[fic][wrens make prey]

[moonsheen]

retarded oristuff that is basically meant to be read by all of, like, two people. but WHO CARES I ACTUALLY FINISHED SOMETHING.

Title: By a Thread
Characters: Felix, Christabel (who is Christabel? Well, that's complicated.)
Words: 4,900 (SCORE)
Warnings: done on request for chirachira, as such this involves a lot of personal canon and backstory that's probably not going to make too much sense to you lovely folk just joining us.
Summary: In which a young Felix heads south, takes a boat, watches a knife fight, and has a fortune teller totally hit on him. It is an odd couple of days.




When Felix complained about the cold, Christabel suggested they go south. The Cord Province was warm, even in the winter, and he’d never been there had he?

“Have you?” he asked, genuinely curious.

She’d looked at him as he helped with the ties of her dress. She’d smiled, leaning back so that he had to put his hands on her shoulders. Yes. She’d been once or twice.

He remembered something Oscar had told him. “There really a place where you can watch a whole bunch of guys beat the ever-living piss out of each other?”

There was. She’d seen it. Once or twice.

“I’m in,” said Felix.

She’d smiled. She liked him like that. Bright and eager. They’d go, she decided. They’d have to go by boat.

Felix didn’t mind going by boat. It was nearly as exciting as going to the Cord Province. It wasn’t that he’d never been on a boat before. He’d been on plenty. But those were rafts, cobbled together from bad planks and broken wheels, and the farthest he ever got on one of those was down to the south bridge, halfway across town, where the thing finally sank and him and Oscar had to flail their asses to shore. The boat him and Christabel hopped on near the Swordveil border would be cutting down through half of the sword province and beyond. The river found its origins up in the Veil Range, and then swept its way into the Branded Seas.

They took a river barge. Big enough to include passengers but narrow enough to fit through the straits in Geist. Christabel had done well with her odd jobs along the way, but inter-provincial travel was expensive these days, and she couldn’t afford a berth. They’d have to sleep on the deck. Christabel was very sorry about this.

“Don’t see the problem with that,” said Felix, sticking his head over the rail. They piled their bags along one of the rows. Christabel looked up from spreading out a cushion of blankets and frowned. The boat detached from the dock with a heavy lurch. Felix laughed.

He didn’t understand her hesitance then, but he sure understood it after the first night. Fall in the Sword Province was colder over the water. The rocking boat either made you sick or made you think you were about to fall in, and at the crack of dawn the shout of the crewmen woke everyone up. Bags had to be pulled aside to let them through. Felix didn’t get much sleep the first night.

The second night was better. Christabel cuddled up all close and pulled the coats and blanked around them both. She was warm. Warmer than one might expect from a woman so slim, and she usually wound an arm around the back of Felix’s neck while he dozed. He’d often wake with her fingers brushing his mouth. This was a protective measure. He learned this the third night, when a man tried to rob them. Christabel jabbed him in the shin with her toe. A hooded woman wandering the decks gave a shout. The crewmen pounded up and woke everyone up. The man was trussed up in ropes and tossed out at the next port.

In spite of all of this Felix found he liked the boat. It traveled at a good speed and the land they coasted through became less and less like the one he knew. The hills began to roll, and the trees were more like bushes. Cypresses, Christabel identified a narrow, upward kind that had reminded Felix of her. She was very pleased by the comparison.

On the fourth night, Felix finally had the courage to walk the decks at night. They’d be docking the next day and he didn’t want to waste the chance. Christabel blinked as he slipped out from under her arm. She’d been sleeping, though only lightly.

“Back soon,” he said.

Christabel frowned, but she settled back.

Here, the river was at its widest and beautiful at night. Lights from the towns danced in the water, and the passing vessels hung lanterns off their prows. Felix slung his arms over the railing, watching this. A cold drizzle had set in, and before he knew it his teeth had begun to chatter. Rubbing his arms, he turned, ready to head back around the bend when a voice called:

“Cold?”

Felix jumped. Another passenger leaned next to him. He hadn’t even noticed. Christabel was better at noticing these things. It was the hooded woman from the other night. She didn’t look ready to knife him, at least. She was bundled in heavy robes, with her hood pulled low over her face. She held at a small glass globe. Inside, a little red fire waved back and forth. It gave off an inviting heat.

“No sense in losing your fingertips,” said the woman, gently. Felix laid his hands over it before he thought about it. In the dark, he could make out the edges of her black hair and a crooked smile. He could also see that her wrists were heavily bandaged, and that the fire swayed slowly in the glass. Too slow. Felix pulled his hands away.

“Just dragon’s fire,” she said. He suspected she was a witch. “Lit on dragon’s blood. It lasts longer than oil. Very useful. Very valuable, too.”

“So how’d you get it?” asked Felix, doubtfully.

“Oh, I know people,” said the woman, with a laugh. That nearly settled it for Felix, but she added quickly, “I’m a fortune teller. I told fortunes for princes, once.”

“S’pose one of them had a dragon on hand, then?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Oh.”

This discussion was not going the way he thought it would.

“But never mind that,” said the fortune teller—if the woman said she was a fortune teller, she could be a fortune teller. He had to admit she fit the stories he’d heard about those. Mysterious. Crystal ball. Stark raving mad. “You know, my father never approved of my marriage either.”

“What?”

“You and your lady friend.”

“Oh.” They’d used that story before. It wasn’t that hard for Felix to laugh like it was true. “Hah. Well. Never cared much for the family businesses anyway.”

“Which was…?”

Felix’s smile turned a little sad. “Carpentry.”

“I see,” hummed the fortune teller, holding the glass ball a little higher. The flame tilted and rolled over itself. “Pity. You have good hands.”

In spite of the cold, Felix felt himself flush.

Christabel came to his rescue, drifting round the corner. In spite of the dull light she was easy to spot. The white skirts of her travel suit and her pale face were a point of brightness in the night. The drizzle had plastered her hair to her cheeks. She was looking for him.

“I’ll return you,” whispered the fortune teller, in a way that made Felix blush harder. “Care for a prediction?”

“No thank you,” said Felix, quickly.

The woman looked surprised. “Smart lad.” The glass ball vanished up her sleeve, and with it the light. She was gone before Felix could say another word.

Christabel hooked her arm through his. Her warmth much more familiar. The sight of that woman had made her nervous.

Felix grinned. “Oh, yes. Real green with envy, yeah?”

Christabel looked at him. It hadn’t been that. That woman had been much too flashy.

Felix just grinned wider. Christabel guided him gently back towards their things, their shadows a pair of stilt walkers along the deck. Felix glanced back over his shoulder, but there was no sign of the fortune teller. It would’ve been easy to spot her silhouette against the lights from the shore. She must’ve wanted to be noticed. To be found mysterious and strange.

Felix thought about her bandaged wrists. All at once he remembered Oscar with a chair-leg clenched between his teeth, biting hard as he pulled the old rags over and over the hot red burns. ‘Fucked if I try that again,’ he’d said, with a crooked smile. The rags had stayed there for the rest of the summer.

“You’re right,” said Felix in the present. He wasn’t grinning anymore.

Christabel sensed the change of mood. She always did. She slid her hands over his cheeks so silently that he jolted. She was very sorry for this. She would keep him safe. It would be best to avoid that woman, though. Christabel had a bad feeling about her. Something dark was following that one. It would be best for him not to get involved.

“Right,” agreed Felix. He kept his head under her chin the rest of the night. He didn’t sleep too well.


It wasn’t hard to avoid the fortune teller. He didn’t see her again. The next morning they docked in the provincial capital. It went by a lot of names, but the one Felix remembered best was ‘Lumina’, because it was the easiest to spell. He had his first glimpse of it as the crewmen threw the ropes down.

“Christabel!” he nearly shouted stumbling down the gangplanks. He nearly fell with his eagerness, pack and all. “It’s huge!”

Three Rosensterns could fit into just a single district. The city had five districts. Him and Christabel arrived in one of the merchant blocks, a bustling row of stands along the river bank. People and color and noise were everywhere. Felix gripped Christabel’s hand for fear he might lose her in the crowd.

It was all right, she assured him. If they were separated, she’d get back to him.

“Oh, got that guaranteed?”

She was sure as the beating of his heart. But if he doubted its reliability, he could always head for the coliseum.

Felix’s eyes lit up. “I could. Where’s that?” He looked around. He didn’t have to look for long. The coliseum dominated a good portion of the second district—the leisure district, straddling the border of the residential areas and the state areas. It was old, made of vaulting, white stone like the main street. Felix nearly choked on his tongue. It looked nothing like the etchings.

“Could we go now?”

Christabel considered it, pressing her fingers to her bottom lip.

“Just a look,” Felix insisted. “Don’t have to go in or anything. Just think we ought to scope out the area.”

She laughed and led the way.


They didn’t have enough left from their trip to afford more than a night’s stay in the inn, so Christabel immediately volunteered herself for employment. Felix really never knew how she did it but, but by the time they reached the big brass gates of the coliseum, she’d spoken to a vendor and gotten quick work selling carnations to the ticket holders. She’d be paid on commission, but on a good day one could do very well. Traditionally, flowers were thrown to one’s favorite upon their winning a match, and a lot of regulars had a lot of different favorites. The carnations came in different colors to reflect this.

So Christabel spent the first few hours of their time in Lumina circling the coliseum plaza with a basket. Felix spent the first few hours sitting with her. Sometimes she would get a wealthier family, a mother with four arguing girls, who’d want to buy in bulk. Sometimes she’d get a smiling young man, who’d buy one and leave. Sometimes he wouldn’t leave very quickly. Felix found those interesting, as he got to show off how tall he’d become over the winter. The man would smile, and lean in very near to Christabel. Felix would stand and walk over very purposefully; the man would look up at him, and politely go away. Sometimes he did not politely go away, and that would have been destined to end in tears, probably for Felix, except Christabel slid very neatly between them and smiled much wider than the man had. The man would then go away and Not Come Back.

After about the fourth time this happened she suggested he might like to see the next fight.

“Y’know,” said Felix, fixing his collar. “Think I might.”


They stopped him at the door.

“Oh child,” said the ticket man, a slim man in a bright suit with a high hat. He held a couple of keys in one gloved hand. A pair of centurions stood at either side of his stand. They wore red and gold, and were very broad at the shoulders. Felix stopped at once. “Where do you think you’re headed?”

Felix pointed vaguely to the door. The ticket man gave a soft click with his tongue, shaking his head mournfully.

“Nope. Nope. Very sorry, my boy,” he said, fixing his hat. “But you do have to pay first. We’ve some seats left, but they’ll go fast. It is the finals you know.”

“I thought it was free.”

“Free!” The ticket man nearly knocked his hat right off his head. “Oh, stars. Who told you that?”

He was a couple of inches shorter than Felix, and the centurions didn’t seem to be all that interested in the proceedings, so Felix didn’t feel too bad about sticking his chin up a little. “Have a friend who’s been before. They said that it’s the pride of the Cordese Coliseums that their royalty invests in their leisure.”

The man backpedaled instantly. “And that would be true. Of course it’s true. But, oh my. This friend of yours must’ve come in the morning. It’s free in the mornings. If you have a ticket purchased and stamped before midday I could let you return this very moment. But you see, we cannot just let anyone in for the finals. That would be a terrible safety hazard. Crowds, you know. The finals are very popular. The most rides on those.”

Felix was getting tired of this. “Fine. How much?”

The ticket man told him.

…which was the story of how Felix wound up sitting on the bottom of the steps, listening to the roar of the crowd from behind those high stone walls, his pockets turned inside out. He stared at the two measly coins in his palm, debating whether or not him Christabel really needed to sleep in a bed that night, and whether or not he had the stones to broach that subject with her.

“Balls,” he said at last, because that was something he decidedly did not have. A loud collective gasp sounded over the ways. Whatever was happening in that fight, it must’ve been exciting, and Felix was missing it, and there weren’t even any stray ticket stubs lying in the dust. He checked. Three times. No luck.

“Hello, stranger,” said someone, interrupting a good swear-and-sulk. “Seems we’re destined to meet.”

It was the fortune teller. Felix’s heart nearly stopped. She looked different by day. Her robes weren’t so tatty. Silver embroidery ran through the hem and bordered her hood. The hood still covered her, although he could see more of her face than before. She was younger than he’d guessed, prettier too. The hair peeked out from her coverings fell in long silky tresses, one of which she kept wound over her forearm like a rich lady’s shawl.

“Uh.” He swallowed, and forced the words out. “Was that one of your predictions?”

She sat down next to him, gathering her sleeves and a good deal of hair into her lap. “No. More an educated guess. We stand out a bit, don’t we?”

Felix saw no reason to answer that. She only laughed, not expecting a reply. “To be honest,” she said, “I came to see the games. It’s a big one today. Did you know? I’ve heard the royal family is in attendance. That’s why they’ve upped the price. It does so well to filter out the common rabble.”

“It blows,” said Felix, empathically.

“I agree. But that is royalty for you. Their generosity only extends to what is immediately useful to them.”

“And is that why you’re out of a job?” The woman’s hands froze in confusion. She’d been winding them through her hair. “You said you’d worked for the princes.”

Her handles settled on her lap. “Ah. That. How keen of you. Yes. That would be part of it.” She regained herself, stretching a leg out in front of her. Some of the robes fell aside, revealing she’d bandaged her ankles as firmly as her wrists. “But the real trouble is, I was too good for them. It doesn’t pay to be a fortune teller who sees the truth. You’ll be here, outside the gates of the coliseum, missing the best show of the season because some royals needed extra pocket change.”

“I’m here anyway,” said Felix.

“You don’t have to be.” He looked at her strangely. “There’s a way in. I’m a little too big in the hip for it now. But considering you’re a little less…” She cocked her head at him in a way that made Felix blush again. “…filled out, you’d probably manage it very well. There’s a crack in the northern wall. Between the doors and the second column to the left. If you can shimmy through that, take a left, and then a right, and you’ll be right there in the ground rows. If you go now, you’ll probably catch the last three bouts.”

“One thing first.”

“Mm?”

He thought of what Christabel had suggested. “Why?”

“Why?” The fortune teller cocked her head to one side. “Because that lady of yours seems very dangerous. And I respect that in people. And also, that thief would’ve taken my ring. Bad marriage or no, I value these things.”


Metal rang as Felix wormed his way into the back rows of the inner arena. No one noticed him as he popped out from under the seats. He kept low until he was well-clear of the broken stone. It wouldn’t do to bring attention to his exit route. He didn’t have much to worry about. All eyes, it seemed were fixed on the fight. Someone bellowed, and a resounding scream answered from the stands. Felix covered his ears.

“Blast!” he shouted. “Who’s even fighting!”

One of the heads in front of him supplied: “Argento the Deft versus the Weaver Guild’s Clothos.”

“Right.” As if that explained anything. “Who’s winning?”

The only answer was another scream.

“Forget I even asked,” grumbled Felix, shoving onwards. There were advantages to his winter growth spurt. Finding clothing had become a task but it gave him a great view. He could see everything, when he looked. The sea of hats and hair all pressed to the railings, the mezzanine rising on the opposite side, the huge tower that cut this mezzanine in two. It stood draped in banners of red and gold, colors of the Cord’s royal family. On top of it was a box, where he could make out a bunch of seated persons. Then he saw the arena itself: a flat expanse of finely ground sand, where a man in a silver cloak wove to avoid a cruel, barbed spear.

His own spear was in pieces. He held what remained of the business end a little like a long sword, using the other half as a makeshift shield, knocking aside his opponent’s jabbing point a moment more. It looked like he was gaining ground, and the crowd was with him every step.

“Argento!” they cried. “Argento!”

“They say Princess Rosetta’s got money on that one,” said a woman to Felix’s left. She was heavyset and very flushed. She’d probably been there since morning. Back when there were no snotty ticket-sellers barring the way.

“How many princesses is it today, anyway?” said a little woman to Felix’s right. She had a lot of hair piled at the top of her head, with a Fang pin through the top. She’d brought a crate to stand on.

“Galizia and Rosetta,” called someone three rows ahead.

“Galizia? Really?”

“Didn’t you hear? She’s in with the guild!”

“That’d be her man down there, then.”

Princess Galizia’s man was a woman, actually. Felix squinted to be sure. She wore a sharply curved helm, and a mantle that made it hard to tell, but the shape that resolved itself as she twisted and slid after her quarry left no doubt. The glimpse of arm he caught when she lunged was thick and heavily scarred.

“Think the little princess Knows something?”

Argento lived up to his title. For every one of Clothos’ thrusts he hopped away, batting back as best he could with his shattered spear. His best bet was to dive close, and this he tried, but Clothos sprang back whenever he did and Argento had to be cautious.

Felix leaned forward, both for the better view and for the commentary in his immediate area.

“Don’t be so sure. She Knows things, but who’s to say she knows about this? Girly isn’t always with the rest of us.”

“Well, what do you expect of someone who sees?”

“If you ask me--”

A cry cut off the rest of the conversation. Argento was a woman too. It was hard to argue it with the timber of that scream. She’d taken a risky pass, had managed to graze Clothos’ side, but Clothos’ counter had been faster than anyone reckoned. The tip of the spear buried deep in Argento’s shoulder with a dull thunk, and it detached with a sound that made Felix’s gut twist.

“Ooh,” said the woman to his right.

Clothos stepped back and stood still, her bloodied spear at her side. A crew of women in black came pouring into the arena. They surrounded the kneeling Argento, and through their darting bodies Felix could just make out one silver glove weakly raised.

“She yields,” called one of hands.

“That’s one for Galizia,” sighed the woman to Felix’s left. They carried Argento off the field. She’d left a brown stain in the sand. Clothos stayed where she was, staring at that stain, although with the helm it was hard to really tell. Belatedly, she remembered her own injury and covered the torn part of her tunic with her hand. That stain was brighter. Felix looked away and up to the box, where someone had come to perch at the end; a young girl, wearing an elaborate robe, black hair swaying in a fashionable braid. She raised an arm.

“To the guild,” she cried, a carnation fell from her fingers. Thousands more followed after, yellow. Christabel had sold a few of those. The petals spread everywhere, and so did the noise. Even those who’d bet on Argento joined in, if grudgingly.

The hands emerged again and swept the sand over the flowers and the blood. Another two went to the stopped victor, to do a quick stitch to her wound. This was around when Felix decided he’d had enough of the coliseum. The fight’d been kind of boring anyway. And something about the stadium atmosphere made him queasy. And Christabel had to be missing him. Yes. That was it. He slipped away just as a taller girl with shorter hair rose in the royal’s box. She wore the same clothes as the younger one, and lifted her hand to speak:

“The Cord acknowledges challenger Fede Brugel, representing the Mardinian--”

“HALT.”

Felix turned back. A man in white had appeared in the box. Felix couldn’t make out the details of his face or his armor, but he sure could make out the light glinting from his drawn sword. The third person who’d been with the girls, an old man, began to stand. If he had any protests they were lost to the man’s harsh drone:

“Cord Princess Rosetta.”

He was a White Knight. A member of the king’s personal militia. Felix had seen a few on his travels. He’d seen a few as a boy, too, but they never came to Rosenstern too often. Areas of crises interested them more.

“Cord Princess Gailizia.”

Dozens of men and women dressed exactly the same poured into the arena. They surrounded the emerging challenger, the panting Clothos, and the hands. Felix heard a nearby clank. They filed in behind the stands, too. The entrances were likely already secured. Felix edged back.

“And Cord Prince Pietro. Under the name of the Ever King Eroll Longinus, we place you and your line under arrest on suspicions of high treason.”

This was about when the crowd tried to run. Felix dropped down, taking a kick from the tiny woman on the crate. He dived for his broken stand, and for the gap in the stone. Feet pounded on the wood above, one of them heavily booted, and almost breaking it more. Worming on his stomach, Felix found the missing stone. He dropped down into the arena underground, finding his way in the dark amidst the muffled shouts from above. Christabel. He had to find Christabel. He wormed out into the light. The white knights were there too, en masse. The tourists and locals who loitered in the plaza fled. They were yelling all sorts of things, dropping their bags and food and flowers. Squashed carnations lay everywhere, crushed under pounding boots. Where was Christabel? Everyone was shouting.

“Fire!”

“They’re attacking the city!”

And, most alarmingly:

“DRAGON. DRAGON.”

The knights arrested anyone who tried to leave the coliseum and most of the people in the near vicinity for good measure. They dragged off the ticket seller, doing his best to beat them off with his hat. One of the centurions was hauled off with his arms chained behind his back. For a brief second Felix thought he saw a flash of a silver cape.

They arrested the fortune teller. She stood at the center of a circle of knights, hood thrown back. Her dark hair rolled behind her like a cape, and in the afternoon winds she looked so fierce the knights didn’t seem to know what to do with her. She thrust her arm up high, brandishing her bandaged wrist like a weapon.

While they were distracted, Felix charged out across the plaza. Some of the knights spotted him anyway, and they thumped loudly behind him.

“You there!”

“Boy!”

One of the women made a grab for his arm. Felix twirled aside, the way Christabel taught him. His ankle caught on something. He’d forgotten the steps. He fell on his side; one of the knights fell over him, shoving his head into the stone and pinning a knee against the small of his back.

“Stay right the hell there.”

“Christabel!” Felix yelled with all he had, startled at how dry and harsh his voice came out. His cheek burned. His arm burned. His heart hammered in his ears. “Christabel! They’ve got me! Christabel!”

Then the weight was gone.

She knelt over him, arms spread out at either side of her, crooked at the wrists like birds wings. When she rose, she rose en pointe, one knee bent outwards. She tipped her chin back, baring her long white neck. She stared ahead with dark, blank eyes. Her lips moved, and then all at once she turned, outstretched fingers slicing the air like a knife.

It was just the two of them, after that.

He’d never be sure he saw it. He’d never want to be sure. He didn’t blubber her name, then, but he came close to it. Her heels fell back to the ground. She dropped her arms to her sides, and looked mostly embarrassed. He managed to make it about as far as his knees before he flung himself against her legs. He didn’t sob, really, but the choked noise he did make came awful close to it.

“You,” he swallowed, “You--”

She put a hand in his hair. “Shh,” she said, “Shh.”


A Veil Prince had attacked the capital. That much people seemed to agree on. You could see the smoke rising from the north. It was odd to think that that little pinprick was a beast of its own, twisted unnaturally against the horizon. One wondered how big it really had to be, to be seen at such a distance. In an inn far enough from the leisure district to avoid immediate suspicion, Felix watched it rise from a window. He slouched in a stool, while Christabel applied a wet towel to his cheek. He winced away on reflex. She wiped off the dirt and blood.

“Think it really was the Black Dragon of Ariel?”

Christabel didn’t know, although it was not out of the realm of possibility. Prince Malcolm was a greedy man, and there’d been rumors he’d been raising an army. To say nothing of the fact that the White Knights were holding the Cord for questioning. He had once married one of those—

“Really?” Felix looked up and wound up with a mouthful of bloodied rag. He made a face. “Ugh.”

Something struck him.

“Hey, Christabel. What do they mean around here, when they say a Cord Princess Knows something?”

Why, whether they’d predicted it. They’re seers. Christabel looked confused.

“A seer?”

Someone who knows the future. Christabel didn’t look any less confused.

“Nevermind,” said Felix. Best to let it drop, then. He pulled up his sleeve. His arm was a mess. It’d be black and blue by morning, but right now Christabel’s careful touch was a relief. He closed his eyes and concentrated on that.

“I’ve seen enough here,” he said. “Let’s go see something else.”

To which Christabel agreed.