Ah, okay. Maybe this'll help a bit.
The faird balked when he tried to guide it down into the ford. Varen closed his eyes and sighed, and cursed his decision to take the packbeast on this expedition for the seventh time in half as many hours. It was stupid, ill-tempered, uncooperative, and had cost him at least as much energy arguing with it as he would have spent just lugging the damned supplies himself.
Somewhere out about halfway across there was a clatter as one of the rounded stones that were throwing up the white, airy eddies from the otherwise clear mountain river shifted and tumbled a few feet down the bed. The beast he had been leading - 'Honeyfoot', which was as big a lie as any his father had ever told - coughed something unhealthy-smelling all over his back, then tried to bite him again.
He stepped out of the way with the ease of several days' practice, then popped her in the nose with his elbow to dissuade any further attempts. "Come on, you stubborn lump!" he snapped, pulling on the creature's halter, but she planted her feet and tried to toss her head, perhaps hoping to yank him off his feet the way she had that first day.
He had to pull her almost halfway across the streambed before she started cooperating, becoming very thankful in the process that it was mid-summer rather than spring, so that the snowmelt on the higher mountains had already had a chance to finish. Not only did that mean that his feeet were only going numb from the chill of ther water, rather than falling off entirely, but this would have been completely impossible if the river had been high enough to drag at his legs on top of fouling his footing like it already was.
Varen had been raised almost entirely by a series of nannies; his mother had been an occaisional fleeting presence at the edge of his life, like a favored aunt who lived far away and could only visit, and he hadn't even met his father until he started assuming the Crown Prince's ceremonial duties and so became a target worthy of manipulation.
He'd been naive at first; had tried everything he could think of to obtain the older man's approval. He had bent himself to his studies, learned the interlocking details of an entire continent's history both military and political, mastered and become literate in all five of Gaea's major languages, had even finally begun to apply real effort to the matial training a disgusted chief armsman had long ago advised him to abandon.
All of which effort had been wasted.
Adrech, Prince Consort of Fanelia and de-facto ruler of that nation, had been born as the penniless younger son of a disgraced minor noble house, and even before marrying into the elite had carved himself a path to wealth and power on nothing but will, ambition and cunning. He had no use or time for someone who could waste any sort of favor or effort with not a thought on how he might be paid back.
Honeyfoot balked again, and Varen wrapped the guide rope around his wrist and hauled savagely. The faird yelped as the bit bit at the tenderer parts of her mouth and stumbled ahead in a rush. Not one to waste an opportunity, he kept pulling until both of them staggered over the last few rocks and up the bank.
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, then froze in place as one of the bushes beside the path rustled and a rough, quiet voice snapped, "Right there, princeling." Something cold and sharp came to rest against his throat as the words registered.
Varen's efforts in the salle hadn't gone to waste - he was a more than fair marksman and could handle a melef with as much ease as his own body (which, admittedly, wasn't saying much), and after years of work he had finally managed to become something other than a total embarrassment with a sword.
Someone who had to spend three hours a day at hard practice to managed to be even 'adequate' had no room to be sloppy or arrogant, and when his turn had come to be blooded against the bandits that inevitably infested the back hollows of Fanelia's farther hills, he had been careful to pay close heed to the advice and behavior of the veterans around him.
'Ain't no bandit nor soljer alive as is stupid 'nough to go saying' 'freeze' rather'n just cuttin' 'less'n he's fixin' to take a prisoner,' a voice advised out of his memories. 'No, don't you worry none, boyo. The girl's alive, 'n' as long as that's so, there's a chance.'
Besides, he could always do something suicidal later, if that turned out to be the better option.
"All right," he said mildly, letting go of the lead rope and slowly raising his hands into clear view.
"Ah don' befuckin'lieve it," he heard a second voice say. "He's just as much've a pussycat as -"
"Stow it!" a third man interrupted. "Traitors are never safe. Three-Finger, check his sword. Weasel, set the bait."
Varen took a deep slow breath through his nose, then let it out the same way. These were his father's men, they had to be. The old man had gotten word of his plans - letting a certain-sized circle know what he was up to had been a neccessary risk, since the Rite required witnesses' testimony to be legally binding - and sent a few loyalists to arrange his failure to survive the attentions of Fanelia's protecting dragons.
"I don't suppose you'd know," he spoke up mildly, addressing the words to the third of his assailants even without turning his head, since he had sounded like the most thoughtful of the bunch. "Whether it was Marded or Oric who was the agent?"
"Thassa cute kid yer friend's got," the second... be honest, Varen, they're goons... observed, then gave an entirely unwholesome giggle. "Such pretty curls!"
Oric was only a couple of years older than he was, but Marded had a daughter who was only eight. A threat to his children... yes, that was just about the only thing that coupld push his tutor to-
"While you're feeling all chatty," the leader said, stepping out from behind a tree and lowering his crossbow with a smug look in his remaining eye, "indulge my curiosity a moment. What under the Mystic bloody Moon is someone who owes everything he is to this country doing betraying it this way?"
The obvious answer was 'killing a dragon,' but the fellow's meaning was still clear enough. "Trying to save it. If you're here, getting missions like this... then I'll guess that you know where my father is leading with this confrontation with Zaibach - Freid and Asturia, correct?"
"How did you know that, boy?" the first thug demanded, with a tone that made every word a threat. The sword at his throat pressed home just slightly, leaving a pinprick of pain and a trickle of wetness running down to his collar.
"Deduction," he answered, and hated the way his voice scaled up at the reinforcement of his position. "The scouting of our allies, the invasion plans for Zaibach, training our troops for security and crowd control work... all of it adds up."
The leader paled. "Just from that... Weasel, if he gets loose from those ropes, it'll come out of your hide."
"Skies, Boss, if yer so worried why not jez cut the whelp's throat?"
"Orders... Which," and his expression gained a not of dawning inspiration that Varen didn't like at all, "did not say that he had to be awake. Three-Finger?"
"Right!" he heard the first man say, and then the back of his head exploded and the world went away.
A little cliche, perhaps, but it does give you an idea who Varen is and what he's about. If anybody cares to offer a suggestion for another option on how to handle his introduction, I'd love to hear it.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
The faird balked when he tried to guide it down into the ford. Varen closed his eyes and sighed, and cursed his decision to take the packbeast on this expedition for the seventh time in half as many hours. It was stupid, ill-tempered, uncooperative, and had cost him at least as much energy arguing with it as he would have spent just lugging the damned supplies himself.
Somewhere out about halfway across there was a clatter as one of the rounded stones that were throwing up the white, airy eddies from the otherwise clear mountain river shifted and tumbled a few feet down the bed. The beast he had been leading - 'Honeyfoot', which was as big a lie as any his father had ever told - coughed something unhealthy-smelling all over his back, then tried to bite him again.
He stepped out of the way with the ease of several days' practice, then popped her in the nose with his elbow to dissuade any further attempts. "Come on, you stubborn lump!" he snapped, pulling on the creature's halter, but she planted her feet and tried to toss her head, perhaps hoping to yank him off his feet the way she had that first day.
He had to pull her almost halfway across the streambed before she started cooperating, becoming very thankful in the process that it was mid-summer rather than spring, so that the snowmelt on the higher mountains had already had a chance to finish. Not only did that mean that his feeet were only going numb from the chill of ther water, rather than falling off entirely, but this would have been completely impossible if the river had been high enough to drag at his legs on top of fouling his footing like it already was.
Varen had been raised almost entirely by a series of nannies; his mother had been an occaisional fleeting presence at the edge of his life, like a favored aunt who lived far away and could only visit, and he hadn't even met his father until he started assuming the Crown Prince's ceremonial duties and so became a target worthy of manipulation.
He'd been naive at first; had tried everything he could think of to obtain the older man's approval. He had bent himself to his studies, learned the interlocking details of an entire continent's history both military and political, mastered and become literate in all five of Gaea's major languages, had even finally begun to apply real effort to the matial training a disgusted chief armsman had long ago advised him to abandon.
All of which effort had been wasted.
Adrech, Prince Consort of Fanelia and de-facto ruler of that nation, had been born as the penniless younger son of a disgraced minor noble house, and even before marrying into the elite had carved himself a path to wealth and power on nothing but will, ambition and cunning. He had no use or time for someone who could waste any sort of favor or effort with not a thought on how he might be paid back.
Honeyfoot balked again, and Varen wrapped the guide rope around his wrist and hauled savagely. The faird yelped as the bit bit at the tenderer parts of her mouth and stumbled ahead in a rush. Not one to waste an opportunity, he kept pulling until both of them staggered over the last few rocks and up the bank.
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, then froze in place as one of the bushes beside the path rustled and a rough, quiet voice snapped, "Right there, princeling." Something cold and sharp came to rest against his throat as the words registered.
Varen's efforts in the salle hadn't gone to waste - he was a more than fair marksman and could handle a melef with as much ease as his own body (which, admittedly, wasn't saying much), and after years of work he had finally managed to become something other than a total embarrassment with a sword.
Someone who had to spend three hours a day at hard practice to managed to be even 'adequate' had no room to be sloppy or arrogant, and when his turn had come to be blooded against the bandits that inevitably infested the back hollows of Fanelia's farther hills, he had been careful to pay close heed to the advice and behavior of the veterans around him.
'Ain't no bandit nor soljer alive as is stupid 'nough to go saying' 'freeze' rather'n just cuttin' 'less'n he's fixin' to take a prisoner,' a voice advised out of his memories. 'No, don't you worry none, boyo. The girl's alive, 'n' as long as that's so, there's a chance.'
Besides, he could always do something suicidal later, if that turned out to be the better option.
"All right," he said mildly, letting go of the lead rope and slowly raising his hands into clear view.
"Ah don' befuckin'lieve it," he heard a second voice say. "He's just as much've a pussycat as -"
"Stow it!" a third man interrupted. "Traitors are never safe. Three-Finger, check his sword. Weasel, set the bait."
Varen took a deep slow breath through his nose, then let it out the same way. These were his father's men, they had to be. The old man had gotten word of his plans - letting a certain-sized circle know what he was up to had been a neccessary risk, since the Rite required witnesses' testimony to be legally binding - and sent a few loyalists to arrange his failure to survive the attentions of Fanelia's protecting dragons.
"I don't suppose you'd know," he spoke up mildly, addressing the words to the third of his assailants even without turning his head, since he had sounded like the most thoughtful of the bunch. "Whether it was Marded or Oric who was the agent?"
"Thassa cute kid yer friend's got," the second... be honest, Varen, they're goons... observed, then gave an entirely unwholesome giggle. "Such pretty curls!"
Oric was only a couple of years older than he was, but Marded had a daughter who was only eight. A threat to his children... yes, that was just about the only thing that coupld push his tutor to-
"While you're feeling all chatty," the leader said, stepping out from behind a tree and lowering his crossbow with a smug look in his remaining eye, "indulge my curiosity a moment. What under the Mystic bloody Moon is someone who owes everything he is to this country doing betraying it this way?"
The obvious answer was 'killing a dragon,' but the fellow's meaning was still clear enough. "Trying to save it. If you're here, getting missions like this... then I'll guess that you know where my father is leading with this confrontation with Zaibach - Freid and Asturia, correct?"
"How did you know that, boy?" the first thug demanded, with a tone that made every word a threat. The sword at his throat pressed home just slightly, leaving a pinprick of pain and a trickle of wetness running down to his collar.
"Deduction," he answered, and hated the way his voice scaled up at the reinforcement of his position. "The scouting of our allies, the invasion plans for Zaibach, training our troops for security and crowd control work... all of it adds up."
The leader paled. "Just from that... Weasel, if he gets loose from those ropes, it'll come out of your hide."
"Skies, Boss, if yer so worried why not jez cut the whelp's throat?"
"Orders... Which," and his expression gained a not of dawning inspiration that Varen didn't like at all, "did not say that he had to be awake. Three-Finger?"
"Right!" he heard the first man say, and then the back of his head exploded and the world went away.
A little cliche, perhaps, but it does give you an idea who Varen is and what he's about. If anybody cares to offer a suggestion for another option on how to handle his introduction, I'd love to hear it.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"