Post by Shhasow on Mar 20, 2011 8:24:08 GMT 10
Title: Last Voice
Rating: PG
Word Count: 193
Pairing: Jon/Zahir
Round/Fight: 1A
Summary: A cacophony of anguish heralds a death. Rating for character death.
Zahir sighed and waved a sharp hand. “Begin again,” he ordered, and the young man perched on a rickety stool restarted his recitation, shoulders slumped. Zahir absently scratched the short beard on his chin, now shot through with gray after so many years.
Suddenly, a voice in his mind cried out just once, then fell silent. As it died away, the sorrow of a thousand thousand voices rang in his mind, and he clasped his hands to his ears in a futile attempt to block out the mental agony. The pain drove him to his knees, and he gasped for air through the band that constricted his chest.
Slowly, the piercing pain receded enough for him to realize that his young apprentice knelt at his side, tears hanging onto the ends of his eyelashes. His voice had been in the second cacophony, echoed by all the Bazhir, living and dead, as they felt the previous Voice die away and his last cry to his people.
Zahir slowly regained his feet, and he looked at the man - boy, really - with red-rimmed eyes.
“King Jonathan is dead,” he whispered. “Long live King Roald.”
QC by: greenie
Rating: PG
Word Count: 193
Pairing: Jon/Zahir
Round/Fight: 1A
Summary: A cacophony of anguish heralds a death. Rating for character death.
Zahir sighed and waved a sharp hand. “Begin again,” he ordered, and the young man perched on a rickety stool restarted his recitation, shoulders slumped. Zahir absently scratched the short beard on his chin, now shot through with gray after so many years.
Suddenly, a voice in his mind cried out just once, then fell silent. As it died away, the sorrow of a thousand thousand voices rang in his mind, and he clasped his hands to his ears in a futile attempt to block out the mental agony. The pain drove him to his knees, and he gasped for air through the band that constricted his chest.
Slowly, the piercing pain receded enough for him to realize that his young apprentice knelt at his side, tears hanging onto the ends of his eyelashes. His voice had been in the second cacophony, echoed by all the Bazhir, living and dead, as they felt the previous Voice die away and his last cry to his people.
Zahir slowly regained his feet, and he looked at the man - boy, really - with red-rimmed eyes.
“King Jonathan is dead,” he whispered. “Long live King Roald.”
QC by: greenie
I really love the impact of the ending though. There's something left hanging, which gives a very discordant feel to what should seem to be Zahir's calm acceptance of Jon's death.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!