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last_herald_mage2013-07-20 02:00 am
thene) wrote in last_herald_mage2013-07-20 02:00 am
Entry tags:
amnesty scenes [sfw]
Two scenes of lead-in to the Van/Shavri/Randi pwp, removed due to being totally unnecessary because everything in it is also in canon.
Vanyel couldn't understand. But he didn't have to; he only had to listen and feel, her sobs shaking him from the outside and her grief from the inside, weeping for something that never could be. His mind couldn't grasp it - at best, he'd once been resigned to the prospect of fatherhood, of heirs produced for the sake of a holdership he'd never care a whit for, and when he'd turned off from that path and into the forbidden woods he had missed that dream not a whit.
But Shavri wanted. So much. It was like a hollow inside her, drawing in air and sobbing it out, cold enough to make his Empathic senses ache numbly. :It's not fair,: he thought, daring Mindspeech when such a sentiment would have been detestably stupid aloud. The gods strangle our dreams in the cradle - and that one, he kept to himself.
The validation seemed to give her a moment's succor, and she wiped at her face with the sleeve of her Greens, shaking her head at him. "I feel so selfish. I sh - should be happy with what we have -"
"There's no 'should' in happiness," he sighed, and pulled her back into the crook of his arm. The broken doll was still clutched in her elbow. It was missing one porcelain hand and a section of her head; completely irreparible, yet some child in Shavri's care had so innocently asked the Healer to make it better. Little wonder that it had set her off. He could see the broken fragments tucked tidily into the hollow head; all the pieces still there, without hope of them fitting back together.
Vanyel knew Shavri hadn't expected sympathy from him - doubtless for the same reason that he was bound to offer it. It certainly wasn't his place to compare either their boons or their tragedies; he had once had, as his father had put to him in a rage last winter, 'every advantage in life,' and a bright future ahead as an indifferent Lord Holder with some courtly butterfly bride and a squalling infant or five or ten. But that life had held nothing he wanted, so it could never have been enough to bring him real happiness.
And this one would have only its moments, stray droplets from a spilt glass. He didn't need to understand why she felt such pain.
"I was hoping so hard to be wrong." The doll's head rolled against her breast, catching at her tunic with its jagged edge. "I thought, I could heal him if I kept trying. Or someone else could."
Pinning all her hopes on underrating herself, and for naught. "Now you're sure he's sterile -" and even the word hurt her, took a piece of the sun from her sky, "- then it's back to being your problem again." She rubbed at her eyes again. "I know it's too soon to talk about, but, now you two do know for sure, you're going to have to decide how to live with it."
"I don't want to live with it," and she swayed against his arm, looking away at nothing. "I want to - to go back to springtime and just be talking to him about our future -"
Even the thought hurt him.
Vanyel didn't trust himself to speak. :You need more time.: He'd learned that there was no circumstance so hateful that one couldn't get used to it, and he knew they'd gather the strength to start those conversations again. :How did he take it?:
Her immediate answer wasn't even coherent - just a stab of futility and sadness. :Like it's his fault. He says he - we shouldn't be bonded if he can't give me children...: Van leant his head against hers, sharing in her frustration. :I'm selfish, selfish. He's the one who's ill.:
:Ill?: he queried the word.
:I don't know. I can't tell why he's sterile - what if there's something else that's wrong with him?:
:Sweetling, you can't let yourself worry over maybes right now. More time,: he prescribed again.
:What good will that do?:
She didn't mean it, he knew. Shavri tended to say what she felt, which made her both a wonderful friend and a difficult one. She made a fine match for Randale's more sober personality, and Van suspected that she'd come back to something like her usual self before her lifebonded did; when Randi bore a secret worry, he bore it hard. It was perhaps better that they be apart tonight, until Shavri's mind had shot out all its barbed arrows and Randi's pain had settled deep.
Still, he tried. :It'll make all your real options seem less grey than they do right now, when you're still so dazzled by the dream you can't have.:
"Options," she repeated aloud, as if even acknowledging them was impossible. "There are none. We can't just - take in foundlings. He could be Heir one day, so we can't show the world that he's not going to have issue." That whole topic had been a shadow over them since winter; Randi had asked his father for his leave to wed his lifebonded, and received only cautions and stern comments about duty in return - not only from his father, whom he'd hardly expected to be satisfied with his match to an orphaned young Healer of low birth, but also from Shavri herself. So Randale's duty to Valdemar had already encroached upon their chance of happiness; Van couldn't bear the thought of it taking away yet more of their future.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't even necessary. She's suffering so much, and she really shouldn't have to...
"Well," he said gently. "Did I tell you what Tayledras pairs do when they can't have their own children? They almost never have foundlings - they've enough herbalists and Healers that they rarely have unwanted children, and orphans are always taken in right away. So they have to - well, my friend Moondance told me they made families with intention and favour."
"What does that even mean?" she asked bleakly. "Speak plain."
"That the pair asks someone else to join one or the other of them in bed solely for the purpose of procreation." She gaped up at him, and he grabbed the unlucky doll as it fell out of her grip. "Is that so shocking? It's all done more or less in the open, and it's common enough that they've everyday terms to describe it - it's no stranger to them than fostering." Ah, Vanyel and his knowledge of peculiar Outland customs. Probably makes half of these things up. If only she knew...
Shavri was shaking her head slowly. "Sounds tidy." She sounded suspicious, and he sensed an attempt to poke holes in the unfamiliar. "You always hear scandals about..." She trailed off, uncomfortable.
"What, noble ladies seizing babies from their wetnurses after their own expire in the crib? Not quite in the same spirit."
"But I don't want anyone but him."
:You want a baby,: he reminded her gently. :That's not the same thing as wanting another person.:
:He already thinks I want to leave him -:
:And this is something you could do with him. Shavri, you shouldn't either of you be worrying alone over this - whatever happens, whatever you do for the future, it's going to be with him.: He found himself looking down at the doll, bringing its arms together so the empty sleeve touched the intact hand. :So be with him, talk to him, and give the both of you some time to think. Your lives aren't over.: His hand cupped around the doll's broken head. It was so easy to say such things.
After some ritual work with Savil followed by a barely-tasted dinner, he returned to his rooms for the first time since sunrise, tiredly glancing to the place where the pages left his letters out of ingrained habit. There was only one there tonight - a plain slip of paper, folded crookedly. He cracked the thumbprint seal, and read:
Van,
I spoke to R. about what you told me. He thinks it's the right thing for us to do.
I don't know how to tell anyone else about it, and in truth I don't want to. Neither does he.
You know what we're asking you.
Love,
-Shavri
He knew.
He'd almost known as first said it - something so personal, shared between them...of course he would be beseeched to act upon his own wild proposition. But it still felt exactly as he'd told her it wouldn't. Shocking. Bedding Shavri? He couldn't even contemplate it. Like any of his female friends, he'd come to think of her as sexless - certainly in relation to himself, not least as she was someone else's lifebonded. I wouldn't object, but...well, my mind will assuredly be elsewhere.
As would hers, so it hardly mattered - in truth, he was much more concerned about Randale. Shavri wouldn't do this if it were against his will - but for all he knew Randale was already thinking ill of him for even suggesting that his beloved go to anyone else's bed. My bed. Vanyel had no doubt Randi wanted a family, but not with the same yearning need that Shavri held - what if he was less willing than she to accept this intrusion into their fidelity? Would he ever forgive Van if, afterwards, he found that it hurt him?
It had been an easier decision to make the first time. It was customary, for the Tayledras; he owed Snowlight a little, and Moondance and Starwind a lot; he wouldn't be staying to see the fruits of his deeds ripen on the vine, but instead they'd be a silent connection, a fealty he made to the clan that had given him his life back. And all he'd had to do was say yes when Snowlight asked him; she'd made her agreement with Starwind and Moondance years before, and had only been waiting to find the right person and take the right moment to ask him.
Shavri and Randi were different entirely. He and they were friends with no debts as such, for all he needed them more than he'd ever be able to say. He was aware that they both seemed to look up to him, though all he had over them was three years and some months in age, a couple of Border patrols, some outland talk and a personal tragedy. Had he tainted that trust by making that suggestion? There was a little symmetry to it, even - they were seventeen, just as he had been when he'd passed that night with Snowlight; and Snowlight had been more than old enough to know who and what she needed and that all she wanted to take from his body was a kindness, a foreigner's kindness and his inability to linger thereafter. He threatened nothing in her world.
Will he really forgive me?
Here, he could not be an occasional stranger to his friends' child. Could be be sure he'd be content to be a third party, silent guardian of a secret, among people who would regard his relation to their family as an unnatural sin?
Yes.
She needed this. They needed this. How could he refuse?
He turned the parchment over and picked up his quill, only praying that Randale truly had accepted this favour.
Vanyel couldn't understand. But he didn't have to; he only had to listen and feel, her sobs shaking him from the outside and her grief from the inside, weeping for something that never could be. His mind couldn't grasp it - at best, he'd once been resigned to the prospect of fatherhood, of heirs produced for the sake of a holdership he'd never care a whit for, and when he'd turned off from that path and into the forbidden woods he had missed that dream not a whit.
But Shavri wanted. So much. It was like a hollow inside her, drawing in air and sobbing it out, cold enough to make his Empathic senses ache numbly. :It's not fair,: he thought, daring Mindspeech when such a sentiment would have been detestably stupid aloud. The gods strangle our dreams in the cradle - and that one, he kept to himself.
The validation seemed to give her a moment's succor, and she wiped at her face with the sleeve of her Greens, shaking her head at him. "I feel so selfish. I sh - should be happy with what we have -"
"There's no 'should' in happiness," he sighed, and pulled her back into the crook of his arm. The broken doll was still clutched in her elbow. It was missing one porcelain hand and a section of her head; completely irreparible, yet some child in Shavri's care had so innocently asked the Healer to make it better. Little wonder that it had set her off. He could see the broken fragments tucked tidily into the hollow head; all the pieces still there, without hope of them fitting back together.
Vanyel knew Shavri hadn't expected sympathy from him - doubtless for the same reason that he was bound to offer it. It certainly wasn't his place to compare either their boons or their tragedies; he had once had, as his father had put to him in a rage last winter, 'every advantage in life,' and a bright future ahead as an indifferent Lord Holder with some courtly butterfly bride and a squalling infant or five or ten. But that life had held nothing he wanted, so it could never have been enough to bring him real happiness.
And this one would have only its moments, stray droplets from a spilt glass. He didn't need to understand why she felt such pain.
"I was hoping so hard to be wrong." The doll's head rolled against her breast, catching at her tunic with its jagged edge. "I thought, I could heal him if I kept trying. Or someone else could."
Pinning all her hopes on underrating herself, and for naught. "Now you're sure he's sterile -" and even the word hurt her, took a piece of the sun from her sky, "- then it's back to being your problem again." She rubbed at her eyes again. "I know it's too soon to talk about, but, now you two do know for sure, you're going to have to decide how to live with it."
"I don't want to live with it," and she swayed against his arm, looking away at nothing. "I want to - to go back to springtime and just be talking to him about our future -"
Even the thought hurt him.
Vanyel didn't trust himself to speak. :You need more time.: He'd learned that there was no circumstance so hateful that one couldn't get used to it, and he knew they'd gather the strength to start those conversations again. :How did he take it?:
Her immediate answer wasn't even coherent - just a stab of futility and sadness. :Like it's his fault. He says he - we shouldn't be bonded if he can't give me children...: Van leant his head against hers, sharing in her frustration. :I'm selfish, selfish. He's the one who's ill.:
:Ill?: he queried the word.
:I don't know. I can't tell why he's sterile - what if there's something else that's wrong with him?:
:Sweetling, you can't let yourself worry over maybes right now. More time,: he prescribed again.
:What good will that do?:
She didn't mean it, he knew. Shavri tended to say what she felt, which made her both a wonderful friend and a difficult one. She made a fine match for Randale's more sober personality, and Van suspected that she'd come back to something like her usual self before her lifebonded did; when Randi bore a secret worry, he bore it hard. It was perhaps better that they be apart tonight, until Shavri's mind had shot out all its barbed arrows and Randi's pain had settled deep.
Still, he tried. :It'll make all your real options seem less grey than they do right now, when you're still so dazzled by the dream you can't have.:
"Options," she repeated aloud, as if even acknowledging them was impossible. "There are none. We can't just - take in foundlings. He could be Heir one day, so we can't show the world that he's not going to have issue." That whole topic had been a shadow over them since winter; Randi had asked his father for his leave to wed his lifebonded, and received only cautions and stern comments about duty in return - not only from his father, whom he'd hardly expected to be satisfied with his match to an orphaned young Healer of low birth, but also from Shavri herself. So Randale's duty to Valdemar had already encroached upon their chance of happiness; Van couldn't bear the thought of it taking away yet more of their future.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't even necessary. She's suffering so much, and she really shouldn't have to...
"Well," he said gently. "Did I tell you what Tayledras pairs do when they can't have their own children? They almost never have foundlings - they've enough herbalists and Healers that they rarely have unwanted children, and orphans are always taken in right away. So they have to - well, my friend Moondance told me they made families with intention and favour."
"What does that even mean?" she asked bleakly. "Speak plain."
"That the pair asks someone else to join one or the other of them in bed solely for the purpose of procreation." She gaped up at him, and he grabbed the unlucky doll as it fell out of her grip. "Is that so shocking? It's all done more or less in the open, and it's common enough that they've everyday terms to describe it - it's no stranger to them than fostering." Ah, Vanyel and his knowledge of peculiar Outland customs. Probably makes half of these things up. If only she knew...
Shavri was shaking her head slowly. "Sounds tidy." She sounded suspicious, and he sensed an attempt to poke holes in the unfamiliar. "You always hear scandals about..." She trailed off, uncomfortable.
"What, noble ladies seizing babies from their wetnurses after their own expire in the crib? Not quite in the same spirit."
"But I don't want anyone but him."
:You want a baby,: he reminded her gently. :That's not the same thing as wanting another person.:
:He already thinks I want to leave him -:
:And this is something you could do with him. Shavri, you shouldn't either of you be worrying alone over this - whatever happens, whatever you do for the future, it's going to be with him.: He found himself looking down at the doll, bringing its arms together so the empty sleeve touched the intact hand. :So be with him, talk to him, and give the both of you some time to think. Your lives aren't over.: His hand cupped around the doll's broken head. It was so easy to say such things.
After some ritual work with Savil followed by a barely-tasted dinner, he returned to his rooms for the first time since sunrise, tiredly glancing to the place where the pages left his letters out of ingrained habit. There was only one there tonight - a plain slip of paper, folded crookedly. He cracked the thumbprint seal, and read:
Van,
I spoke to R. about what you told me. He thinks it's the right thing for us to do.
I don't know how to tell anyone else about it, and in truth I don't want to. Neither does he.
You know what we're asking you.
Love,
-Shavri
He knew.
He'd almost known as first said it - something so personal, shared between them...of course he would be beseeched to act upon his own wild proposition. But it still felt exactly as he'd told her it wouldn't. Shocking. Bedding Shavri? He couldn't even contemplate it. Like any of his female friends, he'd come to think of her as sexless - certainly in relation to himself, not least as she was someone else's lifebonded. I wouldn't object, but...well, my mind will assuredly be elsewhere.
As would hers, so it hardly mattered - in truth, he was much more concerned about Randale. Shavri wouldn't do this if it were against his will - but for all he knew Randale was already thinking ill of him for even suggesting that his beloved go to anyone else's bed. My bed. Vanyel had no doubt Randi wanted a family, but not with the same yearning need that Shavri held - what if he was less willing than she to accept this intrusion into their fidelity? Would he ever forgive Van if, afterwards, he found that it hurt him?
It had been an easier decision to make the first time. It was customary, for the Tayledras; he owed Snowlight a little, and Moondance and Starwind a lot; he wouldn't be staying to see the fruits of his deeds ripen on the vine, but instead they'd be a silent connection, a fealty he made to the clan that had given him his life back. And all he'd had to do was say yes when Snowlight asked him; she'd made her agreement with Starwind and Moondance years before, and had only been waiting to find the right person and take the right moment to ask him.
Shavri and Randi were different entirely. He and they were friends with no debts as such, for all he needed them more than he'd ever be able to say. He was aware that they both seemed to look up to him, though all he had over them was three years and some months in age, a couple of Border patrols, some outland talk and a personal tragedy. Had he tainted that trust by making that suggestion? There was a little symmetry to it, even - they were seventeen, just as he had been when he'd passed that night with Snowlight; and Snowlight had been more than old enough to know who and what she needed and that all she wanted to take from his body was a kindness, a foreigner's kindness and his inability to linger thereafter. He threatened nothing in her world.
Will he really forgive me?
Here, he could not be an occasional stranger to his friends' child. Could be be sure he'd be content to be a third party, silent guardian of a secret, among people who would regard his relation to their family as an unnatural sin?
Yes.
She needed this. They needed this. How could he refuse?
He turned the parchment over and picked up his quill, only praying that Randale truly had accepted this favour.
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eta: Oh what the hell, have a snippet:
Savil glanced at the four younglings occupying the living room out of the corner of her eye; a sudden burst of laughter had jarred her from the doze she’d slipped into while reading. The autumn rains had begun that morning, and everyone who could afford to do so was staying snug and warm indoors; even most of the highborn would forbear the attractions of the High Court, at least the ones who didn’t already have accommodation in the palace. The constant sound of rain pelting the rooftops and windows would soon fade into the background, but for now the comforting rhythm was making her sleepy.
She could scarcely credit the change that had taken place in her nephew, but there it was: Tylendel had somehow managed to civilize him after all. It would have been unthinkable for the arrogant, sullen boy who first came here at the beginning of summer to deign to socialize with a lowborn farmer’s son and a poor city orphan.
:Copper for your thoughts, teacher-love,: Tylendel’s mindvoice interrupted.
:Just contemplating the apparent miracle you wrought in my nephew,: she replied in kind.
Tylendel refrained from laughing out loud, but she felt his amusement through their mindlink. :Not so miraculous as all that. You may as well claim someone who tames wild animals is a miracle worker, when it all takes is patience and kindness.:
:Which you apparently have in abundance,: she said. :Well, I’m not above admitting my first impressions were wrong, especially when we both know reading people is not one my special talents.:
:I’m relieved to hear it,: Tylendel replied. :He’s lost some of his wild animal fear of you, now that he knows you won’t send him back to his father. I think if you made an overture, he’d respond to it.:
:You won’t be less than content until you make us all one big happy family, will you? No, you’re right. We familial black sheep should stick together, I suppose.:
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