something not so savage (Trent and Sabriel, unedited, unfinished)

The idea for the run came to her over breakfast, halfway through a bowl of children's cereal, on her seventh cup of sugar-laden coffee.

Her face brightened; enough to catch Trent's notice- her smile had been quite obviously absent from the House for months now. Months. He cursed the boy foolish enough to get himself erased from existance after taking her heart.
Trent kept a smile from his face- kept it carefully blank, and watched her from the corner of his eye. She finished her bite of cereal, wiped the side of her mouth the way a child would, and turned her bright green eyes toward him. A soft smile curled her lips.

"I want to run," she told him, picking up her coffee mug and draining its contents in one long sip. She made a face, obviously having gotten a mouthful of sugar sludge from the bottom of the cup.

"All right," Trent replied, arching an eyebrow and taking another drag off his cigarette: his breakfast consisted of that, a handful of various pills, and a bottle of whisky. Trent was not a morning person. "So run."

"Not here," Sabriel replied. "Not like that." Another bite of cereal. She chased a marshmellow with her spoon, and upon capturing it, offered it to Trent across the table. He started at her, contemplating a snide comment, and swallowed it, her sudden good humor catching hold of him. He hated sweets, but to keep the smile on her face, he leaned over, plucked the marshmellow- it was green- from the spoon, and ate it. She grinned at him, "I want a real run. You can't do that in the city."

"Central park?" Trent asked, assessing the taste of the marshmellow. Sickeningly sweet. He took a swig of whisky.

"No, no people. Real woods. Upstate. I'm going to go upstate and I'm going to run."

"All right," Trent said again, nodding. "That'd be nice."

"Yes," she agreed. "You're coming with me."

Trent scowled and set the bottle back on the table. "Me? I don't need a run. The moon doesn't drive me bugfuck crazy. I'm fine."

"It's not the moon," Sabriel replied softly. "Well, it is. But it's more. I just feel bad inside and I don't... want to feel that way anymore." She shrugged, and having finished her cereal by this point, wrapped her arms around herself and huddled in her chair.

She looked terribly frail; it was not something that came easily to the girl. She was taller than Trent, with a lean atheletic build, exotic good looks, and eyes so green that they gleamed emerald in the lights of the kitchen. Her long thick hair was normally a shocking shade of sapphire blue, but Trent had come home weeks ago to find it dyed jet black.

Surprising. She looked up at him, face cautious, looking younger than her twenty five years. She was wearing an old black t-shirt of Trent's, and spotted boxer shorts; her hair had been pulled back into a messy ponytail. Most women would have looked shabby and plain.

Trent coughed and looked away. "Damn it, Sabriel. I've got things... you..."

She sighed.

"All right," he said, leaning back in his chair. "All right."

Snickers from the living room- Fred and Ramon were listening in, quite obviously. He pointed at the door and it slammed shut. There were perks to living in the House.

"When do we leave?" Trent asked. The chair across from him was empty. Sabriel had launched herself around the table and wrapped her arms around Trent's shoulders, burying her face in his neck.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou," she purred, giving him a kiss on the cheek and running out of the kitchen, leaving Trent staring at her empty seat, vaguely shellshocked, listening to her feet pound up the stairs to where her room was last she'd left it.


He did not hear from her for quite some time; determined to show he was interested but not overly so, Trent took up camp on the living room couch, watching a television that had no discernable connection with actual programming. At the moment the House amused itself by giving Trent a bird's eye view of some sort of Hell dimension, possibly the one in the basement. He kept himself busy trying to identify screaming faces in the dark chaos.

Ramon came and went, sitting on the couch alongside Trent for a good hour or so, staring thoughtfully at the screen, motionless. After some time, he stood and wandered out the front door- leaving it open as he usually did, and though snow from the streets should have blown inside, it did not.

Leaning to one side, Trent caught sight of Ramon laying upon the porch rail as he often did, staring into the street, watching passersby- people who did not see him, did not see the House, but still hurried along, the place giving them a nagging feeling that urged them not to stay long. Shaking his head, Trent flicked the remote.

More hell. Hell. Hell. Hell. Terrible seventies pornography featuring an overly large woman and a man who looked a bit like a buzzard. Trent made a sound of disgust, and caught the faintest chuckle creeping from the rafters. "Bastard," he remarked, changing the channel again.

A cartoon movie about lost animals.

"You hate me," he remarked, throwing the remote and laying down upon the couch. The movie shifted on its own into a drama of the House's own making, and Trent ignored it. Finally there were footsteps on the stairway- female footsteps, light and quick, and Trent closed his eyes, perfecting a look of utter boredom.

"Ready?" Sabriel asked, leaning over him and peering into his face. He opened one eye and glance up at her. She'd showered, and was wearing a simple black dress and a long black fluffy overcoat, mostly to keep anyone from wondering how she could wander anywhere in the city without one in January.

"Yes."

"Good. Come on." She offered him a hand, and though he didn't need it, he took it. "Augh, what is that?" she asked, motioning to the television. Pornography again. The House howled laughter through the attic.

"It's being an ass today," Trent offered in explanation, "It was hell for a while, and that was all right."

"I prefer soaps," Sabriel replied, stepping out the open door and onto the porch. "I'm driving," she remarked as he followed her down the icy steps.

"Excellent. Where are we going, anyway?"

"Lake George. Ish."

Ish. Trent shook his head and made his way to the passenger side of her clunky old car. It did not seem like the sort of automobile that was reliable in the sort of weather they were presently dealing with, but it was her car, and she had faith in its ability, and that's all that really mattered. He hoped it didn't break down. He knew fuck all about machines.


The delightful thing about lycanthropes was that they were not terribly sensitive to the cold. This meant that they could drive with the windows down- Trent could smoke, and Sabriel could sing; she was not a wonderful singer, really, but not as terrible as Fred, and watching her sing along, listening to music too happy to suit Trent's tastes, his heart- if he had one- felt lighter. Her hair hipped around her face, trying to escape its ponytail, slipping beneath her large sunglasses. She took them off and gave Trent a quick smile, singing a lyric to him, perhaps, and he glanced away. Coward.




Thots?