How could a woman who was that beautiful, who smelled that good, who had such perfectly lovely teeth and bright eyes, be so thoroughly, completely, entirely, stark raving mad?" ~ Robert Cameron
Lynn KurlandRunach smiled ruefully. "She doesn't tell me anything."
"Perhaps you intimidate her."
"Im certain thats not it"
Nicholas look at him, clear-eyed. "Runach, my dearest boy, you forget who you are--"
"Were--"
"Are," Nicholas stressed.
"There is nothing of what I was in my veins," Runach said, managing it without too much bitterness. "I am simply a man who will live an extraordinarily long time to enjoy my terribly ordinary life. There is nothing to be intimidated by."
"I think others would disagree, but we will leave that for the time being.
Tags: runach
Ah, never," Nicholas said, rubbing his hands together. "Such an interesting word."
"You know, Your Majesty, the only reason I'm not swearing at you right now is because I was taught to be kind to old men."
Nicholas laughed merrily. "Cheeky whelp."
"Does that mean you won't slay me for telling you that you're a thoroughly obnoxious, interefering, exasperating..." Runach took a deep breath. "Good breeding prevents me from saying more."
Nicholas smiled. "Runach, my dearest boy, you are truly your mother's son.
Tags: humor
Have you ever known there was something you needed to do, but found yourself dreading it with everything you were?"
"Once or twice," he said.
"What did you do?"
Runach looked at her steadily. "I did what needed to be done."
"Was the price steep?"
"Very."
Aisling clutched her own bow, wishing her task was nothing more than learning to place an arrow where she wanted it to land. "Did you ever want to run?" She whispered.
He smiled, but it was a pained smile. "I'm not sure I want to answer that."
"Do you think Heroes ever want to run...?"
"Only if they come from Neroche."
She blinked, then smiled.
He accepted a cup of ale from his brother-in-law, sat back, then sighed. "Get on with the bludgeoning."
"Me?" Miach asked innocently. "Why would I bludgeon?"
Runach pursed his lips. "Because you are whoyou are, and you know Soilleir of Cothromaiche very well. I am continually appalled by the simialarites between the two of you."
Miach only watched his steadily, a small smile playing around his mouth. "You know what she is, don't you?"
"Who?"
"Aisling."
Runach shot him a look. "A girl, thank you. I haven't been so long at Buidseachd that I cant recognize one when I see one."
He finally leaned on his sword, and looked at his sister's husband.
"I'm biting. What is she?"
"A girl."
Runach growled. At least he thought he growled. It was difficult to tell what he was doing when all he wanted to do was wipe the smirk off Miach's face.
"You know," he said shortly, "you annoyed me when you were a lad. You haven't improved since then."
Runach looked over his shoulder to make sure no observant gel with shorn hair was standing behind him, eavesdropping with abandon, then leaned closer to his brother-in-law. "Let me lay out for you King Mochriadhemiach, all the problems that sit arranged pleasingly on a trencher before me. Perhaps then you can stop smirking long enough to examine them with me."
"You're testy.
Runach didn't consider himself particularly dull, but he had to admit he was baffled. "Then what now?"
"What do you mean, what now?" Weger echoed in disbelief. "Do what is necessary! Bloody hell, man, must I instruct you in every bloody step? Take your mighty magic and heal her!"
Runach blinked. "What in the world are you talking about?"
Weger threw up his hands in frustration. "Heal her, you fool! Use Fadaire or whatever elvish rot comes first to mind."
"I have no magic."
"Of course you have magic--" Weger stopped suddenly. "You what?"
"I have no magic," Runach repeated, through gritted teeth. "My father took it at the well."
Weger looked suddenly as if he needed to sit down. "Bloody hell," he said faintly. He sagged back against the door. "I had no idea"
Weger rubbed his hands over his face and indulged in a selection of very vile curses. "Damn it," he said, finally. He looked at Runach. "What are we to do now?"
"If magic will work here" Runach said, "why don't you use yours?"
Weger folded his arms over his chest. "I haven't used a word of magic in over three hundred years!"
"No time like the present to dust it off then, is there?"
Weger hesitated. Runach suspected it was the first time in those same three centuries the man had done so. He considered, then looked at Runach.
"I could," he said, sounding as if the words had been dragged from him by a thousand irresistible spells, "but I have no elegant magic."
Runach shrugged. "Then use Wexham."
"It will leave a scar."
"I don't think she'll care."
"It will leave a very large, ugly scar," Weger amended.
"Then use Camanae or Fadaire," Runach suggested.
"And have my mouth catch on fire? You ask too much."
Runach looked at him seriously. "I honestly don't care what you use, as long as you save her life. Whilst you still can."
Weger looked as if his fondest wish was to turn and flee. But he apparently wasn't the master of Gobhann because he was a coward. He took a deep breath, cursed fluently, then knelt down. Runach listened to him spit out an eminently useful spell of Croxteth, then follow that bit of healing with a very long string of curses in which Lothar of Wychweald and Runach's own father figured prominently.
Tags: humor
Elizabeth," Jamie began gruffly, "there is aught I would speak of with you."
She lifted an eyebrow at his lordly tone. "Go ahead."
"It may take me a few hours to accustom myself to these possible future ways, but that does not mean I am weak or stupid."
Hours? She smiled. "I know that Jamie."
"Nor does that mean I have ceased being your lord. You will obey me in all things, as always."
"Of course, Jamie," she said meekly.
"And should you demand knowledge about this or that, I would give it to you because you required it, not because I thought you didn't know the answer already."
"Of course,"Jamie said arrogantly. "There would be no other reason to question you." Elizabeth suppressed her smile and was thankful that she was riding behind him so he didn't see the twinkle in her eyes. Heavens what an ego her husband had.
There are some people men and women both who will never be happy no matter what the circumstances they find themselves. There's not enough money, no Castle grand enough, no life easy enough to content them.
Lynn KurlandRunach took the book in hand and went to look for that Bruadarian lass, who was likely having a conversation with the flora and fauna of his grandfather's garden...
He just hadn't expected her to be singing.
It wasn't loud singing, though he could hear it once he'd wandered the garden long enough to catch sight of her, standing beneath a flowering linden tree, holding a blossom in her hand. Runach came to a skidding halt and gaped at her.
Very well, so he had ceased to think of her as plain directly after Gobhann, and he had been struggling to come up with a worthy adjective ever since. He supposed he might spend the rest of his life trying, and never manage it.
It was difficult to describe a dream.
He had to sit down on the first bench he found, because he couldn't stand any longer. He wondered if the day would come where she ceased to surprise him with the things she did.
Her song was nothing he had ever heard before, but for some reason it seemed familiar in a way he couldn't divine. It was enough for the moment to simply sit there and watch as she and the tree--and several of the flowers, it had to be said--engaged in an ethereal bit of music making. It was truthfully the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, and that was saying something, because the musicians who graced his grandfather's hall were unequalled in any Elvish hall he'd ever visited.
And then Runach realized why what she was doing sounded so familiar.
She was singing in Fadaire.
He grasped for the rapidly disappearing shreds of anything resembling coherent thought, but it was useless. All he could do was sit on that very cold bench and listen to a woman who had hardly set foot past her place of incarceration, sing a song in his mother's native tongue, that would have brought any elf in the vicinity to tears if they had heard it. He knew because it was nigh onto bringing him to that place in spite of his sorry, jaded self.
Sile looked momentarily stymied, then shook his head sharply. "You won't go alone."
"I can't ask anyone--"
"You aren't asking," Sile said firmly. "I'm insisting--"
"Grandfather, nay," Runach said, stunned. "I couldn't allow it."
"Allow it?" Sile repeated, looking as if the gale were readying for another good blow. "Who do you think you are, whelp, to tell me what to do?"
"I believe, your Majesty," Aisling said quietly, "he's someone who loves you..."
Runach didn't dare smile, because his grandfather would have made the effort to get up out of his chair so he could deliver a brisk blow to the back of a grandson's head, of that he was certain.
"Besides, I'm going to go along to keep him safe."
Sile closed his eyes briefly before he leaned forward and looked at Aisling seriously. "You, my gel?"
"Me, Your Majesty."
Runach watched his grandfather look at his wife in consternation.
"Are you listening to this?" he asked in disbelief. "She isn't even spawn of mine, and yet she exhibits this unsettling 'independence'."
"I find it quite admirable, husband."
Runach pushed away from the wall and walked over to squat down by Aisling's chair. He looked up at her.
"I want you to stay here."
She looked at him for a moment or two, then reached out and touched his scarred cheek. "This is my quest, and I must see it through to the end, wherever that end might lie."
"I'll think about it," he said, and by that he meant not a chance in hell. He rose and glanced at his grandfather.
"I appreciate your concern, but I'm going alone."
Sile rubbed his hands over his face. "Breagha?"
"Aye, my love?"
"When did I lose control over my progeny?"
"Several centuries ago, I believe, dear."
"It seems more recent than that."
"I don't think so, darling.
Tags: humor-relationships
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