Advertise/Affiliate Other Forum Main Page The World Before You Play

Sibling rivalry [Sam]

Started by Anonymous, October 06, 2009, 03:40:08 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Anonymous

Tarys ran through the gardens of the Horn with unerring accuracy, managing to avoid every hole, every forgotten tool (he would need to talk with the gardeners about those) and every plant that would be a bad idea to step on if he didn't want to get yelled at by someone who didn't care that he was already a baron, albeit one who had someone else doing the actual ruling for him until he turned sixteen. Or was it eighteen? He couldn't remember, and besides, it wasn't inportant right nmow. What was important was that his had a ten second lead on his sister, who was very likely going to try and kill him when she caught him, simply because that was what they always did.

Of course, the fact that he had accidentally inscribed her favourite weapon with a rune that made it impossible for her to lift didn't really help his cause. And the fact that said rune practically bound the weapon to him instead wasn't good either. Hence the running. Tarys was nine years old, four feet eight in his bare feet and nowhere near as bad tempered as his older sister. That and the fact that he looked like their mother seemed to keep him in the good graces of the guards, but it did little to improve relations between himself and his sister for some reason; the girl was just too serious, and possibly ever so slightly insane. Possibly she was annoyed with the fact that he had a title and she was just the heir apparent for one, even though heir apparent for her title trumped his baronetcy any day of the week. She should know that, right? He'd learned all that in basic chivalry classes when he was younger, and she had taken all the same classes that he had, and of course more since she was older. So why was she always in such a bad mood with him, magical abilities notwithstanding. This was the first time he'd ever done any kind of rune work, after all; he'd only been introduced to the system the week before.

Before he could even think about formulating an answer to that, he was stumbling head over heels into one of the many irrigation ditches that carefully wove their way through the gardens. They were roped off, of course, to keep the younger children from falling in and doing themselves a mischief, but usually he could jump the ropes and hurdle the ditches without a problem. It was quicker than using the bridges put in place, if he timed it properly, and he was sure that he had timed it properly, but his foot had still caught the rope and now he was face down in a stream and soaked to the bone. Someone was going to have a fit, that was for sure. Someone other than Vethrys, who was already having one. Pushing himself up, well aware that at least some of his lead had been squandered, the nine year old scrambled up the other side of the channel and caught what breath he could pull into his body as he started to jog again.

Anonymous

It was her sword.  Her first full-sized sword, and he'd laughed when she'd tried to pick it up off its hook and found it had dragged her to her knees.  She couldn't lever up more than the hilt.  Tarys.  You didn't do something like that with a person's first real sword, you didn't do that.  He was trying to humiliate her.  It was a beautiful sword, white faesteel with a black grip and gold gilt on the crossguard and pommel, just like she'd asked.  She had been about to name it, even if she couldn't decide between Blooddrinker and Vengeance.  If she got it fixed it'd definitely be Vengeance now.

Vethrys growled under her breath and sped up, hurdling hedges like she did when she pretended to be a horse in the yards.  She crashed through one that was too tall and scratched her leg, but landed balanced anyway, one palm smacking the ground, and kept running.  Her fingers stung where she'd jammed then using a tree to pivot around a corner.  Her brother's white-blond hair bobbed along before her.  When she caught up to him, she'd try out a few of the things Sir Mirak had showed her the other day.  She wanted to put her thumbs through his eyes, but she wouldn't.  She'd kick him where it hurt and pull out his hair, though.

She didn't scream or shriek.  She hated it when girls did that, and besides, it wasted breath.  It would feel nicer to catch up to him and make him sorry.

Vethrys had just started to close on him when his blond head disappeared abruptly downward.  She almost stopped, confused, and then her eyes darted over the space behind him.  The ditch.  Ha!  Her breath hissed out, trumphant, and she ground her teeth and started forward again.  By the time she'd made it to the ditch, though, he'd scrambled out the other side, all muddy and wet.  Vethrys hesitated in front of the ditch, wary of slippery ground, then backed up when she saw it wasn't and leapt the ditch, glad she had longer legs than her brother.  She did get tangled in the rope on the other side, but when she pulled free she was close.

Her legs felt hot and full of prickly exhaustion, but she pushed herself to speed anyway and caught him in a flying tackle.  They rolled over in the grasss.  "Bastard," she spat at him, now she had him, clawing for a hold on his wrist and trying to pin him with her weight.  She didn't usually call him that, because of how he got and because it was insulting her own lady mother anyway, but she felt like it today.  "You're--a--"

Anonymous

He didn't get very far before his sister barreled into him, knocking what was left of the air he'd managed to take on board from him as they hit the floor. He was tall for his age and slightly broader built than his other siblings, but that didn't really matter; Vethrys was three years older, the best part of a foot taller and had a lot more martial training than he did. And she weighed more, too, but he wasn't about to say that out loud. He was talented, he had magical ability, he wanted to tell their father before he died. He was the only one of the five siblings to show magical ability so far, although the baby couldn't be expected to show magical skills so young, and the fact that they had initiated themselves in a way that annoyed his older sister was both a blessing and a curse.

He bucked and kicked under her weight, using his forearms and elbows to struggle against her as he tried in vain to scamble up to his feet. She was stronger than him too, although he doubted that that would last long once he started his squire's training too. But his training with the guards - training done when he was supposed to be learning to at least ride a horse, and which he was sure his father knew about any way - had taught him a few things he could do, given the right freedom to move. It just didn't seem like Vethrys was going to give him those freedoms. And then she said the Word. He hated that word, and it was rare even for Veth to use it against him, but it always inspired him to be as bad tempered as she was and so he rammed his head forward, trying to break her nose with his forehead.

He was still to breathless to speak, of course, so defending himself and their mother verbally was out of the question, but since his head was in roughly the right place he twisted his neck around slightly and tried to bite a chunk out of her shoulder instead.

Anonymous

Sir Berin had told her that some fighters got into bloodlust so great they didn't feel pain.  Vethrys thought she might be one of them, but she winced backward anyway when Tarys's forehead hit her nose with a crack.  The blow sent pain all down the back of her throat, but it only made her angrier.  So far she still felt the pain.  She'd work on that part.  

It took her a second too long to recover.  She'd grabbed Tarys's wrist and twisted it before, but she had to struggle to get her grip back.  She felt his teeth shut on her shoulder and howled more out of surprise than anything, bringing her shoulder up in a fast shrug that would whack him a good one in the teeth.  

In a real fight she wouldn've thumbed out his eyes by now, or used the hold at the sides of the neck that cut off air to the brain.  She might do that last if she could get both hands to his neck without him clawing her fingers bloody.

She almost wasn't mad at Tarys anymore.  She wasn't thinking about the sword, either.  It was too hard to keep in mind what she was supposed to be angry about; when she was angry she didn't really think at all.  Now she was just angry that she hadn't won the fight yet.  She brought her knee up, trying to ram him between the legs, grunting.  

Last time she'd done that, Mother had told her, quite seriously, that she might've compromised his ability to have children, which Vethrys just found funny.  By all appearances, it hurt unreasonably much to hit a boy there, in what Cotswin from the stables called the 'nadgers'.  She'd tried, curiously, to see if it hurt as much to hit herself in the privates or the tiny beginnings of her breasts, but it really didn't.  She thought that situation most satisfactory.

Vethrys tried again to knee him and grappled to get one hand over his face so he wouldn't bite her again.  Soon she'd have him writhing around in pain and she'd know she'd won, and she'd march him back to fix her sword.

Anonymous

He'd had his wrist twisted so many times by his sister that he would swear on all the gods and goddesses that he could dislocate it at will. But a shoulder to the mouth was a relatively new thing, and he shoved her backwards hard even as he swore felt his teeth rattle. There was definitely blood in his mouth, although whether it was his own or his sister's or a mixture of the two was hard to tell. It didn't stay there long; he spat it into the nearest flower bed and then her knee smacked into his thigh, giving him a dead leg. No need to ask what had been intended there; only the fact that he'd pushed her away could have prevented the full force of that blow reducing him to a mewling pup being dragged back to the Horn to fix whatever it was he had done. Assuming he could fix it.

He hoped he could fix it.

She still had hold of his wrist, so he couldn't pull away completely, but he twisted in her grip. The groinshot was one of her practically patented methods of getting him to call uncle, and as a result he was a lot more adept than some people he knew at avoiding it, but even with the twisting her knee still connected with his stomach, and the nails of his free arm - which, now he came to think of it, could do with trimming - raked down her forearm as the blow doubled him over and he tried to get to somewhere where he could gasp for breath without being set upon by a complete harpy of an older sister.

That the whole fight was being carried out in silence - apart, of course, from the odd grunt of exhertion and crack of bone on bone and similar sounds of violence - was testament to the training both of them had received so far, and all that stuff about fighting or talking but not doing both, but an observer would hardly call it particularly chivalrous. had they been armed there would have definitely been a lot more blood than there was, but luckily for Tarys they weren't. Mainly because he had somehow jinxed her sword, he guessed, and because his mother insisted that he wasn't to carry so much as a toy wooden sword around any more. He was too old for that kind of thing, apparently, but too young for a Faesteel replacement.

Still trying to get his sister to let him go, he tried to get to her face with the same sharp nails that had drawn blood from her arm. They were close enough together now that reach didn't really count for much.

Anonymous

Vethrys screwed up her face so he couldn't get at her eyes.  Half-blind, she hit at Tarys again.  And again.  She ignored his nails on her face, though she was pretty sure they'd drawn blood; she already tasted some that had dripped down from her nose, but distantly, as part of the general fog of the fight.  The point was to win.  She struggled upright with her knee on his belly and struck out with the heels of her hands.  Fists are for tavern brawlers.  Don't sheath your weapon, make a blade.  She thought she'd hit him in the throat, but she wasn't sure--

"Vethrys!"  

Oh, no.  It was Mother.  Vethrys preferred Father's chastisements any day, in part because he never--

A bucket of icy water crashed over her head.  The freezing cold and the weight of it blinded her stingingly and almost knocked her over onto Tarys.  She spat water.  Some she'd snorted up her nose, where it felt like it was going all the way up into her brain.  

She'd almost won.  But Vethrys ground her teeth and rolled sideways off her brother, swiping a sleeve over her face.

"Mother," she said, with an attempt at icy composure that might have worked better if she hadn't somehow bitten her tongue.  It felt clumsy in her mouth.  "We were just practicing."  She didn't dare look at Tar.  If he contradicted her she'd just say he was angry he'd lost.  "It is important to explore one's full strength," she added, because it sounded nice.  "We agreed to fight to an honorable victory.  Never yield."  Never yield was what she'd decided to put on the inside of her shield, when she got it.  It had a beautiful ring to it.

Vrenia braced the empty bucket on one hip and looked from Vethrys to Tarys.  "By the Gods, sometimes I envy your aunt."  Vethrys knew that because her aunt Marean had married a mountain Faery man, her children couldn't lie.  She wasn't sure what life would be like without lies.  She shrugged indifferently at her mother and swiped at her upper lip, where blood had started to pool again, hot over the cold left from the water.

"Tarys, now.  What's this about?"  Vrenia asked, turning to look at her son.

Anonymous

She was going to win. The rules of their fighting had always been the same, though, you never gave up. You just kept going until you blacked out or something similar, and if you weren't unconscious you should be fighting. Virtue was rare. Strength was a virtue. If you just gave up, you were weak. Tarys had never given up in a fight against his sister, even though he often lost, and now he was just trying to keep her hands from hitting him and trying to breath after she caught his throat with a lucky shot and then...

Then, there was mother. Mother and her bucket of cold water, most of which hit Vethrys but some of which hit him, since he was underneath his sister and therefore bound to get a little more wet than he already was. His sister was already explaining things to their mother, with words that weren't quite lies; they had indeed agreed to such things as she mentioned at some point, but not immediately before this scrap. Tarys sat up and spat blood into a flower bed as discreetly as he could, wiping his face with the back of his hand and scrambling to stand up straight as his mother addressed him.

"I accidentally runed her sword," he said, uncomfortably. "I thought it'd be cool if I could lift it, 'cos it was too heavy for me, but I made it light for me and really heavy for her and her face when she tried to pick it up was too funny and I couldn't help laughing. And she chased me from the room before I could try and fix it. But she didn't lie, mother. We did make an agreement about our fighting."

He wiped his face again; water was dripping down his face from his hair, and mixing with blood running down his chin where a tooth had caught his lip. But he was at least being honest, or practically honest, and that was another virtue. In this garden, virtue probably wasn't that rare at all.

Anonymous

Vethrys's clothing hung clammy against her body as she clambered to her feet.  There was dirt smeared over her knees and across both palms.  Now she'd need to have a bath, which irked her; her mother would make it a cold one for punishment, and she hated that.

She scrubbed her palms on her tunic, ad didn't look at Tarys; she was still holding onto you know I won, I was going to win and drag you back to fix my sword.  And now he'd told Mother the truth of it, and she might not let Vethrys have the sword.  The anger she'd felt before their fight came back in tight impatience in her throat.  She wanted her sword, this was all stupid.  What did it matter to their mother if they fought?  It was none of her business.  Someday they would both be knights and they'd fight on the field at Hornshunt and it would be grand.  And she'd win, because she always did.  

"An honorable fight isn't begun on whim and doesn't last until you've beaten each other bloody,"  Vrenia said, "but I'm sure your lord father can point you to the pertinent passages in the Codex."  She always called him your lord father when she was angry.  "Then you can spend the night copying them out, I think."  She sighed and took a handkerchief out of one sleeve, then stepped closer to Tarys.  She wiped the blood carefully from his chin.  "How did you make her sword heavy?"

At least she didn't do the same to Vethrys, who stood with her arms folded, bursting with impatience.  Twelve was too old for her mother to clean her face.  Never mind the lines, what about my sword?  She hadn't listened to her mother's words at all, though she knew she could parrot them back if she had to.

Anonymous

Tarys was going to argue against the punishment, since it wasn't really his fault that they were both bloody, and obviously he and his sister had a different definition of honourable to his mother. In their version, it was all about not giving up easily, hence the blood and the cold water and everything. It would make them stronger, and give them good standing in future fights outside the family; if they couldn't count on a sibling to take it easy in a fight then they wouldn't count on a rival knight to take it easy either. But before he could open his mouth to argue, his mother was wiping his lip and he wrinkled his nose at the displeasure of being treated like a child in front of his sister. She was totally going to take the mickey out of him forever for that. But his mother had a question, and Tarys had to figure out how to answer it.

"Tutor Kisan was teaching me runes last week," he said. "He said I picked them up quickly. When I wanted to make the sword light for me, I just kinda thought the runes at it. I don't think it'll last too long, 'cos... because it wasn't a proper casting, but I think I can make it normal for Vethrys again."

He couldn't make it lighter for her. He would need to start again from scratch for that, that was what he meant by a proper casting, and she would freak if he tried to melt the thing down because he was most definitely not a trained smith, and any replacement he made would be shoody looking even if it was as light as a feather ans never lost its edge.

"It was an accident, I didn't know I could do it!"

Anonymous

Vethrys didn't care.  So Tarys had some stupid magic.  So what?  He'd stilled messed up her sword; it was still his fault.  

"He hadn't any right to touch my blade," she said, glaring at him.  She knew he'd have to agree with her.  They both knew how important a knight's sword was.  "Particularly not before I'd even gotten to see it.  I might have let you hold it later, little brother," she added cuttingly.

Maybe she could fix it herself.  If he'd been able to work runes on the metal... but she'd once memorized a spell to make fire and tried for hours to set Kisan's hair alight, and nothing had happened.  Besides, a magic-sniffer had told her she didn't have any.  He'd also told her that she had a great many other graces and wouldn't miss the burden of it.  Vethrys had thought those sweet words at the time, but they tasted sour now.

She wasn't jealous, obviously.  That would be stupid.

"Make the smiths put it right," she added stubbornly, "He'd muck it up, Mother."

Vrenia had tipped Tarys's head back with one hand and was looking at him, holding his mouth so he wouldn't answer.  That was because she was going to answer for him, she always protected him.  It looked like she was also saying something silent to him with her eyes.  Maybe something about magic, it was like she was congratulating him or--Vethrys hated it.  "Hm," she said, smoothing his hair back into place.  She looked over at Vethrys.  "That may be true.  He shouldn't try anything unsupervised."  The words were meant for Tarys, Vethrys knew.  "And you shouldn't beat on someone three years younger, Veth."

Vethrys ground her teeth.  She hated it when her mother called her that.  Hated it because when she'd been younger it was a pet name and had made her happy to hear, so it hurt more in chastisement.  

"Squires in the melee are younger than--"

Vrenia cut her off.  "Enough.  You won't get your sword back today, and you'll not practice any more magic on other people's things, Tarys, is that clear?"  She let go his chin, gently.

"Mother!"  Not get her sword back?  Vethrys fought down a whine, and dug her nails hard into her upper arms.

Anonymous

Tarys was prevented from saying anything by their mother, even though he would begrudgingly admit that maybe his sister had a point. About touching her sword (even though it was only a short sword, adapted for her size because squires rarely carried full swords) not about the fact that he would mess it up. he had messed up because of a certain amount of ignorance, but now he was a special boy with magical abilities and OK he felt like he was going to throw up, but once he was through with his lines his father would be happy to know that at least one of his children could do magic stuff. And he'd read about mage-smiths, of course, and that meant that now he'd have to study with one of them as well, and his face fell as he realised that. How could he be a smith and a squire?

He nodded and looked suitably ashamed as his mother scolded him for touching the sword, but was alarmed that his sister wouldn't get the blade back, although he noted the 'today' that featured in the sentence, a word his sister had apparently ignored or missed because she was still kind of annoyed.

"You can't let her not have her sword, mother!" he exclaimed. "I can fix it, I know I can, come with us and see me try, please? It's not fair to keep the sword from her 'cos I did something to it that I can undo!"

OK, so when they were alone they would be at each other throats like cat and dog, but once an authority figure got involved they had to provide a united front. That she had been on the verge of winning against him meant nothing, that there was a three year gap betweent them in age meant nothing, they were siblings, surely mother and aunt Marean had fought, it was just friendly rivalry. At least mother hadn't caught the language used at the start of the fight, though. She always got angry when that word was used too.

"I'll run and find Master Kisan if I have to, he knows about runes and magic and stuff, he can help me not mess up!"

Anonymous

"No."  

When their father said no, it was usually only the prelude to a symphony of cajoling, pouting, and a culminatory 'yes'.  When their mother said no, she meant it.  Vethrys let out her breath noisily and crossed her arms tighter over her chest, until the scratches Tarys had left on her forearm pulled tight.  She looked away.  She'd get Vengeance back tomorrow, then.  Master Kisan or one of the smiths would fix it; her idiot brother couldn't have done something permanent.  

If he had she'd do something terrible to him and get a new sword.  Maybe it would even be better, though it still wouldn't be her first.  Bloody Tarys.  He'd spoiled her whole day.  It had been meant to be wonderful, all sword practice and later she'd wanted to go out Laevi and Aldrio and show it off to everyone.  

But no.  It was a cold bath and lines.

"Shut up," she told her brother, but sullenly.  Her mother would just yell at her again.  "May I go, Mother?"

Vrenia took a step back and frowned, folding her handkerchief into a neat stack, so the traces of Tarys's blood disappeared into the middle.  "You should both see your father's healers first," she said, starting toward the Horn's tower.  She was angry, or she would have walked with them.  Vethrys sped up, too, to get away from Tarys.  "Tomorrow I'll talk to the smiths and you can talk to Master Kisan.  Today you're both doing lines until dinner."

Ha.  At least he had to suffer the same as she did.

Of course, he ought to do more.

Anonymous

Tarys' heart sank, although he kept his back and shoulders straight and didn't let it show. Weakness was not a virtue, and tomorrow he would undo whatever he had done whether Vethrys liked it or not. It wasn't right to let someone else clean up your own mistakes, so he would sit with the mage smith who came and he would sit with Master Kisan and he would learn harder than he had ever learned before, so that when he was twelve he could become a squire having mastered the art of mage smithing. He was going to be the best squire in all Fallial if he could do that.

He sighed as their mother insisted that they both see healers; his wrist was slightly out of joint and he had a few knocks, but neither of them was seriously injured. Still, it would allow him to tell people that he was a magic user, and that might mean a visit from father, even if it also meant getting cuffed around the head. He doubted that it would; his father was pretty much a pushover, especially with the new baby just starting to totter and gurgle. Still, there was nothing he could do against his mother. Father could be cajoled into nearly anything, but mother's word was always the final one. Skipping slightly to catch the two females up, keeping his mouth shut as his sister suggested, he sighed at the thought of lines, wondering which specific passage he would have to write up this time. As long as it wasn't just a hundred thousand repetitions of 'Virtue is rare' then it would probably be OK.

Tags: