker of <rogue.> 

 

He had no notion of how to stop a horse-fight. Knew it should have been stopped before it started, that his own anxieties had just gone and made a bad situation worse - but he was a junior, damnit, raised in Tarmin his whole life. He'd been a blacksmith's son, god-fearing; nobody who was looking to go out and land himself a horse and a life in fringed leather. He hadn't asked for the loneliest creature in the world to find its match in him, and hell if he'd ever known he'd need to be prepared for a situation like this. Dan was the one knew horses. Carlo wasn't supposed to be in control here, wasn't supposed to be anywhere near to taking lead, but his partner had gone and drowned himself and left him out in the High Wilds with his half-crazed horse, damn him, damn him-

 

<Kick. Kick at flank.> 

 

<Spook hurting. Blood.> 

 

Black rage built until it smoked out all other feeling, the kind of rage that lived in his ugliest memories, his worst nightmares. <(Gunmetal in his hands, large body bearing down on him, hate/love/fear/despair. Gunmetal bucking against his palm.)> It crushed his lungs, left him gasping, filmed red over his eyes. <Angry horse> had filled the ambient to the brim, and <angry Carlo> swirled along in it like a leaf plunging helplessly down roaring snow-melt.

 

He fisted a two-handed grip in Dan's jacket and in the next moment was shaking him, blind fury and fear, all good sense fled under the raging river of feeling swamping mind and heart and very soul. Shook his partner until his head was lolling on his neck, his hair fluttering where it wasn't drying grimy on his forehead, fine blue veins standing out on pale, closed eyelids.

 

"Wake up! Damn you, open your eyes, you goddamn coward - I'll kill you if you don't <wake up!>"

 

Horse squealing over a real hurt, deeper blood drawn-

 

A blur of thought, a confused half-image-

 

Danny groaned, eyelids shifting.

 

And surfaced hazily into an ambient boiling over with <fight> and <pain.> Thrashed weakly, instinctively, and Carlo took the back of a hand across the jaw that surprised him, made him loose his hold and drop Danny back the scant few inches into the dirt. Dan choked, coughed, curled inward, spitting out the little river water still rattling in his throat.

 

The blow barely stung, but it was shock enough to snap Carlo out of some of the fury eating into his mind, trying confusedly to figure if what he was seeing was right, or if somehow the seething storm of <want> had summoned a vision of the fix everyone had been crying for.

 

But Danny coughed again, moved his arm, and <churning water, wet leather dragging at limbs, lungs burning> lapped at the shallows of the ambient, a fuzzy, uncontrolled tumble. <Head hurting. Chest hurting. Squeezing panic.> Followed closely, of course, by <clouds slipping across the sky on a storm wind.> 

 

Dan was scarce forming whole thoughts and already reaching after Cloud, a rider feeling his horse in turmoil and doing the most natural thing.

 

Reaching after Cloud, who had his teeth snared in a chunk of Spook's mane and was equally snared in his own panic and anger, not yet realising his rider's call for what it was.

 

He needed pulling free of it, Carlo could tell - the same way Carlo had needed a crack across the face to shake at least some way out of the maelstrom he'd lost himself in, that blinding, ugly rage. He had hands back on Dan but, being more or less sane again, they were tugging the other boy back further from the crashing bodies, patting between his shoulder-blades as he coughed and spluttered.

 

<"Spook!"> he hollered, but Spook wasn't like to come either while Cloud was being such a terror. His rider had refused to run when he should, so now it was down to the horse to hold the last line of defense. Stupid, stubborn, brave fool of a horse.

 

Carlo knew only two other people ever fought for him like his horse did. One was still catching his rasping breath, trying to find his own mind in the chaos. The other had been a stupid, stubborn, brave little fool himself.

 

Carlo thought <Randy> and <little brother bristling at Rick Pig, fixing to get himself in more trouble than he knew,> and then he thought, near harder than he'd passed anything through his mind, <hammer on steel.> 

 

A high squeal. Dan flinched, flung an arm in front of his face. Hooves clattered on stone, the bodies lurching in sudden, clumsy surprise.

 

Carlo crushed his eyes shut, picturing the forge in Tarmin, the woodpile stack, the tongs laid out neat, the bucket of water waiting for hot metal to raise steam. Not <angry father, fist raised for a beating,> no, bury that memory in scouring sand and let the gun go with it, but <pumping bellows, sweat in eyes, forearms burning with use, satisfaction at own strength and skill.> The life he'd been meant to have, once. The place he'd thought he belonged.

 

<Randy, quiet and bright-faced, sitting on an upturned bucket as Carlo shows him how to bend steel glowing hot into chain links. Calm and paying attention. Good kid. Calm. Listening.> 

 

He pressed it into the ambient, pushy and unyielding. Leaning on those other loud minds. Being the elder brother to be heeded. Being heavy.

 

<Still water> whispered next to him, Dan supporting the plea for a ceasefire. That was experience there, the experience he didn't have, the makings of a senior: sluggish and concussed and still finding calm to put out into the world. <White clouds reflecting in still blue water, the shadow of the moon behind.>

 

A horse snorted. <Fight> shivered past again, but met with a shifting, twisting <catch-me-not> as Spook stepped back, away from Cloud, who was turning his head towards the humans. Huffing through an open mouth. Pricking his ears forward. Something <wary, hoping> hit the ambient and rippled.

 

<White clouds,> Carlo agreed, now that it seemed to be catching. <Big, big fluffy white clouds and bright sunshine.> Let slip <guilt, apology> before he could catch it, but it seemed to do more help than harm to the dulling edges of the minds around them.

 

<Danny.> Fearful, insistent. Cloud stepped in their direction, and this time Carlo lifted his hands slowly, eased away as best he could on sore knees, still doggedly picturing the brightest, sunniest, storm-clear day he’d seen in all his life. A soggy tail switched madly. <Cloud wanting Danny.> 

 

The horse called his rider, and his rider lifted a hand, palm up, muzzily echoing the affirmation, the heart's desire, the other half of the pining whole: <Danny and Cloud.> 

 

And then, seconds later, slurry and indignant: "Cloud, get off."

 

Carlo gusted out a long breath that seemed to come from a boundless cavern inside him; leaned back on his filthy palms, feeling <exhaustion> that might have been his own but just as likely belonged to the sweat-streaked horses or the injured rider still flat in the mud, his stallion thoroughly occupied in testing his well-being with nose, teeth, and tongue. Feeling <relief> and <frantic joy> too, and just as uncertain of the ownership.

 

<Not-there, now-here> was behind him, and Carlo raised his own hand to settle it on the damp nose nuzzling in. Spook snuffled hot breath down his neck, the ambient swelling with <anxious horse, Spook and Carlo,> before a rough tongue licked a stripe up Carlo's cheek. He didn't have the energy to complain.

 

Didn't have much inclination to either, he found, when he turned towards Spook; took account of the torn skin dangerously close to the big artery in his neck, the shredded state of the mane, the sense of bruising <hurt> lingering about his flank. Could have easily ended up with a lamed horse today, one or the other, and it would have been his own damn fault. Could have gotten any one of them killed for the sake of his own lousy nerves.

 

Carlo pushed a hand up high into the soft mane, pressed his face into the warm forehead.

 

"I told you," he said, aching. "Told you. Should have picked someone else. Someone knows what they're doing. You're a damn fool, horse."

 

But Spook didn't understand <regret,> except to know it wasn't a feeling he enjoyed the experience of, and that his rider was experiencing this bad feeling just made him more <upset> still. So Carlo grappled with it, dumped it in that sandy place, thought <good horse> and <brave horse> instead, and accepted the rank warmth of horse-breath wafting into his face as Spook lipped his nose.

 

Stuart had said Spook was used to a rider with a temper, aggressive and prone to trailing destruction behind; used to cleaning up messes. Carlo hardly knew what to do, some days, with this creature that thought he could do no wrong worth leaving.

 

Keep trying to earn the right of it, he supposed.

 

Spook rumbled in his chest, something closer to content, and Carlo thumped a hand lightly against the muscled neck, pulling back to look over to where Dan had levered himself up onto his own knees - leaning heavily on Cloud to manage it, hand cupped to his head and squinting woozily about him. There was a lot of discomfort in the ambient now that it was settling, Carlo the best off with only <cold, shivering> to contend with.

 

"Better get you off the bank,” Carlo said, “Wind’s a devil.” And also: "Dan. Sorry."

 

"S'okay," Dan muttered in a rough thread of a voice, and because the horses were there, airing themselves to each other like laundry out on a line, Carlo knew it wasn’t just some pacifying pleasantry. Dan hadn’t quite worked out the whole story yet; but he could tell the other boy had some idea of why Cloud was nursing sore spots himself, and he wasn’t <mad> about it. Not yet. "Did good."

 

He hadn’t. They’d be untangling this mess for a while yet, Cloud for the moment so caught up in the thrumming back-and-forth <Cloud and Danny> cocoon the pair were weaving about themselves that peace was the only option, but an ear twitched when Spook moved, and a cold eye shifted to watch him.

 

Horse politics. Heaven spare them both from the pettiness bound to follow in the next few days.

 

But for now Spook shoved his head against him, wanting <fire> and <warm food, hot biscuit,> and Carlo gave a few quick scratches well-deserved before pushing himself to his feet, wet trousers flapping about his ankles. Went to see if he could offer his partner a hand that Cloud wouldn’t straight away bite off.

 

Took a little convincing. But horses weren’t strangers to <forgiveness,> in the end.