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Entry tags:
tempest
Title: Tempest
AO3: Link
Rating: G
Series: The Rider Series (Danny Fisher, Carlo Goss)
Wordcount: 1,730
Summary: Foul weather begets foul moods.
Remarks: This is the kind of fic that gets written when I'm frustrated with not writing fic, which is to say I won't argue it's my best work or particularly meaningful but by GOLLY at least I wrote something.
◘◘◘
No wooden flooring had ever been laid in the shabby three-sided shelter, so it was a sea of mud to greet them, clay-thick and sliming underfoot.
Danny caught himself against the wall on a near slip, drawing one or two of the words he'd learned from Watt out of reserve. On the other side of the room Carlo pulled his hat from his head, a townsman's polite reflex to stepping indoors, only to make a short, unhappy sound to find the latticework of the roof made indoors more concept than reality.
It had chased them half the road from Anveney: thick sheets of grimy rain blotting out the sky from horizon to horizon, raising red and itchy welts where it slipped through the slickers. No respite existed in the ambient either, where the downpour found its unwelcome reflection in the wet, tempersome horses cramping inside the walls with them.
Whole world could drown in the amount of [rain] Cloud was feeling.
[Fire,] someone countered, wistful dream and half-serious query in one, and Danny thought a couple more of those ripe words.
"No getting a fire up in this," he said. He hadn't seen a woodpile on the way in, and he wasn't of a mood to go searching for one likely soaked through.
Carlo's glance around the space held no great hope either, but maybe a former blacksmith's pride didn't take easily to being defeated on this front. "Could try."
"No chance," Danny repeated but, damn it, if it hadn’t been their idea in the first place, the horses were surely picking it up now. [Wet wood,] he shot back at them angrily. [Soaked wood. Soaked Danny.] "Don't give out promises you can't see through, dammit."
Carlo turned the look on him this time, heavy-lidded and stubborn-jawed, his own temper a low simmer amidst the unhappy stew. Gone were the days of taking Danny's every word as gospel, and it was a good thing, a natural thing - a vexing thing, at the end of a long, vexing day, watching Carlo turn out a scowl like he was taking lip from his baby brother and not the plain truth from someone who'd know.
“Gonna be here tonight one way or the other," he said.
"Whose fault is that?" Danny said, and Carlo's frown deepened. Cold tea and jerky. A miserable supper this near a town, even as miserable a town as Anveney. But it was what they had. "Get it out of your head."
The horses were pushy and moody, fit to churn the ground beneath into a clinging swamp in their restlessness. Danny set a hand against Cloud's shoulder, to the reward of little but [thunder].
"It's worth a look," Carlo said. "We'll all do better for a fire."
"Just get them settled! You go out there, you're dragging more mess back in with you-"
Carlo slapped his damp hat back over his damp hair, squeezing fresh water trails down his neck, and hunched his broad shoulders.
"Won't be long," was the firm response.
"Carlo, dammit-"
Carlo wasn’t hearing it. Mighty Carlo Goss had made his decision no matter what his partner had to say, was slouching out into the rain on his fool's errand to fulfil a fool's promise; and of course the horse went too, sliding back out into the rain, a shifty shadow with loyalty to one and one alone.
[Carlo in villager's clothes,] Danny shot after him, quick and mean, an echo of that first meeting more than two years gone now; [scared village kid,] and the first flash of real [mad] that bounced back was pettiest victory.
Danny dragged his hat forcefully over one of the hooks set into the shelter walls to dream of drying, and started hanging their packs up on the others. Cloud’s teeth were perilous close company, knowing with selective and determined memory just where the food was and getting all kinds of unhelpful notions about seeing it on the non-existent fire.
[Food in mud,] Danny warned, which was where it would end up if he started a tug-of-war over the supplies. “Cloud, love of god, give me room-"
Cloud gave him a shoulder to the middle of his back that near knocked him into the wall, and sulked off to the other side of the shelter, taking the wet warmth of his body with him.
Danny could wish himself back in Anveney, alone, and to hell with all the rest.
Truth was, neither he nor Carlo had liked the feel of the Anveney camp; two men and a woman and heavy unfriendliness in every face that needed no ambient to suck the welcome from the air. Danny might have risked a night in sullen company against the weight of the green-grey clouds climbing overhead, but Carlo couldn't settle sometimes - Carlo, who rode a dead man's horse. Didn't mean for certain the faces matched any held in Spook's fragile memory; Danny knew better than to think every unpleasant attitude harboured by a rider meant Hallenslaker. But Carlo couldn't settle all the same, and it was a poor partner who left his own to camp out through a storm alone.
Maybe backing down was the smart thing to do, but the burn of it had chased Danny as steadily as the rain. Didn't matter he had ridden against a rogue. Didn't matter about Evergreen, or that they'd been on the team that brought Cassivey's gold down a mountain that had staged enough tragedy in one long, dark winter to keep grim stories at every fireside across all settled Finisterre. Didn’t matter, none of it. They were riders, and that turned off the townsfolk; and they were born townsfolk, which kept them out of the brotherhood of those born outside the gates; and they were young, which it seemed damned nobody approved of.
Maybe it wasn't altogether Carlo's fault they were stuck in a leaky camp on the fringes of poisoned land. But a man might wonder when the world would stop demanding he prove they deserved otherwise.
A gunpowder burst of [fright] split brooding thoughts and ambient alike, and the pack dropped from Danny's hands in a jangling clang of tin pans; and then, hammering a nail right through Danny's skipping heart, [Kill. Blood.]
He was out of the shelter in the next moment, rifle in hand, Cloud snorting and rearing behind him. Thick rain plastered his hair against his scalp immediately, a wavering mirage in front of his eyes that fear and feeble vision could conjure any number of dangers from, and Danny thrust the noise of his own mind aside, reached into the ambient.
"[Carlo!]" he called, and then his feet slid out from under him in the slick mud.
He landed heavily, gracelessly; a shock that ran from instantly bruised tailbone to aching head, his teeth clacking painfully together. Didn't lose his safe hold on the rifle, at least; a small and feeble dignity, to not accidentally shoot the horse stalking towards him sure-footed across the treacherous ground, ears flat.
[Danny okay,] he pushed to the heart of Cloud's consternation, [Cloud listening,] even as he blinked stinging water out of his eyes, pricked his ears to borrow Cloud's keener hearing, twisted to find his partner.
Felt the rush of relief to see him standing there to the far side of the shelter, unhurt, facing the tumbled remains of a woodpile with a hand on the pistol still holstered at his hip. No sign or sound of a predator nearby.
[Spook,] Carlo sent, a little shaky but firming quickly - and it wasn't the horse he meant, the shadow at his back [alert but unafraid.] Carlo didn't know the precise name of what had come streaming out of the woodpile. Only [a cluster of bright eyes] and [scrambling claws.] Vermin, small and lithe-bodied, curled up in a tangle away from the rain in a hollow built amidst the timber; no great threat in this number or company, as proven by the darting snap of nighthorse teeth that had [caught, killed] at least one furred body as it fled.
"Hell," Danny said with deep and giddy feeling as the scene unfolded. Slapped his free hand against the mud for no good reason, splattering his sodden legs further still. "Hell, Carlo."
"Sorry," Carlo said. "Took me by surprise."
Spook-horse's head was down, jaws working. The quiet satisfaction of [blood] lingered in the ambient, coppery in Danny's mouth; more than just reflection, he realised, and his bitten lip stung as he sucked at it and spat to the side. Cloud prowled up the hill without a backward glance, abandoning his wounded rider for the mean jealousy of food in anyone's mouth but his own; seeing him coming, the older horse lifted his head higher in clear intention of keeping his prize for himself, chewing faster.
Faithless, selfish, incomparable creatures.
A more reliable shape picked his way down to him with slow steps, made careful through Danny's dramatic example. Danny accepted the outstretched hand with his muddy own, let Carlo pull him to his feet.
"There was dry wood?" Danny said.
"Was." Not that a vermin nest at the centre meant it would have done them much good anyway. Carlo pushed a hand against Danny's back, gently herding, and Danny crooked an arm to keep some of the rain out of his eyes as they headed back for the shelter. "You win. No fire."
"Fight I wouldn't have minded losing." Unlike others. Unlike the ones that kept him snappy and picking new battles. He was achy now. Too tired to keep his own surliness up. "Hell. Long day."
"We've had longer," Carlo said. [Stupid village kid] flit through the edges of the ambient, quiet [embarrassment.] The mirror of what Danny had thrown out earlier.
And, well, gallant rescuer he, bruised and filthy, Danny could only add its pair: [Skinny, skittery Shamesey kid. Stupid and loud.] A reality offered up from one too many sources - Cloud first among them - to decry.
Carlo huffed under his breath, and Danny slapped a hand against his arm.
An uncomfortable night in the shelter ahead of them. No getting around it. Damp clothes and a plastic sheet on the floor. Horses who'd be discomfited and surly for it themselves. Cold tea and jerky.
And company that took you as you were. Sometimes, if you were lucky, there was that.
AO3: Link
Rating: G
Series: The Rider Series (Danny Fisher, Carlo Goss)
Wordcount: 1,730
Summary: Foul weather begets foul moods.
Remarks: This is the kind of fic that gets written when I'm frustrated with not writing fic, which is to say I won't argue it's my best work or particularly meaningful but by GOLLY at least I wrote something.
◘◘◘
No wooden flooring had ever been laid in the shabby three-sided shelter, so it was a sea of mud to greet them, clay-thick and sliming underfoot.
Danny caught himself against the wall on a near slip, drawing one or two of the words he'd learned from Watt out of reserve. On the other side of the room Carlo pulled his hat from his head, a townsman's polite reflex to stepping indoors, only to make a short, unhappy sound to find the latticework of the roof made indoors more concept than reality.
It had chased them half the road from Anveney: thick sheets of grimy rain blotting out the sky from horizon to horizon, raising red and itchy welts where it slipped through the slickers. No respite existed in the ambient either, where the downpour found its unwelcome reflection in the wet, tempersome horses cramping inside the walls with them.
Whole world could drown in the amount of [rain] Cloud was feeling.
[Fire,] someone countered, wistful dream and half-serious query in one, and Danny thought a couple more of those ripe words.
"No getting a fire up in this," he said. He hadn't seen a woodpile on the way in, and he wasn't of a mood to go searching for one likely soaked through.
Carlo's glance around the space held no great hope either, but maybe a former blacksmith's pride didn't take easily to being defeated on this front. "Could try."
"No chance," Danny repeated but, damn it, if it hadn’t been their idea in the first place, the horses were surely picking it up now. [Wet wood,] he shot back at them angrily. [Soaked wood. Soaked Danny.] "Don't give out promises you can't see through, dammit."
Carlo turned the look on him this time, heavy-lidded and stubborn-jawed, his own temper a low simmer amidst the unhappy stew. Gone were the days of taking Danny's every word as gospel, and it was a good thing, a natural thing - a vexing thing, at the end of a long, vexing day, watching Carlo turn out a scowl like he was taking lip from his baby brother and not the plain truth from someone who'd know.
“Gonna be here tonight one way or the other," he said.
"Whose fault is that?" Danny said, and Carlo's frown deepened. Cold tea and jerky. A miserable supper this near a town, even as miserable a town as Anveney. But it was what they had. "Get it out of your head."
The horses were pushy and moody, fit to churn the ground beneath into a clinging swamp in their restlessness. Danny set a hand against Cloud's shoulder, to the reward of little but [thunder].
"It's worth a look," Carlo said. "We'll all do better for a fire."
"Just get them settled! You go out there, you're dragging more mess back in with you-"
Carlo slapped his damp hat back over his damp hair, squeezing fresh water trails down his neck, and hunched his broad shoulders.
"Won't be long," was the firm response.
"Carlo, dammit-"
Carlo wasn’t hearing it. Mighty Carlo Goss had made his decision no matter what his partner had to say, was slouching out into the rain on his fool's errand to fulfil a fool's promise; and of course the horse went too, sliding back out into the rain, a shifty shadow with loyalty to one and one alone.
[Carlo in villager's clothes,] Danny shot after him, quick and mean, an echo of that first meeting more than two years gone now; [scared village kid,] and the first flash of real [mad] that bounced back was pettiest victory.
Danny dragged his hat forcefully over one of the hooks set into the shelter walls to dream of drying, and started hanging their packs up on the others. Cloud’s teeth were perilous close company, knowing with selective and determined memory just where the food was and getting all kinds of unhelpful notions about seeing it on the non-existent fire.
[Food in mud,] Danny warned, which was where it would end up if he started a tug-of-war over the supplies. “Cloud, love of god, give me room-"
Cloud gave him a shoulder to the middle of his back that near knocked him into the wall, and sulked off to the other side of the shelter, taking the wet warmth of his body with him.
Danny could wish himself back in Anveney, alone, and to hell with all the rest.
Truth was, neither he nor Carlo had liked the feel of the Anveney camp; two men and a woman and heavy unfriendliness in every face that needed no ambient to suck the welcome from the air. Danny might have risked a night in sullen company against the weight of the green-grey clouds climbing overhead, but Carlo couldn't settle sometimes - Carlo, who rode a dead man's horse. Didn't mean for certain the faces matched any held in Spook's fragile memory; Danny knew better than to think every unpleasant attitude harboured by a rider meant Hallenslaker. But Carlo couldn't settle all the same, and it was a poor partner who left his own to camp out through a storm alone.
Maybe backing down was the smart thing to do, but the burn of it had chased Danny as steadily as the rain. Didn't matter he had ridden against a rogue. Didn't matter about Evergreen, or that they'd been on the team that brought Cassivey's gold down a mountain that had staged enough tragedy in one long, dark winter to keep grim stories at every fireside across all settled Finisterre. Didn’t matter, none of it. They were riders, and that turned off the townsfolk; and they were born townsfolk, which kept them out of the brotherhood of those born outside the gates; and they were young, which it seemed damned nobody approved of.
Maybe it wasn't altogether Carlo's fault they were stuck in a leaky camp on the fringes of poisoned land. But a man might wonder when the world would stop demanding he prove they deserved otherwise.
A gunpowder burst of [fright] split brooding thoughts and ambient alike, and the pack dropped from Danny's hands in a jangling clang of tin pans; and then, hammering a nail right through Danny's skipping heart, [Kill. Blood.]
He was out of the shelter in the next moment, rifle in hand, Cloud snorting and rearing behind him. Thick rain plastered his hair against his scalp immediately, a wavering mirage in front of his eyes that fear and feeble vision could conjure any number of dangers from, and Danny thrust the noise of his own mind aside, reached into the ambient.
"[Carlo!]" he called, and then his feet slid out from under him in the slick mud.
He landed heavily, gracelessly; a shock that ran from instantly bruised tailbone to aching head, his teeth clacking painfully together. Didn't lose his safe hold on the rifle, at least; a small and feeble dignity, to not accidentally shoot the horse stalking towards him sure-footed across the treacherous ground, ears flat.
[Danny okay,] he pushed to the heart of Cloud's consternation, [Cloud listening,] even as he blinked stinging water out of his eyes, pricked his ears to borrow Cloud's keener hearing, twisted to find his partner.
Felt the rush of relief to see him standing there to the far side of the shelter, unhurt, facing the tumbled remains of a woodpile with a hand on the pistol still holstered at his hip. No sign or sound of a predator nearby.
[Spook,] Carlo sent, a little shaky but firming quickly - and it wasn't the horse he meant, the shadow at his back [alert but unafraid.] Carlo didn't know the precise name of what had come streaming out of the woodpile. Only [a cluster of bright eyes] and [scrambling claws.] Vermin, small and lithe-bodied, curled up in a tangle away from the rain in a hollow built amidst the timber; no great threat in this number or company, as proven by the darting snap of nighthorse teeth that had [caught, killed] at least one furred body as it fled.
"Hell," Danny said with deep and giddy feeling as the scene unfolded. Slapped his free hand against the mud for no good reason, splattering his sodden legs further still. "Hell, Carlo."
"Sorry," Carlo said. "Took me by surprise."
Spook-horse's head was down, jaws working. The quiet satisfaction of [blood] lingered in the ambient, coppery in Danny's mouth; more than just reflection, he realised, and his bitten lip stung as he sucked at it and spat to the side. Cloud prowled up the hill without a backward glance, abandoning his wounded rider for the mean jealousy of food in anyone's mouth but his own; seeing him coming, the older horse lifted his head higher in clear intention of keeping his prize for himself, chewing faster.
Faithless, selfish, incomparable creatures.
A more reliable shape picked his way down to him with slow steps, made careful through Danny's dramatic example. Danny accepted the outstretched hand with his muddy own, let Carlo pull him to his feet.
"There was dry wood?" Danny said.
"Was." Not that a vermin nest at the centre meant it would have done them much good anyway. Carlo pushed a hand against Danny's back, gently herding, and Danny crooked an arm to keep some of the rain out of his eyes as they headed back for the shelter. "You win. No fire."
"Fight I wouldn't have minded losing." Unlike others. Unlike the ones that kept him snappy and picking new battles. He was achy now. Too tired to keep his own surliness up. "Hell. Long day."
"We've had longer," Carlo said. [Stupid village kid] flit through the edges of the ambient, quiet [embarrassment.] The mirror of what Danny had thrown out earlier.
And, well, gallant rescuer he, bruised and filthy, Danny could only add its pair: [Skinny, skittery Shamesey kid. Stupid and loud.] A reality offered up from one too many sources - Cloud first among them - to decry.
Carlo huffed under his breath, and Danny slapped a hand against his arm.
An uncomfortable night in the shelter ahead of them. No getting around it. Damp clothes and a plastic sheet on the floor. Horses who'd be discomfited and surly for it themselves. Cold tea and jerky.
And company that took you as you were. Sometimes, if you were lucky, there was that.