The Words Between - part 15
"What is your name?"
"Bria." Again that smile, which Kyn might have been tempted to term 'infectious' if he had been the type of person to be infected by such smiles. "For Brianna. A pleasure to meet you."
"Brianna," Kyn acknowledged flatly as he turned away from her and started walking down the hall, Brin following close behind. "Thank you for your diligence, but your presence is not required in such proximity."
The woman's pale blue eyes widened in mild astonishment, her mouth dropping open as she watched them walking away from the conference room. "Child, that wasn't a dismissal I just heard, was it?"
"Take it as you will," Kyn responded tersely. He had to memorize the floor plans before they left for the duke's lands...did he dare push for a day's earlier leaving? How far off balance would that throw the duke's plans, appearing on his doorstep early? Perhaps not far at all, if he had been prepared to take Kyn with him right then and there...unless he knew Kyn would refuse and had been merely bluffing.
"He didn't really mean it that way, ma'am..."
"Don't make excuses for me, Brin."
"Yeah, he can bloody well make them for himself," Brianna muttered. "Hey, you're not brushing me off that easy - "
"And why should I need to brush you off at all?" Kyn abruptly rounded on the woman, surprising her into a sharp step back to keep from running into him when she had lengthened her already long-legged strides to catch up. "I would not presume to second guess Alberich's instructions, but from previous behaviors, it would seem that he had enough faith in my abilities to place guards at a distance."
The woman frowned, not so affable now as she rested one hand on her hip and the other on the pommel of her sword to balance it. "And just how do you see that? I'd think the last incident would've taught you that someone needs to be close."
"Are you proposing to guard my every step, then? Shall I let you hold the knife to cut my meat during mealtimes?" he asked scathingly.
Brianna's lips tightened, frown deepening. "Do not mock me. If your Companion had not reached you in time - "
"But she did reach me in time, and that should indicate the distance that anyone needs - "
"And just why was your Companion such a fair ways off? I do not recall 'discretion' calling for a full gallop to take that long to - "
"Whatever I cannot delay for the time it takes for help to reach me would most likely not be averted no matter how close that help - !"
"Horse dung, to put it politely! If she had been within speaking distance of you as she should've been, neither of you would've even taken a dunking, much less - "
"I will not argue with you!"
Brin's wide, unblinking eyes strayed uncertainly from one to the other.
Kyn drew himself up to his full height - unhindered by the fact that he was a full hand's width shorter than Bria - and stated with cold suspicion, "Alberich had not given you specific orders for your shadowing, had he? He has not even appeared yet to question me on the incident."
"Alberich has better things to do than to follow your misadventures all day," Brianna said crossly, folding her arms across her chest and adopting the same, confrontational stance. "And he left standing orders as to what actions should be taken if things 'escalate'. I would say that things have escalated."
Kyn drew his hand sharply through the air, a curt gesture of dismissal. "Which only means that he is no longer in the city, or something else has come up. Keep your secrets if you want, I don't care where he is. You, however, are another matter. Matters have not 'escalated'. It was merely an accident. Mennifei slipped, and I happened to be near enough to help her." Out of the corners of his eyes, he caught Brin shifting his weight abruptly with an indrawn breath, looking as if he might interrupt. Without breaking his locked glare with the woman, he made a small, negating gesture with his near hand, letting the folds of the overlarge cloak shield it from the woman's notice. Whether the boy actually noticed it and interpreted it correctly or not, Brin seemed to have enough wits to subside without interjecting. Kyn made a mental note to begin working out a system of signals whereby he could prompt the boy without others either observing or understanding them. "I have managed to survive this long without needing someone to hold my hand. I will not allow myself to become so useless that I need a keeper shadowing my every step!"
Brianna's brows rose crookedly as she folded her arms. "And just what do you think you've survived previously?"
Kyn's eyes narrowed, heartbeat quickening at the condescension before he managed to throttle his instinctive response, to inform her just who she thought she was doing a favor babysitting. Allowing one corner of his mouth to curl upwards in a smirk, he said smoothly, "If Alberich had not seen fit to inform you, I think I shall forbear as well." A tiny flame of satisfaction helped sooth his frustration as the woman's expression immediately fell into a thunderous frown, and he turned to quickly stride for the door, content enough with his small victory to concede her the position at his heels for the moment.
As he left the building along with a puff of warm air, he gave a single, convulsive shudder before quickly wrapping the edges of the cloak tighter about himself. Casting a glance aside, his eyes managed to meet Brin's during the process. The boy's expression lightened as he caught Kyn's attention, shoulders rising as he took a deep breath - and then falling again as he released the air in a patently disappointed sigh, a twitch that he wasn't quite able to suppress making it obvious that he was all too aware of Brianna's disapproving presence well within earshot.
Suppressing sudden amusement, Kyn said, "Later." Looking somewhat mollified by the promise that they would continue their conversation when they were once again alone, Brin made a visible effort to reassert his more cheerful mien.
Though Brin was ostentatiously leading the way, Kyn began to lengthen his strides, subtly pushing the boy with his proximity until the tow-headed trainee was interspersing his steps with awkward half-skips to keep up the pace. Kyn knew the way enough to be anxious for a building with heating, the winter air reminding him of the frozen waters until his bones ached in sympathetic memory despite the thick cloak. He knew just how far they were from the boy's dorm, and he wasn't willing to be kept out longer than he absolutely needed to be. When they turned a corner and the front door finally came within sight, he dispensed with pretenses and passed Brin altogether, stamping his feet on his way up the two steps leading to it in afterthought to shake of what snow had clung to his still-damp shoes.
It was like walking into a wall. Perhaps he was just a little more sensitive to the cold than he would have liked to fool himself into thinking, or the dorms had been running fires all day, but the abrupt heat was nearly suffocating for the second or two it took for him to acclimate - and while the rest of him tingled pleasantly with renewed circulation, his head seemed to bundle the extra warmth into a tight little package that throbbed sullenly behind his eyes. Sighing, he grimaced and rubbed his brow, soon moving his hand to massage the back of his neck as he loosened his hold on the cloak, trying to relieve the pressure.
Resolutely pushing the discomfort aside, he looked around, orienting himself with what he knew of the building's exterior. He had never been in the dorm itself, merely observed its facade as a matter of principle while familiarizing himself with the campus' composition and layout. He knew from occasional glimpses of the boy at the windows that Brin was living on the second floor. For rooms that housed three - an arrangement that Brin currently claimed - there were two windows, which meant that the trainee's room was the fourth one from the east side of the building if Kyn had counted the windows correctly, accommodating for the extra one in the stairwell.
"Brin! Where did you go? We were looking all over for you after lunch." The voice echoed down the stairs along with a rapid series of shuffling steps that sounded in danger of spilling their owner tumbling to the ground floor. As it was, the boy who appeared not long after very nearly did land sprawling, if it hadn't been for a hasty catch at the banisters. Looking a little older than Brin, certainly taller and a little leaner, he sported a head full of black curls, slanted gray eyes, and the gray uniform of a Heraldic trainee.
"Oh, Terrance! Sorry 'bout that, something came up rather urgently...did Ray drop off those map carriers of mine?"
"Yeah, he did, and helped himself to a double handful of those dried fruits your mother sent some days ago in payment."
"What!"
Kyn began to walk toward the stairs, recognizing the new arrival as one of Brin's roommates and dismissing him as the two boys fell into a mutual airing of grievances with much hand-waving and groans. Terrance's eyes followed him curiously as Kyn slipped past, the gray gaze widening slightly as they noted the armed woman following two short strides behind though the rapid-fire exchange of words did not slow a whit.
The stairs, composed of closely fitted and polished wood slats, curved back on itself halfway up before opening out into a central hallway running the length of the second floor. Eyeing the near walls, Kyn slid a hand across them as he passed, noting one particular spot that seemed warmer than the rest as he let the cloak slip from his shoulders and draped it over an arm. Perhaps a branching series of flumes helped carry heat from some central fire or boiler through the rest of the building through the walls; an interesting engineering trick if they managed it without choking the place up with smoke or burning it down. When his hand dipped into the depression of the first doorway, he regathered his thoughts and began counting out the ones leading to what he estimated to be Brin's room.
"Hey, where's your friend going? He doesn't room here, does he?" Terrance's voice asked, tinnily hollow floating up the stairwell, interrupting the smooth rhythm that had been established by their conversation.
"Oh, no, he's just going up to our room to get the - "
"What? Our room?! Hey, you, wait!"
The fourth door on the south side of the building. Kyn cast a glance back as he laid a hand on the door handle, depressing the latch. He saw Brianna turn also with a quizzical look as the unmistakable sound of Terrance's rapid footsteps pounded back up the stairs.
"Ter! What's going - "
"Nat's practicing again - hey, don't open the door!"
Kyn opened the door. Not out of any true perversity...the warning had simply come too late. Still, it came soon enough that Kyn automatically tensed, attention sharpening instinctively for an ambush as the door swung wide, so that when he noted the badly-tossed knife tumbling toward his head, he had just enough preparation to reach out and pluck it from the air rather than merely dodging and leave himself still on the defensive. A practiced shift brought the weighted weapon to bear in an eye blink, ready to be hurled back at its original thrower.
The third roommate, hazel eyes wide and innocuously clad in sleep clothes, straight brown hair in a mild disarray around his shoulders, gaped at Kyn while still caught in a follow-through after the throw.
Taking a quick look around to check that there were no other threats pending, Kyn arched one brow and asked dryly, "I hope you don't mind that I keep a hold of this for now."
The boy blinked, let his arm drop, and breathed, "Whoa. How'd you do that?"
Kyn didn't bother replying, lowering his arm and tucking the flat of the knife's blade against his inside wrist, taking two steps in and a second look around, this time with the intent of locating the tubes that would house the maps. Behind him, he could hear Terrance and Brin finally catching up to lean in the doorway, panting after the panicked run up the stairs and down the hall.
"Are you all right?!"
"Nathannel, Dhorin told you to stop practicing that in the dorms weeks ago! Expressly because something like this might happen!"
"Where did you learn that?" Brianna asked in soft, suspicious tones, her words carrying despite the growing argument that the others were becoming embroiled in.
"From a thief," Kyn answered obliquely, picking his way fastidiously through scattered piles of clothing - and what looked to be the remains of a failed experiment with a miniature catapult - toward the far corner. There were some likely looking tubes propped there, slender wooden shafts capped by wax-sealed tops. "Brin," he called over his shoulder as he picked up one of the tubes, rapping it lightly to make sure that it was hollow. "Are these the ones?" The blond-haired trainee put his end of the argument on hold for the split second it took to return a confirmation before he was once again berating his unrepentant-looking roommate. Nathannel, in fact, seemed to pay only enough attention to the heated discussion to keep up pretenses, devoting the majority of his energy to watching Kyn with a sort of glazed-eyed look. Even Brianna's quiet, imposing presence drew less scrutiny.
Kyn was uncomfortably reminded of his first meeting with Brin. The boy had sported a similar expression then, still covered with mud and with them both sopping wet, and just look at the impossible entanglements that it had led up to. Resolutely ignoring Nathannel's awed regard, Kyn gathered up the two map carriers, hitching the string tied across their ends over his shoulder, awkwardly shaking out the cloak in preparation to wrapping it around himself again with one hand still occupied by the knife.
He was about to turn and leave when he paused and considered the room anew, absently rubbing at the back of his neck in an attempt to relieve the ever-present ache and remembering that he was not at all eager to be returning outside. As an excuse, he examined the place in more detail, and decided that it felt...cluttered. Not that Kyn had not seen his fair share of lavishly decorated rooms and halls, but here, the majority of knickknacks had less obvious purposes than the purely aesthetic.
He himself had owned nothing he had bothered calling his own. He remembered a few items that he had tried to keep tucked away when he was young, for reasons he could not even remember anymore. They had all disappeared though, perhaps confiscated by Master, or simply forgotten, not important enough to recollect but in the vaguest of manners, like acorns buried by an absent-minded squirrel. Later on, he had lost even the urge to keep anything with the thought of claiming it as his exclusively. There seemed little purpose to it, with everything that did not harm him or the course of his instruction readily available for his perusal. He was eventually allowed free reign even within Master's private chambers, an offer that he had taken advantage of only once. He had only made the most cursory of inspections before hurriedly closing the door behind him, followed by the soft, rasping chuckles of Master's amusement.
Brin's cap with its pheasant feathers, over which so much furor had been produced, adorned one post of the headboard to what Kyn assumed to be the boy's assigned bed. Near it were quills for writing, charcoal sticks, the wooden handle to some unknown tool, all jutting out of a lopsided clay mug on a desk. Papers and books were piled relatively neatly in the other corners, a rough wooden carving that resembled a weird amalgamation of a rabbit and a turtle weighing down the stack nearest the window. Next to it was a picture frame, delicately carved and even containing a piece of protective glass, laid flat so that it became an opaque mirror with the angle of the light. Only half-listening to Nathannel's grousing and the other two boys' admonishments, Kyn wandered over to Brin's desk and tilted his head, trying to see the image the frame contained.
It was a pen and ink sketch, a miniature family portrait, done either professionally or by a very talented amateur. Brin was immediately recognizable, though he looked a few years younger in the picture. Behind and beside him was a man and a woman. Below, there was the soft, round face of a very young girl, little more than a baby with fine, pale hair pulled up into a ridiculous top-knot tied off with a bow. It was hard for Kyn to judge her age; he had had little contact with children. A sister? He had never mentioned a sister. Or perhaps Bryn had, but only by name, and Kyn had not thought to ask after the relationship. It was an odd sensation, seeing their smiling faces arrayed neatly on the sun-yellowed paper, knowing that there were invisible ties binding them all together into a unit known as 'family'.
Kyn narrowed his eyes fractionally before carefully reaching out and turning the picture over, face down.
When he looked up, it was to see the shadows creeping farther and farther across the snow outside the window as the day waned. Feeling unexpectedly pensive, he took a step closer, nearly leaning his forehead against the chill glass to peer outside. A building, presumably another dorm, faced him across a wide alley, a lane of feet-churned and dirty snow cutting through its center. There was no one in view but for two trainees in blue uniforms far to the left, barely within his sight...
Kyn's breath caught, disbelieving for a moment. Surely the fates would not work so conveniently, would they? Nevertheless, when he pushed the window open, ignoring the sounds of confusion and protest from behind when the cold air from outside leaked in, he could see by his better vantage point leaning out that it was indeed Stefahn that stood near the alley's end. The trainee's broad back was turned toward Kyn, but he easily recognized the boy's stance and gestures as some grandiose story or plan was outlined. Stefahn's companion was a pudgy-looking boy, with short, stiff brown hair and thick eyebrows. The temperature had nipped the nose and rounded cheeks pink, and though he shuffled his weight impatiently from foot to foot, there was a small frown wrinkling his countenance and the trainee did not attempt to interrupt Stefahn.
"What are you doing?" Brin asked, moving up behind Kyn and trying vainly to peer over his shoulder without hovering.
"Nothing. Yet," Kyn said, trying to think through the haze of unfamiliar emotions and what might eventually become a full-blown headache. Stefahn needed to be dealt with, if nothing else, because Kyn would not be able to rest easy with an unknown variable running around loose. He had very little faith in the trainee's cognitive skills - a fact that was even more daunting than the thought of an experienced opponent, who would understand when to be wary - and there was the added factor of Stefahn's implied ties to Master. It was highly unlikely that the trainee had met Master face-to-face...but how to be sure just how much of a threat Stefahn might pose? And how to neutralize it? The trainee obviously understands brute strength and fear...
Letting the cloak and maps slide to the floor, Kyn adjusted his grip on the weapon still within one hand and reached out blindly with the other, extending it palm up. "Your knife," he asked of the woman he could sense standing near.
The reply came hesitantly, rife with suspicion. "What do you want with it?"
"Your knife," he demanded again, this time more insistently as the portly boy down the alley moved away a step. The conversation was nearing its conclusion.
"Haven't you already confiscated one? I do not think - "
Kyn snapped his head around. "Your knife!"
It was with some satisfaction that he noted the others jumping slightly out of the corners of his eyes, but what proved even more gratifying was the prompt slap of a hilt into the palm of his outstretched hand. Nodding to the stony-faced woman in thanks as if the order had been couched in the most genteel of requests, he slipped the poniard through his belt, eyed the distance to the ground, and slipped over the window's sill.
He hung by one hand to shorten the distance before kicking away from the wall, landing with a deep knee bend to absorb the shock, elbows brushing the taller drifts that had gathered at the edges of the alley. A sharp spike of pain flashed briefly behind his eyes, the sudden jolt of adrenaline in preparation for the coming confrontation briefly antagonizing the steady throb into a genuine headache before subsiding again. It, as well as the icy cold, could be ignored for now if he maintained his focus on the immediate goal. Glancing up at the gasps and exclamations that followed him, he made a curt gesture for silence before he palmed the poniard and began stalking toward Stefahn.
The snow in the center was just thick enough to muffle whatever shift of gravel might occur beneath, and thin enough that it did not pack with audible noise as fresh-fallen drifts might. His shadow fell behind him. There was nothing that should alert Stefahn to his presence beyond his companion, and for whatever reason, the other trainee did not catch Kyn's movement or did not bother glancing toward him until he had begun the short sprint that would lead into his final approach. Perfect.
When the black eyes widened and the mouth rounded into an 'o' of surprise to reveal the folds of a double chin, Stefahn interrupted himself with a cross-sounding query, turning with a scowl affixed to his face. The bully's eyes too, grew large at the sight of Kyn abruptly crouching low a mere body's length away, using the momentum of his run to launch himself into a spring straight for the trainee. Stefahn had little more time than to draw breath before Kyn crashed into him, knees-first to his torso.
The older boy released a grunt, half-stunned as Kyn sent them skidding through the near-slush, eyes staring blankly at the sky for a moment before he rolled them down to focus on his assailant. A spark flared and Stefahn stubbornly pulled his arms close in preparation to throwing Kyn off despite the wheeze that was all he could manage in the place of breaths at the moment.
Kyn calmly readjusted his weight on the trainee's chest, leaned over, and slammed the knives down into the snow and dirt on either side of Stefahn's head. The pale blue orbs grew large until they were rimmed with white, turning slowly to stare first at one gleaming length of honed steel and then the other, not more than a finger's width away.
Hands still braced on the hilts, Kyn bent low and placed his lips next to the boy's ear. "I would like very much to have words with you."
Yes, short, but I couldn't keep it from you for much longer. =) This'll also help me keep the story going, so I think I might stay with this length for a while.
me ^.^ - Done! =P
drunkenfairy - Eeeeewww... patpats I sympathize completely.
Megan - lol So, did it work? =P
SCWLC - Thank you! And I'm trying, though the rest of the world's not cooperating. ^_~ (Don't worry, my love for creature comforts and pure laziness will insure my survival till the next Apocalypse, despite all my griping.) And in reply to the review you left on The Words Unsaid: Hee! Just as a note, though the prologue did reveal a great many things, my plans for The Words Between will not be covering how things turned out the way they do in the sequel. That will be the job of The Words Unsaid, so though there may seem to be a lot of 'spoilers', they're also not truly spoilers in the literal sense since their development will remain mostly in the body of the sequel. I hope that made sense? o.O*
ola - snickers I can just imagine the reviews degenerating into single-line entries composed of only the words, "Yadda yadda yadda..." And in reply to the review you left on The Words Unsaid, I'm not sure what you're referring to concerning the lady in the forest. As for all of your other questions...considering that the answers will be even more spoilers, are you *sure* you wanna know? ^_~
DarklingImp - Thank you for letting me know! =) I'm glad you're finding it enjoyable, and hope you'll continue to take the occasional break from evil impish things to let me know. ^_~
M'cha Araem - I must join you in the guilt-fest, as I brought home many textbooks with me for Thanksgiving and have not opened up a single one of them yet. laughs and shakes her head I think you need to start avoiding composing reviews directly on fanfiction's site. I might have suggested you stop composing reviews altogether for the sake of relieving your burden, but quite obviously, that's out of the question. ^_^ As for the complex relationships - well, even I have to maintain a chart for my own reference, so don't feel too badly. And in response to the review you left on The Words Unsaid, yes, generally you're supposed to finish something before starting a sequel. ;) Unfortunately, I have never been a very linear type of person, and I must say this type of writing - being forced to compose a story directly from beginning to end - has really been quite a daunting task for me. My habit has always been to write stuff all over the timeline, then the connecting pieces, and then to fine-tune/tweak the areas that have continuity probs. But, thus far at least, I've managed to behave myself beyond that one momentary weakness. =P