Post by Seek on May 26, 2009 18:19:10 GMT 10
Title: Numbers
Rating: G
Prompt: #2, Numbers (or #3, Villain, depending on how you perceive it.)
Category: Up to 250 words
Word count: 250 words
Summary: He doesn’t think of them as people, only numbers. He could not live with the deaths of people on his hands. But numbers- he can bear. It is the lighter burden.
(also posted on FFN; www.fanfiction.net/s/5089314/5/Collection_of_Snippets)
He doesn’t think of them as numbers, not ever. He thinks of them as people; good men- because that is what they are, even to the eleven year old who died, with those wide innocent emerald eyes and messy brown hair. He will not belittle any of their sacrifices, he promises himself. They were men enough to face the darkness- and die.
They were unknighted Knights of the Realm, and they lived for their duty.
(He promises himself he won’t but he carries a list of numbers in his heart anyway. Number Twenty Six is the boy with green eyes, who died too young. He treats each of these as a personal failure, because he knows they are.)
So when he sees her, Wyldon thinks of her as Twenty Seven. He refuses to consider she may be as good as the boys, because he knows girls aren’t as strong. He wants her to leave, gives her every opportunity to do so.
Because he thinks she’ll be Number Twenty Seven. And he cannot live with himself, knowing he has sent yet another child to the Black God. That is why he thinks only in numbers-
Numbers have no face; numbers do not have eyes of deep, beautiful emerald of piercing innocence and terror, they do not invoke agony or raw terrified helplessness and horror. Numbers numb the pain of knowing this is another he has failed, another he has sent to die. Numbers are not his failure.
Numbers do not hurt.
Rating: G
Prompt: #2, Numbers (or #3, Villain, depending on how you perceive it.)
Category: Up to 250 words
Word count: 250 words
Summary: He doesn’t think of them as people, only numbers. He could not live with the deaths of people on his hands. But numbers- he can bear. It is the lighter burden.
(also posted on FFN; www.fanfiction.net/s/5089314/5/Collection_of_Snippets)
He doesn’t think of them as numbers, not ever. He thinks of them as people; good men- because that is what they are, even to the eleven year old who died, with those wide innocent emerald eyes and messy brown hair. He will not belittle any of their sacrifices, he promises himself. They were men enough to face the darkness- and die.
They were unknighted Knights of the Realm, and they lived for their duty.
(He promises himself he won’t but he carries a list of numbers in his heart anyway. Number Twenty Six is the boy with green eyes, who died too young. He treats each of these as a personal failure, because he knows they are.)
So when he sees her, Wyldon thinks of her as Twenty Seven. He refuses to consider she may be as good as the boys, because he knows girls aren’t as strong. He wants her to leave, gives her every opportunity to do so.
Because he thinks she’ll be Number Twenty Seven. And he cannot live with himself, knowing he has sent yet another child to the Black God. That is why he thinks only in numbers-
Numbers have no face; numbers do not have eyes of deep, beautiful emerald of piercing innocence and terror, they do not invoke agony or raw terrified helplessness and horror. Numbers numb the pain of knowing this is another he has failed, another he has sent to die. Numbers are not his failure.
Numbers do not hurt.