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rainbowfic2025-01-08 08:29 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2025-01-08 08:29 pm
Azul #29; Vert #15; Beet Red #5 [Starfall]
Name: Questions & Answers
Story: Starfall
Colors: Azul #29 (pledge); Vert #15 (Code of honor); Beet red #5 (Made to be broken)
Supplies and Styles: Canvas + Seed Beads + Graffiti (for the current January Canvas/Frame challenge) + Novelty Beads (from April 2024 Food Challenge http://media.tumblr.com/c2596a1ec4e793b7c2ac0c6cdb39b505/tumblr_inline_mn9uq1j8AY1qz4rgp.gif)
Word Count: 1968
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1312 North Eastern District; Marran Delver, Telo Torwell, Karr Delver, Sharrander Colwell, and some unfortunate Town Justice who has to deal with this. (Seed beads because of the Karr POV, who is a minor character that I don't think I've actually written before. I haven't gone back to Marran and some of the others in the Starfall 1330s setting for a while, so: this is part of Governor Delver's "ran away and stole a farm" backstory, following soonish after the ending of Learned By Heart, in the year before he runs into Viyony and Leion while in Portcallan.)
N.B. Many northern surnames work differently to elsewhere in Emoyra - so Sharrander Colwell and Ianna Torrin are Telo's parents, the family (and therefore Telo) are known as Torwell (Torrin + Colwell), but her parents as individuals retain their original last names, and that's why both Torwell and Colwell are used here.)
Summary: Marran is in over his head, and it's up to his brother Karr to try and make the best of the situation. Karr's not sure he wants to.
The Town Justice seemed chiefly to want to be elsewhere. He surveyed the five of them with lowered brows, and waved them impatiently to stand in front of the desk. “What is the charge against these two?”
“Not two,” said Sharrander instantly, voice rising. He wiped his forehead. “My daughter is not responsible for any of this!”
Everyone looked at Marran. His lips pressed together in a mutinous line.
“Is that so?” said the Justice flatly. “I understood that trespass, theft and wilful damage applied to the pair of them.”
“He abducted my daughter!”
Karr raised his head, but addressed his words properly to the town Justice. “Not abduction, Imor. That is not one of the charges.”
“Hmm,” said the Justice. “We’ll examine the lot of you in the morning. No, no,” he added as Sharrander tried to protest further. “You will be accountable for your daughter, as agreed. Imai Delver, are you willing to answer for your brother in the meantime or must we detain him here for another night?”
Marran stared ahead, refusing to look at Karr. His brother was tempted to tell the Justice to go ahead and let him sit in the town’s cells. It was about time Marran understood exactly the gravity of the whole affair. Karr waited one moment more, and sighed. “Yes. I'm prepared to answer for him.”
“Eat,” Karr ordered, after ten minutes of watching Marran push his food about his plate in sullen silence.
Marran lifted his head and glowered. He ate one piece of chicken and let his fork drop onto the table. “I’m waiting for you to lecture me first. I don’t want to have to sit through that on a full stomach. I’d throw up.”
“Serve you right,” said Karr. He broke a piece off the rye bread to dip in the sauce. “Shara’s tears, Marran, didn't you stop to think about Mother and Father for even a minute? What possessed you?”
“I left a note. They knew we were all right. It’s not illegal to get married.”
Karr stifled the urge to shake him. “And you’re supposed to be the clever one. Stars! Either you’re much more stupid than I thought, or just callous.”
Marran pushed back from the table in his seat. “Yes, there you go. Now I’m not hungry at all.”
“If it’s any comfort, Father doesn’t know. Yet.”
Marran snorted. “Oh, hasn’t he noticed I’m missing? What a surprise!”
“We told him you were staying with a friend, once your term had ended. I hope that we don’t have to ever let him know much more than the fact that you have had to leave the Academy, but it's going to depend on tomorrow’s outcome. If you go to prison, we can't hide that from him.”
Marran leant forward. “Well, it shouldn't bother him anyway. He doesn’t care what any of us do.” He gave a hefty sigh, dragging his chair in with a scraping sound over the floorboards, and set to work on his meal without any visible enthusiasm.
“So you are stupid, then.” Karr, having finished his meal, folded up the napkin, and watched Marran. “What about Mother?”
Marran looked up, his answer waiting while he swallowed. “She won't have worried. Mother understands.”
“It's a wonder you got into the Academy at all.” Karr gripped the napkin tightly, then flung it down. “Marran! You could go to prison in the morning, or get landed with a fine we can’t afford! Do you understand that?”
“I got married, that’s all. Telo wanted it, too—the Torwells are lying. Look, it will be all right. It'll have to be. I’m married to Telo, and the Torwells hate gossip and fuss. So, they can’t really send me to prison or do anything else really awful, because I'm their son-in-law. They'll yell for a bit and then make me agree to owe them work or money or something until they think they've been paid off, but not prison. They don't like Telo being married to me as it is—they'd fall over dead on the spot if it got back to Hillold that I was a criminal.”
“Do you suppose the owners of the farm you hid out in will also be that accommodating?”
Marran put down knife and fork. “That was all a mistake. Telo thought the farm belonged to her family. We didn’t know it had been sold. And we didn’t steal things, we tried to run it. You can't punish a person for trying to grow things. That'd be unfair!”
“Oh, yes, they can have you for that,” said Karr. “You broke into their property, occupied it, damaged it, and sold goods and produce you had no right to. Look, shut up and finish your meal. If you carry on with this nonsense, I shall be the one losing my dinner.”
Marran snorted. "Fine by me."
"Eat," said Karr. He cleared his throat. "You underestimate the Torwells. I don't think they plan for you to remain married to Telo."
His brother raised his gaze, fork paused halfway to his mouth. He lowered it, and laughed. "That's up to Telo, isn't it? Let them try!"
"Please. Stop talking, and eat that," said Karr. He'd tried to warn him, and if Marran refused to listen, what more could he do? Which one of them was right would be made plain in the morning—and it wasn't as if Marran didn't have an aggravating habit of falling on his feet. Maybe Telo would come through; maybe his young brother would get away with everything once again.
"A word, Delver," said Sharrander Colwell, in the morning, once they had regrouped at the town hall.
Karr instinctively cast a glance back at Marran, sitting there on a narrow bench fixed to the wall of the corridor. "Well?"
"I'd like to deal with this as discreetly as possible," Sharrander told him. "The farm may no longer be in the family, but I know the new owners. I have some influence. Which is needed—they are not pleased, to put it mildly. They claim the two of them caused substantial damage to the holding."
Karr let his gaze stray beyond Sharrander to where the farm owners in question were standing, discussing something at the opposite end of the wide main corridor. "Marran tells me he and Telo made a number of repairs to the building, fences, and tools."
"Repairs," said Sharrander, "is not the term they used. No doubt they're chasing after a higher compensation fee than this warrants, but still—I think I can work something out with them. Ianna and I, of course, will also leave out the matter of the money Telo took with her—although it was meant to be paid into the Academy for special tuition—you see how much worse we could make this? Without that goodwill, where might your brother wind up?"
Karr looked over at Marran, and then back towards Sharrander. "And you have an alternate proposal, I take it? Very well. What's your price?"
"I want justice, that's all—and that reckless young brother of yours out of my daughter's life for good."
"Understandable," said Karr. "But how?"
Sharrander moved nearer, and lowered his voice. "Provided I can persuade the landowners to agree, we should be able to spare your brother a prison sentence. However, I insist on a suitable alternative—that is an absolute condition. Push him into the army, or the navy or whatever you Delvers consider most appropriate—but it must take him well out of this area, and preferably out of the District altogether."
"What about the marriage?"
Sharrander waved that away sharply. "Childish nonsense. No hindrance there—we shall nullify that presently. But I must have justice even if not officially. Marran can't run around, causing more trouble—particularly as regards Telo."
"I understand," said Karr. "And I'm willing to agree, with one stipulation—I need to speak to your daughter first. This is also her affair, and since they are married for the moment, if she wishes to brave the whole business out with him, regardless of what that entails, then so be it."
Sharrander bristled, but he cast an eye at the door to the Town Justice's office, and nodded.
Karr guided Telo away to the side, angling them both so that her father was out of her line of vision, and hopefully Marran too.
"Telo," he said. "We haven't been properly introduced, but I think you know by now who I am."
She nodded, refusing to raise her gaze to meet his.
"Your father has a plan to extract us all from this mess," he said quietly. "I expect he's explained that to you already—and what you need to do."
Telo kept her gaze firmly to the ground, but gave a small nod.
"I'm willing to agree with him," said Karr. "I don't think Marran would do very well in prison, even if only for a short time, and it would be a great relief to me if my father never had to hear too much about this. However, what you did was up to both of you. If you wish to remain married to Marran—if you are willing to take the consequences—then I will do what I can to make that possible, no matter what your parents say. Just tell me yes. And if you want to put an end to it, then say no. Your father and I will see to the rest."
Telo lifted her head and fixed dark eyes on his face. She swallowed. "I—I—that is. No. It isn't that I don't want to, that I d-don't." She bit her lip and halted, blinking away tears. "Only I have to go back to the Academy. I have to. I thought I couldn't bear it if I lost Marran, but I can't, I can't, do without the music - my training. It's horrible of me, isn't it?"
"No," said Karr. "Whatever Marran intended, and no doubt he meant well, it was horrible of him to put you in this situation."
"It was my idea to go to the farm. I didn't know it had been sold."
Karr held up a hand. "No more. You've answered my question—everything else is my business now. Don't worry."
He watched her hurry along the hallway, back to Sharrander.
"Drown it all," said Karr under his breath. He had to accept Sharrander's proposal. There really was no alternative, but it choked him for a moment. Marran was a cursed nuisance, but Karr recognised that this solution got everybody else more or less what they wanted, except for Marran. His brother had been happy enough to try and take the blame yesterday, before the town authorities, but that had been a dramatic self-sacrifice, which was an entirely different thing to being conveniently bundled out of the District and forced to live out a prolonged and far less glorified atonement for something he didn't yet believe had been wrong.
There was nothing else for it. The Town Justice might well merely impose a fine, given Marran's age, and the fact that Telo was clearly also complicit, no matter what her father insisted. But the Delvers would hardly be able to pay it, and then the result would be the same: Marran must go to prison. And if he found it hard to stay in one place at the Academy, what would he make of actual confinement?
Besides which, there was Father to consider. Karr straightened up, and steeled himself to play the villain. Whether in truth or because it was better that Marran blame him and Sharrander rather than lose all his illusions at once, only time would tell. For now, there really was no other choice.
Story: Starfall
Colors: Azul #29 (pledge); Vert #15 (Code of honor); Beet red #5 (Made to be broken)
Supplies and Styles: Canvas + Seed Beads + Graffiti (for the current January Canvas/Frame challenge) + Novelty Beads (from April 2024 Food Challenge http://media.tumblr.com/c2596a1ec4e793b7c2ac0c6cdb39b505/tumblr_inline_mn9uq1j8AY1qz4rgp.gif)
Word Count: 1968
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1312 North Eastern District; Marran Delver, Telo Torwell, Karr Delver, Sharrander Colwell, and some unfortunate Town Justice who has to deal with this. (Seed beads because of the Karr POV, who is a minor character that I don't think I've actually written before. I haven't gone back to Marran and some of the others in the Starfall 1330s setting for a while, so: this is part of Governor Delver's "ran away and stole a farm" backstory, following soonish after the ending of Learned By Heart, in the year before he runs into Viyony and Leion while in Portcallan.)
N.B. Many northern surnames work differently to elsewhere in Emoyra - so Sharrander Colwell and Ianna Torrin are Telo's parents, the family (and therefore Telo) are known as Torwell (Torrin + Colwell), but her parents as individuals retain their original last names, and that's why both Torwell and Colwell are used here.)
Summary: Marran is in over his head, and it's up to his brother Karr to try and make the best of the situation. Karr's not sure he wants to.
The Town Justice seemed chiefly to want to be elsewhere. He surveyed the five of them with lowered brows, and waved them impatiently to stand in front of the desk. “What is the charge against these two?”
“Not two,” said Sharrander instantly, voice rising. He wiped his forehead. “My daughter is not responsible for any of this!”
Everyone looked at Marran. His lips pressed together in a mutinous line.
“Is that so?” said the Justice flatly. “I understood that trespass, theft and wilful damage applied to the pair of them.”
“He abducted my daughter!”
Karr raised his head, but addressed his words properly to the town Justice. “Not abduction, Imor. That is not one of the charges.”
“Hmm,” said the Justice. “We’ll examine the lot of you in the morning. No, no,” he added as Sharrander tried to protest further. “You will be accountable for your daughter, as agreed. Imai Delver, are you willing to answer for your brother in the meantime or must we detain him here for another night?”
Marran stared ahead, refusing to look at Karr. His brother was tempted to tell the Justice to go ahead and let him sit in the town’s cells. It was about time Marran understood exactly the gravity of the whole affair. Karr waited one moment more, and sighed. “Yes. I'm prepared to answer for him.”
“Eat,” Karr ordered, after ten minutes of watching Marran push his food about his plate in sullen silence.
Marran lifted his head and glowered. He ate one piece of chicken and let his fork drop onto the table. “I’m waiting for you to lecture me first. I don’t want to have to sit through that on a full stomach. I’d throw up.”
“Serve you right,” said Karr. He broke a piece off the rye bread to dip in the sauce. “Shara’s tears, Marran, didn't you stop to think about Mother and Father for even a minute? What possessed you?”
“I left a note. They knew we were all right. It’s not illegal to get married.”
Karr stifled the urge to shake him. “And you’re supposed to be the clever one. Stars! Either you’re much more stupid than I thought, or just callous.”
Marran pushed back from the table in his seat. “Yes, there you go. Now I’m not hungry at all.”
“If it’s any comfort, Father doesn’t know. Yet.”
Marran snorted. “Oh, hasn’t he noticed I’m missing? What a surprise!”
“We told him you were staying with a friend, once your term had ended. I hope that we don’t have to ever let him know much more than the fact that you have had to leave the Academy, but it's going to depend on tomorrow’s outcome. If you go to prison, we can't hide that from him.”
Marran leant forward. “Well, it shouldn't bother him anyway. He doesn’t care what any of us do.” He gave a hefty sigh, dragging his chair in with a scraping sound over the floorboards, and set to work on his meal without any visible enthusiasm.
“So you are stupid, then.” Karr, having finished his meal, folded up the napkin, and watched Marran. “What about Mother?”
Marran looked up, his answer waiting while he swallowed. “She won't have worried. Mother understands.”
“It's a wonder you got into the Academy at all.” Karr gripped the napkin tightly, then flung it down. “Marran! You could go to prison in the morning, or get landed with a fine we can’t afford! Do you understand that?”
“I got married, that’s all. Telo wanted it, too—the Torwells are lying. Look, it will be all right. It'll have to be. I’m married to Telo, and the Torwells hate gossip and fuss. So, they can’t really send me to prison or do anything else really awful, because I'm their son-in-law. They'll yell for a bit and then make me agree to owe them work or money or something until they think they've been paid off, but not prison. They don't like Telo being married to me as it is—they'd fall over dead on the spot if it got back to Hillold that I was a criminal.”
“Do you suppose the owners of the farm you hid out in will also be that accommodating?”
Marran put down knife and fork. “That was all a mistake. Telo thought the farm belonged to her family. We didn’t know it had been sold. And we didn’t steal things, we tried to run it. You can't punish a person for trying to grow things. That'd be unfair!”
“Oh, yes, they can have you for that,” said Karr. “You broke into their property, occupied it, damaged it, and sold goods and produce you had no right to. Look, shut up and finish your meal. If you carry on with this nonsense, I shall be the one losing my dinner.”
Marran snorted. "Fine by me."
"Eat," said Karr. He cleared his throat. "You underestimate the Torwells. I don't think they plan for you to remain married to Telo."
His brother raised his gaze, fork paused halfway to his mouth. He lowered it, and laughed. "That's up to Telo, isn't it? Let them try!"
"Please. Stop talking, and eat that," said Karr. He'd tried to warn him, and if Marran refused to listen, what more could he do? Which one of them was right would be made plain in the morning—and it wasn't as if Marran didn't have an aggravating habit of falling on his feet. Maybe Telo would come through; maybe his young brother would get away with everything once again.
"A word, Delver," said Sharrander Colwell, in the morning, once they had regrouped at the town hall.
Karr instinctively cast a glance back at Marran, sitting there on a narrow bench fixed to the wall of the corridor. "Well?"
"I'd like to deal with this as discreetly as possible," Sharrander told him. "The farm may no longer be in the family, but I know the new owners. I have some influence. Which is needed—they are not pleased, to put it mildly. They claim the two of them caused substantial damage to the holding."
Karr let his gaze stray beyond Sharrander to where the farm owners in question were standing, discussing something at the opposite end of the wide main corridor. "Marran tells me he and Telo made a number of repairs to the building, fences, and tools."
"Repairs," said Sharrander, "is not the term they used. No doubt they're chasing after a higher compensation fee than this warrants, but still—I think I can work something out with them. Ianna and I, of course, will also leave out the matter of the money Telo took with her—although it was meant to be paid into the Academy for special tuition—you see how much worse we could make this? Without that goodwill, where might your brother wind up?"
Karr looked over at Marran, and then back towards Sharrander. "And you have an alternate proposal, I take it? Very well. What's your price?"
"I want justice, that's all—and that reckless young brother of yours out of my daughter's life for good."
"Understandable," said Karr. "But how?"
Sharrander moved nearer, and lowered his voice. "Provided I can persuade the landowners to agree, we should be able to spare your brother a prison sentence. However, I insist on a suitable alternative—that is an absolute condition. Push him into the army, or the navy or whatever you Delvers consider most appropriate—but it must take him well out of this area, and preferably out of the District altogether."
"What about the marriage?"
Sharrander waved that away sharply. "Childish nonsense. No hindrance there—we shall nullify that presently. But I must have justice even if not officially. Marran can't run around, causing more trouble—particularly as regards Telo."
"I understand," said Karr. "And I'm willing to agree, with one stipulation—I need to speak to your daughter first. This is also her affair, and since they are married for the moment, if she wishes to brave the whole business out with him, regardless of what that entails, then so be it."
Sharrander bristled, but he cast an eye at the door to the Town Justice's office, and nodded.
Karr guided Telo away to the side, angling them both so that her father was out of her line of vision, and hopefully Marran too.
"Telo," he said. "We haven't been properly introduced, but I think you know by now who I am."
She nodded, refusing to raise her gaze to meet his.
"Your father has a plan to extract us all from this mess," he said quietly. "I expect he's explained that to you already—and what you need to do."
Telo kept her gaze firmly to the ground, but gave a small nod.
"I'm willing to agree with him," said Karr. "I don't think Marran would do very well in prison, even if only for a short time, and it would be a great relief to me if my father never had to hear too much about this. However, what you did was up to both of you. If you wish to remain married to Marran—if you are willing to take the consequences—then I will do what I can to make that possible, no matter what your parents say. Just tell me yes. And if you want to put an end to it, then say no. Your father and I will see to the rest."
Telo lifted her head and fixed dark eyes on his face. She swallowed. "I—I—that is. No. It isn't that I don't want to, that I d-don't." She bit her lip and halted, blinking away tears. "Only I have to go back to the Academy. I have to. I thought I couldn't bear it if I lost Marran, but I can't, I can't, do without the music - my training. It's horrible of me, isn't it?"
"No," said Karr. "Whatever Marran intended, and no doubt he meant well, it was horrible of him to put you in this situation."
"It was my idea to go to the farm. I didn't know it had been sold."
Karr held up a hand. "No more. You've answered my question—everything else is my business now. Don't worry."
He watched her hurry along the hallway, back to Sharrander.
"Drown it all," said Karr under his breath. He had to accept Sharrander's proposal. There really was no alternative, but it choked him for a moment. Marran was a cursed nuisance, but Karr recognised that this solution got everybody else more or less what they wanted, except for Marran. His brother had been happy enough to try and take the blame yesterday, before the town authorities, but that had been a dramatic self-sacrifice, which was an entirely different thing to being conveniently bundled out of the District and forced to live out a prolonged and far less glorified atonement for something he didn't yet believe had been wrong.
There was nothing else for it. The Town Justice might well merely impose a fine, given Marran's age, and the fact that Telo was clearly also complicit, no matter what her father insisted. But the Delvers would hardly be able to pay it, and then the result would be the same: Marran must go to prison. And if he found it hard to stay in one place at the Academy, what would he make of actual confinement?
Besides which, there was Father to consider. Karr straightened up, and steeled himself to play the villain. Whether in truth or because it was better that Marran blame him and Sharrander rather than lose all his illusions at once, only time would tell. For now, there really was no other choice.
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Did they actually have experience running a farm, haha? I have to wonder what kind of "repairs" they made. It sounds like her family was well off, and she didn't expect to meet any of them on the farm itself, so I guess that even when they did own the farm they probably just paid someone else to actually run it.
I don't know if you've ever read anything by K. J. Parker (Tom Holt's pseudonym for fantasy), but like every single one of his protagonists fantasizes about settling down on a farm and living a simple, honest life, but they are usually traumatized war veterans who have no actual experience with farm work. I feel like this story could have happened in one of those books.
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Marran had done Agriculture and Horticulture at the Academy! What could possibly go wrong, even if the farm had completely the wrong kind of soil for what he wanted to grow?? XD It had been left empty for years and was in a state, so the repairs probably weren't quite as bad as the owners made out, because after all, they were after useful compensation money. Although, they are both still teenagers here, so, tbf to the farm owners, it could go either way.
Telo's family are well off but not v wealthy - they are successful small town drapers who have been able to send her to follow her vocation and explore her musical talent at the Pollean Academy, and she wasn't supposed to then run off with Marran before she'd finished, especially as she was going to stay & do the full priest's training. The farm was owned by cousins of hers, who had left it empty & been trying to sell it for years, so she thought it would be fine, except they had actually finally sold it a few months before, unfortunately for her and Marran. (There was a bit more about this in the linked piece above & why they ran away, which is fairly standalone as a bit of backstory/world-building, if you wanted it.)
but like every single one of his protagonists fantasizes about settling down on a farm and living a simple, honest life, but they are usually traumatized war veterans who have no actual experience with farm work. I feel like this story could have happened in one of those books.
LOL, I thought the fictional rule for that was that you died the second you bought the farm? XD
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Ahh, I see, I'll have to check that other piece out!
LOL, I thought the fictional rule for that was that you died the second you bought the farm? XD
Oh, well, one time it turned into a Lord of the Flies situation with their hired help and then they got fed poisonous honey by one of their arranged-marriage wives, and another time he just regained his memory and realized he had gotten married to his daughter and had to leave because everyone else was telepathic and would therefore all find out. It's always a very complicated tragic downfall, I think "sentenced to prison due to legal issues with the farm" would probably fit.
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LOL - and it sounds like it! XD
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I am glad to see these people again, but that's a lot to land on Marran all at once. (My strongest feeling is that teenager or no, Telo should have been able to tell him herself.)
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Thank you! Should is no doubt true, but she knows if she did, she'd just end up staying with Marran instead and that was too much for her at that point. (There is somewhere in my notebook a Telo POV piece from a couple of months after this, but which I wrote much earlier, and I suppose I should probably type it up eventually! XD)
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Ohhh some sad and tragic backstory!
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Aw, thanks, and yes. <3 And it'll be worse than anyone knows yet, because of the whole Winter in the Waste thing I still haven't finished typing up...
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And thank you again for all the novelty beads.
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1) https://33.media.tumblr.com/c321bbedeeb9aa8f03bcebe869375c01/tumblr_inline_nrvce3FrRt1qijchg_500.gif
2) Everyone's miserable, it's called being family! (how apropos)
3) bore
4) elderly