staring at the blank page before you

[novel] The Dreamer 2/?

2008-01-01T08:12:41Z

The Dreamer

Parts: 0 1

Yeah I know, more than a year since I last actually posted any of this book. But now I'm going to be writing 20000 words on it every month, so you'll soon be sick of it! Anyways, I would REALLY FUCKING APPRECIATE COMMENTS ON THE FOLLOWING:

a) character development!
b) character voice!
c) delicacy of exposition!
d) general quality of world-building!
e) character interaction!

Please be constructive about these things -- don't LOOK for something bad to say, but point out something if it's there.

I would really fucking NOT appreciate corrective comments on the following:

a) word choice!
b) grammar!
c) spelling!
d) etc!

I am ROCKETING through this in order to have it done 8) There's going to be a lot of retaded stuff as far as the style goes, and I'll catch it myself later. Save your constructivism for the other stuff.

Uneditted and prolly going to changed greatly in the final draft 8)!

C H A P T E R T W O

When the carriage they had hired at Welltown first pulled onto the road above the city of Dryton, and Joseph looked down, down, and down into the valley below, seeing the place with his own eyes for the first time, his first thought was that it was impossible.

It stretched out as far as he could see, even from so far above that the buildings seemed no more than toys. Dryton was so large and grand and ... large. it seemed completely impossible for a group of people to actually live in such a huge, closed space. He squinted, and could barely make out tiny people travelling on the streets, scurring about like ants, or something even smaller.

"Don't lean out so, my lord," Varylla called from inside the carriage, her voice muffled through the curtains that surrounded him. "It's dangerous."

Joseph pulled himself in only slightly, unwilling to look away. "It's so ..."

"Big." Varylla nodded from the opposite seat, smiling. "You get used to that, my lord."

"I can't see how I ever could ..." he breathed. The Palace -- for it had to be, with all Varylla had talked about the place -- was in the center of the city, a structure so large it actually looked medium sized from the height. The rest of the city sprang up around it like tents around the bonfire, clustering up high and proud and regal around the sides, and then slowly slumping down into normalcy the further they spread out from it, all of it packed tightly into the bowl of the valley at his feet. It all seemed like something from a vision dreamed true that Joseph was suddenly strung with a strange sense of inexplicable confidence. This was the world Varylla said he'd need to learn to hold in the palm of his hand? It didn't seem to hard now, all laid out at his feet as it it were bowing to him. Waiting for him. He couldn't help the smile that spread across his lips as he reluctantly slid from the window, back into the soft, velvet seat of the carriage.

Varylla noticed, of course. "You seem pleased."

"Maybe I am," Joseph said, his voice uncharacteristically cheerful in his own ears. For the first time since climbing into the first carriage and sitting beside this alien woman, Joseph almost felt as if he weren't being swept along in the black waters beneath an the icy river. Overconfident, and he knew it, but it was a nice feeling, anyway. He leaned back in the seat and folded his arms behind his head.

Varylla made a noise that sounded both patronizingly amused and quite sincerely affectionate, and Joseph didn't press her on its meaning. For the moment, at least, he actually didn't care. That was an even nicer feeling.

The carriage bumped and shook as it moved along the worn, travelled path that wound around the basin like a the coiled tail of a pig. Joseph closed his eyes, feeling it move against him, reflecting that, strangely, it had actually become an almost comforting feeling, one he would probably miss. A wispy voice came up through the cobwebs of his mind, and he let it draw out an image of his mind. His mother -- with her raven hair and ice-chip eyes, high cheekbones, small stature, sharp features, gentle smile -- slowly took form in the darkness beneath his eyelids, intangible and half-seen like all images built from memory are. "Joseph," she murmured, voice warm with empathy. "Joseph, dear. You need to understand." He could feel her ghostly fingers touching his chin, bringing his eyes to hers. She smiled for him, all warmth. "Don't cry, now. I know it's hard when things change, but don't cry. Your father would be so proud if you were a big boy for me ..."

"My lord. You're thinking about ...?"

Joseph cracked open an eyelid to see Varylla watching him curiously. He felt his smile turn sad. "Mother. Home."

"I see," Varylla said, pausing thoughtfully, then fixing him with a smile of her own, one that completely lacked any nuturing mother's love. "A waste of a perfectly lovely view." She indicated the window. "I said 'don't fall out,' not 'don't look.' This is going to be your new home. I'd advise you get aquainted from every angle."

Joseph bit back a retort and turned his body to look out the window once again. She could say what she wanted about him having no self control, he would show her he could keep his mouth shut as well as anyone. Better than she could, at least.

The city had grown in size considerably since he'd stopped looking, and he found himself now on eye level with the upper levels of many of the great stone buildings that sprawled out to his right. He could see the opposite side of the basin, far, far off in the distance, and between them rose countless towers, some elegant and fine, and some about as regal as a boulder. As he watched so intently he forgot his irritation at his Counsel, the spires slowly rotated as they rounded the hillside slowly, like the painted pages of the storybooks Father had sent home to him come to three dimensional life. One particular steeple, fixed with brightly coloured glass and stately, deliberately cut ornamentations, left him feeling so small and breathless it was no wonder that Varylla noticed from where she sat studying him with all the intent he studied Dryton.

"The Grand Cathedral," she murmured with something that almost sounded like reverance. "Nothing your people would find impressive, but to native Arnellians and most of its provinces, it's the holiest building in the known world, the sanctum of the faithful, and the house of God."

"Grandmother preserve us from the false southern god," Joseph replied on instinct, and was bemused when Varylla chuckled, so much that he whirled his gaze to fix her with a nonplused glare. "What?"

"Oh, I'd just be a little more careful who you denounce God to, my lord," she said, a small smile on her lips. "It doesn't bother me, but I'm afraid He has some friends in very high places."

The descended further into the basin, and now the towers that filled his vision were like a great stone forest, so thick that he couldn't see the opposite side of the hill at all anymore, which, he realized, was actually where they'd come in. The tips of the higher buildings were out of his sight, obscured by the top of the carriage window, though if he stuck his head out again, he would still be able to see them. He didn't do so. There wasn't any need to give her ammunition, after all. "How big?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

"As in ..." he searched for the words impatiently. "In total. Across. How big is the city? The valley? Across the center ...?"

"Oh, I see. Try to articulate your questions a little better. It's about thirty leagues, I believe, though I can't say if anyone's ever taken an exact measurement."

Joseph gaped. "Thirty leagues? That just can't be right. It would take more than a full day to walk across."

"Yes, that's why we generally use horses, my lord."

He ignored her dry tone, still not convinced that she could possibly be telling the truth, but as he attempted to calculate just how long they'd been winding this path down into the foot of the basin, he had to conclude that thirty leagues wasn't an unreasonable estimate of the length. He shook his head to himself. Even the towns they had passed on their long journey south had been beyond his ability to comprehend; large stone tents gathered together as permanently as forests, the largest perhaps half a league across -- at the very most. Dryton was ... he let out a stream of breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Dryton was something.

As they descended, the sunlight turned from yellow to orange as the afternoon wore on, all with Joseph never looking away from the great city that was, as Varylla insisted, now his home. The late afternoon added a ruddy, golden colour to all the buildings and flooded the valley with a warm sort of light that made it look almost ... cozy, was the best word he could put to it, like the great camp all illuminated by the bonfire just after dark. By now, he was on eye level to countless roofs through the towers, and he could barely see beyond his own window with it all blocking his vision.

The horses whinnied just before the carriage came to a slow stop, and Joseph nearly jumped from his seat when a deep, commanding voice shouted, with a voice that sounded like it was herding bison, "Dyton city! Identification, please!"

He turned in his seat to his Counsel, a feeling of unease building up as he remembered their unpleasant encounter with the skeptical innkeep in Welltown. "We don't have --" he stopped.

It must have been the gentle swaying of the carriage as it made its way down the inside of the valley, or perhaps the late hours they had stayed up all week trying to perfect Joseph's affected Arnellian accent. Or maybe it had just been the comforting feeling of knowing that she was almost home. Whatever the reason, Varylla's head lolled back against the soft cushions, whisps of her hair around her face like a halo, and her eyes were gently closed. She was asleep.

Dimly aware of their driver speaking to whoever was demanding identification, Joseph slid a little closer in the seat, fascinated beyond explanation by this surprising view of unprofessional vulnerability from the so-strange woman. She breathed evenly, still but for her chest and shoulders as she did so. He furrowed his brow, trying to sort of how this affected his perspective of her, because he knew that it did. She looked so ... so peaceful. Joseph had seen Varylla sleep before, obviously. They hardly had their own tents to set up at night. When they couldn't reach a town, they slept on the cushions of the carriage. Sometimes she drifted off before he did, and he distinctly remembered, at least once, eyeing her critically from across the way as she dreamed aimlessly. But she always woke before he did, back to business before he could even rub his bleary eyes, and this was something quite different.

A faint noise came from her throat. He furrowed his brow and leaned in close enough to feel her breath stirring the hair of his beard, listening to see if it repeated.

It did. It was much louder, this time, and Joseph pulled back and snorted in amused surprise when he realized just what the sound was.

Varylla was ... snoring. Joseph stared at her with a grin tugging at the corners of his open mouth, eyebrows in his hair. Unbelievable.

The carriage shifted, and then Joseph was aware that the voices had stopped. Debating for only a half-moment, he reached out and shook his Counsel gently.

Her eyes popped open and she immediately snapped into an upright position. She stared right ahead for a moment, her back stiffly pressed against the seat, before she blinked and breathed and visibly gathered herself. It was only then that she turned her head slightly -- and no other part of her moved at all from its rigid attention -- and made eye contact with him, her chin jutted forward and her eyes flinty. "Yes?" she asked too sharply, with all the dignity of the Sightmother.

Joseph folded his lower lip up beneath the upper and clamped his teeth down on it in a half-futile attempt to stop from smiling. "I think we're here."

"Yes," Varylla said again. "Yes, of course. We must be at the first gate, that is ... mn."

"They want identification," he felt the need to explain, as if a tidbit of information she had to already know could smooth over her obvious embarrasment. Joseph rubbed at his nose to hide his mouth, wondering just how she would look if she knew that she had snored.

She saw the smile; her glare could melt the rivers. "Of course."

"I don't have any."

She frowned. "What makes you say that, my lord?"

He would have frowned back, if he could make his face do anything but grin idiotically. "In Welltown --"

Sharp rapping on the carriage door. "My lord! My lady!"

"Ah, that," Varylla gave him her usual dry smile, though it slightly more stiff that he was accustomed to. She swiveled in her seat and put her hand on the door handle. "We have my papers, and that's quite enough. There isn't an educated man in Arnellia who wouldn't know you're who you claim to be simply because I can prove that I am." With that, she pushed the door open and stepped out into the late afternoon orange sunlight, skirts swishing as she stepped ahead, past the driver and out of sight. After a moment of absent consideration, Joseph followed after her at a less stately pace.

The road before was interrupted by a large, white stone archway. It was built into the sheer face of the cliff to their left, so high up that anyone attempting to go around it from that side would need to drop from above -- far, far above; Joseph's heart fluttered as he looked up and considered it. He nervously avoided the uneasy pawing of the horses' hooves as he approached Varylla and the guards, seeing the other side of the gate as he did so. It extended to the very edge of the road, meeting the sharp drop into the city below, also far enough that any brave man who dropped down to avoid the checkpoint would probably meet death. Joseph looked away from the edge, finding the sight ... unpleasant. Within the archway, there was a cruel looking metal latice, with wicked spikes that drove down into the dirt. It was undeniable -- anyone who intended to enter the city via this road would have to pass under this gate.

Joseph felt distinctly uncomfortable as he stopped beside Varylla, only then actually putting his focus on the words being exchanged.

"-- clearly what you say, and your situation is understandable," the four guards dressed all in metal, but the one speaking had his face exposed. He had a thick black moustache and trustworthy looking blue eyes. Joseph instantly liked him through stupid instinct alone.

"And you've been informed of our arrival, I'd expect?" Varylla was all business, her tone brisk but accomodating, friendly without a hint of warmth. "A bird should have arrived from the rookery in Welltown several days past."

"Certainly. You do seem a bit off schedule ..." the man tilted his head curiously, blinking. "We heard a disturbing report from Welltown, actually. Darkness moving, and the shadow kee --"

"Nothing to worry about," Varylla blew it off airily. Joseph frowned, uncomfortably remembering the dark figures writhing just beyond the streetlights. "They made no contact and we're no worse for the wear." She turned and indicated Joseph. He blinked, having been sure that she hadn't even heard him approach. "This is High Lord Jeren's heir." She gave him a small nod and he realized it was an invitation to speak, like in the inn at Welltown.

Awkwardly, he took a step forward so he stood beside his Counsel instead of behind and cleared his throat. "Joseph. K -- High Lord Joseph of Maluko, and this is m-my Counsel, Varylla. She --"

"As you can see," Varylla cut in smoothly, and Joseph's tongue stilled. He looked over at her, confused. "He is ... very Maluko, and I do have papers for my own identification, if you need to see them."

"I believe you're who you say, but it's policy, Lady Counsel. If you will?" Joseph looked back to the guard, and realized that the man's friendly eyes were dancing with amusement, and then, a moment later, that he'd completely forgotten his affected Arenellian accent when he spoke. A strange combination of rage and humiliation washed over him, and he took a step back again without thinking, and then another. His cheeks burned. It couldn't be because of the accent that Varylla had interrupted and the man now looked at him as if he was some sort of joke, could it?

Varylla fumbled with her papers and the guard took his time looking them over, a smirk still playing at his lips. "We didn't get a full statement from him, my lady. Maybe he could tell us again just who he is?" A chuckle rippled through the helmetted guardsmen, and Joseph could feel them all giving him that same look the one in the forefront was. He clenched his fists and went to tell them all exactly what he thought of their amusement, but, of course, his Counsel spoke before he could.

"I'm sure that's not neccessary, sir. Really, would you like me to file a complaint on your level of service?"

The guardsman lowered his blue eyes, clearly his throat awkwardly. "No, ma'am," he replied stiffly, flipping through the papers again, though Joseph was sure that was just to excuse his aversion. Finally, he glanced up at Varylla and handed her back the papers, which she took graciously. He shrugged; his armour clanked as he did. "The only doubts I have are purely incindental, my lady." His gaze slid to Joseph and the smirk returned. "My lord. We'll raise the gate. Welcome to Dryton." He nodded at them and dropped the shield of his helmet, taking the smirk and the laughing eyes from view. Joseph's cheeks burned.

The guards began moving, scurrying back towards the gate like armoured ants, all of them disappearing into door built into it, which shut behind them with a crash. Joseph could feel at least one of them peering from the barred window on it however, and glared back at it with an immature determination, his jaw clenched tightly. Just what was so funny? He spoke as if he was Maluki, was that so terrible? He was Maluki.

A great, metallic grinding noise began and a shudder rippled through the ground they stood upon, and then the metal latice began to raise up, disappearing into the stone above it as if it was melting into it. Despite himself, Joseph watched with fascinated curiousity. It took him a moment to realize that it was just being lifted into a chamber built into the gate with some sort of mechanism, probably controlled from within the guardhouse. Interesting and maybe even a little ingenius, but not so otherwordly.

"Come along, Joseph." Varylla was touching his arm then. "Once we go under the gate, we'll be in Dryton, and the first step of our journey will finally be complete. Exciting, no?"

Her tone seemed to be designed to placate him, and it did the opposite. He shook her hand off and turned in one motion, stalking back to the carriage, his feelings at being so obviously laughed at by people who were clearly just workers colliding with him once again in a tightly wound bundle. The most ridiculous part of it, he had to admit, was how he felt outright betrayed by the guardsman who he'd thought looked so friendly. He knew he trusted too easily -- Varylla had scolded him for it time and time again on their long journey south, but he had irrationally liked the stranger, only to be slapped in the face by -- he mentally slapped himself as he ducked into the carriage. When he already knew it was ridiculous, there was no use dwelling on it. He dropped into his seat so hard the carriage shook and squeaked in protest, and he turned his gaze to look back out the window. The light was dimming, and in the orange sunset and purple twilight mixed together, the city now managed to look offensive. If he thought hard enough, he could imagine every single member of its impressive population judging him and mocking him with friendly blue eyes because he talked funny.

The carriage shifted as Varylla climbed in, and he heard her shut the door behind her before she delicately took her seat beside him. He just waited for her to break out the "I told you so," but she said nothing, at least not immediately. Moments later there was a jerk as they began moving, anad they passed beneath the gate in silence.

It was several minutes later when Varylla spoke. "We're in Dryton." Her voice wasn't not smug, and that was enough for Joseph.

"You must be thrilled," he said flatly.

"Well, it's been a very long journey and this is my home, so yes, I suppose I am."

"A long -- not because we're in Dryton, because I made an idiot of myself for your viewing pleasure, exactly like you said I would."

"Ah, that." He could read nothing in her tone that betrayed her feelings on the matter, which for some reason just upset him more.

"You were hoping for that, weren't you?" He refused to turn and look at her, focusing his gaze the roof of some impressive mansion close at hand.

"Why would you say that?"

"You can't deny it. What better way for you to demonstrate just how right you were? It's impossible for an Arnellian to take a Maluki seriously. You've proved your point. I sound like a savage, and that's funny, right?" He shook his head angrily. As if they had any right to judge. "I sound like I'm from the north and live in a tent and wear furs --"

She made a curious noise. "Actually, at the moment you sound like an Arnellian slurring your vowels just a little."

He stopped in mid-tirade, suddenly realizing that she was right. He was using the accent she'd taught him, without even meaning to. Wordlessly, his mouth worked as he tried to explain his actions without making himself look even worse. There was nothing that could be said. It took all of his effort not to light a blue and purple candle right there, though he resisted. If Varylla knew what the colours meant, he was sure she'd find it amusing, and really, the situation was nowhere near grave enough to need it.

Varylla sighed and shifted. "Once bitten, twice shy," she said lightly.

He turned, finally. She was looking at him curiously, with something half-amused and half-sympathetic in her eyes. The sympathy touched him, though he was upset at himself for it. He shouldn't want her pity. "What?"

"Once bitten, twice shy. It's a saying," she explained. "Once you're bitten by the dog -- or whatever else bites people, I've never given it enough thought to have a list prepared -- you go out of your way to avoid it, perhaps without even conciously meaning to."

Joseph couldn't help but smile slightly. "He who calls down an avalanche learns to whisper."

Varylla inclined her head. "Or that. And your accent is back."

He felt his smile vanish as quickly as it had come. "I don't care."

She shrugged, looking amused, and turned her eyes away from him to study the empty seat across from them. "As you say."

"You did enjoy that," he accused again, determined to have her admit it.

"Of course, because I'm an emotional sadist and nothing pleases me more than seeing you humiliated by the working class. Is that how you're looking at this?"

He ducked his head and turned his head away to hide the shame the statement filled him with. Phrased like that, of course he sounded like an idiot. He tried to find a response, but none came that didn't make him look all the worse.

"Honestly, I would have preferred you'd listened to me and done it as I said in the first place. I didn't need to see them mock you to know that I was right." She made a thoughtful noise and he heard her shift in the seat. "Though this isn't exactly bad, thinking in the long term. As you said, it's good that you've brought down the avalanche. You'll remember to whisper better."

Joseph rolled his eyes at his flippancy, but couldn't ignore the truth of what she was saying -- all of it. "And I have incentive to avoid the biting dog."

"Exactly." He could hear the smile in her voice.

He sighed, bitterness creeping into his voice as he spoke, "You'd think that I weren't wearing any clothes, or something, from how amusing they found it. Does it really sound so silly?"

"To them it does."

"Not to you?"

"As I've said numerous times, my lord, I have the highest respect for your people. To me it sounds wrong, but I wouldn't say silly."

"How is it wrong?" He scoffed.

She chuckled. "How is it not wrong? That's not how it's meant to sound. Arnellians invented the language, Arnellians should decide how to speak it, don't you think?"

"I think that the way I speak it is the way I was taught to speak it, and the way that comes -- naturally to me. My mother spoke it the same. I can't see how that's wrong."

Varylla sighed. "Allow me to demonstrate my point in a way that might make more sense to you, my lord," she proposed. "The sun will quickly be set. I hope we are to be arriving at your estate before the darkness falls."

Joseph turned back to her quickly, shocked. It was harsh and overpronounced and gutteral, not to mention just incorrect, but it was Maluki she was speaking. She watched him dispassionately, an eyebrow raised, waiting for a response, and he searched her face as if seeing it for the first time. "That was Maluki."

"You are sounding surprised," she continued, still in his native language, still just recognizable enough to understand.

Baffled, he stuttered around the language that so quickly had managed to become unfamiliar. "You said no one in the south could speak it. I thought ..."

"I was meaning it was not spoken as a language by the peoples. Scholars can be speaking it, and archivists as well," she smiled knowingly. "Or, perhaps, one who has been trained to be giving of counsel to the Lord of Maluko."

"Why didn't you say anything before this?"

"Because it isn't good for you to still be speaking it at the moment," Varylla replied, switching back to Arnellian as if she hadn't just been conversing in his own tongue. "And you seem to have completely missed the point of why I revealed that just right now."

Joseph shook his head. "You can't just tell me you can speak in my own language than then refuse --"

"In Arnellian, please."

"That isn't fair. I don't like speaking in your language anymore than you like --"

"Arnellian, my lord."

He growled in frustration. "Fine, then. We do it your way, as always. What was the point that I missed so spectacularly?"

"I speak Maluki. I don't speak it especially well."

"I noticed. You don't know how to put your verbs together, and your tense is wrong, and --"

Varylla held up a hand and shook her head. "I realize all of that. Your father found it about as amusing as the guardsmen found you. But I actually refer to my accent. Pretend, for a moment, that all of my grammar was impeccable." She cracked a smile. "A stretch for the imagination, indeed, I know. But humour me and do your best. Assuming I did correctly have all the words where they belonged, would my speech be right?"

He saw the point, and side-stepped it neatly out of what he recognized as childish spite. "If you had everything correct, would it be correct, you mean?" He half-smiled with petty self-congratulation. "I think that question answers itself."

"My, how very cheeky, my lord. I'm sure the other members of the King's Council will be blown away by your impressive wit." Her voice couldn't be any more dry if she had hung it out under the sun for a day. He felt distinctly unmanned. "You do know what I mean, and you do know that I'm right. If someone had come to the Tent of Elders speaking like that, would your King have cheerily welcomed their 'cultural singularity'," she spoke the phrase as if it were a grand joke, "or would he have assumed they were an ignorant southerner who had no concept of your ways?"

Joseph didn't answer, because there was no answer he could give that wouldn't herald her victory on a point they'd been arguing since she'd first heard his Arnellian.

"I'm sure you realize your lack of response is response enough. I won't point it out."

He ground his teeth and bit off a retort -- 'you think you're so clever' never sounded mature, he'd learned a long time ago -- and instead studied the consistantly deeper purple shadows touching the buildings that grew more and more numerous outside the window. A question sat on the end of his tongue, but he wrestled between his desire to know and the subtle declaration of defeat he knew it was. He hoped Varylla would continue, perhaps even steering their conversation in the direction he wanted to spare him the embarrasment, but the shadows grew deeper and the orange light faded and the city continued to ever so slowly rotate until he resigned himself to just spitting it out and hoping she felt compassionate.

"And how is my accent now?" He employed all the lessons she'd given him as he said it.

"It sounds as if you're trying with some success, which is probably good enough for now, and I think with some more practice, only your appearance will denote you as Maluki. Honestly, uour grasp of the language itself is quite ... extraordinary. You vocabularly is complex and I've never once heard you make any of the grammar foibles I make when speaking your language."

"My mother taught me," Joseph felt the need to explain. "She's considered the best in Maluko. She used to spend hours out of the day speaking to me only in Arnellian, and forcing me to speak the same back. She wouldn't listen to me if I said anything in Maluko, and she wouldn't dumb down her own words at all. I would get so frustrated with her, begging her to just stop the lesson and talk to me, but I would have done better arguing with a stone. I don't she ever even acknowledged it, since I always did the begging in Maluki." He smiled, remembering Mother just continuing her mending, smiling and humming to himself, immovable in the face of all his pleading. Eventually, after he'd burned himself out and sat sullenly on the floor in silence, she'd turn to him casually and ask a gentle, tender question -- in pointed Arnellian.

"Is that so?"

Joseph blinked away the past and slid a glance over at his Counsel. She looked genuinely surprised at the story, which he, in turn, found ... well, surpising. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"It just seems a little ... harsh for your mother."

Joseph furrowed his brow. "No offense, but I don't think you really know enough about my mother to say that."

Varylla studied him a moment before turning away and making a dismissive gesture. "I suppose I just found her very ... gentle, when I stayed in your tent."

"She is gentle," Joseph replied, searching Varylla's face for some hint of her reasoning, but found nothing. She was as unreadable as ever. He was convinced that the only times he could read her were when she let him, and even then, what he read may not be what she was feeling. "The most gentle, sensitive, kind person I know."

"Precisely, I felt the same thing from her." But she did seem to be hiding something, from the way that she didn't meet Joseph's eyes and how she dismissed the statement so easily -- or perhaps Joseph just thought she was hiding something when she actually just didn't care enough to debate the question seriously, which was possible and even likely. He sighed. He would never really be able to understand her.

"That doesn't mean that she's not capable of ignoring me to teach me a lesson," he pressed, determined to defend his mother's strength.

Varylla made a noncommital sound. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

"You seem to disagree."

"Like you said, my lord, I hardly know your mother at all. I don't disagree so much as I don't think it especially matters. Clearly, I misread her, which from an acquaintance of several days, is quite reasonable." She finally looked at him, fixing him with a bemused expression. "Am I on trial?"

Joseph looked away, suddenly embarrassed at how hard he'd pressed it. "Of course not. She's my mother. I'm defensive."

"I was hardly attacking her."

"Saying she's too 'gentle' to raise a son properly sounds like an attack to me."

"And your summary of my statement sounds like an impressive skewing of reality. I said nothing like that. Really, my lord, you need to stop being so 'defensive' if you're going to succeed on the Council. Or are you just cranky because of the guards back at the gate, still?"

"I'm not cranky."

"You're very cranky, actually. I don't believe I've ever seen you so contrary."

Joseph was suddenly very tired of the fight. He leaned far back in the seat, waving her off. "I guess it doesn't matter, just like you said. You're right, I should be less defensive." He paused before elaborating, just so that she didn't congratulate herself too hard on cowing him. "She's my mother, though, and I think that's on a short list of things I should be allowed to be defensive about."

"When you're defensive, you're stupid," Varylla said, not looking at him.

Joseph blinked. She sounded almost angry with him, which made so little sense it was baffling, and a little offensive. "Excuse me?" he asked.

She looked over and studied him for a moment, more unreadable than ever, and then shook her head. She looked oddly tired, but he supposed it made sense. She'd been sleeping earlier and it was almost dark. When he thought of it, he was a little tired himself. Varylla tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before speaking. "When you're defensive, you're unguarded. It's always stupid to be unguarded."

"Well, I apologize," he said sarcastically, a little miffed.

Her gaze focused on him, and the tiredness seemed to scurry in behind her sharpness. "That's an important lesson," she said firmly. "One you'd do well to learn now, before you call down another avalanche. I promise this one wouldn't be as inconsequential as a few men you're likely to never meet again laughing at you. Trust me."

He held her gaze for as long as he could, but Varylla in her most focused, piercing state was still a challenge far beyond his capabilities to stand against. He slid his gaze away and turned it back outside. They were seeing almost the base level of the city, now, and he realized it would only be a matter of minutes before they finally ended their descent and turned into its alien streets. The golden glow from above was gone now, and when he looked up, he could see stars clustered in a purple sky. But another light rose from below, hundreds of lanterns lit like some sort of beacon for southern civilization.

"I guess I'm home ..." he murmured.

"That you are," came the equally quiet reply. He hadn't meant for Varylla to hear him speak, but for whatever reason, it didn't especially bother him that she had.

The horses' hooves clattered loudly on the roads -- cobblestone, Varylla called the small, rounded rocks that were lined up as if they were waiting for something to happen on the roads. Joseph couldn't help his bemusement at the concept -- southerners seemed to think that anything was better when it was made of stone, and he couldn't see the benefit of stone roads. The sound of their progress was accented by the loud voice of their driver, who announced his passengers' identidy as if it were his sacred duty.

Outside the window, strangers on foot bustled along behind wrought-iron fencing, carrying all manner of things in their arms. Some stopped and watched with a sort of curious fascination while the carriage rattled past, several going so far as to bow low as they did so, hearing the driver's proclaimations. Within minutes, he'd seen more people than he'd ever seen before in his life, all illuminated only by the lanterns above their heads, and more than half of them seemed to know him.

Stone buildings lined road behind the fenced walkways, their signs proclaiming grocery or apothecary or tailor. Joseph saw five separate tailors before asking Varylla why there could possibly be a need for so many on one street, within no more than twenty minutes of one another. Southerners felt more comfortable the more options they had for trivialities, she'd replied with a small smile, so long as the important things were all decided for them.

At first, the builings they saw were well built and dignified, but as the road wore on and they delved further into the heart of Dryton, the austerity of the buildings increased, and Joseph went from interested, to impressed, to awed at the ambitiousness of their design. Quaint shops became elegant, artistically designed boutiques, which in turn slowly built until they were regal emporiums. As they moved and Joseph gawked, trying to see as much as he could through the murky darkness that hovered just outside the reach of the lanterns, Varylla explained the design of the city.

The Palace had been built at the center of the basin, and the city had moved outward from there, the magnificence descending the further one moved from the center, as Joseph had seen from far above the city. But, Varylla explained, that wasn't the sum and parts of the system. Over time, the upper classes had purposely built the city to be a pleasant experience to those travelling through it, and thus, they'd pushed the slums into unforgotten corners where no one would travel in the span of a day, and lined every road anyone of importance would find worth their time with shops like the ones he had seen at the mouth of the road they'd first turned on to -- pleasant places that were thoroughly inoffensive.

Her explanation fanned out as she continued on to the economical benefits this system created, which all went completely over Joseph's head, and from that, to how Dryton maintained such power in such an unhospitable position. There was a long tunnel out of the far cliff-face, she explained, sounding more like a textbook than a woman, a day-long journey that led to an inlet of a great bay, where Port Dryton swelled up. Its location was such that every major trade city on the continant had full and easy access to it, and the goods were shipped to and from Dryton in constantly moving caravans. In addition, countless farms were built around the area Port Dryton was in. Their proximity the city gave them the full protection of Arnellia's military might, and their proximity to the port and the tunnel made it easy to transfer the products of their agriculture not into the city, where it entered the economic flow and made its way to the people, but easy, as well, to ship the food out of Dryton and to other provinces with less reliable agricultural possibilties, who paid good money for it. It was largely through this system that Arnellia had slowly gained the economic, military, and political might to conquer every country on the continent and become an empire in all but name.

Joseph allowed all of this to wash over him, nodding and answering the easy questions she posed him at intervals to ensure his continued attention. His focus was more taken by the impossible world just outside his window.

In one way, the forest of stone and people awed and dazzled him, and in another, it made him distinctly uncomfortable. He remembered the first time he'd seen an Arnellian building, the first time he stepped inside one, and the paralyzing fear he'd felt in that moment. He also remembered, with even more unpleasantness, the last time he had dreamed true, and the stone room lined with books -- a library, he now knew enough to recognize -- and the fear that had poured into him. He remembered how the Sightmother hadn't been able to tell him anything, and how she had died so soon after, and the laughing skull of Death. It was all enough to make his heart beat quicker. He reminded himself of Varylla's flat, unsympathetic look when she'd realized how deeply that first inn had upset him. She had told him on no uncertain terms to pull up his hose and get used to it, because he was going to spend the rest of his life inside of stone walls.

He supposed she was right, and breathed deeply to calm himself. He resolved to focus more on the wonder than the fear, and to remind himself of the laughing guards everytime the fear refused to be ignored. Arnellians lived in stone builings, and whatever he thought of it, he lived as an Arnellian now.

The driver quieted, and they passed through a gate and beyond a thick stone wall -- more stone. It was to separate the shops from the upper class residences, Varylla explained, and Joseph soon saw what she meant. If the greatest of the shops had been impressive, the least of the mansions was wondrous. Unlike the shops, which had been clustered together with scarce room to breathe, these estates had plenty of their own land, and it took up to a minute to drive past the grounds of the smallest of them. The building sprawled out like a forest all its own in the center of the grounds, close enough to the road so that those driving by could be impressed, or so Varylla claimed. The rest of the grounds were filled with colourful, dizzying gardens, the smells of which were sweet and strong to the point of being nauseating. Gone were the scurrying locals, busy with a thousand things, and in their place were occasional members of the upper class, their paces stately and their dress regal. When the driver saw them, he went back to his pronouncements, and these people always stopped and bowed low, many kneeling outright with utmost respect. Joseph found himself consistantly embarrassed by this, and went so far as to turn away from the window whenever he heard the driver's voice. How did Arnellians treat what they saw as a member of a Council with so much more over the top ceremony than Malkuki treated what they saw as a King?

"I would try to get used to that," Varylla advised, sounding amused. Joseph didn't reply, but he realized she was probably right.

The Grand Cathedral was at the end of the upper class area. Joseph realized something was different when the estates outside the window to his right suddenly dropped away. His curiousity overcame his good judgement for the moment, and he stood and twisted his head out the window. They were in a circular kasdjak of impossible porportions, paved with cobblestone and surrounded by tall, delicate wrought-iron, the detail of which made the fences from the trade area look like no more than wooden stakes. In the centre of this impressive sight was the Cathedral, which was so much more brilliant from the ground than from above it was barely recognizable as the same place.

For all the heresy of it, Joseph was struck dumb with amazement. The size, the scope, the construction -- the most amazing thing of all was the brightly painted windows, all filled with images of the false southern god, light up brightly with coloured light that streamed out from the inside and then faded away into the darkness.

"Impressed?"

Joseph pulled himself back into the carriage as they trotted along the perimeter of the circular square and the cathedral moved out of view to the left of the carrige. He could still see it from Varylla's window, though just its stony foundations. "The Grandmother doesn't need a church," he felt the need to tell her, feeling slightly feeble in comparison. "She's everywhere."

"God is too, or so the priests would have me believe, but they feel compelled to build a house for him anyway." Varylla chuckled. "I suppose they think that since He's everywhere, He's there, and thus he does indeed live in every church in the world. Their logic is just flawless, no?"

Joseph couldn't help smiling back at her flippant tone, despite somehow being offended that she didn't at least take her heresy seriously. "I thought your God banished those who don't believe in him to some painful underworld in the afterlife. Aren't you worried about your soul?"

Varylla made an airy, dismissive gesture. "I never said I didn't believe in him. And if I didn't, I wouldn't be especially worried about that dark underworld, because I wouldn't believe in that, either, now would I?"

Joseph furrowed his brow. "Then why don't you show Him respect and honour?"

Varylla's expression turned soft and almost serious; she turned away from him and looked out her window at the Cathedral passing by them. "A very long story."

"We're going to be together for a very long time."

She smiled again, archly. "And you still won't hear the story. How unfortunate for you."

Joseph rolled his eyes and looked away, turning his attention to the impressive wrought-iron fence off to the right, outside his own window. Varylla said nothing else for the remainder of their time close to the Cathedral, and Joseph didn't complain for the silence. Another stone wall and another gate went by, and then they were in a world so august it made even the splendid estates they'd barely just passed look toylike in comparison. Not only were they even grander and larger and more palatial, they were otherworldy.

The first structure they passed was notably different from the architecture of the previous ones, even to Joseph's untrained eye. The rooves were constructed higher, the design was longer and shorter, and the style and colouring was just foreign. He made no mention of it to Varylla, certain he was simply tired and imagining it, but then the next estate that passed by his window, minutes later, was even stranger. It was built as only relatively small floor stacked atop another, acsending far, far above into a dainty spire that Joseph recognized in his memory soon after they passed it as one of the towers he'd admired from the edges of the basin as they climbed down into the city, a delicate, violet construct that had seemed to beautiful to be real. "What are these buildings?" he asked, then, sure that it wasn't something he was making up.

"Exotic, aren't they? These are the eminent homes of the members of the King's Council and those like me, every one originally constructed to match the homes the Lords would be used to in their homelands."

Joseph twisted in his seat, surprised at the answer. "Then this is where we'll ..."

Varylla nodded once, neatly. "We're nearly home."

Eagerly, Joseph turned his attention out the window as a small palace built with curved, graceful lines slowly passed by his window. A home built like those from Maluko? He imagined grounds of this size planted with pine trees, an articial brook running through, and a clearing in the center where a tent the size of Tent of the Elders had been, with rooms divided by thick cured hide and furnished with all the best the south could offer. He could even stand for one of their stoves to replace a fire in the center, thinking of the heat they put out and how easy they were to control, and --

The carriage slowed to a halt and Joseph looked out his window to see a manor that looked ostentatious, majestic, lordly, and nothing if not Arnellian. Blinking in confusion, Joseph turned in his seat, half-expecting to see the small forest pictured in his mind on the other side of the carriage, and instead saw Varylla, watching him with the face of one expecting something unpleasant that they'll have to deal with.

"... this is the Maluki manor."

"Indeed."

"It's Arnellian."

A smile flittered across her lips and then was gone. "Nothing slips past you, my lord."

Joseph stared at her for a moment, unsure of what to think, and then, finally, something snapped inside of him and he threw his hands up in exasperation before turning, looping his hand into the latch, and flinging the door near off the carriage. "Fine, then," he spat, gathering up his small fur bag. "Just fine. What problem could I possibly have with this?" He threw himself out of the carriage and nearly tripped on the uneven cobblestone road, but found his footing quickly and climbed up onto the walkway above it. Behind him, he heard Varylla moving to climb out after him, and heard her voice briskly addressing the driver. She sounded none too leisurely. Well, good. He knew it was quite unreasonable to blame her, it wasn't as if she'd built the place, but she was Arnellian, and at the moment that was enough to make her his enemy.

The latch on the gate in the fencing was difficult to manuever, but he managed after several seconds of fumbling, pushing it open hard and stalking past onto the long stone pathway through the evenly trimmed grass. The gate swung on squealing hinges behind him, and he trusted Varylla to latch it when she caught up, which he could hear her labouring to do on the road. He spitefully quickened his pace to stay ahead of her. His face burned, and once again he felt like no more than a grand joke to the whole southern world. Even the cityfolk who'd stopped to bow at him now seemed mocking in his memory -- that, or just placating him, which was almost as bad.

Joseph reached the door and found, to his frustration, that it was locked. He grabbed the golden knocker and slammed it hard five times. It carved in the shape of a grizzly bear, he noted, a familiar face, but one that did little to soothe his anger. Put a northern bear on the door, and perhaps the savage from the north would be content with his home? It was an affront, that's what it was. The whole property, everything about it, was an offense, and the fact that it was locked against him and there was no one coming to open it up seemed almost poetic justice.

"I have the key." He heard her voice at his elbow and didn't turn to look at her when he stepped aside to let her do her work on it. She fumbled with the knob, and the door swung inward, opening to a lofty foyer illuminated with a soft, golden light from sconces on the walls and from a regal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, covered in a hundred candles. Varylla turned to him and cordially indicated for him to go ahead of her; he did wordlessly, stepping into the structure that was now, apparently, his home.

The door clicked shut behind them. "Should I inform the King that you're dissatisifed with your accomodations?" she asked.

He couldn't tell if she was being serious or mocking, but knowing what he did of her, he assumed the latter. He shook his head, taking a few steps into the room; the sound of his boots on the polished stone floor echoed faintly through the entrance hall, the sound chasing itself up the large curving staircase and through the four different doors that opened to this room. "Oh, why not. I'm sure he could use the laugh."

"You sound quite annoyed. Do you know this is the nicest structure built in this style in the known world, apart from the Palace itself? Some might call it selfish that you're so angry at nothing."

Joseph turned on her, glaring. She looked back flatly with one eyebrow raised. "Nice? Nothing? This is a slap in the face," he snapped.

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. Every other building in this quarter is completely tailored to make the man living in it feel at home. And this is what they build for my people? How could it not be an insult?"

"Ah ... hello?"

Joseph and Varylla turned in one motion to look at the diminuitive figure standing in an archway off to one side. At first glance, he thought it was a young girl wearing trousers and short hair, but after a moment he realized it was actually a boy, no older than fifteen winters, if that, with fine features and wispy blond hair. He was momentarily unseated from his angry chair by his surprise at seeing someone here. "Hel --"

Varylla thought faster. "Ah, Evan, it's so nice to see you again. I trust everything has been fine since I went north?"

"Yes ... yes, of course, my lady ..." the boy -- Evan -- replied, ducking his head in a quick bob. "We've all been ... quite fine ... can I take your things, or call Stuart to ... or ...?" he trailed off, leaving the question hanging like meat in a smokehouse.

"Our things are somewhere between here and Welltown, which I don't want to explain because it's a very boring story," Varylla replied lightly. "But you can have Brianna ready our rooms, and if Susan could bring us tea in the first parlour --"

"-- I take coffee," Joseph replied, dazedly.

"Ah, coffee for the young master, then, and tea for me. Milk and sugar?" She asked him.

"Black," he replied.

Varylla made a face. "Black, apparently," she reported to the boy. "And two milks, one sugar, for me, as usual."

"Yes, of course, my lady ..." Evan's shy eyes slid over to Joseph and he caught a small lip between his teeth, studying him curiously. "This is ...?"

"High Lord Joseph of the Maluko province," Varylla said. "Lord Jeren's son, and your new master. Obviously. Really, Evan, you shouldn't have to ask."

The boy hunched up his shoulders and looked down at his feet, but not before Joseph saw red bloom across his white cheeks. "Y-yes, of course, my lady. I ... ah, apologize, my lord." He dipped in a quick, shallow bow, then turned and nearly fled from the archway, disappearing into the shadows.

"I see he hasn't changed at all, not that I expected it," Varylla said as she watched him go.

"Who is he? Who are all those people you mentioned?"

"A place like this doesn't run itself, my lord."

"I'm not used to being served. I don't think I could get used to being served."

"Well, you'd better, because they'd all be quite up the river without a paddle if you suddenly decided to serve yourself." She turned and looped one of her arms through Joseph's. He looked down at her in surprise. "Come along, the first parlour is right through here."

His anger came back to him as they walked through the beautiful, regal, undeniably Arnellian hallway she lead him through, and by the time they reached an equally Arnellian parlour, he was once again mad enough to spit. He pulled his arm away from hers the second it could be seen as anything but childish petulance and dropped into the closest chair. It was soft and solid and well built, but for some reason it reminded him of how closely the stone walls loomed around him and he gritted his teeth. The tent in his imagination would have been such a relief, with pliable, breathing walls and earthy, familiar construction. He shouldn't be in this alien estate while all his peers would come home to feel like they were understood.

Varylla gingerly sat into the chair closest to his, the space between them occupied by a small, high, round table -- just large enough to place cups or small plates on. "I take it you'll want it all torn down," she said.

"What?"

"The manse. You clearly despise it. I suppose you'll want it completely torn down to the ground. Replaced with a Maluki tent, perhaps. All the servants would be out of place there, so they'll need to find new work. But I'm sure they'll be fine, considering their work experience."

Joseph studied her for a moment before making up his mind. "You're trying to make me feel guilty for hating it."

"Not at all. Why would I?"

He scoffed, leaning back in the chair. "How should I know? You obviously think that me being upset about it is unreasonable."

"I wouldn't say unreasonable ... uninformed, perhaps, and a little disappointing. The story of how this place was built is actually something of a legend. Would you like to hear it?

He was curious. "No. I'm sure it involves chuckling Arnellians and the Maluki accent, and I'm not interested."

She continued as if she didn't hear -- or as if she had, and read his feelings rather than his words, as she did a little too often for his comfort. How was it that he could never tell what she thinking, and yet she usually had him on the nose? "Some time ago, this property was built probably just as you'd imagined it before you saw it. A traditional Maluki camp of one, with a tent that could put any you had seen to shame. It had been built that way when the Council was first formed, and since then, the pines that grew here had become large and strong. There were even animals brought down from the north to wander the grounds -- harmless ones, or course. Ermine and grey squirrels. I'm sure it was a home that you would have been pleased with. But -- there's always a but -- the other members of the King's Council always thought the place was an embarrasment to the quarter, and it was a joke at court for years and years. Ah, Susan, yes, thank you, do come in."

Joseph hadn't heard anyone come in; he'd been too busy being angry at the story to notice. But now he saw a large, dark haired, middle-ages woman with a tray bustling into the room, a small silver tray with two teacups sitting upon it in her hands. She moved between the two of them and set the tray upon the table, dipping in a curtsey and fixing Varylla with a questionning look. The Counsel waved her off as she pulled the cup up off the table with the other hand. "That's quite enough, thank you, Susan."

He took his own cup while the woman left as quickly and silently as she'd come in, feeling the warmth spreading to both hands as he surrounded it, then raising it to his face to inhale the bitter scent. The first drought was so perfect he almost forgot his anger. It had been so long since he'd had a cup of strong, black coffee. "Don't drink anything on the road south," his mother had advised him gravely. "Terrible stuff they serve, all of it."

"I thought Maluki preferred herbal teas," Varylla said pointedly.

"We do," Joseph replied, somewhat guiltily. "My mother had a taste for coffee for a long time, since she tried some from a peddler in her youth. Father would send her home tins of it from the south -- from here. She hooked me on it when I was a boy."

"I see," Varylla took another long drink of her tea, then set it upon the table between them. "Now, where was I ...?"

"Something about your people all being bigots," he muttered bitterly, but she didn't seem to hear.

"The lords of Maluko generally ignored the talk and did nothing about it. Some were just as embarrassed as the others about it, though for a different reason, of course. Others thought quietly enjoying their home was worth a few slanders and took it like martyrs. And yet others were fiercly offended that such talk even existed -- you would have gotten along very well with them, I think. Regardless, it was a very long time before one young lord was willing to do anything about it. Within his first month in Dryton, he realized that the property caused others to not take him seriously on the Council, that the joke it had become was seated on something deeper: a fear of the unfamiliar, and an excuse for the further derision of the Maluki people in this city.

"And so he acted. He had the property completely razed to the ground. The pines were all uprooted and used for lumber, the tent was dismantled and sold in pieces, the animals were set free into the wild. He hired a skilled, ambitious architect to design this small palace, and funded the building with as much of his own allowance from the Crown as possible. Of course, the time came in court when a joke was made that the lord had taken all the of 'light-hearted teasing' to heart and was hiding behind normalcy, and then the lord was willing to defend his actions. He said -- now what was that, exactly ...?" Varylla raised the cup to her mouth, sipping thoughtfully, and then quickly drew it away, setting the cup down and holding up a finger while she swallowed. "Yes, of course, that was it. He said 'The High Lord of Maluko is a member of this Council, and he will be heard. If you won't listen to a man who lives in a skin tent, I'm more than happy to live in a stone house. And then if you find another reason not to listen to me, I'll fix that, as well, until you have no excuses left. Then what will your reason be?'"

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room as the question hung, and Joseph didn't know how to respond to the story. Finally, he awkwardly shrugged. "That's not a very interesting story, and I still hate this building." He took a long drink of his coffee.

"The young lord's name was Jeren."

And choked on it.

He coughed and set cup aside, wiping at his lips with the back of his hand while his mind whirled. "My father?" he asked, when he could.

Varylla nodded, then cocked her head to one side. "Or so the story goes."

Joseph looked around, suddenly seeing the walls that surrounded him in an entirely new light. "My father built this house?"

"Not with his own two hands, but I suppose you could say that. The look on your face is interesting. Could it go from insult to promised land so quickly?"

He glared at her. "It's not like that."

She inclined her head. "Of course not. But --"

"Ah, excuse me, my lady ...?"

Joseph twisted around at the sound of the familiar voice. It was Evan again, looking every bit as girlish and skittish as before, his hands curled into a knot before him and his eyes focused on them as if they were a lifeline. "Brianna s-says that your rooms are ready, now ... whenever you'd like ..."

"Thank you, Evan." Varylla stretched catishly in her chair, focusing her attention back on Joseph. "Well, I don't know about you, but I've been exhausted for a week, and the thought of sleeping in a well-stuffed bed with the promise of no carriage tomorrow is too precious for me to prefer your company right now, my lord. I'm sure you'll forgive me. Until tomorrow?"

"Until tomorrow ..." Joseph agreed as Varylla stood from her chair.

"Just speak to Evan when you want someone to take you to your room. You can be in the foyer, waiting for him, can you not, Evan?" Varylla asked, and the boy nodded. "Good. Sweet dreams, my lord. Sleep well."

"Good night," he said it without really thinking, only half watching Varylla as she walked from the room and off down the long hallway they'd come in from, Evan following her after dipping him a quick bow. The rest of his attention was taken with the lines of the doorway, the design in the marble on the floor, the delicate, coloured flowers climbing up the papered walls, and the polished stones that made up the hearth.

A hearth. A fire in a hole in a wall, he'd described it to the Sightmother in what seemed like a lifetime ago, when he hadn't the first idea what a hearth even was. And years, many years before he'd even not known, his father had given his approval at that one right before him, agreeing that it would be perfect in the first parlour of the new home he was building, a home that he had to know his son would one day live in.

"My father's home ..." he murmured, turning the phrase over in his mouth and feeling completely uncertain with how it tasted there.

He felt tiredness creep up on him while staring into the flames, halfway through his the coffee, and decided for bed sooner rather than later. Varylla's descripton of sleep had made it seem all too appealing, and he couldn't get the promise of a soft bed from his mind. He left the cup beside Varylla's, and was halfway back to the foyer before he realized he'd concluded without a thought that one of the servants would see to the abandonned cup as if it was nothing.

"Welcome home," he told himself. That tasted even worse.

dragonglass @ 2007-07-10T10:13:00

2007-07-10T13:11:42Z

View Poll: #1018674

[original] Nostalgia

2007-07-10T12:56:44Z

Unrelated to any of my projects and probably a completely pointless, ugly waste of creative energy.

The girls by the bike racks had pointed her towards the outdoor courts, all with those condescending smirks on their lips. She'd noticed them, hated them, filed them away, and then pretended they weren't there all within the span of a second, before turning her bike and wheeling it, guiding by her hands on the bars and her feet on the cracked pavement, towards the place they'd pointed out, leaving them behind without a second word. Rude, Dad would say, you should have at least said thank you, but he wasn't here, and even if he had of been, she wasn't going to say thank you for being mocked with their eyes, whatever help their tongues had given.

Her stomach twisted into knots and her feet slowed to a standstill when she saw Colin running around on the court, his hair sweaty and bouncing with his steps, shirt wet, glasses nowhere to be seen. Dustin Bigsfield, Alex Knaftery, Rick Dikens, they were all on there with him, girls cheering from the sidelines, and Colin was dribbling that ball around as if they were all best friends. Her knuckles on the handlebars turned white, and her teeth ground hard.

Colin caught the ball on a pass, dribbling up the court, and shot the ball with a sort of finesse -- as if he thought he was some sort of star, she thought bitterly, a sour taste under her tongue. The ball caught the edge of the basket and bounced off without going through, which she found way more satisfying than she should. It rolled out a bounds and she watched it dispassionately, fighting the snakes that coiled in her stomach and the voice that told her she should just jump on the bike and go home, screw waiting around for him if he was going to be playing basketball with Dustin Bigfield.

When she looked back, he was at the edge of his court, his bookbag swung over his shoulder, and Angela Allen was handing him his glasses. Angela, holding his glasses for him, wasn't that a laugh? He must have seen her standing here with her bike, or maybe just been embarrased by his finesse shot missing. Or whatever, she didn't care. His slipped the glasses onto his face, ran a hand through his disheveled hair, and started towards her.

"Thanks again!" Dustin called after him, Dustin.

"No problem!" Colin called back, turning around in midstep to wave back at all of them.

She turned and started to wheel her bike away, hearing footfalls on the pavement as he hurried to catch up, like she'd known he would. Or at least hoped.

"Hey," he said cheerfully, pace slowing to a walk beside her her.

"Hi," she responded, her tone way more ascerbic than she'd intended. She winced a bit at it, but couldn't quite bring herself to feel guilty.

He heard the tone, that was for sure. "They needed another guy," he said apologetically.

"I didn't say anything," she said flippantly.

"I didn't see you anywhere, so I thought I could help out for a few minutes ..."

"I didn't say anything," she repeated, annoyed. That probably showed, too, and she still hadn't looked at him. Oh, well.

"It's just basketball, Marie."

"If you didn't feel guilty," she said, unable to help herself, "you wouldn't be apologizing for it."

"I'm apologizing because it obviously bugged you."

"It didn't bug me," she lied. Of course it bugged her, and she didn't want apologies. She wanted her best friend to not play basketball with a guy who'd chased her with a Kerplunk stick on the playground and told her he was going to poke her eyes out with it. She wanted him to be willing to come down to her level instead of being so nice all the time, to be her friend instead of everyone's friend. Dad would call that stupid. Only idiots and children say you're with me or against me, he'd told her a long time again. But Dad still wasn't here, and she considered him one of those idiots he was always going on about, so she didn't care what he would say. "You can play basketball with whoever you want."

The silence was awkward, broken only by the sounds of loud teenagers who thought their lives were so goddamn important behind them, the turning of the bicycle wheels, and the crunching of their sneakers on the pavement. She hated awkward silence, so she said something. "Did you win?"

He chuckled. "Uh, we weren't really keeping score."

She rolled her eyes. "Not keeping score, but they absolutely needed even sides? For this game they weren't keeping score for?"

"Marie, please," Colin sighed. He didn't sound annoyed, because he never sounded annoyed, he just sounded ...

She wished he would get annoyed. "Please what?"

"Was I supposed to say no?"

"You could have, that would have been nice."

"Dustin hasn't even said anything to you since grade 8."

"Right, exactly. No sorry, not nothing! Is that supposed to make me like him more, cause ... you know, I'm not really ..." she sighed. "Whatever."

"No, not whatever."

"Yeah, whatever, you know, if you can't see why it bugs me, then there's no point in saying why it bugs me because it just bugs me even more than I have to -- I'm too upset to make sense, okay? Whatever, I should just bike home."

His hand clamped over hers and he stopped walking. The bike skidded to a halt, and she sighed and finally turned to look at him. Seeing him all sweaty from the basketball just made her more upset, and she really wished he'd let go of her hand and just grab the handlebars. He looked deep at her, and she hated it, sliding her eyes from his so as not to make eye contact, studying the big old maples on the side of the empty road, instead. Dad liked to look deep at her, and even though this was totaly different, completely different, it still made her want to throw up, so she pretended that he wasn't. Colin was just looking for something in her face, or her eyes, something that showed him whatever she was thinking and feeling and all her insecurities. It didn't matter, he wasn't going to find it. He sighed finally, and he didn't let go. He should let go. "I won't do it again, if it bothers you."

It does bother me, and thank you, she wanted to say, but how would that make her look? "It's just fucking basketball," she muttered, trying to push the bike forward. It didn't move, surprisse. "And you're just being nice."

"It bugs you."

"Yeah, well, a lot of things bug me, so ... fine, whatever. You're just being nice," she said again.

"I won't do it again." He let go of the handlebars.

She went to say something, then changed her mind and went to push the bike forward -- then changed her mind again, and growled, and looked at his face. "Well, no, because now you're going to bring it up later, sometime. I'll be annoyed at something else, and you'll be like, well, Marie, you're so damn hard to please, because I stopped playing basketball with Dustin Bigfield when you asked! And I'll be like, no, actually, I didn't ask, I didn't even say that it bugged me, you're the one who brought it up in the first place and kept dragging it out and you just decided not to play anymore even though I said it was just basketball and you were just being nice! And you'll be like, well if you didn't ask, then why did I stop? And you'll have an ace in the hole and I'll look like a bitch and you're just being nice so whatever." she let out a harsh stream of air, and turned away to push the bike up the road. He followed her, like always. "You really are just being nice," she said yet again. Somehow saying it placated her, and he'd never point out that she was being redundant. "And I'm just being ... a bitch! And totally unreasonable, so like I said ... whatever."

"I do understand how it would bug you ..."

"I said whatever."

"It's just, you know, like you said, it's just basketball. He asked, and I didn't want to be rude."

"Yeah, I know." She shook her head, staring ahead again. At the road, and not at him. She couldn't even look at him when she wasn't mad at him. That drove Dad insane. I don't care if you've got eye contact issyes or whatever, he'd say, you should look at people when you're talking to them, it's fucking rude not to. "You never want to be rude."

"... would you rather I be rude?"

"No," she answered, and managed a little smile. "No, I wouldn't. Probably. Most of the time."

Colin sighed. "Look, we wasted almost the whole walk on home on arguing."

She scoffed. "That wasn't an argument. We never argue."

He laughed. "Then what was that?"

"That was ... me being mad at you, while you wished I wasn't, or something. It's totally different to actually argue, I promise."

She sighed when he changed the subject again. Colin didn't even like to talk about arguing. Her eyes traced the road ahead, dipping into every driveway until it reached her own, counting every one. Fouteen driveways until she got home. Her stomach tightened again.

"Want to come over?" Colin asked.

"Dad wants me to cook dinner," she answered absently. That and everything else he liked her to do for him when he was home "But thanks anyway."

-----------------

These characters are actually part of a silly REAL LIFE RP thing I used to do with a friend of mine in early high school. We both had a main character and a guy for her and the plot was about their lives together in high school and beyond. Marie and all her shit was mine, and hers was a popular girl named Alyssa. This is kinda unrelated to her half of the story ... really, mine was a lot better anyway.

Marie Applegate's mother left when she was nine and vanished off the face of the earth, leaving her with her hard to please father. As time went on, he went from hard to please to abusive, verbally, emotionally, and sexually. Marie, always an outcast, reacting by retreating further on herself, becoming angry and taking out a lot of her frustrations on long-suffering best friend/neighbour Colin Stevens, who somehow puts up with her. Also she has a crush on him.

It was dumb, but we have a lot of fun playing with it. I played all the characters separate to Alyssa, and she played all the ones separate to Marie. I was thinking about it today, and I was just like, I'd kinda like to immortalize a piece of this story, even if it's just with a really shitty piece of writing I stick in my writing journal and nobody reads.

Yeah. Enjoy.

[novel] The Dreamer - 1/?

2006-11-11T08:13:10Z

The Dreamer

Parts: 0

Would still rlly appreciate comments, uneditted, because this is nano and I have to worry about speed over quality for now, and a lot of cleverly disguised infodump and character introduction. Yes!

C H A P T E R O N E

"I am going to see the sun rise in the east with my sister," Varylla said, again, for the thousandth time.

Joseph studied her hopeful, waiting eyes for a long moment, before sighing and turning away from her -- not that he had very much room to do so. "I don't have a sister," he said shortly. "And if I did, maybe I wouldn't be here."

"Lord Jospeh," she huffed. He heard her shift. "I'm very sorry you don't think my language lessons are up to par. Perhaps you would prefer to teach yourself?"

"I don't see why I have to learn. I can speak Arnellian, already. I'm speaking it right now, aren't I?"

"Do we have to go through this again? Must it be a daily ritual, my lord? Do you really want to hear the answer to a question I have answered countless times before?" she heaved a great, dramatic sigh. "I'm sure I could, I believe I've proved I'm more than skilled in answering the question, but then we'll argue about whether or not its right to try to make you sound like an Arnellian, and it will be long, and drawn out, and terribly messy, and, eventually, you will give me that resigned look and in irriated, oppressed sulleness, you will say 'I am going to see the sun rise in the east with my sister.' So really, my lord, can you just say it now and save us the time."

Jospeh turned back around on the small, velvet upholstered carriage seat. Varylla stared at him flatly, and he met the look evenly as they were jostled from side to side by the rocky road beneath them. There was flinty, unshakeable resolve in those brown eyes, her mouth was pressed into a thin, humourless line, and the way she drummed her fingers on the open page of the book in her lap -- which, if he looked at sideways, he knew he would see the offending phrase written upon in large, childish print -- left very little room for arguments.

He sighed.

"I am going to see the sun rise in the east with my sister," he informed her, as flatly as he could, and with minimal effort.

"There." She clucked her tongue. "Was that so bad?"

"Of course not," Joseph turned away again. "You haven't told me what I did wrong, yet." He pulled back the curtain on the window, watching trees quickly fly past. They had green leaves and some, red bulbs, and limbs that reached upwards towards the sky like arms. So different from the stately pines of home, with their long, hard needles ... he felt his stomach twist and dropped the curtain quickly back over the window, shutting that unfamiliar, green world away.

Varylla clucked her tongue again, a habit Joseph found impossibly annoying, but the incredulous look she gave him the one time he dared suggest she please stop had embarrased him enough that he refrained from bringing it up again. And hoped she didn't notice, as if it wasn't already embarrasing enough. "Hm, you still slur your vowels," she said absently. He heard her flipping pages in that book. "And drop off the last consanant on every word. It sounds very Maluki."

"I am Maluki," Joseph reminded sourly.

"Yes," she agreed, "you certainly are, but believe me, my lord. When we reach the capital, you won't want to sound like it."

"I can't see why I wouldn't."

"You've clearly never been to the capital."

"This is how you've always spoken at home. I really can't see why I should be forced to change."

"You're not home anymore, my lord. You're going to the capital. And in the capital, you won't want to sound Maluki."

Joseph opened his mouth to say something, to protest, but he closed it again, leaning his head against the carriage's unsteady wall. The argument was useless, he knew, and had been useless everytime they'd had it. He had to resign himself: he was going to the capital, like his father had, because he had no other choice.

He rubbed the velvet curtain between his fingers, listening to Varylla muttering incomprehensively and flipping through her stupid book. It was something he had always known was going to happen; it wasn't that he was going that was so difficult to process, it was that he was going now. Just shy of twenty summers old, not even married, and already ... already, home was leagues behind him, and all odds were that he'd seen the snow and tundra for the las time ... he grabbed the curtain tightly in a fist, the yellow sunlight of this golden world streaming into the dark little mobile room. He wasn't a child, he told himself firmly, watching how the tall grass -- Varylla called it "rye" -- growing up at the side of the road flew past in the blur. He was near a man grown, he was a King, and there was nothing he could do to see his fate, as he'd come to take for granted ... or change it. He dropped the curtain.

"How long unt --"

"Alright, how about this one," she interrupted smoothly as if she hadn't heard. "The smart, short, blonde man was the oldest member of the club."

Joseph shook his head. "Who writes those?" he asked incredulously.

"Now, now, they're actually very clever," she chuckled. "Tailored to help improve certain areas of diction. I'm sure a very intelligent scholar actually wrote them, my lord. Now, come, tell me about the short blond man."

He sighed, and moved to turn to face her again -- when the carriage lurched suddenly, and Joseph, caught off guard, was thrown roughly to one side, and then across the chamber. He instinctively outstretched his hands to catch the edge of the opporite seat and break his fall, wincing as his knees hit the floor hard.

Varylla wasn't so well-reflexed. Her hip hit the side of the seat, and she cried out, her body twisting as she fell to the floor. "God," she bit off, clutching her side. "Is that man capable of driving a bloody vehicle?"

"Are you all right?" Joseph felt compelled to ask. He pulled himself up onto the seat he clung to, noting that the jostling had stopped. They must not be moving, then ...

"I'm fine," Varylla replied through clenched teeth, and climbed onto the seat with him, "though I suspect our book may have lost a page. That man is going to deliver me a very --" she paused, and tilted her head curiously. "We're not moving," she stated. She stood up, pushing open the carriage door, as if her injury had never happened. After a moment of consideration, Joseph pushed off the seat, grabbed his small bag from beneath it, and followed her.

"-- don't care what is in the road," Varylla was loudly informing the driver. Joseph squinted against the bright light, thankful, at least, that there was no snow to reflect it back and make everything all that much worse. "The High Lord of Maluko is in that carriage with me, you could have seriously injured the man. Are you prepared to deal with the ramifications of that? He has no heir, you know, you could have just ripped an entire bloody dynasty to shreds!"

Joseph made note of the surroundings. Behind the carriage, the road had cut sharply left, explaining the first lurch ... and before it, a great tree had fallen over into their path. He studied it, tuning out Varylla's tirade. The bark was scarred, worn, old, and the length of it extended far into the forest on either side of them. Neither leaves nor the little red buds grew on its branches. Had it fallen in its old age, unable to produce leaves or make food for itself any longer? Or had it been felled before its time. He swallowed around a small lump in his throat, bowing his head. "Spirit Grandmother," he murmered, "this fallen child of yours may have been murdered and snatched from your grasp. Please give it peace and rest." He studied the burns on his hands after the prayer had finished. Varylla had never asked, when he was first forced to remove his thick fur mitts, but her eyes had widened slightly when she saw the wounds, and she'd looked away quickly. It had been the only time he'd seen her truly disturbed since she had pulled up to the encampment in this same carriage, stepping out as she owned everything she saw. He wasn't surprised; the only Maluki she'd ever seen had been his father. He didn't expect a foreigner to understand.

A hand grabbed his arm, he looked down to Varylla's lined face and disapproving brown eyes. "I don't suppose you can ride, my lord," she said it is a fact, not a question.

He floundered for a moment, trying to decide whether or not she wanted a response, but when she raised an eyebow curiously, he supposed she did. "No," he replied honestly, feeling somewhat sheepish.

She sighed, skirts swirling as she turned. "And how far is it to walk?" she directed up at the driver.

He heaved a sigh of obvious relief -- leading Joseph to realize taking the two horses in question would have left him stranded here. "'Bout ... eh, maybe six hours," he said thoughtfully, chewing at something that may have been the inside of his cheek. "It'd be after dark, fer sure, ma'am. You know you don't want to be out after dark."

Varylla frowned, pursing her lips. "... there isn't anything to be done for it," she finally said, and clucked her tongue. "The tree isn't going to politely get out of our way. We'll travel as fast as we can, and with luck, we won't be out long after sunset." The driver looked uncertain, but said nothing. "I assume you can walk, at least?" she directed to Joseph.

"I can walk," he snapped indignantly.

"Really, now. Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm sorry if you think my accent means I can't do that."

She frowned and hesitantly took her hand off his arm. "I'm sorry," she said earnestly. "I get in this mode, you see. That wasn't called for. I have a great respect for your people."

"Just not our accents," he spat, folding his arms.

"If you think that's all for my benefit, you're completely mistaken</i>," she shot right back, planting her hands on her thin hips. "I'm sorry you feel affronted by the lessons, but the people of Dryton are not Maluki, and they're not going to see your accent as charming. It'll undermine the respect they have for you. You need respect. You're not going there on holiday, Lord Joseph."

"I know that!"

"Do you? Really? Because all you've done this entire journey is sit in your corner and pout like a child. This is not just some game, or some old tradition that you accept as something you do because you're forced to. You are going to the capital to represent your people, and to do that to the best of your ability, they are going to need to see you as more than a Northern savage. Whether it is right or wrong, that's how it is." She jutted her chin forward and stared up at him. Abashed, but unwilling to allow her to win, he met her gaze for as long as he could hold it, but his eyes eventually slid off hers as everything she said sunk further into his mind.

She sighed and pushed past him, and he heard her mount the stairs up into the carriage before coming back down. "I have our book," she said, in a voice that was oddly tired. "I hope you're comfortable in those skins and everything you need is on that little pouch, because the rest of our things will need to wait until this mess is cleaned up." She brushed by him. "Driver," she addressed him, without looking up at him. "Turn back to the last town, please. Have our affairs sent ahead. I know who you are, and I'll know who to blame if they don't arrive in Dryton safely."

"Er, right ma'am."

"Please hurry along, my lord," she called back, gingerly picking her way over the great tree and its empty branches. "We want to reach Welltown before we collapse, don't we?"

Joseph did as he was told, climbing up and over the log and after her, eventually falling into step beside her. She didn't seem to notice he was there, pulling the pins from her tightly held bun and shaking long, chesnut hair threaded with grey over her shoulders, running her hands through it, and delicately pinning it all back up again. And then, still not acknowledging his presence, she flipped through the pages of the book, clucking her tongue to herself when she found the page crushed in the jolt, smoothing it out with her long fingers like a mother with the unruly hair of a child. Finally, she closed it and ran her hands along the cover. "I don't think you're a savage," she finally said, quietly.

Joseph took a look back. They'd come back enough he couldn't see the log anymore, and the sky in the west was becoming ever so slightly pink. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I ... uh, I know you don't," he answered truthfully.

"You don't act like it. You do know I'm doing you a favour, don't you? The Crown did send me, of course, I'm acting under its orders. But I am a trained Council, my lord. I could have chosen to Council for the Raffelian High Lord, or the Maroccian, or the Francellan, but I've chosen the Marluki."

"I ... don't know any of those places."

"They were great kingdoms, full of culture and treated with utmost respect, before Arnellia, and they have not lost a bit of it over time. They're respected and feared in Dryton. Your people are none of those things, and yet I've chosen to Council you, Lord Joseph. King Joseph, if you will, for I'm sure you consider yourself that, though don't let them hear, its treason thrice over. I haven't chosen to Council you, of my own will, because I wanted to be known as the Council for the savages. I respect your people deeply. I take umbrage to your implication that I don't."

He was once again ashamed of how poorly he was handling all this, but his stomach twisted into knots remembering the drums beating in cadence and the tears streaking his mother's face as the royal messenger eagle sat complacently on her shoulder. He wasn't supposed to be here, he told himself again, he wasn't supposed to be here. He was too young, it was too soon. "You could have said any of this earlier," he muttered. "And am I just supposed to ... I don't know. You could have Counciled for anyone, you chose me, because you respect my people that much? You don't even know what the burns on my hands mean." He stepped ahead of her and held them up before her face.

Varylla studied at them disinterestedly, whatever sensitivity she'd previously displayed now completely gone. "I'd assumed it was some sort of accident. Is there a significance?"

He stared at them himself, awkwardly remembering receiving every one of them, and then dropped them. "Forget it." he stepped back beside her, and without missing a beat, she resumed walking. "I am a King." He felt he needed to inform her. "And so was my father."

"My lord, there's a great deal you need to learn about how little what the truth really is matters in the face of what people believe it to be. Whether you are a King or aren't isn't the issue. The issue is that King Deryn says he is the only King, and anyone who claims otherwise is a traitor. And he has the power to make you a traitor, which makes it true."

Joseph opened his mouth to argue -- and then, thinking better, asked another question. "How far is Dryton, now?"

"Welltown is the last stop along the way." If Varylla thought it odd how he didn't argue her statement, she gave no indication. "Of course, we'll be slowed a great deal if we can't find another carriage there, but if we can, I can't say more than a few days."

Joseph's stomach fluttered uncomfortably. "That's not long," he said, redundantly.

She flickered her eyes over at him, her face amused. "No, it's not," she agreed amiably.

He studied the western sky. It was definitely sunset now -- something that wasn't near as beautiful in the south, he reasoned, in a world that was already colourful and teeming with life, the ruby and golden splendour was just visual clutter. "And then?" he asked, for the first time.

She made a small sound he couldn't read. "And then ..." she clucked her tongue thoughtfully. He watched her run her hands along the cover, then tuck their book under her arm out of the corner of his eye. "And then we begin the real work."

"Shouldn't we be learning about that now?"

"Your accent is more important."

"That's ridiculous," he rolled his eyes away from her, back onto the road before them. Shadows of the trees to the left fell across it, and into the rye field to the right. He could see a tiny cottage far into the field, with a small thread of smoke spiraling upwards. It seemed odd to him that they'd have a fire lit, but for a southerner, he supposed, it was probably considered cool in the spring.

"The second thing you need to learn about the city is that it doesn't matter what you know, just what people think you do," Varylla quipped, her voice dripping with cynical amusement. "You don't need to do the work so much as you need to know how to fake it. But don't worry," she added, her voice serious again, "we'll learn that, too. All in due time, my lord." She pulled the book back out from beneath her arm and flipped it open easily to the crushed page, "Now. The smart, short, blonde man was the oldest member of the club. And this time, don't question it, just repeat it back, please, and remember: shorter vowels, and try not to drop the end of every word."

By the time he'd repeated the phrase to Varylla's satisfaction, it was too dark for her to pick another ridiculous phrase out of her book. She folded it closed and tucked it beneath her arm again, looking around uncertainly.

Joseph watched her nervously. "... why don't we want to be walking after dark?" He asked, recalling her conversation with their driver, earlier.

"Mn, I suppose you wouldn't know," she replied, distracted. "I don't see any reason to tell you, it will only make you more nervous than you are. I think I see the lights of the town in the distance, and its doubtful you'll have the opportunity to walk these roads after dark in the future."

His heart fluttered. "Telling me it would make me nervous doesn't do much to make me not nervous."

"I'm sorry."

"Are our lives in danger?"

She laughed. "Hardly. Don't worry yourself, Lord Joseph, just remember all the times we were travelling in our carriage in the dark. Anything that bad could easily have caught us then, hm?"

The smallest sound made him stop and turn. Varylla's steps stilled behind him. He frowned, searching the area behind them. "... did you hear that?" he asked, hesitantly.

"... no," Varylla replied. "... don't scare yourself with paper tigers, my lord, we're nearly at Welltown. Just hurry up."

"Tigers?" he asked, eyes scanning the trees, the road the rye field ...

"It's an animal, from far south, it's ... never mind, it's not important, Joseph. Come along."

Something dark slid between the space between two trees in the forest, a shouting distance behind them. Joseph's heat skipped a beat. "... there's something out there ..." he murmered.

Varylla said nothing, but he heard her breathing heavily. "Don't be foolish."

"I saw something out there," Joseph insisted. "A shadow, in the forest."

"... where?" she asked, stepping close to his side.

"Back there," he raised his arm to point, but couldn't see anything where the shadow had been. "It ... it slipped behind another tree, I saw it, I swear. It was large, and about as high as a man, and --"

Another shadow, closer, moved, dark, large, tall, and then was gone behind another tree.

"There, did you --"

"I saw," Varylla said, her voice low. He suspected she meant it to be even, but it wavered. "I saw it. Listen to me, my lord. When I give the word, we are going to turn and run as fast as we can towards Welltown. Are you a good runner?"

"Very good," he murmered honestly. "You'd be left behind."

"Just go as fast as you can."

"What happens if --"

"Don't ask questions. Once you start to run, you can't stop, and don't look back."

"Varylla, you will be left behind."

"I said just go as fast as you can. On my signal."

Joseph ground his teeth as another shadow moved, closer, still, and a noise, a thin, mournful wail, cut through the night. "I'm going to --"

"Go!" Varylla shouted.

Joseph grabbed her hand tightly and took off, hearing her gasp behind her and struggle to keep her footing. The wail came again, louder, and another joined it, and another, and another, and another.

"What are you doing?" She demanded.

"I told you you'd be left behind! I was going to warn you, if you hadn't interrupted me."

"I dropped our book!" she panted indignantly.

Joseph said nothing, just dove faster down the road, Varylla's feet and the chorus of wails behind him. Don't look back, he reminded himself, remembering her warning. If he did look back, what would he see? Welltown grew larger before them, a tiny collection of buildings with yellow light burning within. It wasn't far, he reasoned, they could make it.

Another shadow moved, before them, between one tree and another, and Joseph nearly skid to a stop before he recalled about what she had said, don't stop, don't look back, and plunged onwards. "They're ahead of us," he ground out, as another wail, louder than any other yet, came from behind them. "What are they?"

"Just ... keep running. We're nearly ... there," she gasped out.

The sign indicating they were entering the village of Welltown in Arnellian flew by, and then the first house, and the second. Varylla tore his hand from his and ran towards a large building with double wooden doors, throwing herself against it and pounding hard. Joseph was close behind her, but, unable to help himself, he turned ... and he looked.

There, just beyond the edges of the town lights, he could see them moving, five, six, seven, eight of them, all threading in amongst each other, moving quickly. Shadows, still, even now, tall like a man, taller than a man, nearly a straight-edged rectangle but for the small bulbs that looked like heads. At first, he blamed the effect of the light, but as he looked closer, he realized with a start that they weren't obscured by the darkness; they were shadows. He stepped back and hit the heavy doors behind him, shaking with the force of Varylla's pounding. As he started into those shapes, he saw ... something, moving within them, beneath the shroud of that shadow, something ... colours, and darkness, and --

"Bloody innkeep, why is he not answering," Varylla panted, leaning up against the door. Then she clucked her tongue and sighed. "I told you not to look back."

"What are they?" he breathed, somewhere between horror and wonder.

"Nothing you need to worry about," she responded. "And far more unpleasant looking than they really are. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"You were afraid," he accused.

She hesitated. "Mn," she finally admitted. "But that's ... it's very complicated for a Maluki to understand, my lord. Not --" she added quickly, "because you have any less capability for comprehension than the next person, just because, well ... you don't have all the story."

The door opened behind them before Joseph could say anything. "Evening!" a voice called out cheerfully, then, after a moment, added, less cheerfully, "I see you've attracted some friends."

"Nothing to worry about," Varylla's hand grabbed his wrist, and he was forced to follow her inside. "They'll be gone by sunrise." Joseph half turned and sneaked another glance at the dark shapes, writhing in and around one another just outside of the lights, before the doors swung shut behind them. He shuddered.

The common room was full of a chatter of Arnellian, all coming so fast Joseph had a difficult time understanding it. People lined the tables, tankards in hand, laughing and talking and telling stories. The only source of light was from a low burning fire in the hearth -- fire in a hole in a stone wall, he recalled, and suddenly the room seemed all the darker, and the walls closed in around them. He was flying blind now, he remembered, and even were he to dream again, he was flying blind. "Single rooms are thirty-five royals each a night," the innkeep was explaining as they walked to the counter. "Double are forty-five royals. All up front. Too many try to take advantage of my good faith."

"Surely you wouldn't attempt to charge a High Lord and his Council," Varylla smoothly interjected, close to Joseph's side. The roof seemed low; Joseph found his mouth dry. The carriage had not been so bad, with its open windows and flimsy sides and the constant feeling of motion, but these stone rooms were disconcerting and uncomfortable.

The innkeep slid in behind his counter, eying them suspiciously. "High Lord of what?" he demanded of Joseph.

Joseph coughed, wondering why Varylla wasn't rushing in to speak for him, like she always tried to with the driver, or whenever they'd stopped before. Of course, he recalled, everytime they'd stopped before, she'd simply retreived the money from their bags and paid whatever the innkeep was asking, and it seemed bizarre that -- his thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt as he realized that of course, her money was in their bags ... which were currently being driven in the other direction. She needed him to prove he was who he said, and she wouldn't do that by speaking for him. He was so proud he'd discephered it all, he was startled when Varylla tugged at his sleeve, and realized that he hadn't, in fact, answered the question. "Maluko," he said quickly -- probably too quickly. "I'm the High Lord of Maluko. Joseph. Ki -- High Lord Joseph," he fumbled around his slip. "And this is my Council, Varylla. She's Crown sanctioned."

The innkeep grunted and pulled a book from beneath his counter. He flipped through it, drumming his fingers on the pages. "Says here that the High Lord of Maluko is named Jeren."

Joseph's stomach flopped at the sound of his father's name. He remembered his mother's icy eyes misty and distant, how she had talked about him, saying what a fine man he was, how kindly he had treated her, how much she wished she could see him, how badly she wished he could meet him. "My father," he said, hearing his voice hoarse in his ears. "That was my father. He died ... he died about five months ago." The laughing face of death, and the drums beating in cadence ... he pressed on. "I'm on my way to Dryton to take his place at the Lords' Table."

The innkeep laughed, then, slamming the book shut. "Likely story. We got these books for a reason, High Lord Joseph. Single rooms, thirty-five royals. Double, forty-five. Your choice, boy. Pay up, or spend the night with the shadow keepers."

"If he's lying," Varylla cut in, apparently convinced Joseph wouldn't be able to handle it on her own, "whyever would they be there?"

"You think I care?" The innkeep snorted. "May be that they're after you. You're a Council, all right, but my book calls Jeren the Maluki lord, so until I see a man who fits the description on this here page, you both pay for your rooms. Single, thirty-five. Double, forty-five. Pick one, or go back outside."

Varylla's lips set into a fine line, then she angrily snatched a purse from her side and slammed it on the counter. "I hope fourty gold is another to buy us the benefit of the doubt and a double room, because it's quite honestly all that we have."

The innkeep quickly checked the content on the purse. He sighed heavily. His breath smelled like cabbage. "Single," he spat.

"You can't be serious," Varylla snapped.

"Fourty-five for a double. You only got fourty. Single or nothing." he three five royals back at her.

She stared at him incredulously, then snapped the coins up. "Fine."

He pointed towards the staircase. "First room on the left. Enjoy your stay."

"Oh, we will." Varylla stomped off, and Joseph hurried to follow her. "Arrogant man," she huffed, hitching up her skirts and stalking up the steps. "He knows I'm a Council, why would I be travelling with someone who wasn't a High Lord, trying to get a room in Welltown of all places?"

She seemed as if she was waiting for an answer. Joseph frowned. "I ... haven't a clue?" he supplied.

"All this town is good for is stopping one last time behind reaching Dryton, why else would a Council be here?" she flung the door to their room open. Inside, it was dark, and small, the single bed pressed up against the wall, and a small table beneath a large window that Joseph was infinitely glad for. "I swear when I get to Dryton, I'll be speaking to some people, and that man won't be doing business again. Then we'll see who's the smug one." She threw the book upon the bed, turning to survey the room.

Joseph closed the door behind them, paced to the window, and threw it open, revelling in the fresh air that rushed into the stale room. He studied the view. Below, the shadowed shapes still moved outside the light, setting his skin to crawling all over. "They're still out there ..." he murmered.

She sighed. "They won't leave until morning."

"What was it he called them?"

"Shadow keepers," she admitted reluctantly. "You take the bed, my lord."

He whirled around. "No, you should," he insisted. "You're a woman, after all. It'd be rude of me."

"Men are just as flesh and blood as women." Varylla clucked her tongue. "And you're a High Lord. I'm going to have to insist."

"... Fine."

Amusement played at the corners of Varylla's lips. "What a gentleman. You gave in so quickly."

"As if I could win."

She laughed. "You learn quickly, too, I see."

A wail cut through the night. Joseph shivered. Varylla's smile quickly disappeared. "Ignore them," she said. "With luck, you'll never see them again, and be no worse for the wear."

The was a small flint and tinder on the table. "It's difficult to ignore ..." He swung the bag from his shoulder, pulling out a green and red candle, setting them on the table, as another wail drifted up from behind the light below. He deftly struck flint and tinder, lightly both candles quickly. He studied them each, feeling strength and peace fill his heart at the sight of them burning there. He was glad he'd brought the bag.

Varylla made a small noise. "Interesting."

"The green is strength," Joseph felt he should tell her, even though she wasn't Maluki. "And the red is --"

"-- courage," she finished. Startled, he turned his head. She sat on the floor, arranging her shawl as a cushion where she'd sleep. "Yes, I know." She smiled knowingly.

"... how ...?"

She just continued to smile. "Though I must admit," she yawned and stretched widely, "I know nothing about the burn scars on your hands. You've made me curious. I don't suppose you'd be willing to share where you got them."

He studied the scars in the candlelight, hundreds, some faded, some fresh, none deep, all familiar. He could recall the dream for each one, everytime he'd visited the Sightmother, everytime she'd read his dreams, perfectly, accurately, until the last time, when she hadn't seen anything except death, the day the eagle came from Dryton. And then she had died, and Varylla had come, and now everything was different, and when he did dream true, there was no one to guide him. No one at all.

"Joseph?" he blinked and Varylla was looked up at him, her hair unbound and spread over her shoulders, chesnut threaded with silver. "Will you tell me where you got the scars?"

Another wail filled the room.

Joseph closed his fists, hiding most of the burns. "It's very complicated for an Arnellian to understand," he told her. "You don't have all the story."

[novel] The Dreamer - 0/?

2006-11-03T03:35:43Z

I use this journal once a year. lol.

The Dreamer

This is my nano project, which I'll be posting here as I finish chapters. I think I actually might make it this year, which is insanely awesome. I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE COMMENTS, because, like, I'm kinda hoping this can be the first (short) draft of a publishable novel, here. So yes. Hope you enjoy.

P R O L O U G E

She hummed an off-key lullaby, scarves wrapped tightly around her, as she lit the candles one by one.

Joseph watched carefully, reciting each of them in his mind to calm himself. Yellow for clarity. Blue for wisdom. Red for courage. Green for strength. Purple for guidance. White for sight. It was all familiar to him as breathing. The smoke curled upward from the small, flickering flames, mingling in the air and gathering at the peak of the roof. She sat behind the long table, arranging those candles, always singing that off-tune song. Finally, she looked up at him, black eyes glowing in the firelight, and she nodded, once.

Joseph breathed. And breathed. And breathed.

"Greetings, Sightmother," he murmered, as he had a thousand times before. "Let your path be illuminated."

She cracked a wide, toothless smile. "Greetings, Prince," she responded steadily. "Let your path be clear."

"I have had a dream." The smell of the smoke filled his nose; he breathed deeply. A familiar, comforting smell. "It was a True Dream."

"It is good that you have come, Prince," she gave the customary response. "Prepare your mind, and tell me of your dream."

Joseph raised a hand, palm up. Slowly, he passed it over the candles, near to the flame. The heat made his heart pound, ever after all this time. Yellow, blue, red, green, purple, white, and he withdrew his hand and folded it in his lap, wincing as it brushed the rough wool of his robes. Another burn, another scar. A small price to pay. He closed his eyes and breathed evenly. When he opened them again, she was looking so deeply into him, he thought she could see his soul. Perhaps she could.

"I dreamed I was walking through a forest of trees," he said. "I knew that it was a true dream. The needles of the trees were sharp and hand, like needles, and the snow was hard beneath my feet, so I walked upon the surface, yet I could see from the trees that it was very deep. I knew that if I were to break the crust, I would fall beneath the snow, and I could never climb out. It was night, and the sky was clear, but there was no moon in the sky.

"Then I came upon a clearing, and in the middle burned a fire. I could see that there was nothing burning within the flames, and the fire was simply there, in the snow, sustained by its own will and heat. No snow melted at the base. I walked to the fire and passed my hand inside, but it did not burn. So I walked into the flame, with my full body, and out the other side, and when I did, I was no longer within the clearing."

Her brow furrowed, and she frowned, watching him intently. Joseph's heart beat faster and his stomach twisted. In nineteen years, she had never frowned, and the dream was still not to the point where he'd awaken sweating and desperate. He near asked her what precisely was wrong, but he held himself back. He would ruin her concentration, and he would not get his answers. He plunged onwards.

"I had found myself in a room made of stone. Books, like the one Father brought for me, were mounted on shelves that were inside the walls, thousands upon thousands of books. I took a step forward, then I turned to look behind me. I had walked out from a hole in the wall, which had a fire burning within, but there was no clearing behind the fire, only more stone. The floors were stone as well, and the ceilings were also stone. There was stone everywhere I could see, and I was afraid.

"There was a window in the stone, so I ran to it, but found that it was closed in with glass. I pounded on the glass, but it would not break. Then I looked down, and the ground was so far away. There were people on green grass spotted with colour, and they were all looking up at me. When I listened, I found I could hear their voices. There were ten men, and three women. They were telling me how to open the window. I did as they instructed, and found that it did open, and fresh, warm air poured into the stone room with the books and the fire in the hole. They told me to jump out of the window. But it was so far from the ground, I knew that if I were to jump, I would only hurt myself. But they kept telling me that I needed to jump, everything depended on me being able to jump. They tried to offer to catch me, but they also told me to not trust any of the others. Finally, one of the women told me that Father wanted me to jump. For some reason, I knew she was telling the truth. So I chose her, pulled myself out of the window, and I jumped.

"When I hit the ground, she wasn't there any longer. None of them were, or the green grass with the colour, and when I tuned and looked behind me, there was only emptiness. There was emptiness in every direction, in fact, white, blank, emptiness, behind me, before me, below my feet, above my head, emptiness, everywhere. Then, before me, appeared an arrow. It was snapped in two, and vanished after a few moments. Then I heard the sounds of battle, but no matter where I turned, I saw nothing. Then I saw a book, like the one Father sent me, only longer, full of so many pages, and they were flipping, though no one was holding it, written in Arnellian, and it was moving so fast, I couldn't make out a word.

"And then I found myself ..." Joseph broke off, finding his stomach had twisted too far for him to continue. She had turned her eyes from him to focus on the grain of the pine table, her hands folded onto its surface, and he could see how troubled she was. She was never troubled, not in all his years. He couldn't help but ask. "... Sightmother. Is something wrong with my dream?"

She snapped her eyes up to his. "Keep telling your story, boy," she spat, taking him aback. "Finish it now," she continued, slightly gentler. "And I'll try to give you the answers that you need."

He felt ill. Hesitantly, he nodded, trying to find the thread of the dream once again. "I ... found ... found myself in a long, dark hall of stone walls. It was cold, however, so I wasn't so very afraid, and there were shelves built into the stone that had candles on them, which I found comforting, as well ..." he breathed deeply and evenly. It was nearly done. "I walked down the corridor, and I heard laughter. I paused and was afraid again, for the laughter was wicked and edged. I turned to walk back in the other direction, but there was a solid wall where I had been walking only moments before, covered in frost. I realized that it was so cold I was shivering, and the laughter only grew louder ... and louder ... and louder ... I turned back.

"Then I saw ... I saw another person, up ahead in the corridor. I was frightened, and cold, and I knew it would be better if I was not alone. So I ran, through the stone hall, and to the other person. They were standing still, so I gained ground on them quickly. Finally, I reached them, and I grabbed their shoulder.

"They turned slowly, and I realized they were the one who was laughing. There was a hood pulled over their head, and they wore bright colours, with small bits of metal that made noises when they moved. When they were facing me, I saw red eyes shining within the hood. They asked me 'Why are you here, Prince.' I told them I didn't know, and that I demanded to know who they were." Joseph took a deep breath. "He said 'I know, Prince. I know why you are here," and when he pulled back his hood, his face was a human skull, with bits of rotted flesh still clinging to it, and red eyes burning deep within."

She looked him full in the face, her eyes deeply troubled. "You have dreamed true, Prince," she said, as she had so many times before, but her voice was a strained whisper.

"I have dreamed true," he repeated. He wanted to vomit. He looked at the candles, one by one, focusing on the center. Red for courage; green for strength. He didn't look up at her when he asked, "Could you tell me what I have dreamed so true, Sightmother?"

She slowly unfolded her white-knuckled hands and laid them, palms up, on the long pine table. She hummed her song, off-key, haunting, and he dared look up at her face, to see her eyes closed tightly and her face screwed in concentration. Slowly, she began to speak.

"I cannot read the forest, or the needles, or the snow, or the clearing, or the fire."

She blew out clarity. The room darkened.

"I cannot read the stone room with its glass windows and shelves of books and fire in a hole."

She blew out sight.

"I cannot read the people. The grass. The colour. The leap."

Wisdom was extinguished.

"I cannot read the white nothing, with its broken arrow, and sounds of war, and Arnellian book."

Guidance went out.

"I cannot read the stone hall. I cannot read any of it." She growled, and blew out courage. Now only one candle, green, strength, burned between them. The Sightmother stared at it, her face twisted into sickly grimace, the single candles sending obscene shadows across her face. Joseph held his breath. Finally, she spoke one last time, the last time he would ever hear her voice. "I can read the man with the skull for a face," she said quietly, her voice defeated, and strength burned. "He is death." Deliberately, she leaned forward and blew strength out, and the last thing Joseph saw of her face before darkness fell over them both were tears on her old, wrinkled face.

The drums began to thud at that moment. Steady, ominous, thump, thump, thud ... beating a message to everyone within hearing distance.

Joseph gasped and stood up quickly. "No," he breathed, turned and running blind towards the small sliver of white light shining between the flaps of the tent, throwing the skins back and stopping short. Moonlight spilled onto the snow. The drummers were solemn faced, sitting in the center of the encampment, in a circle, all facing outward. "No ..." Joseph whispered desperately, his voice catching on the growing lump in his throat. "Please, no ... please ... please no ..."

He didn't hear his mother until her hands were on his shoulders and she was standing before him. He had to look down to see her eyes -- when had that happened, it seemed only yesterday, he had to look so far up. There was a piece of paper, like the kind in the book Father had sent him from the great city, clutched in her hand, and an eagle on her shoulder, a small band with the royal crest of Arnellia around its right talon.

"I'm so sorry ..." his mother whispered.

"... no ..." Joseph drew a shuddering breath. "No ... it can't be ..."

Tears streamed from her icy blue eyes. "The king is dead ..." she whispered, and squeezed his shoulder, a small sob wracking her body. She looked at him, and he knew, he knew, and suddenly his shoulders were heavy, and he felt years older. The laughing face of death loomed before him in his mind's eye. "Long live the king."

[rant] mary-sues do not exist

2006-03-24T22:03:48Z

I was thinking today about the term Mary Sue. Not a Mary Sue as in the fanfiction sense, things are a bit more defined, there, but canon Sues, OC in original fandom Sues, RP character Sues, Sues in books and games and movies.

And I came a conclusion.

There is no such thing as a Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue can be anything. What constitutes a Mary Sue? A character with no flaws, one person will say. No, a character based on one's own self, another would attest. No, no, a Mary Sue is a character who all the others love. No, a Sue is one whom special things always happen. No, a Sue is a character the creator of the story clearly favours. No, a Sue is a certain type of character, such as a happy, beloved Princess. A Sue is a character who's pleasant and 'weak'. A Sue is a character who's badass and 'strong'. A Sue is a pale, mysterious beauty. A Sue is a popular, vivacious beauty. A Sue is a character who is impossibly talented. A Sue is a character who the story revolves around.

A Sue can be anything.

The term Mary Sue has become something that writers try to pin to any character who does not suit their standards of a dynamic, well-written, interesting, likeable character. I'm sure we are all guilty of pinning the term "Sue" to a character who simply didn't suit our fancy. I know I am. It's an easy, guilt-free way to dislike a character and feel secure and superior in that dislike. We cannot be blamed for disliking this characters; they're a Mary Sue, they're unloveable, and disliking them doesn't make us fussy, it makes us enlightened. It's a crutch, both a flimsy one and a flawless one.

But the fact is, that the term "Sue" is flawed. A Mary Sue can mean too many things to be used as a defintion any longer. A Mary Sue can be anything and as such it stands to reason that there is no such thing as a true Mary Sue. When a concept has enough defintions, it ceases to be a concept.

Call a character boring. Call a character cliche. Call a character a self-insert. Call a character overglorified. Hell, just say you dislike a character.

But the Mary Sue witch-hunt needs to end.

[x-posted to my personal journal]

[planning] religion building for nameless project

2006-02-21T02:27:50Z

more world-building!

RELIGION

There is no memory, in history books or otherwise, not even in the oldest vaults of Scripture, of ice and flame and the war they fought. The religion of this land completely revolves around their children, who created the world and everything upon it.

The Gods:

Terik - [son of flame], brother of Deira, [lover of Kya], rival of Azereth. Terik is pictured as a burning man with obscured features, representing destruction, passion, pleasure, pain, anger, autumn, sex, the sun, and war.

Deira - [daughter of flame], sister of Terik, [lover of Azereth], rival of Kya. Deira is pictured as a radiant, beautiful young woman with flame for her hair, representing love, summer, courage, sacrifice, comfort, the hearth, happiness, day, and motherhood.

Azereth - [son of ice], brother of Kya, [lover of Deira], rival of Terik. Azereth is pictured as an white-skinned, silver-haired very young man with effeminate features, representing piety, gentleness, spring, uncertainty, poetry, healing, the moon, and purity of mind and body.

Kya - [daughter of ice], sister of Azereth, [lover of Terik], rival of Deira. Kya is pictured as a pale, thin woman with a veil of ice and hair black as night, representing purpose, death, peace, sleep, cruelty, winter, cold, night, and politics.

The Religion:

Worship of the four gods is done in both their individual aspects and as siblings, paired Terik & Deira and Azereth & Kya. People will tend to feel a certain affinity towards one god more than the others, but worship them all equally. It’s expected to offer a prayer to each of the gods before the main meal of the day, and a few words before sleeping at night.

Deira is said to be subserviant to Terik, and Kya to Azereth, whence comes the gender roles of the continent.

There is a set of Scriptures detailing stories and teachings of the gods, but few have any idea where they came from or who really wrote them. Few believe it was actually the gods themselves, nevertheless, they are universally obeyed.

Any picturing of Terik and Kya, Azereth and Deira as lovers is considering the highest level of blasphemy, as is any association with making Azereth and Deira into “light” or “good” and Terik and Kya as “dark” or “evil.”

The Church:

The Church rules over the government, and all are completely at the sway of their final word. While they have no military power, the secrets of magic which are known only to them and taught only to the highest nobililty, as well as the threat of excommunication and eternity in Torment make them a force to be reckoned with. They rarely excercise this authority, except to It’s been to the surprise of all that the Church accepted Leryn’s betrayal of Covalt, interfering only to maintain the unwilling peace they settle into.

The Church holds several laws of well renown

1. Any of those who name themselves “shay” or “kel” [more on them later] must be put to death upon meeting. Failure to attempt this, even if they are stronger than you, is instant condemnation to Torment. The Gods see everything, even if no one else does.

2. A woman may not own any lands, holdings, or titles unto herself. If she is the only living member of her family, she must wed immeadiately, regardless of her age, and all she owns becomes the property of her husband.

3. A woman may not wed below her station, regardless of circumstance, she must marry above or on par. This ascentains she can never hold any sort of power over her husband. If absolutely neccessary, this may force a woman to marry her brother, if there are none above her. Marrying her father is strictly prohibited.

4. Attacking or hurting a member of the clergy is a crime more dire than murder, and it takes a great deal to recover one’s soul after such a deed. Either way, one will be stuck in prison for life.

The Clergy:

The clergy is divided into four sections, unsurprisingly.

Terik’s Servants - Serve his aspects, learn destructive magics of fire, provide sexual healing and comfort to the wearing and searching, are brought to war as mages in the name of the gods. Spend most of their lives in cloisters.

Deira’s Servants - Serve her aspects, act as medicinal healers and midwives/husbands, give counsel and comfort to the weary searching, spend at least 3/4s of their day signing hymns. Spend most of their lives in cloisters.

Azereth’s Servants - Serve his aspects, work as scribes to copy the Scriptures over and over, learn magical healing methods and are often brought to war as healers, sing hymns like Deira’s Servants, perform weddings. Spend most of their lives in cloisters.

Kya’s Servants - Serve her aspects, learn destructive magics of ice, are used as advisors in political matters, are brought to war as soliders in the name of the gods, give last rites to the dying. Spend most of their lives in cloisters.

The higher ups of either section rise and rise until one reachs the Prefect of each order, who rule over the Church as The Four.

[feedback/discussion] me according to others

2006-02-20T23:24:01Z

Sorry for spam here. Really.

Okay, I would like REALLY REALLY LOVE YOU ALL TO DO THIS PLEEEEEEEASE.

This will help me a LOT.

If you could, I would love it if you would list the major strengths and major weaknesses of my writing, both stylistically and practically. Overall opinion of my writing, things you think I could be better in ... this will help me a lot, knowing both my strengths and weaknesses as perceived by other people.

writing is not a hobby anymore, I can't let it be a "if I'm happy with it, go me~" experience.

[thoughts] my weaknesses

2006-02-20T23:20:45Z

My Weaknesses As A Writer

stylistic ;;

- serious flow issues in narrative.
- occassional 'talking heads' syndrone in dialouge.
- character voice sometimes lost in the 'pretty' of narrative.
- 'pretty' not actually pretty, more like purple.

practical ;;

- I hate writing down my thoughts. Love to think. Hate to write it down. This is a SERIOUS issue.
- much, much, much too easily distracted.
- too easily overwhelmed.
- need more follow through motivation.
- need to be held accountable.
- need to stop procrastinating.

Need to work on these really bad.

[planning] world building for nameless project

2006-02-20T22:26:49Z

WORLD BUILDING FOR MY BOOK THING

NEEDS A NAME

yeah this isn't much yet but I'll stick more here when I finish it

Suggestions for other countries welcome.

I hate writing world-building. Love doing it, hate writing it down.

THE PAST

Continent __________ was always divided into 19 separate countries, with many tensions, all long at on and off war. Situation comparable to the Houses of Korin, but different, no unifying lord, each kingdom self sufficient. When there’s not fighting, there’s hardcore politics, backbiting, backstabbing, alliances. Everyone lives looking over their shoulder, never knowing when they will be betrayed or an army will suddenly be on their back. This has been going on for like hundreds and hundreds of years, millenia, even, and everyone is tired, but everyone is also stubborn and thus don’t really have any plans to change.

Countries:

1 - A northern country, its people are proud and occassionally called uptight. They respect their royalty dearly. Women and Men have conventional roles, here. It’s people are naturally thin and frail, and thus their military has always been weak, but they’re incredibly intelligent thinkers. They can outmanouever many in politics, but all pray they’ll be left out of the wars. Their lands shrink in wartime and gain in the more political sections of history, but they’re always managed to push on through their wits.

2- Large and populous, with access to both land and sea trade routes, a great deal of respect, money, soldiers, and old blood, one of the oldest and most formidable countries in the continent, this country has long been the unspoken leader of all the others. The smaller kingdoms resent it’s superiority, but none dare speak against it. It’s people are proud, but friendly and tend to have a taste for expensive things and parties. It’s army is extremely formidable, and it certainly holds its own in the politics side of things.

3 - Never the brightest of thinkers – or perhaps, they lack creativity and cleverness, rather than intelligence -- this kingdom is nevertheless old and proud to the utmost degree, with a strong code of honour and chivalry. They take their nobility extremely seriously. Young men are trained in the ways of knights if they have any noble blood at all from the time they’re very young. They tend to command a great respect. Despite their honourbound upbringing, they’re far from stuffy, and enjoy the zest of life quite a bit. Women are quite put down in their society, but not to a point of abuse or anything of the sort.

4 - Old-fashioned and stuck in their ways, their army is of average strength, their politicians are of average cunning and their spies are of average skill. But because of their tenure, as well as their location in the center of the continent, they are afforded a great deal of respect, and even [2] tend to cow when they push a bill hard. They come across as stuffy, proud, presumptous, but extremely venerable, and impossible not show deference to.

5 - Always passed around as the territory of one kingdom or another, [5] has only in recent decades been told to grow up and play with the big kids. The other kingdoms alternate between trying to guide it into independence and laughing and how thoroughly horrible it’s doing. It’s culture is a mess of all those that have surrounded it before, and it’s people all seem a bit unsure as to which one they should be following. It wouldn’t take much effort to squash them, and they’re willing to take hand-outs from whoever is offering.

6 - For the most part left out of the conflicts, [6] has very strong defenses due to the icy mountains they’re surrounded with. Legends tell of times when winged men flew here, that priceless artifacts are buried in it’s ancient snows, especially on the Winter Isles it claims as part of it’s territory, sacred ground representative of the four gods, where no man bearing ill intent would dare set foot. It’s people are serious, cold, and closed off., it’s royalty and nobility towering high above the commonfolk, tracing their blood to the oldest strains of blood known to man.

7 -

THE PRESENT

These 19 countries have finally been united. Sorta. The effort of Covalt, a bright, charamatic, ambitious young nobleman from [3], was finally able to overcome the curse of his people and lead the continent toward unification. The more allies he gained, the most skills he had at his disposal, working his way through the world, winning one by one with armies and promises and treaties and honeyed words.

Little did he know, that this entire time, his dearest, closest friend, Leryn, who he’d trained with, grown up with, who’d been his closest confidant, who he was more a brother and a lover than a mere friend to was plotting behind his back. Leryn was smarter, stronger, more clever, and tougher, and he had slowly become more and more bitter that his best friend would be remembered forever in history books as the unifier, the liberator, just for being well-spoken and good-looking. He was slowly winning over half of Covalt’s army when he wasn’t looking, drafting the treaties himself in his favour, promising them more than he had, waiting to hatch his plot.

He did so on the night he and Covalt had finally managed to claim [4]. His attempt to kill Covalt failed, and his friend escaped. The two of them took the armies they had built and warred, and in the end, settled into an uneasy truce maitained by the Church for 20 years ...

Red - Covalt’s Lands

Covalt secured most of the north-east half of the continent. While he made great promises about autonomy within what were now provinces, he rules with an iron hand, possibly because he’s become a giant, angry dickhead. Don’t blame him. There’s a great deal of resentment for his rule, especially the melting pot mentality he’s attempting to force on them, the way he’s turned this kings into nobles and their nobles into commoners. Many whisper his inabilty to produce a male heir is the punishment of the Gods for his untrustworthiness in breaking so many of his promises. But he now wields the strongest army in the continent, and if they turned on him, it would be chaos.

Besides. There are rumors that Covalt has shady dealings ...

Blue - Leryn’s lands

Leryn does basically nothing with his kingdom except hoard it. He doesn’t make laws, review policies, deal in laws, he just uses his kingdom as a giant way to keep his kingdom. Prolly cause he’s become a giant, angsty emoking. Who can blame him? People whisper that they want their own government back, they want to actually develop and grow, but the extent Leryn goes to to keep his kingdom in his grasp is extreme, to say the least, and any sort of rebellion is quickly and forcibly put down. Like Covalt’s lands, there is a great deal of anger over the state of the once-royalty.

[fic] Nameless Project Snapshot #1

2006-01-08T04:19:48Z

Nameless Project Snapshot #1

[Rhiannon and Jack]

Just trying to get into the characters before I actually go into writing about them. May or may not actually happen anything like this in the book.

“Forget it,” Jack growled. “You don’t deserve to know about this.”

“... don’t ...” Rhiannon sputtered. “Don’t deserve--?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I said.”

“You said you would – “

“I changed my mind,” he snapped. “I do that.”

“But... “ suddenly, everything seemed wrong. “... but you ... you have to ...” Rhiannon’s voice felt uncharacteristically small. It was cold. Why was it so cold? She huddled down further into the heavy fur.

“Have to?” Jack raised an eyebrow. His familiar smirk was less convincing than usual. Sad. His voice was quiet, and it was sad, too. Rhiannon studied her hands. “Why do I have to.”

“... because,” she could scarcely hear her own voice. Because, because, because. Because ... “Because ... we’re ... all we have.”

He snorted.

“It’s true!” she insisted, finding her voice again. Why couldn’t he see that? How was she the one who was sheltered, then? “What else is there? You ... you gave up your friends, everyone who would protect you ... and ...” the back of her throat felt odd. Jack was watching her with an implacable expression. She swallowed hard. “And if what you say about my father ... if that’s true ...”

“It’s true.”

“... mother ...” Rhiannon looked down at her hands again, and cursed this weakness. What was this? Stuttering like a chambermaid caught stealing candlesticks, it wasn’t like her. “Mother never ...”

“Of course she didn’t. Your father didn’t marry her for her stifling charisma.”

“Slade is here as long as we pay him. Julia is here as long as need her. Vyries is here until he sees that we’re ... we’re not what he thinks we are.” she looked up again. There was dirt until her fingernails, and her hands were rough. She didn’t like to think about it. As bad as Jack was, his face was better. “We’re all we have.”

Jack looked at her for a long moment, then his gaze turned into the fire, and he chuckled softly. “I traded it all, for you.”

“... you did,” Rhiannon agreed. At the time, it had seemed only natural that he had. And now ... now she could see what it had taken, and what he had given. He was not a hero, and he would never be one. Father ... “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t the best bargain I’ve made,” Jack smirked again.

Rhiannon opened her mouth, intending to react, but caught herself and jutted her chin forward. “James ... who was Ellen?”

Jack breathed deeply. He laid back onto the furs that surrounded him, his gaze focused on the starry sky. He stayed that way for so long, Rhiannon went to ask again, before his voice travelled softly across the flames. “... the best person I ever knew.”

“... a girl?”

“Yeah.”

“She looked like me.” it wasn't a question.

“Of course she did,” she couldn’t see the smirk in the dark, but she could imagine in, that sad smirk that wasn’t. When had she begun to predict his facial expressions so well? And then the next thing he said wiped all idle through she her mind. “She was your sister, after all.”

[assorted] Revamp

2006-01-08T03:14:46Z

I've gotten serious about writing again, and, therefore, have revived this journal. Only, with a new username. And forgot to copy the flist lol okay.

Yes, the name is a Martin reference.

I'm posting all of my writing here. With all my Himitsu stuff, that should take a while. OF will only be flocked, and only excerpts, no full projects. Also, my thoughts about writing, rants, etc.

rosa_writings has an all new look. Dragonglass it is :3

New layout and icons to follow.

[fic] Chocolate Souffle, Terrance, Maire

2005-07-01T23:34:11Z

Chocolate Souffle
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Himitsu no Sensou
Focus Characters: Terrance, Maire
Pairings: beginings of OS!Terrance/Maire
[this story is not exactly fanfiction]
Summary: Before this meal, his only introduction to dessert had been a meager loaf of brown bread.
Notes: Possibly in the top 5 best things I've ever written. There's something about the overall flow and feel of it that is killer awesome, and I say that with all possible modesty :3 I've uploaded all of my Himitsufic to teh archive [backlogged so I wouldn't spam, just put the BEST one up on the main page] and there will doubtless be more coming, especially since ~~my incestuous machiavellian bastard lover from a past life~~~ Summer and I are doing themes for Reeve/Edalene under the table ... :3

I play Terrance in himitsu_sensou, an RP I run which has taken on a mind of it's own. Maire is the character of i_paint_the_sky, originally created by me.

He remembered, when he was very young, his mother placing a tiny loaf of brown bread on the table, and a small jar of honey. She laid a finger on her lips and whispered, as if she were imparting the secret of the Holy Altar, that the others were sleeping, and if he was going to show such dilligence by studying all hours of the night, he deserved some reward, now didn't he? And he would protest, and say that learning was his reward, and he could never take such an expensive snack, and she'd cluck her tongue and insist he eat it, or she would feel very offended. So he would smile his thanks, and eat the tiny little loaf dipped in the honey, and she would wipe away the crumbs and clean then table and hide all the evidence. And then she would wink at him and remind him not to tell his siblings, and she'd sneak off to bed.

In the entire time that he had walked this earth, Terrance had never eaten a chocolate souffle.

He had never even seen a chocolate souffle, and never even hoped to dream of eating something so rich. It was the most delicious combination of tastes and textures, unlike anything he'd ever had before, so far removed from that secret loaf and honey it might as well have been a on a completely separate level altogether, and it was incredibly wonderful.

He could not enjoy it, and it was because Maire so obviously did.

To say that she was a completely different person in this life would be ... an understatement of the highest magnitude. This girl, who he had only ever seen scowling, bitter, angry and petty, smiling, talking, chattering with her family, her eyes shining, her hair done up beautifully, dressed in a gown of purple velvet so rich it made the chocolate souffle seem blase, looking like some sort of fairytale princess, shining, happy, and complete. For the first time, when he looked at her, he didn't feel a twist of contempt in the pit of his stomach, but rather ... something else, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. This smiling girl was someone who he wanted to know, who he wanted to like. Someone who he wanted to talk to, and see her smile more. The joy she wore suited her in a way that the dress and the hair only decorated.

One of her brothers said something, some teasing joke, and she laughing, like the tinkling of a bell. Terrance felt his stomach knot. He had never heard her laugh before, not in the entire year he had known her. He'd misjudged her, he realized. Yes, she was silly, and childish, and spoiled, but she was not an inherently bad person. She was ... she was human, just like he was, just like anyone else, and she reacted to being taken away from the place where she belonged. Because this was, this had to be where she belonged.

He was about to take her away from it once more.

It wasn't fair.

He tightened his fists around the fabric of his pants. She had said it herself, when she had left and thrown him to the mercy of the higher clergy. "It's your happiness or mine, and I'm choosing mine." If he didn't do this, he was gone. He would be sent back home to his disappointed family ... perhaps, like the bard in the journals said, he could join another church, but that stain would be on him forever. Expelled from the clergy. Failed. Couldn't even keep an eye on one spoiled teenager. This was the only way to get any chance at his own happiness back.

"The joy of others is greater than the joy of oneself," the scriptures said. They lied. They had to. How else could what they said and what the clergy said seem so ... polar opposite?

Maire's father cleared his throat, and Maire turned to look at him, the laugh still touching her lips. She wore dangling diamond earrings that shook as she moved her head, and for some reason, Terrance just couldn't take his eyes off of them. She didn't wear jewelery in the convent. There was no modesty in it, the policy went.

"Your Excellencies, I believe you have something to say?" he said lightly, nodding to the priests. Terrance supposed he was included in that number. One of the priests. All he'd ever wanted was to be included in that number, and for some reason, now, the thought made him sick. It must be the rich souffle ... "I didn't open my house to you so that you could eat my family's food and beat around the bush."

Maire smugly nodded and leaned back in her chair a bit, and Terrance saw a bit of the girl he'd known at the convent -- but even then, it wasn't the same. It was ... endearing, almost. Cute? No, that wasn't it. He tried to settle on a word to distract his mind, but he saw Brother Richard nodding to him, and he knew that it was time to prove himself, prove that he did not let Maire escape out of compassion for her circumstance. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.

He took a deep breath and stood. It wasn't fair.

But he opened his mouth and spoke anyways, words that he didn't even seem to choose.

"Maire, you'll be accompanying us back the convent. You're not to run off again. We're leaving as soon as you're prepared."

Maire blinked, the blinked again, her lips parting. She shook her head slightly, almost imperceptibly, then turned quickly to stare her father. "Daddy ... what are they talking about? You tell them, I'm not going back there! I'm home now, and I'm never going back to them again!"

He sighed. "If you'll go upstairs and pack a few things, Maire, you can go back where you belong."

All the blood seemed to brain from the little princess' face. Her jaw dropped -- and somehow, she managed to do it gracefully -- and her eyes widened slightly. She stared at her father for a long moment, her head shaking in slight movements that Terrance probably wouldn't have noticed if not for how her earrings swung back and forth. She seemed as if she wanted to say something, but every word had left her, leaving her simply staring. If she were the fainting type, Terrance mused with detached disinterest, she would be on the floor right now.

But she was too ... strong for that.

Her expression unchanging, Maire stood, pushed back her chair, and walked out of the room. There was no sound aside from the rustling of her skirts and the sound of her feet on thick carpet, until the door quietly clicked shut behind her and Terrance felt all the breath leave him in one motion.

It wasn't fair ... it just wasn't. She belonged here, among the slendour and brilliance and glitter and chocolate souffles, like a jewel in a jewelery box. This was where she should be. This was the only place she could be.

"Your happiness or mine," she'd said.

Did this make him happy?

He sat down in his chair, and his stomach felt rather sick. He wasn't surprised, somehow. A boy whose richest meal had been brown bread and honey wasn't prepared for chocolate souffle.

[thoughts] Some PG-13 assorted thoughts.

2005-06-28T03:03:41Z

Some PG-13 assorted thoughts.

Mine and summerwolf's ongoing "DIRTY MIND!!!!" joke has gotten me to thinking. Because everything makes me think XD

I ... do have something of a dirty mind, I suppose. Not really, so much, but when it comes to my creativity ... hm. I find sex, rape, and rabid jealousy some of the most fascinating themes to explore in fiction. That's the thing, though, I wouldn't call it "dirty", because I don't enjoy those themes because they arouse me to any level. I just find them ... intriguing.

I naturally gravitate towards violent emotions in my writing. While I definitely see the appeal of a sweet, pastural little scene, it's not usually my thing, unless said scene is somehow connected to great angst. [Which is by far one of my favourite devices, to be honest.] It's not that I don't ever write or don't like such things, but when people finish one of my pieces, I want them to say they felt the emotions of the characters, and the more violent those emotions, the more ... fasciniating to explore I find them.

Sex, rape, and jealousy -- three themes which I often tie together -- all really get to me like that. It's funny, because I am an insanely jealous person by nature and there is very little that I hate more than feeling jealous, but as a theme in fiction, I find it completely IRRESISTABLE.

Case in point. I have this ... really, really vindictive Himitsu plot bunny of Edalene being captive by a group of mercenaries who, er *cough* ahem, have a little fun with her ... not gangrape, but close, because Reeve rescues her before any of that could happen ... and then I wouldn't even KNOW what he would do, but ... hmm, see, some would say I'm a really, really sick person for having such a disturbing plotbunny, but honestly, what draws me so strongly to that idea isn't 'omg edalene being raped so hawt' or 'omg knight in shining armour reeve so hawt', it's the thought process and the violent emotions that would run, there ... and trying to plot would Reeve's reaction to such an action towards his sister would be, considering what he did to poor Apprentice ... it's not an arousal, it's a fascination.

Likewise, look at my Alvis fic, Passion and Madness ... it's the story of a man who is seeing sexual desire as something other than mindless build up and release for the very first time, and perceives it as a sign of madness, with underlying themes of jealousy, fantasy, love and hatred coinciding ... That fic is very, very R rated, but if people got "wow, hawt lime 8)" out of it, they missed the boat. That wasn't what it was about.

Smut doesn't interest me. Plain smut, where we describe peg 1 going into hole 2? Pssh. That's boring. I'd just go download porn if I wanted to get off on the physical action of sex. What interests me about well written smut is play between characters, character emotion, and all that jazz.

For a virgin by choice, I admit, I am a very, very sexual person, but it's not because of any level of sexual enjoyment I get from it, it's ... a fascination is the only word for it. I guess it's kind of like Kerrik, and his obsession with blood as art ... which doesn't look very good for my mental state but ... well, honestly, never let anyone who could do anything to me for it see this, but if I were to go mad, but be able to produce more compelling, incredible works of art that leave people in awe ... well ... I wouldn't mind being mad.

Creepy, but ... true :/

Maybe I'll just never have sex. Maybe experiencing it would ruin the mystery and the intrigue for me. Because really? My stories that involve revolve around sex ... or even have ongoing sexual undertones are always the ones that have the most emotion and ... colour ... fuck, for a writer, I sure can't put my thoughts into words XD

Anyways. Some thoughts.

As for actual writing~, I'll be uploading my himitsufics here very soon, because this is supposed to be my every written word ... besides, some of them are pretty okay.

[thoughts] A Meme

2005-06-13T22:24:02Z

I did this meme a year ago, and my answers have greatly changed since then. So. Here's the meme, posted to my writing journal because of how utterly writing-centric it is.

Also, I made myself a new icon :3 I hate the text, but okay. It's sexy anyways :D

When did your write your first "Fanfiction" piece?:

1996, I wrote my first fanfic.

What was it for?:

The Adventues of Sinbad :p

Did you actually post it anywhere?:

No, and I'm very glad XD

What series have you written fanfics for? (both posted stories, and non-posted stories):

Posted: Final Fantasy 7, Seiken Densetsu 3, Quest for Glory 5, Final Fantasy 5, Gravitation, Gravity, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, Fire Emblem: Seima no Kouseki, Final Fantasy 4, Tales of Symphonia, Fullmetal Alchemist
Unposted: The Adventures of Sunbad, Fushigi Yuugi, Tsubasa: RESEVoir CHRoNiCLE, Shin Shirayukihime Densetsu Pretear, Rockman X

Any Original Characters (ones that got named) that you had inhabit the series universes? If so- who/where? (yes, this is where we embarrass you by revealing your dark secrets!):

I'm actually of the belief that well-developped OCs can change a fanfic from a standard piece to something truely original, so yes, actually.

Rosa, from my first, nameless, Sinbad fic. More or less a Sue.
Katri, from Jenova Zero. A love interest for Red, since he needs one for canon to make sense.
A lot of mini OCs for Past Dreams.
Leon, arrogant and driven King of Forcena, from The Call.
Charlotte, assertive and down-to-earth healer from The Call.
Takako Akino, mentally unstable past lover of Eiri Yuki, from Mother, May I?
Mawata Akino, Takako and Eiri`s curious, hyperactive, intelligent, whiney daughter from Mother, May I? [Yes, they were named from Pretear. At the time I wrote Mother, my knowledge of Japanese was nowhere NEAR what it is now, just I just grabbed names of a series that, at the time, was ridiculously unpopular to make sure I wasn't just stringing hiragana together.]
Alice, Hineas and Tahna's deceased mother from Bonds Unbroken.

If you had the chance to have a talented artist/film maker turn any of your fanfics into an actual *real* piece, which story would you choose?

Hmmm ... it would come between Loved and Lost, Warmth and Protect Me, I think. My best piece is probably Shattered Life, but I think a lot of that story's beauty is the actual words, and it just wouldn't be anywhere near as effective without them.

Loved and Lost would also lose something, although I have some neat idea of how the simple sentances of the first section could be conveyed, but I think that it would maybe gain something as well?

Warmth has enough action that it wouldn't be boring without the words, and there's some nice imagery in it.

Protect Me would lose a lot, because of the wierd POV which is kinda the whole point of the piece ... but it's got a lot of imagery that would be really, really nice to see in motion/picture/whatever.

Do you have any weird music quirks that help you write?

Songs with lyrics that inspire analyzation of the thought process of characters can really help me get into a feeling for the writing. But while I'm actually writing, I cannot be listening to a song with lyrics in a language I understand. My ADD kicks in, and before I know it, I'm tapping my fingers on the spacebar and singing along, and not writing :p

Kickass instrumental music can help me write, but it has to have a lot of emotion to it. Something like Apocalyptica (♥) or the soft remixs of the Gravitation background tracks is good. It needs to be something incredibly powerful and emotional that gives me vivid images, and it has to fit the mood of the piece, or it's counter productice and just helps my mind wander.

Mostly, music inspires writing from me, but it doesn't help me bring the piece to a finish.

What are common "themes" you hide in your stories?

Themes ... hmm. My answer has changed a LOT from the last time I did this ...

No one is completely evil and no one is completely good. Everyone has reasons for being what they are, everyone is a human being with a mother and a father and a childhood, and no heart is completely hardened. But darkness lurks in every heart, and this is no one would doesn't take occassional delight in another's pain or have awful thoughts they know they shouldn't be experiencing. Likewise, nothing is completely happy and nothing is completely sad. There is pleasure in all pain and agony in all wonder. Life is not an endless march of disappointments, nor is it a bed of roses. For every ray of sunlight, there's a cold shadow, but for every rainstorm, there's a shining rainbow. That's the most important theme of my writing, I think. The world is a world of greys -- not in what's right and what's wrong ... although that, too, but that's not the point. The world is a world of coexisting extremes, and that's what I want to capture in my writing, every soaring height and desperate low, and if I can capture them perfectly in the same piece, so much the better.

What are your favorite characters to write POVs from?

Oh, geez, try to narrow it down ...

Tiltyu - She's fun, and she has a lot more depth than people give her credit for. She's got a great wide range of emotions, so it's not like she just falls into foruma plots, which I love. She's really, really, really for me to write, too. I think it's because she's a lot like me, only I'm smarter, less childish, and way less hot? ^^ ~~Plus, she turned me gay :'(~~

Nilus - Because he's a challenge, but definitely the good kind. There are very few characters I've come into contact with who have motivations and personality anywhere near as complex as Nilus, and working through his pysche is just ... whoa, it's great. Plus, he's such a bitter little fellow, and bitterness is always fun to write :3

Alvis - Because he's complicated. On the surface, he is so focused, cool, ruthless ... but like I said in my themes, everyone has a real human mind and heart ticking behind whatever face they show the world. This is coming from someone with a mental condition that as just a matter of course hardens emotions ... I don't think someone can kill their emotions. Alvis is the type of character that reminds me of a (really kickass and kinda evil) swam ... floating regally along the water, but beneath the surface, their feet are kicking up a storm to move the swan around. The face Alvis shows everyone is this cool, hardened, arrogant prodigy, but underneath it, his emotions are always running high, and he's thinking all the time. That is irresistable to write.

Rachael - Unlike Serra, who is a BITCH to get into the head of, Rachael's delusions are fun. That's the thing with Rachael. She really doesn't have a lot of depth, but she's a lot of fun anyways, and the same is true about writing her :3~

What story of yours do you wish more people would read and love?

Any of my better Seisenfics. Loved and Lost, Doubts, Certain Sureties, Passion and Madness ... it really, really sucks when your main fandom, the one that you adore, and just can't get enough of writing and reading for is one that ... 8? ... 9? people on the entire internet know enough to give a damn about :( I think I'm probably the only person at the moment who considers Seisen no Keifu their NUMBER ONE fandom ... which really sucks, when I love it as much as I do. Yeah, I am a feedback whore, and I know that my Seisen stuff is pretty damn good, and I really would like to see it appreachiated. Le sigh.

If you could pick a specific scene of your story to be made into a comic-book/doujinshi format, what scene from what fanfic would you pick?

Hmmmmm ... one scene ... I have a couple. Ninian's dance Nilus remembers watching at the beginning of Protect Me, because I seriously love the imagery there and could really see it :3 Together in general would be pretty fun, for the sheer amusing value, OOC Hineas not withstanding ... or Warmth, I think, because like I said before, it's a nice range of action and conversation.

Which of your stories would you consider the crowning example of what you're capable of for flat out literary acheivement?

I'd have to go with Shattered Life, I think. Only Human has some pretty solid writing, Passion and Madness has a lot of vivid raw power in it, Loved and Lost is really close to the same level of emotion I got with Shattered Life ... Certain Sureties is a great piece, I think, but I think it's more of an acheivment in characterization than in literary beauty? I guess? I dunno, it's hard to explain. Shattered Life is probably the fic where I think I expressed the emotion through the words of the prose best.

And, even though it's really, really short, Paths Not Taken is definitely one of my best pieces for flat out writing.

And last but not least, why do you write fanfiction?

More or less ... it's easy feedback and effective practice in a relatively low-risk situation. A lot of it is that I enjoy exploring characters and worlds I've fallen in love with, but in all honesty, most of it is the first thing I said. Fanfic is an area I can mess around in. I can leap headlong into a story without having to introduce setting or characters and get right to the meat, and I feel free to mess around with styles and ideas and themes ... I mean, really what's at stake? My REPUTATION AS AN INTENET WRITER LOL?! While that is important to me, in a way, it's not exactly high-risk. Plus, when you know the right people ... lzn64 or laylea, for example, you can get some REALLY GOOD feedback that both builds you up and helps you pick out the things you're doing that are working.

[fic] Bond Unbroken, Hineas, Ephraim, Eirik, Part 1 of ?

2005-06-01T14:02:47Z

Bonds Unbroken
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Seima no Kouseki
Focus Characters: Hineas, Ephraim, Eirik, Tana, Rachael, Joshua
Pairings: Not telling yet >:} (Although people who read my post in this writing journal will know at least the main one XD)
FFn Version
Summary: A Frelian Prince is about to be crowned, and a series of events that will change everyone it touches forever is about to be set into place.
Notes: Written for fe100, inspired by megaera_inc. Prolouge to a very long project. Slowly improving at writing Hineas IC, I think. He's so hard to write, dammit :( Anyways. This project will have many chapters. Not sure how many, yet. Still outlining. Rather proud of this prolouge. Like the pacing. Read, plz? :3 Multipart is no fun if you have no following ;_; Spoilers for Eirik chp. 14. There will EVENTUALLY be spoilers for Ephraim route in general, but currently, there aren't.

Bonds Unbroken
Prolouge

"Oh, stop fretting."

"I am not 'fretting'."

"Yes, you are! I can tell. You have that pinch between your eyes, and you're scowling."

He allowed himself to smirk. "I thought you said I was always scowling," he said lightly.

"Well ... you're scowling more than usual! This is your day in the sunlight! Enjoy it, all right?" her voice was pleading, but he only found himself scowling more. His day in the sunlight. Hn. It was almost amusing.

"I can't."

"Oh, stop!"

"How do you expect me to stop? It is not as easy as you seem to think it is! Yes, maybe it is my 'day in the sunlight', but I'm never going to be able to enjoy it."

"And why not!"

"Because ... well, he'll be here."

~*~

Finery did not suit him very well at all, Joshua mused, but he would be the first to shrug and admit that it was the job of a King to put his subjects at ease by looking as regal as possible. Finery was good for making impressions. He'd learned ages ago that a well-dressed man could gain levels of respect that someone wearing ... just as an idle example, a battered black trenchcoat and felt hat ever could. However, there was some finery that seemed to ... well, defeat it's own purpose, so to speak. He shifted in a vain attempt to make the thick, itchy coat he'd been instructed to wear feel any less unfitted and stiff than it did, and did not arrive at very pleasing results. That frusterating little valet who followed him around Jehanna Hall like a bad smell, had chased him with the damn thing, insisting, "Oh, it's so cold up in Frelia, Your Majesty! Very chilly! Everything is coated in ice, and it snows all year round, in the northern areas where you'll be going! You'll just freeze right to death if you don't wear this!" And no matter how loudly Joshua insisted that no, he had, in fact, been to Frelia before, and it was really not half that bad, the little fellow had demonstrated surprising strength when he all but held him down and sewed him into the coat. While still in the sweltering depths of Jehanna Hall, of course, which is the casual explanation Joshua gave to anyone who raised an eyebrow at a king wearing a coat stained with sweat and reeking of body odour from here clear to Rausten. The same little man had insisted until he was blue in the face that Joshua tie his hair back like a respectable gentlemen, and wear the Royal Crown whenever he was out in public, and make certain to speak the way he'd been taught in his long-ago lessons where he could be heard, and possibly a million other things Joshua had since forgotten. Mostly on purpose.

He remembered more clearly every day why he'd run away in the first place ...

His mare wuffed impatiently, and he sighed, resigned. "Yeah, girl, we're moving," he ran a hand down her mane with one hand while digging into a pocket in his (equally ludicrous and uncomfortable) pants for a coin. One Jehannan crown, emblazoned with his own face. He chuckled as he tossed it, caught it, and slapped it onto the back of his hand. "... tails," he called, and laughed again when, not entirely to his surprise, removing his hand revealed his eyes staring up at him. "Yeah, might of guessed. Bad luck, as always."

The coin went back into the pocket. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and steeled himself, then rode with gusto towards the gates of great Castle Frelia.

~*~

"The gambler king from Jehanna? You can't be serious, how much harm could he be?" she shook her head and fussed with his collar.

He pulled away from her hands without even thinking. "Have you ever been in a wager with him?" he asked a bit sourly.

She tsked. "I thought you always said you learned a valuable lesson from that. If he's the sole reason why you can't enjoy such a grand occassion, I think that you're --"

"Of course he's not the sole reason. She'll be here, too!"

~*~

"Be in awe, citizens of Frelia, for the Beautiful Princess of Peerless Beauty has arrived!" Rachael smiled brilliantly as she rode through the throngs of people gathered to bear witness to her entrance. Ah, how the cheers of crowds thrilled her! All of these, here to see her and no one but her! How wonderful it was! How suitable! Well, it's possible that one, maybe two -- three at most! -- were curious to see their Crown Prince being made King, but she was quite certain that the vast majority were far more concerned about the legendary Holy Light of Rausten, one of the first female Pontifex to sit on her sacred throne, the brilliant and astounding Queen Rachael! Not that she could blame them.

"I thought she didn't call herself by her own alias," she heard Rennac sourly mutter somewhere behind her.

Dozla boomed his familiar laugh. "The Holy Queen Rachael doesn't need to hide her identity, anymore, so of course she can call herself by her own alias!"

"But ... that wasn't even the point of the alias! Even she couldn't come up with calling herself 'Princess' to hide being a Princess!"

"It wasn't?"

"No!"

"Course it was! Queen Rachael says it was, after all!"

"Oh, for the love of ..."

Rachael decided to allow Rennac's uncouth manner go, just this one time. He was just jealous they weren't all cheering for him. She wheeled her silver steed dramatically, raised her scepter into the air, nearly knocked over a nearby fruit stand, and proclaimed in the largest voice she could muster. "Dozla! Rennac! To the castle! No doubt the poor Prince is awaiting our arrival with so much anticipation, he feels unfullfilled!" she took off at a gallop down the narrow street as the crowds scurried out of her way, screaming words that were, no doubt, praises to her name as they did so.

~*~

"Pontifex Rachael?" she giggled. "She's eccentric, but she's adorable, and completely harmless."

"She's stark raving mad, is what she is."

"I think that you're just dead set on not enjoying yourself!"

"I think you need to learn when not to talk."

"Brother ... please."

He turned his head away and said nothing.

"I can't believe that you're this upset over those two."

"They're not the half of it."

"... oh?"

He smirked, more to himself than anyone else, a bitter, sad smile. "They'll be here."

~*~

Eirik smiled as she looked at the walls on the distant hill, shining in the sunlight. A breeze touched her hair and the scent of flowers rode on it like a carriage from God. She breathed it in and sighed happily. "I love Frelia ..." she murmered. "It's been so long. It's just too easy to get caught up in ruling. I can't even remember when it was we were here last ..."

"It was a while back," Ephraim admitted. "At least two years."

She nodded, keeping her silence. The hills and flowers and white birch trees of Frelia always reminded her of summers long past, when she and her brother has come here to visit Tana and Hineas, and she and Tana had slept in the same room and stayed up until the could see the sky lightening, just talking and laughing about everything that would come to their minds. Dinners with Hayden and Alice, when she had been alive, laughing and talking and watching Hineas glare across the table at Ephraim until it stopped being menacing and become very nearly amusing. She and Tana playing in their petticoats in the shallows of the little river that ran near the Castle, splashing and laughing until they were completely soaked, but happy as the fish that swam with them. Hineas and Ephraim fighting over every little thing, but she and Tana knowing at the end of the day that no matter what they said, they were friends until the end, and either would probably give his life to protect the other. Hineas bringing her cut flowers and swearing solemnly that they were just old ones that Alice or Tana had been about to throw out, but she could never help but notice that the petals were always soft and in the full bloom of health, and she could never understand why he wouldn't just tell her that he was feeling nice and got her some flowers from the fields near the castle.

The memories made her sad, in a way, because they were all grown, now, and those days were so long ago ... but mostly, they made her happy, because they were good memories, ones that she cherished with all of her heart.

She turned to look at Ephraim and smiled, that secret smile that was always shared between the two of them, and his eyes softened as she did. "I'm glad that we've come back," she said.

"Me, too," he agreed, and broke into a grin. "You think Hineas'll drive me out of his kingdom with arrows the moment they put the crown on his head?"

She clucked her tongue. "Of course he won't! You don't give him enough credit."

"You think?" he asked lightly.

"Hineas would never actually try to hurt you."

"You're right. He likes the rivalry too much."

"Oh, come now!"

He looked over at her, half-grinning. "Let us have our fun," he insisted. "It's about the only thing that hasn't changed since we were eight. Nice to have some constants in life."

"Just be nice to him. It's his day of glory, you know. You wouldn't have wanted him to heckle you when you were crowned."

"I'm almost always nice to him," Ephraim said, turning more serious, "and when I'm not, I'm just having fun. He hates me anyways."

Eirik bit her lip. "He doesn't hate you, Ephraim ..." She knew he didn't. She'd seen how worried the Frelian prince became whenever Ephraim was in danger, or even upset at something, as much as he tried to hide it. She'd seen the times when they'd fallen asleep studying, or one had burst out laughing at something the other had said, or when they walked companionably through the gardens. She'd seen how his feelings always managed to shine through his frigid stares and his infathomable actions. She knew that, in the end, Hineas did consider Ephraim a friend.

Ephraim shrugged. "You want to get going?" he asked, and she could tell that he didn't really want to talk about it ... not because the subject made him uncomfortable, she was pretty sure that she had yet to see something that made Ephraim uncomfortable, so to speak, but simply because he didn't have any desire to discuss it.

"Yeah." Eirik said, smiling. "Let's go." she kneed her horse and started down the hill, and the sound of hooves behind her told her that Ephraim was not far behind.

~*~

Tana lowered her eyes, suddenly sober. "...mn," she said quietly. "Yeah ..." she was silent for a long moment, and then, "it's really not such a big deal," she said, as if trying to convince herself. "It'll actually be nice to see them again, right? Just like old times ..."

Hineas shrugged. "There's no need for you to get upset. Don't frown like that."

She raised her head, smiling once more. "Hineas. Are you trying to cheer me up?" she asked, her voice nearly teasing.

He blinked at her tone of voice, and shook his head, baffled. What exactly did she want from him? "It's really so bad, for me to try to make my sister less sad, is it?"

"Not bad," she chirped, and stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek, which he tried not to react to, but couldn't quite help the ghost of a smile that touched his lips, or note the pleased expression on Taana's face as she saw it. "I'm just not used to it!" She moved to fix the buttons on the cuffs of his fancy overcoat.

"You make it sound like I never say anything nice to you," he sighed.

"Not never!" she stuck out her tongue. "Just almost never!" and before he could respond, she neatly folded down the cuff and grabbed his hand. "Now, come on! All those horrible people you're dreading so much should be here very soon, and I'm sure Father is already prepared to do his part of the ceremony! How embarrasing would it be to be late to your own coronation?"

To Be Continued~ oooooooooooooooh

[planning] Seima Fic

2005-05-26T21:32:22Z

Basic plot idea:

Prince Hineas of Frelia is being crowned as King five years after the War of the Stones. He is his usual self, fretting about how he can't enjoy this because the other royals will be in the audience, Ephraim and Eirik in particular. Taana tries her best to calm him down, but it's not working particularly well. Everyone shows up, crowing happens, and Rachael, being herself, goes "OMG ROYAL CONFERANCE PLZ."

She puts forward an ... actually rather solid idea, for Rachael. She moves that one of the rulers becomes a "High King" ... not an Emperor, just a ruler who the others of Magival defer to, to solidify relations and keep things running smoothly. She says that while she would LOVE to bless them with her rule and perform the duty herself, she fears she would completely overshadow them in her glorious light. ("She wants fame and adoration, not responsability," Rennac mutters.) She moves that the respected Ephraim, King of Lunes and currently Regent of Grado, hailed the great Restoration King, should take the position.

And there would be the general plotline. Hineas, naturally, DOES NOT LIKE THIS IDEA AT ALL, but not signing the agreements would make him look like a child and he knows this. Conflict both internal and external. Struggle by internal and extenal. Carcino caught in the crossfire. Large-scale stuff. Blah blah blah. All at the same time, a hardcore Hineas/Eirik/Ephraim love triangle is going on, which is as important to the story as the main plotline, of course ;) Rachael, Taana, and Joshua also play major roles. And probably LOLWTFOMG, because I like them XD;

This is here so I won't forget. And so some people can enjoy the ideas.

[fic] Perfect, Tiltyu, Edain

2005-05-25T10:02:01Z

Perfect
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu
Focus Characters: Tiltyu, Edain
Pairings: OS!Tiltyu/Azel, OS!Azel/Edain, [kinda more that I prefer not to say right off the bat]
Rating: PG (rated for violence)
(This fic was never archived on fanfiction.net)
Summary: How could anyone blame Azel for loving Edain so? She was completely perfect, after all.
Notes: Written for insert_phrase, for the phrase "You didn't really believe that, did you?" It was ORIGINALLY supposed to be "You could get us killed," but the exact words wouldn't flow. While I was writing this, I had no clue WHERE I was going with it, so I was really down about it and just wanted to get it done so it would get off my mind ... but I ... actually kinda like how it came out ^^ I like the ending, at any rate. Yeah. It's kinda odd, I got the idea when I was walking somewhere, once.

It's also the longest Seisenfic I've ever written. Score? :3

The Lady Edain of Jungvy carried herself with poise and grace. She was always smiling, when she wasn't righteously indignant or every so slightly worried, usually over some poor soul she was charitably treating the injuries of. Her smile was not a large beam, but rather a gentle, fresh breeze of sunlight. She wore only the most modestly beautiful of gowns, those of a sister, but with enough added elegance with stylish little touches to make her look like the fine lady that she was bred as. She did not spend time fussing over her hair or her skin, because those things were just naturally perfect. What need was there to try to fix something naturally perfect? In fact, that applied to all of the Lady Edain. She was so much perfection bundled into a single person, how could anyone possibly find any flaw in her at all? So kind, so gracious, so elegant, so poised, so honest, so sacrificing ... there wasn't a single thing that she could do wrong, even if she tried.

Being near her for any extended period of time, Tiltyu mused, was torture of the worst kind.

It wasn't something so ridiculous as jealousy, she insisted to herself as Edain walked besides her -- no, that was wrong, the Lady Edain of Jungvy could not simply walk, she glided, like a graceful skiff on a lake. It wasn't something so ridiculous as the fact that Azel had been fixated on her since forever. As annoying as that was, and as much as, even now, when the Lady was married, he still looked after her like some pathetic lost puppy, that was not Tiltyu's reason for not being able to stand Edain of Jungvy.

Of course not.

"Things are looking clear, don't you think, Lady Tiltyu?"

"Yeah," Tiltyu said vaguely, forcing herself to look into the trees to the sides of the path they travelled on. Not to focus on Lady Edain, and her infuriating perfection, was the trick. Pretending that she was not there unless neccessary was also helpful. It would be easier, though, if Edain, being the perfect lady that she was, didn't feel the need to have conversation with her fellow noblewoman -- not prying, nosy conversation, just the nice, reassuring type of talk that is usually comforting on these long marches alone. Was there anything she could do wrong? No wonder Azel stared after her like she was a plump, roasted goose and he was a starving peasant. He would have to be mad not to.

"Perhaps we should head back,"

"We should make sure that the coast is clear," Tiltyu shook her head irritably, staring into the woods.

Edain said nothing, and Tiltyu looked over at her discreetly. Her dainty hands held fast to her staff, and her golden curls bounced on her shoulders are she walked -- glided along, her eyes also peering into the trees. Tiltyu sighed. She even managed to make looking at plants look perfect.

Even the things that she did wrong, she seemed to do right. Of course, her powers in magic were very slim, her primary function being as a healer, but her gentle nature couldn't do any more harm than that, and then sleep with good conscience, now could it? Yes, she did occassionally seem dense in her unerring sweetness, but it was a small price to pay, and besides, women who were too smart were annoyances to be near, no? Tiltyu was sure that her entire life, she had been like this, blessed with unerring perfection from the gods.

"Tiltyu, I've got a secret I've got to tell you."

"Why're you telling me? Go talk to Lex or somethin', I'm busy."

"Lex'll just laugh at me. C'mon, Tiltyu."

"Oh ... fine. What is it, Azel?"

"I'm going to marry Lady Edain."

"You are not!"

"Yes, I am! I could never be happy with anybody else! She's so pretty and sweet and kind and ..."

Bah. Why did she care so much? Azel was just a childhood friend who happened to clean up sort of nice lately. He still stuttered when he got nervous and blushed like a beet at the drop of a hat, and sure he was a complete sweetheart sometimes and he could make her feel a thousant feet tall with just a few words, but ... he was Azel. And he'd been babbling about Edain since before time began, she was quite sure, and it had never bothered her before. And besides, Edain was married. Azel was clearly not going to marry her now, now was he?

Of course, he wouldn't be marrying anyone else, either, if he never took his eyes off of her.

But he couldn't be blamed, really. How could anyone be blamed. Edain was perfection. It was impossible to not feel either drawn to her or threatened by her. No one else could ever measure up, because she was completely and utterly ... perfect. Just like Azel had always said.

"I think that things are safe," Edain said. She sighed quietly and turned to look at Tiltyu. "Is there ... something that we should talk about?" she asked gently.

Tiltyu looked away. "Nothing at all," she said, positive that the tension she was riddled with was touching her voice.

"Are you certain, Lady Tiltyu ..." Edain asked, stopping and cradling her staff, her face an expression of concern.

Tiltyu also stopped, and sighed, and turned her gaze to the healer. "Yes, I'm sure." She went to elaborate on her lie, but a small flicker of movement behind Edain caused her to narrow her eyes and peer harder into the trees. There ... a man! An enemy soldier? Most certainly, his uniform gave him away. He was lying on the ground, his weapon clutched in his hand, but he was moving. She hefted the heavy, thick Torron tome she carried and brusquely cocked her head towards Edain. "Get out of the way." she said.

Edain whirled and quickly stepped to the side as she saw what Tiltyu was looking at, while the thunder mage opened the pages of the tome she held and focused her mind on the symbols printed there, breathing deeply. The energy swelled into her like a great floodgate had been pulled aside, and she felt the crackling power of lightning raise up in her and send every hair in her body seething with power. So much sheer, raw force filled her that for a moment, she was unsure of where she ended and it began, and, in a single motion, she moved to release it all onto the enemy solider, and --

"No! Stop!" the force of a hand on her body somewhere pulled her from her commune and, shocked, she dropped the book. For a moment, the power stopped still, and, desperately, she dropped to her hands and knees and placed her hand on the Torron tome, and sighed with relief as she felt the energy trickle back into it. She breathed deeply for a few seconds, gathering her bearings, building up her strength, before, turning, eyes flashing, to the form of Edain, kneeling beside then enemy and -- she couldn't believe her eyes -- healing him, her eyes closed in concentration, the bulb on her Relive staff glowing brightly.

The soldier was looking with quiet awe at his healed hands, a ssmile spreading across his face. "Thank you!" he said with desperate happiness to Edain, who smiled at him like the bloody benevolent angel she was. "I thought for certain I was ..."

"Go back to your family," Edain soothed, touching his arm. "Forget about all of this. War brings only sadness. Do yourself and everyone who cares for you a favour, and don't become involved in it again."

The man, still looking at her face in disbelief, reached out and touched her curls with hesitant hands. "Who are you ...?"

Edain simply smiled. "Just a woman in the service of the gods, doing their will as best she can." she told him, climbing to her feet. "Go along, now." She walked back towards where Tiltyu stood, staff still clutched daintily in her hands.

Tiltyu gaped at her, pulling the Torron tome against her chest, before making a strangled sound and stamping her foot on the ground hard. "You're crazy!" she cried. "You could have killed us both!"

Edain tooked a bit taken aback, and she flushed lightly. "No man would bite the hand who feeds them like that ..." she reasoned. "I knew that he wouldn't turn on us, and he didn't, so ..."

Tiltyu hefted the Torron tome in one hand, and shook it close to Edain's face as the healer shrunk back. All her pent up emotions were bursting forth, and she didn't really have any desire to control them. "Do you have any idea what this tome is?" she demanded.

"The Torron tome ..."

"Yes. Torron. Other than the Thor's Hammer itself, milady, this is it!" Tiltyu snapped. "There is more sheer thunder power in this book than there is an electric storm! Grabbing my arm and distracting me in the middle of channeling it .. do you have any clue what would have happened if that power had gone wild?"

Edain gaped, blinking. "I never ..."

"Of course you didn't!" Tiltyu threw up her hands and turned away, turning and stomping down the path. "How much do you know about magic? Enough to throw a little fireball? We'd sure be in trouble if one of those went wild, now wouldn't we! We could lose a whole shrubbery!"

"Lady Tiltyu, I apologize, I never --"

It was euphoria, almost, now that the fear was wearing off. Tiltyu's blood sung through her veins and her gait picked up a more lively tone. "No, of course you didn't! Of course, that wouldn't be much of an excuse if we were both standing before Saint Heim right now, but luckily for me, I know how to deal with these things when they arise. You should be thankful!"

"I am, Lady Tiltyu, I am extremely thankful. It was your knowledge saved us both ..."

"Hm," Tiltyu smiled as she walked, tipping her head to one side. "I did."

"Could you find it in your heart to forgive me ...? I merely wanted to spare one innocent soul this war, and I didn't think ..."

"No, you didn't, did you?"

"Lady Tiltyu, please ... no one is perfect ..."

Tiltyu stopped, and before she could think, snapped out. "You are."

Edain blinked, her feet stilling. "I ..." she trailed off and looked away. "... what?"

Tiltyu snapped her mouth closed shut and turned away. "Forget I said anything," she murmered.

"No, please, wait, Lady Tiltyu ..." the sound of feet striking dirt came, and the Edain was beside her. "Why would you say that?"

"Because ..." Tiltyu frowned and looked away. "Because it's true, of course."

"... I am far from perfect, Lady Tiltyu ... just look at what I just did a few moments ago ... like you said, my rash actions could have had us both killed ..."

"And even then, you were just doing it to save someone else's life," Tiltyu shook her head. The heady bliss of spewing her mouth off at Edain had faded to leave a bitter emptiness not quite like anything she'd ever felt before, aside from, perhaps, that time she had told Ethnia she hated her ... "Selfless and flawless, as usual. Who could argue with that ...?"

"That is not true!" Edain said forcefully, taking hold of Tiltyu's arm and stopped in midstep. Begrudingly, Tiltyu looked Edain in the eyes, to see that her gaze was troubled and clouded. "I had no right to put your life in jeopardy like that. You were my comrade, and he was an enemy solider. While I want to save everyone, my loytalities should have been clear. I still implore you to forgive me, but that does not excuse what I did. I not only made a mistake, I made quite a large one."

Tiltyu looked away, her mind struggling with itself. Edain was perfect. She has always been perfect. She was so perfect that Azel had dedicated everything to her, doing everything he could for her, talked about her all the time ... she had to be perfect.

Because, if she wasn't perfect ... maybe that meant that Tiltyu simply ... wasn't good enough for Azel's attentions.

She bit her lip.

"Are you angry at me for something, Lady Tiltyu ..." Edain asked quietly. "Things have been so tense ever since you and I met again ... I remember when we were young, and while we were never friends so to speak, we got along well ... do you remember when you and I and Sigurd and Ethlinn and Lord Azel found that shallow part of the Jun ... and you threw water at me and soaked me clean to the bone, and my father scolded us, but we laughed the whole time?"

Tiltyu shrugged, her mind elsewhere. "... yeah, I remember that."

Edain looked at her, clearly not quite knowing what to do.

Tiltyu sighed and shook her arm free of the other woman's hold. "We should just go back," she said, turning and starting to walk down the path again.

"Why ..."

She stopped a looked back. Edain was staring down at her feet, her shoulders slumped.

"Why do you dislike me?" she asked quietly. "I don't think that I've ever done anything to you ..."

She wasn't jealous. Azel was Azel, the silly boy who cried to often and blushed too easily. He was a friend, a friend she'd had since forever, a friend who she'd never looked at as anything but a friend ...

Or perhaps, had never let herself look at as anything but a friend. Because with the way that he watched Edain, she knew that she could never stand a chance. Even now, that the feelings she'd surpressed for as long as she could remember were finally starting to move forth despite all her moves to sit on them and make them shut up were trying to come forth, and all Azel could ever look at with Edain. Perfect, flawless Edain, who was so desirable that even the fact that she was married to someone else couldn't turn his eyes from her. Couldn't prompt him to maybe look at the girl who'd watched him since they were children together the way he had watched perfect Lady Edain for even one moment.

"Dammit, Azel ..." Tiltyu murmered, her fingers curling into a fist, and tears springing to her eyes.

Edain looked up sharply. "Azel?"

Tiltyu snapped her eyes to Edain's and the quickly turned away, but not before noting the realization there. "It was nothing." Her fingernails made halfmoons in her palms.

"What does this have to do with Azel?"

Tiltyu didn't mean to say anything, but she was so intent on not crying that she apparently lost control of her mouth. "This has everything to do with Azel!" she said sharply, and wondered if that was really her own voice talking. "Can't you see how he's always watched you? Can't you see that he's still watching you now? How could I not dislike you, when all I ever wanted was for him to look my way, but he was too busy looking at you? How could I not think that you were perfect, when all he could ever talk about was how you were? How could --" she finally managed to get her mouth closed, and the tears threatened to overwhelm her, but she resolutely kept them inside.

"... Lady Tiltyu ..."

"Didn't you see it?" she whispered.

Foosteps, then a hand was laid on her shoulder. "No ..."

"How couldn't you?" Tiltyu whispered desperately. "He was always there, always staring at you ..."

"I just ... I never noticed."

"I can't believe that."

"But it is true ..."

Tiltyu bit her lip and looked as far in the opposite direction as Edain as she could.

"And ... you loved him?" Edain asked, gently.

Despite the fact that she'd had every intention of shaking her head, Tiltyu found herself nodding, and cursed herself. Why would her body not do what she asked of it? She wasn't that upset, was she? The fact that she'd just admitted she loved Azel to someone else, when she'd never even admitted it to herself, was so far flung from reality she couldn't even begin to process it.

"I thought ... well, you've been very open about your feelings for Father Claude ..."

Tiltyu laughed bitterly "You didn't really believe that, did you? Claude ... who could love Father Claude? He's as cold as ice ... yes, he's incredibly handsome, and he's intelligent, and he's charismatic and ... well, I can admit having a crush on him, but more than anything, he was a way to get out of Freege! It's so boring there, always has been, and all of Father's politics these days make me nervous ..." she sighed. "Forget it ... please. Let's just ... go."

"I don't want you to hate me, Tiltyu ..." Edain murmered, and Tiltyu couldn't help but notice that she had dropped the titles she always made a point of using, like a perfect lady.

"I ... don't." It wasn't a lie, not exactly. It wasn't hatred that she felt ... she didn't know quite what it was ... bitterness, rivalry, animousity, some level of anger, a burning core of the jealousy that she would never admit existed before, mixed in with some level of admiration and caring and wnting to love something wonderful, but not hatred. How could she ever truely hate anyone so ... perfect? "I don't," she repeated with a bit more confidance.

"I ... could speak to Azel, if you wanted ..."

"No, don't. That'd be totally --" Tiltyu cut off suddenly. The slightest of sounds coming from somewhere behind her kicked her instincts into action. She pushed Edain hard to the ground, ducking and rolling as a arrow sailed through the air where they had both been standing seconds before. She curled her body around the fragile old tome she carried as she rolled, then quickly took a firm hold of it as she sprung back to her feet, turning in the direction the arrow had come from.

She saw no one, and squinted harder. There had to be someone out there, where else had the arrow come from ...? Her eyes scanned the trees in search on the enemy. No, no ... wait, there, knocking another arrow! "Get out of the way, Edain!" she hissed, opening the tome, closing her eyes, and letting the thunder flow into her again, keeping her mind focused on where she had seen the enemy archer. The divine gates of Tordo opened within her, and the lightning rushed, pulsing, into her hands. She focused hard, and then released the ball of pure electricity to race towards the enemy. In that moment, sharp sounds pushed through her focused shell of concentration, that of a bowsting, a cry of pain, and the defeaning fizzle-crack sound of the Torron hitting its target. The backlash from the spell sent her staggering back a few steps, and, slowly, she forced her eyes open. The feeling of lightning running along her veins like conductor currents wasn't something easy to shake off, but she forced herself to look for the source of the cry.

Edain was clutching at her chest, and while all Tiltyu could see through her stupor and her panic was red on white, she could manage the thought process to tell that the healer had been shot. She dropped the Torron tome blindly, running to her side, her mind racing. This was her fault, somehow ... what did Father Claude always say? 'To wish pain on another is to inflict that pain yourself.' This was her fault, all her fault ...

The ugly feathers protruding from Edain's chest testified that she'd been hit, if the blood wasn't enough. Blood everywhere, red on white. Tiltyu felt dizzy. She couldn't remember ever seeing someone who she knew bleeding like this ... "Edain! Are you okay?" she demanded.

Edain smiled weakly. "If ... this doesn't ... convince you that ... I'm not perfect ... I don't know ... what will ..."

"Shut up!" Tiltyu commanded harshly. "Look, I'll pull out this arrow, here, and we'll get you to Ethlinn, and she can heal you right up, okay?"

Edain put a hand on her arm and shook her head. "Do you have ... any idea ... how far away ... the rest of the army is ...?"

"I don't care. You can hang on that long, you're tough!" Tiltyu insisted, tears pricking her eyes. This was not going to end like this. She would not let this end like this.

Edain coughed hard, and the pain on her face was so plain that Tiltyu couldn't stop the tears from falling down her cheeks. "Not tough ..." Edain shook her head, "that's my ... that's my biggest flaw ... don't have a tough ... bone in me ... I don't think ... haha ..." Her hands reached into her cape, and came out with a small pearl necklace, which she pressed into Tiltyu's numb hands. "Give this ... to my husband ... tell him ... I love him ... he'll understand ..." she smiled. "It's almost ... funny ... I've spent thirteen years studying ... the staff ... saving others ... and I can't heal myself ..." she patted Tiltyu's hand gently as a few tears slid down her cheeks. Perfect, crystal tears ... "Maybe ... Azel will ... look at you, now ... with me not here ... anymore ..."

Tiltyu knit her lips close together, before closing her eyes tightly and snapped loudly. "Stop talking like that! It's awful!"

She opened her eyes to see Edain looking at her with an almost dumbfounded expression.

"Don't you dare give up that easily!" Tiltyu insisted. "I have not wanted to be you for as long as I can remember for you to prove to me that you're not worth wanting to be! You are tough. I've seen it. You aren't going to be able to convince me otherwise!"

Edain just kept staring, and Tiltyu shook her head. "You're only weak, if you give up like this! Don't you tell me, 'this is the end' and just stop breathing! You keep breathing as long as you can draw breath into your lungs. You may not be perfect, but Heim, I'm convinced you're as close to it as can be, so don't you dare disappoint me!"

And Edain stared again, for a very long time, while Tiltyu glared back at her with all the fury she could muster, tears streaming down her cheeks, before a small chuckle touched the healer's lips and she shook her head weakly, but with a resigned acceptance that bolstered Tiltyu's heart. "Very ... well," she said, softly. "You make a ... strong case, Lady Tiltyu ..." she smiled. "Help me up ... and we'll walk until we find someone ... who can use a stave ... or until I fall over dead ..."

"No 'or until'," Tiltyu corrected. "We will find someone."

Edain smiled again, and nodded. "Right ..." she managed. "We will."

~*~

Tinie was almost asleep when she heard a careful knocking sound. For a moment, she had thought she'd imagined it, but when it came again, she frowned, and sat up in bed. "Who ... who is it?" she asked hesitantly.

The door creaked open, and a head full of bouncing strawberry curls poked it's head in. "Are you ... Lady Tinie of Freege?" a voice asked carefully. "Lady Tiltyu's daughter?"

Tinie nodded, baffled, but her curiousity overwhelming her. This person knew of her mother? A slight girl attached to the curly head entered the room and pushed the door closed. She stood there, staring at her feet, her voice shy, while Tinie wondered whatever had brought this on. The girl said, finally, hesitantly. "... my name is Rana ... I'm from Jungvy ... well, actually, I'm from Tir Na Nog, but I was supposed to be from Jungvy ... your brother, Arthur, he told me that I'd be able to find you here ..."

Tinie frowned. "I ... I don't understand. Why are ...?"

"See ..." Rana took a few steps forward. "My mother is Lady Edain of Jungvy, and ... well, she always told me this story, when I was little, about your mother ... a true story, from when they were young ... and I ... I just wanted to thank you, I suppose."

Tinie's heart fluttered at the mention of her mother. She cocked her head. "Thank me?"

"Mn," Rana bobbed her head in a nod. "Well, thank your mother, more, but since she's not here anymore ... I just thought ... well, it seemed appropriate, I guess. After all ... it's thanks to your mother that I'm even standing here right now ..."

"... is that true? My mother did that?" Tinie asked, almost hungry to hear more.

"Yeah."

Tinie bit her lip. "Could you ... maybe tell me the story?"

Rana's sweet face broke into an ingenuous smile, and she crossed the room to sit on the edge of Tinie's bed. "Well ... you see ... a long, long time ago, your father thought that my mother was perfect ..."

[fic] Together, Ephraim/Hineas

2005-05-25T09:58:22Z

Together
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Seima no Kouseki
Focus Characters: Hineas, Ephraim, Joshua
Pairings: Ephraim/Hineas, mentioned Seth or Forde/Eirik and Cougar/Taana
Rating: PG-13 (rated for sexuality and thematic elements.)
(This fic was never archived on fanfiction.net)
Summary: He had been perfectly willing to just try to drop the whole thing! Not like Ephraim ever let him, or anything.
Notes: Written for fe100, for the theme "While Resting." Hineas is OOC, I can't write Hineas to save my life XD I always write him with a building up his ass instead of just a stick XD But it's AMUSING, and I think I've got Ephraim and Joshua down pretty solid ... so, yeah.

SOMEDAY, I will write Hineas well :p

Hineas wiped the sweat from his forehead as the hot afternoon sun beat down on him and moved back slightly, trying to get under the foliage of the sparse tree he sat near. He muttered, disgruntled, to himself, working at the string on his bow, and growing more frusterated by the second. He had never liked being in Lunes. It was hot here, and the air was always heavy. And the scenery was nowhere near as nice as Frelia's but not as exotic as any of the other countries he'd visited, lately.

Not to mention, it reminded him uncomfortably of ... things.

He shook that off. Things that were far behind him, now. Things that had been worked out. Things that he had gotten to the very root of his feelings about, and was now prepared to completely stop thinking about.

Completely stop thinking about.

Completely.

He growled and tugged on the bowstring.

At least, he could have completely forgotten about it. He had been perfectly willing to just let it go, situations being now as they were. But then -- once again -- he had dragged it back up to the sruface, just like he always did. Hineas was certain he was baiting him. Just trying to make him angry.

Well, it was working.

He stopped tugging on the string. He was going to break the damned thing, at this rate. He'd learned that ages ago, never string a bow when put out at Ephraim. The string was too short, anyways. Who'd packed these strings? Taana? Oh, probably.

He settled back against the little tree, which had apparently been spared from the burning and pillaging of Grado's troops, and the disgusting defacing done by the monsters, his mind mulling over everything he had to think about.

"I'm not talking about this," he spat.

"Listen. Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"This! What you've been doing since we met! This ridiculous little war. We're adults, and this isn't the time."

"You actually expect me to simply ... drop this."

"Yes."

He laughed shortly. "It isn't that easy."

"Why not?"

Because I've based my entire life on you. Because the moment your lance broke mine, you gave me a reason to be alive. Because you make me the best I can be. Because you're the standard I have to measure myself up to, and without you there, I wouldn't know who I am.

"Because it just isn't. Now just ... go away. I don't want to talk to you right now."

"... no. I want to resolve this."

"There is nothing to resolve!"

"You would really just prefer me gone from your life."

You couldn't be further from the truth.

For some reason, no words came out when he tried to speak.

"You're right. There's no point to this. Our game has had its moments, Prince Hineas. But this is silly. It's distracting. I can't focus. We are adults. Whether you want it to or not, it's ending right now." Ephraim turned to go.

He'd never know what posessed him in that moment, but all he saw was Ephraim turning to leave, and something snapped within him. A hand reached out to grab the front of his cloak, and in an instant, he had his lips pressed against the other prince's, and couldn't decide whether he was glad he'd done it, or if it was the most foolish choice he had ever made.

And there it was. Life couldn't be expected to simply return to the way that things had been before, now that something like that had happened. Hineas shook his head to himself, closing his eyes and leaning back against the tree, keeping his ears open for the order -- a Prince of proud Frelia taking orders, really, he owed his life to Eirik, but she wasn't the one giving the orders anymore, now was she? -- to resume march that could come at any moment. Completely losing control of himself in that moment was something that he had assumed he would never do. Indeed, until that very moment, he'd been quite certain that he rather hated Ephraim, to the point where even thinking about him made him out of sorts, and he hated to do so much as say his name. But in that moment ...

Well, thinking about it was silly. Dwelling on it was silly. It had happened, they had discussed what the best course of action would be to follow it up, and then, they had proceeded with their lives. They had simply proceeded ... together.

Together. With Prince Ephraim of Lunes. How wrong it felt to not want to shoot off a round of arrows at unsuspecting targets when he thought about the man.

Together with Ephraim of Lunes was not a particularly ... unpleasant. Odd, maybe, he had never really thought about a man in such a way before, but not unpleasant. It actually had its moments, really. There were times when he was really quite ... glad, that things had ended in this way.

Well. At least he had been. Until recently. Until --

"You're blushing."

Hineas snapped his eyes open and glared up fiercely at the face he knew he would see there. "I am not!" he protested on instinct.

"You are."

He clamped his mouth closed and looked away. "It's a sunburn," he said tauntly.

Ephraim shrugged lightly, and settled down beside him. After wrestling with himself for a moment, Hineas reached out and took his hand. If he was going to do this, he was going to do this. Hineas of Frelia did not do anything halfway.

Whatever his motives were, though ... he had to admit, it did feel rather nice when Ephraim curled his hand around his in response.

"That's some sunburn. Vanishing so quickly."

The irritation returned. "You're not half as funny as you seem to think you are."

"Mn, I know."

Ephraim's easy way of agreeing with criticism always left Hineas unsure of what to respond with, and this time was no exception. He stared at his bow on the ground, the Pegsus' in flight that were carved into the wood with disinterest as his hand grew sweaty inside of Ephraim's and the sun tried to find more and more holes through the foliage to settle on them.

"You're angry at me." It wasn't a question.

"I'm not angry."

"You're put out, then?"

Hineas jutted his chin forward. "You were being --"

"Very difficult and rather patronizing. And having too much fun at your expense."

"... yes."

"Mn."

That was it? All he had to say for himself was some small, noncommital noise?

"I wasn't particularly happy with it," he said tightly.

"Oh. You weren't?"

Hineas ground his teeth at the note of false surprise in his voice. He supposed this was a side effect of being on his good side -- the only people who Ephraim teased were people he cared about, Eirik, Leon -- but it was infuriating. "No," he said.

"Hmm."

"Hmm, what?"

"Well, it just didn't seem like that to me."

Hineas sat with his mouth open, looking for a suitable response for a long time, and realizing that his "sunburn" was probably acting up once more, before settling with. "I don't want to talk about this."

"That's fine."

"Good."

A long silence passed, before Ephraim finally spoke again, that teasing lilt still in his usually serious voice. "Well, if it was just the way things were set up that made it unenjoyable, we could try it differently next time ..."

Hineas flushed so hard he thought he must be glowing, and he pushed his lips together in a thin line, "I said that I'm not talking about this."

"Suit yourself," Ephraim said agreeably, and Hineas heard the touch of laughter in his voice. Laughing at his expense. It was hardly funny. He wouldn't be laughing particularly hard in his position, now would he?

"Now look at that!"

Both men snapped their gaze up to be greeted with Joshua nursing an apple, peering at them from beneath that silly hat he always wore. Hineas assumed, now that he knew the frusterating gambler's secrets, that he wore the thing so low so as not to be noted for looking suspiciously like the Queen of the White Dunes, but it was still ridiculous. It was a wonder he could move without running into things, with how far down it was pulled over its gaze.

"Awful cute how you're being so open about these things," Joshua chewed thoughtfully. It was infuriating, how he insisted on keeping up these pretenses of being and uneducated idiot when Hineas had plainly heard him talking like a scholar to his mother. "Thought maybe people would start talking, with how close you're being in public, but I guess so long as Princess Eirik marries that knight of hers and Princess Taana marries the dragonrider, there's nothing to complain about, heirs are out there."

Hineas wanted to snatch his hand away from Ephraim's. But his own words to himself forced him back. If he was going to do this, he was going to do this. Hineas of Frelia did not do anything halfway. He scooted closer to Ephraim, who seemed somewhere between surprised and amused at the motion. "I don't see how this is any of your business," he said.

"Call it foreign affairs?" Joshua replied lightly. "Actually, it's more casual curiousity, to be completely honest. There's just something I've been wondering since I heard about the things going on between the two of you."

They were the talk of the army, apparently, which irked Hineas somewhat.

"What's that?" Ephraim asked.

The smirk and the jaunty angle of Joshua's head should have tipped the Frelian prince off before he opened his mouth, but the heat was making his mind sluggish. "Who's on top?"

And while Hineas sputtered and jumped quickly away from Ephraim, the Lunes prince simply smirked and said lightly. "We were just talking about that, actually, weren't we, Hineas?"

"Oh?" Joshua asked, his grin widening.

"I don't think Hineas likes our current arrangement."

Hineas did not regret kissing Ephraim. After all, being together with the Prince of Lunes had moments when it was actually quite ... pleasant. But he had to wonder, as he got to his feet, collected his bow, and stiffly walked into the bright, hot sun, with Joshua howling in laughter and Ephraim sitting completely straight-faced, what exactly he had been thinking when he did so.

He suspected he'd never know.

[fic] Passion and Madness, Alvis

2005-05-20T18:30:09Z

Passion and Madness
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu
Focus Characters: Alvis, Ida
Pairings: Alvis/Ida, Alivs/Deirdre
Rating: R (rated for more sexuality than you can shake a stick at.)
(This fic was never archived on fanfiction.net)
Summary: He was going mad.
Notes: Written for insert_phrase. I'm desperately fond of it. If you read this and get "wow, this is hot", you got the wrong thing out of it. :p

Not archived because I haven't gotten around to it. I think it's tame enough for FFn, anyways.

An image floated across his mind, of her, bare as she was born, staring out an open window with the winds prickling her skin and her hair flowing back like the curtains beside her.

His heart beat faster.

His body had been acting on its own all day, and now that he was alone, in his own chambers, none of the relief that he simply expected would flow into him was coming. He took a drink of his wine, attempted to calm his jangled nerves, clutching hard to the side of the table with his free hand. All he could think of was her eyes, like diamonds, her hands, like dainty spiders' legs, her hair, like a crystal waterfall around her shoulders, her curves, like a perfect hourglass ...

With a strangled cry, Alvis firmly set his wine glass back onto the table. He imagined her great, wide eyes on him, that sweet smile she saved only for him, the way she would duck her head and flush when he flattered her ...

He was going mad. Deirdre was driving him mad.

The fact that he was thinking of her in such a base way filled him with guilt. She was so perfect, so delicate, so exactly what he'd always longed for, and she was better than these thoughts. But try as he may, he couldn't force the images that kept invading his mind and setting his blood on fire. He needed to stop thinking of her. He needed release.

His gaze slipped towards the door of his room. A quick collected moment to direct a servant to "Fetch Lady Ida," would be all it would take. However, his conscience recoiled against the idea of using Ida to express his feelings towards Deirdre, although he couldn't quite understand why. He owed no loyalty to Deirdre, and they were in no position where he had any sort of tie to her. For now, she was just a poor girl, lost and alone with no memory of her life, who he happened to open his hospitality to. The fact that she made his heart pound, his palms sweat, and his blood race didn't give him any sort of responsability towards her. Since when had he let this sort of thing affect him so deeply? She truely was driving him mad. He took another drink from his wine.

Deirdre was a woman who was fond of physical contact. Not clingy, not by any means, but she would lay her slender fingers on his arm while giving him these looks ladan with pure graditude that would drive him wild. The inside of her breast tended to press into his side when she did this, and it was all he could do to execute self-control over himself. Even remembering it now caused him to break out into a sweat yet again. He closed his eyes tightly and leaned back in his chair. His body was determined to do what it wanted, regardless of what he directed of it. His mind chose that moment to show him one of those images it'd taken up the habit of doing, lately, this time, of Deirdre laying clad only in her crystal hair in a bed of clovers, her expression a mixture of timid innocence and come-hither heat.

"Fala ..." he whispered, the curse almost catching in his throat.

That was it. Before he could change his mind, he rose and quickly moved to the door, which, after a moment to gather his composure, he opened the door of his room. The servant lounging against the wall snapped to attention at the sound, and stiffly bowed. "Sir!" he said quickly.

"Please summon Lady Ida," Alvis said, as smoothly as he could muster, and chose to ignore the raised eyebrow from the servant. Any other time, he would have talked him down about how his conduct was unseemly, but he didn't think he could manage it at the moment. When the man turned to leave, Alvis closed the door behind him and leaned against it, wiping his brow.

He couldn't remember ever feeling quite like this, not in his entire life. He remembered, when he was young, no more than 13, kissing a scullery maid, and reaching under her blouse, and everything that had followed. He had been nervous, and it still made him sigh to think of what a bumbing fool he'd been. And since then, he had become more and more casual about the whole business. Simply a pleasurable relief for certain urges, a welcome distraction to the responsabilities of life. But this ... pounding rush ...

It was not completely Deirdre's body that he wanted. It was her. It was her shy laugh, and her quiet serenity, and the way that she smiled when she saw trees that she thought were lovely. How many women smiled at trees? It was the way that she spoke to him. She spoke as if she truely understood him. She seemed to enjoy his presence because he was himself, not all the trappings of his power and his titles. He'd never even realized before he met her that he wanted to be seen for himself.

He breathed deeply. For the first time in his entire life, he was close to a woman who he was drawn to mind, body, and soul, and it caused feelings within him he hadn't even known existed, and had always scoffed his brother for, saying they were just an illusion.

Suddenly, he understood why Azel would have risked his wrath to run across the country after Lady Edain.

The combination of emotions he felt when she was around her drove him to levels that he had never been to before, and it was frusterating. Any other woman, he would simply turn on his charm, and then make an advance. If they called him a boorish pig for doing such a thing, well, that was simply too bad for them, because they'd never get the chance back. He could certainly find another woman equally satisfying in a moment. But Deirdre ... he cared what Deirdre would think of him. He could never make such a proposition of her, even if he knew she would accept. She was too good for that.

Another of those images flashed through his mind, of Deirdre bathing under a waterfall as irresdecent as her hair, her hands on her body, her skin slick and smooth, her nipples tight and hard, and her eyes closed in ecstasy.

He swallowed hard. Mad.

A knock sounded against his door, and, quickly, he pulled it open. Ida stood there, one eyebrow raised, and the servant was nowhere in sight.

Good.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, his lips closing over hers and his hands tugging at her clothing even as he shut the door and pinned her against it. He closed his eyes, so that he could pretend it wasn't her there, but the beautiful maiden of unearthly beauty who'd been dropped into his lap. Ida moved her arms to put them around his neck, but he grabbed them and roughly pinned her wrists against the door with one hand. Ida made a muffled sound of surprise. Their lovemaking had always been a battlefield, since the first time when she'd ended up into his bedroom, because that was the game they enjoyed playing together. That was the reason Alvis kept her around, despite the fact that the illegimate son of his she'd birthed should have had him sending her from him as quickly as he could. The game between them had always amused him, but that wasn't what she was here for tonight. Deirdre wouldn't put her arms around his neck. She would sit there, confused for a moment, and then she would slowly place her hands on his waist and move closer to him, unsure at first, but slowly filling with feelings that he'd felt since he first saw her, filling with desire, her arms curving around his waist ... he moaned.

Ida made some small sound in response, and he almost pulled his lips from hers to demand that she not make a sound and do whatever he told her, but held himself back by the one thin string of will not shredded by his restraint around Deirdre. Ida was not exactly a friend, but he did have a child with her, if nothing else, and small part of him he wanted to deny was quite sure she fancied herself in love with him, as amusing as the idea was to him. She could never feel for him what he felt for Deirdre. No one could feel for anyone what he felt for Deirdre, he was quite certain, but Ida's actions proved this without him needing to think about it for very long.

He broke his lips from hers to plant kisses down her neck, but found himself grimacing as he did so. Her skin tasted of sweat and bitter perfume, not the honey and raindrops he'd expect from Deirdre. Her breath coming out in short pants was disconcerting. He quickly began kissing her again, working at the stubborn laces on her gown.

Deirdre wore gowns that his mother had worn, the ones he still kept. She filled them out as if they were built for her. For a moment, clear as crystal in his mind, Alvis was undoing the laces on one of those gowns, and his heart lept into his throat. Then Ida moaned desperately into his mouth, and reality set back in.

He forced his uncertainties from his mind, and stepped backwards towards the large bed, letting his lover's wrists free as he did so, which she immeadiately threw around his neck like she always did. She moved in a familiar way that told him she was trying to get the upper hand, play their bedroom war games, but he antcipated and moved against her, leaving her confused. He cracked his eyes open to see her studying him uncertainly, and he ignored the question there by closing his eyes shut once more, and falling back onto the bed with her.

Ida's swordhands were calloused, not like Deirdre's slender, soft fingers at all, as she stroked Alvis' bare back, and her breasts were small and toned, nothing like the full roundness Alvis had tried so hard not to look at for weeks on end out of respect. Her hair was short and did nothing to cover her brazen nudity. Her eyes were smoky and desperate, and closing his eyes only worked so well. As much as he tried to imagine Deidre beneath him, Deirdre's hands on his skin, all he could feel was a mixture of guilt that he was thinking of her in such a way and disgust at the woman he was with.

He tore himself from her and sat up. "Leave." he said, his voice hoarse and his heart pounding. He should have listened to his primary instinct, that this was a bad idea and would do nothing to ease any of the tension that has built up within him since he'd first seen Deirdre. He'd been right.

Ida sat up. "Alvis ..."

"I said leave." Alvis repeated. The wine had been a much better idea.

"What's wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing," he lied. "Now get out."

She didn't move, and he looked over at her lips pressed into a thin line. "You've acted bizarrely all night --" she began.

"I'm not discussing this," Alvis said, aware that he sounded almost childish. His head was so far from his usual self, he couldn't even process that awareness. Another image, Deirdre stretched naked on royal purple satin sheets that made her look like a pearl in a jewelery box, her hair scattered all over, waiting for him. He swallowed hard and patted the bed, trying to find his shirt. He thought he must be going mad.

There was an uncertainty in the silence, and when Ida finally spoke again, she sounded more timid than he had ever heard her. "I'm worried about you."

Alvis barked a short laugh. Years of nothing sex for the sake of it and political pillow talk, and suddenly she was worried? He was so touched. "Don't be," was all he said aloud. "I'm quite fine."

"You've never acted like this."

He sighed. "Well, I suppose I have things on my mind."

Ida lapsed into another silence, and then, "It's that Deirdre woman ... isn't it?" She sounded so wounded that he turned to look at her out of instinct, to see her clutching the cover against her and looking at him with such a vulnerable expression, he almost forgot about the shirt and fell on her again right there, she looked so ...

He was going mad.

"I don't see how it's any of your business if it was," he answered, perhaps a little too quickly, turning his gaze away from her.

"Not my ..." she stopped. He waited for her to continue. "Not my business? You're serious?" she spat.

"Frankly? Yes." he gave up on the shirt and turned back to her.

She stared at him for a long time, her expression ranging between hurt and furious, before she finally settled on completely blank. No ... blank, with a touch of pleading. "Alvis ..."

He said nothing. If all she was going to do was say his name, he had no response to give her.

"Don't ... don't you see anything?" she whispered. "All this time ... all these nights ... Cyas ... everything ... what does it mean to you?"

His mouth pulled into a half-smile on its own. "Sentimentality? It doesn't suit you, Ida."

She closed her mouth quickly as if he'd slapped her. He couldn't even even feel slightly regretful for it. His mind was with Deirdre, whatever she was doing, sleeping, perchance. Her hair spilled around her, the thin straps of her nightgown pink on her creamy shoulders ...

"You can't say that you don't ..." Ida trailed off again, and Alvis grew frusterated.

"If you're going to say something, say it," he snapped.

She glared at him with burning anger, and lust, and whatever other feelings make up passion. "I've always loved you," she said tightly, and the confession was so weak he wanted to laugh. And, seeing no reason why he shouldn't, he did. And as she sat there looking as if he'd slapped her again, he thought to simply order her out and ignore her, but some part of him, very possibly the part that very nearly blushed when Deirdre smiled at him, felt compared to explain his mirth.

"I don't think you even know what love is, Ida. Love me? How could you? You never speak to me about anything but politics and sex. Sex isn't love. Conception isn't love. You don't love me. You don't even understand me. You never understood me. You never really tried."

She stared at him for a long time, before dropping her gaze and, once again, saying, "Alvis ..."

"I'm tired of hearing you say my name. Leave."

"I never knew that you ..."

Of course you didn't. Even I didn't. Until she showed me, he wanted to say.

"Get out. I probably won't ask you here again," was what he did.

He got up and crossed to the table, pouring himself another glass of wine as he heard her moving around, heard cloth on skin as she slipped her gown and gloves back on, and footsteps as she headed for the door. He took a drink while it opened and closed behind her.

Another image. Deirdre wearing only pieces of a wedding gown on this same bed, gazing up at him with love and desire, running her fingers through his hair as he ran his through hers, crimson and silver blending together in perfect braids as he lowered his head to kiss her honeysuckle skin and she gasped.

The glass hitting the table echoed through the room and he took a deep breath.

He was most certainly going mad.

[fic] See Her Happy, Focus Characters Ambiguous

2005-05-20T18:25:02Z

See Her Happy
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Seima no Kouseki
Focus Characters: [AMBIGUITY = POINT]
Pairings: [I'LL TELL YOU AT THE END]
Rating: G
(This fic was never archived on fanfiction.net)
Summary: All he's wanted was to see her smile.
Notes: Written for fe100, and at glorified's request. I love this as a story more than a fanfic, because I still think that the main character featured is desperately OOC. Yeah. I really do enjoy it for what it does well, though.

I'll archive it later. When I feel like it. Mwaha.

The first step was the most difficult. After that, his body took over, one foot after the other. He struggled not to let his actions betray his emotions, holding her arm gently, keeping his pace even. She wore a white gown, and her hair was styled into a crown. He had always loved her for her, but even he couldn't help but be drawn to her beauty today. She almost seemed to float, and she was smiling.

When she smiled, she could light up any room, he mused, the walk seeming longer than any of the treks he had made across Magival. He had told himself once, and never repeated it aloud, that he would do anything to see that smile on her face.

That must be why he was going through with this.

It could not have been any other way. He knew this. Even if she had perceived his feelings. Even if she had returned them. There was no other way that this could have ended. Heirs were needed. Alliances were needed. They had their duties. The rash part of his youth that had claimed he would forsake everything to wander with his lance had grown up, and now, he could see what needed to be done. He didn't mourn that this hadn't ended differently, because, really, this was the only way that this could have ended. What he mourned, was something else.

Everything that he had ever wanted to see from her was within that smile. She looked content. She looked in love. She looked ... happy. That was what he had always wanted, wasn't it? To see her happy ... to see her eyes light up ... to see her smiling ... it was all he'd ever wanted.

But she wasn't smiling for him. He had always told himself that as long as she was smiling, he didn't care who it was for. The simple fact that she was would be enough. But now he knew that he could never be completely content, with this ache tugging at his heart, as she looked up the aisle, and smiled at another man, and nearly tugged on his arm to urge him to move further.

Her bridegroom was smirking. See, he seemed to be saying, I've bested you. I'm marrying her. You even gave your blessing to this. You're giving it right now, just by taking these steps. I've beaten you. You lose.

And the infernal bridegroom was right. She had loved him. He had seen it, himself. He had even pointed it out to her. Oh, she would sigh and shake her head in exasperation when she spoke of all of his flaws, but there would be a sparkle in her eye that he had never seen there before, and the lightest of flushes on her cheeks, and tiny, affectionate smile on her lips. How could he not give his blessing? How could he not tell her, I think that you may love him in return, and watch her startle and look for the words that his had disarmed her of? How could he not even go so far as to duel against the prospective bridegroom, when it was demanded of him?

He could make her smile. And all he wanted was to see her smiling.

The end of the walk was coming. He breathed deeply. He would let her go, like he knew he had to. He would let her marry this man who she'd finally admitted she loved through all his weaknesses. He would smile and nod to the bridegroom and the smirk that he'd always been so good at ignoring in the past, and he would sit down, and he would step out of her life. He would give the woman he loved away, to be the bride of another.

They stopped. She turned to look at him, her eyes shining, and her expression expectant.

For a moment, he wanted to demand five minutes with her. Five mintues where he could say to her everything that he had never said before she married another.

He released his hold on her arm, and he smiled.

Now I'll be nice and say who it is. Although if you can't tell, you suck. Bride = Eirik. Groom = Hineas. OOC, Melodramatic Angst Bucket = Ephraim.

Her Nature, Eliwood/Ninian

2005-05-11T07:17:28Z

Her Nature
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken
Focus Characters: Ninian
Pairings: Eliwood/Ninian
Rating: G
(This fic was never archived on fanfiction.net)
Summary: Whether these things were in her nature or not, they were in her life.
Notes: Written for 30_kisses, for the theme "If only I could make you mine." It, ah, doesn't actually have a kiss in it. Shh. I know >_> This kiss wouldn't fic, and I just wanted to get on with things, SO. NO KISS. :D

It's also purple prose. :p

Not archived cause it kinda sucks XD

(I know, the writings journal is SPAMMY TONIGHT, CHILDREN :D)

Conflict was not in Ninian's nature.

Despite the fact that she was traveling with an army, and her safety and livelihood relied completely upon then, there was not a single bone within her body that longed for conflict. She avoided it whenever she could. The sight of people hurting each other sickened her stomach.

Some told her this made her weak-hearted. Others told her that this made her good-hearted. Still others just smiled and said that it was a part of her nature, and her nature was who she was, after all, no needs to make amends for it or reason with it or explain it away.

Lord Eliwood was one of those people.

Ninian wondered, sometimes, if there was anything about her that Lord Eliwood could do that did not show her more and more that he was everything that she had ever wanted.

He would talk to her and she felt like she could listen to his voice for hours, not just because the sound of it made her feel light inside, but also because she had simply come to adore his conversation. He would hold her arm like she was some sort of fine lady as they walked, and she would feel as if there was nothing in the entire world that could make her as cherished as that. He would always smile when he looked at her from the corner of his eye, a small smile that would warm her heart, and she would feel herself trying to smile back.

Smiling was not in Ninian's nature, either, but it was something that, more and more, she was beginning to want to learn.

Secrets were not in Ninian's nature. She hated them almost as much as she hated conflict. But secrets were something that had become as much a part of her life as conflict. And they were all that was keeping Lord Eliwood beside her. She hated her secrets, but she cherished them, and knew that without them, this happiness that she had found for the first time in her entire life would quickly fade away.

Don't fall in love with him, Nilus said, and she always had to excuse herself before she could say that it was too late, it was long since too late, and she was certain she had loved him from the moment that she had laid eyes on him.

Lord Eliwood watched her out of the corner of his eyes all the time. Just watching. Not observing, not studying, not trying to see through every facade that she forced herself to put up every moment of every day, but simply watching. Looking. She could never help but wonder why he did that.

Because while she loved Lord Eliwood so deeply it was exquisite pleasure and desperate pain, she knew that there was no possible way he could ever feel any of the same towards her. Even when he knew none of her secrets, she was a dancing girl, a travelling performer, and there were a million women he could have in an instant that were more suited than her.

Hope was in Ninian's nature, however. Hoping, and dreaming. They were as familiar to her as secrets, and far, far more dear. So, when she caught Lord Eliwood's gaze on her, she hoped, with all her heart, against all reason and knowledge and Nilus' grounding voice of reason, that when he watched her, he felt any of the many things she felt when she watched him.

Violets, Sylvia, Sigurd, Dierdre

2005-05-11T06:17:36Z

Violets
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu
Focus Characters: Sylvia, Sigurd, Dierdre
Pairings: Sigurd/Dierdre, one-sided Sylvia/Dierdre, if you look for it.
Rating: PG (rated to be safe)
(This fic was never archived on fanfiction.net)
Summary: A single meeting can leave deep impressions upon one's mind.
Notes: Written for the fe100, for the theme "Beloved One." It is seriously the most WTF thing I have EVER written. I haven't a clue what possessed me to write this. Wow. What a completely random thing to write about @_@ It kinda ... jumps around, cause I kept changing my purpose in writing it. OH WELL. :p

I forgot to archive it here. Why? WHO KNOWS. TWO FICS. I AM GOING CRAZY, METHINKS ;_;

Never archived on FFn cause I never felt like putting it there. MAYBE LATER :D

The knots in her hair were most definitely not coming out. Sylvia yanked and pulled with the rickshaw little hairbrush she used for such things, but this time, it seemed like the whole mess was simply too far gone to be saved again. Some small part of her had already realized that the offending hair was going to need a sharp pair of sheers before it was fixed, and she would get fed up with this endevour before she could fix it, and this was more knotted than it had ever become before, and this little brush wasn't going to be able to repair the damage done, and it really was her own fault for taking that shortcut through the brambly little forest anyway. But the greater part of her stubbornly kept pulling and yanking and cursing the hair and the fate that had made it this big of a mess.

"... Sylvia?"

Sylvia turned quickly to see Lady Dierdre watching her from not far away, resplendant in white and silver, with her gloved hands clasped before her. She flushed as she realized what had probably been coming out of her mouth. It was one thing to be lewd around higher ranking men who thought she was nothing more than a silly little girl, but it was quite another to do the same around higher ranking women who had always shown her nothing but respect. She held up her hands. "Oh, Lady Dierdre! I'm sorry, really, I was jus' frustrated, pay no mind to anythin' you mighta heard me sayin' ..."

Dierdre shook her head. "No, no, it's quite fine," she said, and, looking closely, Sylvia saw that she was carrying a silver hairbrush in her clasped hands, emblazoned with the image of small violets. "I saw you looking so distraught, and I simply wanted to help, is all."

Sylvia cocked her head to one side. "You wanna ..."

Dierdre hesitantly walked towards the rock where Sylvia was perched, and instructed her to turn around. Obliging awkwardly, Sylvia felt the brush run through her hair as the fine lady attempted to work the knots from the tangled mass. Why would she ...

"You don't needta --"

"I watched you dancing ..." Dierdre interrupted shyly, the brush picking away at the mess of the dancer's hair. "You do it very well ..."

Sylvia blushed. "My dances are nothin' that I think you should be watchin', Lady Dierdre ..." she said, embarrased.

"Whyever not?"

"Well ... they're jus' ..." she trailed off, unsure of how to explain it without making her situation worse.

"I think they're very beautiful," Dierdre continued. "It must take a great deal of talent to be able to dance the way that you do, Sylvia. How many years have you been praciting?"

"Oh, forever," Sylvia replied expansively. "I've been dancin' since I was big enough ta walk. It's the only thing I've ever been real good at, and there wasn't any other way for me to make my money, so I jus' kept at it til I got as good as I am today."

"I wish I could learn to do something like that ..." Dierdre's voice was almost wistfull.

Sylvia winced as the brush hit the knot hard, and before she could quickly turn and tell the noblewoman that was definitely not something that she would want to do, Dierdre was hastily apologizing, and Sylvia was insisting it wasn't a big deal, and thanks again for the help, milady, and the moment was lost.

When the hair was untangled, which the shaman somehow managed, and done back up in it's usual knots and tails, Sylvia reached up and patted here hair to find a series of small flowers there. She looked at Dierdre with a silent question and the noblewoman touched the flowers affectionately. "Violets," she said simply. "I've always thought that purple looks nice in green ..."

Something deep inside Sylvia was so touched by her minstrations. Tears almost filled her eyes and she smiled. "... thanks," she said, and that was the only way she could even begin to describe how she felt.

"It's nothing," Dierdre smiled. "I look forward to seeing your next dance, Sylvia." She smiled once more and turned and walked back in the direction of camp.

Sylvia touched the violets and smiled to herself. She had always known that there was something about the Lady Dierdre that was different from the rest of the nobility that fought within Sigurd's army ...

~*~

She tried her hardest not to made a sound as she slowly crept through the halls of Silvail castle. It had been a full day for everyone, and the last thing she wanted was to awaken anyone who had actually managed to sleep. She sighed. Although she supposed she shouldn't complain, since her situation was better than most anyone else in the army, her emotions were run ragged. Nearly everyone had lost something today, and while what she had lost had been far smaller than most, she couldn't think of anything but her grief, and her hope that there was some small chance that it was all a mistake.

The door of the great hall pushed open easily, and she stepped inside, before starting as she quickly realized that someone else was in the room. A black figure framed against the roaring fire, head lowered over a tall-stemmed glass of wine, a picture of melancholy. Sylvia couldn't tell who it was in the bright backlight of the mantle, and for a long moment, she stared at the figure, before swallowing hard and going to close to door and leave. She had assumed everyone would have retreated to bed ...

"... you don't need to leave," a voice came from the figure, and the dancer immeadiately recognized it as Lord Sigurd's. However, it sounded different from usual. Hollow, and hoarse, and so very hopeless. The Chalphy prince had always set her teeth on edge, and infuriated her, and intimidated her all at the same time, before, but right now, all she could feel was pity.

"Er ... sorry, Sir Sigurd ... I jus' wanted to pick up my sword, I left it here earlier, I don't wanna disturb ya or --"

"You have every bit as much of a right to be in here as I do," he assured her. "Please, don't leave on my account."

Sylvia wanted nothing more than to leave, actually, and completely on her own account. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and the disturbing image of this great man brought to his lowest as possible. But some maternal part of her she hadn't known she even possessed urged her to walk to the head of the table and clutch onto the top of the chair there, instead of turning and walking out the door.

She stood for a long time, the silence growing from uncomfortable to torturous until she simply couldn't keep silent any longer, and the constant sound of the two of them breathing and the fire crackling had to be broken. "... I'm real sorry ..." she said quietly, fully realizing how completely inadequate and meaningless that must sound to him.

Sigurd said nothing, and Sylvia forced herself to press on against her better judgement just to fill the eerie quiet with a voice. "We all cared about Lady Dierdre ..." she tried again. "I mean, no one coulda cared about her like you did, or anythin', but she was just about the nicest lady that I ever met. I mean, this one time ..." she trailed off as Sigurd showed not reaction, and she changed the subject for one easier for her to speak of. "And King Eltoshan was a real nice guy ... I mean, I was around Agustrian parts for quite a bit, and no one ever had a bad word to say about that guy. Everyone thought he shoulda been High King after whatshisname died, and really --"

"I know he was a nice guy," Sigurd said quietly, staring aimlessly into his wine. "He and Cuan ... best I ever knew."

Sylvia swallowed hard. "Yeah ..."

Sigurd made a noise something like a chuckle, but with no real mirth and only mocking. Sylvia winced. "It's all right, Sylvia." he said a long moment later. "I understand, you don't want to see your leader like this. Leave me, if you want. I'm sorry I didn't see it before."

The invitation was tempting, but something forced Sylvia to, instead, walk around the table and sit in the chair across from the man she fought under. "I'll stay, if ya want me to ..." she offered.

Sigurd looked up, and, closer to him, she could see his face illuminated in the light of the fire, and she flinched at the sight of tear-tracks down his cheeks. "Thank you." he said, and that chuckle-but-not returned. "I don't think I've ever said a kind word to you," he said softly. "I'm sorry ..."

"I don't mind!" Sylvia said hurriedly, ignoring how much his apology meant to her, and shaking her head. "I mean, you've gotta lotta stuff to worry about, and I was kinda bein' annoyin', that first time we talked."

Sigurd absently waved her off. "No, you were simply being friendly ... I should never have faulted you for simply doing what you do best ..."

Sylvia said nothing to that, before she couldn't think of anything to say. She turned to look into the fire, the incredible amount of tension she felt within her driving her to distraction. She deeply wished that she had just decided to come for her sword in the morning ...

"I should have done things differently ..." Sigurd said softly, and she quickly turned her head to look at him. He gazed down into the wine, his eyes far away. "Should have pulled out of Agustria when we first took Agusty and to hell what the higher-ups said ... should have brought Dierdre with me so I could at least keep watch over her ... should have stopped Eltoshan from going to see Shargarl ... should have ... should have ... should have ..." he sighed. "The world is full of should haves and could haves and would haves and ..." he made a desperate strangled noise, and in a sudden movement, grabbed the wine glass and lobbed it with impressive force into the hearth. The fire roared in reaction and then dimmed once more, and Sylvia tried to breathe again after her heart slowly climbed down out of her throat.

"Baldo ..." Sigurd whispered, burying his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving. "Baldo, Tordo, Fala, Ulir, Neir, Blagi ... Heim!"

Sylvia held her tongue a his shoulders continued to heave, and sobs came from this man who she'd feared, admired, and come to greatly respect. She watched in a mixture of grim fascination and abject horror.

"Am I a child, to hope that she's still alive ...?" he asked softly and brokenly, after a long moment. To her surprise, because she had been quiet sure that he'd forgotten that she was there, he looked up at Sylvia again and fixed her with a look of deperation. "Am I a child, to hope that Elto was the only person who my stupid choices caused me to lose forever, today? I can't mourn them both ... Elto was my dearest friend, and Dierdre was my entire world ... if I truely have lost them both on the same day, I don't know how I can even --" his voice broke off as another sob filled the room.

Sylvia looked at him helplessly without the first inkling of what to tell him, but that same force within her that had driven her to come and keep his company welled up and she suddenly realized she was speaking. "There ain't nothin' childish about hopin', Sir Sigurd," she was saying. "I'm ... I'm sure hopin' Lady Dierdre is alive, jus' like you are."

Sigurd's expression was one of deep gratitude, and he sank down onto the table once more.

They sat in silence for a long time, as Sigurd cried for the loss of his friend, and Sylvia hoped for the life of his wife. It was the wee hours of night before, without even raising his head from the table to look at her, Sigurd asked, "You miss her ... don't you."

"... yeah."

"... did you speak to her often?"

Violets and hairbrushes and a single sweet gesture that still touched her heart until this moment welled up within Sylvia, and she ducked her head as tears threatened to spill out the corner of her eyes. "Just once," was all she said aloud.

Warmth, Azel/Tiltyu

2005-05-11T06:08:22Z

Warmth
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu
Focus Characters: Tiltyu, Azel
Pairings: Azel/Tiltyu
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
(This fic was never archived on fanfiction.net)
Summary: She was going to die here. She was going to die, and no one would miss her.
Notes: Written for insert_phrase for the phrase "I'm not unwell, I'm fucking dying." I really ... like this fic, to be honest. I wanted to write Azel/Tiltyu, and the "When had she started thinking of Azel as a man" phrase kinda JUMPED into my head. And then ... THIS came. WTF, head.

I wrote it ... ages ago. And for some reason, totally forgot to archive it here XD

For no reason, I'm going to start updating my writing journal like this. Yeah. HUZZAH ME.

Need new icon.

I'll archive it later. Or something.

Winds howled, snow swirled, and horses squealed. Tiltyu closed her eyes and forced herself to move against the wind, but her energy was fading fast, and the biting ice seemed almost to slice at her skin and clothes. Her hair whipped her face with a ferocity she had never felt before, and her vision was completely blocked by the raging blizzard around her. Where was everyone else? Had she been separated from them? Her body was suddenly pressed up hard against something and she realized that she had been moving in the wrong direction. Where was she? Tears stung at her eyes not entirely caused by the harsh winds. Her hands clawed at the snowy surface she had backed into and her heart sunk as she realized that it was the sheer face of a frozen cliff.

A small sob made it past her lips as she dropped to her knees onto the frozen river she now knew she has stumbled on. She would die here. She would die here, frozen, lost, alone, in a country far from home, chasing a man who never looked at her as anything but a willful child. She listened hard to see if anyone else was nearby, but all she heard was the fierce howling of the wind and that horrible ringing in her head. Would they mourn her passing with sadness and regret, she wondered? Or would they be glad that Tiltyu was gone, and now they could all finally breathe again and speak of her father without awkwardness in their voices and nervous looks in her direction? The second was far more likely, she couldn't help but think.

She sobbed again and forced herself to focus on what Azel had said a few days before. He thought they liked her. He said that. He thought they liked her very much. The words had warmed her to the core and she had felt the energy that had been sapped from her as she worried and fretted that she was a strain on all of them fnally returning. But now, in the freezing, driving wind and ice that blocked her vision and sliced at her body, the words did not give her any warmth. It was the end. And it was cold. She huddled against the sheer stone and wondered what would take her first. Would the cold numb her until she slept and never woke? Or would the ice beneath her crack and send her to a watery grave? Another sob wracked at her throat as she drew her tattered cloak around her.

She tried to picture Father Claude, the man that had driven her to follow this army in the first place, but his image offered no solace. He had never showed anything towards her but his serious demeanor, his cold words, his faint annoyance ... how could they give her warmth in this moment? She sobbed again, and choked on her breath. Something wet was on her cheeks, freezing in the cold, but she did not have the energy to see if it was tears, or blood from the driving ice. She hoped it was tears, she didn't want to be bleeding.

Even now, she thought she heard someone calling her voice, and she nearly thought that she could pick out the sound of a horse's hooves beating against the icy ground nearby. Was it Baldo's horse she heard, and he was coming with the other Crusaders who founded Grandbell to take her from this earth to dwell in Holy Narga's presence? She hoped so. She had always wondered what Tordo really looked like, and if Fala's bright hair was really redder than Azel's. She didn't see how anyone could have hair more red than Azel's.

"Tiltyu!"

She struggled to peer into the distance through the snow. Should the Crusaders not know where exactly to find her? Father had always said that they would, but of course, Father had always said that he was completely loyal to the crown, and he hadn't been so good at keeping that promise. She shivered again, a bit of her energy renewed as she struggled to make out the form she saw coming. Yes, it was a rider, but it was a single rider, without the six others who should be surrounding it, and Saint Heim was not shining bright enough for her to see ...

"Tiltyu! Where are you?"

The voice sounded raw with screaming and emotion, and, as Tiltyu peered harder, logic penetrated through her numb mind as she saw hair so bright for a moment she was certain that Lady Fala was riding the horse. "... Azel ..." she whispered, and the name was lost on the winds.

"Tiltyu!"

She raised her voice as loud as she could. "Azel ..." she croaked. "Azel!"

"Tiltyu?"

"I'm ... over here!" she managed.

His vague form slid off the horse and started towards her. Panic rose up in her throat.

"The river --" she said.

"It's all right," he yelled back, slowly creeping across the surface of the ice until he was by her side. He fell onto her, throwing his arms around her and holding her tightly, and for the first time, warmth began to flow back through her body again.

"I almost thought you were Fala," she whispered.

He chuckled weakly. "I know you like to tease me, but I'm not that much of a woman, am I?"

"You came."

"I ... thought you might be unwell," he murmered, pulling back from her slightly and studying her face.

"I'm not unwell, I'm fucking dying," she spat weakly, realizing now that having him here might help her heart, but chances were that he was as cold as she, and they had no idea how long this snow would last.

He blinked and flushed at her choice of words. "I ... think you've been around Lex too long ..."

"Never mind that!" she whimpered, "What are we going to do?"

"I have it all worked out ... don't worry. Here, stand up," he commanded, and, wrapped tightly in his arms, she somehow managed to follow his instructions.

"Move back ... slowly," he said, helping her along. She obeyed, and they crept along until, suddenly, they were at the mouth of a small cave.

"How did --" she asked.

"I saw it when we rode past ... before the snow started. Come on ... get in."

And then the ice finally stopped, and she was safe inside the little cubby, with Azel one step behind her.

"I saw you apart from everyone just before the snow started ..." Azel said without being asked as he settled against one stone wall, she did the other. She was still frozen, and their granite sanctuary was small and uncomfortable, and she huddled under her torn cape. "I ... didn't know if you were all right ... I thought I should come after you ..."

She smiled at him weakly "... thank you." she coughed, then sneezed. "I thought I was dead ..."

"Ahh -- sorry!" he said quickly, crawling towards the back of their little hideaway. She looked after him.

"What are you --"

"Here," he emerged triumphantly with an armful of twigs in his arms, dumping them a bit in front of her. He closed his eyes and whispered something under his breath, and a tiny flame burst from the center of the pile, and the rest quickly caught and burned. The wind from outside made the tiny flame dance, but it was well shielded enough within that the it did not go out. Like a starving man on food, Tiltyu quickly moved closer to the small flame and held her hands above it, sighing happily as the flames warmed her body as they grew higher. She felt her strength slowly coming back to her, and the panic and numbness finally lifted itself completely from her mind as she fully realized that Azel was not some spector sent by Loptousu to taunt her, and that she was actually going to live.

"Won't it burn itself out fast, though?" she asked him.

"I'm keeping it going, so ... don't worry. You'll be fine." She felt something heavy fall on her shoulders, followed by something else, and looked up from the fire. Azel sat across from her, his torso covered by only a light white shirt with no sleeves, and, craning her neck, Tiltyu could see that his cloak and red tunic were what was keeping her so warm.

She frowned. "Azel!" she said.

"What?" he blushed and avoided her eyes.

"You're gonna freeze. You've done enough already, now --"

"Keep it." he said, staring into the flames, probably to avoid her eyes. He always did this.

"You want me to let you freeze?"

"I'll be fine!" he blushed furiously and avoided her eyes as well as he could. "I don't get cold very easy ... I suppose it's just part of having Fala's blood in me. Besides ..." he ducked his head harder and blushed brightly as his flaming hair. "... it's more important that you're warm."

She studied him for a moment and found her face growing slightly hot. She quickly turned away, looking at the bizzard raging on with unblinking ferocity outside, biting her lip hard. She did not just study Azel's frame dressed only in that light shirt while thinking about what he had said and blush. Since when had she thought of Azel as a man? Since when had she even thought of Azel as a boy?

She tried to picture Claude in all the charismatic splendour that had orginally drawn her to him, but he only reminded her of the biting cold that had almost taken her life before. Right now, the last thing that she needed was the cold that Claude had always directed towards her. She needed warmth. No matter how hard she tried, the gentle boy with fire running through his veins would not leave her mind.

"... thanks for coming," she said after a very long moment of uncomfortable silence. She avoided looking at him, as the blush stubbornly refused to go away. She picked at the orange sitching on his red tunic absently. "I'd be dead if you hadn't." Her mind wandered to the conversation they'd had the other day, how he had made her feel a hundred feet tall again, and she had watched him walking away with a fascination that had never quite been there before. How is it, that she hadn't noticed this before this moment? She discreetly turned her eyes to look at him, sighing with relief as she saw that the flames on the nearly burned to nothing twigs still captivated his attention. "I guess I really owe you one."

He shook his head hard, raising his head quickly to meet her eyes. His eyes widened as he saw her looking at him and he quickly looked away. "It's nothing! Really! I couldn't just let something happen to you!"

She looked into the fire and bit her lip, the thoughts she'd had in those panicked moments when she had huddled against the wall returning. "Azel ..." she hazarded. "If I had died, do you think ... anyone would have been sad?"

"Oh, Tiltyu," he said, "this again?"

"Do you?" she persisted.

"Of course they would have!" he said firmly. "Why would they not? You're one of us! And you grew up with a lot of them, right? Don't you remember visiting Edain in the summertime?"

Tiltyu giggled. "And you making eyes at her the entire time? How could I forget?"

"Shut up," he looked away, blushing. "I was a lot younger back then. Don't you think she'd be sad?"

She shrugged, but the memories of tempting the overly pious Jungvy Princess into trouble warmed her heart.

"There," Azel said.

Tiltyu looked up into his eyes. "What?"

"You smiled!" he said, and a small, happy grin was on his lips.

She frowned. "I didn't ..."

Azel bit his lip, and flushed once again, but quickly got half up and moved to sit beside her. "You ... kinda need to learn," he said softly, "that a lot of people care about you, and you don't need to worry about it even if they didn't ... I mean ..." he coughed lightly, and Tiltyu knew without even looking at him, that he was wearing his trademark blush. "I care ... a lot."

In one of those rare moments that few lived to spread stories of, Tiltyu blushed hard enough to rival Azel, and was struck completely speechless.

Almost as quickly as it had begun, the howling suddenly stopped, and Tiltyu looked out the mouth of the cave to see freshly fallen snow upon the frozen river. She smiled and turned to look at Azel, who was obviously noticing the same thing. "We made it!" she cried. The fire winked out as Azel dropped his hold on it, and they both moved to leave. She slid his clothes off her shoulders, and passed them back to him, but he handed her back his cloak and cleared his throat quietly.

"Yours is in kinda bad shape," he explained shyly.

She almost went to protest, but there was something about the idea of walking back to the rest of the army wearing Azel's cape around her shoulders that, for some inexplicable reason, she couldn't resist, so she grinned and nodded as he hurriedly and somewhat shyly fastened his tunic back over his shirt.

The sun was bright and glared green on the snow when they emerged from the little hole that had saved her life and carefully crossed the icy river. Unlike the last time they'd spoken at length, she did not simply feel better, she felt at peace. Tiltyu watched the sun glint on Azel's hair, red like Fala's, red like fire, and red like the way he blushed, and she smiled smally to herself as a warmth filled her heart that she had never felt when she watched Father Claude.

Azel, of all people. She chuckled at the thought, and stuck her tongue out when he looked at her curiously from the corner of his eye. Who'd ever have thought.

dragonglass @ 2005-04-18T14:27:00

2005-04-18T17:30:27Z

YAYZEZ GO ME.

Chapter 2 of Protect Me finished! I really have no idea how long this fic is going to be, but at my current pace ... a freaking while XD; Not that I mind, writing it is so many levels of awesome :3

I'll upload it on FFn when I get around to it :p It's been not working all day, and I don't know to blame FFn or the shitty University network ;_;

Feedback = so much appreachiated.