Fic Experiment: "Palindrome"
Jun. 3rd, 2011 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodel Bleh.
I have no time to work on any of this, and don't know if I even should be. It would've worked for the Royalty challenge over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
magvel , but... yeah, moot point now, dude.
The opening scene of this scribble featuring Ephraim and his creepy niece.
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
-x-
He rose well before dawn, making ready with the same haste he once showed before a battle.
“Slow down, Your Majesty,” said the most dogged of his retainers. “The worst that could happen is that we should meet them halfway.”
“I want to surprise her,” he replied as he brushed back strands of unruly hair from his brow. “Eirika... I want to surprise them both.”
So it was that the King of Renais set forth with Sir Kyle and a modest group of men that spring morning, bound northwest in the direction of the Frelian border. Ephraim ignored the pain in the small of his back as he rode, a pain that sent a line of white fire down his left leg, clear into his boot. Or tried to ignore it, anyway. He was a year past forty now, and some things could not be brushed away by simply not thinking upon them. That was, after all, why this meeting had been arranged.
The sun had cleared the eastern horizon when King Ephraim and his retinue thundered into the courtyard of the manor where his sister had spent the night. Eirika’s party was making their preparations to leave; the new rays of sun illuminated the dearly familiar form of his sister. The years, or the mountain air, had been kind, Ephraim thought. Though Eirika’s face and figure had filled out since they last parted, she still looked beautiful dressed in the rich carmine she had favored as Renais’s princess.
She was more than a princess. Though the trumpeters blared the approach of the glorious King Ephraim, Lord of Renais and the Grado Empire, Ephraim’s knights acclaimed Eirika with the title he insisted upon, the title she’d used when she’d been at his side.
“Hail, Queen Eirika! All hail the return of our most beloved queen!”
Ephraim saw her smile and it was hard for him to look away, to look closely for the first time at the smaller figure by Eirika’s side.
He had long ago formed for himself a picture of his only niece, a picture based on impressions from Eirika’s letters and his own memories of Eirika as a child, as a young woman. Ephraim expected his niece to be a pretty girl and a graceful one, with Eirika’s fine hair and delicate features. So vivid was this imagine in his mind of a girl all rose-red and turquoise that it took a moment for him to actually grasp the identity of the youngster standing there alongside a roan mare, reins clutched tight in one hand.
She was small and slender, but her grace was less that of a willow and more that of some young mountain deer. Her hair-- darker than her mother’s, and bluer-- was cut short and fell in untidy locks around her ears. She wore a dress of simple, sober gray, and her face was unknown to him.
“My lord uncle,” she said, and was already down on one knee.
“No need for that,” he told her. “I’m just your uncle... Ada.”
She looked up at him with wide blue eyes that were not her mother’s eyes... nor her father’s. But she nodded without protest and rose to her feet. The girl was armed, Ephraim noted; she had a longsword at her belt. That was something, then, some scrap of common ground he might have with this niece who was not at all what he expected.
“Welcome home,” he said, speaking as the King of Renais to its once and future queens. Speaking as a man greeting his only kin after half a lifetime’s separation.
-x-
Grr.
I have no time to work on any of this, and don't know if I even should be. It would've worked for the Royalty challenge over at
magvel , but... yeah, moot point now, dude.The opening scene of this scribble featuring Ephraim and his creepy niece.
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
-x-
He rose well before dawn, making ready with the same haste he once showed before a battle.
“Slow down, Your Majesty,” said the most dogged of his retainers. “The worst that could happen is that we should meet them halfway.”
“I want to surprise her,” he replied as he brushed back strands of unruly hair from his brow. “Eirika... I want to surprise them both.”
So it was that the King of Renais set forth with Sir Kyle and a modest group of men that spring morning, bound northwest in the direction of the Frelian border. Ephraim ignored the pain in the small of his back as he rode, a pain that sent a line of white fire down his left leg, clear into his boot. Or tried to ignore it, anyway. He was a year past forty now, and some things could not be brushed away by simply not thinking upon them. That was, after all, why this meeting had been arranged.
The sun had cleared the eastern horizon when King Ephraim and his retinue thundered into the courtyard of the manor where his sister had spent the night. Eirika’s party was making their preparations to leave; the new rays of sun illuminated the dearly familiar form of his sister. The years, or the mountain air, had been kind, Ephraim thought. Though Eirika’s face and figure had filled out since they last parted, she still looked beautiful dressed in the rich carmine she had favored as Renais’s princess.
She was more than a princess. Though the trumpeters blared the approach of the glorious King Ephraim, Lord of Renais and the Grado Empire, Ephraim’s knights acclaimed Eirika with the title he insisted upon, the title she’d used when she’d been at his side.
“Hail, Queen Eirika! All hail the return of our most beloved queen!”
Ephraim saw her smile and it was hard for him to look away, to look closely for the first time at the smaller figure by Eirika’s side.
He had long ago formed for himself a picture of his only niece, a picture based on impressions from Eirika’s letters and his own memories of Eirika as a child, as a young woman. Ephraim expected his niece to be a pretty girl and a graceful one, with Eirika’s fine hair and delicate features. So vivid was this imagine in his mind of a girl all rose-red and turquoise that it took a moment for him to actually grasp the identity of the youngster standing there alongside a roan mare, reins clutched tight in one hand.
She was small and slender, but her grace was less that of a willow and more that of some young mountain deer. Her hair-- darker than her mother’s, and bluer-- was cut short and fell in untidy locks around her ears. She wore a dress of simple, sober gray, and her face was unknown to him.
“My lord uncle,” she said, and was already down on one knee.
“No need for that,” he told her. “I’m just your uncle... Ada.”
She looked up at him with wide blue eyes that were not her mother’s eyes... nor her father’s. But she nodded without protest and rose to her feet. The girl was armed, Ephraim noted; she had a longsword at her belt. That was something, then, some scrap of common ground he might have with this niece who was not at all what he expected.
“Welcome home,” he said, speaking as the King of Renais to its once and future queens. Speaking as a man greeting his only kin after half a lifetime’s separation.
-x-
Grr.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-04 01:16 pm (UTC)Yes, the classic "violation of expectations" ploy. :)
Tell you what, though-- writing this kid is HARD. That's why I wanted to do a piss-take on her for the Mary Sue challenge, but I couldn't even manage that.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-04 02:12 pm (UTC)Sometimes characters are a pain in the ass to write. Sometimes you just gotta kick them a few times so they cooperate. (At least that's what I do. Usually works. Some characters are just really stubborn.) Hopefully a solution presents itself though. Wanting to write a character and them not cooperating is very :/ to me.