Bronze and Black:

A Collection of D/N Oneshots by Sivvus

A/N: I wanted to write something a little lighter than my main stories, so I'm doing a keyword challenge from one of the groups on facebook. Alongside this I've decided to put all of my Daine/Numair oneshots into one fic, so most of these will be new (with keywords) and a few will be older ones which belong in this collection. They skip around in time a little bit, and range from fluff to angst to adventure to… well, whatever the keywords suggest! But always D/N, because those two just belong together.

"Argue" – Set just before the start of EM

Daine heard the noise through the black blur of sleep, and mentally groaned. She desperately wanted to crawl back inside her dream and fall asleep, but the harsh inhalation made her skin crawl. It sounded like one of the animals was gasping for breath, and she had to help them as soon as possible. Still, she couldn't will herself to wake up. Odds bobs! Being tired is better than letting someone choke to death, girl! She told herself sternly, and wrenched her eyes open.

It wasn't an animal. The creature looking at her with narrowed brown eyes stood on two paws, not four, and wore an all-too-human glare. Daine muttered a curse and rolled over. Even if she had a nightmare, she thought stubbornly, it would be better than having to talk to that… that woman.

The noise happened again, an infuriated sniff, and Daine rolled onto her back to glare at the intruder. "What?" she croaked, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice. The lady glared back.

"What are you doing?" Infalda demanded, keeping her voice low. Daine blinked, wondering what she'd done now. The woman had criticised her for every sin, from letting the animals bark too loudly, to feeding the castle cats plates of meat that wasn't greening. The woman was older than her, a lady-in-waiting to one of the duchesses whose names Daine could never remember, and the girl was supposed to act respectfully around her. Still, it was difficult to keep calm and polite when the woman was constantly yelling!

"Why're you in my room?" She asked groggily, sitting up. Then she caught sight of the woman's scornful look, and glanced around her. "Ah," she realised, and ran a hand through her curls awkwardly. "I'm not in my room."

"No," the woman started, and drew a breath to say something else when the door clicked open. Both of them looked up. It was rather disconcerting for Numair, who stepped through the door to be met by two bright-eyed gazes. He stared at Infalda for a long moment, looking rather nonplussed, before shutting the door gently behind him.

"Oh," he said, recovering himself. "Daine, you're awake!"

"Why is she here, darling?" As always, Infalda's voice was sweeter than honey when she spoke to her lover, but she couldn't hide the irritation in her voice at Daine being greeted first. Numair missed it, though, with his usual careless obliviousness, and put down the book he was carrying carefully on the table.

"She fell asleep reading last night, Inni." He explained lightly, and turned a guileless smile towards the girl. "I didn't want to wake you up, magelet. I know how hard Thayet's had you working, getting ready for Carthak. I hope you don't mind."

"No, why would…" Daine started, and winced when the lady shot her a dark look.

"Well, I mind. People talk, you know!"

"People like you?" The girl retorted snidely. Infalda raised her chin and ignored her, so Daine kept speaking, just to take a jab at the snooty hag. Her voice was halfway between playful and vengeful. "It was a nice thing he did, and I'm fair grateful. I mean, even if he does always steal the blankets…"

"Daine…" Numair started, a warning note in his voice as he glanced at Infalda, who had gone quite pink. The girl shrugged and ignored him.

"You… you slept here, with her? And… always? This happens a lot?" The woman demanded, rounding on Numair. The mage held up his hands in what was meant to be a placatory gesture, actually taking a step backwards.

"Daine," he said, almost laughing in frustration at the stupidity of the situation, "I am going to kill you for this."

"No you won't." She said placidly. "Inni, my dearest loveliest one… of course he slept here. It's his bed, you idiot. Where else would he go? I mean, he's obviously bored with you, or else you'd know exactly where he was last night, wouldn't you?"

Infalda blinked, and her pink skin turned to a blotchy white. Numair shot Daine another black look, but she could tell that she had guessed right. She sighed with something close to relief and rubbed sleep from her eyes. Well, I've said this much, she thought, I guess this will be my last chance to say anything else. Numair's only letting me speak because it's the first time I've ever… ever fought with one of his women. He looks so stunned!

"You little cow." Infalda said poisonously, "How dare you speak to me like that?"

Daine grinned. "Thank you! Now I don't need to explain how you talk to me when you think no-one's watching."

Infalda blinked and looked around. In her anger she'd obviously forgotten that there was anyone else in the room. She drew a breath, meeting Numair's glare, and started to speak.

The scene was not pleasant.

Afterwards, Daine expected Numair to come back into the room in a black mood, or to storm away and disappear into the library for a few hours until his quick temper calmed down. Instead, to her surprise, the man walked slowly back into his room and shut the door behind him, looking thoughtful. When she cleared her throat he looked up, losing his train of thought, and sat down next to her on the bed. Daine mentally shrugged and combed her hair through with her fingers, knowing that when he was thinking that deeply the words would emerge at their own pace, or not at all.

"Daine," he asked in an unusually hesitant voice, "Why didn't you tell me?"

She flicked her eyes up at him and then shrugged off the concern. "It's happened before. I just haven't… wouldn't normally… she started it!" The words became defensive as she struggled to understand his odd smile. "If your girlfriends yell at me, Numair, I'm cussed well going to yell back."

He smiled and ruffled her hair. "I know you can fight your corner, magelet. I'm not angry that you yelled at her. I'm just confused as to why you had to in the first place. Have you two been arguing with each other? I mean, I didn't think you and Infalda had much in common."

"Apart from you, you mean?" The girl was amused enough at the bewildered expression on his face to make her suggestion easier to say: "Numair, if I fall asleep here again you should probably wake me up. She's right, you know. People do talk. She's not the first one to get jealous of you, honestly, and knowing you she won't be the last."

He scowled and waved a hand – the same gesture he made when anyone brought up this conversation. "It's none of their business. We know there's nothing like that going on, and so do all our friends. You never upset any of the other ladies, anyway. Infalda was an exception. Perhaps someone is spreading rumours, but it'll die down quickly enough."

"Odds bobs, Numair." Daine shook her curls irritably and stood up, planting her hands on her hips. "You want to know what's changed? I have. Your ladies can see that I'm not a little girl any more, even if you can't. That's what's making them hate me, not some rumours and not Infalda being any worse. Don't make it into some grand conspiracy when all I'm trying to say is that it's fair improper for me to be sharing a bed with you!"

He went a deep red, and looked at his feet. "Your accent gets thicker when you're annoyed." He muttered.

"Oh, bother my accent." She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. Numair didn't watch her go – he was used enough to her dramatic exits even to be able to anticipate how loudly the door would crash behind her. He knew that she would calm down soon enough and mutter some half-formed apology at lunch with her unique blend of guilt and stubbornness. He sighed and linked his hands behind his head, leaning back and thinking that this time it was him who should apologise. The problem with that, though, was that he would have to work out exactly what to admit before he apologised for it.

The problem, as he navigated it in his racing academic manner, was that Daine was not only correct, she was pointing out something that he had been aware of for quite some time. Perhaps he should act like it was a revelation to him that his little magelet had grown up into a young woman, but he doubted he could be sincere in that.

Besides, he thought, he hadn't really thought of her as a child when she was a child. She was just a Daine, the same as she was now. Her sense of wonder at the world and eagerness to learn all she could of it weren't childish traits others might have expected to fade, but a part of who she was. Growing up, as far as Numair ever thought about Daine in those terms, generally involved how she had gotten a little taller.

Recently, though, that mindset had failed him. Numair was aware that he was becoming more… what was the right word for it? He frowned and tugged at his nose, mentally sorting through synonyms. Nervous was too twitchy, and scared was too strong, but the word belonged somewhere in the middle. He had known she was changing, but he had been dreading the day when she realised that. When she noticed the way that the stable boys were watching her and understood it, or worse – Numair forced himself to finish the line of thought – when she looked at them in the same way.

It would drive a wall between them, he thought, and he didn't want that. And he couldn't really talk to anyone about it, because he didn't know how to explain the complicated mixture of feelings that coloured the thought. It wasn't that he didn't want her to find someone and be happy, it was just that he knew he would be jealous, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He was as close to her as a father or a brother, but he was neither of those things, not really. He was her friend. Friends had no right to get as protective as he did.

The Daine who fell asleep without a moment's hesitation in his rooms was like a daughter or a sister: completely relaxed around him and utterly unconcerned about proprietary, because such concerns had nothing to do with the way things were between them. If she was worried now then that version of her would soon be swept away, and both of them would have to decide what they actually were to one another. It wouldn't be enough to be just themselves, because the outside world wouldn't accept that answer.

The fact that the real world – no, he corrected the phrase in his head – the fact that the gossips were starting to encroach on their uncomplicated friendship hurt him. But he had always known that, eventually, that would happen.

"She has to grow up sooner or later, dolt." The mage muttered to himself, and stared up at the ceiling with a self-depreciating grin. "Unless you really thought in ten years she'd be married and yet still somehow this close to her old teacher. That would just be…" he pulled a face and used the girl's own turn of phrase, "…fair foolish, wouldn't it?"

For some reason the vague thought of her getting married made his head hurt. He rolled onto his side and wished the blankets didn't still carry her scent.