remember that one prompt where obi got his own mansion and a title and everything??? coz i need more of that please
Desert & Reward: Chapter 3
Mrs Carre is suspiciously pleased with herself when Obi sits down to dinner.
“Did you do something to the chairs?” he asks, eyeing them askance. “Are they…new?”
“No!” she cries, hand pressed to her breast. Her gaze settles thoughtfully on the dining set. “But should I have new ones ordered, my lord? These are looking a little shabby ‘round the edges.”
Obi stares at the pristine furniture. There’s no chance Mrs Carre will ever see the some of the places he’s lived, and he’s glad. She’d probably get palpitations just looking at the neighborhood.
“If it’s not new furniture, then what’s with that look?”
She does a poor job of concealing her smile. “What look, my lord?”
“If that’s what you think passes for a poker face, Mrs Carre,” he sighs as the doors open, “don’t go to Wistal.”
A flood of footmen washes over the room. Mrs Carre makes a great show of watching them; she half-turns to catch the last dish being laid on the table, a transparent attempt to conceal her expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He huffs out a breath in annoyance. “I’m sure you –”
One of the footmenwhisks off the cover to his tray. The savory scent of spice hits his nose, his mouth watering at the smell. Spicy shrimp. Another tray opens: potato cakes, fried to acrisp, golden and glittering on their platter. One after another the dishes arerevealed to him – soups steeped with the deep umami flavor he prefers, beefmarinated and cooked until it falls off the bone with peppers alongside, chickenbreaded and fried and served in a sour sauce.
He doesn’t havewords. “But…”
“The mistresspicked up a correspondence with the groundskeeper nearly a month back,” MrsCarre explains. “She said she didn’t think you were conveying her ideasproperly, though it seems more like she wanted to interrogate Aubryon his stock. I merely…asked if he could pass along a question for me.”
Obi stares down athis plate, the gold whirls along its edge blurring in his vision. His eyes arehot; he lifts up a hand it comes away wet. Gods, he’s leaking.
Her gaze is softwhen he finally dares to lift his head. “I hope you enjoy the dinner, my lord. Cookworked quite hard on it.”
His throatsqueezes, constricting his words, but he manages a nod.
“I’ve been meaningto ask, my lord,” Mrs Carre asks the next morning, over breakfast. “What room I should prepare for themistress’s visit?”
Obi blinks. Miss’s visit is still new in his mind, still part of this nebulous future he can’t quite reconcile himself to happening. Time’s almost meaningless in the country, and two months seems closer to forever rather than now.
“Isuppose…one of the guest rooms?”
“One of the…guestrooms?” Mrs Carre darts a dubious glance at Morel, who merely heaves a heavy sigh. “Wouldn’t you rather her in your wing?”
A half year ago he’d spoken servant fluently, fishing gossip from stable boys and scullions and whoever else would give a cat-eyed knight the time of day, but now he sits in his dining room, surrounded by wait staff, and wishes he had Master to translate for him.
“Should she be inmy wing?”
It’s not the right thing to say.
Mrs Carre lets outa huff, picking up his empty dishes. Morel looks ready to scold, but she gives him a glare that verges on withering and sweeps out of the room, saying stuffily, “Clearly you’re not the person to ask.”
Dear Obi,
I’m glad to hear you won’t be doing anything rash with those books before I can get my hands on them. Lata has been telling me that Cacciatore’s library is extensive, if eclectic, and he’s certain I can find quite a few things that would be beneficial to our research, as long as its lord allows us their use…
Also…is there a reason your housekeeper thinks we should share a bed?
“Mrs Carre,” Obicalls out as his housekeeper bustles past him.
She halts in hersteps, a gaggle of young maids clustering up around her skirts like ducklings. “Yes, mylord?”
He gestures to thestudy. “A moment?”
She nods. “Ofcourse, my lord.”
When the doorcloses behind them, he blurts out, “Is there a reason you asked Shirayuki if she would like to stay in my bed?”
Mrs Carre blinks,not even fazed by the question. “You told me to put her in the guest quarters.”
“Yes, but – my bed?”
“It was anoption,” she says, so calm, as if heis the one being absurd. “I offered the best of the guest rooms to her as well,and some of the rooms in your wing.”
“Like mine?”
Her mouth purses. “Was she offendedby the question, my lord?”
“I…” He’s not surehow to answer that question. He hadn’t…thought to ask. “No?”
Mrs Carre tilts her chin, smug.“Then it seems it was the right question to ask.”
Dearest Mistress,
I’m glad to hear that some part of Cacciatore may be useful to someone, as I’ve found at least a solid three quarters of the grounds entirely useless. I’ll see to it that the library remains undisturbed, save for Morel’s fretting over my threats to the hardwood, and Lili’s vigorous dusting. Though I will warn you, I’ve heard the estate’s lord is extremely hard to deal with…
I have spoken with Mrs Carre, and she said she had heard how youhave been languishing in the cold hinterlands of Wilant. She thought thateven as you arrive you will be frozen, in much need of your knight to warm you.I promise that my bed is quite soft, and my body the same as you left it…
“Did the Mistress ever sing ‘The Ages of Man’ to you, my lord?”
Obi blinks away the numbers that flood his vision, finding Lili by the bank of windows, lifting long fronds to wet the soil beneath. Mrs Carre had ordered the footmen to bring a load of pots from the greenhouses once it had become clear the lord’s study would not go unused. To lighten up the place, she’d told him, ignoring his protests.
Men, she’d muttered, always trying to live in caves.
“I don’t think so.” He lifts his pen from the page, careful to not leave a mark. It wouldn’t do to have to start over now.
Lili clucks, disapproving. “What sort of Tanbarun girl is she? We’re famous for our laments, you know.”
“She’d be the first to tell you she’s the daughter of a bar.” He means to grin, but longing burns in his chest when he thinks of his miss cheerfully frying shrimp to order in Wistal’s kitchens, and it rounds into a wistful smile. “I don’t think she knows a single song without a euphemism for sex.”
If there’s one thing he’d miss, leaving Cacciatore, it’s Lili’s laugh. She’s a pretty girl, ripe to be a lady’s maid for a real lord’s wife, but her laugh –
It’d be better suited to a donkey, when she forgets to force it. And she’s sent into gale of it now, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.
“That can’t be true,” she huffs out between brays. “You’re having me on.”
He runs his finger over his chest, and then turns to cross it. “I swear,” he says, solemn, and for a moment it’s as if he’s sitting across from Ryuu, promising not to laugh as he blurts out ideas about roots and seeds and priming.
Ah, so it is not just Miss that he misses. He’d suspected that was so.
“Hum it for me,” he tells her. “I used to be part of a traveling band, maybe I know it still.”
“No!” Lili practically leaps across the room. “You? Did you sing? Play an instrument?”
“Ah.” Heat creeps to the tips of his ears. He should know better than to say that, by now. “No, I was just – just the guard.”
The look she turns on him is dubious, but she hums a verse for him, lilting and in minor key.
“I know the tune,” he tells her. “But it wasn’t about a man.”
“Then I’ll teach it to you.” She flounces back over to the windows, sending him a smile over her shoulder. “And then you can show off to the Mistress, when she comes.”
With Lili’s soft voice serenading him, Obi leans back over his work, letting the melody lull him as he forged the last steward’s hand.
Dear Obi,
I’m sure Caccatore is as lovely and useful as any other estate its age. And don’t worry about its lord – if you haven’t forgotten, I have a way with ornery nobles…
Are you quite sure you are as I rememberyou? It seems that a guard captain at Lyrias is a world away from being a lordat his seat. Lord Makiri said if you’ve been eating like a southern lord,you’ll have gained a stone, and none of it muscle. Though perhaps that willmake you a more comfortable pillow at night…
My Most Cutting Mistress,
You most of all should know what fare Ihave been having, seeing as you keep funneling Mrs Carre recipes to give tocook. And you may tell His Lordship that I am as fit as when I left, more thanready to demonstrate what good southern air might do for one’s training…
And as for you, Miss, I assure you, yourpillow is as firm as it ever was. You may feel free to try it when you arrive…
Apropos to nothing, Obi asks, “What is it people do around here to – for athletic enrichment?”
“Is climbing on the roof not enough?” Yori mutters into the laundry. Morel’s too sharp to miss something as pedestrian as a whisper, especially so poorly concealed, and he sends Obi’s valet a look heavy with censure.
Obi smothers a laugh.
“There’s the gardens, of course,” Morel offers, as if taking a turn or two around the greens was somehow taxing. Maybe for the last lord, but it’ll take more than a hedge maze to get Obi’s heart rate up. “And the horses, if you’re fond of riding.”
Fond was a bit of an overstatement, but it was at least better than a walk.
“There’s the game preserves too, now that there’s no hunting,” Yori adds. Morel’s gaze snaps to him, and Obi can read the how could you in his butler’s eyes as clear as day.
“The game preserves?”
Yori winces, caught between a rock and a slippery lord. Obi doesn’t envy him. “Yes, there’s – acres of land. Hardly walked, save for a few paths. Wooded.”
“It’s not safe,” Morel is quick to append. “I’m sure there’s poachers, even if the lord is not –”
“Sounds perfect,” Obi gushes, mouth twitching as he tries to hide his grin. “I’m sure I’ll love it.”
Morel heaves a weary, but not altogether surprised, sigh. “If that’s what my lord wishes.”
Dear Obi,
I relayed your invitation to Makiri, and hesays he is eager to find out how soft your skills and your – he said somethingvery impolite here – has become. I take him to mean he looks forward to facingyou again on the training grounds.
Curiously I do not remember this firmpillow, I do remember a hard and boney one that often poked me in the morning…
“You know,” Yori pants, leaning against the trunk of Obi’s tree. “Most lords just…take up fencing. Or calisthenics.”
“I already know how to fence.” He prefers his own style. “And this is like calisthenics.”
Yori sends a glare up into the tree cover. Obi’s knows he can’t be seen, but he appreciates the effort. “Are you even human, my lord?”
He grins. “I wonder…”
The valet drops against the tree, letting himself sink slowly to the ground. “Couldn’t you just….tumble a maid?”
“Oh goodness,” Obi drawls, dropping down beside him. “Are you offering yours?”
It’s not until Yori’s lips thin that he realizes – that is not quite as funny a joke when a lord makes it. He grimaces.
“I brought you out here for a reason, you know.”
“I gathered,” the boy grunts, taking the water skein obi offers him. “And I have to say, if you’re going to be like this until the Mistress arrives, you’ll have to find another valet. I’m going to drop dead at this rate, my lord.”
Ah, now there was the other way to his his blood up. Her visit’s only weeks away, less than a month, and he –
He’s fine. It’s fine. “I – that’s not. It’s not about Miss.”
Yori’s eyebrows raise to his hairline. “Then there were easier ways to make a fool of me, my lord.”
“Of course.”
Something beneath his skin quivers as he reaches into his shirt, as he brings out a rectangular, flat parcel, wrapped in unobtrusive butcher paper. Handing it to Yori feels like nothing more than throwing himself off a cliff, and trusting there’s something to grab a hold of on the way down.
“I need you to send this to the capital.”
His valet stares, uncomprehending as he takes it in hand. He’s lucky he’s considered eccentric here; Yori takes the odd request in the same stride he’s done every other strange thing Obi’s done. “My lord?”
His heart pounds; it’s been so long since he’s done this, since he’s taken a chance on someone he can’t be sure of. “It has to be someone you trust. Not from the house.”
“Shouldn’t you ask Mr Morel to –” Yori’s eyes pulse wide, his hands shaking – “You don’t think –?”
“I don’t know,” he says, and is frustrated to find it’s true. “But I know I can leave this to you.”
Yori stares at the brown paper, fingers clenching hard at the leather beneath. “Yes,” he says with a nod. “Right. I won’t let you down, my lord.”
Dearest Mistress Without Mercy,
Your pillow would like to point out thefact that this did not seem to deter you from using it.
Dear Obi,
No, it didn’t. It won’t.
I miss you.
“The mail hascome, my lord.”
Obi startles inhis chair. Her last letter had only come yesterday.
He’s agonized about sending one back, about whether he should laugh off the implication, or – or –
It doesn’t matter. There’s no point in sending a letter that will arrive after she’s left.
She’s coming. Another week and she’ll have left Wilant, and then – then –
She’ll be with him. Having said – that.
“My lord?”
Morel stands over him, every line of his grim face set in concern. Obi can’t imagine what he thinks, two letters from Miss in a row, Obi in clear disarray, and –
And he finally sees the letter, sees the heavy-weight of the paper, much nicer than a pharmacist could afford.
The wax is blue,the seal a wisteria branch. It’s not from his miss.
Lord Obi,
You have our thanks for the gift. However, we some issue has arose in how to use it. You will be expected at Wistal as soon as possible.
I do hope I have not scuttled any important plans.
This is the fabulous drawing that @nebluus made for me!
I asked for my character Rory (aka baby jerk) and his expression here is on point. I love how it looks like he’s about to chuck that knife at someone, I imagine he’s in a bar about to start a brawl.
Faina is from Kiva, which is sort of like pre-industrial age Russia
She is one of the Mechin, who are the swordsmen that serve as the noble class for the western half of Kiva. The Mechin that hold estates are considered the deadliest swordsmen on the continent
She is left handed
Her sword is a curved saber with no hilt; the school of combat the Mechin follow use that as the basis for their art
She wears her hair very long, to her waist, and typically loose. She is fastidious in taking care of it
She is 5′3
Her nickname -- after everyone sees her fight the first time -- is “The Little Typhoon”
Faina is generally uncomfortable in social situations, and will not get into verbal arguments. If a conversation agitates her, she will get up and leave without a word
also. also modern AU graduation from Bob/Gayle's POV I need this please thank you
“There’s so many people here.”
Bob nods, as much good as it’ll do him with Gayle’s eyes everywhere but on him. “It’s a big school, hon.”
They need a stadium to hold all of the loved ones that have come for graduation. He knows it doesn’t mean much – this isn’t their first graduation by any means – but it’s nice to think Obi’s been surrounded by people like that. People who have families who love them, enough to fill a football stadium. He’d like to think the boy’s gotten to see at least that much these past seven years, even if he didn’t have them.
“I know, but how can you find anyone in this crowd?” She shifts nervously on her cushion, swiveling her head about. If he knows anything about his wife, she’s mapping the best route to their boy. There’s no way she’s not going to get her hands on him, not now that he’s finally let them back in, now that he’s let them see him.
“Darlin’,” he slides his hand into hers, giving it a good squeeze. Even after fifty years, it still feels as perfect as the first. “He’s not gonna run away. Not this time. He woulda just told us not to come.”
“But he didn’t ask us either,” she frets, fingers gripping him tight. “What if he changed his mind? What if he –”
“I’m sure his girl will keep him honest,” he assures her with a grin. “After all, mine always does.”
“Oh, you.” She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks blush a sweet pink. “Do you see them?”
There’s a sea of graduates, all the same in black gowns and caps. The program says biology is on their side of the field – they chose seats closest to it, in hope of seeing him – but picking out a man he hasn’t seen in six years seems like an impossible task. “Did he say what he’d be wearing?”
He doesn’t need to see her to know what look Gayle is giving him. “Don’t forget, honey, there’s a couch in our hotel room.”
“Mm.” He bites back a grin. “It’s a fold out.”
“That’s not an invitation to misbehave, Robert.” She squints at the field, adjusting the curve of her visor. “I think he said Shirayuki has red hair? Bright red.”
There are plenty of girls that have red hair, but his eye catches fast on a girl whose hair is vibrant, gesticulating happily to a tall man beside her and –
“I think I found them,” he says around the lump in his throat.
“Where?” Gayle leans into him, trying to trace his gaze.
He doesn’t trust his voice, just points. Her breath hitches, she stills against him.
“He looks so happy,” she says finally, her voice tight and watery. “Oh Bob, he’s happy.”
He squeezes her hand. “Of course he is, darlin’. He’s our boy.”
