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sparkindarknessI should stop writing these in my law notes, I may have to take them into an exam, I can just see myself trying to explain to an envigilator why my notes are full of m/m slash. That being said, this isn't slashy (sorry, these boys haven't gone that far yet. It's been a while since I put slash up here actually, hasn't it?) More dialogue, I'm afraid.
Ah well, it's a stepping stone to the hot man sex. Honest.
It was a credit to years of elocution lessons that my face didn't show the shock that nearly knocked me off my feet. The Unseelie was afraid? Of what? Of the palace, of the Seelie, of the guards? Of me? How could an Unseelie fear me? They are creatures of fear, of pain and death and darkness! How could such vile creatures ever fear something as noble and pure as the Seelie?
Burying my conflicting emotions, I gestured with one hand, bidding him to approach; a gesture to subordinate, a supplicant or a servant. It was an insult, and I meant it so. The shock, worry and fear that conflicted within me was nothing compared to the seething mass of red hot rage, fury at being attacked here, here in the hall of my ancestors. I could not stand to see him in these hallowed halls one second longer. I turned and left, making no motion for him to follow, nor turning my head to see if he would. The way you would treat a manservant or a bodyguard bound to follow in your footsteps.
Whether he recognised the insults or not I did not know, I am not even sure I cared. How likely is it that the barbaric, uncivilised Unseelie would even recognise courtly rebukes? Perhaps it is too subtle for him, maybe he would understand if I screamed mindlessly at him and hit him with a rock. Either he did not understand or chose to ignore or accept my slights, for I heard his soft footsteps follow mine.
I walked confidently through the maze like corridors of the castle, passing the occasional Brownie or Boggun servant in the corridors, Ilatheril didn’t try to speak, or even to walk in step with me. I could feel his emotions buzz wildly around me, intense and unknowable. I frowned irritably, if his self control was so poor he would be close to a political liability at court. The child was in sore need of the most basic of educations. It was pitiful really.
I swept into my own sitting room, not the one that had been set aside for the newly wed couple, but the one that was mine and mine alone. My own ground with little comfort for any guest who displeased me. I sat elegantly in the largest of the high backed, nearly preternaturally comfortable chairs, a chair so large and ornate it was nearly a throne. I spent a full minute absently fussing with my clothing to ensure it hung just perfectly, though I had been taught how to attend to even the most complex of garments in far less time. Finally, with every fold of my robes arranged to my satisfaction, I raised my lilac eyes to the still standing Unseelie, fixing him with my most piercing gaze. I was gratified to see him shift nervously under my scrutiny, but at the same time frustrated. A sidhe should be able to stand before the displeasure of the gods themselves and not stand firm in their pride! He was fidgeting like a guilty child! It was unthinkably pathetic.
“Be seated.” I accompanied the order with another peremptory gesture. He jumped - jumped! - and took a seat opposite me. His eyes displayed not even the slightest flicker of irritation. No anger, no pride. I was supposed to forge peace between the courts with this?!
“It seems we have much to discuss. Firstly, I would hear your inadequate excuses for your deplorable actions before my ancestors. You have married the scion of their house. They expect better from you. They will have better from you.” I kept my voice even, but sharp and cold, driving home my words with an unyielding stare. “Second we will discuss the gravity of your act, and whether it has occurred to you how deplorable it was. At present I am inclined to believe you are ignorant. Of many things.” Was that a tiny spark of defiance? Or just false hope? How could the Unseelie have ever been considered dangerous enemies and rivals if this is typical of them. Of their sidhe! The supposed greatest among them!
“Thirdly, we will address your incredible ignorance and unbelievable lack of training. I cannot afford for you to be a liability to me and my house, too much rests upon us for your foolishness to continue.”
He glared sullenly at me. I was reminded nothing more than of a naughty child who knows they have done something wrong and fears being punished, and is determined to make everything as difficult as possible. To say this was an attitude unfitting of a sidhe is an understatement.
“I am waiting, Ilatheril. My patience grows short.”
“I’ve already told you, Seelie. I am afraid. Is this how you get your jollies, Seelie, humiliating other people?”
Childish. If I wished to humiliate him I could do so with a gesture . Assuming he was civilised enough to understand. “Why? How could a creature such as an Unseelie fear a Seelie? Does the darkness fear the light so?”
“Damn you, Seelie! And your bloody arrogance! The darkness can hold its, thanks all the same. And don’t be so bloody superior about it. ‘Light and dark’ like the light is so damn precious! Rules, orders, restrictions! Everyone walking in lines, speaking from the same script. There are no people in the light, just actors. But in the dark you can live. In the dark we are free to be who we are, what we are. You sneer, at us, but we pity you!”
My face remains set in cold lines. I can see myself in the mirror behind Ilatheril’s shoulder. A cold, shining alabaster statue, casually letting the Unseelie’s words wash over me. They don’t affect me. They won’t affect me. “Then tell me why. Why are you afraid?”
“How can you ask that?” he seems to deflate in his chair, that perfect face seems to age and wear, though still shiningly beautiful as a perfect piece of art, it was a picture of aged endurance. How sad to see that on one so young... “After you threw me across the room like a child? I called every battle spell I knew, half of them bounced off your shields, I doubt you even noticed them! My war glamoury was beyond useless! And you ask why I’m afraid?!”
I paused, counting mentally to gather my thoughts, under the cover of a penetrating stare, an old political trick that should never work on a sidhe. I was not even surprised anymore that the child’s trick worked. It was still near unbelievable, that was the best of his magic? “Perchance you do yourself an injustice. I still have bruises from your... assault.”
“Yeah, but not from my magic, right? Don’t mince words, Seelie - sidhe fight with magic first, fists second. We’re good at magic, there’re, what? A good dozen or more types of fae that can rip us limb from limb, but none can out spell us. Well, out spell you anyway.”
“Seelie bear arms in war. Seelie use their fists and weapons as well as magic in battle, even in duels.”
He sat up angrily in his chair, fists clenching on the wood. “Pretty words Seelie! Magic! Magic is the sidhe’s weapon before all else. I can see the shock in your eyes, the bloody patronising shock. I’ve seen my father’s magic, aye, and my grandfather’s before he died on a Seelie blade. I have the powers of a child! Why? Ask why, Seelie!”
My mask slipped slightly... such rage... I called my power gently, my skin glowing just softly. It seemed to incense the Unseelie even more. “Very well, Ilatheril, why?”
“I am sixty-two years old.” The words hissed. I flinched as his power lashed across mine, leaving a long red weal across my arm. I did not block it. I knew why... I could finish for him. It was his to finish though, even though his words loaded my shoulders with weights of guilt.
“When the last great war between our peoples raged I was but twelve years old. A child. I knew nothing.” He laughed, bitterly. “We thought we’d win, y’know? We thought you Seelie were too bloody static to fight in the modern world. We had the new technology. We had guns and cars and lots of new stuff. We were wrong, oh so bloody wrong. You had the bureaucracy. You had the politicians, the businessmen. You waved a hand and a legion of human pen-pushers did more damage than any amount of weapons ever did. Our guns were just another reason for the human police to stop us. Our cars could be stopped, searched, impounded. How many fae have enough mortal paperwork to stand up to a background check? Oh, gods we were wrong!”
He took several deep breaths. His power raged across the room, a violent, unguided wind. He was powerful, but so terribly untrained. “There were no sidhe to teach me. We were too few and too hard pressed. Every Unseelie was needed. Every sidhe was needed twice over. No-one to teach me the silly political games. No-one to teach me our history. No-one to teach me how to use my power.”
The wood under his fingers blackened and began to rot. “After the war? Well, there were even less sidhe then, weren't there? We’d fought at the front of every battle, and suffered for it. Less sidhe and our people still dying. They’re still sidhe, they have a duty to protect, to rule! They had no time to teach me. They were too busy trying to save what little we still have, trying to keep out heads above water while you fucking Seelie were doing everything you could to push us under!”
The chair arms dissolved into dust and fungus. He didn’t seem to notice. My arms were criss-crossed with deep wheals and welts, but I held my mask and kept my shields down and my mouth closed. “I tried to learn from books, from our sacred places, from our items of wonder. But our lands now had Seelie landlords, lands that had been ours for millennia! Our libraries had been burned and looted. What did the Seelie want with the dark tomes? You’d never use them, your too bloody pure for that. But you took them, our history, our magic, our culture! Our fucking birthrights! Locked in your strong vaults, safes and the stacks of your libraries, to moulder and gather dust. Treasures beyond knowing hidden away, while I grew up ignorant of my people. Ignorant of what I am.”
He looked to me then, a flash of dark fire. Blood flowed down from a deep slash over my eye. I accepted it. Did not shield against it, did not wipe away the blood as it flowed down to my eye. “That is why I’m afraid, Seelie. I am like a child among wolves. Powerless around the very people who made me so pathetically weak. Yes, I’m afraid Seelie.”
I nodded, slowly, looking into those glowing, angry eyes. “We have those vaults.”
I took a deep breath. I would have to fight against the entire court... but we need peace, this wedding was to end the animosity. My father - and his - swore oath to the fact. It should be shield enough against censure... I hope. “You will have access to them. If it is in my power, you will reclaim your heritage... and the knowledge you lost. Perhaps we can teach you to be more than a child. And perhaps we can be less than wolves...”
Ilatheril’s power drained out, he blinked at me, suspicious and wary.
“I swear it Ilatheril. I swear it.”
Ah well, it's a stepping stone to the hot man sex. Honest.
It was a credit to years of elocution lessons that my face didn't show the shock that nearly knocked me off my feet. The Unseelie was afraid? Of what? Of the palace, of the Seelie, of the guards? Of me? How could an Unseelie fear me? They are creatures of fear, of pain and death and darkness! How could such vile creatures ever fear something as noble and pure as the Seelie?
Burying my conflicting emotions, I gestured with one hand, bidding him to approach; a gesture to subordinate, a supplicant or a servant. It was an insult, and I meant it so. The shock, worry and fear that conflicted within me was nothing compared to the seething mass of red hot rage, fury at being attacked here, here in the hall of my ancestors. I could not stand to see him in these hallowed halls one second longer. I turned and left, making no motion for him to follow, nor turning my head to see if he would. The way you would treat a manservant or a bodyguard bound to follow in your footsteps.
Whether he recognised the insults or not I did not know, I am not even sure I cared. How likely is it that the barbaric, uncivilised Unseelie would even recognise courtly rebukes? Perhaps it is too subtle for him, maybe he would understand if I screamed mindlessly at him and hit him with a rock. Either he did not understand or chose to ignore or accept my slights, for I heard his soft footsteps follow mine.
I walked confidently through the maze like corridors of the castle, passing the occasional Brownie or Boggun servant in the corridors, Ilatheril didn’t try to speak, or even to walk in step with me. I could feel his emotions buzz wildly around me, intense and unknowable. I frowned irritably, if his self control was so poor he would be close to a political liability at court. The child was in sore need of the most basic of educations. It was pitiful really.
I swept into my own sitting room, not the one that had been set aside for the newly wed couple, but the one that was mine and mine alone. My own ground with little comfort for any guest who displeased me. I sat elegantly in the largest of the high backed, nearly preternaturally comfortable chairs, a chair so large and ornate it was nearly a throne. I spent a full minute absently fussing with my clothing to ensure it hung just perfectly, though I had been taught how to attend to even the most complex of garments in far less time. Finally, with every fold of my robes arranged to my satisfaction, I raised my lilac eyes to the still standing Unseelie, fixing him with my most piercing gaze. I was gratified to see him shift nervously under my scrutiny, but at the same time frustrated. A sidhe should be able to stand before the displeasure of the gods themselves and not stand firm in their pride! He was fidgeting like a guilty child! It was unthinkably pathetic.
“Be seated.” I accompanied the order with another peremptory gesture. He jumped - jumped! - and took a seat opposite me. His eyes displayed not even the slightest flicker of irritation. No anger, no pride. I was supposed to forge peace between the courts with this?!
“It seems we have much to discuss. Firstly, I would hear your inadequate excuses for your deplorable actions before my ancestors. You have married the scion of their house. They expect better from you. They will have better from you.” I kept my voice even, but sharp and cold, driving home my words with an unyielding stare. “Second we will discuss the gravity of your act, and whether it has occurred to you how deplorable it was. At present I am inclined to believe you are ignorant. Of many things.” Was that a tiny spark of defiance? Or just false hope? How could the Unseelie have ever been considered dangerous enemies and rivals if this is typical of them. Of their sidhe! The supposed greatest among them!
“Thirdly, we will address your incredible ignorance and unbelievable lack of training. I cannot afford for you to be a liability to me and my house, too much rests upon us for your foolishness to continue.”
He glared sullenly at me. I was reminded nothing more than of a naughty child who knows they have done something wrong and fears being punished, and is determined to make everything as difficult as possible. To say this was an attitude unfitting of a sidhe is an understatement.
“I am waiting, Ilatheril. My patience grows short.”
“I’ve already told you, Seelie. I am afraid. Is this how you get your jollies, Seelie, humiliating other people?”
Childish. If I wished to humiliate him I could do so with a gesture . Assuming he was civilised enough to understand. “Why? How could a creature such as an Unseelie fear a Seelie? Does the darkness fear the light so?”
“Damn you, Seelie! And your bloody arrogance! The darkness can hold its, thanks all the same. And don’t be so bloody superior about it. ‘Light and dark’ like the light is so damn precious! Rules, orders, restrictions! Everyone walking in lines, speaking from the same script. There are no people in the light, just actors. But in the dark you can live. In the dark we are free to be who we are, what we are. You sneer, at us, but we pity you!”
My face remains set in cold lines. I can see myself in the mirror behind Ilatheril’s shoulder. A cold, shining alabaster statue, casually letting the Unseelie’s words wash over me. They don’t affect me. They won’t affect me. “Then tell me why. Why are you afraid?”
“How can you ask that?” he seems to deflate in his chair, that perfect face seems to age and wear, though still shiningly beautiful as a perfect piece of art, it was a picture of aged endurance. How sad to see that on one so young... “After you threw me across the room like a child? I called every battle spell I knew, half of them bounced off your shields, I doubt you even noticed them! My war glamoury was beyond useless! And you ask why I’m afraid?!”
I paused, counting mentally to gather my thoughts, under the cover of a penetrating stare, an old political trick that should never work on a sidhe. I was not even surprised anymore that the child’s trick worked. It was still near unbelievable, that was the best of his magic? “Perchance you do yourself an injustice. I still have bruises from your... assault.”
“Yeah, but not from my magic, right? Don’t mince words, Seelie - sidhe fight with magic first, fists second. We’re good at magic, there’re, what? A good dozen or more types of fae that can rip us limb from limb, but none can out spell us. Well, out spell you anyway.”
“Seelie bear arms in war. Seelie use their fists and weapons as well as magic in battle, even in duels.”
He sat up angrily in his chair, fists clenching on the wood. “Pretty words Seelie! Magic! Magic is the sidhe’s weapon before all else. I can see the shock in your eyes, the bloody patronising shock. I’ve seen my father’s magic, aye, and my grandfather’s before he died on a Seelie blade. I have the powers of a child! Why? Ask why, Seelie!”
My mask slipped slightly... such rage... I called my power gently, my skin glowing just softly. It seemed to incense the Unseelie even more. “Very well, Ilatheril, why?”
“I am sixty-two years old.” The words hissed. I flinched as his power lashed across mine, leaving a long red weal across my arm. I did not block it. I knew why... I could finish for him. It was his to finish though, even though his words loaded my shoulders with weights of guilt.
“When the last great war between our peoples raged I was but twelve years old. A child. I knew nothing.” He laughed, bitterly. “We thought we’d win, y’know? We thought you Seelie were too bloody static to fight in the modern world. We had the new technology. We had guns and cars and lots of new stuff. We were wrong, oh so bloody wrong. You had the bureaucracy. You had the politicians, the businessmen. You waved a hand and a legion of human pen-pushers did more damage than any amount of weapons ever did. Our guns were just another reason for the human police to stop us. Our cars could be stopped, searched, impounded. How many fae have enough mortal paperwork to stand up to a background check? Oh, gods we were wrong!”
He took several deep breaths. His power raged across the room, a violent, unguided wind. He was powerful, but so terribly untrained. “There were no sidhe to teach me. We were too few and too hard pressed. Every Unseelie was needed. Every sidhe was needed twice over. No-one to teach me the silly political games. No-one to teach me our history. No-one to teach me how to use my power.”
The wood under his fingers blackened and began to rot. “After the war? Well, there were even less sidhe then, weren't there? We’d fought at the front of every battle, and suffered for it. Less sidhe and our people still dying. They’re still sidhe, they have a duty to protect, to rule! They had no time to teach me. They were too busy trying to save what little we still have, trying to keep out heads above water while you fucking Seelie were doing everything you could to push us under!”
The chair arms dissolved into dust and fungus. He didn’t seem to notice. My arms were criss-crossed with deep wheals and welts, but I held my mask and kept my shields down and my mouth closed. “I tried to learn from books, from our sacred places, from our items of wonder. But our lands now had Seelie landlords, lands that had been ours for millennia! Our libraries had been burned and looted. What did the Seelie want with the dark tomes? You’d never use them, your too bloody pure for that. But you took them, our history, our magic, our culture! Our fucking birthrights! Locked in your strong vaults, safes and the stacks of your libraries, to moulder and gather dust. Treasures beyond knowing hidden away, while I grew up ignorant of my people. Ignorant of what I am.”
He looked to me then, a flash of dark fire. Blood flowed down from a deep slash over my eye. I accepted it. Did not shield against it, did not wipe away the blood as it flowed down to my eye. “That is why I’m afraid, Seelie. I am like a child among wolves. Powerless around the very people who made me so pathetically weak. Yes, I’m afraid Seelie.”
I nodded, slowly, looking into those glowing, angry eyes. “We have those vaults.”
I took a deep breath. I would have to fight against the entire court... but we need peace, this wedding was to end the animosity. My father - and his - swore oath to the fact. It should be shield enough against censure... I hope. “You will have access to them. If it is in my power, you will reclaim your heritage... and the knowledge you lost. Perhaps we can teach you to be more than a child. And perhaps we can be less than wolves...”
Ilatheril’s power drained out, he blinked at me, suspicious and wary.
“I swear it Ilatheril. I swear it.”
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-25 11:23 pm (UTC)...
Poor Ilatheril.
It kind of surprises me that he admitted all that, though. I suppose it's good he did. *crosses fingers* Hope it all works out.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-25 11:28 pm (UTC)