Getting Stuck into your Work
A short fanfiction by Sivvus
Chapter 1
Daine gasped when she opened the door and saw what had happened to the room. The place was in chaos. Chairs were overturned, papers strewn over the floor in haphazard piles. Books were discarded among them, open at random pages. Strange beads and trinkets from one of the cupboards of mage supplies were spilled across the table, among the hollow remains of half eaten apple cores and crumbs of bread. The latches on one of the windows stood wide open, heedless of the bitter cold wind that had swept across the forest since she'd left the room. The first drops of autumn rain that fell were falling onto the expensive paper, bleeding into the cloth of it, eating through the spine and destroying the words.
This utter chaos could only mean one thing, and the thought made the girl bite her lip.
Numair had a new project.
She sighed and stepped into the room, kicking a book out of the way when it blocked the door. It was tempting to leave the window open and let his precious book get destroyed, and maybe next time he got his head stuck in a book the words would be meaningless. It was even more tempting to leave the mess as it was. When he eventually snapped out of whatever enthusiastic fantasy he was in, he'd feel guilty about it. In the end she just shut the window and told Kitten that there were some things that it was okay to leave muddy paw prints on, on special occasions. She was just pointing out specific books that would benefit from the decoration when the door flew open, the draft sending papers flying.
"Daine, do you know where that book on Jungiat craft spells is? I've looked everywhere, and..." Numair stopped abruptly, taking in the carnage of the room. "Ah. I guess I made a bit of a mess, then."
"It's nothing an earthquake wouldn't have done in your place." She retorted. "Honestly, why don't you tell me when you're planning on doing stuff like this? At least then I could move out for a few days."
The man wasn't listening. He was examining the unfamiliar books on the floor, looking for the craft spell book, but they turned out to be the same books from earlier with a new dragon print motif. He looked up briefly at Kitten, who whistled happily as she deliberately made a pattern of prints on a fresh page, pulled a face at the creature and belatedly thought about what Daine was saying.
"I don't want you to move out," he said in a far away voice, heading for the remains of another bookshelf. Even though he was only half listening, he could hear her rolling her eyes.
"I know where the book is. I'll tell you where it is if you promise to say more than two sentences to me this week. Then I'll have two more than the last time you got stuck in a project like this."
He frowned and stood up straight. "I distinctly remember explaining the last project to you. You didn't seem as fascinated by the concept of paradigmatic speaking spell analysis as I was, but I remember you listening to it. That was more than two sentences."
The girl smiled wanly and started picking up the beads from the table, dropping them back into the overturned box. "I meant things that I can understand, Numair. It's different. I'm interested because it interests you, but by the end of your last project I would have been happier if you'd said 'good morning' to me than if you'd solved the most complicated sum in Tortall. I had to remind you to eat, for Mithros sake!"
"I'm not that obsessed with-"
"I'm bribing you with a book here. And it's working."
"Oh." He tugged at his nose, halfway between guilt and thought. "I'll try." He reached down to the books on the floor, but instead of reading them he started sorting them into stacks. When Daine knelt down with him to help, he flashed her a mischievous grin.
"Don't tell me where that book is until I've tidied up or I'll never get it done. It sounds like I'm a lost cause!"
Daine laughed and cheered up, picking up beads from the floor rather than disturbing whatever odd system he was tidying the papers into. While they set the room to rights Numair told her about the new spell he was researching- an old parchment had been found in the catacombs with some sort of long-distance travelling spell written on it. It was in old runes, and referenced archaic spells he didn't recognise as if they were simple fire-casting spells, so he was trying to translate it. Daine listened with half an ear, smiling when she noticed that Kitten was following every word with rapt attention. When the room was as tidy as it ever got she reminded him that he'd lent the book to one of the scholars.
He smiled warmly as he got up to leave the room, lingering to kiss her forehead lightly. "I get two sentences, right? But I only have one that matters. I love you, magelet."
888
"Of course, it didn't work." Daine kicked her heels against the wall irritably. "He owes me another sentence, and if I don't see him in the next two hours then he's missed it. A whole week of living in the same room as the amazing-walking-talking-bookworm, and bookworms don't have emotions. They just have things that are interesting. "
Uhm. The tabby cat that was lying beside her on the stone wall turned over, luxuriating in the languid autumn sun. Couldn't you hide more of his books?
"No, he's doesn't need them anymore, he's working just on the spell..." she started, and then coloured. "Who saw me, then?"
The cat purred happily but didn't deign to answer. He was one of the mouser cats that the nobles kept in luxury, with an embossed collar and a fattening diet. It irked his owners that as soon as they opened their window he would leap out, enjoying the fresh air and leaving them to fend off the mice on their own. They tried to keep him inside, but he tangled up all of the freshly spun wool and clawed at the chair legs. So now Sir Pittypaws was officially an outdoor cat, free to mingle with the ponies and pigs... and still returning to his velvet cushion to snooze, paws dripping with unladylike substances. One of the ladies had found Daine and demanded that they change the cat's wicked ways, to which she simply asked: why?
When she did actually talk to him, it was because the other animals had mentioned him so much that she was curious. She found out that the cat was even more of a gossip than the maids who cackled around the hallways each morning about their mistresses. He spoke to every animal in the castle, and a fair few in the city. Even the mice spoke to him. After all, it wasn't as if he'd chase them very far before he found a comfortable spot to nap in and just gave up.
"It doesn't really matter," she said, dismissing her book larceny easily. "It's not like Numair will find out, anyway. A few more weeks and he'll have worked this spell thing out, and he'll be back to normal."
Trust me. That man is never normal. Pittypaws opened one lazy eye. And you'll go back to normal, too?
"Me? I am normal. I do my work, I talk to my friends, I eat in the hall..."
...You're talking to a cat about your love life; you're planning to steal a spell to get someone to say a single sentence to you...
Daine blinked and looked sideways at the cat, who looked as if he were fast asleep. "I'm not going to steal the spell."
Pittypaws sat up with a huff and glared up at the cloud that had dared to creep over the sun, making his sleeping spot chilly. You're not? Really? That's what I would do.
"But it's important. I can't." Daine had tried to explain the concept of a job to a cat once before, and had failed miserably. The animals did things when they needed to be done, and studiously ignored them when they didn't. For example, a mouse might need to be eaten if one was hungry, or hunted if one was bored, but the idea of tracking down that same mouse just because you were told to do it was inconceivable. Important was a good word, though. Important was the word that territory was fought over. A cat would happily lose an ear if it was for an important need.
This spell was hidden for years and it wasn't important then. Why should that change just because someone told it to? The tabby delicately ran his paw over one ear, cleaned it meticulously, and jumped down from the wall into the mud with a resounding splat.
888