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rainbowfic2015-02-03 12:36 am
crossfortune) wrote in rainbowfic2015-02-03 12:36 am
Entry tags:
the meaning of duty
Name: Mischa
Story: tales from the drowned world
Colors: halloween orange (While he just might tell you stories, he won't ever tell you lies.), white opal (reverie/daydream), dove grey (He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man)
Supplies and Styles: canvas
Word Count: 856 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: intended suicide
Summary: Love is sacrifice. Neha of House Taviot and a lesson her brother taught her.
Notes:
The first thing Neha remembers about her elder brother is him sitting by her bedside, telling her a story: the curve of his smile as his hand lay over the closed book, his watchful eyes. It was like a little ritual: he’d sit by her bedside at night to tell her stories, all the little things her tutors might miss in her lessons, and she always asks for the same story. There’s a thousand and more stories about the gods, but her favorite is always the same: how the Eight Above defeated the One Below, defeated and imprisoned him after he tried to drown the world entire and began the war that would break the world.
“...and their battle shook all heaven and all earth,” Kyrion said, his hands gesturing to illustrate, the shadows thrown stark against the wall. “All the gods fought, and even the All-Compassionate took up hir mace alongside hir siblings -”
“I thought the Thousand-Faced didn’t ever fight?” Neha asks: she’s heard this story a thousand times, but she always asks, every time, because it’s hard for her to reconcile Tanit’s gentle white-robed priests, the statues of the beautiful, serenely smiling deity with a thousand faces, who never appears the same to anyone, with the story. Mercy, love, and infinite compassion.
“This once,” he says, his voice low and intense. “And never again.”
Every other time she can remember, she’s let him go on telling the story from here, didn’t interrupt him: but she’s old enough now to ask her own questions, try to gain an understanding of her own.
“Why?” she asks. “Tanit is love. Why would love fight?”
“Love is sacrifice.” Kyrion says, and she can’t quite catch the undertone in his voice, not at first. “That is why Tanit fought. That is why Father, at the last, ripped his own eye out and cast it away in order to keep fighting until the end.”
Her brother turns his face away for a moment, the shadows slanting across his dark skin. “And that is what we are called on to do, sister. Love is sacrifice. All of us born of the Houses, but us most especially: our duty in this world.”
He stands, tall even in the darkness, and blows out the candle. “Good night, Neha. Think on that,” he says, as he walks towards the door.
She thinks about it, afterwards, but doesn’t understand. Doesn’t understand until after the storm, when Kyrion had channeled their father to save them all and somehow lived: it’s only then what she truly understands what her brother had meant by ‘love is sacrifice’, but she never has the chance to tell him. He’s too sick, at first, only barely able to be saved: then he’s hurting, grieving and broken, and she can’t find the words to tell him she understands. There’s time, she thinks: when she’s older and has the words, when time puts distance between him and his grief.
And then the Emperor exiles him, and there’s no time at all.
Kyrion smiles, slow and tired, and it doesn’t reach his eyes as he sets aside his cane and kneels, slowly, as she clings to him and cries, quietly, because she knows that she might never see her brother again. Because he can never, ever come back to the capital, and it isn’t in their, his, nature to sit quietly at their family’s lands at the sea-cliffs to the east: he’s half-blind and limping, but he can still fight, with the storm in his blood like it runs in theirs, and she knows what he’s going off to do.
All the Houses sit between the people and the sea: her brother had taught her that, that in return for their power to reign, that it was their duty to protect, to die, if need be to hold back the tide. And all the more for them, the children of war and storms, the children of the First: she knows.
“You have to be strong, Neha, stronger than I ever was.” he says - and that’s a lie, because how could she be as strong and brave as him, who had strode headfirst into battle, had channeled Father to save them all- , and strokes her hair. “I believe in you. Be a good daughter to Father.”
After a moment, she swallows her tears, rubs her eyes with one sleeve. “I will. I promise, brother.”
Kyrion straightens, picks up his cane: the time for parting is near, and the tide waits for no one, even for the children of the gods. “Goodbye, sister.” he says, and strides away towards the ship, his back straight even in pain, though his walk will never be the same. He looks back for only a moment, standing by the railing, his long dark blue hair blowing in the breeze as the sailors hurry about to cast off. His blue eye is fixed on her, as he raises his hand in one final salute and then turns away.
“Goodbye, brother.” Neha murmurs, under her breath, when the ship is finally out of sight, and turns her face towards the setting sun.
Story: tales from the drowned world
Colors: halloween orange (While he just might tell you stories, he won't ever tell you lies.), white opal (reverie/daydream), dove grey (He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man)
Supplies and Styles: canvas
Word Count: 856 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: intended suicide
Summary: Love is sacrifice. Neha of House Taviot and a lesson her brother taught her.
Notes:
The first thing Neha remembers about her elder brother is him sitting by her bedside, telling her a story: the curve of his smile as his hand lay over the closed book, his watchful eyes. It was like a little ritual: he’d sit by her bedside at night to tell her stories, all the little things her tutors might miss in her lessons, and she always asks for the same story. There’s a thousand and more stories about the gods, but her favorite is always the same: how the Eight Above defeated the One Below, defeated and imprisoned him after he tried to drown the world entire and began the war that would break the world.
“...and their battle shook all heaven and all earth,” Kyrion said, his hands gesturing to illustrate, the shadows thrown stark against the wall. “All the gods fought, and even the All-Compassionate took up hir mace alongside hir siblings -”
“I thought the Thousand-Faced didn’t ever fight?” Neha asks: she’s heard this story a thousand times, but she always asks, every time, because it’s hard for her to reconcile Tanit’s gentle white-robed priests, the statues of the beautiful, serenely smiling deity with a thousand faces, who never appears the same to anyone, with the story. Mercy, love, and infinite compassion.
“This once,” he says, his voice low and intense. “And never again.”
Every other time she can remember, she’s let him go on telling the story from here, didn’t interrupt him: but she’s old enough now to ask her own questions, try to gain an understanding of her own.
“Why?” she asks. “Tanit is love. Why would love fight?”
“Love is sacrifice.” Kyrion says, and she can’t quite catch the undertone in his voice, not at first. “That is why Tanit fought. That is why Father, at the last, ripped his own eye out and cast it away in order to keep fighting until the end.”
Her brother turns his face away for a moment, the shadows slanting across his dark skin. “And that is what we are called on to do, sister. Love is sacrifice. All of us born of the Houses, but us most especially: our duty in this world.”
He stands, tall even in the darkness, and blows out the candle. “Good night, Neha. Think on that,” he says, as he walks towards the door.
She thinks about it, afterwards, but doesn’t understand. Doesn’t understand until after the storm, when Kyrion had channeled their father to save them all and somehow lived: it’s only then what she truly understands what her brother had meant by ‘love is sacrifice’, but she never has the chance to tell him. He’s too sick, at first, only barely able to be saved: then he’s hurting, grieving and broken, and she can’t find the words to tell him she understands. There’s time, she thinks: when she’s older and has the words, when time puts distance between him and his grief.
And then the Emperor exiles him, and there’s no time at all.
Kyrion smiles, slow and tired, and it doesn’t reach his eyes as he sets aside his cane and kneels, slowly, as she clings to him and cries, quietly, because she knows that she might never see her brother again. Because he can never, ever come back to the capital, and it isn’t in their, his, nature to sit quietly at their family’s lands at the sea-cliffs to the east: he’s half-blind and limping, but he can still fight, with the storm in his blood like it runs in theirs, and she knows what he’s going off to do.
All the Houses sit between the people and the sea: her brother had taught her that, that in return for their power to reign, that it was their duty to protect, to die, if need be to hold back the tide. And all the more for them, the children of war and storms, the children of the First: she knows.
“You have to be strong, Neha, stronger than I ever was.” he says - and that’s a lie, because how could she be as strong and brave as him, who had strode headfirst into battle, had channeled Father to save them all- , and strokes her hair. “I believe in you. Be a good daughter to Father.”
After a moment, she swallows her tears, rubs her eyes with one sleeve. “I will. I promise, brother.”
Kyrion straightens, picks up his cane: the time for parting is near, and the tide waits for no one, even for the children of the gods. “Goodbye, sister.” he says, and strides away towards the ship, his back straight even in pain, though his walk will never be the same. He looks back for only a moment, standing by the railing, his long dark blue hair blowing in the breeze as the sailors hurry about to cast off. His blue eye is fixed on her, as he raises his hand in one final salute and then turns away.
“Goodbye, brother.” Neha murmurs, under her breath, when the ship is finally out of sight, and turns her face towards the setting sun.