shiegra (shiegra) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2009-01-06 20:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2009 eight characters challenge, author: shiegra, crossover: kismet/narnia, pairing: jill/susan |
I Seem to Have Your Back (Kismet/Chronicles of Narnia)
Title: I Seem to Have Your Back
Author/Artist: shiegra
Fandom: Jill Kismet/Chronicles of Narnia
Pairing/characters: Susan, Jill
Rating: PG13
Prompt/challenge you're answering: Susan Pevensie rescues Jill Kismet from some kind of trouble
"We have to keep moving," Susan says, keeping her hand on the woman's wrist as they run. She knows these woods better than her own heart, slipping between trees, almost hearing their heartbeats (she used to hear their songs) even with the ravenous breath of danger on the back of her neck.
"What?" The woman keeps up easily, long dark hair swinging over her shoulders; she gives Susan a sideways glance, eyes bright as stars, long coat swinging around her. Susan knows enough to recognize the weight of weapons.
"Find shelter," she explains, only a little more breathless than her companion. "We can't face them like this--"
The woman skids to a stop, twists her wrist out of Susan's grasp--so strong--and spins in one fluid moment. The first great shadowy beast clears the slope behind them and skids, sending up great drifts of autumn leaves. Its roar shakes Susan's bones, vibrating in her teeth.
The woman's teeth show, white and feral. "Come to mama," she murmurs--sweet voice, a killer's grin, and Susan darts back, her fingers rising for her bow.
She is loathe to abandon an ally, even in such improbable odds. You must be mad, she thinks with extraordinary clarity at either the woman or herself, and then it ceases to matter.
Then the woman--springs--
The sheer power of the leap takes her far into the air; a harsh snapping roar of sound splits the air and Susan almost fumbles her bow, sets her teeth into her lower lip and brings the string back, pale. One of them crumples, staggers, and then gives a high, shatter-glass squeal of raw pain, midnight hide smoking.
"Careful--" Susan's shout is lost in the next retort of what must be gunfire and the second animal's ululating howl of pain as her arrow strikes home in its eye. She is stringing again, keeping the movements unhurried, her fingers aching with the restrained tension.
Movement--Susan drops the next one and the woman lands on the last, her hands moving against its fur, the cry of her weapons hardly muffled. The last one dies almost silently but for a low gurgle; the power of the weapons leaves its throat a raw red mess. The clearing is filled with a charnel house stench, and Susan covers her mouth hastily, knows she must retrieve her arrow. The corpses are already smoking away into oily pools of liquid.
A whisper of leather and the woman is standing beside her, regarding her with hard, wary eyes. "Jill Kismet," she says by way of introduction. She does not offer her hand; she still carries the guns.
"High Queen of Narnia," Susan returns, tone cool to hide the shaking of her voice. Jill's mouth quirks sarcastically and a bubble of near-hysterical laughter wells up, is quelled. "Susan Pevensie," she adds, and then, "I know a girl named Jill."
Jill Kismet, in the process of putting away her weapons, pauses and almost-smirks, mirthless. "Much resemblance?"
Susan looks at her sideways and draws in a breath, comparing them. This dark, lovely girl's lethal intensity to golden Jill's vibrant guile and idealism. "No," she says, dismissive. Comparison rarely mean anything in any case. "I believe you saved my life."
A smile flashes, weird and rueful and cautious. Jill raises her own wrists to examine the dark marks of abrasion and bruising, and Susan gasps aloud as she watches them vanish, swallowed into pale skin.
"I suspect," Jill remarks in the silence that follows her noise, "that I was returning the favor."