06/01/06; 6:15 p.m.
I am not dead yet. I think.
Standard disclaimers apply. Plot ain't mine, people. Got it from "The Night Dance" by Suzanne Weyn. All credit goes to this marvelous author.
The Secret Ball
By Ninetails
Prologue:
Quatre pressed his slim body into the cool shadowy corner of the high wall in the empty courtyard. Shaded by the towering building behind him, his blonde hair seemed to take on a more golden hue. A determined glint deepened his lively, sky-colored eyes into a stormy blue-gray.
Furtively glancing back at the towering manor that was his home, he saw one of his eleven siblings, Iria, peer out from a high, narrow window. Even from this distance he could read the look of longing in his sister's expression. Prickly though Iria could be, Quatre still sympathized with the trapped restlessness he knew his sister felt. Still, he couldn't take the chance of being seen, and he shrank farther into the shadows.
Raaaaaawrk! Quatre's hand suddenly flew to the absent scabbard that was normally on his buckle as he turned toward an open kitchen window on the first floor of the manor. The panicked squawk of a captive pheasant had made him jump.
Rasha, the cook, appeared in the window with a small axe held high over her head and the bird clasped firmly in her other hand. She ended the struggling creature's life swiftly with a strong, well-placed blow to its neck against a chopping board. Then she strode away from the table by the window with the beheaded pheasant in her arms, setting about the business of preparing the bird for roasting.
When Quatre turned his attention back to the upper window, Iria was no longer there. In the next minute, Rasha reappeared at the kitchen window, but only for a second, to pull the shutters closed.
Quatre waited, barely breathing, for several minutes more. Soon he felt confident that things were finally as he had hoped they'd be at this hour. His siblings would be busy with their embroidery, or in Duo's case, setting up pranks for any unwary household member. Their father, Sir Winner of Gaul, was reviewing his monthly accounts, a process that usually took hours. Most likely he wouldn't lift his head from his books until Hilde, the head housemaid, summoned him for dinner.
Reaching into the cobalt blue velvet cape he wore against the late spring's still-cool breezes, Quatre withdrew a small iron cleaver that he'd smuggled from the kitchen. Even in this shadowed spot, its blade gleamed. His father's military past had left him with a love of rules, order, and efficiency. Among his many dictates to the servants was his insistence that they regularly sharpen all the household blades on a whetstone.
A scuffle at his feet caused his eyes to dart downward. He immediately jumped back, startled by a tiny gray field mouse that had scurried in through the narrow opening that rose from the base of the wall in an inverted v-shape. The creature paused for a moment to stare up at him, then zigzagged its way across the courtyard, probably headed for the kitchen.
When his heart had settled, Quatre turned again toward the wall. With eager fingers, he traced the lines of a crack that traveled from the top of the break in the wall halfway up to the top. Several fissures snaked out from the main fracture, further weakening this section of the enclosure.
The day before, when Hilde had ordered two of the house boys to remove a brown, dead, potted tree – one of the many potted plants adorning the slate-tiled courtyard – from this corner of the courtyard, Quatre had first noticed the break in the wall. He instantly recognized the opportunity he'd been hoping for.
With the cleaver in his firm grip, he attempted several slow practice passes to be sure that when the moment was right, his aim would be accurate. Then, wrapping his fingers around the cleaver's iron handle, he waited, his back pressed against the wall.
In the next moment, the bell from the monastery outside the nearby town chimed as it always did at this hour, calling the monks to prayer.
Now! Quatre thought wildly. He smashed the cleaver's blade down into the line of the crack, the deeply satisfying crash masked by the resonating bell.
The cleaver stuck fast into the wall. With two hands, he frantically yanked it out and struck again.
And now!
And now!
Again and again, he savagely wielded the blade into the cracks, straining every lean muscle of his lithe body. With each blow his joy mounted as the crumbling powdery stone tumbled to his feet.
The bell ceased its summoning toll.
Dropping to his knees, Quatre took a quick moment to recover from his violent effort and then pushed the debris away from the opening. He lay flat on his stomach and rolled onto his right shoulder. From this vantage point it was immediately apparent that even if he managed to get his head through the opening, his shoulders would never make it.
Quatre rolled back up into a crouch and then slowly stood, resolving not to give in to disappointment. The monastery bell would chime again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, just as it had rung at the same hour on every day of his life. There would be other chances to chip away at this wall, the cursed barrier that had closed him off from the wide, glorious world for the past twelve years, since the time when his mother had left them.
TBC
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A/N:
Intrigued?
Heck, I'm back with another 3x4 demo... I haven't had an update for "Shahrastini" in months! For the people reading this who have read that fic, gomen nasai!! Here I am starting another fic, and I don't know when I'll be able to update again! School starts next week so 'tis HELL time for me again. Tasuketeeee!!
No, I did not meant for Gaul to mean "Old France." There's this character in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series named Gaul and I totally adore that particular Aiel. Heh.
The title sucks, I know. I'm gonna change it once I think up something fitting...