For The ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clare_dragonfly‘s commissioned prompt, a follow-up to Fae-Bane (LJ)
Faerie Apoc, Addergoole Year 9 – landing page here (or on LJ)
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Timora had two little brothers and an older stepbrother. The moment the hand covered her mouth, she did what had worked so many times before – she licked it.
“Ew!” The hand pulled away, giving her a chance to turn around and see her would-be assailant. The boy held up both hands defensively, then quickly dropped one to wipe it on his pants. “Just… be quiet for a minute, okay, and come here in the shadows. I swear I mean you no harm today.”
Today. She nodded uncertainly, and let him tug her deeper into the shadowed hallway, trying not to stare. It was hard; even in the dim light, his eyes gleamed green – and slit-pupiled, like a cat, which, given the tiger-like ears sticking out of his hair, made sense. She reached out to touch one, wondering if they were on some sort of headband. She’d seen some of the upperclassmen with – Calvin said it was a Mask, like a glamour out of a fairy tale – with their glamour down, but she hadn’t been brave enough to touch. Now – well, he didn’t look scary at all. He looked, if anything, like he was afraid of her.
His ear twitched, and he chuckled nervously. “They’re real,” he assured her. “Now… please don’t scream, okay? I can’t protect you if you make me run away.” He gestured dismissively to a complaint she hadn’t voiced. “Okay, okay, you can do pretty well making everyone else run away too. But… you’ve noticed some weirdness?”
Timora pinched his ear pointedly. Weirdness, said the boy with cat ears. Siberian tiger ears, she was pretty sure. And oddly familiar, although the stripes were throwing her off.
“Ow! Yeah, okay. And some of the strangeness is… inhuman…?”
She didn’t pinch his ear again, much as she wanted to, instead wiggling all her fingers at him: oooh, scary woogy stuff.
“Yes, that, exactly. All right. So, did you wander the through the Hallway of no Sound?”
Hallway of no… She shook her head, then nodded it, hoping he got the point – she understood. Would her voice really scare people away? Or was this another stupid prank? “Calvin…” she began, and stopped when the boy’s ears went flat.
“Calvin ran away when you screamed. Ass that he is, he was probably waiting to trap you.” He shook his head – more and more, she thought she ought to know him, if only he weren’t so catty – and kept talking before she could try voicing another objection, or the oh, god, I made him run away, now he’ll never go to a dance with me. “I know he seemed nice, Timora, but a lot of people are really nice around here until Hell Night.”
“How…” Was she going to have to go through life mute? She pressed her lips together unhappily.
“Oh… sorry.” He made a complex hand gesture, and then, from behind him somewhere, produced a fedora. The hat went on his head – and the stripes and slitted eyes vanished, revealing a boy she’d sat behind in Lit and next to in History for two weeks. “I’m Porter.”
She mimed “Oh,” figuring that was safe enough, and gestured out into the hall and back to their hidey hole: What are you doing hiding here?
He was really quite good at charades. “The same thing as every other upperclassman on Hell Night,” he told her sadly.
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Calvin was the one of the ones who ran away? Oh dear. Porter might be a better bet – and she likes his ears…
everyone likes kittyears!
We do! And he’s acting nice…. not that this means much, but it’s a start.
(Have you seen the adorable pics Inventrix drew?!) I like Porter so far. 😀
No, I haven’t! I will look for the link to them…
http://artventrix.tumblr.com/ second, third, and fourth pics right now. (first pic is a not-yet-canon double granddaughter of Aelfgar)
I’m a bit confused, but I think I got it now: She’s not talking because not only her screaming, but even just her talking scares people, but he didn’t catch on, assuming she could not speak? I want a hammer space with a fedora, too! 😀 (“a lot of people really nice” is missing an “are”)
Even better, a hammer space of unlimited hats. 🙂 Hopefully someone will be able to help with the voice — without making her miserable.
I haven’t figured out how or who yet, but I’m sure they will.
He’s shushing her because he knows that her voice is scaring people away, and he doesn’t want to be scared away.
I meant the “So, did you wander the through the Hallway of no Sound?” bit, which made it seem like he thought she could not talk. I spent five minutes or so confused, “She could scream in the other story, so what’s up now?”
Aaah, hrrm. Not sure how to rephrase that. “There was this place where the magic that I can’t talk about because of the geasa in this place made you not make sound. Someone else could make you not make sound, and then poof, there goes your defense.”
aaaah, OK.
I need to find a way to make that clearer for non-Addergoole-readers :_/
I’d try to add it at the “she understood” bit, saying what she understood.
Sometime in this middle of the night this re-wrote itself for me… now if onl I could remember *hw*
“Yes, that, exactly. All right. Hunh… There’s still things I can’t say. There’s a hallway around here today we call the Hallway of No Sound – did you find that one?” Hallway of no… Oh. She shook her head, then nodded slowly, hoping that would indicate clearly enough that she understood, as much as she did. Would her voice really scare people away? Or was this another stupid prank? “Calvin…” she began, and stopped when the boy’s ears went flat.
I’d been looking for a description or Porter, and it crossed my mind… Shouldn’t a girl who’s so into animals that she at least thinks she can recognise a tiger subspecies by their ears notice that slit pupils don’t fit the tiger-theme? (Most big cats, including tigers, have round pupils.)
Whoops!! *headdesk*
Sorry? XD
http://artventrix.tumblr.com/tagged/porter I suppose he’s just strange like that. I’ll make a note of it in the story. Thanks!
I play fast and loose with that stuff when making up feline-based characters, too, it’s just that Timora’s, er, tiger-knowledge seemed oddly variant. 🙂
I’m a cat freak and did not know that about tigers?
A lot if people have more opportunities to look a housecat in the eyes up close than a tiger. 😀 (And I used to be all over documentaries and books about all kinds of animals, and one of those books listed differences between big cats and small cats. The eyes and the larynx are those I remember.)
Most of my reading books on kitties was a long long time ago.