Mending
Prologue: Future
Luno's arrival at the Royal Palace was unremarkable. Just another boy coming to start his page's training, maybe only a little earlier than most. His departure, however, was another matter entirely.
His mother had fretted. Lady Lyrra had not entirely recovered from the loss of her eldest son, and because of his much younger age, she'd always worried over Luno much more than she had over his brother. His father had brushed the matter away – another son making for his shield, it was only natural.
Godrich had suspected. Godrich Iceriver was the fief game master, a position that traditionally included the instruction of arts such as riding, tracking, and bowmanship to the noble sons of his lord. Luno's family were great believers in tradition, and so they followed this one like all the others. It was Godrich who mended Luno when he first fell off horseback, taught him the sight of deer tracks and watched him draw bow for the first time. Godrich had taught him patiently, kindly, without a scowl or a hard word for the boy who knew he lacked his older brother's talents.
The game master never spoke a word to Luno on this sensitive matter, but the look he gave him as he rode out of the castle that morning had said it all. For years you thought you weren't as good as him, said that look, and now you're thinking maybe you can best him. Yes, it was true. The smaller, scrawnier, younger Luno dared to think he could best his brother at something, succeed where his better had failed. He rode down the valley to the road mulling it over, knowing that his success was not assured, but convinced he possessed qualities his brother lacked, qualities that may help him in his ambition.
His success was not assured, where his brother's failure was cold, hard fact. Luno loved his family, the ties to them he knew he could never sever, but he was not mired down by their ways. Future rode up to his parents, who refused to stand aside and let her pass. But she would not stop, Luno knew. She would ride on, whether or not one noble house in one kingdom of mortals approved. And when she came she would trample them. She'd done so to his elder brother, leaving him dead.
Luno knew he had something his brother never did. When he heard the clatter of hooves on the road, and looked up and saw mounted future riding at him, he stepped aside and let her pass. And when she'd gone, instead of marching on alone as he had he turned to watch her path, to see if perhaps she rode into better days. Unlike his family he knew that change was not always evil and that a time came when one had to alter one's path to follow the future, not try -- in vein -- to lead it.
Perhaps once his dear father could cow him, convince him of his error, still his skeptic's tongue from gnawing into the fabric of their family tradition. But things had changed, when his brother died; now Luno had proof that he was right -- cold, hard proof. He would not stand still and watch a once great noble house deteriorate. He would not allow his parents to drag the whole family down in their futile battle against progress.
He would mend things. Mend what his brother had broken, the family's tenuous, vital bond to their overlords. Mend what his father and father's father had let slide, the estate's link to the main trading roads and the big cities. Mend the deteriorating honor and standing of fief Stone Mountain, and everything that Joren's death had revealed to be so dreadfully broken.
Disclaimer: Tortall, fief Stone Mountain and Joren of Stone Mountain are all the property of Tamora Pierce. The plot of this story is my own, but based in the events of Protector of the Small: Squire, also property of Tamora Pierce. Luno of Stone Mountain and Godrich Iceriver are my own property.
