2.24.2009

33 - Girls Gone Wild!


* * *
Recorded from an excerpt of Apprentice Armed Rachella Hawksgard's Travel Log
* * *

I know something is wrong at dawn, and I don't even have to ask Jenny if she feels the same.  I can feel it coming off of her, and even if that isn't enough, the tension in her poise and the fire in her eyes are dead giveaways.  Something is afoot this morning.  We're going to see action soon.

The blood thunders in my ears for a few moments from the rush of it.  I'm just a trainee, after all.  Jenny's earned her Arms, though she's not allowed to carry them publicly yet.  If it comes down to us drawing...

No, I'll find some way of fighting.  I've been trained.  I can handle this.

She leads us out to the yard outside the Mews.  We've been watched for awhile here.  It puts Jenny on edge.  Me...well, I think I know why we're being watched.

I just haven't told anybody about it yet.  I don't know what to do about it.  I wish I could ask my Arms like Jenny and Camden can, but I don't understand that part yet.  I just can't hear.  All I can do is think back on it.

* * *

The fog hadn't burnt off of the morning yet when Tamborin' flew in from the periwinkle sky.  I was overjoyed to see her, practically grinning my face off in joy.  I received her with my gauntlet, bracing myself against the impact.  She's not a big raptor, but she comes in very fast when she lands!  I gave her a treat, told her she was a good girl, then hooded her before she could nip my nose off.

(The stories never do mention those parts, do they?  Falconry sounds so romantic until the little darling goes for your heirloom jasper teardrops and tears your eardrums to ribbons.)

She had a capsule tied around her ankle with a thong.  I made a little clucking sound before touching Tamborin's foot (she can be really high-strung in the morning!) and then I take out the note and unroll it.  I scan over it, but it's written in the code that Camden knows so much better than Jenny and I do yet.

Four feet in front of me, someone cleared their throat.  I almost jumped another four feet.  He chuckled, then shushed me.

"Now now, Jhe Rachella - do you really think I present any harm to you?"

"...Jhe o'Audiva Rocale.  It is truly an honor."  I'd have curtsied, but...he'd chosen rather a bad position for me to do so.

"Please, don't bother with the formality of a bow.  I can see plainly that you're unable to.  Besides, this meeting is rather...unofficial."

"...Sire?"

He sauntered closer.  That was the nearest I've ever been to him.  Gods, he was tall.  "Jhe Rachella...Dovetail, was it?  Yes, I can see your mother's blood in you."  He grinned.  "But not nearly as much as your father's.  Pray, why don't you claim the name of Hawksgard?  It carries such prestige, especially for one in your profession."  His face twisted into a sly grin.  "You're no baggage carrier, are you?"

"I...I'm sorry, sire, but I don't--"

"Don't dissemble it.  I may waive the bow, but I do insist on truth in my Court.  The good Peacekeeper Briarseal has been hiding you from me under a false name and a false occupation.  I do wonder...does he really believe that I would lure you to my Court?"  The King's grin grew smug.  "...He would be correct."

"I'm not sure what to say, sire."

He shook his head.  "Don't bother thinking on those things.  Instead...deliberate on just what you would like your pay to be, were you to find Audiva Rocale a suitable place to dwell.  I...have many things to offer one such as you, Jhe Rachella, whom I expect well knows the elegance and grandeur that only the well-bred can appreciate."

I could only stammer out a measure of my gratitude for the offer and then begged off a moment alone to deliberate on it.

"Take your time.  You may even discuss it with Peacekeeper Briarseal.  I'm quite certain that I can offer you more than your Arms training can give you."  He made his leave after giving me his own bow.  "A lovely day to you, Jhe Hawksgard."

...He'd figured out that I was training for Arms too, then.  That made three secrets lost in one morning.  My identity, my affiliation, and the fact that we'd been using Tamborin' as a message carrier.

In the end, I told Jhe Camden about the messages being discovered.  He took it well.  He told me they were just a ruse anyway.  With some reluctance, I also admitted that the King had figured out I was an Armed trainee, and a Hawksgard.  Jhe Camden expected that first part, but admitted he was hoping my identity would remain a secret.  "But, as I instructed you to carry your falcon in the open, it's nothing that is your fault.  You behaved well and did as you should.  Simply act accordingly around him and see if he'll talk to you more often now that he knows of your bloodline.  ...And keep yourself very near Jhe Jenny at all times."

With all that, I just couldn't tell him about being an offered a job here.  It's embarrassing.  Especially the snooty way the King spoke about the pleasures of the 'well-bred'.  I hated being an aristocrat!  I don't hate my family, but it doesn't make me better than anybody else.  I fancy the birds much more than I fancy my birthright.  Jhe 'hAkribastes said that none of that would matter when I trained under him.

It's not worth telling anyone, really.  I'm not taking the job, so it won't matter.

* * *

"Shhh," Jenny says, patting my shoulder.  "You're about as puffed up as a wildcat.  Here.  Let's rid ourselves of the morning energy."

We've been allowed to set up a rudimentary archery shot here.  Just a board nailed up on a sawhorse.  Enough to keep us from destroying the rest of the buildings around here from pent-up energy.  I swear, what does the King think being an Armed trainee means?  Of course I'm going to need to fight!  The archery practice we get in is just enough to whet my appetite, but it's been getting very bad, especially since my period is coming up--

--dratted ink doesn't erase!  How embarrassing!

I'm still stringing my practice crossbow when I feel them behind me.  Jenny's eyes narrow.  I think neither of us expected them to do something as foolish as grab me, then, but my arms are hauled behind me all the same.  I'm more shocked at their audacity than anything else.

Jenny's bow wasn't strung yet when that happened.  So when another of the big men from behind me shouts, "We've already got the only one that's Armed!  Grab the other one, the King wants her too!"

Two pertinent points - one, it was very convenient for him to lay all of that out for us.  Very expansive dialog.  The Jhe o'Sul sure can pick them!  Two, Jenny put an arrow in his throat shortly before that exclamation mark would have occurred, so it's more my revision than an actual quote.

...Oh, and three, Jenny can string a bow very fast!

The man holding my arms soon finds himself on the ground, and does not expect me to fall on him with my elbow lodged squarely below where his collarbones meet.  Surprises can happen at any time, sir!

It's over before it really begins, but that doesn't mark it as anywhere near the end of our troubles.  Jenny managed to pick off a few of the King's men, and we'd both managed no incapacitate a few, but then there's the staff in the Mews, and in the nearby Palace grounds, and whoever's expecting these brutes to return with two 'helpless' girls.

"I want to know just who told them I wasn't Armed," Jenny growls, the air around her crackling with potential ignition.  I keep my distance.  "Camden's Arms warned us right before that attack.  She's told him the whole of it by now.  We should report back, but the Palace will be hostile.  He would say we shouldn't cause a scene."

"...I-"

"I say he can punish me for it later.  Come on.  Let's haul."  She heads for the closest wing of the Palace - the shortest way to get to the practice arena the King's given us for our stay.  I sigh and follow close behind, already scouting to each side for any points I'll have to cover Jenny against.

I suppose that wraps up the end of our stay there, from my perspective at least.

* * *
Recorded from an excerpt of Journeywoman Jennelcia Akribastes's Travel Log
* * *

I'm elbowing through bodies, sometimes punching when elbows don't do the job and boots take too much clearance time.  I don't slow down for any of these bastards.  They watch silently while that asshole commits crimes from up on high on his throne, and would have watched his crime against us just as silently, and I will not bother being nice, anymore.  Mom can tell me all she wants about manners.  She can tell it to my younger siblings if she wants someone to listen.  I have stuff to do now.

I stomp through the chambers directly adjacent to where we were.  Rachella follows if she knows what's good for her.  She seems to.  I guess she's got a head on her shoulders after all.  I note while we dash forward that this is near the entrance and audience chambers of the Palace.  Shallow levels.  Hard to get to the back places from here, since they're on another end.  I can't think of a direct way to get where we need to go...

...But Dyennah can aim for Cam from just about anywhere, and we both together can sniff out a possible way.  Off to the side, here.  Ah, Lyric's described this part.  Didn't he take this way to get to the King's little private zoo?

"Faun is kept this way."  Rachella confirms my suspicions from over my shoulder.  I nod, then squint at the entrance.  "But...there's a lot of wards here...Gerald only got through by mind-riding your brother."

I snort.  "Gerald's subtleties never really impressed me, especially when he winds up behind bars because of them.  I know how to get into this place."

Rachella gulps, and quickly takes cover.  Smart girl.  Astoundingly swift learner.  I'm beginning to like her.  

The doorway explodes into a crackle of energy as I launch an arrow through that.  "You can weave a wardbreak in with that, Rachella.  I hope you're taking notes whenever you decide to write this down in your log."  She gives a curt nod.  I take an arrow in my hand and sweep the edges of the doorway, ensuring that I haven't missed anything.  I do catch a few snags at the corners which are dispelled quickly.  "Come on.  They'll rebuild in a few seconds.  Once we're in it's all just monitoring-type wards, which I don't give a fuck about anymore."  She rushes in behind me, running almost on my heels past all the cages.  I hear her let out a few whimpers as she catches some glances at the contents.  I make my own notes of just what the Peacock King is keeping in here.  Faun isn't his only illegal stash - but he's probably the most illegal here.  Hells, that's even worse than him pinning up Gerald or collaring Lyric.

My bile builds up at that.  I only knew Lyric a little when I was a child, but I liked him and that bastard shouldn't have touched any of my kin, ever.

We stop at Faun's cage.  Rachella's already looking over the wards as I stare in at the King's captive.  He returns my stare with a level gaze.

"Jhe Akribastes.  It is quite the delayed honor.  Dare I assume this means I may be returned to the wild?  You can't open this cage without his approval, you kn--"  His eyes widen as I aim at the lock.  Rachella gasps.

"Yes, I know, Rachella.  The shrapnel.  But I can aim, you know."  Even the animism looks afraid.  Fuck him, I know what I'm doing.  A poof of dust later, the lock isn't there anymore, and the door swings inwards.  Rachella stares.  "Minimizing impact.  It's one of the first things I was taught."  Well, as an urgent preventative measure, but neither of them need to know that.

Rachella enters while I stand guard at the door.  No pursuers?  No, I hear footsteps echoing down the hallway.  As expected.  I ready my bow.  "Can you get him out?"

"If she removes this collar, I can get myself out."  Faun's voice is smooth, even, levelheaded.  Trust the feral one to be the calmest, huh?

I don't know how Rachella gets the thing off of him, but I hear her mumbling some spellwork and Poetry, and then there's a flash.  Faun lets out a cry of triumph, more a yowl than anything else.  The first attackers come in just as his chains crumble into sparks and dust.  Of course.  Without the Jherent o'Sul's witchcraft, no mortal-forged chains could hold that animism.  It can only be bound by the gods, and while the Jherent o'Sul's Emperor status might make him a bit of a deity himself, once that bind's off of him, nothing else matters.

I have a little bit of trouble fighting, then, because Faun's in the way, taking out every attacker we have by their throat.  I hate cleaning up other people' messes.  I turn and sure enough, here come some more goons from the other side.  Great!

I must admit, it is almost difficult to slaughter people while Faun's doing his work, because damn.  If you ever get the chance to see a pissed-off animism fight, and you're not the one he's fighting, it is worth the price of admission.  Not that I'm advocating that sort of thing, mind, it's just an observation.  Jeez, I can feel my Dad looking funny at me just for writing that...

Rachella looks up, just as Faun pauses mid-gutting.  The hair bristles up on the back of my neck.  I know what that feeling is.

He's here.  He has long ears, after all.

The Judge has arrived in Audiva Rocale.

5 comments:

  1. 1) The story is not at all what I was expecting from the title. I'm a little disappointed.
    2) Faun...wow. Mr. Tumnus he ain't!
    3) Keep up the good work :)

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  2. 1. Lol sorry, I tried writing a story about an actual bird being the Peacock King but it ended up being Sesame Street fanfiction instead and I just can't find a market for that.
    2. He's really quite darling if you just give him a scratch behind the ears.
    3. Will do! Thanks for commenting! :D

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  3. "and we'd both managed no incapacitate a few"

    'no' should be 'to'

    There's also some typos in the previous chapters, particularly the first few.

    In case you're wondering, I came here via an ad from An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom. Was a bit confused when it pointed me to chapter 33, it would probably be better if it linked to chapter 1 or something.

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  4. Heh...my comment #1 was actually a reference to the chapter title, "Girls Gone Wild" ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. To Kunama: Thanks for pointing those out. Char reads over everything as soon as I post but having just one proofreader makes it easy to miss things. I also changed my pointer link because for some reason I never thought of that. Hope you're having fun in here!

    To V: *SNORK* Hey, this chapter was all ABOUT girls going wild!

    ReplyDelete