Post by gogollescent on Mar 16, 2009 15:24:00 GMT 10
Title: Metaphor
Summary: Roger of Conte considers a literary device that may not even have existed in pseudo-medieval times.
Rating: G
Genre: Pointless, um, slight meta-fic?
Series: Song of the Lioness
Warnings: Excess hammering of comparison into reader's head.
Author's Notes: Er.
He isn't overly fond of working with wax, but Roger does rather appreciate the metaphor. Besides, he's good at it, even in the midst of shadows, shadows the army of candles that are making his desk hot and brilliant will not banish. Even half-drunk on the heady mix of power and the goblet of wine at his elbow, his dark brown hair uncharacteristically disheveled, falling forward over his eyes, he is very, very good. It is an old magic he has wrought in these unfinished figurines, and it is a perfect mirror, as the best and oldest magics always are.
After all... he's shaped them, has he not? Each and every one he sketches now in refined fat, he's shaped as much in life, through careful pressure (and his clever white fingers, here and here, a curving lovely cheek, his uncle's wife almost complete), through charm or through deliberate antagonism, he has diverted their paths and all the tributaries of the Court are flowing to his kingship now. He shaped their minds and now he shapes their models, as is fit.
There is power in such creation, whether it be sorcery or no. It is a lesson of the Gift. He polishes the Queen's face absently with his thumb, grimacing a little at the coating it leaves on his skin, and deems her done. The hair clippings, the scaled silk, her small stiff hands, immaculate. He weighs the doll, heavier than it should be in his grip. Roger is a master of detail, and he already knows the method, the slow murder.
He stands, the movement pushing the chair aside, and ge goes to the ornamental fountain. Its stone bowl full with water, cold and still but more than enough to dissolve features he has sculpted only moments before, yet fresh and vivid with borrowed life, this child of his mind. And he hesitates only a moment, leaning over the pool; for there is power in creation, and the power is the horror of creation undone.
He will have it. He must. So he drowns her, does Roger of Conte: he drowns his little masterpiece, at angles with her own reflection, and the greater reflection this insignificance will kill.
It really is a nice metaphor, he allows, before going back to his work.
Summary: Roger of Conte considers a literary device that may not even have existed in pseudo-medieval times.
Rating: G
Genre: Pointless, um, slight meta-fic?
Series: Song of the Lioness
Warnings: Excess hammering of comparison into reader's head.
Author's Notes: Er.
He isn't overly fond of working with wax, but Roger does rather appreciate the metaphor. Besides, he's good at it, even in the midst of shadows, shadows the army of candles that are making his desk hot and brilliant will not banish. Even half-drunk on the heady mix of power and the goblet of wine at his elbow, his dark brown hair uncharacteristically disheveled, falling forward over his eyes, he is very, very good. It is an old magic he has wrought in these unfinished figurines, and it is a perfect mirror, as the best and oldest magics always are.
After all... he's shaped them, has he not? Each and every one he sketches now in refined fat, he's shaped as much in life, through careful pressure (and his clever white fingers, here and here, a curving lovely cheek, his uncle's wife almost complete), through charm or through deliberate antagonism, he has diverted their paths and all the tributaries of the Court are flowing to his kingship now. He shaped their minds and now he shapes their models, as is fit.
There is power in such creation, whether it be sorcery or no. It is a lesson of the Gift. He polishes the Queen's face absently with his thumb, grimacing a little at the coating it leaves on his skin, and deems her done. The hair clippings, the scaled silk, her small stiff hands, immaculate. He weighs the doll, heavier than it should be in his grip. Roger is a master of detail, and he already knows the method, the slow murder.
He stands, the movement pushing the chair aside, and ge goes to the ornamental fountain. Its stone bowl full with water, cold and still but more than enough to dissolve features he has sculpted only moments before, yet fresh and vivid with borrowed life, this child of his mind. And he hesitates only a moment, leaning over the pool; for there is power in creation, and the power is the horror of creation undone.
He will have it. He must. So he drowns her, does Roger of Conte: he drowns his little masterpiece, at angles with her own reflection, and the greater reflection this insignificance will kill.
It really is a nice metaphor, he allows, before going back to his work.