fic - Van/Lendel, and a strange encounter
Jan. 2nd, 2013 05:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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last_herald_mageJust something quick I rattled off to fill one of my own prompts. 1300 words, nothing horrible happens no really i swear ;_;
Silhouette
Vanyel had crossed the bridge too fast.
He hadn't been thinking hard enough, and now he felt like the urgency of his footsteps must have rattled its way to every corner of Companion's Field. He was getting careless - maybe because nothing's gone wrong for us yet. What if it's only a matter of time? He swallowed hard and forced himself to slow down; a sly glance across the river revealed only two other people, their purposes unknowable, but both of them seemed to be heading away from him. And there was no one on this side of the bank. Maybe no one had seen him half-running across the river towards Tylendel. Maybe.
He sighed, affected his most leisurely stroll, and made his way uphill in the wrong direction. He felt like he ought to make an even more cautious approach than he usually did, not that it would erase any damage done by his lapse of focus. He was almost at the peak of the shallow ridge now, and he dared another look to the river -
Something moved, close and at the edge of his vision. He froze. Someone.
He forced himself to take a few more steps, for all the world like a bored dancer, before looking around properly. No one was there.
But I saw someone... He blinked, his eyes roving over the gentle slope in the low-light, but there wasn't even so much as a tree to hide behind between him and the river. No one was there. He was alone in this part of the Field, excepting a lone Companion who appeared to be snuffling for wildflowers, watching him out of one blue eye.
He stepped forward without really thinking about it. She raised her head to him as he approached, and her eyelids twitched in what certainly appeared to be curiosity.
"Um," he said. Even after a couple of weeks of knowing Gala, he still felt a little silly talking to something that, well, looked entirely like a horse. But they were all highly intelligent, maybe more so than himself, and unlike their Chosen he didn't think they bore him any animosity. They'd seen him tramping furtively about their Field in 'Lendel's wake - it might just be wishful thinking, Vanyel very much wanting someone outside Savil's quarters to know about him and Tylendel and not condemn what they had, but he felt like they at least humoured him as they saw him pass through their home almost every day. Maybe even welcomed the sight of his face. So perhaps this Companion wouldn't mind helping him. "Um, I thought I saw someone here just now." The blue eyes widened, and he felt extremely silly. But he couldn't have made it up in his head, could he? "It was a woman with long dark hair, I'm almost sure," he added desperately - the only detail he'd discerned from that stooped figure he'd barely seen. "Did you see anyone go by?"
She blinked a few times, and tossed her head slightly before straightening to her full height. She was tall; taller than Gala, he thought, and if she'd been a horse he would have wagered she was several years older than Gala - too old to be yet to Choose, or to be bonded to a Trainee. I wonder whose Companion she is? She stared down at him, and he wondered if she was trying to tell him to leave her the hell alone - but he didn't feel like she was trying to drive him off.
She stepped closer, and then took a circling step around him.
He could feel her eyes passing over him, like the warmth of a torch. He didn't move - wasn't sure if he could have if he'd wanted to. He heard her footsteps close behind him. If he hadn't become used to being near Gala, he might have jumped hastily away from her legs - but she wasn't a horse, and whatever she was doing, it was something she meant to do. He felt oddly like he had when Savil had first glared at him. Like he was being measured. Only this time, it was by someone who wasn't frustrated with him for existing.
She stepped in front of him again and he looked into her eyes. Such a gentle shade of blue - he thought of everything Tylendel had said about being Chosen, what it had felt like and what it had meant to him, and he felt a hard lump forming in his throat. It must be wonderful to feel a bond like that. But Companions were never going to be more than a mystery to him no matter how hard he got stared at by one of them -
She shook her head, and skipped playfully around to his other side and nudged him, hard, with her nose. "Hey!"
She whickered, and it sounded like a laugh. He'd kept his balance only with a stumbling step - directly towards the grove Tylendel loved so much.
"Right. I get you. Um, thank you. I'll go now. I'm sorry I troubled you." He turned on the balls of his feet, picking a direction; not the one she'd indicated - she might be trying to tell him it would be safe to go straight there, but he didn't want to risk it. She nodded, and bent her front leg, with a bob not so unlike that of a courtier taking their leave, and he found himself smiling at her and meeting her eyes again.
She was -
He took a step back, not meaning to, clumsily dipped his own head in return and walked away as briskly as he felt he could passably get away with on an evening's promenade. He counted to a hundred before veering back towards his destination, hurry warring with his heightened fretfulness.
He was breathing heavily as he took the last steps into their grove, and he leaned one hand against a treetrunk, bowing his head. Tylendel was lying on the earth in front of him, stretched out on his stomach with his head resting on his folded arms; Gala was beside him, her nose against his neck. "And where have you been?" 'Lendel sounded amused, mostly, but also a little worried.
How to even explain? "I met a Companion. She was walking all around me and looking at me..." He shook his head, still thoroughly confused by the encounter.
Tylendel chuckled. "Getting Chosen now, are you?"
"Gods no, you of all people should know that. Even if I had Gifts, I'd be the awfullest Herald."
'Lendel stretched out a hand, and Vanyel walked across to take it, slowly allowing Tylendel to tug him down to his knees on the soft carpet of shed needles. "Who was it, anyway? Where were they?"
"Just up the bank from the riverside."
Tylendel glanced at Gala, and a look of surprise passed over his face, followed by a grin. "She thinks it was Yfandes - the one who won't Choose. Van, I do believe you might have just had a close call with destiny!"
Vanyel elbowed him in the ribs. "You're absurd," he replied, not entirely unappreciatively. Tylendel seemed quite keen to distract him from the strange meeting, but he couldn't just shake off that last look in her eyes. Never Chosen? But how old was she? He thought of those jealous pangs he'd felt the first time he'd met Gala - what must it be like for Yfandes, seeing all those younger Companions out frolicking with their Chosen all day?
She's lonely.
He curled against Tylendel, letting his lover wrap one strong arm about his shoulders, pulling him close, tempting him to forget all about her. Vanyel closed his eyes, and tried to let go of what he'd seen in her eyes.
She's waiting.
She doesn't care how long she has to wait.
Silhouette
Vanyel had crossed the bridge too fast.
He hadn't been thinking hard enough, and now he felt like the urgency of his footsteps must have rattled its way to every corner of Companion's Field. He was getting careless - maybe because nothing's gone wrong for us yet. What if it's only a matter of time? He swallowed hard and forced himself to slow down; a sly glance across the river revealed only two other people, their purposes unknowable, but both of them seemed to be heading away from him. And there was no one on this side of the bank. Maybe no one had seen him half-running across the river towards Tylendel. Maybe.
He sighed, affected his most leisurely stroll, and made his way uphill in the wrong direction. He felt like he ought to make an even more cautious approach than he usually did, not that it would erase any damage done by his lapse of focus. He was almost at the peak of the shallow ridge now, and he dared another look to the river -
Something moved, close and at the edge of his vision. He froze. Someone.
He forced himself to take a few more steps, for all the world like a bored dancer, before looking around properly. No one was there.
But I saw someone... He blinked, his eyes roving over the gentle slope in the low-light, but there wasn't even so much as a tree to hide behind between him and the river. No one was there. He was alone in this part of the Field, excepting a lone Companion who appeared to be snuffling for wildflowers, watching him out of one blue eye.
He stepped forward without really thinking about it. She raised her head to him as he approached, and her eyelids twitched in what certainly appeared to be curiosity.
"Um," he said. Even after a couple of weeks of knowing Gala, he still felt a little silly talking to something that, well, looked entirely like a horse. But they were all highly intelligent, maybe more so than himself, and unlike their Chosen he didn't think they bore him any animosity. They'd seen him tramping furtively about their Field in 'Lendel's wake - it might just be wishful thinking, Vanyel very much wanting someone outside Savil's quarters to know about him and Tylendel and not condemn what they had, but he felt like they at least humoured him as they saw him pass through their home almost every day. Maybe even welcomed the sight of his face. So perhaps this Companion wouldn't mind helping him. "Um, I thought I saw someone here just now." The blue eyes widened, and he felt extremely silly. But he couldn't have made it up in his head, could he? "It was a woman with long dark hair, I'm almost sure," he added desperately - the only detail he'd discerned from that stooped figure he'd barely seen. "Did you see anyone go by?"
She blinked a few times, and tossed her head slightly before straightening to her full height. She was tall; taller than Gala, he thought, and if she'd been a horse he would have wagered she was several years older than Gala - too old to be yet to Choose, or to be bonded to a Trainee. I wonder whose Companion she is? She stared down at him, and he wondered if she was trying to tell him to leave her the hell alone - but he didn't feel like she was trying to drive him off.
She stepped closer, and then took a circling step around him.
He could feel her eyes passing over him, like the warmth of a torch. He didn't move - wasn't sure if he could have if he'd wanted to. He heard her footsteps close behind him. If he hadn't become used to being near Gala, he might have jumped hastily away from her legs - but she wasn't a horse, and whatever she was doing, it was something she meant to do. He felt oddly like he had when Savil had first glared at him. Like he was being measured. Only this time, it was by someone who wasn't frustrated with him for existing.
She stepped in front of him again and he looked into her eyes. Such a gentle shade of blue - he thought of everything Tylendel had said about being Chosen, what it had felt like and what it had meant to him, and he felt a hard lump forming in his throat. It must be wonderful to feel a bond like that. But Companions were never going to be more than a mystery to him no matter how hard he got stared at by one of them -
She shook her head, and skipped playfully around to his other side and nudged him, hard, with her nose. "Hey!"
She whickered, and it sounded like a laugh. He'd kept his balance only with a stumbling step - directly towards the grove Tylendel loved so much.
"Right. I get you. Um, thank you. I'll go now. I'm sorry I troubled you." He turned on the balls of his feet, picking a direction; not the one she'd indicated - she might be trying to tell him it would be safe to go straight there, but he didn't want to risk it. She nodded, and bent her front leg, with a bob not so unlike that of a courtier taking their leave, and he found himself smiling at her and meeting her eyes again.
She was -
He took a step back, not meaning to, clumsily dipped his own head in return and walked away as briskly as he felt he could passably get away with on an evening's promenade. He counted to a hundred before veering back towards his destination, hurry warring with his heightened fretfulness.
He was breathing heavily as he took the last steps into their grove, and he leaned one hand against a treetrunk, bowing his head. Tylendel was lying on the earth in front of him, stretched out on his stomach with his head resting on his folded arms; Gala was beside him, her nose against his neck. "And where have you been?" 'Lendel sounded amused, mostly, but also a little worried.
How to even explain? "I met a Companion. She was walking all around me and looking at me..." He shook his head, still thoroughly confused by the encounter.
Tylendel chuckled. "Getting Chosen now, are you?"
"Gods no, you of all people should know that. Even if I had Gifts, I'd be the awfullest Herald."
'Lendel stretched out a hand, and Vanyel walked across to take it, slowly allowing Tylendel to tug him down to his knees on the soft carpet of shed needles. "Who was it, anyway? Where were they?"
"Just up the bank from the riverside."
Tylendel glanced at Gala, and a look of surprise passed over his face, followed by a grin. "She thinks it was Yfandes - the one who won't Choose. Van, I do believe you might have just had a close call with destiny!"
Vanyel elbowed him in the ribs. "You're absurd," he replied, not entirely unappreciatively. Tylendel seemed quite keen to distract him from the strange meeting, but he couldn't just shake off that last look in her eyes. Never Chosen? But how old was she? He thought of those jealous pangs he'd felt the first time he'd met Gala - what must it be like for Yfandes, seeing all those younger Companions out frolicking with their Chosen all day?
She's lonely.
He curled against Tylendel, letting his lover wrap one strong arm about his shoulders, pulling him close, tempting him to forget all about her. Vanyel closed his eyes, and tried to let go of what he'd seen in her eyes.
She's waiting.
She doesn't care how long she has to wait.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-04 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-04 05:11 pm (UTC)It is just weird to think of Fandes without Van...apart from having a couple of kids, we just don't know what she was doing all that time, or if she knew who she was waiting for. Awws ;_;
no subject
Date: 2013-01-04 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-04 07:17 pm (UTC)heh, there is that implication from Savil that Staven could have been Chosen but wasn't... What I am still wondering is why seemingly all Valdemaran mages get Chosen, because it's not like being a mage makes one naturally predisposed to be a decent person. Maybe Fandes couldn't risk leaving Van on the shelf.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 06:33 pm (UTC)But did Staven even have any Gifts other than mindspeaking Tylendel, and even then it's implied that he can do so only because of the mystical twin bond. My thinking here is that neither one of them really had what it took to be a Herald--come on, when Tylendel was on the verge of killing (or attempting to, rather) Savil--who was like a mother to him!--all because she said some mean things about Staven? I guess when it comes to mages, especially powerful mages, all the Companions agreed that they can't risk leaving any of them on the shelf, and just do their best to mold them into good
self-sacrificing automatonsafter they Choose them.no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 07:09 pm (UTC)You're right, I'm probably latching on too hard to that one comment from Savil about Staven due to the absence of anything else about the topic. I think AOTQ says that having a Companion greatly enhances baseline mind-magical abilities, which I think was in part meant to explain why the mind-gifts are so rare outside Valdemar, but that doesn't make sense given the overlap with some of the gifts that Healers have. Agh.
(Btw, I have been doing some compulsive Pit-fishing lately and I found this thing of IDEK, which is of interest because it is mostly about how godawful Van and Lendel's relationship could have been if Lendel hadn't died. It's unfinished, doesn't hang together well and is lying about featuring a threesome, and I'm not sold on it being IC, but it does the id trainwreck thing pretty spectacularly.)
no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 07:18 pm (UTC)Yeah well, so much of AOTQ canon has been retconned at this point, who the hell even knows. According to AOTQ, some of the Companions never even tell their Chosen their names and their Heralds end up renaming them. I D G I
Ahahaha, oh wow that fic, I must save it on my flashdrive to peruse at my leisure. I was dubious about the most recent fic I added to the recs post, but in the end I thought it belonged there, because the quality does improve as it goes along, plus you just don't see purely evil-insane Tylendel in this fandom, at all; even E&O Tylendel doesn't come close :(
no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 08:18 pm (UTC)AAAAAAAAAAAAH you know what, I did get that alert but I was in the car on the way to see The Hobbit, so I totally forgot about it!
no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 11:02 pm (UTC)eta, about unreliability: Van's initial opinions of many characters wind up being drastically wrong. He is way easy to blindside. I don't think it's just for dramatic reasons - he is clearly bad at reading people. And I do think that the Dating Advice For Catgirls Scene is pretty critical of Van/Lendel (and makes a fun contrast with the bit in Promise where Van is giving Randi terrible Van/Lendel-based dating advice). So, there's that. I definitely don't think canon endorses Lendel nearly as hard as the fandom does.
Yeah, I've not read new canon and doubt I ever will. Things I have read, listed in roughly the order in which I read them; the LHM, By the Sword, the Mage Winds (out of order; Fate was the one I read last, iirc by several years), Sword of Ice ://///, the Arrows, the Storms, Oathblood, Take A Thief, Brightly Burning. Thus I gradually realised idgaf about anything except my OTP. TBH I'm fond of Firesong, Kero, Need and Talia, but...oh god were the Storms boring and nothing has induced me to get interested in canon since then. The only reason I've read as much of it as I have is that I was living with my sister, who is one of those people who will drop $100+ on books in a weekend if no one talks her out of it; apart from the LHM, the only ones I even own are Winds of Fury and Arrow's Flight. *shrug*
no subject
Date: 2013-01-07 06:45 pm (UTC)ALSO LOL, THAT LINE YOU MENTIONED MADE FOR EXCELLENT INTEREST LIST FODDER. I MIGHT HAVE GONE A BIT CRAZY WITH THAT AND MINED ALL OF THE THREADS HERE AND AT AO3 FOR MORE.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-10 09:04 pm (UTC)and yeah, I've seen enough typos in mass-market genre novels that I assume it's just the result of the publisher not lavishing much time/money on editing and proofing.
augh, you are making me miss your fics /nudge. I did dig up another few readable things btw: this unfinished Van/Stef sickfic I used to like (Stef's name is misspelt throughout but it gets to be good, especially the fourth chapter, and it has a great OC healer in it); and two Van/Lendel fluff fics by someone who later became very well-known Harry Potter BNF before moving on to getting published - exhibit a, exhibit b.
Lonely like me!
Date: 2013-01-05 12:29 am (UTC)Re: Lonely like me!
Date: 2013-01-05 04:06 am (UTC)Re: Lonely like me!
Date: 2013-01-05 10:06 am (UTC)Re: Lonely like me!
Date: 2013-01-05 06:30 pm (UTC)It's always bugged me that, while I like Yfandes, she doesn't add anything plotwise the way almost all LHM minor characters do - she doesn't have her own agenda, but instead is almost purely an extension of Van. (I sometimes wonder if their later ire at Gwena is canon trolling itself again, given that Van said Gwena's problem is that she's had no life of her own and therefore shouldn't be trying to dictate Elspeth's.) And imo Fandes and Van have one of the more interesting Herald-Companion relationships in that her Choosing him did not magically fix his life, but instead just complicated it further and only gradually provided him a direction... IA, it's too easy and I barely look at Choosing scenes, especially not in fic :/