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bomberqueen17 · 3 years

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lol every comment and reply and Discord message is like “MORVRAN BABY 😭” and I want you all to know I feel the exact same way.

(It’s really entertaining, canon absolutely very clearly had a particular archetype in mind for Morvran to be [the books gave us some entertaining hints but W3 was like “no he is old” for some reason], but I looked at canon and said “you are so boring” and instead of connecting the dots as I thought most plausible I thought how else can I connect these dots and this is what we have now, so.)

But I also want him to have a nice day, finally.

So here’s a chunk I wrote to keep myself motivated, and possibly to work toward. I don’t know if it’s going to fit in, either in this story or in a sequel, or if I’ll have to rework it, or if it’ll fit anywhere at all or just have to be discarded. But I wrote it like-- right after I read a bit in the books, so it’s directly about events from the books.

Anyway. Just a bit I don’t know if I’ll be able to use, featuring some of the events of Tower of the Swallow, and Horse Girl Morvran.

“Tell you what,” Ciri said. Morvran was still sitting silently, shoulders stiff, miserable. She leaned over and very gently pressed her shoulder against his for a moment, a long count of three, then leaned back up. “I will let you ask one question of me, about anything you want to know, from my past or anything I have special knowledge of, and I’ll answer it truthfully.”

It took a moment, but that got him to respond. “One question?” he said.

“About anything,” she said. “One question.”

Luliana was regarding Morvran with a troubled expression, and glanced over at Ciri, frowning. Ciri winked at her.

“One question,” he said. He was clearly thinking it over. “I’m going to be very specific.” He was speaking with his no-person voice, flat and dull, with no gestures or facial expressions.

But she could tell it had worked; he was less distressed already, his face less frozen. “As specific as you like,” she said.

“Some eight years ago,” he said, “in a shitty little town in Ebbing, a young woman escaped from a bounty hunter and several Nilfgaardian agents, on the back of a horse described as a surpassingly fine black mare.”

Ciri sat up straighter. “Oh,” she said.

“You said any question,” he said, glancing over at her, and it was the first time he’d looked at her in quite some time.

“Yes,” she said. “What’s the question?”

“I’m getting to that,” he said. “As the girl fled on horseback, one of the Nilfgaardians threw a weapon at her, and cut her face quite badly, so that she nearly fell from the horse. But she did not fall.”

It wasn’t a question, so Ciri waited. Luliana had pricked up her ears as well, and was listening keenly.

“I went to this place, a couple of years ago now, and everyone was very eager there to show me this gate, and to explain to me that it settled in a rainstorm, but that at the time of this incident the gate measured seven feet two inches in height,” he said. “They measured it again for me and it was only seven feet, but everyone was very concerned that I should know that it had lost two inches in the intervening time.”

Ciri laughed. “Seven feet two inches,” she said. Well, it sounded plausible.

“So this horse, with this fainting girl on its back, leapt this seven foot two inch gate,” Morvran said.

“This isn’t a question,” Ciri pointed out.

“No,” he said, “I didn’t get to the question yet. Somehow, the horse made it over the gate, with the girl still seated on its back. Seven feet two inches.”

“Yes,” Ciri said, “so you say. What was the question, though?” Was he going to ask if she was the girl? But if so, why draw it out so? Likely, he wanted to ask about the horse, and to answer, she would have to confirm she was the girl. Well, it was worth it.

“I’m getting there,” he said, and there was even a twinkle of amusement in his expression, which was positive progress-- one of his eyebrows had moved slightly, there’d been a little bit of inflection on the word getting. Good. “So once the pursuers had mustered themselves, they went out the gate, after the horse, and they followed its footprints, which showed it galloping off down the road a distance. But at the edge of the woods, the tracks vanished. In full flight, without hesitation, the horse simply… stopped touching the ground, and there were no more traces to be had.”

Ciri raised her eyebrows, tilting her head slightly, waiting for the question. Luliana made a startled noise. “Wait,” she said, “what happened to the horse?”

“My question,” Morvran said, holding up his hand, “is this.” Luliana covered her mouth, and waited; Ciri tilted her head even farther. Morvran let it draw out for a moment, and finally asked:

“Could the horse fly?”

Ciri laughed brightly. It was a clever question, really several in one. “No,” she said, “no, Kelpie can’t fly.”

“Can’t,” Morvran said, seizing on the present tense; he was interested now, sharp and attentive.

“Ah,” Luliana said, “but where is she now?”

“Ah, one question,” Morvran said ruefully to her, and shook his head. “Perhaps you can trade on your connections, but I have had my question answered, and I will not presume further.”

He looked much better, much more himself. Ciri leaned over again and pressed her shoulder against his. “Sometime,” she said, “I will take you to meet her.”

This time he had relaxed enough to lean back, just a little bit, and when she glanced over at him he was smiling, even if he couldn’t make eye contact with her yet-- he was smiling down at his hands in his lap.

“I would like that,” he said. “Very much.”

#my writing #snippet post #fit for pearls #meet death sitting

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reno2ndgun · 4 years

Note

1 Not bothering to mask his beleaguered sigh, Rufus propped one arm on the table, resting his head against his fist as observant eyes watched Reno stretch, appreciating the bow of his back. “Normally I would lecture you on how alcohol and cellular regeneration don’t mix well, however in your case, you might actually have a point. Sometimes I wonder which one of us needs a guard,” he teased. As Reno washed the dishes, he took the opportunity to appraise the Turk.

Reno had a high tolerance for pain, and now that he’d been called on his act, was obviously in some. The more he spoke while he washed the dishes, the deeper his frown grew. “Why wasn’t I informed of this, Reno? We have insurance options. And fuck reputation. If someone uses their station to harass you, I want names. You’re a Turk, Reno. We both know this won’t be the last time you’re injured on the job. I can’t have you avoiding treatment because the nurses can’t see past your good looks.”

Looking Reno over once more, his tone softened considerably. “The Turks always have my back, Reno. Let me look out for you in the ways that I can.”At the mention of the word *cozy*, something in Rufus’s gut flipped over. He brutally shoved it down. He distracted himself by heading back to his desk, retrieving his own drink as Reno poured a second. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the redhead’s antics. He always had to push the line. He flicked through the pile of papers on the edge of the desk.

Mostly revised policy proposals from Reeve. They could wait. Then there were the new business contracts. He really should look those over personally… and could also technically wait. A stack of documents awaiting his signature… *Ah.* He picked up a small stack of papers flagged for General Affairs. “Mission requests,” he explained, brandishing them at Reno. “I need personnel suggestions and flags for time sensitivity. If you can handle those, I can rework my schedule for tomorrow."

Reno grabbed a solid handful of papers and hopped up to sit his ass on Rufus’s desk, wincing at the twinge of HOLY FUCKING OW that went through his leg from being jostled by even a teeny one legged hop. “Because gals like that don’t listen to ‘no’ any better than men do and it was easier to just sneak out instead and change hospitals when I got home instead of dealing with a harassment lawsuit where people were gunna believe her over me. Besides yo, even if the company threw money at it to make it go away, it’d look bad. You don’t need more bad publicity.” He catches the Vice President’s words and looks right at him, his gaze shamelessly flirtatious.”You think I’m good looking yo? Thanks, right back atcha VP! Take after my dad I was told....wherever the fuck he is. Aight what we got here yo...”

He gave Rufus a wink and then settled in on the task. Deft fingers stole up a pen and tested it on an earmark, “So a nice trick Tseng taught me about Red tape, is that its great for reducing paperwork. “ Reno separated most of Rufus’s work into two piles. ‘people who used something other than a blue pen’ and ‘people who can follow simple directions’ in about ten minutes flat. Most people had fucked up. “So the directions on the paperwork, ALL ShinRa paperwork, say print and blue pen only. This big pile can be sent back because they didn’t follow filing instruction, this little pile is the amount of people who did it right. So those are the one you actually have to look at.“ Reno pushes over the little pile for Rufus then sets to work writing little notes on the margins of the rest.

The Turk narrates as he writes. “Only blue ink accepted.... comma.... moron. Yeah that sounds like you, lets leave moron on there~” The redhead goes through all the papers and earleafing them with his decided notation. It takes him all of fifteen minutes before he sets a stack eight inches think in the ‘outbox’ paperwork basket. “thus concludes Tseng’s lesson passed down over generations of Turks on how to manage a building full of village idiots!”

#Anonymous #Anon Rufus: In Charge #Reno Nix Replies

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