the androgynous keeper of plushfrogs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crossfortune) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic2016-02-01 02:02 am
crossfortune) wrote in rainbowfic2016-02-01 02:02 am
Entry tags:
like ribbons worn bright;
Name: Mischa
Story: the empty throne
Colors: bistre (There was life, in all its messy splendor. And always and always, there was love), Side B (Run for the shadows in these golden years → Golden Years (Station to Station), spark (you said we were the real thing)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 546
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none, I think?
Summary: Daiyu watches Lihua as she sews.
notes: another awkward creative writing class prompt.
Daiyu has never had the patience for fine delicate work: instead, she puts her energy into training with the sword, and is regularly amazed by needlework and calligraphy, both beautiful tasks beyond her limited capabilities. The delicacy of the silken thread, in so many colors, catches on the roughness of her sword-callused fingers: it’s beautiful thread, and she likes looking at the colors, but it’s not for her to ever work with.
She watches her lady as she bends her head over her sewing, slender graceful fingers clever with her needle in ways that Daiyu will never be. Lotus flowers and lilies blossom beneath Lihua’s fingers,as she sews luck and fortune into every stitch, even if most ritual magic is beyond her ability to command and Daiyu doesn’t like thinking about whatever strange power Lihua had bargained for with the Lord of Silence and what price she would someday have to pay to wield it. A price that Daiyu would pay for her, a thousand times over, but all she can do is someday die for her, a destiny she’d known and accepted from the moment she’d laid eyes on her, the fate that hangs over her head all the days of her life.
(a trilling laugh, the bright spinning of a thrown coin catching sunlight at the height of its arc, but she never sees it fall-
but not yet. not yet. not yet. someday, but not yet-)
“What are you making, Princess?” Daiyu asks, as she removes the greatsword from her back and sets it aside. The weight and length and arc in her hands is different from the longsword she’d trained in all her life, and it’s still strange, despite all the lessons Jun was giving her. The idea of a sellsword who followed the chained god of justice, who only pledged his services to a cause he found just, was still more than a little odd, but as far as she can tell, he truly follows the path.
To walk the path is hard. Justice demands sacrifice. Secrets demand suffering. his words, deep-voiced and rough, echo in her head, and it’s a path she’s been raised to follow her whole life, with the lullabies her mother had sung to her in the cradle of justice, of a broken world someday set to rights, and maybe, just maybe-
Lihua looks up from her work and smiles: it’s a genuine smile, or so Daiyu likes to think, but Lihua’s masks are flawless, especially in her brother’s court. Her thoughts and plans are hidden beneath the mask of the quiet, pious princess who is utterly no threat, and sometimes, Daiyu’s certain that Lihua forgets that she can just be herself around her.
“It’s a gift,” Lihua says, and holds the dress up to the light and smiles, as she offers it to her. “Do you think that this will fit you, Daiyu?”
I’m the one that’s supposed to protect you, not the other way around- Daiyu wants to protest, but she takes the dress, the embroidery soft and smooth beneath her fingers, and Lihua smiles, quick and bright. .
(Daiyu would die a thousand times over to preserve that smile: she would die a thousand times over, but she only has one life to give)
Story: the empty throne
Colors: bistre (There was life, in all its messy splendor. And always and always, there was love), Side B (Run for the shadows in these golden years → Golden Years (Station to Station), spark (you said we were the real thing)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 546
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none, I think?
Summary: Daiyu watches Lihua as she sews.
notes: another awkward creative writing class prompt.
Daiyu has never had the patience for fine delicate work: instead, she puts her energy into training with the sword, and is regularly amazed by needlework and calligraphy, both beautiful tasks beyond her limited capabilities. The delicacy of the silken thread, in so many colors, catches on the roughness of her sword-callused fingers: it’s beautiful thread, and she likes looking at the colors, but it’s not for her to ever work with.
She watches her lady as she bends her head over her sewing, slender graceful fingers clever with her needle in ways that Daiyu will never be. Lotus flowers and lilies blossom beneath Lihua’s fingers,as she sews luck and fortune into every stitch, even if most ritual magic is beyond her ability to command and Daiyu doesn’t like thinking about whatever strange power Lihua had bargained for with the Lord of Silence and what price she would someday have to pay to wield it. A price that Daiyu would pay for her, a thousand times over, but all she can do is someday die for her, a destiny she’d known and accepted from the moment she’d laid eyes on her, the fate that hangs over her head all the days of her life.
(a trilling laugh, the bright spinning of a thrown coin catching sunlight at the height of its arc, but she never sees it fall-
but not yet. not yet. not yet. someday, but not yet-)
“What are you making, Princess?” Daiyu asks, as she removes the greatsword from her back and sets it aside. The weight and length and arc in her hands is different from the longsword she’d trained in all her life, and it’s still strange, despite all the lessons Jun was giving her. The idea of a sellsword who followed the chained god of justice, who only pledged his services to a cause he found just, was still more than a little odd, but as far as she can tell, he truly follows the path.
To walk the path is hard. Justice demands sacrifice. Secrets demand suffering. his words, deep-voiced and rough, echo in her head, and it’s a path she’s been raised to follow her whole life, with the lullabies her mother had sung to her in the cradle of justice, of a broken world someday set to rights, and maybe, just maybe-
Lihua looks up from her work and smiles: it’s a genuine smile, or so Daiyu likes to think, but Lihua’s masks are flawless, especially in her brother’s court. Her thoughts and plans are hidden beneath the mask of the quiet, pious princess who is utterly no threat, and sometimes, Daiyu’s certain that Lihua forgets that she can just be herself around her.
“It’s a gift,” Lihua says, and holds the dress up to the light and smiles, as she offers it to her. “Do you think that this will fit you, Daiyu?”
I’m the one that’s supposed to protect you, not the other way around- Daiyu wants to protest, but she takes the dress, the embroidery soft and smooth beneath her fingers, and Lihua smiles, quick and bright. .
(Daiyu would die a thousand times over to preserve that smile: she would die a thousand times over, but she only has one life to give)