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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | A young Sil's secret is uncovered, but he uncovers a secret in turn. ~1200 words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Prompt Responses
Sil heaved himself over the windowsill and back into the warm darkness of his room, landing lightly enough not to wake anyone on the floor below. He slipped his treasured throwing knives out of his satchel and reached around the floorboards, feeling for the notch to open his little secret spot for safekeeping. Just as he got his fingers under the wood…
“Is that a knife?” drawled a cold, amused voice. “Have you been killing people, Silvestre?”
Sil flinched back, and the flash of a match lighted a lantern to reveal his teenage sister Sylvie in a white nightgown, her dark hair unbound. She might have looked like an innocent maiden, but Sil knew the malicious glint in her eyes all too well.
“No, of course not,” Sil whispered, tucking the blades behind his back. “I was just… I was… I was…”
“Just what, failing at killing people?” Sylvie asked, tilting her head. “Really, Silvestre, I think the only thing worse than finding out you’re a murderer would be to find out it’s just one more thing you’re not up to the challenge of.”
Sil flushed, darting his eyes to the open window and back to his sister. Reluctantly, he explained, “I practice throwing knives. It’s just for fun. Just for… for the skill of it. Something for me. Mom and dad don’t know I have them, they can’t know. They’ll take them away.”
“More than that,” Sylvie observed without sympathy. “I could tell them you’ve been sneaking out at night. They can seal up that window so tight you’ll never get out again. Maybe I should. For your own safety.”
“I’m not in danger,” Sil protested, and he flinched at the break in his own voice. But the mere thought of it, never being able to leave again… all those days his mother locked him in his room for messing up in lessons or just for being too loud and visible a child. How could he have survived until now without the escape, how would he survive… “Please, Sylvie. You can’t.”
“Oh, I very much can,” Sylvie said brightly, blowing out the lantern and plunging them both back into darkness. “Enjoy your freedoms while you have them, little brother.”
—
Sil spent the next day in anxious terror. In history lessons, his teacher chided him for his distraction and for forgetting the names of the royal family of Stromgarde. Sylvie was there to fill in his blanks. In dancing, he stepped on his instructor's toes. Sylvie moved with her usual grace, marred only by her usual impatience. By the time he was at dinner, which doubled as a lesson in etiquette, he was on the verge of panic. Sylvie seemed utterly calm. No one brought up his nighttime escapades. No one mentioned sealing up his window.
When he was finally free to go to his room, he found everything as he left it. His knives in place, his window still openable. Did Sylvie relent? No, no… his obvious dread probably heightened her amusement. He had maybe a day or two before it all came crashing down. Might as well enjoy the time he had left.
Sil carefully pulled up the window and clambered over the sill, stretching his feet for the usual little holds in the stone wall. The path was well-worn and familiar by now, and it wasn’t long till he dropped to the ground and ambled out into the city, just another young boy among so many. He headed towards the canals, a little too on edge to practice knife-throwing for the moment. Coming up towards one of the bridges into Oldtown, Sil heard something that made his blood run cold. A girl’s breathless laughter. No, not just a girl’s. Sylvie Sullivan’s.
He pressed himself up against the wall and crept closer. What was she up to? Sylvie ought to be in bed by now, same as him. He peeked around the corner, careful to keep in the shadows of the shop sign hanging up above. There she was, in one of her nicer dresses, one their mother often had her wear when noblemen came over for tea.
She was not alone.
Sil didn’t recognize the boy with her, but there was something appealing in his tousled blond hair, the crooked smile as he looked at her. And then Sil caught sight of Sylvie’s face. She looked… happy. It was an altogether unfamiliar expression on her. Her smile held none of the cat-catching-a-mouse amused malice he was used to, and there was no quiet mockery in her eyes. On the contrary, her eyes were shining.
The two of them spoke too quietly for Sil to overhear from his hidden nook, but still he stayed there, trying to make sense of it all. Sylvie was old enough for courting now, their mother had said so. She was only supposed to talk to boys she and their father had vetted. This boy didn’t look like a nobleman. He wasn’t dressed like a nobleman, more like… maybe a laborer of some sort? His clothes were coarse and his arms looked strong, and… oh, wait… was he… kissing her?
Sil blushed and closed his eyes, too nervous to make a run for it. How would he know when they stopped, when it was safe to look again? It felt like forever, or probably at least five minutes, before he heard footsteps and he cracked his eyes open again. The boy was gone, and Sylvie was coming right towards him.
She turned around the corner, and suddenly he was fully in view. She froze, staring in horror. Maybe the blood ran out of her face. It was hard to tell in such low light and she was kind of pale anyway.
“Hey, Sylvie,” Sil said, his voice a nervous whisper. “Who was your friend?”
“You can’t…” Sylvie said, her lip trembling and her voice unusually soft. Then she brought her hands up to cover her face, and it was the usual Sylvie again when she said, “You didn’t see anything, got it? And if you say you did, I’ll make you regret it.”
“Or maybe,” Sil said, looking at her. “You could just not make me regret anything? And I won’t make you?”
“What are you talking about, Sil?” She asked, lowering her hands to glare at him. “Are you trying to blackmail me? You do not want to start that game with me, little boy.”
“No, I mean…” Sil swallowed nervously. “Maybe it’s the same? You have something that’s just yours, and mom and dad don’t have to know about it. So do I. Maybe… silence would help us both.”
Sylvie stared at him for a long stretch of time, like she was trying to read past the surface of his words to see the dark current underneath. There was no dark current underneath. Finally, she nodded.
“No one has to know,” Sylvie agreed. She took a deep breath and brushed past Sil in the direction of home.
“Hey, wait…” Sil called, turning with her. “How did you get out of the house? You didn’t climb, not in…” he glanced at her full skirt.
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the mocking smile returned. She tossed her hair back and said, “Go climb your little wall, Silvestre. You don’t need to know about mine.”