I do not own The Inheritance Cycle.
Sometimes I hate my brain for coming up with these silly things, demanding that I write them when I'm trying to focus on an actual chapter. I needed to get into the head of Tornac a little more than what I have, so yeah. Tornac is a peacekeeper, this was always my thought for him. He's not easy to rile, well, he not easy to have his anger show. Everything is mostly in his head and even then its held back, he had a lifetime a learning to control himself. CP may disagree with me, but complete self control is not something you learn within months it takes years, and many of them at that. But I could go on and on about how I disgree with the books and the issues it has, and I have with it...
This taked place after the last sidestory- Wooden Swords and Lace Slippers.
Enjoy,
Accurately
"Foolishness!" Cordelia scolded. "What were you thinking, Muirgheal? Running off in that manner? Do you have any sense all?"
Tornac fought back a smirk, focusing instead on cleaning his blade with a scrap of cloth. He could hear, though he was not looking, Rose's protects at having to sit down when she so obviously in a distraught state, and Cordelia loud fretting.
"I have plenty sense. Oh!" the girl exclaimed loudly, causing Tornac to look up. Rose was seated across the room in a plush chair and Cordelia stood bent in front of her, fussing over the cut on Rose's cheek. "That hurts."
"Serves you right, I say," barked Cordelia. "Sneaking around and spying in dangerous times is not the life for a girl."
"Are you saying that it is perfectly fine to do such in less dangerous times?" replied Rose, despite the event of the day and her shaken state, her dark eyes were gleaming mischievously.
Tornac turned away, he had a very strong feeling that she had picked up some of her cheek from him, and was using it solely to hassle her nursemaid. He made a quick mental note to talk with Rose about disrespecting Cordelia, it was not a conversion he looked forward to having. Not at all.
"Do not play me for a fool, young lady," Cordelia said, over Ilbert's hastily covered laughter. Ilbert was sitting on a low bowed couch close to the fire, a wooden sword propped against his leg, and the nursemaid turned to him, angrily, "And, you, young man, should not be making this worse on yourself. Requesting Muirgheal's presence at the sparring fields, when you know very well of the situation at hand. Shame on you." Tornac glanced up at the children, they were shifting uneasily on the cushions. Rose met his eyes for moment then looked down shamefully. Thank the gods that she had the common sense to look guilty.
"Shame of both of you," Cordelia continued. "Muirgheal should be making her debut in the Courts, as she knows perfectly well, attending balls and dinner parties. Readying herself for finding a good husband and having darling little babies."
Rose visibly cringed, and Tornac could not blame her. It had taken all of his willpower and years of instruction on discipline, not to cringe himself. "She is far too young to be catching husbands, as of yet, Cordelia," said Tornac, speaking for the first time since escorting the children into the sitting room.
"Lady Carys is engaged to wed within a month's time, and she is not much older than Muirgheal is now," said the nursemaid dismissing Tornac's objection.
"I do not wish to be married or to children," Rose said in a shaky voice, looking desperately at Ilbert but the boy paled considerably and shook his head, not wanting to be involved. She turned back to Cordelia. "Honestly, Cordelia, I'm only thirteen years of age! I have years and years to do those things. A lifetime. Do not haul me over the coals, yet."
Cordelia's shoulder's dropped, and she gave Rose a piercing look. "Have you hit your head too hard? What would make you possibly think that I would 'haul you over coals', as you say? I am not asking you to do much, Muirgheal, merely to act as you should."
"Oh and how should I act?" replied Rose heatedly. "Should I curtsy and giggle at to each man I see? Like some loose brained ninny? I wish to have nothing to do with the Courts." She stood up, nearly knocking into Cordelia. "You have no right to belittle me, I know what I did was wrong and I could have been killed or worse. I know that! And, please, do not call me 'Muirgheal', Cordelia," she said her face twisting with aversion as she said her name.
"Give me a decent reason why I should not?" the nursemaid said, rising to her full height as well, to look down at the girl.
Rose set her chin stubbornly, and glared up at Cordelia. Not far from her, Ilbert flinched probably wondering why he was still there and began to finger the hem of his bloodied sleeve to occupy himself.
Tornac closed his eyes and rubbed his face. He was tired, and did not wish to deal with this today. There would plenty of it the next day and the day after, he would have more of his fill then, he was sure.
They were often at odds, Rose and Cordelia, but for what reason Tornac did not know. He had thought for a time that it was Codelia's apparent dislike for the child, until he witnessed the nursemaid comforting the child, not many years ago, after she had stumbled and cut herself on the stone flooring. After that moment, Tornac began to wonder if Rose was being the difficult one, but that also was proved wrong. Now he did not know, perhaps they simply were the sort of people who were continually in conflict with each other, who would never be able to see eye to eye. It seemed all too likely.
"That is enough," Tornac said, in a much calmer voice than he felt. "Cordelia, please, excuse yourself and escort Ilbert to his parent's apartments. I believe both he and Rose have had a sufficient amount of excitement for one day-" he slid his sword into his casing "-and are in need of rest."
Cordelia looked at Tornac crossly, then bowed her head. "Come along, master Ilbert," she said briskly as she exited the room, Ilbert following closely behind her.
The look he shot at Rose and the smile she gave in return was not unnoticed by Tornac.
"Gamon, go with them," Tornac said turning to the guards at the door. "The rest of you stay as you are, if you please." He sternly turned to Rose who was wringing her hands anxiously. "Sit down, Rose."
She sat down very quickly, nearly missing the chair in her haste.
Tornac studied her for a long moment, collecting his thoughts. He looked over her rumpled gown, the crooked, scoffed ribbon wrapped around her hair. Her face was flushed with anger, and her eyes were shining with tears. She was missing a slipper, but he doubted she noticed.
He felt his anger rise, though not all of it was directed at her or her choices, and he took a deep breath through his nose to calm himself as his grandfather had thought him to. It didn't work, it never had.
"Tell me," he said in a hard, even voice that sounded to him very much like his grandfather's, "why you had ran off."
Tornac watched her as she shifted in her seat and bit her lip. Waiting for her to speak, he decided that he would have to break her of that particular habit before too long.
"I-I…I…" she trailed off and swallowed, cowering slightly under his stare.
Holding up his hand to stop her, he sighed. "Think of what you have to say through before you go any further," he said. When she didn't say anything, he said, "Alright, then, tell me why you didn't met with Bardge, as you and I both know you should have been."
She shifted in her seat and looked down at her hands. "I was upset and I needed to speak with Ilbert," she said slowly pausing after each word.
Tornac took another deep breath. "Why did you need to speak with Ilbert?"
She hesitated, then shifted in her seat and looked at him. "Lord Lakan surprised me in the halls on my way to see Bardge, and he said these-" she paused and gestured roughly at air with her hands, "-these things. He wasn't very polite in his way, either. What he said upset me a lot, and I had to get away from him, and the guards, and castle. I just had to. I couldn't take being trapping inside here like some prisoner any longer, and so I went to find Ilbert."
"And after you found him?"
"His swordsmaster saw me and questioned me as to why I there," said Rose, closing her eyes. "Ilbert lied and told him he had asked me to meet him. We left the training grounds and headed to the castle. On our way back that man attacked us and Ilbert hit him with one of those wooden swords so that we could get away. When the man fell, we ran and you found us."
Tornac nodded. He remembered that he had found them running down the path, but not the one that lead from training field. Ilbert had been wheezing, close to having another of his fits, and was holding hands with Rose. Tornac made a face at the memory.
After seeing the children Tornac had run ahead of the guards, worried that the children were hurt, when glint of light caught his eyes. For the first time Tornac looked past them at a tall, supple man, who had held a silver throwing knife close to his shoulder, and he had nearly cursed. The man was ready to fling that knife across the gardens. What puzzled Tornac, though only for a moment, was that his other hand had been cradled the back of his neck, and was dripping with blood, now Tornac knew that that must have been the place where Ilbert hit him with those ridiculous practice swords. The man, the assassin, swept his gaze from the children to the guards and before resting on Tornac. Tornac remembered his eyes, they were dark and empty, void of any emotion. The man smirked foully at him, revealing his yellow and chipped teeth, and he threw the knife.
Tornac had yelled something, what he did remember only that his words caused Ilbert to drop heavily to the ground, pulling Rose along with him. A mere instant after they hit the ground, the knife somersaulted over their heads and tumbled onto the cobble stone path mere feet away from them. As Tornac got closer, though it was far too far away for his liking, Rose glanced up at him then over her shoulder. Ilbert hissed something at her, blessing her with enough sense to turn away and whisper something back. Tornac saw Ilbert scowl at her then drag himself and her off the path and into the bushes. Tornac noticed with relief that Ilbert had released her hand and turned his head away from her, holding a knife protectively close to his chest.
The assassin then had shouted something at him, or the guards, but more than likely he was addressing Rose. It hardly mattered because Tornac wasn't listening, but whatever the man had said was upsetting, as Rose bit her lip and huddled closer to the ground. Tornac was then focusing all his energy to getting the children so to get them away to safety, but he hadn't the need to do so as the man was died or dying he was not sure. When Tornac reached the children, as last, he had quickly ordered them to get up and ran with them towards the castle and the safety that was bound to recede inside it, and up into that sitting room. Moments after the children had settled and calmed, Cordelia had arrived and fussed over Rose, which riled the girl even more, almost ignoring Ilbert completely.
"Is there anything more you wish to say?" He asked returning his attention to his conversation with Rose. She shook her head, her lips pressed firmly together. Of course there was more. "You do realize you are in a great deal of trouble?"
"I do," she said despondently, looking down at the ground. "But, at least, the assassin is died, and the threat has left with him."
"I highly doubt that," he said. "We best get you to your chambers, so that you can clean yourself up."
Her eyes widened. "It's not gone? But the man is died!"
"One assassin, out of many, is died," he said with a sigh. "The threat on your life will not pass for a long while."
"Or I'm died," she said darkly.
Tornac started and looked at her, unsure as to what to say. "It may come to that," he said hesitantly.
Her face darkened and she stood up. "I hate them for that," she said, unexpectedly. "I really do. Everyone says that my parents were heroes, that they did these great and terrible things for the good of the Empire. I don't believe any of it. They were cowards, they had to have been." She looked at him through angry tears. "They brought me into this world, but only after they murdered a bunch of people and made a bunch of enemies, then they got theirselves killed, leaving me to suffer the fallout. It's not fair."
"No," he said, "it is not."
There was a long silence.
"Sometimes I wish I had born a boy," she continued bitterly, wiping at her face. "That way I could defend myself better, and I wouldn't have to constantly listen to the things I should and should not do because I'm a girl. But that's not right either, because my mother could defend herself perfectly fine."
Tornac got up and walked over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. The events of the day must have rattled her worse than he originally had thought. There had been many attempted assassinations on the child's life, more than Tornac could count. It was in a truth, true that Rose was indifferent whenever a threat arose but stricken when someone she knew offended her.
Tornac had a strange feeling that it Lord Lakan's words that were truly affecting her. Since the moment the portly Lord Lakan had arrived in Urû'baen, he has been pursuing many of the young girls in an ill-manner, and when one of the girls refused his advances, he would affront them in pitiless ways.
After a time, Tornac moved in front of her and cupped her face between his hands so that he could look directly at her face. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "My advice, Rose," he said, "is to keep as far away from the Courts of Urû'baen as possible, and if Lord Lakan bothers you again you must defend yourself. I don't mind if it means you giving him cheek and slighting him, if it gets him to leave you alone, do it. He is hardly worth your trouble, when you have yourself to worry about. It's you first, understood?"
She met his eyes, and nodded as best she could. "I don't fancy the Courts anyhow," she said.
"Good," said Tornac, thinking over the possibilities. "Then you're on the right path. However, there is one thing I need to speak to you about, Rose."
"Yes?" she said wearily.
"You are not going to go into a courtship with any man, anytime time soon," he said. "So, no thoughts on marriage or what you wish to name your children."
She fought her way out his grip and backed away from him, looking at him in confusion. "Do you have a touch of brain fever?" she demanded. "I have a lifetime for that, I thought I said this."
Tornac chuckled and guided her towards the door, far too uncomfortable to stay in the room. "I just wanted to ensure we were in a direct understanding is all," he said smiling to himself.
