I used to really love Daine and Numair, and then I got to that bit in RotG with Rikash that just broke my heart and I realized, however unwittingly, that I'd been 'shipping Rikash/Daine all along. This is more of a friendship fic, alas, but Rikash gets little love as it is, so there's no harm in posting it. My love for these books was recently resparked by some fanart. >> But I've yet to actually go through the books again. In the meantime, I can only beg for someone, anyone, to write Rikash/Daine. >>; ...Please?
It's been a while since I've read them, so this may or may not be out-of-character. Your mileage may vary! Ideally, it's set sometime probably after Daine catches (and subsequently recovers from) unicorn fever, as is mentioned in the actual books; but again, ahaha, after that? Canon gets buggered up the wazoo. Enjoy as you will.
Wet Weather
by: Mana Angel
By evening, Rikash was glad for the thick, well-extended eaves edging the roof of the inn proper. The valley was blessed with nothing but endless wet weather, now, though it wasn't the season for it; he'd heard some mages speaking lowly with Numair the day before, and a rumor of unnatural magic influencing their present uncomfortably damp environment. It had been part of the reason he hadn't been able to leave as quickly as he'd planned, after a routine brush to update the mage on the present status of affairs elsewhere in Tortall (normally he'd object to being ordered around like some sort of pigeon, but what Queen Barzha asked, Queen Barzha got, and he respected her -- enough to do it near-voluntarily). Even Stormwings couldn't fly in air sodden enough to choke on.
Rikash really was glad for the eaves. Aside from the occasional, resentful spray of droplets that the wind blew his way, he managed to remain fairly dry, with his back defiantly turned to the elements as he perched silently on the windowsill. He could almost fall asleep, even with the crackle of lightning overhead.
Nothing, however, was going to save him from the torrent that came from inside, which had been severely detrimental to his attempts to nap for over an hour.
"Moonsword." Daine rolled the syllables around in her mouth, gleeful as a child given a bit of sweetmeat he's been told he can have all to himself, no sharing at all. In a sense, she had been. There were good reasons why Rikash didn't let anyone know the clan name his ridiculously romantic ancestors had seen fit to adopt, and having his enemies -- former enemies, at least, he allowed himself to correct mentally, even if they'd just barely hurdled over that obstacle to something approaching a casual acquaintance -- use them to mercilessly goad him was just one of them.
"It's a pretty enough name," Daine continued innocently, "I don't know what you've got 'gainst it." The girl was disgustingly, inexplicably chatty, and Rikash suspected she hadn't quite recovered from whatever illness it was Numair had nearly had an apoplexy over.
The teasing was worse, he reflected glumly, metal feathers and bone-braided hair clicking as he shifted on the windowsill, when you couldn't even properly snipe back at said former-enemies, even verbally, on account of former-enemy in question being officially declared unfit for anything except bed rest for the next two weeks. Daine had argued, he'd heard, and Daine had shouted, but even he could have told her that no amount of shouting or arguing would turn the combined wills of the Chief Healer and one Numair Salmalin around, and was in fact probably quite a pointless waste of energy, and likely to land her with anotherweek of confinement in her room.
"You should stop talking so much," the Stormwing snapped finally, teetering precariously on the window's surprisingly sturdy -- and distressingly narrow -- railing. Perhaps in better weather, in better conditions, when he was feeling more like himself and less like a drowned chicken some farmer's dog hauled out of the mud, he might have found the heart to banter back. Not this night."In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the person you want to be patting your back and keeping your hair out of your eyes should you start reacquainting yourself with your breakfast again." Out of habit, he extended a single claw-tipped digit to pick at the wood. Teak, if he was any judge, and old. Sturdy, for all of that. "Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night, you're sick, and I'm tired. Even I think this isn't a sane hour to be awake." The rail creaked dangerously beneath him as he pried his claws free of the wood and straightened, glaring at Daine with all the offended dignity of a startled owl.
There were advantages to being half-man, half-giant-metal-carrion-bird, such as immortality (in the sense of no such thing as 'natural death' existing, at least) and being able to terrify your enemies by stench alone (Rikash was proud of that scent, blood and bile and a touch of menace. He'd cultivated it for years). There were also, however, considerable disadvantages when it came to relations that did not involve being airborne or attempting to claw each other's eyes out (or both at the same time), such as being unable to sit on a chair that wasn't made with perchability in mind, or being unable to doze off on uneasy footing without knowing that a fall would result not in bruises, but a shredded back (if he was lucky. Most Stormwings would die. Many Stormwings had died that way, as a matter of fact, though recently the falls were not exactly accidentaly and the feverish girl glaring at him through half-lidded eyes was a prime authority on the subject).
Daine said something, but Rikash failed to catch it; he tilted his head further into the room, blonde braids slithering over his shoulders with the motion, and blinked at the girl wearily.
"You'll have to speak louder than that, mortal girl, if you want to be heard."
"I said," Daine puffed, face flushed either from a weak fever induced by the chill weather or, as a slightly more positive sign, rising anger, "That if you're getting wet, there's no need to keep huncing there."
Rikash blinked. Now that had been unexpected.
He was startled out of his astonishment at Daine's surprising amount of tact when he voice came again -- definitely impatient this time, and he didn't need to look to know her brow was scrunched up in her fiercest scowl. "Well, are you coming or not? You can perch on the chair," she suggested. "The innkeep won't mind." In all actuality, she did think the innkeep would mind, but even so, Numair would be footing the bill, and not herself. Considering that she was feeling mightily ungenerous towards the mage for his frantic, unreasonable bout of playing the mother hen, Daine was reasonably certain she had nothing to lose from this particular arrangement. Even Rikash's smell was tolerable, which she suspected meant either she was going insane, or developing a cold. Neither option especially appealed, considering she was in quite a good position to know what they both felt like.
"Why Veralidaine Sarrasri," the Stormwing drawled, "I do believe you're becoming nearly civilized." Much to both their surprise, Rikash gingerly detached his claws from the sill in preparation for fluttering into the room -- automatically, Daine held her breath for the reek any movement of his wings would inevitably bring -- and very nearly broke his nose as he tumbled in. Daine shut her eyes as a flailing wing hooked the (thankfully unlit) lamp off the side-table and flung it past her nose, skidding to a stop on the room's spare be. Numair was elsewhere in the valley, tonight, and as Daine was expressly forbidden from going until she was better, she hadn't even the faintest idea where exactly he'd gone. That was, however, a situation she'd soon remedy, once her world stopped spinning every time she sat up. It would just be a matter of asking a passing swallow where he might have happened to see a man who looked uncommonly like a stork...
If Numair was a stork, Rikash, Daine thought, was more like a peregrine. Compact, wiry body attached to a small, pointed nose, with wings that seemed to dwarf him completely. She managed, barely, to keep her face absolutely still as the Stormwing awkwardly righted himself. It was too much like the less-than-friendly circumstances he'd once found himself forced to waddle in to be joked about, and either of them getting cut on the edges of his feathers was a danger far too real, but all the same, he looked absolutely ridiculous, hobbling on the floor with his wings held carefully away from his body.
Daine had seen washerwomen in Corus, laundry draped on both arms, who walked with more grace than a windswept Rikash, and the mental comparison was all she needed to break out into a fit of hoarse giggling.
He looked over his shoulder at her, longsuffering, and gave her a look. "Since you're feeling so well," he grumbled, "Why don't you make yourself useful and shut the window? You're the one so worried about getting wet, and," he added, a touch nastily, "I'm not there to block the rain anymore."
Sarcasm, as always, was lost in the face of Daine's newfound cheer. "Oh, but we can't leave it closed!" the girl cried, mock-surprise on her face even as she all but burst with the wit of the joke waiting to be unleashed upon its unlucky recipient. "I think the innkeep will forgive gouges in his furniture, but putting up with Stormwing piss on the carpet would be asking a bit much, even for him."
"And you're staying here for a while," Rikash pointed out, letting his mouth curl into a wide, lazy smirk when Daine stilled. "I ought to crap on the floor, just to spite you, but while you may think otherwise, I'm perfectly capable of controlling my bodily functions when I have to." He scowled. "Now shut the damn window. If you think the cold is bad for you, imagine what it's like for me."
Daine took a moment to consider that, then blanched. "Like sleeping naked in plate armor over chain mail," she murmured ruefully, finally getting up to tug the shutters closed. Even in the dimmed light, she thought she could make out the Stormwing's face.
"Just about," Rikash muttered in return. Daine wondered, absently, if he'd been human before. Stormwings had never worn any armor that she'd ever seen, certainly, so how would he know what it felt like otherwise?
"Go to bed Veralidaine," the Stormwing barked, and Daine started, surprised to realize she'd been sitting on the edge of her bed for longer than she'd thought. "Your stork-man will have my hide if you catch some other sickness in this damnable place."
"He's not my stork-man," Daine responded automatically, and even as she began to slide underneath the bedcovers again, she found herself grinning sleepily. "And if it helps you feelp any better, he'd have both our hides."
"Yes, but he'd leave yours in one piece, because he likes you better. On the other hand, you'd need to pick up all my pieces and put me together afterwards, assuming he leaves anything more than what will fit into a bowl. Go to sleep."
"Yessir," the girl burbled into her pillow, and did just that.
Rikash was awake for considerably longer.