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rainbowfic2012-04-15 02:38 pm
settecorvi) wrote in rainbowfic2012-04-15 02:38 pm
Danish Red saturation, Tyrian Purple #1
Name: Chel
Story: Demiurge, Mar’s Mirror
Colors: Danish Red saturation, Tyrian Purple #1 (chained to a rock)
Supplies and Styles: pastels (slavery), eraser (Mar’s mirror AU), miniature collection, saturation, graffiti (resurrection challenge, eraser)
Wordcount: 1,000
Summary: Mar wins. Nothing is beautiful and everything hurts.
Rating: R
Warnings: Physical and mental torture, threat of torture, murder, rape, identity erasure, suicide-by-proxy. Not described in gory detail, mostly, but they’re there.
Notes: Could I get a color tag, please? Criticism is deeply appreciated! What didn’t work for you, or could be improved?
4. princess and the pea
Knives, she thinks. Then she looks closer, past Kaadi holding a scalpel to her own throat, past Heshirianth’s terrible limpness. Maraine’s corona crowns her in a coruscating cloud of sharp-edged shards. She realizes the riddle’s answer far too late.
How does a corona change form?
If it’s only reflecting what you expect to see.
Mar thinks in mirrors.
“Darling, just in time. I was getting bored.”
“Let them go.” Pleading will please her, it’s what she expects. “I’ll beg on my knees, only release them.”
“That’s a lovely offer, but they shouldn’t miss this. I have such plans for you.”
2. the snow queen
Mar’s fingers whisper along her cheek, tip her chin up, and she refuses to shudder under the touch.
“Look at me.”
In the darkness behind her eyelids, Mar’s corona glints, Kaadi’s burns. She can’t find Heshirianth. Mar’s thumb traces her cheekbone and digs in under her eye.
“Let me in, or I’ll pluck your eyes out and have your daen eat them.”
Kaadi’s answering snarl cuts off with a whimper.
“I can have her slit her throat. Would you like to listen to her drown in her own blood?”
Naveed meets her eyes. Mar’s smile is sharp as her thoughts.
1. little mermaid
“No. No, no, certainly not. Ugh, no!”
Mar laughs and shakes her head and shatters another sandstone wall. The scream wrenches itself from Naveed so sharply something tears in her throat. Memories rip free from their moorings and whirl away into the rubble. Mar shreds a shield of fire and glass, unravels a guardian construct with scarcely a pause. She is inexorable, and she is gaining.
“We’ll need to do some serious remodeling here, but don’t worry,” she calls. “I’ll show you the way home. You’re going to be my masterpiece.”
Naveed’s mind falls around her, and she can only flee.
7. ugly duckling
She stands at bay on the shore of an underground lake so deep and dark and still it seems more glass than water. Mar’s lips part softly when she sees it.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Oh, yes. See how you were made for me?”
Mar steps forward and Naveed stumbles back into the shallows, ripples spreading from her feet. Step and retreat, step and retreat, until she stands hip-deep and wavelets lap at Mar’s toes.
“You poor, precious thing,” Mar croons. “Don’t fear me. I’ll make you better. I’ll make you shine.”
Mar touches the water, and it begins to silver.
9. wild swans
The mirrors spread like cancer, like a flower unfurling razored petals through the halls of her mind as the days blur into one another. Mar is patient and achingly thorough. She walks each room and corridor, fingertips trailing along the walls, and traceries of mirrors bloom from her touch like frost. An infinity of reflections pace behind her. They fill every corner until space remains for nothing else.
This one had a name once, she knows that, but she reaches for it and finds only glass-smooth silence. A voice breaks it, asks:
“What are you?”
“Yours.”
“My what?”
“Your reflection.”
5. the nightingale
Life is very simple now, clean and lovely as a razor’s edge. Mar tells her kill and she kills. Mar says interrogate and she drags secretes from minds and lips, and the charred ruins left behind and the blood under her fingernails don’t bother her because Mar wouldn’t like it.
The mindreavers fall into line, after she burns the troublemakers’ architecture to ash. With them, it’s easy to slip into the royal chambers and plant a glinting seed in Her Imperial Radiance’s mind.
Mar smiles when the Empress kneels before her, and at her right hand, her Mirror reflects it.
10. red shoes
After, cradled in her Radiance’s bed, Mar holds her Mirror’s face between her hands and presses their foreheads together.
She whispers, “Haven’t I done enough for you? Haven’t I placed you by my side, healed all your flaws? So why don’t you love me?”
“I do!”
Mar’s hands tighten in her hair until strands tear loose.
“Why won’t you respond? Don’t you want to please me?”
“Of course,” she protests. “Before—” Mentioning before is wrong, and Mar takes language from her.
“I did want a challenge,” Mar allows, and pushes her back again.
This, at least, allows her to scream.
3. the emperor’s new clothes
She reduces the other rebels to drooling wrecks quickly, but these two knows how reavers work, and the Mirror can’t catch their eyes.
“Naveed?” Kadithkirith calls. She’s been repeating the word since the Mirror arrived. “Naveed, are you still in there?”
“Of course,” she offers. At this point she’d claim to be a teapot to break the stalemate.
“Very convincing,” the other mutters.
“Shut it, Ionne. Naveed, you remember siadan, right? The family you chose?
“Heshirianth’s dead, Naveed.”
In the silent, silver expanse of her mind, something stirs and rises from behind the glass, a leviathan rushing towards the surface.
6. steadfast tin soldier
Ionne hasn’t stopped pacing between the Mirror and Kadithkirith since they caught her. The Mirror can’t remember how that happened, and it bothers her more than being bound.
Kadi doesn’t know the meaning of futility, she never has.
“Naveed-“
“Stop saying that word!”
It’s a little-known fact that mindreavers don’t need eye contact to enter someone’s architecture, if they’re close enough and good enough. Ionne meets one criterion, the Mirror the other. She lances down to the level of vital functions, where the machinery sustaining life thrums. She destroys motor control first, and Ionne collapses bonelessly.
“Let’s make a deal.”
8. little match girl
“I’ll cut her respiratory drive next, so you’d best act quickly.”
Her words come halting and clumsy when she needs to sound controlled. There is the niggling, uneasy sensation of another voice whispering the words alongside her.
“Release me,” she commands. “Let me go, or I’ll core her mind to a hollow shell.”
The fool thinks they’re friends, she remembers. She adds, “Please, Kaadi.” Her voice shakes, lengthens the vowel a touch too long.
Kadi’s hands don’t tremble, despite the tears on her cheeks. They cup her head gently.
Her neck breaks, and it is the sound of glass shattering.
Story: Demiurge, Mar’s Mirror
Colors: Danish Red saturation, Tyrian Purple #1 (chained to a rock)
Supplies and Styles: pastels (slavery), eraser (Mar’s mirror AU), miniature collection, saturation, graffiti (resurrection challenge, eraser)
Wordcount: 1,000
Summary: Mar wins. Nothing is beautiful and everything hurts.
Rating: R
Warnings: Physical and mental torture, threat of torture, murder, rape, identity erasure, suicide-by-proxy. Not described in gory detail, mostly, but they’re there.
Notes: Could I get a color tag, please? Criticism is deeply appreciated! What didn’t work for you, or could be improved?
4. princess and the pea
Knives, she thinks. Then she looks closer, past Kaadi holding a scalpel to her own throat, past Heshirianth’s terrible limpness. Maraine’s corona crowns her in a coruscating cloud of sharp-edged shards. She realizes the riddle’s answer far too late.
How does a corona change form?
If it’s only reflecting what you expect to see.
Mar thinks in mirrors.
“Darling, just in time. I was getting bored.”
“Let them go.” Pleading will please her, it’s what she expects. “I’ll beg on my knees, only release them.”
“That’s a lovely offer, but they shouldn’t miss this. I have such plans for you.”
2. the snow queen
Mar’s fingers whisper along her cheek, tip her chin up, and she refuses to shudder under the touch.
“Look at me.”
In the darkness behind her eyelids, Mar’s corona glints, Kaadi’s burns. She can’t find Heshirianth. Mar’s thumb traces her cheekbone and digs in under her eye.
“Let me in, or I’ll pluck your eyes out and have your daen eat them.”
Kaadi’s answering snarl cuts off with a whimper.
“I can have her slit her throat. Would you like to listen to her drown in her own blood?”
Naveed meets her eyes. Mar’s smile is sharp as her thoughts.
1. little mermaid
“No. No, no, certainly not. Ugh, no!”
Mar laughs and shakes her head and shatters another sandstone wall. The scream wrenches itself from Naveed so sharply something tears in her throat. Memories rip free from their moorings and whirl away into the rubble. Mar shreds a shield of fire and glass, unravels a guardian construct with scarcely a pause. She is inexorable, and she is gaining.
“We’ll need to do some serious remodeling here, but don’t worry,” she calls. “I’ll show you the way home. You’re going to be my masterpiece.”
Naveed’s mind falls around her, and she can only flee.
7. ugly duckling
She stands at bay on the shore of an underground lake so deep and dark and still it seems more glass than water. Mar’s lips part softly when she sees it.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Oh, yes. See how you were made for me?”
Mar steps forward and Naveed stumbles back into the shallows, ripples spreading from her feet. Step and retreat, step and retreat, until she stands hip-deep and wavelets lap at Mar’s toes.
“You poor, precious thing,” Mar croons. “Don’t fear me. I’ll make you better. I’ll make you shine.”
Mar touches the water, and it begins to silver.
9. wild swans
The mirrors spread like cancer, like a flower unfurling razored petals through the halls of her mind as the days blur into one another. Mar is patient and achingly thorough. She walks each room and corridor, fingertips trailing along the walls, and traceries of mirrors bloom from her touch like frost. An infinity of reflections pace behind her. They fill every corner until space remains for nothing else.
This one had a name once, she knows that, but she reaches for it and finds only glass-smooth silence. A voice breaks it, asks:
“What are you?”
“Yours.”
“My what?”
“Your reflection.”
5. the nightingale
Life is very simple now, clean and lovely as a razor’s edge. Mar tells her kill and she kills. Mar says interrogate and she drags secretes from minds and lips, and the charred ruins left behind and the blood under her fingernails don’t bother her because Mar wouldn’t like it.
The mindreavers fall into line, after she burns the troublemakers’ architecture to ash. With them, it’s easy to slip into the royal chambers and plant a glinting seed in Her Imperial Radiance’s mind.
Mar smiles when the Empress kneels before her, and at her right hand, her Mirror reflects it.
10. red shoes
After, cradled in her Radiance’s bed, Mar holds her Mirror’s face between her hands and presses their foreheads together.
She whispers, “Haven’t I done enough for you? Haven’t I placed you by my side, healed all your flaws? So why don’t you love me?”
“I do!”
Mar’s hands tighten in her hair until strands tear loose.
“Why won’t you respond? Don’t you want to please me?”
“Of course,” she protests. “Before—” Mentioning before is wrong, and Mar takes language from her.
“I did want a challenge,” Mar allows, and pushes her back again.
This, at least, allows her to scream.
3. the emperor’s new clothes
She reduces the other rebels to drooling wrecks quickly, but these two knows how reavers work, and the Mirror can’t catch their eyes.
“Naveed?” Kadithkirith calls. She’s been repeating the word since the Mirror arrived. “Naveed, are you still in there?”
“Of course,” she offers. At this point she’d claim to be a teapot to break the stalemate.
“Very convincing,” the other mutters.
“Shut it, Ionne. Naveed, you remember siadan, right? The family you chose?
“Heshirianth’s dead, Naveed.”
In the silent, silver expanse of her mind, something stirs and rises from behind the glass, a leviathan rushing towards the surface.
6. steadfast tin soldier
Ionne hasn’t stopped pacing between the Mirror and Kadithkirith since they caught her. The Mirror can’t remember how that happened, and it bothers her more than being bound.
Kadi doesn’t know the meaning of futility, she never has.
“Naveed-“
“Stop saying that word!”
It’s a little-known fact that mindreavers don’t need eye contact to enter someone’s architecture, if they’re close enough and good enough. Ionne meets one criterion, the Mirror the other. She lances down to the level of vital functions, where the machinery sustaining life thrums. She destroys motor control first, and Ionne collapses bonelessly.
“Let’s make a deal.”
8. little match girl
“I’ll cut her respiratory drive next, so you’d best act quickly.”
Her words come halting and clumsy when she needs to sound controlled. There is the niggling, uneasy sensation of another voice whispering the words alongside her.
“Release me,” she commands. “Let me go, or I’ll core her mind to a hollow shell.”
The fool thinks they’re friends, she remembers. She adds, “Please, Kaadi.” Her voice shakes, lengthens the vowel a touch too long.
Kadi’s hands don’t tremble, despite the tears on her cheeks. They cup her head gently.
Her neck breaks, and it is the sound of glass shattering.
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But, hear me out one more time.
I have a lot of lead crystal gems- I do beadwork, so I collect them, and sometimes I actually do stuff with them.
Now, they are three dimensional objects with a finite height. But, this one color which is called "heliotrope" for reasons I cannot discern: if you stare at the crowns from certain angles of certain crystals they seem to go on forever, getting bluer and bluer into the ends of perception.
This fic made me feel the same way. Imma stare at it summore and try to see how far it goes. I am happy that I will never figure it out. And a little disappointed I cannot hang it on a necklace, but I'll deal.
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And that was a very flattering comparison! It's satisfying and a bit of a relief to know that this evoked such a visceral reaction/association, since I'm worried a lot of the mental architecture descriptions can come off as too abstract or bizarre.
That said, if this were a bead, it would probably have the sort of history involving the past owners all dying gruesomely. And you just know it'd find a way to cut you no matter how you wore it.
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You really do have a talent for making these mental architecture scenes, all of the bizarre things around them seem totally, totally ACCEPTABLE. My head can still use their information, despite how far outside of corporeal scenes in the ordinary world it remains. And that's cool no matter how you slice, dice and shred it.
I would still be willing to work with that bead.
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