A series of January drabbles
Jan. 21st, 2011 09:42 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annwfyn.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
writing_shadowsDestiny
“Maybe I’m not going to die.” He said. “Maybe I’m just going to kill a lot of people,”
Kael bent and kissed Epona briefly. He felt warm to touch. He always did. He was bright, like fire, but despite his affinity for that form he wasn’t fire. Epona knew fire well. Her father was like a bonfire – bright, and entrancing, but always painful when he stood too close and impossible to hold on to. Kael had never been that.
Rather, Kael was like rock, harsh and unyielding. He didn’t give way or bend. Not before man, god, or destiny itself.
Destruction
It occurred to Rickets that she could maybe go back to Hatfield after all. She chittered as she pondered the glorious prospect of walking in and announcing that she hoped that they had all learnt their lesson! Those who persecuted her - who threw her screeching and howling into the snow - would ultimately be destroyed.
Then she realized that taking responsibility for those deaths would make her briefly more impressive, but would probably shortly afterwards make her considerably more dead.
She settled for delivering the speech to a small audience of bemused rats in a home made cage instead.
Death
“Well, what’s she going to do? Just go on screwing heroes? Keep bouncing from one dead fiancé to another?”
Venice leant back and raised her glass and her eyebrow together. Rex, who was used to Venice’s cut glass concern, just let his hand keep stroking her thigh, in slow lazy strokes. He murmured “life in wartime,” and then “but I don’t think anyone can take that indefinitely.”
Venice took a slow sip of her wine, and thought about Rosalba, quiet and numb with acceptance. She imagined Stitches and Lorica; meat in the mud. She tried not to think about Moorcroft.
Dream
“You need to stop being selfish,” Rusty had said.
“Think of yourself, for once,” Helen had said.
They were probably both right. Rio’s dreams were all selfish, all hungry from the long years being kept chained away. And her dreams had never really included her family. Much as she loved them, they belonged strictly to the waking world. In her dreams she had always been an orphan, in rooms with leather furniture which smelt of old paper. In her dreams she was always alone, intoxicated with the freedom of solitude.
Mal had been alone so long. How could he understand?
Desire
If desire was like a fire then, Rosie thought, it was as if she lived her life in the charred out ruins of an old house. In there, dead passions could still be stumbled over, leaving new cuts and bruises. Old betrayals left one vulnerable, unsafe, even amidst loved ones.
Rosie didn’t want to keep living in the ashes.
The church didn’t smell of ashes. It smelt of flowers and candlewax, and when she got closer, the intoxicating scent of Alex Fulham’s hair and skin. And the flame of desire rose up inside her again, clear and bright as candleflame.
Despair
Rae didn’t like looking in the mirror. This wasn’t because she was remarkably plain, or because she had definitely put on weight over the last year. In fact, that cheered Rae hugely. The weight had, at least, partly settled on her breasts and she actually quite liked the softness on her belly and hips. She could look at herself and say words like ‘earth mother’. Rae liked words like ‘earth mother’.
She didn’t like the other words she thought when she looked in her eyes. When she saw the odd faint glow of burning coals lurking somewhere within her pupils.
Delirium
No killing , Ashley said.
So no death. No bodies. Why not? What makes the bodies bad? Bodies are neat, clean, tidied away. Bodies don’t rot. Not unless you keep them too long, so you make sure they never linger.
The living linger. Their smells are thick and heav, changing things where they shouldn’t. Scent of sex, scent of wanting, then, most annoyingly of all, the scent of bleach and lemon juice. That was a particularly bad scent. Stupid human scent, blank scent, cold scent. There was no comfort in that scent. Not until it was washed clean in blood.
Delight
The designs in Charlie’s skin were completely, perfectly and absolutely clear. Ruth could see each whorl, each twist, each finely wrought line. Every part of Dre’s intricate tattoo work was as vivid to Ruth’s senses as it ever could have been.
In amidst the ink he had worked scents, and those Ruth could see. More than that, for the first time in years, she could see that which had eluded her since her Childe’s Embrace. She could see the glorious, furious bright genius that she had thought she had killed. She could see him again – Paint – Dre – her Childe. Alive.
“Maybe I’m not going to die.” He said. “Maybe I’m just going to kill a lot of people,”
Kael bent and kissed Epona briefly. He felt warm to touch. He always did. He was bright, like fire, but despite his affinity for that form he wasn’t fire. Epona knew fire well. Her father was like a bonfire – bright, and entrancing, but always painful when he stood too close and impossible to hold on to. Kael had never been that.
Rather, Kael was like rock, harsh and unyielding. He didn’t give way or bend. Not before man, god, or destiny itself.
Destruction
It occurred to Rickets that she could maybe go back to Hatfield after all. She chittered as she pondered the glorious prospect of walking in and announcing that she hoped that they had all learnt their lesson! Those who persecuted her - who threw her screeching and howling into the snow - would ultimately be destroyed.
Then she realized that taking responsibility for those deaths would make her briefly more impressive, but would probably shortly afterwards make her considerably more dead.
She settled for delivering the speech to a small audience of bemused rats in a home made cage instead.
Death
“Well, what’s she going to do? Just go on screwing heroes? Keep bouncing from one dead fiancé to another?”
Venice leant back and raised her glass and her eyebrow together. Rex, who was used to Venice’s cut glass concern, just let his hand keep stroking her thigh, in slow lazy strokes. He murmured “life in wartime,” and then “but I don’t think anyone can take that indefinitely.”
Venice took a slow sip of her wine, and thought about Rosalba, quiet and numb with acceptance. She imagined Stitches and Lorica; meat in the mud. She tried not to think about Moorcroft.
Dream
“You need to stop being selfish,” Rusty had said.
“Think of yourself, for once,” Helen had said.
They were probably both right. Rio’s dreams were all selfish, all hungry from the long years being kept chained away. And her dreams had never really included her family. Much as she loved them, they belonged strictly to the waking world. In her dreams she had always been an orphan, in rooms with leather furniture which smelt of old paper. In her dreams she was always alone, intoxicated with the freedom of solitude.
Mal had been alone so long. How could he understand?
Desire
If desire was like a fire then, Rosie thought, it was as if she lived her life in the charred out ruins of an old house. In there, dead passions could still be stumbled over, leaving new cuts and bruises. Old betrayals left one vulnerable, unsafe, even amidst loved ones.
Rosie didn’t want to keep living in the ashes.
The church didn’t smell of ashes. It smelt of flowers and candlewax, and when she got closer, the intoxicating scent of Alex Fulham’s hair and skin. And the flame of desire rose up inside her again, clear and bright as candleflame.
Despair
Rae didn’t like looking in the mirror. This wasn’t because she was remarkably plain, or because she had definitely put on weight over the last year. In fact, that cheered Rae hugely. The weight had, at least, partly settled on her breasts and she actually quite liked the softness on her belly and hips. She could look at herself and say words like ‘earth mother’. Rae liked words like ‘earth mother’.
She didn’t like the other words she thought when she looked in her eyes. When she saw the odd faint glow of burning coals lurking somewhere within her pupils.
Delirium
No killing , Ashley said.
So no death. No bodies. Why not? What makes the bodies bad? Bodies are neat, clean, tidied away. Bodies don’t rot. Not unless you keep them too long, so you make sure they never linger.
The living linger. Their smells are thick and heav, changing things where they shouldn’t. Scent of sex, scent of wanting, then, most annoyingly of all, the scent of bleach and lemon juice. That was a particularly bad scent. Stupid human scent, blank scent, cold scent. There was no comfort in that scent. Not until it was washed clean in blood.
Delight
The designs in Charlie’s skin were completely, perfectly and absolutely clear. Ruth could see each whorl, each twist, each finely wrought line. Every part of Dre’s intricate tattoo work was as vivid to Ruth’s senses as it ever could have been.
In amidst the ink he had worked scents, and those Ruth could see. More than that, for the first time in years, she could see that which had eluded her since her Childe’s Embrace. She could see the glorious, furious bright genius that she had thought she had killed. She could see him again – Paint – Dre – her Childe. Alive.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 11:16 pm (UTC)Being alone isn't freedom, solitude is a prison. In fact it's the most soul destroying prison there is, because unlike any other prison you can never set yourself free from it. You need someone else to break you out of it, to open the door and invite you inside, to be part of something else, something greater than the individual. Mal knew, he knew all too well what that prison was like. How it felt to be alone, the outsider, forever barred from the small comforts of being part of a couple, of a family, of being intimate and known with another person. Even when he'd been in pack he'd still be a prisoner of that solitude because he'd be the one they all looked to for leadership, to be the rock to which they coud always cling in times of trouble, the shield to protect them in times of danger, the symbol they could point everyone else at and say "he is the one responsible". Being alone isn't freedom, solitude is the prison you can never escape no matter how hard you try because you will carry it with you until someone else decides to take the burden of it from you. Until someone else says 'we' instead of 'him'.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 11:58 am (UTC)And it occurs to me that with Delight included there are eight of them. Which, co-incidentally, is also the number of PCs I have in active play at the moment. That lines up slightly too nicely to be ignored [grin]
no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 02:15 pm (UTC)And make them each exactly 100 words. It's a really satisfying game to play.