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Title: Not a Kid
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses, Hazel, Isael
Prompt: 069 “Thunder”
Word Count: 853
Rating: PG, for non-detailed war
Notes: First prompt set during the course of the Second War. First was very much politically based, persons unknown struggling for control and the throne. Second war was much more . . metaphysical. And not in the new-age sense.
She woke to thunder. Not true thunder, the sort that sounded like the sky’s last stand against something unseen by humans. Not artillery, either—and while she didn’t consider it at all unusual that she knew what artillery fire sounded like at close range, things like that seemed to bother her father, when she saw him. (He would have had more of a leg to stand on if he came to visit not smelling of cordite, gun oil and fire magic. She’d learned early to ignore what her father said and listen, instead, to what her father did. It made slightly more sense.)
The thunder outside her window sounded like a thunder machine—something human-made to imitate the reality, but unable to keep up. Unreal, off.
Rolling out of bed and shoving her feet into the boots she’d left by the side, she prowled out of her room, careful to avoid direct-line-of-sight from any of the windows. The adults and older children were adamant about that sort of thing with the younger kids, and Hazel wasn’t one of those anymore. She didn’t do little-kid things—she stayed out of window framings, she passed cloths to people instead of making faces at how they smelled.
So when she found Isael crouched just off-side of one of the windows down a hall, all she did was crouch on the other side and wait. He’d acknowledge her when he had time—even if it was just to tell her to go back to bed.
“D’you see those?” her cousin asked after a moment, nodding slightly to the window. He looked tired again, the light from outside making the smudges under his eyes look worse than they probably were. Probably. She wasn’t sure how much sleep he actually got—she never saw him sleeping. He was also one of the most active of the patrolling adults, always prowling along the walls and windows.
She leaned back against night-cool stone, then bent sideways to peer out without exposing the entirety of her head. “ . . . The big things with too many arms and the rocks?” She didn’t bother mentioning that she could kind of see through them. That happened so often with the things that went bump in the night that it was more remarkable if they looked solid.
“Yeah, those.” He cycled the bolt of one of the adult-weight rifles, then glanced at her. “Do you know how to load these?”
She blinked, then squinted at the rifle, trying to sort out shadow from metal. “Eleven-shot tube magazine load?”
“Oui. Load t’other one for me?” He shoved a second rifle stock-first at her, then a wooden box of ammunition.
The silencing engraving down the barrel of the rifle he raised and rested along the windowsill was worn, enough that when he fired it almost sounded like a counterpoint echo to the thunder of not-quite-there rocks hitting the walls and roof of the buildings. The shots he took were deliberate, slow enough that the illusion of echoes persisted.
She snuck another glance after he’d emptied the rifle and reached for the second one propped muzzle-up by the window and held in place with her knee. The big things with too many arms were fewer in number—some appeared to be looking around for comrades in confusion, their arms half-raised to throw.
It took nearly five cycles of trading loaded for unloaded rifles that the big things with too many arms really caught on to where the echo that made them fall was coming from. Six cycles for them to decide to do something about it.
Then two rocks hit just above and just to one side of the window nearly at the same time, scattering rock dust and sharp-shattered chunks through it.
Isael threw himself backwards out of range as Hazel dove sideways, yanking the ammunition with her. The rifle barrel fell, landing on his upturned boot tip, and he fired again, the heavy bullet making the next rock explode just outside the window.
Once her ears stopped ringing from the explosion, she could hear him cursing in a language she didn’t know, but by that point he’d struggled back to the side of the window and was snapping off faster shots. He was leaning all his weight on his left leg and against the wall—she thought maybe he’d been not-quite resting the butt of the rifle against his right hip when he’d shot the rock. The rifles—now she thought about it--weren’t long enough to run from shoulder to boot-tip.
After the first minor heart attack about tossing a loaded rifle across the gap of the window, she decided to crawl along under the level of the sill and set up behind her cousin. He barely seemed to notice, beyond reaching back to trade rifles instead of reaching forward.
Eventually, the unreal thunder, and its staccato not-echoes, stopped.
She stood up, tried to offer a shoulder to lean on, which he didn’t seem to see. When she leaned sideways, trying to see his face, he shook his head. “Go back to bed, Hazel—it’s over for tonight.”
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses, Hazel, Isael
Prompt: 069 “Thunder”
Word Count: 853
Rating: PG, for non-detailed war
Notes: First prompt set during the course of the Second War. First was very much politically based, persons unknown struggling for control and the throne. Second war was much more . . metaphysical. And not in the new-age sense.
She woke to thunder. Not true thunder, the sort that sounded like the sky’s last stand against something unseen by humans. Not artillery, either—and while she didn’t consider it at all unusual that she knew what artillery fire sounded like at close range, things like that seemed to bother her father, when she saw him. (He would have had more of a leg to stand on if he came to visit not smelling of cordite, gun oil and fire magic. She’d learned early to ignore what her father said and listen, instead, to what her father did. It made slightly more sense.)
The thunder outside her window sounded like a thunder machine—something human-made to imitate the reality, but unable to keep up. Unreal, off.
Rolling out of bed and shoving her feet into the boots she’d left by the side, she prowled out of her room, careful to avoid direct-line-of-sight from any of the windows. The adults and older children were adamant about that sort of thing with the younger kids, and Hazel wasn’t one of those anymore. She didn’t do little-kid things—she stayed out of window framings, she passed cloths to people instead of making faces at how they smelled.
So when she found Isael crouched just off-side of one of the windows down a hall, all she did was crouch on the other side and wait. He’d acknowledge her when he had time—even if it was just to tell her to go back to bed.
“D’you see those?” her cousin asked after a moment, nodding slightly to the window. He looked tired again, the light from outside making the smudges under his eyes look worse than they probably were. Probably. She wasn’t sure how much sleep he actually got—she never saw him sleeping. He was also one of the most active of the patrolling adults, always prowling along the walls and windows.
She leaned back against night-cool stone, then bent sideways to peer out without exposing the entirety of her head. “ . . . The big things with too many arms and the rocks?” She didn’t bother mentioning that she could kind of see through them. That happened so often with the things that went bump in the night that it was more remarkable if they looked solid.
“Yeah, those.” He cycled the bolt of one of the adult-weight rifles, then glanced at her. “Do you know how to load these?”
She blinked, then squinted at the rifle, trying to sort out shadow from metal. “Eleven-shot tube magazine load?”
“Oui. Load t’other one for me?” He shoved a second rifle stock-first at her, then a wooden box of ammunition.
The silencing engraving down the barrel of the rifle he raised and rested along the windowsill was worn, enough that when he fired it almost sounded like a counterpoint echo to the thunder of not-quite-there rocks hitting the walls and roof of the buildings. The shots he took were deliberate, slow enough that the illusion of echoes persisted.
She snuck another glance after he’d emptied the rifle and reached for the second one propped muzzle-up by the window and held in place with her knee. The big things with too many arms were fewer in number—some appeared to be looking around for comrades in confusion, their arms half-raised to throw.
It took nearly five cycles of trading loaded for unloaded rifles that the big things with too many arms really caught on to where the echo that made them fall was coming from. Six cycles for them to decide to do something about it.
Then two rocks hit just above and just to one side of the window nearly at the same time, scattering rock dust and sharp-shattered chunks through it.
Isael threw himself backwards out of range as Hazel dove sideways, yanking the ammunition with her. The rifle barrel fell, landing on his upturned boot tip, and he fired again, the heavy bullet making the next rock explode just outside the window.
Once her ears stopped ringing from the explosion, she could hear him cursing in a language she didn’t know, but by that point he’d struggled back to the side of the window and was snapping off faster shots. He was leaning all his weight on his left leg and against the wall—she thought maybe he’d been not-quite resting the butt of the rifle against his right hip when he’d shot the rock. The rifles—now she thought about it--weren’t long enough to run from shoulder to boot-tip.
After the first minor heart attack about tossing a loaded rifle across the gap of the window, she decided to crawl along under the level of the sill and set up behind her cousin. He barely seemed to notice, beyond reaching back to trade rifles instead of reaching forward.
Eventually, the unreal thunder, and its staccato not-echoes, stopped.
She stood up, tried to offer a shoulder to lean on, which he didn’t seem to see. When she leaned sideways, trying to see his face, he shook his head. “Go back to bed, Hazel—it’s over for tonight.”
