#thronemorphs

She looked up at her fiancé. His hand was extended, and what was probably supposed to be a pleasant smile on his face, but his eyes lingered just a little lower than they should have and it was all she could do to keep from snarling at him.

Aware of the eyes on her, she very deliberately set down her knife and fork, and rose slowly. Ignoring his outstretched hand, she swept past him to take a place on the dance floor. Finally, of course, she had to take his hand, and felt her skin crawl at the contact.

They weaved slowly between the other couples, treading viciously on each other's toes. Whenever he tried to change direction, she jerked him another way, leading their path across the dance floor.

She glared fiercely over his shoulder, wishing she could simply slip into the mind of her eagle, soaring free and alone somewhere above them. But that would leave her body unattended, and Rachel Berenson did not swoon. She certainly wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

His hand, which had been firmly grasping her waist, slid around and down, and she snatched it away, digging fingernails like claws into the soft skin of his wrist.

"Let me make one thing very clear," she said softly, her tone sweet, and low enough that the other dancers would be unable to hear her words over the music. "We are betrothed. Soon, we may be married. But if you ever—ever—stick your balls up where I have not explicitly told you they can be, you will soon find them very far away from you. Do you understand?"

His returning smile was tight with pain. She thought her fingernails might be drawing blood, but didn't glance down to check.

"My mind doesn't change easily, my Lord." The honorific grated against her tongue on the way out. "It might serve you better to return to the Westerlands. I wouldn't want to waste your time."

"I don't consider any time spent with you to be wasted, dear lady."

Gods, the ones that thought they were romantic were the worst. "I wouldn't hold out hope for a marriage here, my Lord."

"I'll take that as a challenge."

They strolled arm-in-arm down the path, every muscle in Rachel's body tense. But she knew her mother was watching from the walls, and there would be hell to pay if she, say, punched that little self-satisfied smirk right off his face. Instead, she hooked one foot about his ankle, and he did a beautiful faceplant into the dirt.

"Oh my!" she exclaimed, a look of exaggerated shock on her face. "Are you all right, my Lord?" She clasped his hand and pulled him back to his feet in a single heave, leaving him off-balance and spitting out soil.

"Yes," he growled, wiping the dirt out of his eyes. His expression was somewhere between fury and admiration. "I believe my foot simply caught on a root."

"Yes, it must have," Rachel agreed with wide eyes, hamming up the innocence. "These paths are very treacherous sometimes. I'll have a word with the gardener."

He offered his arm again, and she took it without hesitation, this time gripping it so tightly that her nails bit into his flesh.

She smiled at him brightly. "Shall we go on?"

(( I did work on Thronemorphs a little bit last week before Westermorphs lured me away. I drew a map and everything. ))

CLANG!

Our blades met in a shower of sparks.

"Predictable," he said dismissively. Quick as a snake, he circled his point under my sword and lunged. I blocked his thrust, my fingers tingling from the impact.

"Clumsy," I returned. We spent a few moments circling each other slowly, watching carefully for any openings, or shifts that would give away an action. I feinted left, switching directions at the last second to aim for his right shoulder. He sidestepped.

"Too slow," he sneered, flicking his point under my hilt. My sword clattered to the ground, and the cold tip of his blade touched my throat. His dark eyes glinted dangerously. "Do you yield?"

"Your 'R' is backwards," she told me, pointing out the letter in question. I frowned at the scrap of parchment.

"It is?"

"Yes -- here." Taking the charcoal and parchment, she rubbed out the mistake and replaced it with a neat, simple letter 'R' of her own. "Sorry, I'm not being a very good teacher. Cassie's better at this than I am."

"Where is Cassie?" I wondered. Rachel shrugged.

"Helping her parents, I think. Grandpa G's sick again."

"I'll see if I can find her." Closing my eyes, I reached out with my mind and slipped into the hawk's. He had been about to swoop down on a hunt out in the woods, and I had to resist the urge to finish it for him. I was sorry to pull him away from a meal, but there would be other mice to chase.

I spent longer than I had to, strictly speaking, to fly back to the castle, losing myself in the hawk's absolute freedom as we soared high above the world. After a while I spotted Cassie, toting an empty bucket across a courtyard. I swooped down to perch on a nearby ledge in the stonework, and she smiled knowingly. "Hello, Tobias."

Unable to reply, I flew down to the ground, landing near a smooth patch of dirt. The hawk protested, vulnerable and at a disadvantage without altitude, but I pushed it aside for the moment and concentrated, scratching out shaky letters in the dirt with my talons. HELLO.

She laughed delightedly. "Oh, well done!"

I bobbed my head in a sort of mock bow.

"You'd better go now," she told me. "You don't want to leave your body lying around too long."

1. David's House: Lannis. I figure they're a very distant offshoot of the Lannisters, so distant that they're an entirely different House in the Westerlands with their own sigil and etc. Like the Karstarks are to the Starks, only a lot smaller and poorer and less important. They have no money and no land, and are looked down on by pretty much every noble out there which is why marrying David to Rachel is so important.

2. I finally picked the Berenson House words: Stillness is the sleep of swords. It's got nothing to do with Animorphs; in fact it's a slightly altered Zora Neale Hurston quote that I read in English class and thought fit the family really well.

(( :D ))

The suitor was blonde and slightly shorter than Rachel, and held himself with that proud, upright bearing seen often in landless nobles who had nothing but their names and their dignity to separate them from the smallfolk. After that first, dismissive glance, Rachel spent the rest of the welcoming formalities staring very determinedly at everything but David Lannis. Once the lord had finished his brief, obligatory words of welcome and Ser Steven had finished his rather longer ones, the small procession dispersed, and David (who, Rachel noticed as he drew closer, was rather scrawnier than he had appeared at first glance, and had a cruel note to his face that she misliked) broke away from his parents to approach.

"Have fun," Jake chuckled as he passed by on his way out the hall.

"Oh, I will," she muttered darkly.

"Ser." With perfect etiquette, David inclined his head to Ser Daniel, and then offered a sweeping bow to Rachel, her mother, and her sisters. "My ladies."

There was a pause. Naomi cleared her throat. With an almost painful slowness, Rachel held out a hand for him to kiss, which he did.

"May I say, you are even fairer than I had heard."

Or maybe Animorphs and Yeerks both warg but Animorphs don’t warg sentients without permission.