Title: Silent Night
Characters: Innes, Vanessa, Moulder
Theme: #25 Shut Up and Listen
Rating: PG13

Date completed: 1/14/07
Summary: A misplaced Silence spell has a certain prince highly irritated. Unfortunately for him, no one can hear him complain.

Disclaimer: Does not own, etc.

.-.-.-.-.

Innes was annoyed.

Innes was irritated.

Innes was, in fact, not very pleased with the world.

At all.

It might have had something to do with the way his sister was making eyes at a certain spear-welding prince. It might have had something to do with how the last battle had taken multiple turns for the worse as thunder and lightning combined with rain, supplying them with the much-needed handicaps of blindness and ringing ears. It might have even had something to do with it being late evening and therefore no less than three days since his last warm meal – and half a day from his last meal, period.

But most likely, it had to do with the little matter of a misplaced Silence spell.

Note to self: never stand next to L'Arachel on a battlefield swarming with enemy mages.

On the positive side, Moulder had said it should wear off by the morning if they couldn't cure him before then. That left a dark, foggy, miserable night of enforced silence to bear. A dark night with few lanterns, scarce paper and possibly three people who weren't either royalty or mages who could read.

Just one more thing to remember: The literacy test for the knights of Frelia was no longer optional.

Due to being unable to call for aid, it had been agreed – enforced without his input, actually – that he wasn't to be left alone. Waiting for Moulder to return, Innes glanced over at the shadowed form of his Pegasus knight, the girl radiating nervousness from where she stood by the entry flap of the tent.

The rain beating down onto the canvas above their heads, he tried to speak once more. He could feel the exit of the air that should have carried his words, but heard nothing. Shouting a soundless yell of frustration, Innes did his best to not sulk on his cot.

Vanessa hadn't so much as turned her head.

Innes yelled some more, his aggravated silence drowned out by the rain.

Nothing.

He paused for a moment, thinking this through. He clapped, hard.

Nothing, save for stinging palms. This result nonsensical on several levels, he stared at his hands for a moment. That hadn't just happened. He clapped again, looking to Vanessa for her reaction.

Nothing.

Sighing soundlessly, he thought a bit more, now snapping his fingers without audible effect. Even his chattering teeth failed to produce noise, though he hadn't really been trying. True, he was under a spell. True, he was tired, battered, and underfed. True, he was Prince Innes of Frelia and that meant being generally irritable on principle, but this went well beyond that.

This was boredom.

Just because he had to be quiet didn't mean she had to be, too.

Trying and failing to catch the knight's attention, Innes was forced into resorting to actual movement, aching muscles protesting the fully vertical position very much. Sitting down had been wonderfully agreeable after all that running for his life today. It was amazing, frankly, how much people wouldn't respond to commands when one was magically muted.

Horribly tempted to bellow at her and yell truly random things, it occurred to Innes that he'd best get back to sitting down and soon. He tapped her on the shoulder.

She practically jumped out of the tent and back into the rain. "S-sorry, sir!" she apologized, unnaturally loud. "I didn't hear you!"

Prince Innes was Not Amused.

Even with the lamp behind him, his expression must have been illuminated enough to intimidate. "Sorry, sir," she repeated much more softly. "Was there something you wanted?"

He told her.

Watching him intently, she shook her head, interrupting him halfway through. "Maybe if you moved into the light, I could see..."

Nodding, he did so immediately, backing further into the tent. This time, she followed. Half sitting, half collapsing down into his cot, he gestured for her to sit as well. Improprieties be damned; woman or not, she was in full amour. It didn't count.

"I'm wet, sir."

He gestured more strongly.

Hesitating slightly, Vanessa sat on the cot, the distance between them respectable. "I can see you better now."

He looked at her for a moment before trying again, seeing how the lamplight on her face flickered, softening and hardening her features at once and in turns. Still, this was the best lighting they could hope for.

Speaking slowly and soundlessly, he watched her watch him. Her eyes focused on his mouth, her brow furrowing. She leaned forward, damp hair dripping into her eyes. Her lips parted slowly as she attempting to mouth the words he was attempting to say. It wasn't until her mouth shut and her eyes flickered away from him hesitantly that he realized he'd stopped speaking. Trying to and failing, more like.

Ever-patient, the knight watched him, waiting for him to continue.

To the prince's uncomfortable surprise, he had forgotten what he had been trying to say.

"I'm sorry, Prince Innes, I didn't catch that."

Waving it off as best he could, he dropped the effort. It clearly wasn't working and it was doing horrors to his pulse.

Thinking along similar lines, Vanessa fidgeted nervously beside him, becoming awkward in this enforced silence. "Sir, I- I'm sorry."

Innes tried a shrug, attempting to convey a rather complicated message that he very likely wouldn't have been able to find words for anyway. There was nothing to be apologizing for, save being one of the many people who couldn't remember where the idiotic Restore staves had been stored.

"On the battlefield today..."

Oh, that. Following a woman's tangents was like tracking the flight of an angry bee; difficult, dizzying and often resulting in getting stung. Though unsure of where this was going, Innes shook his head.

Unfortunately for him, Vanessa wasn't watching for his reaction. "The visibility was so poor, I couldn't see where we were going. I didn't realize I wasn't with you until Titania nearly... That's not important."

Until her Pegasus nearly what? Was nearly shot down? Struck by lightning, magical or otherwise? Hit by javelin? What had happened? And why was this the first he was hearing of it?

"I'm sorry, sir," she said for – for what? The third? The fourth time that night?

That was far too many.

"I didn't mean to fail you. I'll do better. Truly, prince, I will. I swear to you -"

She stopped speaking abruptly, almost as surprised by his motion as he was. It wasn't simply that he had never reached out before, never placed a finger on her lips to silence her. More than the action, it was the complete and total lack of forethought preceding it which astounded him.

For no reason he could name, Innes found himself wondering how he looked to her. Half-dried hair sticking to his skull and purple-lined eyes, his shivering body exhausted and voice mute, a scab clinging to his chin and a bandage around his arm; how pathetic must he look to deserve such an apology?

Somehow, that line of reasoning utter failed to explain why she was gazing at him like that. And then why her eyes fell gently shut as that small contact increased, as he unthinkingly cupped her cheek. She shivered at his cold touch; obviously cold, for why shiver if not for the chill? So cold, the both of them, then.

His fingers slid under the hair clinging wetly to her face as he watched the clumped green strands shine in the dim lamplight, watched the gleam move about. So warm against his palm, so cold against the back of his hand; the two extremes balanced, placing him in some foreign limbo, the likes of which he had never before known.

Her lips parted with the intake of breath and the balance was shattered irrevocably.

So focused on his right, Innes had nearly forgotten that he had another hand. Now he raised it, reached, touched. The chill of her hair was nothing compared to that of her shoulder. The armor, of course. Obviously. Naturally. Yes...

His hand slid over the lightly dented metal, inspiring both worry for her and a hungering curiosity. Thoughts blurring together as she leaned into his touch, he wondered momentarily what would happen should the armor have been discarded earlier in the evening. This thought too blurred into the next, his left hand reaching the base of her neck, feeling the dampness of the padding beneath the metal. Concern… protectiveness, that was what he felt, was what caused the desire to strip her of those wet garments, to hold her close, to... warm her.

Concern...

At the touch on her neck, her eyes opened once more, her breathing as unsteady as he felt. Those eyes in the near-dark, shades of green impossible to determine, blurring together like his thoughts... They widened, pupils dilated, drawing him in. Her hesitant hand cupped his, cupping the hand cupping her cheek.

Protectiveness...

His other hand slipped behind her neck, slipped under her braid, tangled, wet, coarse. Maybe he pulled or perhaps she leaned in further on her own, those eyes falling shut once again. She was so warm under his hands, chilled to the point of burning, the cold hitching her breath and filling her body with shivers. He felt her shake, wanted to feel more.

Innes leaned in, turning his head to nearly rest it against hers. His hair brushed against her cheek, but she didn't seem to mind. On the other side of her face, he found his thumb had been stroking her cheekbone, that elegant detail. For how long, he wasn't certain, wasn't sure why it would matter how long provided he continued.

Neither was he sure whether or not this was his true intent, had been his true intent. His nose nearly touching her ear, his unheld hand rising to brush her tangled hair away from it, he paused. Merely breathing, barely thinking, he paused.

And began to speak.

Without sound, without words, without anything more than silence, Innes spoke. Without hearing, without seeing, Vanessa seemed to understand what he was doing, if not what he was saying. She listened to words that were never uttered, accepted promises never made, took comfort in reassurances never offered.

To say he fell silent would be redundant, yet that was what he did as she leaned her head against his. Such a light contact shouldn't have affected him to the extent that it did, but now she was the one whose breath tickled the other's ear. Her neck, her hand, her cheek, her breathing... his world collapsed around these, leaving only the sound of pounding rain on canvas and a heartbeat pulsing in speeding counterpoint.

"Prince..."

She shouldn't have sounded like that, sounded as if she... Of course not. Obviously. Naturally. Yes...

There was a sound in the resulting stillness and the pair pulled back, pulled away, equally flushed. But oh, how her eyes shone. Had he not already dropped his hand from her face, he –

"Father Moulder!" Vanessa exclaimed as she sprung to her feet, once again far too loud. Innes was left mentally floundering for a moment, blankly staring at the wet patch on his cot where a woman had just sat.

"It seems our inventory needs looking into," the priest said by way of reply, coughing slightly as his eyes went from one to the other. "The last Restore staff seems to have broken earlier."

"That's unfortunate," Vanessa remarked awkwardly, refraining from looking at her liege.

"Don't worry, Vanessa," Moulder replied, looking at Innes instead. "The spell will wear off soon enough."

"That's good." This was perhaps even more awkward.

Moulder gave her a small smile in an attempt at reassurance. "Good night, Vanessa."

"G-good night, Father."

Watching her go back out into the rain, Innes took comfort in the fact that he couldn't possibly be expected to explain what had just happened – and not simply because he wasn't certain himself. But whatever else happened, be it a priestly lecture or a freezing night spent avoiding the damp bit of blanket, Innes planned on finding out.

It was astonishing what one could hear, if only one listened.