writing meme
Mar. 29th, 2015 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igiko posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
logcanon. Tales of Destiny, Tales of Legendia; Donten ni Warau, original; Disgaea 2, Touhou Project
notes. Fills for these prompts.
leon and walter, affectionate things
aka "walter tries to be intimate and walks away instead"
The next day, Walter and Leon got into an argument. To say Leon was angrier judging by how he huffed and crossed his arms would have been a severe misunderstanding of the situation. In front of him, Walter, ever reticent, pursed his lips and clenched his fists at his sides. Whereas the others had taken to flocking Walter since the events of the day prior, Leon had been content to be by himself at the window, cogitating until his uneasy meditation had broken with the former’s entrance.
Leon ranted, if it could be called such. What Marian saw in this dishonorable knight, he could not say. He knitted his brows, verging on snorting as he turned away. A firm hand clamped down on his shoulder and pulled him back around, and Leon grit his teeth.
“What?” he growled.
“ . . . Nothing,” said Walter, looking down at Leon’s left hand.
“As if you hadn’t just been about to be executed on charges of treason – ”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You have no pride.”
Sure enough, Walter glowered. His weakness was his pride, and Leon would have been a fool to claim otherwise; however, the matter of pride here was different from the matter of pride elsewhere. After all, Walter’s entire house had been at stake. No amount of self-pride could salvage the tattered remains of familial pride and honor that one foolish descendant had thought to ruin. Knowing this, Leon still puzzled over what Marian saw.
Without preamble, Walter reached forth, and, with uncharacteristic tenderness, took Leon’s hand. He overlaid his fist on the open palm, tightening his grip when Leon attempted to pull away from contact. Walter unfurled his fingers, then withdrew completely as he strode out of the room with a quiet “get some rest.”
Frowning, Leon looked down. Splayed on his palm was a ring set with the signet of the Dugan family, once home to a line of noble knights and now shamed by the wavering loyalty of its progeny. It was Walter's rebuttal – or was it acceptance?
ashiya and xian, sad hobos together
Ashiya inclined his head to the side, watching Xian trace the blade of his sword with fingertips. Today was one of Xian’s lucid days, when he would be alert enough to carry an exchange vaguely resembling conversation. He had been forward this time, asking in a soft voice if he could read Ashiya’s longsword.
“The craftsmanship is impressive,” mumbled Xian, being all he could manage on his better days. The airiness and hike in pitch indicated his subdued excitement, despite the measured and slow words.
“It’s rather old,” said Ashiya.
Xian nodded, holding the hilt with both hands and turning the sword to study all sides. “But well-maintained. It’ll serve you many years.”
Although anyone with a pair of decent eyes could see a sword without chips or nicks, Xian’s observations tended to carry multidimensional foresight that Ashiya attributed to the strange habit called “sin.” If a sword was claimed to be blessed with longevity, it surely would be, so long as the conditions were met – not unlike the foretelling of divination. Ashiya leaned back, arms folded behind his head and in no hurry to reclaim his longsword.
“Well, so it goes in one instance of the future,” he said.
“Please take care of it.”
With a trained and steady grip surprising for his otherwise tiring lethargy, Xian twisted the sword to proffer to the rightful owner. Ashiya stood and sheathed the longsword, his narrow sights on Xian, whose shoulders had slumped more.
“It’s about time that you went back for rest, isn’t it?” asked Ashiya, and Xian blinked (yes).
They turned their backs to one another, their respective destinations in the opposite direction. Ashiya took his leave while Xian stood, eyes glazed as if he had managed to lose his way without starting. Xian's first tentative came once Ashiya departed from the estate's grounds, and he stared at the movement of his tottering feet.
They had no need for goodbyes or farewells, not when Ashiya wandered as he pleased and Xian saw the exact moment of their next meeting.
adell and alice, being friends
That morning, Alice sent Adell a brief summons to a secluded part of the forest. She left a voice recording of few words, mentioning the time and place with a final “please,” although she clearly trusted his cooperation. She waited for him near the lake, a satchel slung over her shoulder, and dug a roaming hand inside when Adell appeared in her field of vision.
“You’re just in time. Here,” she said, depositing a hammer in his dominant hand.
“Huh?”
“Follow me.”
Not one to loiter, Alice took a dense path deeper inside the forest. At her heels, Adell looked over his shoulder and glimpsed the doll as it floated down the lake, eventually spilling into the river junction. His sharp eyes recognized the simplistic beauty of Alice's craftsmanship, the reminder of which turned his attention back on her retreating back. Alice's next destination was a tree with a rather large trunk.
“I’m going to need your muscles,” she said while rummaging through the satchel. She procured another doll, this one smaller than the cousin soaking in Luceti’s waters less than a quarter-mile away.
“Another doll, huh?”
“You saw the first one?”
“Yeah. She went down the river – probably closing in on the village right about now, at this rate.”
Alice hummed. She closed one eye and her brows arched in that strange, delicate fashion that Adell knew to convey her being pleased. He also knew that Alice liked her dolls to be attributed with proper genders and her intentions treated without uninformed bias. Who was he to question her customs, he thought at the same time that Alice presented him the second doll and a nail as wide as her thumb.
“Nail her, please.”
He promised her (with himself) that he would leave the questions out of her business. But Alice was about as blunt as they came, and he stood stock-still upon hearing the odd request. He had no clue what to think or make of it.
“You want me to . . . nail her?” he said, echoing the words and regretting them when Alice’s brows arched in the other way that indicated her displeasure.
“It’s not that I can’t handle it. It’d simply be easier if you were to do it in my stead. I’ve held onto that for far too long now,” said Alice, gesturing to the doll.
“I wasn’t doubting your strength, Alice.” Far be it from him to mock another supernatural's power. He had yet to see Alice in battle, but he imagined her to be powerful, and the thought made his blood beat against his skin.
“I know. If you would, please.”
His imagination fading, Adell reined in a sigh and scooped the doll and nail from Alice’s hands. He pressed the slack doll against the tree with the nail aligned on her torso, hammer ready in his other hand. As much as he wanted to help, his mind wandered to Moro and whether this was someone’s effigy he was about to nail, because people (including himself) were going to be in a world of pain if such suspicions happened to be true.
“Hey, Alice?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not anyone you know. I’m testing something,” said Alice, tone of voice flat but reassuring.
He felt sweat coming on at his temple. “That’s . . . ”
“You’re misunderstanding. This is an experiment; if you were about to drive a nail into someone, I would have told you by now.” Now he just felt silly. Alice could stand to work on her diction. “Well?”
This time, Adell sighed and wiped the sweat away with his forearm. “All right, all right. I’ll do it! Here goes nothing.”
Considering his demonic strength, it took one shot to drive in the nail all the way. His control from battle experience ensured the doll held under the stress of the blow. Thus, there against the tree was an effigy of a stranger – or not. Alice nodded in approval and then retrieved the hammer, which she deposited in the much lighter satchel.
“Thank you, Adell. I appreciate it,” she said, one eye closing again.
“No problem,” said Adell. His outrageous suspicions faded with the finished deed, and he grinned. “Say, Alice.”
“Hm?”
“How about a spar sometime? Just you and me.” He pointed a thumb at his chest.
Blinking, Alice looked down and up, scrutinizing Adell. She deliberated and chose to nod again. “That sounds fair . . . excellent, actually. I’ve been here long enough. A spar should be good for stretching the muscles in my hands – for you, too.”
“Great. When’s a good day for you?”
“Oh, that’s right. You said ‘sometime.’ I was hoping now would be a good time.”
“Are you kidding? Now is the best time!” Adell all but leaped down the path they came from, pumping a fist in the air. He opened his mouth to say more, something about heading to the barracks when a doll armed with a butcher’s knife came at his face. Eyes widening, he jumped back to avoid the swing. “What the?”
The doll withdrew and Adell followed the strings attached to her to the rings on Alice’s long fingers. On her end, Alice had discarded the satchel and was readying another armed doll on the same hand. She wiggled her fingers with the grace of a seasoned puppeteer, and the dolls seemed to come alive.
“I did say ‘now.’ Or weren’t you ready?” she asked.
Smirking, Adell fell into stance. “ . . . No way. I was born ready for this!”
notes. Fills for these prompts.
leon and walter, affectionate things
aka "walter tries to be intimate and walks away instead"
The next day, Walter and Leon got into an argument. To say Leon was angrier judging by how he huffed and crossed his arms would have been a severe misunderstanding of the situation. In front of him, Walter, ever reticent, pursed his lips and clenched his fists at his sides. Whereas the others had taken to flocking Walter since the events of the day prior, Leon had been content to be by himself at the window, cogitating until his uneasy meditation had broken with the former’s entrance.
Leon ranted, if it could be called such. What Marian saw in this dishonorable knight, he could not say. He knitted his brows, verging on snorting as he turned away. A firm hand clamped down on his shoulder and pulled him back around, and Leon grit his teeth.
“What?” he growled.
“ . . . Nothing,” said Walter, looking down at Leon’s left hand.
“As if you hadn’t just been about to be executed on charges of treason – ”
“I don’t care about that.”
“You have no pride.”
Sure enough, Walter glowered. His weakness was his pride, and Leon would have been a fool to claim otherwise; however, the matter of pride here was different from the matter of pride elsewhere. After all, Walter’s entire house had been at stake. No amount of self-pride could salvage the tattered remains of familial pride and honor that one foolish descendant had thought to ruin. Knowing this, Leon still puzzled over what Marian saw.
Without preamble, Walter reached forth, and, with uncharacteristic tenderness, took Leon’s hand. He overlaid his fist on the open palm, tightening his grip when Leon attempted to pull away from contact. Walter unfurled his fingers, then withdrew completely as he strode out of the room with a quiet “get some rest.”
Frowning, Leon looked down. Splayed on his palm was a ring set with the signet of the Dugan family, once home to a line of noble knights and now shamed by the wavering loyalty of its progeny. It was Walter's rebuttal – or was it acceptance?
ashiya and xian, sad hobos together
Ashiya inclined his head to the side, watching Xian trace the blade of his sword with fingertips. Today was one of Xian’s lucid days, when he would be alert enough to carry an exchange vaguely resembling conversation. He had been forward this time, asking in a soft voice if he could read Ashiya’s longsword.
“The craftsmanship is impressive,” mumbled Xian, being all he could manage on his better days. The airiness and hike in pitch indicated his subdued excitement, despite the measured and slow words.
“It’s rather old,” said Ashiya.
Xian nodded, holding the hilt with both hands and turning the sword to study all sides. “But well-maintained. It’ll serve you many years.”
Although anyone with a pair of decent eyes could see a sword without chips or nicks, Xian’s observations tended to carry multidimensional foresight that Ashiya attributed to the strange habit called “sin.” If a sword was claimed to be blessed with longevity, it surely would be, so long as the conditions were met – not unlike the foretelling of divination. Ashiya leaned back, arms folded behind his head and in no hurry to reclaim his longsword.
“Well, so it goes in one instance of the future,” he said.
“Please take care of it.”
With a trained and steady grip surprising for his otherwise tiring lethargy, Xian twisted the sword to proffer to the rightful owner. Ashiya stood and sheathed the longsword, his narrow sights on Xian, whose shoulders had slumped more.
“It’s about time that you went back for rest, isn’t it?” asked Ashiya, and Xian blinked (yes).
They turned their backs to one another, their respective destinations in the opposite direction. Ashiya took his leave while Xian stood, eyes glazed as if he had managed to lose his way without starting. Xian's first tentative came once Ashiya departed from the estate's grounds, and he stared at the movement of his tottering feet.
They had no need for goodbyes or farewells, not when Ashiya wandered as he pleased and Xian saw the exact moment of their next meeting.
bonus: 169 years, after the war
The double doors to the chamber burst open and 8 strode in, arms spread wide. “How fares that brother of mine? There he is!”
“Hey. 8. You’re too loud,” said Blaize, waving off the maid dabbing at the sweat on his brows.
8 hummed, studying Blaize and the busy maids, then the interior polished just within the last year. His eyes fell on the drawn curtains, and he grinned. “Let my voice be the chime of the morning bell. The day’s almost gone! You didn’t join us for breakfast, as usual. What happened?”
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
Clicking his tongue, 8 closed in on the bed to wag a finger. “Even Lady takes all of her meals, and she’s astonishingly busy.”
Behind him, Lady shifted her weight onto one leg. She raised her arms before she decided against folding them and dropped her hands back to her sides. Far be it from her to correct the youngest prince, who insisted on lavishing wordy praises and boasting the might of his personal escort like a proper juvenile.
Blaize scowled, although the expression was mild between the thin layer of sweat and his relative pallor in his bedridden state. His brows dipped further into a discomfited crease when another maid brought in more silky sheets to drape over him.
With an exaggerated sigh, 8 raised a fist in mock salute. “Don’t worry. Next time, we’ll definitely share breakfast. I’ll bring it up myself if I must! More importantly . . . are you enjoying the royal service?“ A corner of 8’s lips twitched.
“Why do you bother to ask when you know the answer?” asked Blaize, gaze darting from one maid to another.
“You’ll have to get used to it. Look how well you’re doing now. To think you pinned poor Lorna on your first day . . . ” 8 cupped his forehead, chuckling. “Have you apologized for that yet?”
“What? Of course I have.”
“I’m proud of you. Say, when you’re back on your feet, we should ride around the country.”
“Your Highness, is that wise?” asked Lady.
“What? Of course it is,” said 8, waving when Blaize frowned at the mockery. “The war just ended. What better way to uplift the people’s mood than to greet them with a smile on a cursory visit? Besides, they need to meet Blaize.”
Leaning over, 8 patted Blaize on the shoulder. The maids crowding the bed dispersed with their heads bowed, creating space. 8 slid onto the edge of the bed and held out a hand to the first maid, who relinquished the towel. Smiling, he dabbed Blaize's brow with the cloth.
“When that happens, we’re going to break fast together every morning. I won’t let you miss one bite,” he said.
Blaize gritted his teeth and glared, more peeved than angry. “Try it.”
“Or what, you’ll retch all over me?” Blaize’s face heated up, turning red, and 8 howled with laughter.
adell and alice, being friends
That morning, Alice sent Adell a brief summons to a secluded part of the forest. She left a voice recording of few words, mentioning the time and place with a final “please,” although she clearly trusted his cooperation. She waited for him near the lake, a satchel slung over her shoulder, and dug a roaming hand inside when Adell appeared in her field of vision.
“You’re just in time. Here,” she said, depositing a hammer in his dominant hand.
“Huh?”
“Follow me.”
Not one to loiter, Alice took a dense path deeper inside the forest. At her heels, Adell looked over his shoulder and glimpsed the doll as it floated down the lake, eventually spilling into the river junction. His sharp eyes recognized the simplistic beauty of Alice's craftsmanship, the reminder of which turned his attention back on her retreating back. Alice's next destination was a tree with a rather large trunk.
“I’m going to need your muscles,” she said while rummaging through the satchel. She procured another doll, this one smaller than the cousin soaking in Luceti’s waters less than a quarter-mile away.
“Another doll, huh?”
“You saw the first one?”
“Yeah. She went down the river – probably closing in on the village right about now, at this rate.”
Alice hummed. She closed one eye and her brows arched in that strange, delicate fashion that Adell knew to convey her being pleased. He also knew that Alice liked her dolls to be attributed with proper genders and her intentions treated without uninformed bias. Who was he to question her customs, he thought at the same time that Alice presented him the second doll and a nail as wide as her thumb.
“Nail her, please.”
He promised her (with himself) that he would leave the questions out of her business. But Alice was about as blunt as they came, and he stood stock-still upon hearing the odd request. He had no clue what to think or make of it.
“You want me to . . . nail her?” he said, echoing the words and regretting them when Alice’s brows arched in the other way that indicated her displeasure.
“It’s not that I can’t handle it. It’d simply be easier if you were to do it in my stead. I’ve held onto that for far too long now,” said Alice, gesturing to the doll.
“I wasn’t doubting your strength, Alice.” Far be it from him to mock another supernatural's power. He had yet to see Alice in battle, but he imagined her to be powerful, and the thought made his blood beat against his skin.
“I know. If you would, please.”
His imagination fading, Adell reined in a sigh and scooped the doll and nail from Alice’s hands. He pressed the slack doll against the tree with the nail aligned on her torso, hammer ready in his other hand. As much as he wanted to help, his mind wandered to Moro and whether this was someone’s effigy he was about to nail, because people (including himself) were going to be in a world of pain if such suspicions happened to be true.
“Hey, Alice?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not anyone you know. I’m testing something,” said Alice, tone of voice flat but reassuring.
He felt sweat coming on at his temple. “That’s . . . ”
“You’re misunderstanding. This is an experiment; if you were about to drive a nail into someone, I would have told you by now.” Now he just felt silly. Alice could stand to work on her diction. “Well?”
This time, Adell sighed and wiped the sweat away with his forearm. “All right, all right. I’ll do it! Here goes nothing.”
Considering his demonic strength, it took one shot to drive in the nail all the way. His control from battle experience ensured the doll held under the stress of the blow. Thus, there against the tree was an effigy of a stranger – or not. Alice nodded in approval and then retrieved the hammer, which she deposited in the much lighter satchel.
“Thank you, Adell. I appreciate it,” she said, one eye closing again.
“No problem,” said Adell. His outrageous suspicions faded with the finished deed, and he grinned. “Say, Alice.”
“Hm?”
“How about a spar sometime? Just you and me.” He pointed a thumb at his chest.
Blinking, Alice looked down and up, scrutinizing Adell. She deliberated and chose to nod again. “That sounds fair . . . excellent, actually. I’ve been here long enough. A spar should be good for stretching the muscles in my hands – for you, too.”
“Great. When’s a good day for you?”
“Oh, that’s right. You said ‘sometime.’ I was hoping now would be a good time.”
“Are you kidding? Now is the best time!” Adell all but leaped down the path they came from, pumping a fist in the air. He opened his mouth to say more, something about heading to the barracks when a doll armed with a butcher’s knife came at his face. Eyes widening, he jumped back to avoid the swing. “What the?”
The doll withdrew and Adell followed the strings attached to her to the rings on Alice’s long fingers. On her end, Alice had discarded the satchel and was readying another armed doll on the same hand. She wiggled her fingers with the grace of a seasoned puppeteer, and the dolls seemed to come alive.
“I did say ‘now.’ Or weren’t you ready?” she asked.
Smirking, Adell fell into stance. “ . . . No way. I was born ready for this!”