Flaithriaoh, the Prince of Fire (emblematic) wrote in adusta, @ 2010-02-21 22:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | ilúvatar voronwé, leironuoth |
The Crucible (Iluvatar)
Saoirse dragged him down and pressed her breasts into his chest. She was famous for them. He was famous for almost everything and that’s why she loved him. The raven haired girl moaned like a pagan and locked her ankles behind his back. The four-post bed shook and a pillow fell to the floor. She sank her teeth into his shoulder. He laughed.
A month since the footrace. A month since he’d healed Felix. Flaithriaoh had wanted Saoirse Ailis for years now. Everytime she walked by the pitch with those long legs, or tossed her dark hair back to laugh and show her white throat, everytime she said something low and soft in that sultry witch voice…Now that he had her here, covered in sweat and smelling like tulips, all he could think about was Felix’s cracked skull. And the inquisition that had followed. These things took time, he had been assured over and over again by the priests. There was no quick answer.
“There, there,” she pleaded. He obliged and her head knocked loudly against the board.
If it had been a month since the games then it had been three since Eibhear’s departure for the lines. There was trouble in the eastern deserts. Too far for any word from elvish lands. He knew that Eibhear couldn’t possibly have heard by now; the young Caoimhin might very well be the Leironuoth returned.
Saoirse certainly had heard. She wrestled the young lord onto his back, seized his wrists, and made him grab her by the hips. No one would ever accuse her of being a poet but then and there she had the hazy aura of something straight out of a dream; pressed down onto his hips with a lip held between her teeth…Five minutes later:
“Sorry,” he said from the edge of the bed.
“I just don’t understand.”
“Well, it’s not you.”
“It is, you don’t think I’m pretty.”
“Then you’re the first ugly girl I’ve fucked four times in a row. Wait!”
She hit him roughly with the only pillow left on the bed.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Flaithri promised. He stood up and backed into the side of an armoire. She charged after him but he quickly caught her round the waist. “You’re beautiful, paibth*.”
“Then what is it?”
He shook his head and she stared at him with those blue eyes. His mouth was open but no sound was coming out. After a long moment she turned around and walked back to the bed. She buried herself beneath the furs and left him standing against the armoire, where he remained for hours...
When Flaithriaoh woke it was to the sound of a gentle rain. Sun was just beginning to stream down through the foggy window. His back was sore from the arm chair, though he’d probably only gotten two hours of sleep. A gentle snore told him that Saoirse hadn’t left. Women have a tendency to do that, claiming beds for their own.
He rubbed his eyes and stood, placing a palm to the window. Cleared away the shimmer of morning’s breath. From the chamber high in the eastern tower he could see far down into the verdant estate of the Caoimhin, his ancestral land of sudden cliffs, hidden grottos, and plunging falls. From there he could also see something he had been impatiently waiting for; horsemen. Flying Eibhear’s colors. With a start he went for his pants and tugged them on.
He took the stairs two at a time, sprinting down them. He almost stepped directly on Hollen the old wolfhound, but hopped over the steely grey beast at the last moment. The dog stood lazily to wag its long tail but the prince was already gone, through a heavy door and out onto the frosted grass barefoot.
“Hail,” he called out. “Bellef, over here.”
The rider in front, an old veteran of only one eye but two good arms, turned to the noise.
“Hail,” was his soft reply. Never was much for raising his voice, unless he was spitting a curse at a charge of the enemy horde.
As Flaithriaoh neared the column, fifteen strong, he gathered his excitement. Kept it down in his stomach where it belonged; but that was enough to keep him from shivering. The riders were haggard for sure. Arms in slings, heads bandaged. If the horses could talk, they’d have been begging for rest. They were all staring at him with their tired warrior eyes and he searched amongst them. Bellef, Piren, Kelthir—he recognized all of his father’s lieutenants. Some of them had trained him in the sword and bow and spear.
But Eibhear himself was not among them, that small party of battered cavalry.
The excitement died.
“Where…”
Bellef glanced down at the ground and dismounted slowly.
“Bellef, where is Eibhear?”
The others dismounted as well.
“Where is Lord Caoimhin?” he asked weakly.
The tears came before the answer. They rolled down Flaithriaoh’s cheeks unchecked.
“He stands before me, My Lord.”
They knelt. He wanted the ground to come up to meet him as well, but there he stood on his feet before them.
“Thank you, Bellef, for telling me. It…couldn’t have been easy.”
*****
“You’ll go alone?” Etain demanded.
“Yes. The reserves will take too long to muster, even with Bellef at the head. They'll remain behind for now.”
“Then what shall you do?” Her voice was strangled in her throat.
The smith worked silently, measuring Flaithriaoh’s limbs and trunk as if the conversation wasn’t taking place. As if he was deaf.
“What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to kill every Perub that gets in front of me.”
“Alone.”
“No,” Flaithriaoh snapped his head around to stare at her. “I”ll ride with whatever regiment will have me. The armies are gathering. The Perubs are pushing West and the knights must respond or-”
“Knights, Flaithriaoh, the knights. You haven’t yet been sworded.”
“I was a knight the moment you created me, Etain.”
She left, wordlessly. The trail of her black mourning gown brushed the floor and was nearly caught in the great oak door that slammed behind her. The smith wrote something down and began to loop his tape.
“Have you got everything you need?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Good. I depart tomorrow.”
*****
The tents were arranged in tight rows. Two men per, their horses and gear neatly quartered beside. Thousands of the canvas things stretching out across the gentle foothills. This land, so close to the desert, was mostly scrub and weed. But it was bordered on one side in a cavernouse ravine, on the other with the jagged plateau which marked the edge of elvish territories. This is where it had to happen. If Thollsa Ghi’ibn planned to sieze any more land for his Perubian empire, he’d have to pass through here.
Flaithriaoh’s horse passed quietly beteween the rows. Many were still asleep, having ridden hard and fast from all over Ellothorien to answer the call of their Lords. He nodded curtly to an early riser, crouched alongside a tiny cookfire. In the morning sun the armor wrapped around the young lord shone like a mirror. In his right hand a stout pole bearing the standard of the ancient Caoimhin house, so bright cerulean that it made the clear sky above the scrubland seem insincere. Across his back was a great cruciform sword, it’s waisted handle bound in rough cord.
He brought the destrier through the rows, up the gentle incline until finally he reached the stations of those Lords present. There was Anacleto, a round field quarter of dark emerald draped and beige canvas. The Guythers, all silver and crimson. Many others too, which he recognized . But the one he approached was the largest of all, an enormous, low thing.
Voices inside, and two pages on either side of the closed flaps.
“Lord Caoimhin,” they said in unison. They bowed deeply and with a swing of his leg, Flaithriaoh dismounted. “We were not…”
“Expecting me, I know. Are they at the maps?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
Flaithriaoh left his banner in the ground and pushed his way inside. There were ten of them, all around the great wooden table. Anacleto was the first to stare at him but soon enough they all followed suit, suddenly quiet over their figures and maps. There was a wild one, a sylvan, that he didn’t know. He offered this man a slight bow.
“I’ve come to join the lines.”
*Paibth: An elvish term of endearment. The diminutive form of another term which translates roughly as "the early breeze in the beginning of spring."