Icon Flash: Bed-Warmer (Rin & Girey)

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Girey

Icon & Art by Djinni

Reiassan has a Landing Page (LJ Link).

Rin was whistling as they left Ossulund, clean, well-fed, and clothed in things that fit, or at least mostly fit. She’d forgotten how fun it was to spend time with her friends, how relaxing it was to be on common ground with the people she was talking to.

Girey was, she noticed, in a better mood, too, although in his case, she had a feeling it had more to do with leaving Ossulund than being there. The crowds of Callanthe had made him tense enough that he’d barely enjoyed the luxuries of civilization he’d been missing so much, although he’d probably be back to missing them soon enough.

She turned to look at him in his custom-tailored Callanthe qitari, sitting comfortably, finally, in the wider saddle. The left-buttoning on the tunic had been her own petty joke, since all he seemed to do was whine, and whining counted as unskilled labor. But talking with Noni during their stay in Ossulund had gotten her thinking.

“He’s pretty enough,” her old friend had agreed, “especially when you clean him up. Dress him up in silks and he’d make you a fine bed-warmer, Rinny. No shame and no harm in that – until you want to get married. Then what are you going to do with your grumpy Bitrani pet prisoner?”

“Plenty of people have both a bed-warmer and a spouse,” she’d argued. She’d already seen the point, but she let Noni say it; she needed to hear it.

“Their bed-warmers aren’t foreign nobility. Yours is.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/141598.html. You can comment here or there.

14 thoughts on “Icon Flash: Bed-Warmer (Rin & Girey)

  1. Well, clearly the solution is to combine the two positions, that way neither can get jealous of the other as they are one and the same person. Just the risk of wearing the wrong ‘work uniform’ :p “Say Rin, I’ve forgotten, which role am I filling today?”

  2. Well, one imagines that will prompt Rin to consider Girey’s fate beyond short-term (medium-term, more likely, given what a grump he’s being in the short term) entertainment value. But why does it matter that he was foreign nobility (royalty)? The country in question just ceased to exist, and Rin claimed him as property. He doesn’t outrank any free person she might marry, even if she marries a commoner.

      • The attitude may fade, especially if it’s actively discouraged. And some people would find it entertaining, but that may not be the sort of husband Rin wants.

        • A snotty poncy princeling? No, not at all. But it does suit him for a bed-warmer’s position. Edit to add: I’m talking in circles *facepalm* So his snottieness would be a problem in a bed-warmer, but it also seems to incline Rin towards treating him that way, rather than husband material.

          • I was not being clear. If the problem presented to Rin is what to do with Girey if/when she marries someone else … plausibly there are people she could marry who would (be secure enough to) find her snotty princeling bedwarmer amusing rather than feeling belittled or challenged. And I agree, that attitude oh his part is not going to improve his perceived husband potential.

              • Poor dear. Well, he could go back to the plan in which he escapes and … runs for the border? Raises a revolt against the horrible new overlords? It didn’t sound like his dad was a well-loved ruler, though, which may make that tricky.

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