Fic: Copper Dagger - the curse
Oct. 2nd, 2011 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meridian_roseTitle: Copper Dagger
Fandom: Original Fic
Rating: PG
Word Count: 711
Prompt: For the 30 days of fiction meme prompt #29 write a scene about a [person] and their [animal]
Summary: Elspeth and her dragon, Calico, talk about the curse. More from the 'Copper Dagger' story.
Warnings: None
Calico rolled onto his back. "You've been talking about curses since you read it in that book."
Elspeth sighed. “Well it made sense."
Calico regarded her with one golden eye – the other was following the progress of a small fly around the room. "Well what curse is it, then?"
"The first one is my name." This one that was certainly her mother’s fault. Elspeth. She thought it sounded like a plant name said by someone with a lisp. It wasn’t like any other name in the kingdom; no-one even knew how to spell it before the queen had inflicted it upon her.
Calico snorted a puff of steam. "You don't want to argue names with me." Elspeth had named him. She'd wanted a cat but she'd ended up with a dragon egg. While she adored Calico, she'd had her heart set on a calico-coloured cat and so the hatchling had been named Calico while he was too tiny to object.
"What about my lack of confidence? That's a curse," Elspeth said. This only might have been her mother's fault – surely if her mother had been around, she'd have taught Elspeth to be brave.
Instead, Elspeth got tongue tied when people questioned her and blushed an unseemly red when even a little embarrassed. She worried that if she left the grounds someone might be rude to her, and then she’d have to report them to Colonel Montenegro and he might disbelieve her and….and…and…; Calico said it wasn’t so much lack of confidence as 'utter paranoia'. He’d got the term from a book she’d read to him – well, the bits of it she'd struggled through.
In the same book was the idea that it was her mother's fault that she lacked confidence; 'maternal abandonment' could lead to all sorts of 'serious psychological problems'. Elspeth had only been six when attempting to read this book and it had taken a lot of referring to dictionaries to find out what most of the words meant.
Early on, however, Elspeth had found that dictionaries and other books were much better and more reliable at explaining things than people. Her father's vocabulary was seriously lacking; one of the queens’ better gifts to Elspeth was to stock a marvellous array of books that, after her mysterious disappearance, had mostly just collected dust until Elspeth learnt to read. Colonel Montenegro was somewhat better educated, having been raised in a distant land near the ocean, and had often helped her with the more difficult words.
The third curse, possibly the worst - and even Elspeth wasn’t sure if her mother was to blame for this one - was her fear of the dark. Even twilight sent her scurrying indoors. Candles adorned every surface of her bedroom and a lantern was left lit all night. The king had once suggested that Elspeth would grow out of it, but as she reached five, seven, and two months ago, eight years of age, it seemed unlikely.
In fact, Calico was supposed to have helped with her fear of the dark – he could breathe fire at anything scary, and could light a candle up at fifty paces. He was also supposed to have given her more confidence by being a constant and loyal companion. Elspeth was still terrified of the dark, and while she was confident and well-spoken around Calico – like the Colonel and her father, Calico was family – she remained tongue-tied around anyone else.
"Plenty of people are named weird things," Calico said, giving her a small glare to remind her of his own name. "And loads of children are scared of the dark." Elspeth didn't bother to argue that, at eight, she was supposed to be growing up and not such a child.
Calico's tongue flicked out suddenly and caught the fly. He slurped it down.
"As for the confidence thing, well, I never heard of a curse that said 'she shalt be stricken red of face and silent as a mouse' have you?"
Elspeth shook her head, smiling at Calico's attempt to sound like one of the very serious books.
"Not that mice are quiet, mind, common mistake, that." Calico jumped off the bed. "Let's go have breakfast. Anyway, if you're cursed it's to do with the prophecy, stands to reason."
Fandom: Original Fic
Rating: PG
Word Count: 711
Prompt: For the 30 days of fiction meme prompt #29 write a scene about a [person] and their [animal]
Summary: Elspeth and her dragon, Calico, talk about the curse. More from the 'Copper Dagger' story.
Warnings: None
Calico rolled onto his back. "You've been talking about curses since you read it in that book."
Elspeth sighed. “Well it made sense."
Calico regarded her with one golden eye – the other was following the progress of a small fly around the room. "Well what curse is it, then?"
"The first one is my name." This one that was certainly her mother’s fault. Elspeth. She thought it sounded like a plant name said by someone with a lisp. It wasn’t like any other name in the kingdom; no-one even knew how to spell it before the queen had inflicted it upon her.
Calico snorted a puff of steam. "You don't want to argue names with me." Elspeth had named him. She'd wanted a cat but she'd ended up with a dragon egg. While she adored Calico, she'd had her heart set on a calico-coloured cat and so the hatchling had been named Calico while he was too tiny to object.
"What about my lack of confidence? That's a curse," Elspeth said. This only might have been her mother's fault – surely if her mother had been around, she'd have taught Elspeth to be brave.
Instead, Elspeth got tongue tied when people questioned her and blushed an unseemly red when even a little embarrassed. She worried that if she left the grounds someone might be rude to her, and then she’d have to report them to Colonel Montenegro and he might disbelieve her and….and…and…; Calico said it wasn’t so much lack of confidence as 'utter paranoia'. He’d got the term from a book she’d read to him – well, the bits of it she'd struggled through.
In the same book was the idea that it was her mother's fault that she lacked confidence; 'maternal abandonment' could lead to all sorts of 'serious psychological problems'. Elspeth had only been six when attempting to read this book and it had taken a lot of referring to dictionaries to find out what most of the words meant.
Early on, however, Elspeth had found that dictionaries and other books were much better and more reliable at explaining things than people. Her father's vocabulary was seriously lacking; one of the queens’ better gifts to Elspeth was to stock a marvellous array of books that, after her mysterious disappearance, had mostly just collected dust until Elspeth learnt to read. Colonel Montenegro was somewhat better educated, having been raised in a distant land near the ocean, and had often helped her with the more difficult words.
The third curse, possibly the worst - and even Elspeth wasn’t sure if her mother was to blame for this one - was her fear of the dark. Even twilight sent her scurrying indoors. Candles adorned every surface of her bedroom and a lantern was left lit all night. The king had once suggested that Elspeth would grow out of it, but as she reached five, seven, and two months ago, eight years of age, it seemed unlikely.
In fact, Calico was supposed to have helped with her fear of the dark – he could breathe fire at anything scary, and could light a candle up at fifty paces. He was also supposed to have given her more confidence by being a constant and loyal companion. Elspeth was still terrified of the dark, and while she was confident and well-spoken around Calico – like the Colonel and her father, Calico was family – she remained tongue-tied around anyone else.
"Plenty of people are named weird things," Calico said, giving her a small glare to remind her of his own name. "And loads of children are scared of the dark." Elspeth didn't bother to argue that, at eight, she was supposed to be growing up and not such a child.
Calico's tongue flicked out suddenly and caught the fly. He slurped it down.
"As for the confidence thing, well, I never heard of a curse that said 'she shalt be stricken red of face and silent as a mouse' have you?"
Elspeth shook her head, smiling at Calico's attempt to sound like one of the very serious books.
"Not that mice are quiet, mind, common mistake, that." Calico jumped off the bed. "Let's go have breakfast. Anyway, if you're cursed it's to do with the prophecy, stands to reason."
