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rainbowfic2012-12-07 11:53 pm
shadowsong26) wrote in rainbowfic2012-12-07 11:53 pm
Arsenic #6, Grey #10, Jade #5
Name: shadowsong26
Story: Coronation Ball
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Arsenic #6. methanol, Grey #10. grey goose, Jade #5. The spirit I dream can't get through, the mountain pass is hard/Long yearning/Breaks my heart
Supplies and Materials: eraser (Queen Sela AU), acrylic, oils, fabric, charcoal, pastels (my current GRK card G5 "party/festival"), novelty beads (Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle...), glitter, glue ("You might be unsure of your current destination, but a lack of clarity today won't stop you from continuing on a road to somewhere.")
Word Count: 389
Rating: R
Characters: Sela
Warnings: References to mass familial death, some internalized misogyny, reference to long-past death in childbirth.
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Last Arsenic. This takes place in an alternate 940 FY, with a genderbent Sorell.
The room was at once too bright and too dark, all smoke and ashes and somehow hollow. Someone--Sela couldn't recall who--had come up with the idea that they should use alcohol for the lights, instead of more traditional pitch or softly scented oils. It made them brighter, and different colors, depending on what kind, but it didn't dispel the gloom that lay just under the surface. Rather, it made the whole thing seem all the more hollow, too-shrill laughter echoing over the crackling flames.
And Sela...Sela sat above it all, numb, feeling more like a statue than a Queen. Her parents, gone, her brothers, gone, and she, the first reigning Queen in two hundred years, felt like a fraud.
She managed the right smiles and the right words as her court--her court--was presented to her, but she couldn't help thinking that this was some horrible nightmare. She hadn't been raised to it, trained to it, not the way even the last of her brothers had been.
It wasn't just a loss-gloom, hanging under the too-bright lights and brittle laughter. Sela knew it. The loss was there--her father, a good king, honored and respected; her oldest brother, the crown prince, beloved by all; and the others, the safety net for Feredar in the years to come, when, as the attack on the Palace itself proved, things were getting more and more agitated.
And her people--her court, and presumably the rest down in the city, though her security hadn't allowed her out--were afraid. Because here she was, a small, frightened, untrained, slip of a girl, and the last reigning Queen had died in childbed, and if that happened...
She took a deep breath, and quietly rose. It took a few minutes for everyone to quiet down and turn to her. Gripping her skirts underneath the heavy cape that had been placed on her, she forced a smile. "I would like to dance," she said.
Of course, dozens of men--young and attractive and...otherwise--leapt up to fawn on their new Queen. She kept her smile frozen in place, picked one at random, and followed him out to the center of the hall.
She focused on the music, on the too-bright lights, on the warmth of his hand on her waist, and tried to forget the pervasive fear that she would crumble.
Story: Coronation Ball
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Arsenic #6. methanol, Grey #10. grey goose, Jade #5. The spirit I dream can't get through, the mountain pass is hard/Long yearning/Breaks my heart
Supplies and Materials: eraser (Queen Sela AU), acrylic, oils, fabric, charcoal, pastels (my current GRK card G5 "party/festival"), novelty beads (Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle...), glitter, glue ("You might be unsure of your current destination, but a lack of clarity today won't stop you from continuing on a road to somewhere.")
Word Count: 389
Rating: R
Characters: Sela
Warnings: References to mass familial death, some internalized misogyny, reference to long-past death in childbirth.
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Last Arsenic. This takes place in an alternate 940 FY, with a genderbent Sorell.
The room was at once too bright and too dark, all smoke and ashes and somehow hollow. Someone--Sela couldn't recall who--had come up with the idea that they should use alcohol for the lights, instead of more traditional pitch or softly scented oils. It made them brighter, and different colors, depending on what kind, but it didn't dispel the gloom that lay just under the surface. Rather, it made the whole thing seem all the more hollow, too-shrill laughter echoing over the crackling flames.
And Sela...Sela sat above it all, numb, feeling more like a statue than a Queen. Her parents, gone, her brothers, gone, and she, the first reigning Queen in two hundred years, felt like a fraud.
She managed the right smiles and the right words as her court--her court--was presented to her, but she couldn't help thinking that this was some horrible nightmare. She hadn't been raised to it, trained to it, not the way even the last of her brothers had been.
It wasn't just a loss-gloom, hanging under the too-bright lights and brittle laughter. Sela knew it. The loss was there--her father, a good king, honored and respected; her oldest brother, the crown prince, beloved by all; and the others, the safety net for Feredar in the years to come, when, as the attack on the Palace itself proved, things were getting more and more agitated.
And her people--her court, and presumably the rest down in the city, though her security hadn't allowed her out--were afraid. Because here she was, a small, frightened, untrained, slip of a girl, and the last reigning Queen had died in childbed, and if that happened...
She took a deep breath, and quietly rose. It took a few minutes for everyone to quiet down and turn to her. Gripping her skirts underneath the heavy cape that had been placed on her, she forced a smile. "I would like to dance," she said.
Of course, dozens of men--young and attractive and...otherwise--leapt up to fawn on their new Queen. She kept her smile frozen in place, picked one at random, and followed him out to the center of the hall.
She focused on the music, on the too-bright lights, on the warmth of his hand on her waist, and tried to forget the pervasive fear that she would crumble.
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I'm not sure of all the details after this point. Sela just wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote something with her, so. ^^;;
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Nope. Not at all. Haven't quite figured out where she goes from here, but the first couple years of her reign, at the very least, are...rough.