Re: Weekly writers challenge
Posted by:
vareth in silico (IP Logged)
Date: March 7, 2011 01:41PM
This is from my NaNo. Lightly revised and edited for Seri's language. This technically goes against my whole belief system re: challenge threads but I love this scene and Shali said I could, so, have a fight scene. :D
(Pertinent info for non-Rin people: Lavari = "trash," their word for humans; Ravens = border patrol; Wolves = basically police; Doves = healers; and this is the day after the two first meet.)
--
Feir woke with Serioril less than a fingers-width from his face, which sort of possibly made him scream a little.
“What--what--what are you doing?”
“Waking you up. The nice way,” said Serioril, unsmiling.
Feirel, all his synapses firing far too quickly for his taste, was overwhelmed by the daylight, the dryness of his throat, the rough fabric of his dead-man’s clothes and the tickling sensation in his palms; he asked, “What’s the mean way?”
His host lifted the cracked cup. “Either throwing this at you or dumping it on you. Hadn’t decided.”
“Oh.” He sat up, dizzily, blinked and swallowed a bit. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize. I hate apologies. Just don’t do it again."
"Didn’t really mean to,” Feir said, still blinking away the sun in his eyes and trying to back away from Serioril even though he’d nowhere else to go. He realized what he was doing and stopped, forced himself to calm. There were a lot of dangerous things in this world, but for all his talk, Serioril wasn’t one of them. He’d hit hard, sure, but he hit with his fists, rather than knives
or arrows
or any sort of spiked, bladed, or poison-treated weapon.
“Tell me, Speir,” said the undangerous man, “are you actually crazy? Because I feel like I should know, if I’m going to be taking care of you.”
Feir was so discombobulated still, he nearly said, Don’t worry, you won’t have to put up with me much longer. Which would’ve gotten him cuffed again, at the very least. Instead he said, “Look. Serioril. I spent the last two decades in the Ravens, most of that on the field. Having people sneak up on me sort of, well, if I’d had a knife I probably would’ve stuck it in your eye.”
The eye rather than the throat. He’d always found eyes easier to aim for, and having an enemy strike at your face usually made you back off, even if they didn’t hit you. He’d had this exact discussion with Hasen once while they were on patrol out in the Westerlands. Hasen had died falling, his arms spread like wings, his feet tangled in a dead Lavari’s grasp. Feirel hadn’t seen it happen: he’d just been the one to find him.
Serioril, by this time, had shrugged and straightened up. “Won’t be giving you a weapon any time soon. We aren’t allowed to carry them, anyway.”
“Just--don’t do that anymore, all right?”
The other man scoffed. “Maybe you should just get over it.”
He was too keyed-up, too--they’d called it thirsty, in the Ravens. He was thirsty, else he wouldn’t’ve swung his legs off the couch and caught Serioril’s arm.
“That fight we had yesterday.” He dug his fingers in; he wanted Serioril thirsty, too. “Let’s try that again.”
“That wasn’t a fight,” said Serioril.
Feirel dragged him down so their faces were level, and used the leverage to pull himself up.
“What, Seri,” he said, “you scared of--”
He choked around Serioril’s strangling hand and stumbled back over the couch; and suddenly Feir could smell the forest, smoke, blood. He punched his opponent in the side, then the gut, then when Serioril let him go, drove his head up into Serioril’s throat. That earned him a knee to the stomach, hard enough that he swallowed bile; he caught Serioril’s leg and yanked him off his feet. The room was too small for Serioril to fall back--he tried to catch himself on the desk, toppled it, slammed his head against the wall.
Feirel stood there trembling, his ears ringing. He felt a little better. A little.
But he was almost glad when Serioril’s fist caught him hard in the jaw. He knocked the second punch away, barely, got up in Serioril’s guard and landed one of his own on that earlier bruise. Serioril used the momentum to throw him into the desk, though, and Feirel stared at the wood for a chain of instances, blood trickling into his eye; he was going to die, he was going to die here, Feir, move--too late. Weight across his shoulders, a fist slamming into his right kidney, once, twice--
“You done now?” Serioril hissed.
Feirel couldn’t breathe except in gasps. He wasn’t done. If anything he was worse now, his whole body tense as a bowstring; he wanted to tear Serioril’s throat out with his teeth.
“Outside,” said Serioril into his ear. He nodded, once, but the second Serioril let him up to open the door, he flew at him.
Someone must have taught the little ex-Wolf to be quick--he got the door between them. Feirel caught himself on it, made to swing around it, and Serioril kicked him in the side so quick and so hard that he stumbled out into the wide open room. Nothing here, no convenient desks, pale light in stripes from the slit windows: he could breathe, he thought, and he breathed, and he braced himself, and when Serioril came towards him, slowly, smiling like a stray dog in a corner, he smiled right back. He tasted blood, and Serioril had it striped on his fists, on his mouth; his loose shirt had pulled off at the shoulder.
“Was that,” said Serioril, “how you fought in the war?”
“Haven’t killed you yet, have I?”
“Yet,” said Serioril, and rushed him.
Feirel met him head-on, his shoulder pushed out to take the brunt; the impact jarred his entire body down to the soles of his feet and Serioril still landed a punch to his jaw that made his eyes burn. They drove each other to the floor, grappling for upper ground--he could taste Serioril’s breath in his mouth, did not know whose blood he was smelling.
He didn’t even hear the other voice.
All he saw was a sudden flicker in Serioril’s eyes, then his opponent headbutted him in the nose so hard he felt something crack and saw white stars bursting in his vision.
When he looked up, Serioril was dusting himself off, straightening his clothes. He didn’t wipe the blood from his face but wore it, like a piece of jewelry.
“Spider,” he said. “You’ve met Feir, I think.”
The little girl, her hair pulled back from her face and her sleeves tied up out of the way, eyed him, eyed Seri, and said, “…Is he dead?”
Serioril laughed, a sound that woke all Feirel’s nerves again. Hell. He still wasn’t done.
“He’s fine, aren’t you, Feir?” said Serioril. “You need me to fetch you a Dove?”
Feirel didn’t respond, until he felt he could get his breathing under control. He was swallowing blood by the bucketload; that didn’t help. He pushed himself up, got to his feet, wiped the worst of the mess away from his mouth. He would’ve spit if they were outdoors, but he didn’t like messing up people’s floors. He looked at Spider, then at Seri, and nodded over the splitting pain in his face.
“I’m fine, never better,” he said. “Met Lavari that hit harder than you.”
He was shaking as Serioril strode over to him, but it wasn’t with fear. Poor little Spider looked like she wanted to run; Feirel smiled but didn’t blame her.
Serioril raised his hands to Feir’s face, and Feirel flinched--but instead of punching him, Serioril wrenched his nose back into place with a twist of his fingers. Then he patted Feirel’s cheek, patronizingly, while Feirel gasped and tried not to scream. He touched his nose carefully, once Serioril’s back was turned. Felt all right, swollen but all right, but that had hurt, and not in the way that he wanted.
