One-Word Meme
Jun. 10th, 2011 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelOK. Since everybody else is writing such neat stuff, including neat stuff for me, I guess I'll do the one-word meme drabble thingy too. Even if I can't do drabbles.
Comment on this and I'll attempt a 500-word drabble for FE 1/3, 2, 7, 8, or 11/12. Or Gundam Wing or Utena if you want to get crazy..
And I promise that if the prompt is something like "kittens" that I won't write about a kitten massacre or anything like that.
Comment on this and I'll attempt a 500-word drabble for FE 1/3, 2, 7, 8, or 11/12. Or Gundam Wing or Utena if you want to get crazy..
And I promise that if the prompt is something like "kittens" that I won't write about a kitten massacre or anything like that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 03:40 pm (UTC)>8D
FE11/12.
Liriconfancy
Date: 2011-06-10 09:07 pm (UTC)-x-
They sit untouched upon the table-- six tartlets, each with a delicate filling of curds and lemon, arranged in a flat-bottomed basket. The finely woven basket is, perhaps, the only clue as to their origin.
"And the sender did not leave a name, that they might be thanked?"
"No, Princess."
Caeda smiles at her attendant, though she can feel the note that came with the basket crinkle between her fingers as she speaks.
"Let's try to find them, Edith. Would you let Captain Ogma know I wish to see him?"
Once Edith has slipped away, Caeda looks down again at the note in her hand. Congratulations upon your betrothal, it reads in standard script. She sets the paper down upon the table and regards the tartlets; each one is topped with snippets of greenery, almost like candied angelica, and a scattering of white blossoms. She picks up one bell-shaped blossom that was half-embedded in tartlet filling; its clean side is pearl-white, the edges elegantly frilled. She contemplates it until Ogma arrives at the door.
“You sent for me, Princess?”
She shows him the gift and the note that came with it, and though Ogma says nothing at first, she can see the dark blood that rushes to his face and brow. If the anonymous sender had been in reach at that moment, Ogma’s steel blade would be embedded in his or her chest within a heartbeat.
“What are your orders, Princess?”
“I wish for you to find the person who sent this... gift... to me... and to my fiance.”
She underscores the last three words ever so carefully, to let him know that the tainted tartlets carry a message that goes beyond intrigue at her father’s court.
Ogma replies slowly, deliberately, even as his tanned face returns to its normal color.
“Princess, there has been a significant amount of unrest in the country since your engagement to Lord Marth was announced. Your people resent that they will lose you.”
“And this is how they show their affection?”
She feels suddenly cold as she imagines the fate in store for anyone unwise enough to eat those tartlets spiked with liriconfancy-- a racing heart, confusion, and then... all too likely... oblivion.
Ogma reaches down to take the blossom from her hand, and she stares for a moment at the smear of lemon on her fingertips.
“Find them.”
“As you will, my princess.”
He bows and is gone, taking the note and the tartlets away with him. Caeda touches one finger to the very tip of her tongue, just enough to taste a hint of sweetness, a hint of sour. This, she thinks, is what lies in store for them both.
-x-
Liriconfancy = Lily of the Valley. Bad stuff.
Re: Liriconfancy
Date: 2011-06-10 09:14 pm (UTC)Loved the ending especially. It sums everything up quite nicely about what lies ahead for her and Marth--between them both and their respective countries.
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 03:48 pm (UTC)FE8
As The Crow Flies
Date: 2011-06-11 02:53 pm (UTC)On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Tana went down to the roosting place of the piebald crows. One of the crows was already awake, and it looked down at her from its perch on the barmkin wall. Even in the soft dawn light, its sharp dark eyes seemed keen as a man’s, and something about its shaggy gray breast reminded Tana of her brother’s hair, or her father’s.
On second thought, the crow made her recall, for some reason, her grandfather King Hamish, who had died when she was very young. Tana muttered a prayer to herself as she bent down to scoop up a handful of soil.
She flung the clump of soil at the crow, aiming as close as she could without hitting it. As the dirt sailed through the air, Tana held her breath. Would the crow take off, flying so far that she would never see where it landed? Or, would it settle back down within sight, upon some part of the castle or a nearby tree?
It stayed put, peering down at her with those black eyes. The crow blinked, and Tana blinked back at it, unsure of how to take this. She reached for another clod of soil and hurled it, again just missing the bird. The crow tipped its head and regarded her with what seemed to be... contempt? Or was it amusement?
“What are you trying to tell me?” she called up to it.
Normally Tana was good with birds, and could talk to them in something close to their own language. Her mother had a trained jay that could imitate the sound of cats and even people, and Tana loved to carry the jay around, holding conversations with it. But this crow kept an eerie silence when Tana tried her bird-calls.
On reflection, this bird was very like her grandfather, that inscrutable old man who could silence even Innes with just a glance.
Tana pulled up another fistful of earth and grass, and this time aimed squarely at the crow’s breast.
“Fly, you terrible old bird!”
The clump of soil exploded as it struck the crow, yet the bird simply flapped its wings twice while its feet kept hold of the wall.
“Is that it?” Her voice sounded small, out there in the lonely corner of the barmkin. “I won’t ever be married?”
Now the crow responded to her, calling out what sounded like an affirmation. Tana turned away, gazing at the battlements of Castle Frelia. The morning clouds were beginning to let in the sun, and the walls of the old fortress seemed a beautiful soft color, like a dove’s feathers. Or the breast of a piebald crow.
“I won’t be married. I won’t leave home.”
Tana walked slowly back to the royal apartments of the castle, pausing several times to rest her cheek against the ancient stone of its walls. Home-- her own place to be born, to live... to die and be buried.
There were worse fates. Tana looked up as she passed the portrait of her grandfather, and as she looked into his dark-painted eyes she wondered if the old man smiled or frowned upon her.
Re: As The Crow Flies
Date: 2011-06-11 02:56 pm (UTC)Re: As The Crow Flies
Date: 2011-06-11 03:29 pm (UTC)I was hesitant about it, since I have a similar scene-- inspired by a different culture's parallel practice-- embedded in a different 'fic, but the specifics of the Faroese and the hooded crow made me unable to resist doing this one with Tana.
Glad you liked it. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 03:54 pm (UTC)FE2
Sunset
Date: 2011-06-14 02:59 pm (UTC)"It took me years to realize how beautiful Rigel really is."
"Mm," replied her husband. Alm was sitting against the trunk of one of the great pine trees, idly watching a squirrel that was looking down on them from the boughs of a neighboring tree. Smaller and redder than the lazy brown squirrels of Sofia, the squirrel also seemed more choleric; it chittered at them, apparently berating them for being on its territory.
"It doesn't recognize you," Cellica said with a smile.
"I'm fine with that." Alm shifted against the tree, stretching out his arms; his shoulder joints made a faint cracking sound. 'It's getting chilly; do you want to go in?"
"I suppose." Cellica stood, wincing a little at the burst of pain in her left knee. But it passed in a second, and she walked over to where Alm still sat contemplating the angry squirrel... which was now stomping its feet over the intrusive presence of the king and queen of Valencia. She offered Alm her hand in case he needed the support to get up. "I'm glad we spent the day together like this, just by ourselves."
"I was hoping to do something a little more special for you," said Alm. "Out to the mountains, or to the Gorge, or... well..."
But some days, he didn't feel up that sort of adventure any more, and on some days she didn't feel like it either, and the idea of just spending a pleasant day in the woods near to home seemed a lot more appealing.
Cellica bent down to kiss her husband-- right on the thin patch in his hair.
"This was special enough," she said, and it was.
[Alm and Cellica are arguably my favorite old together!couple]
Re: Sunset
Date: 2011-06-14 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 03:57 pm (UTC)Coffee.
Careless Driver
Date: 2011-06-15 08:00 pm (UTC)While he told himself he was glad he'd refused a place in his father's company, passing up the comfort of tradition in favor of the independent life of a freelancer, contract work did have its drawbacks. Drawbacks like driving an eighty-mile one-way commute on four hours of sleep.
Ephraim reached for his coffee cup. He'd likely need another one... or three... to see him through the drive home. At least he only had another forty or so minutes to go, if the traffic was good.
A string of ruby tail-lights up ahead told Ephraim that luck just wasn't running in his favor today. The idea of spending any more time in his car than he HAD to was intolerable, so Ephraim cut across to the first exit he saw, intent on taking the back roads home. The two-lane country highways were monotonous, and Ephraim soon had the windows rolled down and his stereo blasting in an attempt to stay even half-awake. Fortunately there wasn't anyone else in sight, so if he wavered towards the shoulder every now and again, it wasn't a problem. He was low on coffee, though, and that was definitely a problem, especially as there wasn't a gas station or even a party store in sight.
And there was someone in his rearview mirror now, damn it all. And they were driving... awfully fast.
If he was going to perform any evasive maneuvers, Ephraim needed every drop of energy he could get. He reached out blindly for the coffee, and when he grabbed it, he tipped his head back to try to get every last trickle of caffeine into his system. He was too slow about it, though-- the other car was already right on his bumper, flashing its lights at him.
Ephraim swore and held the wheel in a white-knuckled grip as the chartreuse VW Bug cut around him on the right. What happened next wasn't entirely clear to him, but somehow Ephraim's car ended up diagonally across the road in one direction, and the Bug was spun around facing the wrong way on the road. The door to the VW opened and its driver stepped out.
The reckless driver was a smartly-dressed little girl of about sixteen, one who waggled her finger at him as she delivered a monologue about his irresponsibility for driving with one hand on his drink instead of both on the wheel. Ephraim's sleep-starved brain couldn't muster even the beginnings of a response to this hypocrisy, and he remained in his seat through the ear-piercing lecture, wondering if this was the beginning of a very long stay in Purgatory.
Re: Careless Driver
Date: 2011-06-16 03:13 pm (UTC)Thanks for writing this!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 04:16 pm (UTC):D
Reckoning
Date: 2011-07-02 12:46 am (UTC)It was only when an arrow he should have easily dodged ended up embedded in one shoulder that Ephraim started to wonder about himself. He’d seen the archer aim and fire, he’d twisted his body to evade it, lance raised in self-defense... and yet, his timing had been off. By a fraction of a second, yes, but a fraction of a second was enough to mean the difference between riding off a field and being carried from it.
That was the first time. After the second near-disaster, the third, Ephraim began to realize that the faulty timing wasn’t all a matter of paying attention. His limbs weren’t responding to danger as quickly as they once did. He could no longer inhabit and use his body casually, no longer count on the certainty of his reflexes. Age had crept up on him subtly, silently, without any fanfare. There was no pain in his limbs, no true weakness... just a lack of some indefinable edge they’d once had.
He was twenty-eight at the time. It didn’t crush Ephraim that he-- a warrior whose Frelian allies once compared to their own native war god-- was brought a little closer to earth. Galled him, yes, especially in the moments when those split-second misjudgments came close to putting an end to him... but didn’t crush him. He’d have to adapt like any old fighter, learn to win battles not just with lightning speed and phenomenal power, but with craft and cunning. He’d have to learn to use this awe-inspiring reputation to advantage on the field, to trick his opponents into giving him a win simply because he, the great and glorious King Ephraim, was present.
He tried it, anyway. And it worked well enough, but using his reputation as leverage in battle also meant inspiring a good many younger and faster men to fight and fall on his behalf. Ephraim resented this, resented leading his men from behind, and he vowed to to whatever he must to regain the edge that had made him the most feared warrior of his generation. He added some things to his diet and cut out others, he doubled up on practice exercises, he even set up a shrine to the Frelian war god and made offerings to it. This pleased his allies but did little, if anything, to restore his body to its peak.
As each year brought him closer to the level of ordinary men, Ephraim at times did find a grim amusement in it. He saw proud young knights and mercenaries who yet didn’t realize how brief and splendid their moment would be; he envied them and pitied them at once, and Ephraim wondered if that was how General Duessel, how his own father, had once felt about him. And when he first brought his niece into battle at his side, and watched her dart about with swift light steps as she slashed with her strange ancient sword, he felt something close to satisfaction.
“As you are, I once was. As I am, you will be,” he thought as he watched her in motion, the blade in her hand an organic part of her body, her body a seamless extension of her wits. He did not warn her, though. At her age, she could not begin to understand.
Re: Reckoning
Date: 2011-07-02 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 05:10 pm (UTC)(FE 7, 11/12, GW, or Utena preferred)
*ninjas in 8D*
Date: 2011-06-10 06:55 pm (UTC)FE7 or higher.
Language Barrier
Date: 2011-07-01 10:25 pm (UTC)***
They grew up without the concept of the word “mother.” Their infant burblings of ma-ma-ma-- without reinforcement and without connection to a living face, a voice, a warm embrace-- faded away, and by the time they spoke in complete sentences, all thoughts of ma-ma-ma seemed to have vanished from their minds as well.
It was their father’s doing. However Fado might grieve in private for Queen Deborah, however he personally might pay tribute to her as his lover and wife and mother of his children, he did not want those children being raised in the shadow of grief... or of guilt. It was not the fault of the children, those greatly desired children, that they arrived as two at one time. It was not the fault of the children that they could not come into the world naturally and had to be cut free of Deborah’s body. They did not ask for her sacrifice.
And so, Eirika and Ephraim came to consciousness in a world without Deborah, a world without the idea of her. They were provided with nurses and nannies, with guards and companions. They did not lack for care, for attention, for security... nor did they lack for love. Fado gave to them all he could, perhaps gave them more of his heart than he could have if he’d been required to balance the roles of king, father, and husband. All they lacked was that word they didn’t need, the one that faded like an unwatered seedling. Ma-ma-ma.
As Fado watched them grow, these bright and passionate children, he felt certain he’d done right by them in keeping Deborah’s ghost out of their nursery. He need only compare his children with the young Prince of Grado, a boy whose body seemed too delicate to carry the burden of being the one to live while his own mother died, the one to live while his brothers and sisters went from cradle to catafalque without ever learning to speak. Every one of the little prince’s asthmatic breaths seemed weighed with those accumulated tragedies-- and they were choking him. The contrast between the frail prince and Fado’s own healthy, active son and daughter acted as a balm to his conscience.
Of course he wished at times that the twins could have had some curiosity regarding their mother. He wished that Ephraim would one day inquire why he didn’t have a mother even though his playmate the young prince of Frelia had one. He wished that Eirika would want to know the story behind the earrings that were kept for her in a jewelry box, awaiting the day when she was old enough to wear them. Yet they never asked, never thought to ask, because the idea had never been planted in their minds.
And they seemed happy in their ignorance, thought Fado. Happy with him, and with the caring people that surrounded them... and happiest of all in one another. Long after ma-ma-ma faded from their vocabulary, and after da-da-da had become a proper address of “Father,” he might catch them speaking to one another in the language they had invented, a language no one else might understand.
A language as foreign to Fado’s ears as the language of motherhood was to his children.
***
Re: Language Barrier
Date: 2011-07-01 10:32 pm (UTC)And the fact that it was (mostly) about Fado = <3
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 07:12 pm (UTC)Please and thank you. :)
The Stars in Their Courses
Date: 2011-06-17 10:31 pm (UTC)No wonder men who deemed themselves brave entered Raman Temple with weapons drawn, only to leave empty-handed and screaming. And the terror they screamed of, the goddess who scoured the Fane of Raman with holy fire... well, he’d be coming up against that soon enough.
Marth glanced at Merric, who had a Thoron tome pressed to his chest with both hands. That wasn’t odd in itself, not with thieves and outlaws lurking throughout the temple complex. But Merric’s face seemed abnormally pale, and his lips were pressed together in a mirthless line.
“Look up, sire,” said Merric, his voice strained.
Marth did so, tipping his head back to stare up into the great dome of the temple, the model for the marble domes of Pales and the gilded minarets of Khadein. It was as grand and vast as the largest domes in the royal capital, with a feeling of light, of space, as though its mosaic splendor encased an entire world. A world of great heroes and even greater beasts-- monsters, even-- that made the heavens their battleground.
He recognized the patterns above them as the beasts of the zodiac-- the lion, the bull, the great desert scorpion-- but something seemed... odd... about the gilded stars that adorned each creature.
“Merric, does something seem strange about the constellations to you?”
“The stars aren’t all in the right places,” said Merric. “But they’ve changed since this place was built, sire. The stars move...”
Moved across the heavens at a pace so glacial no human would live to even see the change. But for the dragons, for whom a century was but a year, and a millennium a decade...
“How long has it been since the constellations were this way, Merric?”
“I don’t know...” Merric’s eyes narrowed to slits of green as he thought it over. “Maybe five thousand years?”
Five thousand years, from that moment to this.
Marth looked down at the floor, at his own worn boots and the flickering shadows that torchlight cast upon the marble, and wondered, not for the first time, at the unparalleled madness of their mission.
“Come on, Merric. Chin up-- the goddess of the Fane is waiting.”
And so they passed with hurried steps beneath the reflection of a vanished sky, as a meteor passes from darkness to darkness.
Re: The Stars in Their Courses
Date: 2011-06-19 05:35 pm (UTC)I'm sorry for the late response and thank you so much for writing this. It's incredible. ^_^
Re: The Stars in Their Courses
Date: 2011-06-19 11:19 pm (UTC)