Post by Carbon Kiwi on Apr 14, 2011 12:13:48 GMT 10
Title: Without the Rose
Rating: G
Genre: Pain
Warnings: Character near-death, mention of ED
Type: Femslash
Wordcount: ~600
Characters: Lark (/ Rosethorn)
Summary: "...Let us be numb, the both of us."
Notes: This is for the first row of the LJ femslash_land 'Controlled Bang', based on a table from LJ 100_prompts community. Written for the third prompt, 'numb'; the second story I'll have to give a miss since it's NC-17 (;. UN-BETA’D. I am told the Emelan section is always looking for more fic, so I'm going against my personal grain and continuing to post my work... I apologise, Lark, for your pain - though it seems a little unavoidable given the circumstances.
Lark was accustomed to the unique and upsetting sensation of numbness.
She had felt it after a week with no rations when one of the base acrobats insinuated she had had more than her share and it compromised his ability to lift her. She had felt it after weeks of travel through rain, rain and further rain. She had felt it when her feet betrayed her mid-show and she fell to the floor unable to stand, not for her body but for her lungs which could not take in air, and her troupe Master told her there would be no more tumbling, dancing or acrobatics for her. She had felt it when Yazmin did not stand by her side in Summersea, grasping her hand while her troupe and all she had known danced on without her. She had felt it in the Mire when the little food she received was reminiscent of the Mire mud, thick and dirty and useless as she had become.
Those times had been terror, she had thought.
Lark had not known terror then.
She wished nothing more than to feel it—or not feel it—as she fingered the quilt spread over her knees. In one corner, a lone lark in the rain; in another a solitary rose growing through mud; in the third a lark tumbling through the air above a rose grown above a green garden; the fourth was empty.
The fourth corner waited. When Lark had last looked, it had been filled with endless promise and potential. She had planned to add a lark nosing a rose blossom beside a loom of silk thread (cornflower blue) and a suraku box holding a brass tree, briar and rose vines climbing up the garden wall to where a proud shakkan would sit with the background of a powerful storm cloud and a starling.
Lark’s tear joined the rain surrounding the lone bird. One finger stroked the corner in remembrance of past pain she could now feel magnified within her chest. Her other hand pressed against the soaring bird and the flower emerging from the verdant garden.
She forced herself to look at the fourth corner, the empty corner that had captured her ideas of the future—of life and love and family. It was nothing without the rose. The cotton embraced her cheek as she fell forward, nose and wet eyes pressed into the material that she gathered in her arms in a cocoon around herself.
Numb. She’d give anything—anything but Rosie, who was already close to gone—to feel numb again, in lieu at least of the joy she feared she would never feel again. Her Rosie was dying, her Rosie who was younger in years and stronger in heart, braver within her breast and more tender yet in her tendencies; her Rosie was dying.
But the numbness did not come as she fingered the empty quilt corner that had somehow landed upon her face, forcing this future into her sight.
“May all gardens be a mess for you to tame, my Rosie—my love,” Lark cried into the empty corner, kissing it with tear-wetted lips. “And may you be numb at the end, lest it would bring you pain; for though you would cope with courage, I am not so strong. Let us be numb, the both of us.”
Rating: G
Genre: Pain
Warnings: Character near-death, mention of ED
Type: Femslash
Wordcount: ~600
Characters: Lark (/ Rosethorn)
Summary: "...Let us be numb, the both of us."
Notes: This is for the first row of the LJ femslash_land 'Controlled Bang', based on a table from LJ 100_prompts community. Written for the third prompt, 'numb'; the second story I'll have to give a miss since it's NC-17 (;. UN-BETA’D. I am told the Emelan section is always looking for more fic, so I'm going against my personal grain and continuing to post my work... I apologise, Lark, for your pain - though it seems a little unavoidable given the circumstances.
Lark was accustomed to the unique and upsetting sensation of numbness.
She had felt it after a week with no rations when one of the base acrobats insinuated she had had more than her share and it compromised his ability to lift her. She had felt it after weeks of travel through rain, rain and further rain. She had felt it when her feet betrayed her mid-show and she fell to the floor unable to stand, not for her body but for her lungs which could not take in air, and her troupe Master told her there would be no more tumbling, dancing or acrobatics for her. She had felt it when Yazmin did not stand by her side in Summersea, grasping her hand while her troupe and all she had known danced on without her. She had felt it in the Mire when the little food she received was reminiscent of the Mire mud, thick and dirty and useless as she had become.
Those times had been terror, she had thought.
Lark had not known terror then.
She wished nothing more than to feel it—or not feel it—as she fingered the quilt spread over her knees. In one corner, a lone lark in the rain; in another a solitary rose growing through mud; in the third a lark tumbling through the air above a rose grown above a green garden; the fourth was empty.
The fourth corner waited. When Lark had last looked, it had been filled with endless promise and potential. She had planned to add a lark nosing a rose blossom beside a loom of silk thread (cornflower blue) and a suraku box holding a brass tree, briar and rose vines climbing up the garden wall to where a proud shakkan would sit with the background of a powerful storm cloud and a starling.
Lark’s tear joined the rain surrounding the lone bird. One finger stroked the corner in remembrance of past pain she could now feel magnified within her chest. Her other hand pressed against the soaring bird and the flower emerging from the verdant garden.
She forced herself to look at the fourth corner, the empty corner that had captured her ideas of the future—of life and love and family. It was nothing without the rose. The cotton embraced her cheek as she fell forward, nose and wet eyes pressed into the material that she gathered in her arms in a cocoon around herself.
Numb. She’d give anything—anything but Rosie, who was already close to gone—to feel numb again, in lieu at least of the joy she feared she would never feel again. Her Rosie was dying, her Rosie who was younger in years and stronger in heart, braver within her breast and more tender yet in her tendencies; her Rosie was dying.
But the numbness did not come as she fingered the empty quilt corner that had somehow landed upon her face, forcing this future into her sight.
“May all gardens be a mess for you to tame, my Rosie—my love,” Lark cried into the empty corner, kissing it with tear-wetted lips. “And may you be numb at the end, lest it would bring you pain; for though you would cope with courage, I am not so strong. Let us be numb, the both of us.”