Disclaimer: If I was meant to own this then I would own it but since I
can't own it since Tamora Pierce owns it I'm not meant to own it because I
don't own it.
Disclaimer: Go screw your toenails if you think I own it.
I do own Devon and Quinn and Psyche and....yeah...
A/N: Okay, there seemed to be some confusion about where Devon is now and where Quinn is and etc etc.
NO! Devon is NOT in the town. She's at a roadhouse, which is a small place on the side of the road where road guards and patrols stay. She's like, twenty miles from the town. Or more.
NO! I did not "just take" Quinn out of the story. He and Devon parted ways to fight, and he stayed at a place revealed in this very chapter because he was wounded too and couldn't find Devon, and Devon was holed up at the roadhouse.
Chapter 12 - Unexpected Visitor
Six months had passed, and finally Devon's leg was fully healed. It was still weak and a little shaky, however, so she was still but a little more than useless if a battle happened to come around. Deep down, she suspected that Neal hadn't put his all into her healing. He seemed quite put out that she was already on two legs, walking around like a normal person instead of hobbling on those gods-awful painful crutches.
Still, she kept herself busy and happy doing a few of the lesser chores for the house, like feeding and watering the horses and changing the straw in their stalls. In the lazy afternoons she was alone in the house because the others were taking orders from someone-or-another or what's-his-face a ride away. During these times she wandered around the forest, always in the companionship of her horse. Already they'd found a stream where they could sit by the side lazily, waiting for a fish to bite or watching the sunlight dance on the laughing waters' surface.
At night Kel, Neal, Merric, Owen, and Dom would come back, tired, annoyed, and generally not in the mood to put up with her. She spent nights in her room, or in the small storeroom beneath the house, where it was cool and damp, and healthy groups of lizards thrived. The lizards at least paid attention to her, she thought wryly as she checked her saddle blanket for burrs or tears.
For six long months the most anyone had ever said to her were Neal's insults. She now adored every moment she bickered with him, because normally she went through her day with people becoming silent when she entered a room, or avoiding her questions, or something equally vexing. Once, she caught herself thinking that this was like how she'd lived when she was young, in her parents' home. Ignored, alone, and generally avoided at all costs.
She looked up from her perch on Psyche's stall door and saw Kel bringing Peachblossom out into the crossties, his tack slung onto the sawhorse off to the side. Devon watched silently as Kel tossed on Peachblossom's blanket, followed by his heavy tilting saddle, and the bit eased into his mouth. Kel turned to get her bow and arrows and spotted Devon sitting there, eyes cold as ice as they followed her. Immediately she got nervous and flustered.
"Oh.hi! It's nice-nice to see you. I mean.I'm going now. To Lord Wyldon's. B-Bye." With that, she forgot her bow and arrows and jumped onto her mount's back, galloping away.
Devon sighed and tossed her blanket into a pile at the front of Psyche's door. Psyche cocked his head at her, as if wondering why, all of a sudden, she was acting so strangely. Devon gave him a reassuring pat and took her saddle off its makeshift rack, slinging it over her shoulder and walking out of the stables to see Kel, and everyone else, galloping away.
She sadly walked into the front room and took the leather polish from the counter, taking a sponge as well, and seating herself with the saddle in her lap, scrubbing at it fiercely to keep the tears that burned her eyes at bay.
After awhile, she tossed the sponge from her and slammed the lid on the bottle of leather polish, putting up her stirrups and throwing the girth over the saddle as well, lifting it and carrying it out to the stables again. Psyche touched his nose to it briefly as she came in, ears pricked, nostrils picking up the sent of leather oil. Finally, satisfied, he blew on her cheek softly in thanks, and went back to chewing his grain.
Devon drew water for the stalls, pouring the heavy bucket's contents into the water troughs, then went inside and swept the front room's floor and the porch, watered the plants with the now-cooled leftover water from coffee making that morning, and fed the milk cow that was resting in the small clearing behind the horse paddocks.
When she was done with all the thing she knew had to get done and could keep her busy, she climbed into the loft via the help of Psyche, only afterwards noticing that there was a ladder that lead to the same place only a few paces away. She collapsed into the soft bed of straw and let the barn cats climb over her as she looked up through the small holes in the roof at the bright blue sky.
"Today just isn't my day, is it Stockings?" She asked a black cat with four white paws and a white chin halfheartedly. The cat only purred and rubbed his head on her hip, swatting at a fly a few minutes later and bringing back a headless mouse a while after that. His ears were alert, as if, by some miracle, headless mice were the key to all her problems and therefore she should be happy. Devon didn't think that headless mice, even if they be by the hundreds, could help anyone's problems, unless it be hunger. Nor did she want it to be the solution, though she didn't tell Stockings that. She only patted his head as he purred; trying not to look at the minute gore he'd brought her.
The thundering of hooves outside and the flashes of bay, chestnut, red roan, and gray, told her that the knights were home. It also told her that she was to be silent and act as if she was incorporeal for the remainder of the night.
Sighing, she climbed from the loft, forgetting the ladder a second time as she used Psyche to get back on solid ground. She cooped grain into the bins inside each of the stalls just in time, as the riders put their dirty tack on the racks and let their horses return to their stalls.
Deciding that using her silent time for something useful was rather a good idea, Devon took the saddles and their bridles and unbuckled everything from them, cleaning every molecule of each leather strap. She put the clean tack back on the horses, readjusting the buckles so that they fit perfectly. She was appalled to notice that Owen's horse, Joyful, a dark bay gelding with a somewhat long face, had his headstall way too short. The bit clamped uncomfortably on the gelding's mouth, so Devon punched new holes into the cheek straps until the bit rested easily on the horse's bars. (a part of the mouth)
"Oy, Devon!" Called someone from the house.
"Aye, what is it?" Devon called back, using a voice that carried but wasn't loud enough to rile the horses.
"Be jolly and bring in the water!" It was Owen, obviously. Devon shook her head, a wry smile on her face. At the pump, she filled two buckets that hung on a post that settled over one's shoulders. Behind her, she heard the loud clanks of a destrier's shoes on hard packed ground. None of the knights' horses sounded like that. She heard someone dismount, and out of the corner of her eye she saw someone tie a light gray destrier to the railing of the porch steps.
"Excuse me, miss?" Asked a polite voice. Devon nodded to show she was listening, but didn't look up.
"Lady Kel and Sirs Domitan, Neal, Owen, and Merric are inside. Just knock and enter." She said a bit tensely. The pump wasn't acting like it wanted to help her on the getting water errand.
"Thank you, miss." The voice said. It was gentle, and seemed to linger in the air as she heard him walk up the steps and open the door after knocking.
There was something in that voice that screamed familiarity.
Shrugging and shaking that thought from her head, Devon coaxed the pump with promises of future oiling and a few new screws to fix its handle, and finally it gushed water. She heard a few snatches of conversation from inside, but ignored them all, even the parts she thought were slightly intriguing.
She winced and lifted the bar onto her shoulders, putting more weight on her good leg's side, letting her leg that had been injured rest a bit. The gray destrier caught her eye, and after close scrutinizing, nearly made her drop the water.
"Wesley?" She asked in an urgent whisper. The stallion turned his head and whinnied happily, straining against his rope. His eyes were bright, and his trademark black and red fastenings drifted around his near-white coat in the soft breeze.
Reaching out carefully to pat his muzzle, she stumbled inside, and once again was nearly floored when she saw the guest.
Blonde hair falling into his eyes, which were soft like a fawn's and the same color. He had a bright smile, one she'd seldom seen from him. Of course, the absence of things like lips usually swayed the way someone smiled. In this case, his laughing brown eyes caught hers and his smile dropped from his face like a dress after a Midwinter ball. Everything seemed to stop as Devon eased the water off of her shoulders, her eyes not leaving his. Everything was silent.
Quinn had probably never seen her like this before. Her fingers had cuts and blisters on them from the saddle-soap, her hair was unbrushed, though it hung just as pin-straight as ever, and the bronze color that was radiant normally was dimmed by dirt. Kel's shirt hung like a sack on her thin figure, and the breeches were tucked into scuffed riding boots. Still, her presence was enough to ensure him that it was indeed, her. The daughter of the Black Lord.
"Devon." He whispered, taking a step towards her. She almost considered backing up for a few moments, until she felt a sudden urge to run to him and throw her arms around his neck and laugh and cry and talk and laugh some more.
A strangled noise escaped her lips, a cross between a choked sob and a hysterical laugh, and she sprinted towards him, jumped, and he caught her in his arms, twirling her around, laughing though a few tears sparkled in his eyes. When he put her down, their voices mingled in pell-mell confusion.
"Where.?"
"How did you.?"
"Woodcutter, very nice, you should see."
"What's happened."
"I missed you! The spidren."
"Can't believe it's you."
"Your father would have a litter of kittens if."
"Wait!" Cried a voice. It was Kel's. Her face, and the faces of the other knights, were confused. As they should be, Devon guessed.
"You two.know each other?" Dom finished Kel's thought for her, as the lady knight's voice seemed to have failed her.
"Indeed." Quinn said boldly. "I am Quinn of Nocturne, at your service." He bowed lowly. Devon had to admire him for that. When they'd left he'd been but a shy servant, and now he was a dashing, daring, bold character.
Devon's eyes glanced around the room and settled on Neal of their own accord. His face was set in an emotionless mask, though in his green, green eyes lay a fire of fury. Devon felt her own face relax from her grin of elation into a stern face matching Neal's. Her eyes caught his, and tempestuous gray met conflicted green as she felt a shock of something from nowhere race up her spine. Was he jealous?
What? Where'd that come from?
Devon pondered this as she and Quinn slept in the loft. Everything felt right now that her very best friend was here with her, at her side again. He was the only one she loved near as much as her father, and some of her father's security seemed to leak off of Quinn as well.
"Goodnight Devon." Quinn said sleepily as he rolled over and fell asleep. His eye sockets were empty once again, and he was once again the skeleton she adored as a favorite brother.
"Goodnight Quinn." She whispered back, though she felt the wash of sleep radiate from him, the same way she could sense his fear, confusion, determination, and other emotions and feelings.
Still, she found she couldn't sleep.
What had happened between her and Neal back in the house?
Vivid in her mind were his angry green eyes in his emotionless face. Vivid again was the shock that riddled her spine and after startling her, she felt rejuvenated.
Was he jealous? And if so, of what? They hated each other, she and Neal. There was nothing they couldn't argue about. He wanted her to go away, everything about him made it clear to her.
But with Quinn's arm snaked around her waist protectively, in brotherly way, and her grin and her wild way of greeting him, leaping into his arms like that, she began to piece together all she knew of her green-eyed rival.
Something snapped.
She sat up, and looked down into the barn at Neal's chestnut mare, Coppersheen. Beside her was a dark figure, who could only be Neal himself. She listened intently, hidden in the enormous expanses of straw.
"Hello girl." Neal said softly, stroking his mare's muzzle. She nickered good-naturedly and nudged him affectionately.
"At least you'll never leave girl." He smiled. "Right?" She whinnied lowly. He walked out of the barn after giving her a handful of grain, leaving Devon to ponder.
Questions? Comments?
Review and I'll answer! (as done in this very chapter!)
Flames?
Call 1-800-I-Don't-Give-A-Rat's-Arse
Nazzy Nazzy Nazgirl
"I put the fun in dysfunctional."
Disclaimer: Go screw your toenails if you think I own it.
I do own Devon and Quinn and Psyche and....yeah...
A/N: Okay, there seemed to be some confusion about where Devon is now and where Quinn is and etc etc.
NO! Devon is NOT in the town. She's at a roadhouse, which is a small place on the side of the road where road guards and patrols stay. She's like, twenty miles from the town. Or more.
NO! I did not "just take" Quinn out of the story. He and Devon parted ways to fight, and he stayed at a place revealed in this very chapter because he was wounded too and couldn't find Devon, and Devon was holed up at the roadhouse.
Chapter 12 - Unexpected Visitor
Six months had passed, and finally Devon's leg was fully healed. It was still weak and a little shaky, however, so she was still but a little more than useless if a battle happened to come around. Deep down, she suspected that Neal hadn't put his all into her healing. He seemed quite put out that she was already on two legs, walking around like a normal person instead of hobbling on those gods-awful painful crutches.
Still, she kept herself busy and happy doing a few of the lesser chores for the house, like feeding and watering the horses and changing the straw in their stalls. In the lazy afternoons she was alone in the house because the others were taking orders from someone-or-another or what's-his-face a ride away. During these times she wandered around the forest, always in the companionship of her horse. Already they'd found a stream where they could sit by the side lazily, waiting for a fish to bite or watching the sunlight dance on the laughing waters' surface.
At night Kel, Neal, Merric, Owen, and Dom would come back, tired, annoyed, and generally not in the mood to put up with her. She spent nights in her room, or in the small storeroom beneath the house, where it was cool and damp, and healthy groups of lizards thrived. The lizards at least paid attention to her, she thought wryly as she checked her saddle blanket for burrs or tears.
For six long months the most anyone had ever said to her were Neal's insults. She now adored every moment she bickered with him, because normally she went through her day with people becoming silent when she entered a room, or avoiding her questions, or something equally vexing. Once, she caught herself thinking that this was like how she'd lived when she was young, in her parents' home. Ignored, alone, and generally avoided at all costs.
She looked up from her perch on Psyche's stall door and saw Kel bringing Peachblossom out into the crossties, his tack slung onto the sawhorse off to the side. Devon watched silently as Kel tossed on Peachblossom's blanket, followed by his heavy tilting saddle, and the bit eased into his mouth. Kel turned to get her bow and arrows and spotted Devon sitting there, eyes cold as ice as they followed her. Immediately she got nervous and flustered.
"Oh.hi! It's nice-nice to see you. I mean.I'm going now. To Lord Wyldon's. B-Bye." With that, she forgot her bow and arrows and jumped onto her mount's back, galloping away.
Devon sighed and tossed her blanket into a pile at the front of Psyche's door. Psyche cocked his head at her, as if wondering why, all of a sudden, she was acting so strangely. Devon gave him a reassuring pat and took her saddle off its makeshift rack, slinging it over her shoulder and walking out of the stables to see Kel, and everyone else, galloping away.
She sadly walked into the front room and took the leather polish from the counter, taking a sponge as well, and seating herself with the saddle in her lap, scrubbing at it fiercely to keep the tears that burned her eyes at bay.
After awhile, she tossed the sponge from her and slammed the lid on the bottle of leather polish, putting up her stirrups and throwing the girth over the saddle as well, lifting it and carrying it out to the stables again. Psyche touched his nose to it briefly as she came in, ears pricked, nostrils picking up the sent of leather oil. Finally, satisfied, he blew on her cheek softly in thanks, and went back to chewing his grain.
Devon drew water for the stalls, pouring the heavy bucket's contents into the water troughs, then went inside and swept the front room's floor and the porch, watered the plants with the now-cooled leftover water from coffee making that morning, and fed the milk cow that was resting in the small clearing behind the horse paddocks.
When she was done with all the thing she knew had to get done and could keep her busy, she climbed into the loft via the help of Psyche, only afterwards noticing that there was a ladder that lead to the same place only a few paces away. She collapsed into the soft bed of straw and let the barn cats climb over her as she looked up through the small holes in the roof at the bright blue sky.
"Today just isn't my day, is it Stockings?" She asked a black cat with four white paws and a white chin halfheartedly. The cat only purred and rubbed his head on her hip, swatting at a fly a few minutes later and bringing back a headless mouse a while after that. His ears were alert, as if, by some miracle, headless mice were the key to all her problems and therefore she should be happy. Devon didn't think that headless mice, even if they be by the hundreds, could help anyone's problems, unless it be hunger. Nor did she want it to be the solution, though she didn't tell Stockings that. She only patted his head as he purred; trying not to look at the minute gore he'd brought her.
The thundering of hooves outside and the flashes of bay, chestnut, red roan, and gray, told her that the knights were home. It also told her that she was to be silent and act as if she was incorporeal for the remainder of the night.
Sighing, she climbed from the loft, forgetting the ladder a second time as she used Psyche to get back on solid ground. She cooped grain into the bins inside each of the stalls just in time, as the riders put their dirty tack on the racks and let their horses return to their stalls.
Deciding that using her silent time for something useful was rather a good idea, Devon took the saddles and their bridles and unbuckled everything from them, cleaning every molecule of each leather strap. She put the clean tack back on the horses, readjusting the buckles so that they fit perfectly. She was appalled to notice that Owen's horse, Joyful, a dark bay gelding with a somewhat long face, had his headstall way too short. The bit clamped uncomfortably on the gelding's mouth, so Devon punched new holes into the cheek straps until the bit rested easily on the horse's bars. (a part of the mouth)
"Oy, Devon!" Called someone from the house.
"Aye, what is it?" Devon called back, using a voice that carried but wasn't loud enough to rile the horses.
"Be jolly and bring in the water!" It was Owen, obviously. Devon shook her head, a wry smile on her face. At the pump, she filled two buckets that hung on a post that settled over one's shoulders. Behind her, she heard the loud clanks of a destrier's shoes on hard packed ground. None of the knights' horses sounded like that. She heard someone dismount, and out of the corner of her eye she saw someone tie a light gray destrier to the railing of the porch steps.
"Excuse me, miss?" Asked a polite voice. Devon nodded to show she was listening, but didn't look up.
"Lady Kel and Sirs Domitan, Neal, Owen, and Merric are inside. Just knock and enter." She said a bit tensely. The pump wasn't acting like it wanted to help her on the getting water errand.
"Thank you, miss." The voice said. It was gentle, and seemed to linger in the air as she heard him walk up the steps and open the door after knocking.
There was something in that voice that screamed familiarity.
Shrugging and shaking that thought from her head, Devon coaxed the pump with promises of future oiling and a few new screws to fix its handle, and finally it gushed water. She heard a few snatches of conversation from inside, but ignored them all, even the parts she thought were slightly intriguing.
She winced and lifted the bar onto her shoulders, putting more weight on her good leg's side, letting her leg that had been injured rest a bit. The gray destrier caught her eye, and after close scrutinizing, nearly made her drop the water.
"Wesley?" She asked in an urgent whisper. The stallion turned his head and whinnied happily, straining against his rope. His eyes were bright, and his trademark black and red fastenings drifted around his near-white coat in the soft breeze.
Reaching out carefully to pat his muzzle, she stumbled inside, and once again was nearly floored when she saw the guest.
Blonde hair falling into his eyes, which were soft like a fawn's and the same color. He had a bright smile, one she'd seldom seen from him. Of course, the absence of things like lips usually swayed the way someone smiled. In this case, his laughing brown eyes caught hers and his smile dropped from his face like a dress after a Midwinter ball. Everything seemed to stop as Devon eased the water off of her shoulders, her eyes not leaving his. Everything was silent.
Quinn had probably never seen her like this before. Her fingers had cuts and blisters on them from the saddle-soap, her hair was unbrushed, though it hung just as pin-straight as ever, and the bronze color that was radiant normally was dimmed by dirt. Kel's shirt hung like a sack on her thin figure, and the breeches were tucked into scuffed riding boots. Still, her presence was enough to ensure him that it was indeed, her. The daughter of the Black Lord.
"Devon." He whispered, taking a step towards her. She almost considered backing up for a few moments, until she felt a sudden urge to run to him and throw her arms around his neck and laugh and cry and talk and laugh some more.
A strangled noise escaped her lips, a cross between a choked sob and a hysterical laugh, and she sprinted towards him, jumped, and he caught her in his arms, twirling her around, laughing though a few tears sparkled in his eyes. When he put her down, their voices mingled in pell-mell confusion.
"Where.?"
"How did you.?"
"Woodcutter, very nice, you should see."
"What's happened."
"I missed you! The spidren."
"Can't believe it's you."
"Your father would have a litter of kittens if."
"Wait!" Cried a voice. It was Kel's. Her face, and the faces of the other knights, were confused. As they should be, Devon guessed.
"You two.know each other?" Dom finished Kel's thought for her, as the lady knight's voice seemed to have failed her.
"Indeed." Quinn said boldly. "I am Quinn of Nocturne, at your service." He bowed lowly. Devon had to admire him for that. When they'd left he'd been but a shy servant, and now he was a dashing, daring, bold character.
Devon's eyes glanced around the room and settled on Neal of their own accord. His face was set in an emotionless mask, though in his green, green eyes lay a fire of fury. Devon felt her own face relax from her grin of elation into a stern face matching Neal's. Her eyes caught his, and tempestuous gray met conflicted green as she felt a shock of something from nowhere race up her spine. Was he jealous?
What? Where'd that come from?
Devon pondered this as she and Quinn slept in the loft. Everything felt right now that her very best friend was here with her, at her side again. He was the only one she loved near as much as her father, and some of her father's security seemed to leak off of Quinn as well.
"Goodnight Devon." Quinn said sleepily as he rolled over and fell asleep. His eye sockets were empty once again, and he was once again the skeleton she adored as a favorite brother.
"Goodnight Quinn." She whispered back, though she felt the wash of sleep radiate from him, the same way she could sense his fear, confusion, determination, and other emotions and feelings.
Still, she found she couldn't sleep.
What had happened between her and Neal back in the house?
Vivid in her mind were his angry green eyes in his emotionless face. Vivid again was the shock that riddled her spine and after startling her, she felt rejuvenated.
Was he jealous? And if so, of what? They hated each other, she and Neal. There was nothing they couldn't argue about. He wanted her to go away, everything about him made it clear to her.
But with Quinn's arm snaked around her waist protectively, in brotherly way, and her grin and her wild way of greeting him, leaping into his arms like that, she began to piece together all she knew of her green-eyed rival.
Something snapped.
She sat up, and looked down into the barn at Neal's chestnut mare, Coppersheen. Beside her was a dark figure, who could only be Neal himself. She listened intently, hidden in the enormous expanses of straw.
"Hello girl." Neal said softly, stroking his mare's muzzle. She nickered good-naturedly and nudged him affectionately.
"At least you'll never leave girl." He smiled. "Right?" She whinnied lowly. He walked out of the barn after giving her a handful of grain, leaving Devon to ponder.
Questions? Comments?
Review and I'll answer! (as done in this very chapter!)
Flames?
Call 1-800-I-Don't-Give-A-Rat's-Arse
Nazzy Nazzy Nazgirl
"I put the fun in dysfunctional."
