Well, I ended up going to Youmacon, and having an awesome time~ It was such a cool experience--everyone was extremely friendly and I swear cons must be one of the few places where you can just go up and hug people and it isn't weird. XD I got hugged a couple times myself, fangirled with people about Yeager and TOA characters, was part of the Tales of games photoshoot (incidentally, as the only Vesperia character--the Yuri Lowell left early)...ah, definitely going again next year. Probably with Yeager's scythe in tow that time around. ^^ If I can manage to drag Red to that (or to the con scheduled next summer), I'd very much like to do Dist and Ion, Dist and Reiner, or a Gelda Nebilim and Dist pair with her as well, since the TOA fandom seems to be very much alive, despite my having personally moved on to TOV. XD
Well, between cosplay and schoolwork, I did manage to write some stuff, including a Krityaverse fic I really like. As in, it was the first thing I've written in a long time that really resonated with me. So I'll put that and some other stuff up.
Title: The Little Boy
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: I've been really into symbolism and this sort of repetitive, rhythmic style of prose lately. I've also been thinking a lot about Raven and Yeager (they're ending up sort of as foils of each other in my unis, so I've been playing with their relationship and stuff.) This is Krityaverse, though it has some elements of the Aurnionverse, because it largely came from a couple visions I got, that happened to have electricity in them and stuff.
Summary: Raven still remembers the Yeager beneath the masks.
The first time, he was six years old.
He was playing in the yard outside Altosk headquarters, alone, kicking a ball across the grass. The sky was the deep, rich sea-blue of a clear summer’s day, tinted reddish-violet by the barrier, and the grass was rough beneath his bare feet, baked by the sun. The day was hot—a child’s perception of heat, intense and stifling, the sweat on his skin making every movement unpleasantly sticky.
He was bored, because Whitehorse was in a meeting and he’d been told to stay in the yard. He was alone because there were no other children around to play with him. For a while, at least.
“Who you?”
He turned and looked at the other boy. The other boy had dark violet hair, straight bangs falling in blue eyes. He remembers the boy’s outfit—starched shirt, vest and knickers—but can recall best the look on his face, furrowed brow and frown at an age when children should be smiling.
He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t know him. He didn’t know what to do.
“Who you?” the boy asked again, accent thick, words more of a demand than a question, like an order given to servants.
“Schwann,” he answered then.
“Schvann?”
“No, Schwann.”
“Schvann,” the boy repeated.
“No, you’re wrong, it’s—”
“I Yeager,” the boy said, ignoring his complaint. “I play with you?”
It was a strange introduction, but he wasn’t one to refuse, because he was bored and alone and might as well try to change that. “Okay.”
That was the beginning, the first time they spent time together, and thirty years later, he still hasn’t forgotten. Raven still remembers the little boy.
*
Nowadays Yeager lives in a world far from hot sunlight and green grass. He lives in a world of bright electric lights glimmering off polished gold, of tuxedos and diamonds and high-ceilinged halls, where the click of wine-glasses and the echo of laughter is like music. He winds his way through fine women and rich men with a dancer’s grace, no longer frowning, always smiling, ever smiling.
His hair is slicked back and his words are slick too, seeping through the cracks to hearts and working them, twisting them to look his way. His appearance is immaculate, like a colored fashion plate, not a wrinkle or a stain to be seen, not a hair or a gesture out of place. He is kind, he is compassionate, he is all charm, all smiles.
He is a businessman, Yeager of Leviathan’s Claw. He is a face in women’s dreams, a tidy signature on men’s contracts. Yeager of Leviathan’s Claw is prosperous, cheery, a desirable ally and a sought-after lover, a wish made true.
Yeager of Leviathan’s Claw is a thin, gilded pattern on cold, scratched steel, and Raven wonders why no one can see that, when every day the gilding is flaking at the edges, flying away with the wind. He wonders why no one can see that the smile isn’t real.
When he looks at Yeager he sees through the façade, sees the scratched, scraped, deformed layers, sees the blood and bullet-holes, and beneath it all he sees the little boy. He sees the little boy still, standing in a room much too big for him, brow furrowed, mouth in a frown, not smiling at an age when children should be smiling.
The little boy remembers rough grass and sea-blue sky, Raven knows.
Someday when the gilt flakes all away, when the bright lights come crashing down and the music fades to noise, the little boy will have only cold steel to look at, and he won’t understand like Yeager of Leviathan’s Claw understands. He’ll see the scratches and blood and bullets, and he’ll long again for clear skies, for the simplicity of friendship with a boy named for a bird.
Raven waits for that day, because he remembers, and when it comes, despite it all, he won’t refuse him.
Title: To Break A Heart
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Okay, this is the fic I really like. ^^ This takes place in the Krityaverse, and the subsequent decision he makes regarding her. :P I never really detailed out what Yeager and Estelle's relationship was like, and this is my take on it--a bond that makes Yeager's pivotal act acutely horrible.
It might be worth noting that Estelle is likely in her late teens/around twenty at this time, and Yeager is a bit over thirty. XD
Summary: Estelle had never fathomed such happiness.
The first time she saw him, he was dressed in a blue suit and a violet tie—violet like his sleek, smooth hair; blue like his eyes, kind and restful eyes in an unblemished face.
“A pleasure to meet you, Estellise,” he said, holding out his hands, and his voice was so gentle, so soft and strange that she felt herself flush.
She couldn’t find her words and heard Raven supply them, chuckling merrily behind her. He sounded a great distance away—only Yeager’s reply was clear, crystal-clear, as though the whole world had gone silent to listen to him speak.
“She vill be no trouble, believe me.”
*
“He’s so kind, isn’t he?” she remarked a few days later to Marion, Yeager’s cold-mannered assistant.
“Sometimes.” Marion’s icy eyes darted about, checking to see if anyone was nearby. “A lot of the time it’s only a face. He’s a businessman, above anything else.”
“I don’t understand.”
Marion looked at her, gaze piercing. “He’s not above breaking hearts to cut a deal.”
Estelle still didn’t understand, but turned away, not wanting to meet his eyes any longer. They were the kind of eyes that challenged, scrutinized, dissected.
Yeager’s eyes, the color of a clear sky, only accepted.
*
On the days that Yeager and Marion were at work, Estelle took to rummaging in the manor’s library. She found books on most everything—math, the sciences, fiction and fact. One book, with painted illustrations, she would have loved to read, but couldn’t comprehend a word of it.
She brought it to Yeager. A smile, lightly amused, crossed his face at the sight.
“Zis is in Flanian. It vas mine when I vas a child. Do you vant me to translate it for you?”
“I just want to hear what it sounds like,” she said, because she had never heard another language before, besides the ancient tongue of the Kritya.
“All right.”
He began to read. To Estelle, it was like listening to a song, exotic and flowing, almost hypnotic. She savored every moment.
She only wished she could understand.
*
“We are taking a walk today,” Yeager announced one morning.
She didn’t object. She had to wear a disguise—a wide-brimmed hat, a sweater and skirt Yeager had bought for her—but it was fine with her, because she had been growing a little bored in the manor, and Danghrest was breathtaking.
Coming into the city at night with Raven, she hadn’t realized its true glory—tall timber-frame buildings, winding cobblestoned streets, brightly clad people and market stalls selling everything she could imagine, all beneath the orange-gold glow of the sun, refracted through the shimmering surface of the barrier.
Once, they passed a stand selling flowers, and her attention caught upon a rich boquet, filled with pink and blue blossoms. Yeager noticed and promptly went over, pulling out a few coins in exchange for the boquet.
“Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Don’t worry, it vas not much.”
But it was everything to Estelle, and she held the flowers close to her the whole way back, gazing up at Yeager in nothing less than admiration.
*
Another day, she asked about the oddly-shaped leather case in the corner of Yeager’s living room.
It was his cello, he explained. He brought it out to show her, silver strings suspended over polished wood. He used to take music lessons, years ago.
She asked to hear him play. He did so, with full, lush notes that trembled in the air, hands moving with such grace that she was entranced. It was so beautiful, she almost wanted to cry.
So many things about him were beautiful. His words, his movements, the smile that so often adorned his features. Raven was honest, straightforward, but Yeager, with all his subtlety and elegance, was beautiful.
She would never admit it to Raven, but she preferred beauty.
*
She rarely entered his office, as the door was usually closed. When she saw the door half-open, though, and the light on, she had to poke her head in out of curiosity.
Most of the time Yeager was on the phone or talking to Marion, and she didn’t dare disturb him. This time, he was alone, looking down at a sheet of paper with an oddly dismayed expression.
She went to him. “Are you all right?”
“Ja. My business is just not doing well.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing nothing about business, knowing not what to say.
It hurt her to see him sad, sent a sharp edge of pain through her chest. She thought back to what Raven might do in such a situation, and the answer, though not entirely fitting, seemed right.
She held out her arms. To her surprise, Yeager responded at once, meeting the embrace, his graceful hands on her back, her forehead brushing against his cheek.
She felt warm, secure there, just standing, holding onto him. She breathed deeply of the sweetness clinging to his clothes, the smell of soap and flowers, so clean, so perfect.
So beautiful.
Estelle realized then, for the first time, that she loved him.
*
He’s a businessman, above anything else.
By the time Yeager drove her to Leviathan’s Claw headquarters, she had thoroughly forgotten Marion’s words. She knew only Yeager, his kind, warm presence, filling up her existence, making her more happy than she had ever fathomed.
“Why are we going here?” she asked him.
“Zare is someone zat vants to meet you. It vill not take long, believe me.”
She believed him. When he stepped out of the car, went around and opened the door for her, she stood facing him, stood looking into his sky-like eyes.
“I love you,” she found the courage to say, cheeks pink and mind giddy.
He smiled, bent and replied with a soft kiss.
Like on that first day, the world seemed to go silent around him, listening, watching. She listened, watched only him, blown away like leaves in the sunset, absolutely stunned.
“I love you too, Estellise.”
She never doubted him. She never doubted him as he lead her inside, as easily as a dog on a leash. She never doubted him as he took her into the meeting room where Barbos’ guards waited. She never doubted him until they seized her wrists, gagged her mouth, until she saw the money in Yeager’s beautiful hands, the sneer on his beautiful face.
He’s not above breaking hearts to cut a deal.
Estelle realized then, for the first time, and felt her heart shatter.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Two more Abyss pieces~
Happy almost-Halloween! I'm dressing up as Yeager tomorrow--yes, I did put together his whole costume, and bought and styled a wig like the nutjob I am. ^^ It's probably the first full, legit cosplay I've done...I'll probably get some photos of the props up on here at some point.
Anyway, going along with the eerieness of the holiday, I decided to put up some more of my Abyss fics. (The uni they pertain to is detailed here.)
Title: Chess
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Pretty much keep in mind that this little game is symbolic of Ion's replication.
Summary: Dist and Fon Master Ion play chess.
They sat across the table from each other, locked in concentration. Ion’s emerald eyes were focused on the board before him, the fingers of his left hand resting lightly against his chin, while the other hand shifted idly from one carved piece to another. Dist’s eyes, ruby behind the round lenses of his glasses, rested on the Fon Master’s face, trying to read his expression. As usual, Ion’s features were blank and impassive; an emotionless mask. Dist could not tell Ion’s thoughts any more than he could perceive an object swathed in total darkness.
Delicate fingers lifted a rook and placed it on the opposite side of the board. A dim light, a hint of a confident smirk, broke the darkness.
“Check.”
Dist glanced down at the rook, then back up at Ion, his brow furrowing.
“Damnit. I was not expecting that.”
“I didn’t think so,” said Ion, making a motion of dismissal, as though shooing a fly. “Your turn now.”
Dist scratched his head, staring at the board. For a time, he didn’t move, then, tentatively, he touched a knight.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Ion remarked, yawning.
Dist’s hand dropped at once. Silence reigned again as Dist paced through the mental muck of frustration, coming up with notions and rethinking them; using utmost caution and going nowhere.
“So, Dist,” Ion spoke up after a few moments, out of boredom. “How is my replication going? Any progress there?”
“I’m working on the calculations for a third replica,” said Dist, not taking his eyes off of the board.
“Did you get considerably closer this time?”
Dist shrugged. “Looks like it. We’ll see.”
“You don’t know?”
Dist glanced up at Ion, coldly. “The numbers only tell me so much. Replication is a game of experimentation, Fon Master…there are a hundred ways to lose, and few to win. I cannot predict everything, and the slightest detail, the tiniest mistake, could throw everything askew.”
“Well, we must hope for the best, then,” replied Ion, his smirk widening as Dist reached for another piece. “I wouldn’t do that either.”
Dist dropped his hand again. Ion grinned.
“It seems I have you in a bind, Saphir…”
“Not yet.” Impulsively, Dist grabbed a piece and moved it, then sat back and surveyed the Fon Master with crossed arms.
“Mm, tricky…” Ion sighed and surveyed the board, his expression again becoming mask-like. “Very tricky. You’re a smart one, Saphy…of course, that’s why I wanted you to play with me in the first place. Mohs is too predictable, and I know Van’s strategies by heart—but not yours, not yet. The unexpected is the spice of life, isn’t it? What little of it exists.”
“I suppose,” replied Dist. “Under some circumstances.”
“Pessimistic, aren’t we? I myself, knowing most everything that has and will happen, have grown to love what I cannot know in nearly every one of its forms…there is just such a thrill in it. Such a thrill in that shadowy void, that can so catch us by surprise when something happens to leap across—”
Ion lifted his queen, swiftly taking the piece Dist had moved, and smiling up at the engineer with unreserved glee.
“Checkmate.”
Dist blinked, mentally replaying Ion’s move and realizing how he had overlooked that possibility. “…Oh. Clever.”
“I win,” Ion said lazily. “You’re good at this, but not exceptionally good. I’ve just been playing this game for years. After a hundred losses or so, you begin to discover how to win…perhaps we can play again sometime. I think you have the potential to become great, with sufficient practice.”
“Perhaps…I ought to get back to work now. See you later, Fon Master.”
Dist stood and Ion rose to his feet as well, and the two shook hands.
“See you later, Dist. Make me that third replica soon—and get some sleep tonight. You’ve been staying up much too late lately, and I musn’t have you getting sick now, before you come down with that bout of the flu three weeks hence.”
Dist stared at Ion, taken off guard by the prediction. Ion smiled at him, then walked off, disappearing into the shadows on the far side of the room, his footsteps fading until it seemed he had vanished into the solid stone walls of the cathedral itself.
Title: Silence and Flight
Rating: PG
Warnings: Um, the use of the word 'bastard'? It's really quite clean.
Notes and things-to-know: This fic takes place about two years after the Ion replication, while Sync and Dist are both working for the Order. I believe the only thing not mentioned in the uni description is Reiner--he's Dist's assistant, and was brought in after Gelda's death (and subsequent failed replication) to help Dist out with the Ion replication, because Dist was mentally unstable at the time. He's a genuinely nice guy, and ends up having a sort of parental relationship to Sync and Florian.
It's also worth mentioning that I believe this to be the finest bit of fanfiction I produced during my obsession with TOA ("Ion's Score" and "Liftoff" are better-quality writing, in my opinion, but they were written later on.) The symbolism of the second-to-last paragraph was what came to me first, and the rest of the story sort of developed from there, with the Dadelus theme and whatnot.
Summary: While out taking a late-night stroll, Sync chances upon his creator.
Sync loved winter for its silence.
All day in the cathedral, he was met with a multitude of voices; giving orders, wanting orders, inquiring about one thing or another. All day; the voices wearing at his brain, stirring up irritation into fury, sending his thoughts scattering about. Sync had been born into conflict and had never left the battle, and though the enemy was constantly changing face, it was always the same. There was nothing he valued more than the times he could be alone, in peace, surrounded by silence.
He stood at the base of the cathedral steps, gazing at the thick layer of untouched snow that covered the cobblestoned street. The fonstone streetlamps cast pools of golden light onto the white blanket, causing the still-falling flakes to sparkle as they touched ground. There was not a breath of wind, and the flakes fell vertically, settling on the spikes of Sync’s green hair without disturbing it.
It was well past midnight, and not a soul was about—Sync felt as though he might be the only person in the entire world. He tilted his head upward and looked at the sky, his breath fogging softly before him. The stars were bright and clear through sparse patches of clouds, and the half-moon shone with a steady silver glow against the inky blackness. The sight had a sense of unreality to it, of mysticism; a rare beauty for his eyes alone to behold. He smiled at the thought of such an honor.
Feeling the chilly atmosphere beginning to seep into his bones, Sync lowered his eyes and took up a leisurely walk down the street. His leather boots crunched the snow, but only softly; the pall of silence remained. The windows of the buildings lining the street were all darkened, lifeless; every house and business seemed uninhabited, and the white-coated storefronts were as untouched as ruins. Each sharp corner or squared edge had been rounded off by snow, and seemed as natural as if such man-made structures had sprouted from the ground itself, many years ago.
Sync stepped into an intersection where four streets met and paused there, glancing at the halos of corner lights and back at the lone trail of footprints he had left. During the day, during more agreeable weather, Sync knew the intersection to be a busy area of people traversing from different directions, but now it was as all else was—it was his. Sync basked in the quiet, letting his mind wander freely, sauntering from one subject to another with slowness and ease. Time wasn’t important; he had all the time in the world to mull over things he had forced himself to disregard during the day; childish things he wondered about and dark thoughts that had to be considered piece by piece, bit by bit, like taking bitter medicine.
His eyes shut a little as he mused; he was tired, of course, at this hour. The light of a streetlamp on the edge of his vision shimmered; the whiteness of the snow blurred with it—white all around, mixed with gold—
Sync started, noticing a spot of white just outside of the light, a spot that wasn’t snow. His vision came back into focus, and he discerned in the darkness the last person he would want to see in his time of peace. Instincts kicked in, and he felt his eyes narrow, his muscles tense, and his lips curl into a slight, feral snarl.
He went with the usual greeting.
“Hello, worthless bastard.”
“Hello, replica,” the reply came. “Fancy seeing you here.”
The name was an old insult, but every time it slid from that cold tongue, it stang anew. Even the worst of curses didn’t compare to it.
“What are you doing out here? Trying to freeze yourself to death? That’d be doing the world a favor,” Sync sneered.
Dist stepped into the light, his ruby eyes focused on Sync, radiating hatred.
“I’ve been thinking. Not about you, of course; I wouldn’t waste my energy on that.”
“Same here,” said Sync. “And the fact that you exist interrupted me. I think you’d better get back to the cathedral before I rearrange your face.”
“I’m not moving. I was here first, and I think you ought to be the one getting back. Your very presence makes me sick.”
“You know, I would fry you to a crisp right now, and the only thing keeping me from doing so is the snow. I don’t feel like spoiling it just because of something petty like you.”
“Oh, I never knew you were so soft-hearted,” murmured Dist, his words filled with mockery. “The replica loves the pretty snow…”
Sync gave a snort of derision and turned away, crossing his arms. “Shut up, bastard, and leave me alone. Talking to you is pointless.”
“Right back at you,” Dist rejoined, and silence reigned once more.
It was a different sort of silence than what had been there previously—a sharp-edged silence rather than a soft, peaceful one. Sync could feel its knifelike touch on him, and his blood, in response, kept to a loathing-fueled simmer. He couldn’t pull his thoughts from Dist, and after a time he turned back around to stare at the man he so hated. Of all people…why did he have to be here?
Dist, feeling Sync’s eyes on him, met the replica’s gaze. A frown settled into place on his pale visage.
“I told you I’m not moving.”
“What the hell inspired you to come stand out in the snow and think, anyway?” demanded Sync.
“I like the snow. I grew up with snow all year round in Keterburg.”
Sync raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were Daathic.”
“Did Reiner tell you that?”
“No.” It had been an assumption, really…Sync couldn’t picture Dist anywhere else than Daath, probably because Dist had lived in the cathedral for the entire time Sync had known him. Two years, was it? Yes, two years had passed, and the hatred between them had remained all the while. It was perhaps the only thing that hadn’t changed.
“The Fon Master called you to Daath, didn’t he.”
Dist’s red eyes darkened. “Are we to have a talk about the replication now? I doubt either of us would enjoy it.”
“I’m just wondering about how you ended up here, idiot. Just answer that.”
“Why are you so curious?”
“As long as you’re invading my space, I might as well bother you with questions,” said Sync. “Well?”
Dist sighed. “Yes, Ion had me brought to the cathedral.”
“Why you? Why not somebody else?”
“Fifteen, the Fon Master doesn’t get just anyone to help him. I was a leader in the field of fomicry, and had done some favors for Van before. They knew I wouldn’t refuse.”
“Van would have had you killed or something if you’d backed out, wouldn’t he?”
“No—unlike you, he values my life,” scoffed Dist. “I was given the choice to back out if I wanted to.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” pressed Sync.
Dist’s frown diminished to a straight line, and he craned his neck, looking up and away from Sync’s teal eyes. The streetlamp’s glow filled the lenses of his glasses, giving him a sightless appearance to match the unreadable expression that had taken over his features.
He stayed still for a moment, a gentle haze of snowflakes glinting as they fell around him, catching on the fur lining of his coat and his shoulder-length white hair. Sync felt like snapping at him, insisting that he answer more quickly, but…the silence was growing duller now that Dist seemed lost in memories Sync had not been alive to witness. Sync dared not disturb the tentative peace—he would let it run its course.
When Dist spoke again, his voice carried a tone that Sync had never heard before from him—unguarded and detached, strangely sincere.
“I doubt you’ll understand, being a replica and all, but…I suppose I went along with it because I needed a dream to follow. I’d gotten into some trouble not long before, and being chosen for it made me feel as though I had been given a chance to get back on track. It made me feel like, well…someone valued me, and I had the opportunity to do something worthwhile, rather than the pointless research I’d been involved in before.”
Dist glanced at Sync. “You replicas were brought into the world with such simply defined identities…Twenty-One fufilled the role that was given to him, and the rest of you were just marked as failures. The lives of the rest of us aren’t like that. Even with a Score to my name, it took me many years to discover what I was supposed to be. I was twenty-seven back then and I still wasn’t truly sure. I thought the application of fomicry to a human being might be my destiny, the flight I’d built wings for…”
He trailed off with an indifferent shrug.
“Was it?” Sync asked.
“It must have been. At this point, I can’t imagine things as having turned out any other way…though, whatever wings I had, I burned them. I flew too close to the Lorelei-damned sun and burned them right up. I suffered like hell creating the lot of you; for twenty tries, never coming close enough…I might as well be Daathic, since I’ll never leave this place. Too much has happened here, and everything I left behind went on without me.
“I might as well be one of those stained-glass angels,” Dist muttered bitterly. “One of those blankly staring angels covered in centuries-old grime—a part of the cathedral itself. Just sort of suspended in midair between the stonework, never able to land…I hate to say it, but I’m as bound as you are, replica, and you’re the lucky one. You don’t realize what a luxury it is to have people to blame…”
He trailed off again, and silence fell like a shroud between them. Sync took a step forward, inhaling sharply; the quiet stifling to him. He had to say something; something to quell a pressure greater than hatred that was pushing down on him—
“I always thought you were the lucky one.”
Dist’s eyebrows arched slightly. “Really?”
“Yeah. I always thought it’d be better if I’d gotten a life like yours, with choices.” Sync heard the words tumble from his mouth, barely believing what he was saying, considering who he was talking to. “Though I would have done better. I wouldn’t have done the replication at all, probably; I would have made the Fon Master find somebody else to take it on.”
“Fifteen, considering everything, if I’d left like that you might not even exist right now.”
Sync’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I should be grateful it was you?”
“I’m not saying that. In any case, what’s done is done. It’s pointless to ponder what might have been when not even Yulia held the power to change the past.”
Dist clasped his hands behind his back and gazed at the sky again, at the cold radiance of the stars beyond the golden spotlight he stood beneath. Sync couldn’t see his eyes, but could make out a deep sense of sadness in the curve of Dist’s lips and the tension of his stance.
Though it might be pointless…
“I’m sorry,” said Sync.
“What for?”
“Lorelei, I don’t know. I just feel sorry; not for anything I did, but…maybe someone ought to have apologized to you before and didn’t. Take this as their sorry, or whomever’s. You look like you need it.”
Dist faced Sync, blinking a bit as though having trouble seeing him clearly. After a moment, he removed his glasses and wiped them on his pants. When he lifted the frames to his eyes again, his hands were trembling ever so slightly.
“I’m done talking to you.”
“Leaving me alone, finally?” Sync grinned teasingly.
“Well, I have been out longer than you, replica. It’s getting cold, and it’s time I stopped wasting my life dealing with your presence.”
“Same here. Good night, bastard.”
“Good night.” In the silence following his words, Dist turned and walked out of the pool of light, vanishing into the darkness, back towards the cathedral.
At that second in time, a light breeze blew by; peculiar, as the air had remained still before. It stirred up a shower of flakes as Dist left the light, shimmering with golden brilliance, and in that brief second, appeared almost like the falling feathers of a broken wing.
Sync was alone again, in peace; but the night was no longer just his.
Anyway, going along with the eerieness of the holiday, I decided to put up some more of my Abyss fics. (The uni they pertain to is detailed here.)
Title: Chess
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Pretty much keep in mind that this little game is symbolic of Ion's replication.
Summary: Dist and Fon Master Ion play chess.
They sat across the table from each other, locked in concentration. Ion’s emerald eyes were focused on the board before him, the fingers of his left hand resting lightly against his chin, while the other hand shifted idly from one carved piece to another. Dist’s eyes, ruby behind the round lenses of his glasses, rested on the Fon Master’s face, trying to read his expression. As usual, Ion’s features were blank and impassive; an emotionless mask. Dist could not tell Ion’s thoughts any more than he could perceive an object swathed in total darkness.
Delicate fingers lifted a rook and placed it on the opposite side of the board. A dim light, a hint of a confident smirk, broke the darkness.
“Check.”
Dist glanced down at the rook, then back up at Ion, his brow furrowing.
“Damnit. I was not expecting that.”
“I didn’t think so,” said Ion, making a motion of dismissal, as though shooing a fly. “Your turn now.”
Dist scratched his head, staring at the board. For a time, he didn’t move, then, tentatively, he touched a knight.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Ion remarked, yawning.
Dist’s hand dropped at once. Silence reigned again as Dist paced through the mental muck of frustration, coming up with notions and rethinking them; using utmost caution and going nowhere.
“So, Dist,” Ion spoke up after a few moments, out of boredom. “How is my replication going? Any progress there?”
“I’m working on the calculations for a third replica,” said Dist, not taking his eyes off of the board.
“Did you get considerably closer this time?”
Dist shrugged. “Looks like it. We’ll see.”
“You don’t know?”
Dist glanced up at Ion, coldly. “The numbers only tell me so much. Replication is a game of experimentation, Fon Master…there are a hundred ways to lose, and few to win. I cannot predict everything, and the slightest detail, the tiniest mistake, could throw everything askew.”
“Well, we must hope for the best, then,” replied Ion, his smirk widening as Dist reached for another piece. “I wouldn’t do that either.”
Dist dropped his hand again. Ion grinned.
“It seems I have you in a bind, Saphir…”
“Not yet.” Impulsively, Dist grabbed a piece and moved it, then sat back and surveyed the Fon Master with crossed arms.
“Mm, tricky…” Ion sighed and surveyed the board, his expression again becoming mask-like. “Very tricky. You’re a smart one, Saphy…of course, that’s why I wanted you to play with me in the first place. Mohs is too predictable, and I know Van’s strategies by heart—but not yours, not yet. The unexpected is the spice of life, isn’t it? What little of it exists.”
“I suppose,” replied Dist. “Under some circumstances.”
“Pessimistic, aren’t we? I myself, knowing most everything that has and will happen, have grown to love what I cannot know in nearly every one of its forms…there is just such a thrill in it. Such a thrill in that shadowy void, that can so catch us by surprise when something happens to leap across—”
Ion lifted his queen, swiftly taking the piece Dist had moved, and smiling up at the engineer with unreserved glee.
“Checkmate.”
Dist blinked, mentally replaying Ion’s move and realizing how he had overlooked that possibility. “…Oh. Clever.”
“I win,” Ion said lazily. “You’re good at this, but not exceptionally good. I’ve just been playing this game for years. After a hundred losses or so, you begin to discover how to win…perhaps we can play again sometime. I think you have the potential to become great, with sufficient practice.”
“Perhaps…I ought to get back to work now. See you later, Fon Master.”
Dist stood and Ion rose to his feet as well, and the two shook hands.
“See you later, Dist. Make me that third replica soon—and get some sleep tonight. You’ve been staying up much too late lately, and I musn’t have you getting sick now, before you come down with that bout of the flu three weeks hence.”
Dist stared at Ion, taken off guard by the prediction. Ion smiled at him, then walked off, disappearing into the shadows on the far side of the room, his footsteps fading until it seemed he had vanished into the solid stone walls of the cathedral itself.
Title: Silence and Flight
Rating: PG
Warnings: Um, the use of the word 'bastard'? It's really quite clean.
Notes and things-to-know: This fic takes place about two years after the Ion replication, while Sync and Dist are both working for the Order. I believe the only thing not mentioned in the uni description is Reiner--he's Dist's assistant, and was brought in after Gelda's death (and subsequent failed replication) to help Dist out with the Ion replication, because Dist was mentally unstable at the time. He's a genuinely nice guy, and ends up having a sort of parental relationship to Sync and Florian.
It's also worth mentioning that I believe this to be the finest bit of fanfiction I produced during my obsession with TOA ("Ion's Score" and "Liftoff" are better-quality writing, in my opinion, but they were written later on.) The symbolism of the second-to-last paragraph was what came to me first, and the rest of the story sort of developed from there, with the Dadelus theme and whatnot.
Summary: While out taking a late-night stroll, Sync chances upon his creator.
Sync loved winter for its silence.
All day in the cathedral, he was met with a multitude of voices; giving orders, wanting orders, inquiring about one thing or another. All day; the voices wearing at his brain, stirring up irritation into fury, sending his thoughts scattering about. Sync had been born into conflict and had never left the battle, and though the enemy was constantly changing face, it was always the same. There was nothing he valued more than the times he could be alone, in peace, surrounded by silence.
He stood at the base of the cathedral steps, gazing at the thick layer of untouched snow that covered the cobblestoned street. The fonstone streetlamps cast pools of golden light onto the white blanket, causing the still-falling flakes to sparkle as they touched ground. There was not a breath of wind, and the flakes fell vertically, settling on the spikes of Sync’s green hair without disturbing it.
It was well past midnight, and not a soul was about—Sync felt as though he might be the only person in the entire world. He tilted his head upward and looked at the sky, his breath fogging softly before him. The stars were bright and clear through sparse patches of clouds, and the half-moon shone with a steady silver glow against the inky blackness. The sight had a sense of unreality to it, of mysticism; a rare beauty for his eyes alone to behold. He smiled at the thought of such an honor.
Feeling the chilly atmosphere beginning to seep into his bones, Sync lowered his eyes and took up a leisurely walk down the street. His leather boots crunched the snow, but only softly; the pall of silence remained. The windows of the buildings lining the street were all darkened, lifeless; every house and business seemed uninhabited, and the white-coated storefronts were as untouched as ruins. Each sharp corner or squared edge had been rounded off by snow, and seemed as natural as if such man-made structures had sprouted from the ground itself, many years ago.
Sync stepped into an intersection where four streets met and paused there, glancing at the halos of corner lights and back at the lone trail of footprints he had left. During the day, during more agreeable weather, Sync knew the intersection to be a busy area of people traversing from different directions, but now it was as all else was—it was his. Sync basked in the quiet, letting his mind wander freely, sauntering from one subject to another with slowness and ease. Time wasn’t important; he had all the time in the world to mull over things he had forced himself to disregard during the day; childish things he wondered about and dark thoughts that had to be considered piece by piece, bit by bit, like taking bitter medicine.
His eyes shut a little as he mused; he was tired, of course, at this hour. The light of a streetlamp on the edge of his vision shimmered; the whiteness of the snow blurred with it—white all around, mixed with gold—
Sync started, noticing a spot of white just outside of the light, a spot that wasn’t snow. His vision came back into focus, and he discerned in the darkness the last person he would want to see in his time of peace. Instincts kicked in, and he felt his eyes narrow, his muscles tense, and his lips curl into a slight, feral snarl.
He went with the usual greeting.
“Hello, worthless bastard.”
“Hello, replica,” the reply came. “Fancy seeing you here.”
The name was an old insult, but every time it slid from that cold tongue, it stang anew. Even the worst of curses didn’t compare to it.
“What are you doing out here? Trying to freeze yourself to death? That’d be doing the world a favor,” Sync sneered.
Dist stepped into the light, his ruby eyes focused on Sync, radiating hatred.
“I’ve been thinking. Not about you, of course; I wouldn’t waste my energy on that.”
“Same here,” said Sync. “And the fact that you exist interrupted me. I think you’d better get back to the cathedral before I rearrange your face.”
“I’m not moving. I was here first, and I think you ought to be the one getting back. Your very presence makes me sick.”
“You know, I would fry you to a crisp right now, and the only thing keeping me from doing so is the snow. I don’t feel like spoiling it just because of something petty like you.”
“Oh, I never knew you were so soft-hearted,” murmured Dist, his words filled with mockery. “The replica loves the pretty snow…”
Sync gave a snort of derision and turned away, crossing his arms. “Shut up, bastard, and leave me alone. Talking to you is pointless.”
“Right back at you,” Dist rejoined, and silence reigned once more.
It was a different sort of silence than what had been there previously—a sharp-edged silence rather than a soft, peaceful one. Sync could feel its knifelike touch on him, and his blood, in response, kept to a loathing-fueled simmer. He couldn’t pull his thoughts from Dist, and after a time he turned back around to stare at the man he so hated. Of all people…why did he have to be here?
Dist, feeling Sync’s eyes on him, met the replica’s gaze. A frown settled into place on his pale visage.
“I told you I’m not moving.”
“What the hell inspired you to come stand out in the snow and think, anyway?” demanded Sync.
“I like the snow. I grew up with snow all year round in Keterburg.”
Sync raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were Daathic.”
“Did Reiner tell you that?”
“No.” It had been an assumption, really…Sync couldn’t picture Dist anywhere else than Daath, probably because Dist had lived in the cathedral for the entire time Sync had known him. Two years, was it? Yes, two years had passed, and the hatred between them had remained all the while. It was perhaps the only thing that hadn’t changed.
“The Fon Master called you to Daath, didn’t he.”
Dist’s red eyes darkened. “Are we to have a talk about the replication now? I doubt either of us would enjoy it.”
“I’m just wondering about how you ended up here, idiot. Just answer that.”
“Why are you so curious?”
“As long as you’re invading my space, I might as well bother you with questions,” said Sync. “Well?”
Dist sighed. “Yes, Ion had me brought to the cathedral.”
“Why you? Why not somebody else?”
“Fifteen, the Fon Master doesn’t get just anyone to help him. I was a leader in the field of fomicry, and had done some favors for Van before. They knew I wouldn’t refuse.”
“Van would have had you killed or something if you’d backed out, wouldn’t he?”
“No—unlike you, he values my life,” scoffed Dist. “I was given the choice to back out if I wanted to.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” pressed Sync.
Dist’s frown diminished to a straight line, and he craned his neck, looking up and away from Sync’s teal eyes. The streetlamp’s glow filled the lenses of his glasses, giving him a sightless appearance to match the unreadable expression that had taken over his features.
He stayed still for a moment, a gentle haze of snowflakes glinting as they fell around him, catching on the fur lining of his coat and his shoulder-length white hair. Sync felt like snapping at him, insisting that he answer more quickly, but…the silence was growing duller now that Dist seemed lost in memories Sync had not been alive to witness. Sync dared not disturb the tentative peace—he would let it run its course.
When Dist spoke again, his voice carried a tone that Sync had never heard before from him—unguarded and detached, strangely sincere.
“I doubt you’ll understand, being a replica and all, but…I suppose I went along with it because I needed a dream to follow. I’d gotten into some trouble not long before, and being chosen for it made me feel as though I had been given a chance to get back on track. It made me feel like, well…someone valued me, and I had the opportunity to do something worthwhile, rather than the pointless research I’d been involved in before.”
Dist glanced at Sync. “You replicas were brought into the world with such simply defined identities…Twenty-One fufilled the role that was given to him, and the rest of you were just marked as failures. The lives of the rest of us aren’t like that. Even with a Score to my name, it took me many years to discover what I was supposed to be. I was twenty-seven back then and I still wasn’t truly sure. I thought the application of fomicry to a human being might be my destiny, the flight I’d built wings for…”
He trailed off with an indifferent shrug.
“Was it?” Sync asked.
“It must have been. At this point, I can’t imagine things as having turned out any other way…though, whatever wings I had, I burned them. I flew too close to the Lorelei-damned sun and burned them right up. I suffered like hell creating the lot of you; for twenty tries, never coming close enough…I might as well be Daathic, since I’ll never leave this place. Too much has happened here, and everything I left behind went on without me.
“I might as well be one of those stained-glass angels,” Dist muttered bitterly. “One of those blankly staring angels covered in centuries-old grime—a part of the cathedral itself. Just sort of suspended in midair between the stonework, never able to land…I hate to say it, but I’m as bound as you are, replica, and you’re the lucky one. You don’t realize what a luxury it is to have people to blame…”
He trailed off again, and silence fell like a shroud between them. Sync took a step forward, inhaling sharply; the quiet stifling to him. He had to say something; something to quell a pressure greater than hatred that was pushing down on him—
“I always thought you were the lucky one.”
Dist’s eyebrows arched slightly. “Really?”
“Yeah. I always thought it’d be better if I’d gotten a life like yours, with choices.” Sync heard the words tumble from his mouth, barely believing what he was saying, considering who he was talking to. “Though I would have done better. I wouldn’t have done the replication at all, probably; I would have made the Fon Master find somebody else to take it on.”
“Fifteen, considering everything, if I’d left like that you might not even exist right now.”
Sync’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I should be grateful it was you?”
“I’m not saying that. In any case, what’s done is done. It’s pointless to ponder what might have been when not even Yulia held the power to change the past.”
Dist clasped his hands behind his back and gazed at the sky again, at the cold radiance of the stars beyond the golden spotlight he stood beneath. Sync couldn’t see his eyes, but could make out a deep sense of sadness in the curve of Dist’s lips and the tension of his stance.
Though it might be pointless…
“I’m sorry,” said Sync.
“What for?”
“Lorelei, I don’t know. I just feel sorry; not for anything I did, but…maybe someone ought to have apologized to you before and didn’t. Take this as their sorry, or whomever’s. You look like you need it.”
Dist faced Sync, blinking a bit as though having trouble seeing him clearly. After a moment, he removed his glasses and wiped them on his pants. When he lifted the frames to his eyes again, his hands were trembling ever so slightly.
“I’m done talking to you.”
“Leaving me alone, finally?” Sync grinned teasingly.
“Well, I have been out longer than you, replica. It’s getting cold, and it’s time I stopped wasting my life dealing with your presence.”
“Same here. Good night, bastard.”
“Good night.” In the silence following his words, Dist turned and walked out of the pool of light, vanishing into the darkness, back towards the cathedral.
At that second in time, a light breeze blew by; peculiar, as the air had remained still before. It stirred up a shower of flakes as Dist left the light, shimmering with golden brilliance, and in that brief second, appeared almost like the falling feathers of a broken wing.
Sync was alone again, in peace; but the night was no longer just his.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
My Ionverse and Abyss fictions~
Sweet, I've got the day off from school today ^^ Apparently it was really windy last night and some power lines got knocked over. (I also, incidentally, have a scheduled day off tomorrow, so TWO DAYS OF FREEDOM YESH~)
Well, I figured I'd finally do something that I've been really wanting to do for some time--get some of my old Abyss fanfictions up. Of course that requires an explanation of my main universe (the "Ionverse", as Red and I dubbed it), so I'll launch right into that.
As is probably obvious in some of my older posts, the main character of my writings was Dist. Born Saphir Wyon Neis in the snowy town of Keterburg, Dist was one of those socially awkward yet gifted kids, skilled in math and the sciences. He and his friend Jade Balfour grew up to become leaders in the emerging field of fomicry--a sort of cloning (referred to as replication), involving a form of energy called fonons. Dist developed machinery to make the process more precise, while Jade worked primarily on developing theorems to make the mathematical calculations involved easier to do.
Anyway, fomicry was limited for a time to plants, animals and various smaller forms of life, but of course the topic of human replication came up, and there Jade and Dist came to an impasse. Jade believed replicating a human being to be morally wrong, while Dist believed a human replica would essentially lack a soul--and thus, human replicas could be used as soldiers and as common laborers, doing the work people don't like, without any guilt on the part of their creator. Jade ended up winning favor for his side of the conflict, and got legislation to prohibit human replication, as well as an order for Dist to turn in his fomiscist's license. Dist, deciding to stand up for his end in it, went on the run.
While hiding out, Dist was found and seized by some knights, and dragged off to the holy city of Daath, where the Order of Lorelei reigned supreme. There, he was placed in front of the Order's leader, Fon Master Ion. As Fon Master, Ion possessed the ability to read something called the Score--basically, a record of everything important that had and would happen in the world, and had discovered, among many other awful things, that he himself was to die soon. Because he lacked an heir, and didn't want to risk the turmoil that would arise in a masterless Order, Ion devised a scheme to cheat death in the eyes of the public--to have a replica made of him, enough like him that he would appear to live on. Because Dist had already done some human replication work for a member of the Order (i.e., Luke's replication, for those out there that know Abyss), he asked Dist to do the job, and, seeing the task as a chance to do some lasting good with the technology people had so quickly rejected--Dist agreed.
He ended up taking two years do it, due to the complicated nature of the process. It took him twenty-one tries in all (canonically, it's seven, but I ended up jacking it up for more angst XD) before he produced a replica close enough to Ion's appearance and abilities. During this time, he suffered deeply, forced to question his beliefs as he brought horrendous, wretched humans into being with each failed attempt. He did have some bright moments in interacting with Ion's guardian-in-training, Arietta, and Ion's physician, Gelda Nebilim (yes, I did pull the latter from his canonical early life and stuck her in later, so she and Dist could have a relationship. ^^). Gelda he actually ended up falling in love with, but that bliss ended as she fell at the hand of one of the crazed, malformed replicas--in his darkest hours, Dist tried to replicate her in an attempt at resurrection, but it was ultimately futile.
After the replication--after the Fon Master was dead and buried and the replacement had quietly taken his role--Dist remained in the Order, doing engineering work for the Order's military. He figured the horror of the replication was over, only to find that two of the replicas that were supposed to be disposed of had survived--Fifteen and Sixteen, Sync and Florian. The Order figured Sync had some potential to be trained as a soldier/assassin, and Sync ended up taking care of Florian, so both of them started coming in contact with Dist. Over the course of a few years, Dist was forced to face these two lives that he'd considered failures, and that had considered him a bringer of death and pain--and atone for his sins by learning to treat them as people, not just mistakes incarnate.
Believe me, it ended happily. XD I left a space after that for the events of ingame, and after some craziness starts shaking the Order apart, and Ion's replacement replica dies in the midst of it, Florian ends up replacing him as Fon Master, with Sync at his side. A lot of the Ion replication stuff (which was concealed by the Order) comes out, and Dist has to go on the run for a while. Eventually, he returns to Daath, broken and weary, and in kind of an ironic turn of events, has to beg for amnesty from Florian and Sync. Luckily, by this time, Florian and Sync have come to understand him enough to take pity on him and grant it. And yeah, he lives with them under the protection of the Order after that. :)
A pretty dark story though, huh? I developed it over the course of the two years I was into Abyss, and looking back, I realized that the latter of those two years (in which I really focused on the Ionverse) was actually a pretty difficult one for me and especially for my friend/writing partner Red--we were both pretty swamped with work, and Red was working to overcome some emotional problems. I think we ended up expressing a lot of our issues through our writing--I saw a lot of my own vulnerability coming through Dist, and her difficulties in becoming more sociable towards people wound their way into Ion. Sorta makes me wonder, when I'm done with Vesperia, what parts of me I'll see in Yeager...
Anyway, I'll put up two fics--both what I'd call 'contemporary', because I wrote them this summer (after the two-year period of Abyss obsession.) They're more descriptive/explanatory than some of my earlier work though, so I figured I'd get them up first.
Title: Ion's Score
Rating: PG
Warnings: High emotion, a little bit of bloodiness.
Notes and things-to-know: Just a couple things.
~I use the name the same way in my Vesperia works, but just as a reminder, "Lorelei" is basically God.
~Yeah, Ion's parents are dead. His mother fell ill and died of the 'bleeding sickness' (a sort of water-borne tuberculosis, which Ion later sickens of himself), and his father actually died in an accident at the hands of his son--Ion's very, very powerful, arte-wise, and couldn't really control such power as a child.
~If you can't tell, here's who's really mentioned in Ion's Score.
-"a child of the wilderness" = Arietta
-"a physician"/"a white-haired woman" = Gelda (yes, I decided she is distantly related to Ion's mother, hence why she's called to treat Ion's illness.)
-"an outsider"/"a lanky, bespectacled young man"/"the frustrations of another" = Dist
Summary: Ion discovers how destiny has condemned him.
The Score, through anyone’s eyes, was a long, smooth slab of stone set into an altar of dark, carved wood. It sat in the central hall of the new section of the cathedral, where masses were held, surrounded by candelabras, golden relics and tapestries. It was framed against a massive stained glass window, filled with detailed depictions of notable Fon Masters and their acts, all beneath a many-pointed sun, a classic representation of Lorelei.
The Score had not a word carved into it, not a mark upon it except for a slightly rough area at its center, worn from the many hands that had touched it over the years. It had no purpose inscribed over it, no written indication of the vast amounts of knowledge contained within. From a distance, it seemed to have no reason to be there.
But up close, as he laid his hand down upon the stone, Ion could feel radiation rising from it in slow trendrils, feel the air grow thick and potent with concentrated fonons. When his delicate fingers touched the surface, he could feel the tingling warmth rise up his arm, through his body, preparing a connection.
He closed his eyes, letting the world fade away around him, focusing on the warmth that pooled through his blood. In his younger years, it had taken nearly ten minutes to shut his mind down properly, to empty it of any interfering thoughts. Now, it was a matter of seconds.
The radiation was calming, peaceful, drifting his consciousness into something like sleep. His mind passive, his body took over—whether it was instinct, or some genetic predisposition, he never knew, but somehow a burst of fonons surged from deep within him, tightening those trendrils into taut ropes.
For a space of time that could seem a moment or an eternity, he balanced in a limbo between memory and reality, bound and petrified before the Score.
Then, with a jerk, he was pulled in.
The substance of the Score was gold—gold dripping and rippling like some viscous liquid, gold shimmering beneath like the brightest of oceans and above like the wildest of skies, gold constantly surging and undulating all around, ever-changing, ever-beautiful. Drowned in the currents of that golden world were the lives of a billion people, and as Ion’s mind swam into the midst of it all, a billion layers of emotion threatened to envelop him; happiness, sadness and everything in between all twisted together into a torrential scream.
His first time, he hadn’t been prepared for it. Normally, a Fon Master preparing to take the throne would enter the Score with his father beside him, and the father would, for the first couple times, protect his son from the blast. Ion, lacking a living father, had made his entrance under the guidance of a few nervous attendants, and had faced the phenomenon alone—the agony referred to, in benign-sounding ancient Ispanian, as the ‘essence of feeling.’
He had torn himself away that day and fallen into a hysterical fit, writhing and clawing at his head, trying desperately to claw out the horror that, in one swoop, had destroyed much of his innocence.
Experience taught him well, though, and nowadays he was prepared. As the wave swelled over him, he propelled it back with overarcing force of will, forcing every feeling to its respective corner of the whole. He lingered momentarily, listening to the distant echoes on all sides, then calmly made his way to the individual he wanted to see.
A common misconception of common people was that the Score was much like a book. The level of sight did vary from Fon Master to Fon Master, but for all it was more than a record in words—every life was filled with vivid imagery and emotion. The Score could convey sensations of cold and warmth, pain and pleasure; it could place the reader into scenes, within the body of the person who the event belonged to. It was a strange vessel of empathy, and if one gave in to its power, reading it was a deeply personal experience that could inspire or scar.
Ion had long ago stopped giving in, stopped empathizing, with the occasional exception of the few people he actually cared about. He had seen and experienced so much, lived so many lives that he felt detached from humanity, a serene observer of the fallacies of the population, a god of sorts. The only Score he did not restrain himself from was his own.
It was his own he sought today, breezing past others, guided by his intent. He felt it amidst the gold—an entrance was never so much an image as it was an impression of thoughts and feelings—and dived in, moving through memories that flickered by like lightning. He stopped at the present time, glanced about the hall, then reentered his Score, oriented towards the future. He checked the outcome of the meeting with King Ingobert in advance, discovered who would ask for a reading of their scores over the next two weeks, found out that he was going to get his long green hair trimmed in a month’s time. Or, at least, it was likely that he would. Such trivial things were rarely absolute.
He saw himself playing with a pink-haired, feral girl during the next year, and basked in the scene, enjoying its associated happiness. The girl had been raised for most of her life by ligers, and she would be presented to him because unusual people so amused him. He would decide to keep her, call her one of his guardians, entertain her and be entertained by her antics.
She would be important to him—he knew, because that part of his Score had a caption. Only the important parts were officially labeled—when asked about other portions, he had to describe them himself.
“Ion the ninth will befriend a child of the wilderness, and she will bring him joy.”
Ion wondered what other things in his near future were written out in words. He drew back and skimmed his Score, scanning the remainder of the year.
“Ion the ninth will resolve a dispute between the countries.”
“Ion the ninth will attend a wedding of dignities, and promise prosperity in their future.”
“Ion the ninth will fall ill but recover within a week’s time.”
“Ion the ninth will celebrate the feast of Lorelei, and the Order will…”
Boring, all quite boring. He continued skimming, more quickly.
“Ion the ninth will agree to military action against a group of heretics.”
“Ion the ninth will celebrate his seventeeth birthday.”
“Ion the ninth will deceive a man destined to die.”
Oh, that was an interesting one. Not that he had never done that before—his attendants may have taught that the Score was wonderful in its entirety, but he had learnt that tact was necessary when informing the populace of its contents. He had taught himself how to lie by omission, tell half-truths and white lies, because, faithful as people may be, they still never wanted to hear bad news.
He kept going, perusing through his Score, settling briefly on atypical captions and bypassing the bland. Soon enough, he stumbled on something a bit troubling.
“Ion the ninth will contract the famed bleeding sickness.”
“Ion the ninth will be unable to attend mass due to poor health.”
“Ion the ninth will be attended by a physician within the Order.”
Hm, he hadn’t had a bout of illness that long in some time.
“Ion the ninth will become bedridden for three weeks.”
“Ion the ninth will be attended to by an outsider.”
“Ion the ninth will petition the public for prayers for his health.”
He could feel the illness—the labored breathing, the aches and chills passing through his body. He saw himself among unfamiliar faces—a white-haired woman that looked like his long-dead mother, a lanky, bespectacled young man with a nervous appearance. He saw and felt himself suffering, smelled cold sweat and foul ointment; ran a hand along his ghastly pale, emaciated face; coughed into his hands and watched blood seep into the lines of his palms.
He felt apprehension and grief, and knew he ought to stop, but he couldn’t.
“Ion the ninth will be affected by a disease of the mind.”
“Ion the ninth will share in the frustrations of another.”
The scenes grew vaguer the farther he went. In one, he stood laughing and choking with blood splattered on his robe; in another, he was regarding the white haired man with mild amusement, who looked lost. He could make little sense of either.
“Ion the ninth will become bedridden for the last time.”
“Ion the ninth will be moved to the red chamber.”
He lay in a room with stained glass windows in shades of deep red and violet. It was dark, and he couldn’t feel his arms or legs—he couldn’t feel much of anything, but he could hear light sobbing nearby.
Stop it, you don’t want to see this, he told himself, but he was trapped in the scene, too involved to free himself.
He watched the scene fade around him, his vision growing fuzzy, his breath slowing. He watched helplessly as everything went black.
Black, rounding off the edge of his long chain in the gold, and the voice of the Score tolling in his head.
“Ion the ninth will die before his twenty-first birthday, and the Order will die with its heirless master.”
Ion shot back, back through the course of his life, emotions and sensations striking and ripping at him like an angry mob. He tumbled out into the endless, glistening gold, and the ‘essence of feeling’ smothered him like a shroud, shrieking and gnawing and devouring his sanity in the moments before the ropes frayed and he tore through to reality, his hand scorching as fonons gushed into the stone and the surrounding air, severing his connection with the Score.
He fell into a sitting position from the rush of it all. The remnants of the ‘essence’ still screamed in his mind, and tilting his head back, he screamed with them, screamed and cried like an animal at the Score, at Lorelei, at the brief waste that was his life.
Two years.
Two years were all he had left.
Title: Liftoff
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know:
~The title is a play on something Dist says in another fic I'll have up here sometime, called Silence and Flight: "I thought the application of fomicry to a human being might be my destiny, the flight I’d built wings for…"
~The numbers Dist counts are ironic--twenty-one being the final replica's number, fifteen and sixteen being Sync and Florian, and fourteen, incidentally, being the mentally ill replica that takes Gelda's life.
~I know I didn't mention him in my summary, so...General Van Grants belongs to the Order's military, and is just one of the small inner circle that gets to know about the Ion replication. He's the one that gives Dist another job in the order later on, after the replication is over.
~The tuning fork thing is a holy symbol. Also about appearance--I imagine the characters dressed in sixteenth-century clothes, like so. It's my version of the Order's uniforms.
~Yeah, Gelda realllly doesn't like Dist at first, because she isn't cool with the idea of human replication. Once he starts questioning its morality himself, the two get to liking each other better.
Summary: Dist is forced to make a choice that will either make or break him.
When the double doors slammed shut behind them, the sound echoed like a blast through the hall, reverberating off of thick stone walls and arched ceilings. It seemed so loud, and lasted so long, rebounding in the thick and empty air that he fancied it something symbolic, some blow of fate.
He shivered and glanced around, wringing his bound hands.
The hall was draped in shadow, lit only by the meager amount of light passing through stained glass windows. The windows threw fragments of blue and green upon the worn floor tiles, as still as if they had been painted there. A cloth-covered altar stood at the far end of the room with a few chairs behind it, flanked by unlit lampstands.
Van stood with his arms crossed, watching him calmly. The only other men in the room, the two knights, stood on either side of the doorway like statues, holding burnished axes.
It seemed like an eternity that they remained in silence. He listened to his heart pounding in his ears and counted the beats in an attempt to steady his nerves.
Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three…
The doors creaked open so quietly that at first he barely noticed. After a moment, though, he felt the atmosphere of the room change, felt Van’s gaze turn from him, and he turned to look as well.
A woman with short, white hair in layers strode in, retaining an expression of formal indifference as her golden eyes flickered between the men. With the air of one well used to the gesture, she lifted her black velvet gown to her ankles and bent into a curtsey.
“His knowing holiness, Fon Master Ion the ninth.”
It was the fomiscist’s first time seeing the Fon Master in person. He had seen pictures of Ion before, as had most, but the pictures had never quite captured the young man—no, the boy, he could scarcely be over eighteen. The pictures had never made apparent how short-statured the boy was, how thin his frame was, so slender and delicate that a firm grip on his arm might break it; how deep and dark his eyes were, like pools reflecting a night sky; how, when he made his slow and serene promenade inside, the ambient fonons concentrated in a way that made one’s hair stand on end, as during a thunderstorm.
Fon Master Ion wore a light green robe with a high collar, a cincture around his waist, and a stole embroidered with swirling patterns. He had fingerless gloves on his hands and a long dark cape, fastened with a gold clasp, covering his shoulders and trailing after him some distance across the floor. He carried a lacquered wooden staff topped with a jewel-studded, engraved tuning fork, and had another tuning fork around his neck, hanging from a wide jeweled collar. His green hair fell in bangs around his eyes and was cut short in the back, with two long locks left to hang in the front. He had on a circlet, also full of gold and jewels, with tassels dangling on each side of his head.
Van bowed as Ion came in, and everyone else did the same. Ion said not a word to any of them, but smiled a small, sweet smile as he passed by his prisoner, and did something strange—he raised his free hand and brushed the fomiscist’s hair very lightly with his fingertips.
The Fon Master crossed to the other side of the hall, and Van muttered something inaudible. The fomiscist didn’t look up, but heard the clank of armor as the two knights moved, and the doors open and shut again, declaring their leaving.
There was a suspenseful silence again, and the sound of his heart hammering in his chest.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
“Saphir Wyon Neis,” a languid voice called out, pronouncing each syllable flawlessly, as though it had spoken the name a thousand times before. “You may approach.”
Saphir stopped his counting and raised his eyes. Ion beckoned gently to him from his seat behind the altar, and, after a moment’s hesitation, prompted by Van’s hand falling on his shoulder, he walked quickly over to the Fon Master.
“Saphir Wyon Neis,” Ion said again, in a tone so syrupy it was almost feminine. “Native of Keterburg, possessor of degrees in fonic engineering and fomicry, engineering director at the Balfour-Neis Research Center until just recently. A fairly agreeable twenty-seven-year-old, who likes to think that he’s stubborn, though, judging by his emotional state, I doubt that is the case. You have no idea why you are here, do you?”
Saphir felt another shiver pass down his spine, but spoke as firmly as possible.
“No, and your soldiers have violated my rights under international law by not telling me. I could press charges.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, considering you’re an international criminal yourself.” Ion laughed. “Quite an accomplishment at your age, to become one of those.”
“I’m not a criminal.”
“Refusing a court order to turn in your fomiscist’s license is a criminal act, is it not? And besides, you are practically on the run from your best friend.”
“We had an ideological dispute, that’s all. I’m standing up for my side in it.”
“Pray tell, what is your side? I know already, of course, but I want to hear it in your words.”
Ion rested his chin in his hand, and his elbow on the arm of the chair, completely at ease.
“I believe that outlawing human replication outright…it was a rash decision. There’s so many possibilities in the field, beneficial possibilities that we haven’t even had the chance to touch upon yet. We could use replicas to supplement the workforce, and—”
“As soldiers, too, so our brothers and sisters will not be lost in battle?”
Saphir stared at the Fon Master, going pale.
“Jade was very upset with that one, wasn’t he?” Ion said with a smile. “He really yelled at you for that one. He thinks they would count as human lives. Do you?”
“O-Of course not,” stammered Saphir. “They would count as—as animals. Humanity isn’t what you get when you combine a particular frequency and some base materials. Even with improved technology, replicas would likely never have the mental capacity of an ordinary human being. And honestly, something created synthetically, created in a lab by an unnatural process can’t be considered on the same level as a human being.”
“So what you basically think is that the replicas would lack souls. That sort of defining difference between us and animals.”
Saphir nodded. “Yes. That’s what I think.”
“And I agree. There also is no mention anywhere in the Score of replication, or any personal Score to be found for the little ‘favor’ you did for the general.”
“Really?”
“None whatsoever.” Ion waved a hand, dismissing the topic. “Now. The reason why you are here is because I want to ask you for a favor. It relates to that now-forbidden branch of replication we just discussed.”
Ion rose from his chair, stepped up to the altar and rested his arms on it. Saphir saw a momentary wince pass over the Fon Master’s smooth features as Ion bent over the altar to study him more closely.
“Some years ago, out of childish curiosity, I decided to find and read my own Score. I thought it might be interesting to discover what of my past was recorded, and what might be destined for my future. I knew there would likely be hardship of some nature in the years to come, as there is in everyone’s Score, but I believed, being Fon Master, my life would have to be a comfortable and satisfying one.
“I read up to a time two years from the present. I discovered that I would come down with a bout of the bleeding sickness, which was not too surprising, as I tend to be rather susceptible to illness. However, it seemed that this bout would be much worse than anything I’d had previously. It would continue to worsen, up until that two year point, where I discovered my Score cut off abruptly with a single line.”
Ion closed his eyes. “Ion the ninth will die before his twenty-first birthday, and the Order will die with its heirless master.”
Saphir blinked, bewildered. “You mean to say—”
“I have no siblings, Saphir. My mother passed away a few years after my birth, and my father did not remarry before his unfortunate demise. I am the last of the Fon Master lineage, and when I die, there will be no one left to read the Score, aside from a handful of fonists who can decipher only fragments. The world may very well fall into chaos without me, and I have little doubt that the Order will be dissolved.
“General Grants and I had a long discussion about this, and considered our options. We thought of arranging a wedding of some sort, against canon law, so that I might sire an heir, but…then imagined a better solution. Van was very impressed with the work you did for him, and when the first signs of illness began to show in me a week ago, he and I decided to seek you out. You see, Saphir, the reason why you are here is because I want you to replicate me. I want you to create a replica so like me, in appearance and abilities, that in the public’s eyes, the Fon Master will recover completely from his illness, and continue to lead the Order.”
“I…” Saphir looked at the floor. “I don’t know. Won’t the Order fall apart regardless, if the Score wills it?”
“Didn’t you go to religious classes as a child, Saphir? You ought to have learned that there are only a few absolutes in the Score—birth and death dates, marriages, personal events of that nature. Many things are likely to happen, but may be postponed or avoided, if one deviates enough from what is written.”
“But one isn’t supposed to deviate from what’s written, so what you’re asking me is sacrilege.”
“I stated already that the Score is silent on replication. In that respect you will be doing nothing for or against it. I am not asking you for immortality, so you will not be defying my death date, were that even possible. As for that bit about the Order, even the Grand Maestro believes there must have been some mistake. The Score ought not to exist without the Order’s guidance and interpretation.”
Ion’s cavernous eyes glimmered, and Saphir had the sense that there was something the Fon Master wasn’t telling him. He decided not to pursue it, instead fumbling for a different excuse.
“You do know that Van’s ‘favor’ was an extremely rare case. With you, it’ll probably take a number of tries before I create an acceptable replica.”
“I’m aware,” Ion said musically. “Which is why we are prepared to give you room and board for however many months you need. Van also purchased some equipment and materials for your use.”
“The replica won’t have any of your memories, either. It’ll have to be taught how to walk, speak, eat properly…”
“We will be able to handle that. The Fon Master will suffer some brain injury from his prolonged illness, and require reteaching.”
“I still don’t know. I really don’t.”
Ion straightened, pain rippling through his face at the movement, barely disturbing his smile.
“Well, if you don’t want to do it, we can always find someone else. There are a few other fomiscists out there that seem to be evading the law, though I’d much rather have someone of your standing in the field. If you leave, the Order can promise you protection, under the condition that you tell no one of what I’ve told you. You can practice fomicry elsewhere, or do whatever you like. Now that you have heard my request, I will not compel you to do anything.”
Saphir thought about it. He watched, out of the corner of his eye, Van walk up next to the Fon Master and exchange a few whispered words. He wondered whether he could cope with keeping the request a secret, or whether he could pass up such an opportunity at all.
He hadn’t been sure what to do when he’d fled to Belkend, away from his research, the law, and Jade. He’d thought it some noble declaration of his beliefs, then found himself lying low, paranoid that he’d be discovered. If he turned in his license now, there was no guarantee that there wouldn’t be penalties, that Jade would want to speak to him again. If he kept it, there was no guarantee that he’d ever be able to do anything with it, or feel safe in the outside world.
Here he was, with the Order promising safety and acceptance. Here he was, on the edge of a decision that could be the most important one he’d ever make. His accomplishment would never be written in history books, but it would save the Order—preserve the stability of the world. He would be a hero, in a way, and if it ever did become public knowledge, if Jade found out…he would have the strength to look his friend in the eye and defend himself. He would be able to say he worked some good with human replication, that Jade had always been wrong.
That Jade had been the misguided one, all along.
Please, dear Lorelei, let this be the right choice. Let this be what I was meant to do.
Saphir glanced up at the Fon Master, tossing his head to shake his white bangs from his ruby eyes, forcing himself to look serious, and, hopefully, brave.
“I’ll do it.”
“You will, hm?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you’d say that. The alternatives for you aren’t so promising, are they? Better to entrust your future to this venture. I’m certain you’ll do a marvelous job.”
Ion gestured lazily to Van. “Go untie him and show him to his rooms. He can have three days to prepare himself, and begin work after the Loreleiday service.”
Van gave a slight bow, and went to unknot the ropes around Saphir’s wrists. The Fon Master followed, giving another careless gesture of his hand, summoning the white-haired woman from where she had been standing in the shadows, listening the entire time.
She took her place in front of the Fon Master, curtseyed, and strode ahead of Ion as they processed out of the room. As she passed Saphir, she turned her head to look at him, appearing in a moment to take in his bony frame, his unbrushed hair, the rumpled red dress shirt and gray pajama pants he hadn’t had the chance to change out of since Van had captured him. She noted the way his collar was unbuttoned, the way his glasses were slipping down the bridge of his nose, and, as though his general appearance confirmed some unpleasant suspicion she’d harbored, she ended the once-over by shooting him a glare, filled with such icy hatred that it nearly made him jump.
At least the Fon Master seemed to like him…
“I’m glad you’re staying, Saphy,” Ion whispered as he walked by. “You’re such an interesting person.”
He stared, and Ion’s pleasant little smile assured him that the Fon Master hadn’t made up the nickname on the spot. If it hadn’t been apparent before, it was obvious now that Ion had read Saphir’s Score—though, how much of it, it was impossible to tell.
Please, Lorelei, give me strength. Let this be the right choice.
There was no backing out now.
Well, I figured I'd finally do something that I've been really wanting to do for some time--get some of my old Abyss fanfictions up. Of course that requires an explanation of my main universe (the "Ionverse", as Red and I dubbed it), so I'll launch right into that.
As is probably obvious in some of my older posts, the main character of my writings was Dist. Born Saphir Wyon Neis in the snowy town of Keterburg, Dist was one of those socially awkward yet gifted kids, skilled in math and the sciences. He and his friend Jade Balfour grew up to become leaders in the emerging field of fomicry--a sort of cloning (referred to as replication), involving a form of energy called fonons. Dist developed machinery to make the process more precise, while Jade worked primarily on developing theorems to make the mathematical calculations involved easier to do.
Anyway, fomicry was limited for a time to plants, animals and various smaller forms of life, but of course the topic of human replication came up, and there Jade and Dist came to an impasse. Jade believed replicating a human being to be morally wrong, while Dist believed a human replica would essentially lack a soul--and thus, human replicas could be used as soldiers and as common laborers, doing the work people don't like, without any guilt on the part of their creator. Jade ended up winning favor for his side of the conflict, and got legislation to prohibit human replication, as well as an order for Dist to turn in his fomiscist's license. Dist, deciding to stand up for his end in it, went on the run.
While hiding out, Dist was found and seized by some knights, and dragged off to the holy city of Daath, where the Order of Lorelei reigned supreme. There, he was placed in front of the Order's leader, Fon Master Ion. As Fon Master, Ion possessed the ability to read something called the Score--basically, a record of everything important that had and would happen in the world, and had discovered, among many other awful things, that he himself was to die soon. Because he lacked an heir, and didn't want to risk the turmoil that would arise in a masterless Order, Ion devised a scheme to cheat death in the eyes of the public--to have a replica made of him, enough like him that he would appear to live on. Because Dist had already done some human replication work for a member of the Order (i.e., Luke's replication, for those out there that know Abyss), he asked Dist to do the job, and, seeing the task as a chance to do some lasting good with the technology people had so quickly rejected--Dist agreed.
He ended up taking two years do it, due to the complicated nature of the process. It took him twenty-one tries in all (canonically, it's seven, but I ended up jacking it up for more angst XD) before he produced a replica close enough to Ion's appearance and abilities. During this time, he suffered deeply, forced to question his beliefs as he brought horrendous, wretched humans into being with each failed attempt. He did have some bright moments in interacting with Ion's guardian-in-training, Arietta, and Ion's physician, Gelda Nebilim (yes, I did pull the latter from his canonical early life and stuck her in later, so she and Dist could have a relationship. ^^). Gelda he actually ended up falling in love with, but that bliss ended as she fell at the hand of one of the crazed, malformed replicas--in his darkest hours, Dist tried to replicate her in an attempt at resurrection, but it was ultimately futile.
After the replication--after the Fon Master was dead and buried and the replacement had quietly taken his role--Dist remained in the Order, doing engineering work for the Order's military. He figured the horror of the replication was over, only to find that two of the replicas that were supposed to be disposed of had survived--Fifteen and Sixteen, Sync and Florian. The Order figured Sync had some potential to be trained as a soldier/assassin, and Sync ended up taking care of Florian, so both of them started coming in contact with Dist. Over the course of a few years, Dist was forced to face these two lives that he'd considered failures, and that had considered him a bringer of death and pain--and atone for his sins by learning to treat them as people, not just mistakes incarnate.
Believe me, it ended happily. XD I left a space after that for the events of ingame, and after some craziness starts shaking the Order apart, and Ion's replacement replica dies in the midst of it, Florian ends up replacing him as Fon Master, with Sync at his side. A lot of the Ion replication stuff (which was concealed by the Order) comes out, and Dist has to go on the run for a while. Eventually, he returns to Daath, broken and weary, and in kind of an ironic turn of events, has to beg for amnesty from Florian and Sync. Luckily, by this time, Florian and Sync have come to understand him enough to take pity on him and grant it. And yeah, he lives with them under the protection of the Order after that. :)
A pretty dark story though, huh? I developed it over the course of the two years I was into Abyss, and looking back, I realized that the latter of those two years (in which I really focused on the Ionverse) was actually a pretty difficult one for me and especially for my friend/writing partner Red--we were both pretty swamped with work, and Red was working to overcome some emotional problems. I think we ended up expressing a lot of our issues through our writing--I saw a lot of my own vulnerability coming through Dist, and her difficulties in becoming more sociable towards people wound their way into Ion. Sorta makes me wonder, when I'm done with Vesperia, what parts of me I'll see in Yeager...
Anyway, I'll put up two fics--both what I'd call 'contemporary', because I wrote them this summer (after the two-year period of Abyss obsession.) They're more descriptive/explanatory than some of my earlier work though, so I figured I'd get them up first.
Title: Ion's Score
Rating: PG
Warnings: High emotion, a little bit of bloodiness.
Notes and things-to-know: Just a couple things.
~I use the name the same way in my Vesperia works, but just as a reminder, "Lorelei" is basically God.
~Yeah, Ion's parents are dead. His mother fell ill and died of the 'bleeding sickness' (a sort of water-borne tuberculosis, which Ion later sickens of himself), and his father actually died in an accident at the hands of his son--Ion's very, very powerful, arte-wise, and couldn't really control such power as a child.
~If you can't tell, here's who's really mentioned in Ion's Score.
-"a child of the wilderness" = Arietta
-"a physician"/"a white-haired woman" = Gelda (yes, I decided she is distantly related to Ion's mother, hence why she's called to treat Ion's illness.)
-"an outsider"/"a lanky, bespectacled young man"/"the frustrations of another" = Dist
Summary: Ion discovers how destiny has condemned him.
“The Score is hell, replica. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen things that I never want to see again.
It’s living hell, that’s what it is.” ~Ion, to Sync, in a fanfic by Red
It’s living hell, that’s what it is.” ~Ion, to Sync, in a fanfic by Red
The Score, through anyone’s eyes, was a long, smooth slab of stone set into an altar of dark, carved wood. It sat in the central hall of the new section of the cathedral, where masses were held, surrounded by candelabras, golden relics and tapestries. It was framed against a massive stained glass window, filled with detailed depictions of notable Fon Masters and their acts, all beneath a many-pointed sun, a classic representation of Lorelei.
The Score had not a word carved into it, not a mark upon it except for a slightly rough area at its center, worn from the many hands that had touched it over the years. It had no purpose inscribed over it, no written indication of the vast amounts of knowledge contained within. From a distance, it seemed to have no reason to be there.
But up close, as he laid his hand down upon the stone, Ion could feel radiation rising from it in slow trendrils, feel the air grow thick and potent with concentrated fonons. When his delicate fingers touched the surface, he could feel the tingling warmth rise up his arm, through his body, preparing a connection.
He closed his eyes, letting the world fade away around him, focusing on the warmth that pooled through his blood. In his younger years, it had taken nearly ten minutes to shut his mind down properly, to empty it of any interfering thoughts. Now, it was a matter of seconds.
The radiation was calming, peaceful, drifting his consciousness into something like sleep. His mind passive, his body took over—whether it was instinct, or some genetic predisposition, he never knew, but somehow a burst of fonons surged from deep within him, tightening those trendrils into taut ropes.
For a space of time that could seem a moment or an eternity, he balanced in a limbo between memory and reality, bound and petrified before the Score.
Then, with a jerk, he was pulled in.
The substance of the Score was gold—gold dripping and rippling like some viscous liquid, gold shimmering beneath like the brightest of oceans and above like the wildest of skies, gold constantly surging and undulating all around, ever-changing, ever-beautiful. Drowned in the currents of that golden world were the lives of a billion people, and as Ion’s mind swam into the midst of it all, a billion layers of emotion threatened to envelop him; happiness, sadness and everything in between all twisted together into a torrential scream.
His first time, he hadn’t been prepared for it. Normally, a Fon Master preparing to take the throne would enter the Score with his father beside him, and the father would, for the first couple times, protect his son from the blast. Ion, lacking a living father, had made his entrance under the guidance of a few nervous attendants, and had faced the phenomenon alone—the agony referred to, in benign-sounding ancient Ispanian, as the ‘essence of feeling.’
He had torn himself away that day and fallen into a hysterical fit, writhing and clawing at his head, trying desperately to claw out the horror that, in one swoop, had destroyed much of his innocence.
Experience taught him well, though, and nowadays he was prepared. As the wave swelled over him, he propelled it back with overarcing force of will, forcing every feeling to its respective corner of the whole. He lingered momentarily, listening to the distant echoes on all sides, then calmly made his way to the individual he wanted to see.
A common misconception of common people was that the Score was much like a book. The level of sight did vary from Fon Master to Fon Master, but for all it was more than a record in words—every life was filled with vivid imagery and emotion. The Score could convey sensations of cold and warmth, pain and pleasure; it could place the reader into scenes, within the body of the person who the event belonged to. It was a strange vessel of empathy, and if one gave in to its power, reading it was a deeply personal experience that could inspire or scar.
Ion had long ago stopped giving in, stopped empathizing, with the occasional exception of the few people he actually cared about. He had seen and experienced so much, lived so many lives that he felt detached from humanity, a serene observer of the fallacies of the population, a god of sorts. The only Score he did not restrain himself from was his own.
It was his own he sought today, breezing past others, guided by his intent. He felt it amidst the gold—an entrance was never so much an image as it was an impression of thoughts and feelings—and dived in, moving through memories that flickered by like lightning. He stopped at the present time, glanced about the hall, then reentered his Score, oriented towards the future. He checked the outcome of the meeting with King Ingobert in advance, discovered who would ask for a reading of their scores over the next two weeks, found out that he was going to get his long green hair trimmed in a month’s time. Or, at least, it was likely that he would. Such trivial things were rarely absolute.
He saw himself playing with a pink-haired, feral girl during the next year, and basked in the scene, enjoying its associated happiness. The girl had been raised for most of her life by ligers, and she would be presented to him because unusual people so amused him. He would decide to keep her, call her one of his guardians, entertain her and be entertained by her antics.
She would be important to him—he knew, because that part of his Score had a caption. Only the important parts were officially labeled—when asked about other portions, he had to describe them himself.
“Ion the ninth will befriend a child of the wilderness, and she will bring him joy.”
Ion wondered what other things in his near future were written out in words. He drew back and skimmed his Score, scanning the remainder of the year.
“Ion the ninth will resolve a dispute between the countries.”
“Ion the ninth will attend a wedding of dignities, and promise prosperity in their future.”
“Ion the ninth will fall ill but recover within a week’s time.”
“Ion the ninth will celebrate the feast of Lorelei, and the Order will…”
Boring, all quite boring. He continued skimming, more quickly.
“Ion the ninth will agree to military action against a group of heretics.”
“Ion the ninth will celebrate his seventeeth birthday.”
“Ion the ninth will deceive a man destined to die.”
Oh, that was an interesting one. Not that he had never done that before—his attendants may have taught that the Score was wonderful in its entirety, but he had learnt that tact was necessary when informing the populace of its contents. He had taught himself how to lie by omission, tell half-truths and white lies, because, faithful as people may be, they still never wanted to hear bad news.
He kept going, perusing through his Score, settling briefly on atypical captions and bypassing the bland. Soon enough, he stumbled on something a bit troubling.
“Ion the ninth will contract the famed bleeding sickness.”
“Ion the ninth will be unable to attend mass due to poor health.”
“Ion the ninth will be attended by a physician within the Order.”
Hm, he hadn’t had a bout of illness that long in some time.
“Ion the ninth will become bedridden for three weeks.”
“Ion the ninth will be attended to by an outsider.”
“Ion the ninth will petition the public for prayers for his health.”
He could feel the illness—the labored breathing, the aches and chills passing through his body. He saw himself among unfamiliar faces—a white-haired woman that looked like his long-dead mother, a lanky, bespectacled young man with a nervous appearance. He saw and felt himself suffering, smelled cold sweat and foul ointment; ran a hand along his ghastly pale, emaciated face; coughed into his hands and watched blood seep into the lines of his palms.
He felt apprehension and grief, and knew he ought to stop, but he couldn’t.
“Ion the ninth will be affected by a disease of the mind.”
“Ion the ninth will share in the frustrations of another.”
The scenes grew vaguer the farther he went. In one, he stood laughing and choking with blood splattered on his robe; in another, he was regarding the white haired man with mild amusement, who looked lost. He could make little sense of either.
“Ion the ninth will become bedridden for the last time.”
“Ion the ninth will be moved to the red chamber.”
He lay in a room with stained glass windows in shades of deep red and violet. It was dark, and he couldn’t feel his arms or legs—he couldn’t feel much of anything, but he could hear light sobbing nearby.
Stop it, you don’t want to see this, he told himself, but he was trapped in the scene, too involved to free himself.
He watched the scene fade around him, his vision growing fuzzy, his breath slowing. He watched helplessly as everything went black.
Black, rounding off the edge of his long chain in the gold, and the voice of the Score tolling in his head.
“Ion the ninth will die before his twenty-first birthday, and the Order will die with its heirless master.”
Ion shot back, back through the course of his life, emotions and sensations striking and ripping at him like an angry mob. He tumbled out into the endless, glistening gold, and the ‘essence of feeling’ smothered him like a shroud, shrieking and gnawing and devouring his sanity in the moments before the ropes frayed and he tore through to reality, his hand scorching as fonons gushed into the stone and the surrounding air, severing his connection with the Score.
He fell into a sitting position from the rush of it all. The remnants of the ‘essence’ still screamed in his mind, and tilting his head back, he screamed with them, screamed and cried like an animal at the Score, at Lorelei, at the brief waste that was his life.
Two years.
Two years were all he had left.
Title: Liftoff
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know:
~The title is a play on something Dist says in another fic I'll have up here sometime, called Silence and Flight: "I thought the application of fomicry to a human being might be my destiny, the flight I’d built wings for…"
~The numbers Dist counts are ironic--twenty-one being the final replica's number, fifteen and sixteen being Sync and Florian, and fourteen, incidentally, being the mentally ill replica that takes Gelda's life.
~I know I didn't mention him in my summary, so...General Van Grants belongs to the Order's military, and is just one of the small inner circle that gets to know about the Ion replication. He's the one that gives Dist another job in the order later on, after the replication is over.
~The tuning fork thing is a holy symbol. Also about appearance--I imagine the characters dressed in sixteenth-century clothes, like so. It's my version of the Order's uniforms.
~Yeah, Gelda realllly doesn't like Dist at first, because she isn't cool with the idea of human replication. Once he starts questioning its morality himself, the two get to liking each other better.
Summary: Dist is forced to make a choice that will either make or break him.
When the double doors slammed shut behind them, the sound echoed like a blast through the hall, reverberating off of thick stone walls and arched ceilings. It seemed so loud, and lasted so long, rebounding in the thick and empty air that he fancied it something symbolic, some blow of fate.
He shivered and glanced around, wringing his bound hands.
The hall was draped in shadow, lit only by the meager amount of light passing through stained glass windows. The windows threw fragments of blue and green upon the worn floor tiles, as still as if they had been painted there. A cloth-covered altar stood at the far end of the room with a few chairs behind it, flanked by unlit lampstands.
Van stood with his arms crossed, watching him calmly. The only other men in the room, the two knights, stood on either side of the doorway like statues, holding burnished axes.
It seemed like an eternity that they remained in silence. He listened to his heart pounding in his ears and counted the beats in an attempt to steady his nerves.
Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three…
The doors creaked open so quietly that at first he barely noticed. After a moment, though, he felt the atmosphere of the room change, felt Van’s gaze turn from him, and he turned to look as well.
A woman with short, white hair in layers strode in, retaining an expression of formal indifference as her golden eyes flickered between the men. With the air of one well used to the gesture, she lifted her black velvet gown to her ankles and bent into a curtsey.
“His knowing holiness, Fon Master Ion the ninth.”
It was the fomiscist’s first time seeing the Fon Master in person. He had seen pictures of Ion before, as had most, but the pictures had never quite captured the young man—no, the boy, he could scarcely be over eighteen. The pictures had never made apparent how short-statured the boy was, how thin his frame was, so slender and delicate that a firm grip on his arm might break it; how deep and dark his eyes were, like pools reflecting a night sky; how, when he made his slow and serene promenade inside, the ambient fonons concentrated in a way that made one’s hair stand on end, as during a thunderstorm.
Fon Master Ion wore a light green robe with a high collar, a cincture around his waist, and a stole embroidered with swirling patterns. He had fingerless gloves on his hands and a long dark cape, fastened with a gold clasp, covering his shoulders and trailing after him some distance across the floor. He carried a lacquered wooden staff topped with a jewel-studded, engraved tuning fork, and had another tuning fork around his neck, hanging from a wide jeweled collar. His green hair fell in bangs around his eyes and was cut short in the back, with two long locks left to hang in the front. He had on a circlet, also full of gold and jewels, with tassels dangling on each side of his head.
Van bowed as Ion came in, and everyone else did the same. Ion said not a word to any of them, but smiled a small, sweet smile as he passed by his prisoner, and did something strange—he raised his free hand and brushed the fomiscist’s hair very lightly with his fingertips.
The Fon Master crossed to the other side of the hall, and Van muttered something inaudible. The fomiscist didn’t look up, but heard the clank of armor as the two knights moved, and the doors open and shut again, declaring their leaving.
There was a suspenseful silence again, and the sound of his heart hammering in his chest.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
“Saphir Wyon Neis,” a languid voice called out, pronouncing each syllable flawlessly, as though it had spoken the name a thousand times before. “You may approach.”
Saphir stopped his counting and raised his eyes. Ion beckoned gently to him from his seat behind the altar, and, after a moment’s hesitation, prompted by Van’s hand falling on his shoulder, he walked quickly over to the Fon Master.
“Saphir Wyon Neis,” Ion said again, in a tone so syrupy it was almost feminine. “Native of Keterburg, possessor of degrees in fonic engineering and fomicry, engineering director at the Balfour-Neis Research Center until just recently. A fairly agreeable twenty-seven-year-old, who likes to think that he’s stubborn, though, judging by his emotional state, I doubt that is the case. You have no idea why you are here, do you?”
Saphir felt another shiver pass down his spine, but spoke as firmly as possible.
“No, and your soldiers have violated my rights under international law by not telling me. I could press charges.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, considering you’re an international criminal yourself.” Ion laughed. “Quite an accomplishment at your age, to become one of those.”
“I’m not a criminal.”
“Refusing a court order to turn in your fomiscist’s license is a criminal act, is it not? And besides, you are practically on the run from your best friend.”
“We had an ideological dispute, that’s all. I’m standing up for my side in it.”
“Pray tell, what is your side? I know already, of course, but I want to hear it in your words.”
Ion rested his chin in his hand, and his elbow on the arm of the chair, completely at ease.
“I believe that outlawing human replication outright…it was a rash decision. There’s so many possibilities in the field, beneficial possibilities that we haven’t even had the chance to touch upon yet. We could use replicas to supplement the workforce, and—”
“As soldiers, too, so our brothers and sisters will not be lost in battle?”
Saphir stared at the Fon Master, going pale.
“Jade was very upset with that one, wasn’t he?” Ion said with a smile. “He really yelled at you for that one. He thinks they would count as human lives. Do you?”
“O-Of course not,” stammered Saphir. “They would count as—as animals. Humanity isn’t what you get when you combine a particular frequency and some base materials. Even with improved technology, replicas would likely never have the mental capacity of an ordinary human being. And honestly, something created synthetically, created in a lab by an unnatural process can’t be considered on the same level as a human being.”
“So what you basically think is that the replicas would lack souls. That sort of defining difference between us and animals.”
Saphir nodded. “Yes. That’s what I think.”
“And I agree. There also is no mention anywhere in the Score of replication, or any personal Score to be found for the little ‘favor’ you did for the general.”
“Really?”
“None whatsoever.” Ion waved a hand, dismissing the topic. “Now. The reason why you are here is because I want to ask you for a favor. It relates to that now-forbidden branch of replication we just discussed.”
Ion rose from his chair, stepped up to the altar and rested his arms on it. Saphir saw a momentary wince pass over the Fon Master’s smooth features as Ion bent over the altar to study him more closely.
“Some years ago, out of childish curiosity, I decided to find and read my own Score. I thought it might be interesting to discover what of my past was recorded, and what might be destined for my future. I knew there would likely be hardship of some nature in the years to come, as there is in everyone’s Score, but I believed, being Fon Master, my life would have to be a comfortable and satisfying one.
“I read up to a time two years from the present. I discovered that I would come down with a bout of the bleeding sickness, which was not too surprising, as I tend to be rather susceptible to illness. However, it seemed that this bout would be much worse than anything I’d had previously. It would continue to worsen, up until that two year point, where I discovered my Score cut off abruptly with a single line.”
Ion closed his eyes. “Ion the ninth will die before his twenty-first birthday, and the Order will die with its heirless master.”
Saphir blinked, bewildered. “You mean to say—”
“I have no siblings, Saphir. My mother passed away a few years after my birth, and my father did not remarry before his unfortunate demise. I am the last of the Fon Master lineage, and when I die, there will be no one left to read the Score, aside from a handful of fonists who can decipher only fragments. The world may very well fall into chaos without me, and I have little doubt that the Order will be dissolved.
“General Grants and I had a long discussion about this, and considered our options. We thought of arranging a wedding of some sort, against canon law, so that I might sire an heir, but…then imagined a better solution. Van was very impressed with the work you did for him, and when the first signs of illness began to show in me a week ago, he and I decided to seek you out. You see, Saphir, the reason why you are here is because I want you to replicate me. I want you to create a replica so like me, in appearance and abilities, that in the public’s eyes, the Fon Master will recover completely from his illness, and continue to lead the Order.”
“I…” Saphir looked at the floor. “I don’t know. Won’t the Order fall apart regardless, if the Score wills it?”
“Didn’t you go to religious classes as a child, Saphir? You ought to have learned that there are only a few absolutes in the Score—birth and death dates, marriages, personal events of that nature. Many things are likely to happen, but may be postponed or avoided, if one deviates enough from what is written.”
“But one isn’t supposed to deviate from what’s written, so what you’re asking me is sacrilege.”
“I stated already that the Score is silent on replication. In that respect you will be doing nothing for or against it. I am not asking you for immortality, so you will not be defying my death date, were that even possible. As for that bit about the Order, even the Grand Maestro believes there must have been some mistake. The Score ought not to exist without the Order’s guidance and interpretation.”
Ion’s cavernous eyes glimmered, and Saphir had the sense that there was something the Fon Master wasn’t telling him. He decided not to pursue it, instead fumbling for a different excuse.
“You do know that Van’s ‘favor’ was an extremely rare case. With you, it’ll probably take a number of tries before I create an acceptable replica.”
“I’m aware,” Ion said musically. “Which is why we are prepared to give you room and board for however many months you need. Van also purchased some equipment and materials for your use.”
“The replica won’t have any of your memories, either. It’ll have to be taught how to walk, speak, eat properly…”
“We will be able to handle that. The Fon Master will suffer some brain injury from his prolonged illness, and require reteaching.”
“I still don’t know. I really don’t.”
Ion straightened, pain rippling through his face at the movement, barely disturbing his smile.
“Well, if you don’t want to do it, we can always find someone else. There are a few other fomiscists out there that seem to be evading the law, though I’d much rather have someone of your standing in the field. If you leave, the Order can promise you protection, under the condition that you tell no one of what I’ve told you. You can practice fomicry elsewhere, or do whatever you like. Now that you have heard my request, I will not compel you to do anything.”
Saphir thought about it. He watched, out of the corner of his eye, Van walk up next to the Fon Master and exchange a few whispered words. He wondered whether he could cope with keeping the request a secret, or whether he could pass up such an opportunity at all.
He hadn’t been sure what to do when he’d fled to Belkend, away from his research, the law, and Jade. He’d thought it some noble declaration of his beliefs, then found himself lying low, paranoid that he’d be discovered. If he turned in his license now, there was no guarantee that there wouldn’t be penalties, that Jade would want to speak to him again. If he kept it, there was no guarantee that he’d ever be able to do anything with it, or feel safe in the outside world.
Here he was, with the Order promising safety and acceptance. Here he was, on the edge of a decision that could be the most important one he’d ever make. His accomplishment would never be written in history books, but it would save the Order—preserve the stability of the world. He would be a hero, in a way, and if it ever did become public knowledge, if Jade found out…he would have the strength to look his friend in the eye and defend himself. He would be able to say he worked some good with human replication, that Jade had always been wrong.
That Jade had been the misguided one, all along.
Please, dear Lorelei, let this be the right choice. Let this be what I was meant to do.
Saphir glanced up at the Fon Master, tossing his head to shake his white bangs from his ruby eyes, forcing himself to look serious, and, hopefully, brave.
“I’ll do it.”
“You will, hm?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you’d say that. The alternatives for you aren’t so promising, are they? Better to entrust your future to this venture. I’m certain you’ll do a marvelous job.”
Ion gestured lazily to Van. “Go untie him and show him to his rooms. He can have three days to prepare himself, and begin work after the Loreleiday service.”
Van gave a slight bow, and went to unknot the ropes around Saphir’s wrists. The Fon Master followed, giving another careless gesture of his hand, summoning the white-haired woman from where she had been standing in the shadows, listening the entire time.
She took her place in front of the Fon Master, curtseyed, and strode ahead of Ion as they processed out of the room. As she passed Saphir, she turned her head to look at him, appearing in a moment to take in his bony frame, his unbrushed hair, the rumpled red dress shirt and gray pajama pants he hadn’t had the chance to change out of since Van had captured him. She noted the way his collar was unbuttoned, the way his glasses were slipping down the bridge of his nose, and, as though his general appearance confirmed some unpleasant suspicion she’d harbored, she ended the once-over by shooting him a glare, filled with such icy hatred that it nearly made him jump.
At least the Fon Master seemed to like him…
“I’m glad you’re staying, Saphy,” Ion whispered as he walked by. “You’re such an interesting person.”
He stared, and Ion’s pleasant little smile assured him that the Fon Master hadn’t made up the nickname on the spot. If it hadn’t been apparent before, it was obvious now that Ion had read Saphir’s Score—though, how much of it, it was impossible to tell.
Please, Lorelei, give me strength. Let this be the right choice.
There was no backing out now.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Drabble and a fic
Dude, my schoolwork's been pretty light lately. Even so, I haven't been writing too much (aside from the poetry I've been doing in my creative writing class...I've discovered I love acrostics and free verses, apparently.) I did manage to turn out a drabble and a fic, though, so I'll put those up.
Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to do a one-act play for that class as well, and I already know what I'm going to do for it. XD It's going to be a story about roommates Schwann and Yeager (Wesley and Fritz, I'm callin' them) and how, after Yeager kicks Schwann out for generally making his life difficult, Schwann makes a grand gesture to win back Yeager's favor--listing off all the ways he's wronged Yeager in one huge (and hilarious) apology. (Seriously, it'll include everything from "making paper chains out of your work documents" to "changing all the presets on your phone to 1-800 numbers I saw on TV.") I'll probably get that up here when I finish it.
In more RL news--my brother Small had his birthday last Friday. I got to have some really good cheese ravioli and spaghetti, and run around with a bunch of my little cousins. I've always imagined Yeager being good with kids, because of him having Gauche and Droite as adopted daughters (canonically at least), so yeah...thought of him as a result. The image in my head of Yeager running around like a moron, being chased by some five-year-olds, is just amazing. XD
Anyway, my sole new drabble:
"Mantra"
(Standalone. I guess this is one of those pivotal moments, in which Yeager did something horrible...)
“What do you call this?”
Raven looks at him, with such a mix of anger and pity in his eyes, that Yeager doesn’t know what to say.
Yeager doesn’t have a single smart or clever remark to make, doesn’t know how to defend himself against that look, the look one gives a prisoner being led to the gallows. His masks, his wits fail him, and grasping blindly in the darkness of his mind, he grabs ahold of his mantra and clings to it like a drowning man to a rock.
Business is most important, do what is necessary for the sake of the guild.
His mantra. Stated so many times, so many instances, the words have been rendered meaningless. So many times, the words are only sounds now, meant to please, like a child’s nursery rhyme.
His mantra. Meaningless sounds, but the only answer he has left to break the silence that stands smooth between them, a glass wall.
The only excuse he has left to give.
“Business,” he says, and the word is cold on his tongue.
And the fic!
Title: The Visitor
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Nothing much, except that I think this takes place in the same AU as that Portrait drabble. And yes, Marion can see in the dark in a sense--he can sense concentrations of aer.
Summary: On a dark and stormy night, Marion gets a visitor he never expected to see again.
I have never yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost. -John Philpot Curran
Marion sat in his office, writing by the light of the old green-shaded lamp, his elbow propped up on the desk and his chin resting stiffly on his hand. It had grown dark three hours ago, and a heavy thunderstorm whipped at the window, raindrops hammering at the glass.
He ought to be home, resting on the couch with a shot of vodka in one hand and a book in the other, but Marion had always been a workaholic. The wall clock—a cheap, hollow-sounding replacement to the grandfather clock he’d sold—ticked away, but Marion paid it no notice, his gaze locked on the letter before him and the short movements of his fountain pen, determined to finish the job for tomorrow.
A sharp flash of lightning broke his concentration, snapping his eyes up from the paper. He halted in his movements, pen hovering, muscles tensing instinctively from what, in that brief instant, he had seen in the corner of the room.
He could recognize that smile from a mile away.
“Yeager?”
Silence, the pattering of the rain. Marion couldn’t see past the shadows, but he could percieve the concentrated aer, vague, like an image burned onto his retinas. It was the only thing that maintained it hadn’t been a trick of the light.
The voice, when it came, was quiet but clear.
“How is business, Director?”
“…Getting better.”
His chuckle slunk through the room, unmistakable. “I see you have sold some zings.”
Marion could picture him, glancing around at the clock, the short drapes, the place where the chandelier used to hang.
“I had to, for the money. They were excessive anyway.”
“I don’t really like ze vay ze place looks now.”
Marion’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t your office anymore.”
Another bright flicker from outside, and Marion saw the eerily solid smile turn to a sneer.
“I could argue zat.”
“This isn’t yours. None of this belongs to you.” Marion felt the hair on his neck standing on end. “You’re dead.”
More silence.
“You have no part in Leviathan’s Claw—not anymore. The guild is mine.”
A sigh.
“I should have made someone else my heir.”
“What, one of your yes-men?” Marion retorted, anger creeping up on him. “Someone that would let everything go on the way it used to, and let us lie and cheat our way into oblivion? Your policies don’t work anymore, Yeager. They became obsolete the moment that verdict came back.”
“Zat vas one mistake.”
“One mistake that just about took us down. I’m picking up the pieces my way. The honest way. Leviathan’s Claw’s going to be better for it.”
Yeager tsked. “You vill never make zis guild better zan I had it.”
“I will.”
“You don’t understand zat my policies always lead us out of problems, always made us great again. Your policies vill not lead us to greatness.”
“Your policies nearly lead us to ruin!”
“You vill never be ze leader I vas. Never be even close.”
“I’ll be a thousand times better than you! You selfish, deceitful, son of a—”
In an instant of illumination, Yeager was there—in front of the desk, just out of the glow of the lamp, back arched threateningly as he stared down at Marion.
“You zink you can forget me, ja? Pretend I vas never here. You zink, if you change ze vay zings look, if you change ze procedures, you can run away from me. Like you ran away from ze Szarkakov legacy.”
Marion said nothing, his whole frame stiff, defensive.
“If I had not helped you, you vould be nothing. You vould still be poor, killing for money. I should have respect for zat.”
“I refuse to respect an incompetent swindler.”
A flash of white, Yeager’s blue eyes gleaming.
“I should have trained you better. You vill see—you vill see ze hard vay zat your vays do not work. You vill see zat you vill have to follow in my footsteps.”
“I’m a leader now, not a follower. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“You just wait. Leviathan’s Claw vill crash under your leadership, your policies. You can’t get rid of me—you vill have to continue vat I started.”
“I won’t have to do anything. Get out of my office.”
Yeager’s sneer, ghoulishly pale. “You can’t get rid of me, Marion.”
“As director, I order you to get out!”
Lightning, and Yeager’s face closer than ever, bent over the lamp, so solid, so real, Marion could practically feel his breath.
“Who gave you zat power, Director?”
Marion leapt to his feet, hands grasping for his pistols, Yeager laughing, laughing as he flung out an arm, cheeks flushed with fear and rage.
“GET OUT!”
A crash of thunder, like a gunshot. White light blazed through the room, casting the furniture, the clock, the molding in stark shadows.
Silence.
Marion slowly let his arm drop, and the click of the hammer left a hollow echo in the empty air.
*
Zagi held a black umbrella over Marion’s head as the director locked the door behind them. Marion didn’t give a word of thanks, and on any other night Zagi would have assumed he was too exhausted to, but the tonight’s quiet had an odd edge of gravity to it.
As they walked to the car, Zagi tried to make conversation. “Wild night, huh?”
Marion turned his head, glancing away from him, up at the darkened windows of Leviathan’s Claw headquarters, and nodded.
“Yeah.”
Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to do a one-act play for that class as well, and I already know what I'm going to do for it. XD It's going to be a story about roommates Schwann and Yeager (Wesley and Fritz, I'm callin' them) and how, after Yeager kicks Schwann out for generally making his life difficult, Schwann makes a grand gesture to win back Yeager's favor--listing off all the ways he's wronged Yeager in one huge (and hilarious) apology. (Seriously, it'll include everything from "making paper chains out of your work documents" to "changing all the presets on your phone to 1-800 numbers I saw on TV.") I'll probably get that up here when I finish it.
In more RL news--my brother Small had his birthday last Friday. I got to have some really good cheese ravioli and spaghetti, and run around with a bunch of my little cousins. I've always imagined Yeager being good with kids, because of him having Gauche and Droite as adopted daughters (canonically at least), so yeah...thought of him as a result. The image in my head of Yeager running around like a moron, being chased by some five-year-olds, is just amazing. XD
Anyway, my sole new drabble:
"Mantra"
(Standalone. I guess this is one of those pivotal moments, in which Yeager did something horrible...)
“What do you call this?”
Raven looks at him, with such a mix of anger and pity in his eyes, that Yeager doesn’t know what to say.
Yeager doesn’t have a single smart or clever remark to make, doesn’t know how to defend himself against that look, the look one gives a prisoner being led to the gallows. His masks, his wits fail him, and grasping blindly in the darkness of his mind, he grabs ahold of his mantra and clings to it like a drowning man to a rock.
Business is most important, do what is necessary for the sake of the guild.
His mantra. Stated so many times, so many instances, the words have been rendered meaningless. So many times, the words are only sounds now, meant to please, like a child’s nursery rhyme.
His mantra. Meaningless sounds, but the only answer he has left to break the silence that stands smooth between them, a glass wall.
The only excuse he has left to give.
“Business,” he says, and the word is cold on his tongue.
And the fic!
Title: The Visitor
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Nothing much, except that I think this takes place in the same AU as that Portrait drabble. And yes, Marion can see in the dark in a sense--he can sense concentrations of aer.
Summary: On a dark and stormy night, Marion gets a visitor he never expected to see again.
I have never yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost. -John Philpot Curran
Marion sat in his office, writing by the light of the old green-shaded lamp, his elbow propped up on the desk and his chin resting stiffly on his hand. It had grown dark three hours ago, and a heavy thunderstorm whipped at the window, raindrops hammering at the glass.
He ought to be home, resting on the couch with a shot of vodka in one hand and a book in the other, but Marion had always been a workaholic. The wall clock—a cheap, hollow-sounding replacement to the grandfather clock he’d sold—ticked away, but Marion paid it no notice, his gaze locked on the letter before him and the short movements of his fountain pen, determined to finish the job for tomorrow.
A sharp flash of lightning broke his concentration, snapping his eyes up from the paper. He halted in his movements, pen hovering, muscles tensing instinctively from what, in that brief instant, he had seen in the corner of the room.
He could recognize that smile from a mile away.
“Yeager?”
Silence, the pattering of the rain. Marion couldn’t see past the shadows, but he could percieve the concentrated aer, vague, like an image burned onto his retinas. It was the only thing that maintained it hadn’t been a trick of the light.
The voice, when it came, was quiet but clear.
“How is business, Director?”
“…Getting better.”
His chuckle slunk through the room, unmistakable. “I see you have sold some zings.”
Marion could picture him, glancing around at the clock, the short drapes, the place where the chandelier used to hang.
“I had to, for the money. They were excessive anyway.”
“I don’t really like ze vay ze place looks now.”
Marion’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t your office anymore.”
Another bright flicker from outside, and Marion saw the eerily solid smile turn to a sneer.
“I could argue zat.”
“This isn’t yours. None of this belongs to you.” Marion felt the hair on his neck standing on end. “You’re dead.”
More silence.
“You have no part in Leviathan’s Claw—not anymore. The guild is mine.”
A sigh.
“I should have made someone else my heir.”
“What, one of your yes-men?” Marion retorted, anger creeping up on him. “Someone that would let everything go on the way it used to, and let us lie and cheat our way into oblivion? Your policies don’t work anymore, Yeager. They became obsolete the moment that verdict came back.”
“Zat vas one mistake.”
“One mistake that just about took us down. I’m picking up the pieces my way. The honest way. Leviathan’s Claw’s going to be better for it.”
Yeager tsked. “You vill never make zis guild better zan I had it.”
“I will.”
“You don’t understand zat my policies always lead us out of problems, always made us great again. Your policies vill not lead us to greatness.”
“Your policies nearly lead us to ruin!”
“You vill never be ze leader I vas. Never be even close.”
“I’ll be a thousand times better than you! You selfish, deceitful, son of a—”
In an instant of illumination, Yeager was there—in front of the desk, just out of the glow of the lamp, back arched threateningly as he stared down at Marion.
“You zink you can forget me, ja? Pretend I vas never here. You zink, if you change ze vay zings look, if you change ze procedures, you can run away from me. Like you ran away from ze Szarkakov legacy.”
Marion said nothing, his whole frame stiff, defensive.
“If I had not helped you, you vould be nothing. You vould still be poor, killing for money. I should have respect for zat.”
“I refuse to respect an incompetent swindler.”
A flash of white, Yeager’s blue eyes gleaming.
“I should have trained you better. You vill see—you vill see ze hard vay zat your vays do not work. You vill see zat you vill have to follow in my footsteps.”
“I’m a leader now, not a follower. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“You just wait. Leviathan’s Claw vill crash under your leadership, your policies. You can’t get rid of me—you vill have to continue vat I started.”
“I won’t have to do anything. Get out of my office.”
Yeager’s sneer, ghoulishly pale. “You can’t get rid of me, Marion.”
“As director, I order you to get out!”
Lightning, and Yeager’s face closer than ever, bent over the lamp, so solid, so real, Marion could practically feel his breath.
“Who gave you zat power, Director?”
Marion leapt to his feet, hands grasping for his pistols, Yeager laughing, laughing as he flung out an arm, cheeks flushed with fear and rage.
“GET OUT!”
A crash of thunder, like a gunshot. White light blazed through the room, casting the furniture, the clock, the molding in stark shadows.
Silence.
Marion slowly let his arm drop, and the click of the hammer left a hollow echo in the empty air.
*
Zagi held a black umbrella over Marion’s head as the director locked the door behind them. Marion didn’t give a word of thanks, and on any other night Zagi would have assumed he was too exhausted to, but the tonight’s quiet had an odd edge of gravity to it.
As they walked to the car, Zagi tried to make conversation. “Wild night, huh?”
Marion turned his head, glancing away from him, up at the darkened windows of Leviathan’s Claw headquarters, and nodded.
“Yeah.”
Monday, September 7, 2009
Fanfiction List
I seem to be gathering quite a bit of fanfic writing on my blog lately, so I thought it might be a good idea to list all my fics/various unis that are worth viewing.
Tales of Vesperia (current obsession)
- Krityaverse [uni explanation]
- Aurnionverse [uni explanation]
- The Return [Krityaverse, G] "In that moment of limbo, between the falling of night and the streetlamps coming on to dispel the darkness, he, at last, saw someone coming up the road."
- To Break A Heart [Krityaverse, PG] "Estelle realized then, for the first time, and felt her heart shatter."
- The Little Boy [Krityaverse, PG] "He wonders why no one can see that the smile isn't real."
- Answers [Krityaverse, drabble, G] "His smile, that had once deceived and swayed hundreds, meant nothing now."
- Reminder [Krityaverse, drabble, G] "All he does is nod his head, sip his tea, and keep his hand, his expression, his heartbeat steady."
- Relief [Krityaverse, drabble, PG] "You have no understanding of stress and anxiety so strong, so immediate, zat little by little, it makes one crazy…"
- Conscience [Krityaverse, drabble, PG] "You’ve lost your humanity. You sold that with her, sold off your soul."
- Aurnion drabbles [Aurnionverse, PG] A number of short drabbles about the harsh, deceptive city of Aurnion.
- Battle in the Underground [Aurnionverse, PG-13] "Well, out of all the leaders I've worked for, you're the one I've least often wanted to dropkick in the face."
- Persuasion [Aurnionverse, PG-13] "I vould like to be your friend, Barbos. Don’t make me be anything else."
- Prison Break [Aurnionverse, PG-13] "Yeah, I probably shoulda left the grenades at home."
- Request [Aurnionverse, PG] "Judgin’ by how bloodshot your eyes are, I bet ya haven’t slept at all. Somethin’ tells me this ain’t just about business."
- The Visitor [AU, PG] "He could recognize that smile from a mile away."
- Portrait [AU, drabble, G] "I told you you should have appointed a yes-man as successor—not me."
- Mantra [AU, drabble, G] "...And the word is cold on his tongue."
- Beautiful [AU, G] "Casey is beautiful while messy and dirty and sweaty, beautiful while exhausted, beautiful for having lived and laughed and made a fool of herself with him."
Tales of the Abyss (2006-2007 obsession)
- Ionverse [uni explanation]
- Ion's Score [PG] "Stop it, you don’t want to see this, he told himself, but he was trapped in the scene, too involved to free himself."
- Liftoff [PG] "Please, dear Lorelei, let this be the right choice. Let this be what I was meant to do."
- Chess [G] "After a hundred losses or so, you begin to discover how to win..."
- Silence and Flight [PG] "I might as well be one of those stained-glass angels...just sort of suspended in midair between the stonework, never able to land..."
Roleplay and the stuff it inspires~
Well, today's my last day of summer. And yes, I have mainly wasted my time for the past week. XD
I discovered the Tales of Dressing community, a roleplay comm where people play all sorts of characters from different Tales series. Since there's already a Yeager, I decided to make an account as Droite, one of Yeager's adopted daughters. And I swear, it's absurdly fun, not only because Droite is hyper and cheerful and adorably childish (much like Florian from TOA, really, who yes, I have talked to XD) but because I keep getting interesting AU-ish ideas from the conversations.
A lot of my ideas aren't really organized at the moment, but they involve Casey, Yeager and Schwann's lost love. Not much is said about her ingame (hopefully, with the release of the new TOV soon, that will change) except that she knew them, she was close friends with Schwann, and it's rather blatantly hinted that she and Yeager had something going on. :P Somebody decided to play as Casey, and had this rather interesting conversation with Yeager, and the fangirl in me started freaking out over the romance involved, sooo...I wrote a few YeagerxCasey fics.
This is one I did today, after reading a bunch of one-shots. Not the most creative thing in the world, but it gives a nice little glimpse as to how I characterize Casey. 'Tis also a salute to the end of summer, in a way.
Title: Beautiful
Rating: G (lol, how often does that occur)
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Yeah, I can see Yeager being rather bad at fighting, before he gets control of Levithan's Claw/really has to learn. XD And yes, I see Casey being a noble. The reason being that she was in the imperial knights, and there's really no hope of advancing up the ranks unless your family's from the 'better part' of society. (I tend to imagine Yeager as being from nobility too, albeit nobility that does business with the guilds to get what they want, just because he's so fancy and well-mannered.)
When Casey sits down beside him on the bench, she’s laughing, windswept strands of hair falling in her sweat-slick face.
“I can’t believe you did that, just let it go!”
He’s sweaty too, flushed with sunlight, still giddy with adrenaline. He gives an embarassed smile.
“You did hit it really hard.”
“Seriously, though, that thing must have flown twenty feet,” she says breathlessly. “And the look on your face was priceless. All wide-eyed, like, ‘what the hell just happened?!’”
Yeager lifts the wooden sparring staff, inspecting it. “I am surprised it isn’t broken.”
“These things are really tough. They’re more likely to dislocate a joint than snap in half.” Casey looks at him, amusement still at her lips. “You’ve got dirt on your face.”
“Where?”
“Right here—here, I’ll get it.” She rubs her fingers against his cheek, squinting at the spot. “Must be from when you faceplanted.”
Yeager feels his cheeks go warm. “Faceplanted?”
“When you fell and your face hit the ground. Another thing I can’t believe you did. I wish I’d had a camera…”
“I am sorry if I am not good at zis.”
“No, no, you’re not too bad. You’re a lot more fun than some other guys I spar with. They get way too intense about it, and try to beat the crap out of me. I mean, I don’t mind getting hit a couple times, but I don’t like ending up like this.”
She rolls up one of her pant legs, revealing a large purple bruise.
“Zat looks horrible,” Yeager remarks, his brow furrowing in concern. “Vat vas he doing?”
“Trying to knock me off my feet. I eventually ended up getting him with a couple hits to the stomach.” She lays back, staring up at the clouds, painted purple and orange by the setting sun. “If they wanna fight dirty, then I fight dirty, too.”
There is quiet then, as Casey looks at the sky and Yeager looks at Casey. There are grass stains on her pants, smudges of brown and green on her hands and elbows, from the times that she fell. Her thin white blouse is plastered to her shoulders, its round neckline soaked through. The fabric shifts as she breathes, in and out, each breath softer than the last.
Her hair tie is falling out, and Yeager wants to pull it the rest of the way, let all her long hair hang loose. He wants to run a hand through that hair, so beautiful, even while damp and oily.
Casey is beautiful. Not in the way most noblewomen are beautiful, like fancy dolls in their silks and diamonds and heels, with their perfect skin and rouged lips. Casey is beautiful while messy and dirty and sweaty, beautiful while exhausted, beautiful for having lived and laughed and made a fool of herself with him.
Yeager wants to touch her, wants to trace lines between the freckles on her face, wants to hold her taut, strong arms. He wants to wipe away the dirt and stains, wants to breathe deeply of the grass and soil and sunlight still clinging to her skin.
“Yeah, that was great,” she says, and her voice is quiet, almost inaudible, fading into the air. “Really fun. We’ll have to spar again soon.”
He wants so much to touch her, but he doesn’t, because she’s beautiful and the moment is beautiful, just like this. She and he, in the still-warm, breezeless twilight, green grass and trees just starting to turn, leaves splotched with the barest hint of red.
“Ja,” he says. “Soon.”
Soon there will be other opportunities, other evenings filled with exhilaration, other peaceful instances like this. Soon, he’ll find a time, find a way to let her know just how beautiful she is.
For now, it’s enough to sit beside her, and watch summer begin to slowly slip away.
The TOD community's convos also inspired me to actually draw and color pictures for once. So I managed to kick out a couple of pics as well recently.
The picture of Droite for my RP blog. Yes, she's wearing one of those traditional German dresses. XD
A pic of Yeagsy. His head's a little narrow, but otherwise I like it.
Giftart of Marion for Red. "Self defense" is Marion's standard excuse in the Aurnionverse--whenever he gets caught bumping off one of his targets, or just shooting a weapon at someone, it's what he tells the knights, and he uses it so often that it's become somewhat of an inside joke (like, I've imagined Marion breaking one of Yeager's expensive vases or something, and when Yeager asks how the heck that happened, Marion just shrugs and goes '...Self defense?')
Ah, I do hope school does not kill me this year. Considering that I'm taking plenty of electives, it really shouldn't... (though that first-hour calculus class does have the potential to cause pain. >>)
And thank you, Katrina, for reading this and my other posts. ^^ Always good to have the reassurance that I am interesting to some degree.
I discovered the Tales of Dressing community, a roleplay comm where people play all sorts of characters from different Tales series. Since there's already a Yeager, I decided to make an account as Droite, one of Yeager's adopted daughters. And I swear, it's absurdly fun, not only because Droite is hyper and cheerful and adorably childish (much like Florian from TOA, really, who yes, I have talked to XD) but because I keep getting interesting AU-ish ideas from the conversations.
A lot of my ideas aren't really organized at the moment, but they involve Casey, Yeager and Schwann's lost love. Not much is said about her ingame (hopefully, with the release of the new TOV soon, that will change) except that she knew them, she was close friends with Schwann, and it's rather blatantly hinted that she and Yeager had something going on. :P Somebody decided to play as Casey, and had this rather interesting conversation with Yeager, and the fangirl in me started freaking out over the romance involved, sooo...I wrote a few YeagerxCasey fics.
This is one I did today, after reading a bunch of one-shots. Not the most creative thing in the world, but it gives a nice little glimpse as to how I characterize Casey. 'Tis also a salute to the end of summer, in a way.
Title: Beautiful
Rating: G (lol, how often does that occur)
Warnings: None
Notes and things-to-know: Yeah, I can see Yeager being rather bad at fighting, before he gets control of Levithan's Claw/really has to learn. XD And yes, I see Casey being a noble. The reason being that she was in the imperial knights, and there's really no hope of advancing up the ranks unless your family's from the 'better part' of society. (I tend to imagine Yeager as being from nobility too, albeit nobility that does business with the guilds to get what they want, just because he's so fancy and well-mannered.)
When Casey sits down beside him on the bench, she’s laughing, windswept strands of hair falling in her sweat-slick face.
“I can’t believe you did that, just let it go!”
He’s sweaty too, flushed with sunlight, still giddy with adrenaline. He gives an embarassed smile.
“You did hit it really hard.”
“Seriously, though, that thing must have flown twenty feet,” she says breathlessly. “And the look on your face was priceless. All wide-eyed, like, ‘what the hell just happened?!’”
Yeager lifts the wooden sparring staff, inspecting it. “I am surprised it isn’t broken.”
“These things are really tough. They’re more likely to dislocate a joint than snap in half.” Casey looks at him, amusement still at her lips. “You’ve got dirt on your face.”
“Where?”
“Right here—here, I’ll get it.” She rubs her fingers against his cheek, squinting at the spot. “Must be from when you faceplanted.”
Yeager feels his cheeks go warm. “Faceplanted?”
“When you fell and your face hit the ground. Another thing I can’t believe you did. I wish I’d had a camera…”
“I am sorry if I am not good at zis.”
“No, no, you’re not too bad. You’re a lot more fun than some other guys I spar with. They get way too intense about it, and try to beat the crap out of me. I mean, I don’t mind getting hit a couple times, but I don’t like ending up like this.”
She rolls up one of her pant legs, revealing a large purple bruise.
“Zat looks horrible,” Yeager remarks, his brow furrowing in concern. “Vat vas he doing?”
“Trying to knock me off my feet. I eventually ended up getting him with a couple hits to the stomach.” She lays back, staring up at the clouds, painted purple and orange by the setting sun. “If they wanna fight dirty, then I fight dirty, too.”
There is quiet then, as Casey looks at the sky and Yeager looks at Casey. There are grass stains on her pants, smudges of brown and green on her hands and elbows, from the times that she fell. Her thin white blouse is plastered to her shoulders, its round neckline soaked through. The fabric shifts as she breathes, in and out, each breath softer than the last.
Her hair tie is falling out, and Yeager wants to pull it the rest of the way, let all her long hair hang loose. He wants to run a hand through that hair, so beautiful, even while damp and oily.
Casey is beautiful. Not in the way most noblewomen are beautiful, like fancy dolls in their silks and diamonds and heels, with their perfect skin and rouged lips. Casey is beautiful while messy and dirty and sweaty, beautiful while exhausted, beautiful for having lived and laughed and made a fool of herself with him.
Yeager wants to touch her, wants to trace lines between the freckles on her face, wants to hold her taut, strong arms. He wants to wipe away the dirt and stains, wants to breathe deeply of the grass and soil and sunlight still clinging to her skin.
“Yeah, that was great,” she says, and her voice is quiet, almost inaudible, fading into the air. “Really fun. We’ll have to spar again soon.”
He wants so much to touch her, but he doesn’t, because she’s beautiful and the moment is beautiful, just like this. She and he, in the still-warm, breezeless twilight, green grass and trees just starting to turn, leaves splotched with the barest hint of red.
“Ja,” he says. “Soon.”
Soon there will be other opportunities, other evenings filled with exhilaration, other peaceful instances like this. Soon, he’ll find a time, find a way to let her know just how beautiful she is.
For now, it’s enough to sit beside her, and watch summer begin to slowly slip away.
The TOD community's convos also inspired me to actually draw and color pictures for once. So I managed to kick out a couple of pics as well recently.
The picture of Droite for my RP blog. Yes, she's wearing one of those traditional German dresses. XD
A pic of Yeagsy. His head's a little narrow, but otherwise I like it.
Giftart of Marion for Red. "Self defense" is Marion's standard excuse in the Aurnionverse--whenever he gets caught bumping off one of his targets, or just shooting a weapon at someone, it's what he tells the knights, and he uses it so often that it's become somewhat of an inside joke (like, I've imagined Marion breaking one of Yeager's expensive vases or something, and when Yeager asks how the heck that happened, Marion just shrugs and goes '...Self defense?')Ah, I do hope school does not kill me this year. Considering that I'm taking plenty of electives, it really shouldn't... (though that first-hour calculus class does have the potential to cause pain. >>)
And thank you, Katrina, for reading this and my other posts. ^^ Always good to have the reassurance that I am interesting to some degree.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Aurnionverse ficcies
W00t, got my school schedule today...I'm actually a senior this year, and finally got the opportunity to take some fun electives I didn't have the chance to before (i.e., creative writing, epidemiology, ecology.) I also happen to know four out of the six teachers I have this semester. I think it's a sign that I've been at this school for too long. XD
I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or not that I have only two weeks of summer left. I mean, on the one hand it's like, I'm going to lose hours of writing time, but on the other hand, I'm sort of worn out. XD This has probably been my most productive summer in terms of writing/plotlining, and I am always really antisocial during the summer as well, so it'd be nice to take a break from the writer stuff and actually see a lot of people I know again. :P
Anyway. Have some fanfiction!
Title: Prison Break
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Minor swearing, and some knife/gun violence.
Notes and things-to-know: Just a story about Marion and Zagi breaking out of prison after being captured by the knights. "Fishman" is Zagi's nickname for Yeager (Marion once compared Yeager to a shark, Zagi called him 'FISHMAN', and it kinda stuck), and if you know about aer and all that (detailed here), you're good.
“Good job, Zagi. Good fricking job.”
“Come on, Daintyfingers,” Zagi retorted, sitting back against the stone-block wall. “It’s not all my fault. You had stuff on ya too.”
“I had two pistols and a butterfly knife on me. You, on the other hand, had five legal knives, three illegal knives, and two thoroughly illegal smoke grenades on your person.”
“Yeah, I probably shoulda left the grenades at home.”
Marion glared at Zagi, livid. “You should’ve known this was no mission to be carrying all that on you! Good Lorelei, Zagi, what the hell are we going to do now!?”
“Fishman’ll come to bail us out, won’t he?”
“And how’s he going to manage that?”
Zagi pondered for a moment. “He could say I’m a professional knife grinder.”
“Because knife grinders always carry knives up their pant legs and in their drawers.”
“Hey, I didn’t have anywhere else to put that cleaver!”
Marion sighed.
Zagi glanced up, his eyes wandering over the cracked plaster ceiling, the bare bulb dangling from it, the steel grate to the filtration system, that kept the levels of aer too low to cast artes. “Don’t be pissy, Mary-kins. Maybe there’s some way out of here.”
“I checked. That grate’s bolted shut, and unless we had something to pick the lock with, there’s no way to open the door.” Marion put his palm to his forehead. “And even if we did manage to get out, there’s four armed guards at the end of this cell block.”
Zagi jumped to his feet, crossed over to the cell bars, and leaned up against them, looking out. “Actually, there’s one now. No…two. Maybe the other pair’s on break.”
“Still, if we can’t get the door—”
“Oh, shit!” Zagi exclaimed, then grinned. “I almost forgot! I don’t think they got it…”
“What are you talking about?” Marion demanded.
Zagi, without offering an explanation, promptly undid his pants and let them drop to the floor. As Marion watched with a slightly horrified expression, he stuck his hand in his drawers, fishing around for something in the lining.
“Wait…no, it was…no, it has to be…oh, yeah!”
With the rip of a few seams, he pulled out a piece of metal wire, holding it triumphantly out to Marion. “Ta-da!”
“…Is that a paperclip?”
“No, silly! It’s from an electrical cable. Pretty strong-ass stuff, just perfect for a lockpick!”
Marion quickly shushed him. “Okay, okay. We can try it. But I don’t know if it’ll work. This kind of lock—”
“I’ve used this before. It’s so gonna work! You wanna do the honors, man?”
“…I’m not touching that,” said Marion, recoiling.
“Suit yourself,” Zagi replied, pulled up his pants, and went for the lock.
Marion caught his wrist. “Hold on.”
“What?”
“Assuming this will work, won’t the hinges squeak when we open the door?”
“Oh yeah…” Zagi frowned. “Shit, the guards need to take better care of this place.”
“The guards’ll come running as soon as they hear that. So after we open it…here’s what we’ll do. We’ll lay on our backs, not moving, and if the guards are as stupid as I suspect they are, they’ll come up close to see what’s wrong. Then we’ll be able to grab their weapons.”
“So we act like we’re dead, then rise up and kick their asses?”
“As soon as they’re close enough.”
“Got it.”
Zagi looked down the hall to where the guards stood, then, satisfied that they weren’t watching, reached through the bars and stuck the piece of metal into the keyhole. He jerked it around a bit, pushing it deeper inside, until, ten seconds later, he heard it click.
He and Marion exchanged glances, then Zagi landed a swift kick to the door. The hinges squealed—one of the guards shouted—the two of them fell back, hitting the floor, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
The hall resounded with footsteps, and moments later the guards burst into the cell.
“What’s wrong with them?”
One bent to feel Marion’s pulse. “Aer imbalance?”
“If they were tryin’ to make a break for it, do you think they could’ve…?”
Marion’s arm shot up, grabbing the first guard by the neck and yanking him down. He struggled, and Marion rolled over, pinning him to the ground, wrestling his pistol from his hand.
The other guard raised his gun, but Zagi jumped on him, making him stagger. A shot struck the wall, smashing into stone with a scorching flash—Zagi twisted his wrist, and a second bullet blasted into the guard’s side.
Marion dealt the first guard a shot to the foot, and as he reeled from the pain, knocked him across the head with the gun. Standing, he motioned to Zagi.
“Go!”
Zagi got up and ran from the cell, confronting a few more guards who were sprinting down the hall. Holding his stolen pistol out in front of him, he summoned a shield, grinning as bullets glanced off of it, spitting sparks.
As they came closer, he fired erratically, missing a few times, but managing to hit one of the guards in the leg and another in the shoulder. A third nearly wounded Zagi, grazing the very edge of his shield, but failed to bring his own barrier up fast enough—Zagi struck him in the chest, then front-flipped to the group, finishing them off with punches and kicks.
Marion came up behind him. “Here, Zagi!”
Something shiny went flying through the air, and Zagi caught it easily.
“Frickin’ Lorelei, is this is a stilletto?”
“One of those guards had it on him.”
The long, thin blade went alight in Zagi’s hand, glowing with reddish aer. “Bitchass!”
“You can check those other ones,” Marion ordered. “But do it quick.”
Zagi felt along the three fallen guards’ clothes, finding a few more knives, which he pocketed. He tossed his pistol to Marion, preferring blades.
The two of them went bolting up the hall, passing some more guards, who cried out in alarm at the sight of them. Reaching a riveted steel door, they threw it open, revealing a long, winding staircase.
“Stop!” someone yelled from behind them.
Zagi grabbed onto the railing and flung himself over it, tumbling through the air and landing with a hard thump on a landing. Marion, not about to try such a thing without enough aer to slow his fall, took the stairs.
Two guards followed him, weapons drawn. Bullets riddled the wall above his head, and as he ran, he fired blindly back at them.
“Augh!” One down.
As he came to the landing, Zagi soared over his head, catching the other by surprise. There was a sharp hiss as the stilletto pierced flesh—two down.
Marion threw open the door there, only to find himself face-to-face with a group of five guards, a few feet away. He immediately slammed it shut.
“Wrong way,” he muttered.
An alarm went off, bells clanging throughout the building. Footsteps pounded on the stairs above.
Marion’s eyes flickered shut. He surveyed the atmosphere, and, discerning some concentrations of aer, sucked them in.
Golden eyes opening, he saw Zagi lunging ahead of him, flipping wildly down the stairs, past doors guards had already begun to pour out from. Marion jumped on the railing and slid down it on a thin layer of aer, rapidly picking up speed.
He fired at the guards as he went by, shielding himself from their shots. Spotting a single guard on a landing a few floors down, he called after Zagi.
“There! Get that one!”
“Which one?” Zagi yelled back, hesitating a couple steps below Marion.
“The one right there! Two doors down!”
Zagi leapt up and practically flew across the stairwell, landing on his hands in front of the lone guard. With a kick to the jaw, he propelled him into the door, then, flipping back onto his feet, he thrust the stilletto through the guard’s heart.
Marion caught up to him, dismounting from the railing with a little midair spin. He spun the doorknob and kicked it open, felling another man that happened to be behind it.
He and Zagi ran in, past desks and cabinets and screaming secretaries. Marion took a sharp left with Zagi at his heels, toppling a potted plant and narrowly avoiding a table. Spying a window, he raised an arm.
A channel of golden-orange light coursed forth, spraying shards of glass everywhere. Shielding himself from the remnants of his arte, Marion dove through, plummeting a few stories down.
The air warped and shivered beneath his heels. He steadied himself, riding the concentrations a short distance, before letting himself drop the last few feet to the pavement.
Zagi hit ground next to him, in a handstand.
“We made it!” he exclaimed. “We frickin’ made it!”
“Of course we did,” Marion said, unsmiling. “But we’re not done yet.”
Shouting sounded from nearby. They sprinted across the yard, Zagi going over the fence in a single leap, Marion in two. Marion ducked into the first alley he saw, snaking around buildings and crossing streets in the middle of traffic, until at last, half a mile from the prison, he joined the crowd at a bus stop, and stepped with Zagi onto the bus.
They sat down next to each other. Marion glanced over at Zagi and sighed.
“You’re covered.”
“Covered in what?” Zagi asked, then looked down at the dark bloodstains on his shirt. “…Oh.”
He buttoned up his coat. Marion closed his eyes, his breathing gradually returning to normal, and a heavy exhaustion falling over his senses.
Zagi, exhausted too, slumped over onto Marion’s shoulder. Marion didn’t even twitch.
Title: Request
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor swearing.
Notes and things-to-know: Okay, this requires a little bit of backstory, but I assure you, it's interesting. :)
Ingame, Yeager has two adopted daughters, Gauche and Droite. I wanted to include them in the Aurnionverse, so what I pretty much ended up coming up with was that they're from a poor family, and work for the Hunting Blades guild. One day, while out hunting some monster, they run into Marion and Zagi. Leviathan's Claw isn't exactly on good terms with the Hunting Blades at the time, so they end up getting into a fight, until Yeager intervenes and calls Marion/Zagi off. Yeager then, being a rather nice person now and then, helps them kill off the monster they were after, and helps them get home.
In return for that, Gauche and Droite start passing Yeager information about the Hunting Blades. While it is kind of useful, Yeager realizes that they are in quite a bit of danger (if the HB found it, they'd retaliate against the girls), and so starts worrying about them. Ultimately, Yeager must choose between his own desire to be with them (Yeager being a somewhat lonely guy that likes kids in a fathery sort of way), and their safety.
This fic is pretty much when Yeager's starting to become concerned about them. He visits Schwann "Raven" Oltorain, an old friend of his and a formie (a member of Altosk that does spy-type work) by trade. Raven has a habit of calling people by nicknames, so here's explanation for a few:
~"Kunicorn" is a play on Yeager's last name, Kunze.
~"Goldeneyes" and "Asylum-case" are Marion and Zagi.
~"Gatey" is the leader of Ruins' Gate (one of Yeager's guild's suppliers.)
~Oh yeah, and "Flanoir" is a name I stole from Tales of Symphonia. 'Tis "Germany" in mah fanfictions.
The Sooty Crow was almost packed, filled with off-duty knights and imperialist businessmen. Gilded sconces supported yellowish bulbs, which glittered off of a profusion of mirrors set into the oak-paneled walls. The brass edges of the bar glittered as well, and the rows of bottles shone in a variety of colors. Talk and raucous laughter mingled, making it practically impossible to hold a conversation without shouting, or leaning close to one’s companion—just the way Raven liked it.
He was sitting at the far end of the bar, with a cigar in one hand and a tall glass of beer in the other. Dressed in a plaid shirt, khaki pants and a knitted scarf, and with his unkempt black hair in a neater ponytail than usual, he blended in perfectly with the crowd.
When someone sat down on the stool beside him, he barely had to look up to know who it was. He’d gotten good at recognizing people by the smallest signals—the style of a coat, the movement of a hand, the sweep of a lock of hair.
“Now, if it isn’t Kunicorn!”
Yeager tilted his head, his face coming into the light, and smiled.
“You did not zink you vould see me again so soon, ja?”
“Nope.” Raven sipped his beer. “You still gettin’ trouble from you-know-what?”
“Ja. I need more about zem—you have some?”
Raven eyed him coolly. “I got some. Anything in particular, Director?”
“I vant ze location of two girls. Zare names are Gauche and Droite.”
“Girls? How old we talkin’?”
Yeager caught the look in his eye and snorted. “Thirteen.”
“Only thirteen? Geez, Yeags, I never thought you were such a—”
“I vant zare location because zey have been doing your job for me, free.”
“Really? Passin’ stuff for not a cent?” Raven quirked an eyebrow. “How’d ya make ‘em do that?”
“I did not make zem do anything. Zey are doing it because I stopped my men from hurting zem.”
“Goldeneyes and Asylum-case?”
“Ja. Zey had a problem down south with ze girls, but I stopped it before ze fringe came.”
The bartender strode over, asking Yeager whether he wanted something to drink.
“A shot of Bourbon, please.”
Raven whistled. “Ooh, whisky, huh? Somebody’s nervous tonight.”
Yeager cast him a withering glare, his smile thinning. “Gauche and Droite are saving me a lot of money. I need to know where zey are.”
“You fearin’ the worst?”
“Not ze vorst, nein. But I vill sleep better if I know.”
Raven leaned over, close to Yeager’s ear. “Judgin’ by how bloodshot your eyes are, I bet ya haven’t slept at all. Somethin’ tells me this ain’t just about business.”
“Of course it is just business.” Yeager grinned dangerously. “Vat else vould it be?”
“Oh, I dunno. You got some kinda affection for Misses Left and Right?”
“Don’t be silly, zey—”
“You’ve got parental instincts kickin’ in, don’t ya?” Raven drew back, chuckling to himself. “Losin’ sleep ‘cause the girls might not be safe? Aww, Yeags, I always knew you had a heart, deep down in there!”
He punctuated the latter statement by prodding Yeager in the chest. Yeager, annoyed, had half a mind to grasp his wrist and twist it, but, noticing that the bartender had set his glass down, decided to deal with that instead.
He paid for the drink and drained half of it in a gulp, wincing slightly as the alcohol burned his throat. “Listen, Raven.”
“Hey, not Raven. The listies’ve got their sights on Raven.”
“Vell, Bird. Tell me vat you know.”
Raven took a thoughtful puff on his cigar. “Not much. Five gald’s worth is all.”
Yeager handed him a coin. Raven dropped it into his shirt pocket, then leaned close to Yeager again.
“I know two girls, twelve or thirteen years old, were seen ‘round Norfolk late yesterday night. They were armed with Hamilton .22s and were walkin’ with hunters Nan and Tison. Looked like they were just comin’ from a hunt.”
“Ven vas zis, exactly?”
“Ten or eleven at night. Dunno for sure. But I do know nothin’ alarmin’ was up—hell, only reason I’ve got this information is because somebody hadn’t seen the two sweethearts around before.”
“So zey have probably been working…” Yeager gazed seriously at Raven. “Zat is it?”
“Yep, thassit. But, if you wanna put in a search request…”
Yeager inched away, grabbed his glass, and gulped down the rest of it. “Zat is enough, Bird.”
“Come on. It’s not like you’re askin’ for Gatey’s bank records.”
“No. Zat is enough.”
“But don’t ya want somebody keepin’ an eye on your little darlings? Just in case they slipped up, somethin’ got out? I mean, you know as well as I do what a sadist Tison is, what Clint did to that girl that—”
“Shut up!” Yeager barked suddenly, a perceptible pallor coming over his face.
Raven’s eyes widened. “Whoa, uh, I didn’t think—”
“Here.” Yeager slapped three bills down in front of Raven. “Thirty gald for three days. I am not giving you more for a long time.”
“He-ey, not tryin’ to be an ass, but three days costs—”
“Zey are two little girls,” Yeager said wryly, baring straight white teeth. “It cannot be zat hard to track zem.”
“Yeags—”
Yeager stood and buttoned his coat. “I am done talking to you.”
He turned, and Raven grabbed his arm. Yeager sighed.
“Yeags. Look at me.”
Annoyance showing in his blue eyes, he glanced back at Raven.
“I’ll do my best,” Raven said sincerely.
Yeager blinked, something like surprise, then confusion passing across his features. In the moment before his smug smile resumed its place, he almost looked grateful.
Then he turned again and walked away. Raven took a swig of beer and called after him,
“Where’s my ‘thank you’, Fancypants?”
Yeager gave a snort of laughter. “Screw you!”
Raven nodded in approval, laughing himself. “Niiice. Damn Flanian gets better every year…”
I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or not that I have only two weeks of summer left. I mean, on the one hand it's like, I'm going to lose hours of writing time, but on the other hand, I'm sort of worn out. XD This has probably been my most productive summer in terms of writing/plotlining, and I am always really antisocial during the summer as well, so it'd be nice to take a break from the writer stuff and actually see a lot of people I know again. :P
Anyway. Have some fanfiction!
Title: Prison Break
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Minor swearing, and some knife/gun violence.
Notes and things-to-know: Just a story about Marion and Zagi breaking out of prison after being captured by the knights. "Fishman" is Zagi's nickname for Yeager (Marion once compared Yeager to a shark, Zagi called him 'FISHMAN', and it kinda stuck), and if you know about aer and all that (detailed here), you're good.
“Good job, Zagi. Good fricking job.”
“Come on, Daintyfingers,” Zagi retorted, sitting back against the stone-block wall. “It’s not all my fault. You had stuff on ya too.”
“I had two pistols and a butterfly knife on me. You, on the other hand, had five legal knives, three illegal knives, and two thoroughly illegal smoke grenades on your person.”
“Yeah, I probably shoulda left the grenades at home.”
Marion glared at Zagi, livid. “You should’ve known this was no mission to be carrying all that on you! Good Lorelei, Zagi, what the hell are we going to do now!?”
“Fishman’ll come to bail us out, won’t he?”
“And how’s he going to manage that?”
Zagi pondered for a moment. “He could say I’m a professional knife grinder.”
“Because knife grinders always carry knives up their pant legs and in their drawers.”
“Hey, I didn’t have anywhere else to put that cleaver!”
Marion sighed.
Zagi glanced up, his eyes wandering over the cracked plaster ceiling, the bare bulb dangling from it, the steel grate to the filtration system, that kept the levels of aer too low to cast artes. “Don’t be pissy, Mary-kins. Maybe there’s some way out of here.”
“I checked. That grate’s bolted shut, and unless we had something to pick the lock with, there’s no way to open the door.” Marion put his palm to his forehead. “And even if we did manage to get out, there’s four armed guards at the end of this cell block.”
Zagi jumped to his feet, crossed over to the cell bars, and leaned up against them, looking out. “Actually, there’s one now. No…two. Maybe the other pair’s on break.”
“Still, if we can’t get the door—”
“Oh, shit!” Zagi exclaimed, then grinned. “I almost forgot! I don’t think they got it…”
“What are you talking about?” Marion demanded.
Zagi, without offering an explanation, promptly undid his pants and let them drop to the floor. As Marion watched with a slightly horrified expression, he stuck his hand in his drawers, fishing around for something in the lining.
“Wait…no, it was…no, it has to be…oh, yeah!”
With the rip of a few seams, he pulled out a piece of metal wire, holding it triumphantly out to Marion. “Ta-da!”
“…Is that a paperclip?”
“No, silly! It’s from an electrical cable. Pretty strong-ass stuff, just perfect for a lockpick!”
Marion quickly shushed him. “Okay, okay. We can try it. But I don’t know if it’ll work. This kind of lock—”
“I’ve used this before. It’s so gonna work! You wanna do the honors, man?”
“…I’m not touching that,” said Marion, recoiling.
“Suit yourself,” Zagi replied, pulled up his pants, and went for the lock.
Marion caught his wrist. “Hold on.”
“What?”
“Assuming this will work, won’t the hinges squeak when we open the door?”
“Oh yeah…” Zagi frowned. “Shit, the guards need to take better care of this place.”
“The guards’ll come running as soon as they hear that. So after we open it…here’s what we’ll do. We’ll lay on our backs, not moving, and if the guards are as stupid as I suspect they are, they’ll come up close to see what’s wrong. Then we’ll be able to grab their weapons.”
“So we act like we’re dead, then rise up and kick their asses?”
“As soon as they’re close enough.”
“Got it.”
Zagi looked down the hall to where the guards stood, then, satisfied that they weren’t watching, reached through the bars and stuck the piece of metal into the keyhole. He jerked it around a bit, pushing it deeper inside, until, ten seconds later, he heard it click.
He and Marion exchanged glances, then Zagi landed a swift kick to the door. The hinges squealed—one of the guards shouted—the two of them fell back, hitting the floor, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
The hall resounded with footsteps, and moments later the guards burst into the cell.
“What’s wrong with them?”
One bent to feel Marion’s pulse. “Aer imbalance?”
“If they were tryin’ to make a break for it, do you think they could’ve…?”
Marion’s arm shot up, grabbing the first guard by the neck and yanking him down. He struggled, and Marion rolled over, pinning him to the ground, wrestling his pistol from his hand.
The other guard raised his gun, but Zagi jumped on him, making him stagger. A shot struck the wall, smashing into stone with a scorching flash—Zagi twisted his wrist, and a second bullet blasted into the guard’s side.
Marion dealt the first guard a shot to the foot, and as he reeled from the pain, knocked him across the head with the gun. Standing, he motioned to Zagi.
“Go!”
Zagi got up and ran from the cell, confronting a few more guards who were sprinting down the hall. Holding his stolen pistol out in front of him, he summoned a shield, grinning as bullets glanced off of it, spitting sparks.
As they came closer, he fired erratically, missing a few times, but managing to hit one of the guards in the leg and another in the shoulder. A third nearly wounded Zagi, grazing the very edge of his shield, but failed to bring his own barrier up fast enough—Zagi struck him in the chest, then front-flipped to the group, finishing them off with punches and kicks.
Marion came up behind him. “Here, Zagi!”
Something shiny went flying through the air, and Zagi caught it easily.
“Frickin’ Lorelei, is this is a stilletto?”
“One of those guards had it on him.”
The long, thin blade went alight in Zagi’s hand, glowing with reddish aer. “Bitchass!”
“You can check those other ones,” Marion ordered. “But do it quick.”
Zagi felt along the three fallen guards’ clothes, finding a few more knives, which he pocketed. He tossed his pistol to Marion, preferring blades.
The two of them went bolting up the hall, passing some more guards, who cried out in alarm at the sight of them. Reaching a riveted steel door, they threw it open, revealing a long, winding staircase.
“Stop!” someone yelled from behind them.
Zagi grabbed onto the railing and flung himself over it, tumbling through the air and landing with a hard thump on a landing. Marion, not about to try such a thing without enough aer to slow his fall, took the stairs.
Two guards followed him, weapons drawn. Bullets riddled the wall above his head, and as he ran, he fired blindly back at them.
“Augh!” One down.
As he came to the landing, Zagi soared over his head, catching the other by surprise. There was a sharp hiss as the stilletto pierced flesh—two down.
Marion threw open the door there, only to find himself face-to-face with a group of five guards, a few feet away. He immediately slammed it shut.
“Wrong way,” he muttered.
An alarm went off, bells clanging throughout the building. Footsteps pounded on the stairs above.
Marion’s eyes flickered shut. He surveyed the atmosphere, and, discerning some concentrations of aer, sucked them in.
Golden eyes opening, he saw Zagi lunging ahead of him, flipping wildly down the stairs, past doors guards had already begun to pour out from. Marion jumped on the railing and slid down it on a thin layer of aer, rapidly picking up speed.
He fired at the guards as he went by, shielding himself from their shots. Spotting a single guard on a landing a few floors down, he called after Zagi.
“There! Get that one!”
“Which one?” Zagi yelled back, hesitating a couple steps below Marion.
“The one right there! Two doors down!”
Zagi leapt up and practically flew across the stairwell, landing on his hands in front of the lone guard. With a kick to the jaw, he propelled him into the door, then, flipping back onto his feet, he thrust the stilletto through the guard’s heart.
Marion caught up to him, dismounting from the railing with a little midair spin. He spun the doorknob and kicked it open, felling another man that happened to be behind it.
He and Zagi ran in, past desks and cabinets and screaming secretaries. Marion took a sharp left with Zagi at his heels, toppling a potted plant and narrowly avoiding a table. Spying a window, he raised an arm.
A channel of golden-orange light coursed forth, spraying shards of glass everywhere. Shielding himself from the remnants of his arte, Marion dove through, plummeting a few stories down.
The air warped and shivered beneath his heels. He steadied himself, riding the concentrations a short distance, before letting himself drop the last few feet to the pavement.
Zagi hit ground next to him, in a handstand.
“We made it!” he exclaimed. “We frickin’ made it!”
“Of course we did,” Marion said, unsmiling. “But we’re not done yet.”
Shouting sounded from nearby. They sprinted across the yard, Zagi going over the fence in a single leap, Marion in two. Marion ducked into the first alley he saw, snaking around buildings and crossing streets in the middle of traffic, until at last, half a mile from the prison, he joined the crowd at a bus stop, and stepped with Zagi onto the bus.
They sat down next to each other. Marion glanced over at Zagi and sighed.
“You’re covered.”
“Covered in what?” Zagi asked, then looked down at the dark bloodstains on his shirt. “…Oh.”
He buttoned up his coat. Marion closed his eyes, his breathing gradually returning to normal, and a heavy exhaustion falling over his senses.
Zagi, exhausted too, slumped over onto Marion’s shoulder. Marion didn’t even twitch.
Title: Request
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor swearing.
Notes and things-to-know: Okay, this requires a little bit of backstory, but I assure you, it's interesting. :)
Ingame, Yeager has two adopted daughters, Gauche and Droite. I wanted to include them in the Aurnionverse, so what I pretty much ended up coming up with was that they're from a poor family, and work for the Hunting Blades guild. One day, while out hunting some monster, they run into Marion and Zagi. Leviathan's Claw isn't exactly on good terms with the Hunting Blades at the time, so they end up getting into a fight, until Yeager intervenes and calls Marion/Zagi off. Yeager then, being a rather nice person now and then, helps them kill off the monster they were after, and helps them get home.
In return for that, Gauche and Droite start passing Yeager information about the Hunting Blades. While it is kind of useful, Yeager realizes that they are in quite a bit of danger (if the HB found it, they'd retaliate against the girls), and so starts worrying about them. Ultimately, Yeager must choose between his own desire to be with them (Yeager being a somewhat lonely guy that likes kids in a fathery sort of way), and their safety.
This fic is pretty much when Yeager's starting to become concerned about them. He visits Schwann "Raven" Oltorain, an old friend of his and a formie (a member of Altosk that does spy-type work) by trade. Raven has a habit of calling people by nicknames, so here's explanation for a few:
~"Kunicorn" is a play on Yeager's last name, Kunze.
~"Goldeneyes" and "Asylum-case" are Marion and Zagi.
~"Gatey" is the leader of Ruins' Gate (one of Yeager's guild's suppliers.)
~Oh yeah, and "Flanoir" is a name I stole from Tales of Symphonia. 'Tis "Germany" in mah fanfictions.
The Sooty Crow was almost packed, filled with off-duty knights and imperialist businessmen. Gilded sconces supported yellowish bulbs, which glittered off of a profusion of mirrors set into the oak-paneled walls. The brass edges of the bar glittered as well, and the rows of bottles shone in a variety of colors. Talk and raucous laughter mingled, making it practically impossible to hold a conversation without shouting, or leaning close to one’s companion—just the way Raven liked it.
He was sitting at the far end of the bar, with a cigar in one hand and a tall glass of beer in the other. Dressed in a plaid shirt, khaki pants and a knitted scarf, and with his unkempt black hair in a neater ponytail than usual, he blended in perfectly with the crowd.
When someone sat down on the stool beside him, he barely had to look up to know who it was. He’d gotten good at recognizing people by the smallest signals—the style of a coat, the movement of a hand, the sweep of a lock of hair.
“Now, if it isn’t Kunicorn!”
Yeager tilted his head, his face coming into the light, and smiled.
“You did not zink you vould see me again so soon, ja?”
“Nope.” Raven sipped his beer. “You still gettin’ trouble from you-know-what?”
“Ja. I need more about zem—you have some?”
Raven eyed him coolly. “I got some. Anything in particular, Director?”
“I vant ze location of two girls. Zare names are Gauche and Droite.”
“Girls? How old we talkin’?”
Yeager caught the look in his eye and snorted. “Thirteen.”
“Only thirteen? Geez, Yeags, I never thought you were such a—”
“I vant zare location because zey have been doing your job for me, free.”
“Really? Passin’ stuff for not a cent?” Raven quirked an eyebrow. “How’d ya make ‘em do that?”
“I did not make zem do anything. Zey are doing it because I stopped my men from hurting zem.”
“Goldeneyes and Asylum-case?”
“Ja. Zey had a problem down south with ze girls, but I stopped it before ze fringe came.”
The bartender strode over, asking Yeager whether he wanted something to drink.
“A shot of Bourbon, please.”
Raven whistled. “Ooh, whisky, huh? Somebody’s nervous tonight.”
Yeager cast him a withering glare, his smile thinning. “Gauche and Droite are saving me a lot of money. I need to know where zey are.”
“You fearin’ the worst?”
“Not ze vorst, nein. But I vill sleep better if I know.”
Raven leaned over, close to Yeager’s ear. “Judgin’ by how bloodshot your eyes are, I bet ya haven’t slept at all. Somethin’ tells me this ain’t just about business.”
“Of course it is just business.” Yeager grinned dangerously. “Vat else vould it be?”
“Oh, I dunno. You got some kinda affection for Misses Left and Right?”
“Don’t be silly, zey—”
“You’ve got parental instincts kickin’ in, don’t ya?” Raven drew back, chuckling to himself. “Losin’ sleep ‘cause the girls might not be safe? Aww, Yeags, I always knew you had a heart, deep down in there!”
He punctuated the latter statement by prodding Yeager in the chest. Yeager, annoyed, had half a mind to grasp his wrist and twist it, but, noticing that the bartender had set his glass down, decided to deal with that instead.
He paid for the drink and drained half of it in a gulp, wincing slightly as the alcohol burned his throat. “Listen, Raven.”
“Hey, not Raven. The listies’ve got their sights on Raven.”
“Vell, Bird. Tell me vat you know.”
Raven took a thoughtful puff on his cigar. “Not much. Five gald’s worth is all.”
Yeager handed him a coin. Raven dropped it into his shirt pocket, then leaned close to Yeager again.
“I know two girls, twelve or thirteen years old, were seen ‘round Norfolk late yesterday night. They were armed with Hamilton .22s and were walkin’ with hunters Nan and Tison. Looked like they were just comin’ from a hunt.”
“Ven vas zis, exactly?”
“Ten or eleven at night. Dunno for sure. But I do know nothin’ alarmin’ was up—hell, only reason I’ve got this information is because somebody hadn’t seen the two sweethearts around before.”
“So zey have probably been working…” Yeager gazed seriously at Raven. “Zat is it?”
“Yep, thassit. But, if you wanna put in a search request…”
Yeager inched away, grabbed his glass, and gulped down the rest of it. “Zat is enough, Bird.”
“Come on. It’s not like you’re askin’ for Gatey’s bank records.”
“No. Zat is enough.”
“But don’t ya want somebody keepin’ an eye on your little darlings? Just in case they slipped up, somethin’ got out? I mean, you know as well as I do what a sadist Tison is, what Clint did to that girl that—”
“Shut up!” Yeager barked suddenly, a perceptible pallor coming over his face.
Raven’s eyes widened. “Whoa, uh, I didn’t think—”
“Here.” Yeager slapped three bills down in front of Raven. “Thirty gald for three days. I am not giving you more for a long time.”
“He-ey, not tryin’ to be an ass, but three days costs—”
“Zey are two little girls,” Yeager said wryly, baring straight white teeth. “It cannot be zat hard to track zem.”
“Yeags—”
Yeager stood and buttoned his coat. “I am done talking to you.”
He turned, and Raven grabbed his arm. Yeager sighed.
“Yeags. Look at me.”
Annoyance showing in his blue eyes, he glanced back at Raven.
“I’ll do my best,” Raven said sincerely.
Yeager blinked, something like surprise, then confusion passing across his features. In the moment before his smug smile resumed its place, he almost looked grateful.
Then he turned again and walked away. Raven took a swig of beer and called after him,
“Where’s my ‘thank you’, Fancypants?”
Yeager gave a snort of laughter. “Screw you!”
Raven nodded in approval, laughing himself. “Niiice. Damn Flanian gets better every year…”
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