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rainbowfic2015-03-16 08:40 pm
shadowsong26) wrote in rainbowfic2015-03-16 08:40 pm
Entry tags:
- author: shadowsong26 supreme whumpmaster,
- color: canary yellow,
- color: french grey,
- story: feredar,
- style: miniature collection,
- style: photography,
- style: saturation,
- supply: brush,
- supply: charcoal,
- supply: eraser,
- supply: fabric,
- supply: glue,
- supply: novelty beads,
- supply: stain,
- supply: stickers,
- supply: yarn
Canary Yellow, French Grey #26
Name: shadowsong26
Story: The All-Seeing Queen
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Canary Yellow, French Grey #26. You call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call it selfishness.
Supplies and Materials: photography, miniature collection, saturation, eraser (Evil Kira AU), brush (rhadamanthine), stain, stickers (Moondust smells like gunpowder.), fabric, charcoal (in this AU), novelty beads (stop it before it starts), yarn, glue ("It's time to take your work to the next level, no matter how much you have already accomplished. Unfortunately, you can't just wish your way up the ladder of success. You must be persistent while demonstrating your competence. But if you do encounter an insurmountable problem, just view it as a sign that you must make a fundamental change to your current strategy before proceeding further. It's much more effective to have your ducks in a row prior to attempting to manifest your dreams.")
Word Count: 1000
Rating: R
Characters: Kirana
Warnings: One direct familial murder, one indirect but explicit, one heavily implied, plus several other discussed wars/murders/assassinations, obliquely referenced genocide, discussed potential fratricide unrelated to the other three familial murders. That should be everything. If I missed anything, please let me know.
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Evil Kira does not mess around. There is a reason I usually don't let her out of her temple.
3. The eyes like sentinel occupy the highest place on the body.
It is not an easy thing, omniscience.
Oh, true, I’m not completely omniscient. I can only see the future, not the past, not the immediate present--fire lights the way forward, after all.
But knowing the future--knowing, with effort, every future…I don’t understand how past seers, the ones I studied, could be so passive.
It isn’t an easy thing. I don’t know how I could have lived with myself, if I hadn’t chosen to take control, to make sure the future would be a good one, for as many as possible, to actively prevent a bad one from coming.
8. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths; it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden the best evidence we can give of our dignity.
It took me years to learn how to sort my visions by probability, by urgency, by long-term consequence. At first, once I opened myself completely--once I decided it was my responsibility to save the world--what I saw was overwhelming. I think it would have driven a lesser girl mad.
But, slowly, carefully, I learned the future’s shorthand. I learned which threads were inconsequential, and I learned which were hiding but binding others fast. I learned how to pull and push and weave and sew, to keep Time’s web ordered and beautiful.
I learned how to save the world.
10. The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel.
My mother--ah, my mother. I admire her, though I’ve always known what she is.
But there is no place for her in my world. A shame--I could find use her talents so well, if I could find just the slightest hint of kindness or submission in her.
But I can’t. That is not in her nature.
And it is not in mine to allow a creature like her to gain power, no matter how she might wield it.
I like to think, though, that she would have been proud of me, had she lived to see me rule.
2. We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.
The problem was never Sorell. Sorell was reasonable, to a point. He would probably negotiate to avoid a war, and, at the time, I was naïve enough to think that that would do, that I could turn a blind eye to his internal cruelties.
The problem wasn’t even Kellom. Kellom was too extreme. If I let him inherit, his reign would be hellish--but unsustainable.
But Andrell was a problem--far too principled, and a potential source of resistance. So, I had to make sure Kellom died before he could kill Mellir, who was manageable--my path to peace in Feredar.
1. Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.
The hardest thing I have ever had to do was send Isshiri to his death.
It was necessary, of course--if I learned one thing from Mother, it was to always have a good reason for such extremity.
And Isshiri was the spark that set the world on fire. Every future I saw, he was the catalyst. But if he survived that first explosion, he was always--always--the spark for a successful rebellion years later.
I loved my brother, and I hated doing it. But if I hadn’t sent him to his death, he would have brought me down.
6. The loss of reason in war seems to me honorable, like the death of a sentry at his post.
Maintaining stability is all about explosions--carefully controlled ones. Because people are people, and they will explode. It’s just a matter of making sure that happens when and where I want it to.
Which is why, for all their unpredictability, I need the firebrands--the heroes, like Taz Hantree, all guts and gold and glory, and the villains, like Tana of Feredar, all passion and pride and perversion.
So I keep them alive, and I steer them where they’re useful. Because Taz and Tana and all the others like them provide an outlet for the natural instability of human nature.
4. Spies were kept in advance and strict diligence observed in the duty of sentinels.
Riluke isn’t a threat; she’s more interested in safeguarding the Crystal Throne than in taking a principled stand against the person controlling it. Otherwise, she would have tried to kill my mother years ago.
Princess Sola of Feredar could become a problem. She has a skill and appetite for intrigue to match my cousin, without any natural loyalty to me.
Removing her, though, would be a mistake--she keeps the factions in Feredar balanced. So, instead, we watch one another, wary and ever scheming.
I need her more than I fear her--every peace-loving conqueror needs a talented native spy.
7. Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.
I keep my father close for, I think, the same reason my mother wanted him. Or, part of the same reason, anyway. Because my father is a kind man, and my measure for when I grow too cruel.
The deaths hit him hard. My poor father loves so strongly. But I don’t think he ever realized how much I had to do with them.
So, while he knows very little of what I do, and I never plan on telling him, I can watch his reactions, and use them know when I need to take a step back and reassess.
5. The man who says his evening prayer is like a captain posting his sentinels. He can sleep.
I clung to my faith--to my position in the temple--for as long as possible, though I could have left when I started ruling; I hadn’t yet taken my vows. But I always wanted to be a priestess. Besides, my sister was more suited to being Queen than I, or so I thought at the time. I thought advising her would be best.
But in the end, ruling that way wasn’t fast enough--guiding her was getting harder. I think she resented being my puppet, in the end.
I should have taken direct power sooner. I regret that now.
9. The peculiarity of prudery is to multiply sentinels, in proportion as the fortress is less threatened.
The world I’ve built is a simple one. Rather than being divided into dozens of small nations, all jockeying for power, I have split the continent into simply East and West, each with its head under my authority.
I have kept the former nations as provinces within my kingdom, and so long as they do not rebel or make war upon each other, I am magnanimous.
By the time I am gone--even I cannot last forever--I think they’ll have learned. I think they will no longer need their all-seeing Queen, watching over her world, and keeping them safe.
Story: The All-Seeing Queen
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Canary Yellow, French Grey #26. You call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call it selfishness.
Supplies and Materials: photography, miniature collection, saturation, eraser (Evil Kira AU), brush (rhadamanthine), stain, stickers (Moondust smells like gunpowder.), fabric, charcoal (in this AU), novelty beads (stop it before it starts), yarn, glue ("It's time to take your work to the next level, no matter how much you have already accomplished. Unfortunately, you can't just wish your way up the ladder of success. You must be persistent while demonstrating your competence. But if you do encounter an insurmountable problem, just view it as a sign that you must make a fundamental change to your current strategy before proceeding further. It's much more effective to have your ducks in a row prior to attempting to manifest your dreams.")
Word Count: 1000
Rating: R
Characters: Kirana
Warnings: One direct familial murder, one indirect but explicit, one heavily implied, plus several other discussed wars/murders/assassinations, obliquely referenced genocide, discussed potential fratricide unrelated to the other three familial murders. That should be everything. If I missed anything, please let me know.
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Evil Kira does not mess around. There is a reason I usually don't let her out of her temple.
3. The eyes like sentinel occupy the highest place on the body.
It is not an easy thing, omniscience.
Oh, true, I’m not completely omniscient. I can only see the future, not the past, not the immediate present--fire lights the way forward, after all.
But knowing the future--knowing, with effort, every future…I don’t understand how past seers, the ones I studied, could be so passive.
It isn’t an easy thing. I don’t know how I could have lived with myself, if I hadn’t chosen to take control, to make sure the future would be a good one, for as many as possible, to actively prevent a bad one from coming.
8. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths; it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden the best evidence we can give of our dignity.
It took me years to learn how to sort my visions by probability, by urgency, by long-term consequence. At first, once I opened myself completely--once I decided it was my responsibility to save the world--what I saw was overwhelming. I think it would have driven a lesser girl mad.
But, slowly, carefully, I learned the future’s shorthand. I learned which threads were inconsequential, and I learned which were hiding but binding others fast. I learned how to pull and push and weave and sew, to keep Time’s web ordered and beautiful.
I learned how to save the world.
10. The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel.
My mother--ah, my mother. I admire her, though I’ve always known what she is.
But there is no place for her in my world. A shame--I could find use her talents so well, if I could find just the slightest hint of kindness or submission in her.
But I can’t. That is not in her nature.
And it is not in mine to allow a creature like her to gain power, no matter how she might wield it.
I like to think, though, that she would have been proud of me, had she lived to see me rule.
2. We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.
The problem was never Sorell. Sorell was reasonable, to a point. He would probably negotiate to avoid a war, and, at the time, I was naïve enough to think that that would do, that I could turn a blind eye to his internal cruelties.
The problem wasn’t even Kellom. Kellom was too extreme. If I let him inherit, his reign would be hellish--but unsustainable.
But Andrell was a problem--far too principled, and a potential source of resistance. So, I had to make sure Kellom died before he could kill Mellir, who was manageable--my path to peace in Feredar.
1. Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.
The hardest thing I have ever had to do was send Isshiri to his death.
It was necessary, of course--if I learned one thing from Mother, it was to always have a good reason for such extremity.
And Isshiri was the spark that set the world on fire. Every future I saw, he was the catalyst. But if he survived that first explosion, he was always--always--the spark for a successful rebellion years later.
I loved my brother, and I hated doing it. But if I hadn’t sent him to his death, he would have brought me down.
6. The loss of reason in war seems to me honorable, like the death of a sentry at his post.
Maintaining stability is all about explosions--carefully controlled ones. Because people are people, and they will explode. It’s just a matter of making sure that happens when and where I want it to.
Which is why, for all their unpredictability, I need the firebrands--the heroes, like Taz Hantree, all guts and gold and glory, and the villains, like Tana of Feredar, all passion and pride and perversion.
So I keep them alive, and I steer them where they’re useful. Because Taz and Tana and all the others like them provide an outlet for the natural instability of human nature.
4. Spies were kept in advance and strict diligence observed in the duty of sentinels.
Riluke isn’t a threat; she’s more interested in safeguarding the Crystal Throne than in taking a principled stand against the person controlling it. Otherwise, she would have tried to kill my mother years ago.
Princess Sola of Feredar could become a problem. She has a skill and appetite for intrigue to match my cousin, without any natural loyalty to me.
Removing her, though, would be a mistake--she keeps the factions in Feredar balanced. So, instead, we watch one another, wary and ever scheming.
I need her more than I fear her--every peace-loving conqueror needs a talented native spy.
7. Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.
I keep my father close for, I think, the same reason my mother wanted him. Or, part of the same reason, anyway. Because my father is a kind man, and my measure for when I grow too cruel.
The deaths hit him hard. My poor father loves so strongly. But I don’t think he ever realized how much I had to do with them.
So, while he knows very little of what I do, and I never plan on telling him, I can watch his reactions, and use them know when I need to take a step back and reassess.
5. The man who says his evening prayer is like a captain posting his sentinels. He can sleep.
I clung to my faith--to my position in the temple--for as long as possible, though I could have left when I started ruling; I hadn’t yet taken my vows. But I always wanted to be a priestess. Besides, my sister was more suited to being Queen than I, or so I thought at the time. I thought advising her would be best.
But in the end, ruling that way wasn’t fast enough--guiding her was getting harder. I think she resented being my puppet, in the end.
I should have taken direct power sooner. I regret that now.
9. The peculiarity of prudery is to multiply sentinels, in proportion as the fortress is less threatened.
The world I’ve built is a simple one. Rather than being divided into dozens of small nations, all jockeying for power, I have split the continent into simply East and West, each with its head under my authority.
I have kept the former nations as provinces within my kingdom, and so long as they do not rebel or make war upon each other, I am magnanimous.
By the time I am gone--even I cannot last forever--I think they’ll have learned. I think they will no longer need their all-seeing Queen, watching over her world, and keeping them safe.
no subject
I like this AU. I mean, compared to the Kirana I know.
This is still her! It absolutely is! But, it's so much else and watching her move knife-edge through her own family was /very/ entertaining.
no subject
Yeah, Kirana is...terrifying and badass in this AU. Because she does not choose to restrain herself, and she somehow manages to combine her mother's ruthlessness with a genuine sense of compassion/desire to do good. So...yeah. She's a benevolent dictator, for the most part, anyway? Even if she murders her mom, her brother, and probably her sister...yeah...
no subject
no subject
Well, Kesshare would be torn between proud of her youngest child and annoyed that said youngest child usurped her...but, yes.
And you're probably right. Maybe I should rename this AU. Active Kira? Empress Kira? IDK. I'll think of something...