InMediasRes

"Aurora" - (ff7)

2009-02-13T21:01:24Z

fandom: ff7
rating: PG-ish? Mostly for Cid's language.
spoilers: Nothing I can see.
genre: friendship; romance (and some thin lines thereabouts.)
characters/pairings: Aeris, Cid, Cloud, Tifa ; written as an Aeris/Tifa but... Tifa's also pretty fond of Cloud, and he thinks she's awesome, in his awkward way. Cid? Cid's a fan of pretty girls. ^^
notes: written for ladyfarrell's valentine's day meme. ...also, I've never written shoujo-ai before, even as ephemeral as this is. So. ^^;;

in short: Roses and ribbons and the girls that bind them; one take on golden-saucer dates and ripple effects.

aurora

. o .

"Oh," she said, tilting her head at the news. "You - and Cloud?"

Tifa watched as the smile didn't reach her friend's eyes, and wished that she'd held her silence. "I - "

Aeris ran her hands down worn pink denim - let go, let go; - and looked at how the martial artist had frozen in the doorway, suddenly uncertain. Tifa's chocobo keychain dangled, forgotten, from one hand, and the delicate bells of the charm swayed against her work-worn knuckles. Aeris counted her breaths against each chime. "You...?" she prompted. When Tifa didn't speak, and only curled her hand around the keychain, Aeris spoke again, softer. "You didn't quite mean to tell me that, did you?"

Tifa's hand unclenched, setting the bells to jangling. "It's stupid," she said, "I was so excited. But you - you see the looks he gives you; you can't not." They used to be for me, she didn't say. She didn't need to.

Aeris let her smile grow as she took the other girl's hands, stilling them, drawing her in to the room. "It's good news, silly; really." She paused, letting one hand go to tug a piece of hair that had fallen over Tifa's shoulder. "I'll tell you a secret - I've never been much for blonds." With a wink for Tifa's confused look, Aeris tugged the other girl to the bureau mirrors. "But you, well, you can't wear that. Not on a date."

As she was towed along the arcades and tunnels of the Golden Saucer in search of something she could wear, Tifa suspected that, along with the ability to heal mortal wounds with little more than a breath, Aeris Gainsborough could find anything that she set her mind to. This included a quietly elegant boutique tucked behind the bustle and neon of the Golden Saucer's more obvious attractions, with dresses with more laces than she had coins in her pocket beckoning from the window. "We can't," she insisted, resisting the gentle hand that had curved around her shoulders. "We can't afford it, not if we're as low on supplies as Cid--"

Tifa found herself spun around before she could finish. The light from the arcades turned Aeris's eyes a piercing shade of green, and though the healer was shorter, Tifa was humbled by her tone. "Listen, Tifa. The world can always afford a little bit of beauty, even if it's something small, like a gil rose from a back-alley, and we've come a long way from Midgar." The light shifted, and as it did, so did Aeris's tone. "Besides," she added, letting her arm slip from around Tifa's shoulders to link into her elbow, "he can't complain if his jaw's around his ankles, can he? Come on, Tifa - in a few days we'll be camping in tents and covered in sand again. You can't tell me you're not even a little tempted?"

Tifa knew to give in. "A little, maybe," she replied.

"Good." With another grin, this one shared, the girls whirled into the store and Tifa found herself under a small landslide of linen and ribbons, cotton and lace.

By the time that the tenth dress had been declared 'too frumpy,' and its predecessors 'too short,' 'too old-fashioned,' 'too boring,' or some derivative, Tifa began to suspect she was little more than a model for her companion's amusement. "Enough," she protested. "I'll wear what I've got already - any more dresses and I'll be late!"

"Take these, at least," Aeris said from her seat. She held up a pair of cream-white ribbons temptingly. "They suit you, and they're gorgeous."

And expensive - Tifa could tell from how the fabric shone under the lights. But the ribbons were beautiful, and a softer touch than a dress would have been, so she nodded her consent and followed Aeris to the till. "These, please," Tifa said to the clerk. Impulsively, she pulled a tall, red-kissed white rosebud from the bunch set in a water bucket by the till. "And this one."

As they left the store, she turned to Aeris. "Thank you," she told her, handing her the rose. "I think I needed that reminder. It's not as pretty as your flowers are, but..."

"It's beautiful," Aeris said. Pulling a slender knife from her tall boots, she trimmed the rose's stem and tucked what remained into the pocket of her jacket. "Now, let's see if we can make your hair look like baby chocobos haven't been sleeping in it."

Tifa stopped. "Hey!"

Aeris poked her. "Less freezing, more walking," she instructed. "Come on - you don't have time to dilly-dawdle, lovely." Reaching their room, and finding her brush, she motioned for the other girl to sit beside her.

Tifa did, relaxing against the couch as Aeris ran the brush through her hair, wind-tangles and snarls and all, with a soft, even hand. There was something calming to the moment, the movement, and she felt her eyelids growing heavy.

A few minutes later, Aeris leaned back after tying the lower ribbon, examining her work with a mischievous half-smile. "I think you'll knock him dead."

Tifa blushed as she turned for the door. "I hope I don't," she said. "I'm pretty sure that would be the worst date ever."

"Maybe," Aeris laughed, standing up and leaning forward to tuck her rosebud just behind Tifa's ear. "For luck, then," she said. Her lips brushed Tifa's cheek whisper-quick.

Before she could reply, Tifa found herself in the hallway of the hotel; purse in hand, new ribbons in her hair, and the puzzle of whether Aeris had meant luck with her rose or her kiss (or, both) teasing her thoughts until she knocked on Cloud's door. Later, she told herself, her fingers ghosting over her cheek even so.

Curling them into a fist, she knocked.

Cid answered.

She'd give him credit - his once-over was more subtle than the average - but the quirk to his eyebrows gave him away. "Is Cloud around?" Tifa asked, looking past the pilot and into the room.

Cid's eyebrows climbed. "Huh," he said. "Think so. Shit, so you're why he's been puttering around for forever!" Turning away, Cid scratched his stubble thoughtfully. "Hey, Strife!" he hollered. "You've got a gorgeous girl waitin' for you; damned if I can figure why!"

Cloud ducked his head out from around the corner. Tifa hid her smile, seeing how his hair was sticking out in all directions instead of the usual up. He nodded a greeting at Tifa, and shot a disgruntled look at Cid, who grinned. "We're going out," Cloud explained tersely. "And I don't putter, dammit."

"Whatever, grumpy," Cid laughed. "Hurry your ass up, or I'll take her off your hands. How 'bout it, Lockheart?"

"Well," she said, "Cloud asked me first, and..."

"Hey," Cid replied. "You're not dressed for a night at the fighting rings; not tonight, anyway." Grabbing his jacket, Cid smiled and let Tifa into the room, stepping around her and into the hallway. "Don't wait up or nothin', Spikes."

"Won't," Cloud replied lightly, playing with the strap of his shoulder armour as he joined them. "Don't lose all our gil, old man."

"And since when have I answered to 'Yuffie'?" Cid laughed, holding the door.

"She borrows it; you lose it," Tifa teased. "Have fun, Cid."

"You too, gorgeous."

Cloud coughed. Pointedly. "Ready?"

"Where to?" she asked, smiling as his eyes widened upon noticing the ribbons and the rose.

"Well," Cloud said, almost bashfully, "there's talk of this play at the Event Square..."

. o .

(finis)

. o .

sabe's scribbles: the title is borrowed from veruca salt's "aurora," which was on loop, along with "chicago" by sufjan stevens and... well, a lot. Thoughts are loved like I love the hazelnut seashell chocolates I get in my Christmas stocking (and that's a lot!)

"Creatures of Habit" (samuraichamploo)

2009-01-03T00:07:20Z

Lizzy, this one's for you. ♥

for: misfire
fandom: Samurai Champloo
rating: G. ...even Mugen behaved. (!)
spoilers: Nothing I can see.
genre: General; Lizzy asked for the journey from behind Momo's eyes. Momo is a flying squirrel. So.
characters/pairings: Mugen, Jin, Fuu, Momo; mentions minor characters.

Creatures of Habit

As far as Momo was concerned, you could judge somebody by what and if they fed you.

Not to mention how often.

She'd disliked the wild-haired man on sight. The Girl – her girl – trusted him enough to ask him for his help and to save his life with some flashing lights, though, and so she'd tolerated the wild man with his tattoos and flashy sandals. And so it went, until, as they were walking through the backstreets of Edo, Mugen slyly dropped a roasted chestnut he'd filched from a merchant's cart down the slight gape in the Girl's kimono. Fuu had jolted and tensed, ready to shout down her companion, but her curses froze half-formed as Momo, holding the offending nut in her paws, looked up at her mistress with joyous eyes.

“Your rat's lookin' skinnier than you, Fuu, and we haven't had meat in weeks,” Mugen hinted. “If'n we fatten it up, maybe we can change that.” He avoided Fuu's slap effortlessly, but had a harder time with the pinecones that Momo – understanding Mugen's hungry eyes, if not his words – chucked down at him after eating the chestnut and scaling the closest tree.

Momo only chittered noisily in response to Mugen's shouts and threats. For all his words and his fancy footwork, the man from the Ryukyu couldn't fly. Nor could he harm Momo, as long as Momo was Fuu's. As similar incidents recurred along their journey, Momo's regard softened slowly.

She had fewer issues with the other swordsman. He was less trouble, at least on the surface of things; Momo knew serenity and discipline if only because she was (most of the time) a creature of abandon. The quiet man with the funny eye-covers was anything but abandoned. Fittingly, Jin's voice was softer than either of his traveling companions, and more controlled by a long shot. On the rare occasion when he raised it, Momo could almost feel the inevitable and impeding rush of the scenery flying by as they beat a retreat in varying states of dignity from their current city and continued on to parts unknown. When Jin raised his voice, it meant trouble.

But today, they'd had a rare stroke of luck and were on the porch of a small teahouse on a road near the sea, enjoying the sunlight and a plate of dango. Momo had been lying on the stairs, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her fur and their momentary stillness – it came rarely these days, Momo thought absently, scratching at her ear.

Their peace, as always, never lasted – Mugen said something to Fuu, and an argument erupted, both springing off of the steps and gesturing to the other wildly. The ronin kept out of the tiff; unperturbed, he picked up the last stick of dango and ate the first two cakes. A reluctant, almost bittersweet smile curved his lips as he watched the two others bicker. As Jun watched his friends argue, his arms relaxed, causing the last rice cake to hover tauntingly over Momo's head like a perfect, round, edible star.

The ronin's hearing – trained to discern even the smallest sound despite the ruckus that the two others were causing – picked up on a tiny whine. Startled, Jin looked down to see Momo looking at the dango with hearts all but visible in her eyes. “My apologies,” he said, a different, but equally small smile brightening his expression, and offered the last sweet to Momo.

Momo pulled at the sticky rice cake and stuffed it into her cheeks in two bites.

The argument between Fuu and Mugen stopped immediately.

Her girl looked to her with a surprised expression before turning a hurt look to Jin, who smiled serenely. “We shouldn't waste food, especially when we can pay for it,” he told her. “I had eaten my share, and you two were busy.”

By 'shouldn't,' Momo had clambered up the awning's post and made a spectacular leap from the post to a nearby tree. The girl had looked to the ronin; the other had looked to Momo, his eyes clearly pondering the potential success of trying to retrieve the dango by force.

Deciding it was worth it, Mugen dove for the porch, Momo only a half-leap ahead. Climbing up another seven branches – by this point in the journey, she had a healthy respect for Mugen's disregard for gravity – she chewed and gulped down the mochi, finishing with a defiant toss of her tail towards the man in red. Mugen chucked a pine-cone back up the tree at her in frustration, but Momo wasn't worried. Mugen would no sooner harm Momo than Momo's girl; sure, the two of them argued a lot, but she wasn't stupid. Human language was one thing, but tone – tone was universal. And while Mugen's tone sometimes meant 'hurry' or 'danger' or 'stop that right now you idiot,' it almost always meant 'mine.' Momo could appreciate that sentiment.

Momo could appreciate the wild man's sentiment because she knew it well. Although she didn't always seem to know it, the girl with her wobbly shoes and big eyes belonged to Momo as much as Momo belonged to the girl. Hers was a life-debt, formed years ago when they'd both been smaller. She'd been a flying squirrel still learning to fly, pursued by a hungry pack of neighborhood dogs, and likely would have been their dinner had it not been for a young girl who, seeing the commotion, fended off the dogs with a short stick.

Safe for the moment, but still skittish, she chattered a thanks and scaled the nearest wall. The girl could still be a danger; she had pushed away the dogs, after all... or she could just be a scrawny human girl, the squirrel reasoned, as the girl pulled out a soft winter peach from the sleeve of her kimono. With a quick smile at the squirrel on the roof, and a rueful look at the bruises the peach had acquired in the scuffle, she bit into the fruit. The girl wolfed down almost all of the peach before looking up again. “You're probably really hungry too,” she said, holding the fruit up. “But I can't throw very well, so...”

Understanding, Momo summoned her courage. The girl's tone was soft, and the fruit smelled delicious. With a flying leap, she soared across the short distance, colliding with the girl's shoulder and falling into her arm, which crooked gently to hold the flying squirrel.

“A traveling merchant brought these to town,” Fuu said. “I really like them – and you must, too, from how fast you're eating. They're from some place out west with a pretty name.” Her eyes went distant. “I'm going to go west too, little squirrel. Someday, I'll just walk out of this town and follow the setting sun until – well, there's someone who – someone that I need to find. Maybe you'll come with me. If you do, though, I can't call you 'squirrel' all the time – say, I'll call you Momo, because you like them so much! How does that sound?”

Sated, the newly-christened Momo squeaked, and nestled into the girl's arm.

That was that, and so their story began.

As their story continued, there were more dogs, and men with wolfish eyes, and days when they couldn't afford peaches or chestnuts or even sticky dango, but Mugen's hands were quick and Jin's sword was faster, and her girl, her Fuu, always was warm, even if she sometimes rolled over onto Momo in her sleep.

There were others along the way – a painter with sad eyes and a taste for mochi that Momo liberated as Fuu posed for him; a red-haired giant of a man with a funny voice who fed Momo small, salty peanuts from overseas with gentler hands than even his girl; a beautiful, blind minstrel who traveled with them a while and shared sesame candies over a campfire one night, saying wistfully that they were the favorite treat of someone whom she had loved, once; but all their paths diverged.

With her three, things were different. They weren't always all together, and they certainly didn't always get along, but no matter their differences, they could always bond over food. And that, at least in Momo's eyes, made them family.

. o .

finis.

. o .

sabe's scribbles:...nothing could tell me what Momo's gender was, so (going by the name and the huge eyes) that was decided arbitrarily. ^^

the comfort zone meme -

2008-09-27T16:08:03Z

Borrowed from venefica_aura, because her formatting was convenient, and the idea too good to pass up. (...and duplicated for this journal, to give all my friends a chance. ^__^)

So.

Lots of people write the same thing, over and over. I'm guilty of it. We get into ruts, or we let our headcanon take over, or we let fanon tell us things that become just as important as canon in our heads. Sometimes we dislike characters, and we ignore them, or we write them off. Sometimes we loathe certain pairings, or we just blatantly favor other pairings. Mostly, we like to write things that we know, and things we know we are good at.

Please prompt me with a character/pairing/theme that I don't normally write. If there's a specific mood or song or prop you'd like, toss those in as well!

Also, I'm likely to, um, take my time. Please be aware I don't do non-con or dub-con or any sort of 'cest and if asked for it will likely skirt around ways to politely turn you down. Or write it entirely platonically, and then nobody's happy. I also have to admit that your odds of getting anything explicitly porny out of this are slim to none.

Safety nets aside...

+ Fandoms I'm Willing to Write For: Baccano!, Bleach, FF7, RahXephon, Samurai Champloo, Tales of Symphonia, Witch Hunter Robin. I could take stabs at Firefly, Ouran, and Fullmetal Alchemist (at least, the anime version), and drabbling in Veronica Mars didn't turn out disastrously. If you don't see what you're looking for, and you think I've seen it, ask. ^^

And for reference, here are some things IN my comfort zone, to give you ideas of what would be OUT:

+ The usual suspects: FF7: Tifa, Yuffie, Reno, and Elena (as central characters.) Cloud is negotiable. ToS: Raine, Zelos, Colette, Yuan, Seles.

+ Modus operandi: hope springs eternal; flirtatious banter; soul families; the princess-in-a-tower schtick; it's called teamwork, guys; lovingly detailed and yet not vicious fight scenes; family ties; being stuck in eternity; symbolism is everywhere!; okay-now-what? (the after "the end"); (being) the one worth leaving; survival.

...I think that rounds it out. Seriously, though, I can't wait to hear your ideas. ♥

"A Match Made in Midgar" (ff7)

2008-06-19T11:39:20Z

series: ff7 ; AC-compliant
characters: Yuffie, Reno, (half seconds of) Aeris (kind of), Cid, and Shera.
genre: snarky fluff. C'mon. Me, writing Reno/Yuffie? ^_~
rating: pg (language.)
written for: kimouski's ff7 otp ~~friendly~~ war thread, which is on until Monday and AWESOME! Go, read, write, enjoy! ^^

in which there is: a blue convertible (not theirs), a compromise, some broken noses, and a curious lack of coincidence.

a match made in midgar

Reno James Fraser is many things. He is not, however, an ingrate. So in the wake of the Geostigma crisis, he finds his way to a ramshackle church in one of the rougher parts of the city. He doesn't go to pray – he's not sure he could put up even a decent pretense – but he owes the flower girl a thank you at least.

He's only half-surprised to see that someone else is there already. “You,” he declares, “look like you need a drink.”

She startles, looking up from where she has pillowed her head on her arms. Her eyes are wary, but he can sense her curiosity from across the room. “If you're buying...” she says, and she tries to look like she hasn't been crying.

He frowns at the look on her face, which, he thinks, is a good deal less happy than any self-respecting princess who just saved the world (again) should be. Being who he is, he walks over and leans down to poke at her shoulder and tell her as much.

She sniffs. “Some shoulder to lean on you are.”

“Did I offer?”

“No,” Yuffie says, but she draws herself up to stand beside him. She bows her head and claps her hands a couple of times. “But you did offer a drink,” and she bends improbably to tie her shoelace. When she stands again, she bats her eyelashes with a wicked grin. “My hero.”

It’s hard not to grin back, so he gives in and matches her smile. “I’m not the kind you fall in love with, Kisaragi, so don’t get any stupid ideas.”

Yuffie frowns, but turns on her heel, flouncing away dramatically. “Hey, you might be cute but damn! You’re not that hot. I just want that drink you offered.”

“You’re selfish,” he laughs, slinging his jacket over his shoulder and following her.

“You’re vain,” she retorts, but she slows down.

“You’re still here,” he replies, bumping his hip against hers as they walk through the doors of the church.

“You, too,” she murmurs, and nudges her shoulder against his arm, grinning as she watches the people around them double-take and, in one case, walk into a lamppost. It seems he’s watching too, from his snickers and grin as he steers her up the street. Given, it’s not every day that one can see the heir of Wutai and one of Shinra’s Turks strolling down the street arm-in-arm, but this is also a city which has seen massive dragons summoned in its town square within the last week.

Neither of them have ever had a problem with being the centre of attention, so they play up the act as they walk, arms slipping down so that their hands tangle together. If she bites the corner of her lip, if he misses half a step, they’re not about to admit it means anything more than putting on a good show.

At least this is the case until a bright blue convertible screeches to a halt about five seconds after it has passed them and a woman’s shout is heard over her companion’s baritone curses. “Yuffie?”

Yuffie spins around and blinks. “Shera? …Cid?” She looks from the couple in the car to the redhead at her side. She then looks at her hand which is connected to the redhead at her side. “…Shit.”

“Run for it?” Reno grins.

“Run for it,” she confirms. “Cid’s hella scary when he’s mad.” Yuffie raises her voice so that it can reach the two in the car. “Gotta run, good to see you, real busy - !” And this time, Reno is in the lead, pulling her down a side street and she really hopes that he knows where he’s going because she’s already lost.

They reach the end of the street before Reno remembers he forgot to say thank you.

But he figures that's okay. The one thing he and Aeris had in common was that neither of them believed in coincidences. If Yuffie's hand – warm, and still tangled with his own, as they both pretend they know where they're going – is anything to go by, he's willing to bet that the flower girl – two years in the Lifestream and still a matchmaker – already knows.

. finis .

sabe's scribbles: I hope you enjoyed this! If it looks/sounds familiar, it might be because it started life as a deleted scene from Close Up. That said, thoughts are loved like I love good chocolate... which is a lot. ^_~

"Reading Between The Lines" (tos)

2008-06-17T14:43:35Z

...just something little. This started off as a drabble request and grew.

(ToS - K+ - general/surface study of politics, media, and romance - Of marriages of convenience and memorizing dance steps. And breathing, somewhere in there - he's always been good at reminding her to do that. Regal and Raine, this time.)

reading between the lines

The liberal papers proclaimed that it was a marriage of convenience. He was a powerful man in need of a wife - in his return to power, his image was softened by a female presence. She was a half-elf looking for legitimacy and a loftier scholar position than the cindered backwoods of Iselia could offer.

The seedier tabloids intimated that ultimately they were fighters and vagrants; outcasts and criminals - once upon a time and you know what they say about birds of a feather -

They read both, and smiled over their coffees.

It wasn't as if the papers were wrong; it was more that they weren't exactly right.

His position benefitted from appearing settled - Zelos played the dilettant with greater skill and panache - but he was with her because he trusted her. Had slept as she guarded his back (or healed it when he'd been especially unlucky.) Had learned that the only grievous injury she could inflict on him would result if he let her anywhere near a kitchen again.

She was looking for power; the Lezareno name could open doors she'd only dreamed of. Still, there was more than one kind of strength to be drawn towards. He would hold her gaze as an equal, when she'd met few who could or would.

They weren't romantics; it was more that they just were.

. o .

It began with a book. One day, she came to work to find a new book on her desk, a note attached - found this in the library; thought of you. hope you're well, Raine - and she'd read it in four days, meaning to return the book before it was buried in the paper avalanche her desk had become.

She laughed, remembering how she'd found it a month later and sent it back, her own note tucked into its pages - keeping well, Regal; thank you - I enjoyed the text... I don't supposed there is any more by that author? -

Within the week, a liveried deliveryman struggled under the weight of four massive books as he staggered to her desk. Her eyes widened as he dropped them with a clatter on its surface (and she thinks she must have known because today it is actually clean) before he pulled a letter from his jacket and handed it to her.

- as requested, - it read, - I am glad to be of assistance, Raine -

His handwriting was clear and neat; she envied it next to her chicken scratch, but swore it got messier as she continued reading.

- however, to reassure myself that I didn't confine you in study, I hope you might be my guest at a small function which is, unfortunately, formal and unavoidable; a friendly face would go far -

She had to wonder at the invitation, because they really hadn't seen each other in at least a year, but Genis picked the absolute worst time to peek over her shoulder. His clever blue eyes scanned the parchment and looked up to give her a measuring stare.

"Well," he said, smiling. "You're not actually going to go, are you?"

Raine bristled - she had thought she would decline, but her brother's doubt - and, she realized, he's got the nerve to be smug about it, the little brat - was a challenge. "And why not?" She drew her shoulders up and back. "I've heard that the seaside is pretty this time of year, and it would be rude to disregard his hospitality."

"Raaaaine," Genis drawled, "you're a lightweight, and it's not like I'd ever complain about it, but Zelos says his toes are still bruised from the last Meltokian Midsummer's festival! Sis, you can't drink, you can't really dance, and if you keep frowning like that -" he ducked her swipe, " - just saying! Geez! Just saying, sis, you'll have a time of it even just looking pretty."

"I am certain," Raine said slowly, deliberately, "that even if all of that is true - which it is not, Genis - there must be someone there with whom I can speak intelligently. Besides," and now, she smiled, "I believe the same things can be said of you, brother-mine."

Genis rolled his eyes. "I'm a guy."

"Which explains the dancing," she laughed, and slapped his shoulder companionably. "I'm going."

"Don't forget - you need a dress!"

. o .

She goes, and she doesn't forget, though her hair is windblown almost past repair from traveling on the adapted Rheiard.

He is the first person she sees, and, seeing his expression, dryly asks if she passes inspection. His smile and proffered arm do nothing to calm her suspicions. Still, she returns the smile and takes his arm - and is glad for the support when she sees the size of the 'small function,' especially as her presence alone is enough to set off both tongues and a glaring flash of cameras.

He speaks, briefly, and then there is food. It is delicious and her scholar's tongue can tell her that it is expensive... but really, she thinks, someone should have known enough to put white curry on the banana souffle. Everything is running suspiciously close to well until he leans over and asks how much of the gavotte she remembers.

To her surprise, he squeezes her hand compassionately. "Sorry," he whispers, and suddenly they are on their feet and holding hands and she curses that she can remember complex engravings and floor plans - entire floor plans! - of classical temples, but not a few simple steps.

"I'm sorry," she echoes. "I don't remember very much. You'd be better with anyone else here, I think."

"Well, that's unfortunate," he says, and uses his arm to twirl her in front of him as the band tunes up. "I don't wish to dance with just anyone." Her eyes fly open and she tenses, but he smiles and speaks before she can. "Just... follow. For once - " he treads carefully with his words, "- for once, allow another's guidance."

"I -"

"Breathe," he murmurs, as the band starts to play. "It is a good place to begin."

And so she does.

. o .

sabe's scribbles: ...this was the first version of sacae's drabble request, except it got long and whoa-I've-written-this-before. ~~One of these days, I'll write a Raine whose affections cannot be swayed by books!~~ ...still, I liked pieces of it enough to put it up here. ^^;;

"alone in the universe" - (tos) (request) (drabble)

2008-03-26T15:27:39Z

(ToS - K+ - general/introspection/experimentation - In which there is Zelos, Colette, a curious lack of eye contact, a twist on the Flanoir balcony scene, and what could be an unhappy ending. Call it the sunset before the storm.)

alone in the universe

. o .

He wasn`t looking for her, but he found her just after sunset, curled impossibly on the balcony rail.

She looked like the siren on the helm of one of the sailing ships he`d always wanted to own. Hearing his footfalls, she looked over and smiled in a way he`d forgotten – open and warm, her heart in her eyes.

He wasn`t whom she had been expecting, and he saw her smile slip, but he joined her on the rail; his smile practiced and (mostly) for show. He wasn`t intending to stay, but as the wind tangled their hair together, she sighed, suddenly pillowing her head against his arm as the stars winked into being over Flanoir`s lanterned streets.

She looked, he thought, like a spirit from Sybak`s oldest books, only heightened by her uncharacteristic solemnity. She looked like the sort of girl people would fight for, die for, and he wondered if she`d grown into that girl or if she`d always been that way.

He wondered if she hated that power as much as he did.

He wasn`t about to ask.

He thrived on colour and noise and chaos, true, but there was something here that even he didn`t want to dispel. So he would take the false peace and the warmth she offered as her weight pressed against him in the oldest gesture of trust; would take it in two hands and not look back. He wouldn`t let her win (and that was what it was; it was him or the girl at his side and he had never been completely blinded by beauty, so if she was going to follow willingly, well - ) He certainly hadn't planned to say anything, but he found himself whispering an apology to the night sky. I'm sorry...

She stirred, but there was no question in her eyes as she looked up. I know, she said, reassuring the stars, and his victory was hollowed as she slipped her hand up, fingers brushing over his heart before resting shyly on his shoulder.

I know.

. o .

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

. o .

(...but sometimes it`s just not enough, you know?)

. o .

finis.

. o .

...thoughts? ^^ also, title taken from the very awesome David Usher song of the same name.

.

"Little Sister" (tos)

2008-01-27T14:54:20Z

Named after the Rufus Wainwright song, this spun itself out at four-thirty in the morning on the first train home. Written for relares - a very, very belated birthday drabble. ♥

(zelos and seles - a reflective moment before it all; imperfect reds)

little sister

They are both redheads, but their hair - like the rest of them - is not the same. His is deeper; not crimson, not wine, but a mix of the two. Hers has touches of pink and coral when the sun hits it just so. It is curling over her ears slightly, and she will straighten it when she wakes with a determination unsettling in one so young - or is it that determination is a dirty word to him; he's forgotten if it's supposed to be or if it just is.

Orders are orders and masks are masks.

But as he places the book of folk stories on her table and tucks the blankets over the tiny shoulders of his sister, there is a softness in his eyes; the fierce adventurer and menacing beast of her favorite story no longer. Brother, even if she cannot see it, and would mock his concern if she could.

Stubborn, he scoffs, but ruffles her hair as he stands. At least, Zelos thinks, his eyes flickering over to the well-loved book, there are still a few masks worth wearing.

. o .

( finis )

. o .

Untitled (original)

2007-08-25T12:36:15Z

..because I can. ^^ Just a thought while waiting for a train.

untitled
I know boys who walk like you -
bonelessly swaggering
to some invented beat -
inaudible or piped over pristine white headphones
keeping time with the careful slap of shoes
on the asphalt catwalk.

more drabbles! (ff7) (tales of symphonia) (veronica mars)

2007-07-18T16:58:48Z

DRABBLE ONE :
( ff7 / ac spoilers / rufus, tifa / pg / take a walk and take him down a peg )

pick your poison

She was washing down the last table when the door creaked. "Bar's closed," Tifa shouted reflexively, and turned to see who had walked in. As she did, the hand holding her washcloth tightened into a fist. "You're walking again."

"It seems I have your flowergirl to thank for it," the blond replied, stepping around her and to the bar.

Hands on hips, she followed. "Why-?"

"I," he said, settling on a stool and sweeping his coat to the side, "am just here to talk. Calm yourself." He spun around to face her, but with an ominous creak, the cushion tilted, sending the young President to the floor with a crash. "Hmmph. It seems that even the chairs around this place don't like me very much."

He looked dignified even sprawled on the floor. "Here," she laughed, shaking her head but extending her hand.

"Thank you," he said, carefully, and took her hand. Dusting invisible dirt off of his white greatcoat, he turned for the door.

"Hey," she called. He paused. "Humility looks good on you."

He made a sound that could have been laughter. "I'll make it a habit then, Miss Lockheart."

"You bothered to come all the way here. Can I fix your poison of choice?"

His smile was lopsided. "Perhaps. When I am less certain you mean that literally."

She tossed her hair as Rufus walked out, but didn't deny it. He had a point.

(finis)

DRABBLE TWO:
( ff7 / tifa, jessie, yuffie / g / three women, two moments, and one eyelash curler )

weapon of choice

She found the eyelash curler at the bottom of her bag. Tifa winced; she had forgotten that she'd snagged the simple silver tool with its scriptive 'J' carved into the side.

She'd winced when she saw it first it, as Jessie had pulled it out of one of her pockets with a grin. "That isn't a makeup tool," Tifa'd protested. "That's a torture implement."

Jessie had laughed. "Even us tough girls have to have a secret or two. C'mon. Here. You're a natural knockout, but just imagine - "

With reflexes honed by years of martial arts, Tifa leaned forward and snatched the curler. "I'll take my chances."

"Suit yourself," Jessie had replied with a grin. "Just remember to give it back sometime, hey."

Turning the tool over in her hands, Tifa's smile was sad. I never had the chance to, Jess; I'm sorry. Leaning towards the mirror, intent on seeing if her old friend's recommendation had any merit, a new friend bounded through the open door between their rooms at the Ghost Motel.

Skidding to a stop, Yuffie's hands twitched. "Hey - hey - don't poke your eyes out with that, Teefie!"

"Eyelash curler," Tifa corrected dryly. "Perfectly safe." I think.

"Oh." Yuffie leant against the counter nonchalantly. "I knew that. Duh."

Tifa could tell by the way the younger girl stood that Yuffie wasn't going away without a story, and frankly, she was sort of glad for the company. Nice as it was, and free as it was this time around, the Ghost Motel never failed to give her the creeps. As the ninja girl cleared a patch of counter and hopped up to sit on it, Tifa smiled. "I actually thought the same thing you did, a long time ago..."

(finis)

DRABBLE THREE:
( ff7 / renotifa / pg / keep your hands up or someone'll catch you by surprise )

tell it like it is

She attacked first, her roundhouse kick sending him across the room. He landed with a snarl and evaded her next punch, jabbing past her defenses and smirking as his hit sent her to the floor.

"Keep your hands up, babe," he teased, his tone blasphemous and playful.

It was her turn to snarl as he took his time, raising his fist as she gasped for breath against the stone floor - wait; she thought, just wait, girl, and you can win this. And so she did - just as his fist was about to connect, she intercepted, catching his wrist and flipping him past her in a manner that even she had to swear defied gravity a little.

Unable to retaliate, he swore as the screen in front of them flooded with a flash of light - game over, player one wins.

Tifa put the controller down, stretching her arms above her head and cracking her knuckles. "Hmm," she mused. "I thought you said that this game was hard?"

"Fuckin' beginner's luck," he swore. "Try it again?"

"We've got the time to kill," she sighed, looking at her watch. "But you know I'll beat you anyway."

He put his controller down and matched her smile. "Still, ya better keep your hands up, babe."

"Are you missing that I won?"

"Nah." In one second, his lips grazed her cheek, in the next, he'd snatched the baking Elena had left unattended on her desk and had resettled as if nothing had happened. "But if ya don't, someone might catch you by surprise and then where would you be?"

Before she could answer, a young blonde appeared through the doorway at the far side of the lounge. "The President will see you now, Miss Lockheart."

"Ain't those the breaks? See ya 'round, 'n remember what I told ya." Reno stood, and left Tifa there to ponder the thought, grinning as he saw she was still cupping the cheek that he'd kissed.

"...Miss Lockheart?"

Just a game, Tifa told herself, standing to follow Elena through the door. It's just a silly game. She avoided Elena's look of curiosity even so. But what happens when even I don't believe that line? Lost in thought, Tifa floated through the doorway, unaware of the fact that she'd spoken her last words aloud.

"You move forward, Tifa Lockheart," Elena told the closed door with a smile. "'Cause with any luck, you might win again."

(play again?)

(finis)

DRABBLE FOUR:
( tales of symphonia / zelos&sheena, lloyd, raine / pg; slight spoilers / battle plans never survive contact with the enemy )

think twice

It wasn't that they were the enemy, per se.

Nor was it that they were exceptionally formidable opponents, especially as he secretly took tea once a month with an array of some of the deadliest (and craziest) folks from the two worlds combined.

Still, Zelos had seen the remains of the foes that the girls below - his girls, not totally and never enough so but they hadn't killed him yet - had left behind, so with careful stealth, he wove closer through the trees that surrounded the hot springs. "Just a little more, just a little..."

He didn't realize that he was speaking out loud until another voice inquired why he was hiding behind a tree.

Reflexively, he answered. "For the best view known to ma-- ah hah ha, Sheena, I didn't see you there, hunny."

"I did," she fumed. "Your pink vest is about as subtle as Ifrit in a potions' shop."

He had an entire second to enjoy her curves, wrapped scantily in a wet towel and the sleeveless haori hanging from her shoulders. As she shifted, he was too entranced by the deliberate roll of her hips to recognize the ninja's new stance as a combative one, and so her kick sent him flying down the hill, twigs tangling into his long hair as he tumbled to a stop at the edge of the women's hot spring.

As he looked up, the first thing he saw was the Professor sitting on a rock across from him. Towel wrapped firmly around her torso, her staff tapped evenly across her crossed legs. Hot, he thought, and almost said so, until a sniffle caught his attention.

Blue eyes shifted, and caught with tearful blue. Colette had wrapped herself in what had to be seven towels, and she looked over the Professor's shoulder at Zelos like he'd kicked her puppy.

Right. Emotional Female. He was ten kinds of out of here. Throwing his hands up, Zelos backed away just as Sheena stalked into the clearing, cards at the ready.(Where, he wondered, exactly, did she keep those things anyway?)

As he walked away, he mulled over Sheena's words - pink vest... as subtle as Ifrit in a potions' shop... Hmm - that's it!

Running into Lloyd as the teenager was heading inside for a nap was only a bonus. Zelos slung an arm around the brunet's shoulder and steered him back down the stairs. Camouflage and a decoy? Sheena wouldn't see that coming. "Bud," he grinned, ignoring Lloyd's wary smile, "Do I ever have a plan for you..."

(finis)

DRABBLE FIVE:
( tales of symphonia / lloydpresea / g / a boy, a girl, and a sunset twice reflected in a moment after the end )

tangled up in blue

The dreamers of the day are dangerous...
for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.
-T.E. Lawrence

To say they were an odd pair was an understatement.

Her quiet voice and intense eyes belied her whimsical cotton-candy hair and petite stature - so wise for her age, people would say, and Presea would nod her head and she would smile so bittersweetly. I think... you have no idea. But her head was always tilted when she smiled that way, so few ever saw it.

He was one who did. He was at first glance the Boy Hero - insistent and honest and proud; the heart on his sleeve as obvious and bright as the flash of his twin swords. Idealist, some called him. Dreamer. Fool.

But the boy never gave up, and the girl never gave in, and when they eventually staggered from the Tower, the whispers around them changed to jubilant shouts.

As night came, they left the others to the fanfare: the redhead in his element, the little blonde with her charming blush, the siblings with a circle of penitent admirers.

They wandered until they came to sit by the water, where his fingers tangled shyly with hers and her shoulder pressed lightly against his arm. As they breathed, side by side, their eyes met. No bells sounded, no fireworks shone; yet although they saw little but the sunset twice reflected, he smiled, she understood, and this was (in the moment) enough.

finis

DRABBLE SIX:
( veronica mars / logan, veronica / pg / young love - it's enough to make you sick. )

loose ends

Young love.

It's enough to make you sick, he thought, picking up his lunch and shuffling to the next desk over with a glare at the young couple who took his seat and the one to the right of it. Hold that - already there.

She'd given him that look, too. With her eyes wide and her head tilted just so - it made you the only person in the room. Made you a chump. Hadn't hurt that that had been the case; half-conscious and sprawled across that lumpy couch in her front room, he'd spilled blood and memory in the cheap neon half-light. And she'd listened; oh, she'd listened, and he'd been so very certain, even as he'd heard the knock on the door and his brain told him otherwise, that he'd be the only one that she'd look at with that same intensity. Not too damn long ago, either. Moving on, Veronica, moving on - were you even listening?

Not that it matters, he thought, forcefully tuning out the slideshow, his best friend, and the girl studiously avoiding his gaze. She's still over there.

(finis.)

. . . . .

sabe's scribbles: all of these were completed as part of a drabble meme between July 5-8, 2007. ^^

"Still" (naruto) (wip)

2007-06-07T05:31:37Z

My knowledge of Naruto canon is wobblier than with any of my other fandoms, so there's probably artistic license being taken (~~Guy~~ Gai strikes me as a house guy, for example, but...) I've had this snippet lurking around for a couple of months now and thought to air it out a little. ^__^

( naruto ; pg ; kurenai , team eight by proxy, kurenai/asuma if you squint ; character introspection ; crow's feet, orange books, house parties, and cigarette sunsets ; the first rule of illusion is believing in the lie. )

Still

This is what happens, she thinks, when you take broken people, and tell them to build.

As she walks through the bustling side street, she smoothes at the tiny crow’s feet under her eyes, proud that she has lived and fought hard enough to see their telltale grooves and curves and wondering if her last mission bonus will buy enough of Tsunade’s favorite sake to learn how to banish the spidery lines of age. Of death. (Of natural death.)

Kurenai freezes, realizing that she cannot remember the last shinobi – the last person – she knows who has died that way.

It is too easy to name those who have died violently. Death by another’s hand is as much a part of their lives as the tell-tale vests, the countless scrolls, the endless drills and tests both formal and implicit…

She smiles at Gai as he passes, his grin blinding and honest, and she wonders not for the first time how he can beam like that with two students in and out of the hospital and a house flattened by the Sand-Sound conflict. He is the only one of the four jounin with new genin teams who has – who had – a house. Asuma has an apartment not far from the Hokage Tower and Kakashi’s place is hardly more than a couple of rooms that the builders seem to have stuck together at random. Gai is a house person in the way that others are cat people or dog people: during his phase of throwing house parties, she had marveled at how the presence of one person could fill more than three rooms at once as she drifted through the people who had become half-strangers in the absence of their green vests, barely disrupting the air around her.

As she winds her way towards it, she tries not to think about her flat with its white walls and large windows that are barely hers. She has, she thinks, spent more time in bedrolls and foreign inn rooms than the nook which overlooks the street leading to the onsen. It doesn't help that her black thumb has killed everything green within a five-foot radius of her apartment, save the aloe plant that refuses to die, and she supposes that that, at least, is something. Kurenai smiles at the thought of Asuma’s last birthday present, recommended by Inochi’s daughter after the rose bushes and Amazon lilies that he had once helped her plant had quickly expired.

The aloe has conquered her kitchen windowsill, and is, she admits, almost adorably ugly with its mess of bulbous green spikes that protrude from the flowerpot. It is certainly more distinctive than attractive, but the pulp from its leaves is soothing on sunburns and she has heard from someone – Shizune, perhaps? – that its pulp can be brewed into a cooling drink. Kurenai has never been quite desperate or curious enough to try the latter, but she trusts the medic-nin, so perhaps someday…

Maybe she’ll stop Shizune when she sees her next in the hospital or around the village to ask for the recipe, and then she’ll make the drink for Asuma when he happens over next time. She’ll let him tease her about her complete lack of domestic skills, because he’s always been teasing but never mean, and Kurenai’s always liked the way his lips curve when he knows she’s kind-of-but-not-really angry at him.

And so she thinks that they’ll sling their legs over the railing on her balcony and watch the sun rise or set or not move at all and not care because in the moment, they are solid. Still.

If nothing else, she’ll give him something else to hold in the place of those cigarettes of his.

He has been smoking more, and she quietly curses the things both in and out of his presence. It is a futile gesture, because he won’t give them up any sooner than Kakashi would willingly cede his orange books, or Gai his jumpsuit.

Kurenai wonders what others think she wouldn’t be willing to give up, and she’s not certain she can think of anything. She isn’t certain what that omission means; she deals in dreams and illusion, and the first thing she remembers being taught is that a successful genjutsu specialist must believe in their own lies.

She knows this much: she is efficiency wrapped up in a mobius strip of cream linen; she is pretty enough now that she has grown into her crimson eyes and her crimson name. She is kunoichi. Life-bringer, death-bringer – the duality does not weigh as heavily on her male counterparts, perhaps, and perhaps her crutch is that she is more a mother (not uncle not even mentor really definitely not idol) to her three. She does not hesitate to thwack Kiba upside the head, ruffling his wild hair when his mouth runs out of line. She corrects the angle of Hinata’s arm as the girl throws kunai, all the while thinking that anyone who thinks the tiny Hyuuga is entirely docile is not looking close enough. She notices that Shino’s ever-present glasses are askew and, taking them, winds a tiny snip of field bandage around the glasses’ arm before handing them back with a genuine smile. Like their possessions, her three have their own scars. But kind-of broken is an important difference – kind-of is not the same thing as all-the-way broken because kind of broken can still be healed. Like Lee’s limbs, like Sakura’s heart, like the blue that bleeds into Hinata’s eyes when the girl thinks no-one is looking – kind-of broken is a starting place as much as it is a stumbling block.

She wonders if Sarutobi knew that all along, and wishes she had talked more with the old man in the moments when she could have had a chance. She wonders if she has known it all along, the mistaken half-mother, half-teacher figure that she has become for these child soldiers of flint and pale fire.

As Kiba’s hand flashes up in an exuberant wave, as Hinata’s smile grows, as the sun flashes off of Shino’s glasses when he nods in greeting – as she joins her team – she wonders just what they see when they look back at her.

. o .

(finis)

. o .

sabe's scribbles: thoughts? ideas? glaring canonical errors? I like the feel of this one; it's nowhere near done, but it feels different somehow. ...I've just remembered I was supposed to have something more about Kakashi in there beyond the mention of his tiny apartment and his orange books, but he's hard to write about. I blame the silver hair. ^_~

Also for the sake of disclaiming - all characters have been borrowed from the mangaka Kishimoto ~~and in the process have denied the whole Gai -> Guy thing because seriously, what the heck, Kishi.~~

(Iconpost) - the archive

2007-06-04T18:50:58Z

So far, so good? Well, maybe that's an exaggeration. Regardless ~ the icons I have made so far; they range from my Paint days to the present state as an initiate with PS7. So some are awful, but posterity has to be worth something, right?

Tales of Symphonia : 12
FF7 : 13
Blade of the Immortal : 5
Naruto : 8
Inuyasha : 7
SoulCalibur (II and III) : 7
Miscellaneous (immortal rain, gungrave, kenshin, rahxephon...) : 20

total : 72

samples:

1	2	3	4

Tales of Symphonia

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12

FF7

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13

Blade of the Immortal

1	2	3	4	5

Naruto

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8

Inuyasha

1	2	3	4	5

6	7

SoulCalibur

1	2	3	4	5

6	7

Miscellaneous

1	2	3	4	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

scribbles:

* comments are lovely; credit to either crimsonmimosa or taekwonangel is even better.
* tables by The Icon Table Generator
* brush/effect info is here.

"Transition" (immortal rain) (Christmasfic)

2007-05-29T05:21:28Z

Just a short drabble, based off of the manga Immortal Rain. This one's a mini-fic for sorda_sol, from a drabble meme from whoa-long-ago, but I really do try to hold up all of my 'fic promises. ^___^ In short?

( immortal rain ; g ; eury/ayla ; unapologetic fluff. bring toothbrushes. ; driving lessons have never been a ~~more dangerous~~ better idea, he thinks. )

Transition

Autumn, and the leaves made golden patches as they fell on her dress. Serenity.

A voice interrupted her bliss. "...I still don't get why I got pinned with this."

"You promised, that's why," Ayla replied, rolling up to lean her head on her hands. "I wouldn't let that doctor anywhere near me, and Machika can't drive at all."

"And Rain threatened to cut his own hands off first," Eury continued, tumbling down to sit beside her. "I wish I'd heard that part before I'd offered." As he spoke, his hands inched forwards to tangle into her long hair, slowly plaiting it.

Ayla sent him a curious look, but didn't ask. "Besides," she teased, "I haven't even hit anything yet."

Eury rolled his eyes. "Only because that poor shmuck on the bridge chose to jump in the lake instead, silly," he said, punctuating the last word with a playful kiss to her nose.

Ayla blushed and drew away, brushing the leaves from the silver of her skirt. "We, um, should be getting back..."

He stood and shook a set of keys. "So we should."

"Why, you - but I -"

"You'll get the hang of it," Eury laughed. "Same time tomorrow?"

As he drove back, Ayla smiled her agreement at Eury, kicking her feet up to rest on the dash. She wasn't certain whether he was talking about the driving or just about himself, but she was in.

(finis)

. . . . .
Sabe's Scribbles: ..inspired by Kaori Ozaki's Immortal Rain manga, and too much Iron & Wine, particularly 'Jezebel.' ^^

"The Edge of Morning" (tos) (Christmasfic)

2007-04-16T17:22:03Z

Like Close Up and Between Blue Rocks, this one ran away with me. For three months.

In short? You're looking at:

title: The Edge of Morning
fandom: tales of symphonia; timeline from pre-game to about a century post-.
rating: T-ish. Mostly for language.
pairing(s): silverlocke980 asked for Zelos/Colette, but there's also Seles/Genis, Colette/Lloyd, Sheena/Zelos, Sheena/? (because in one hundred years, nobody falls in love with just one person.)
notes: Frankly? Experimental. Very long. Highly referential. Moments of insanity (none of which are mine, for once,) days of chasing lightning, some dancing, and a dash of possession. Soul-families, foolish children, halo-girls, and dreamers.

The Edge of Morning

(see this wind-boy falling)

Of so many voices which one lies?
What act is true
if every act is seen through other eyes?
Which touch is real and which is art?
How many-layered is the heart?

Zelos Wilder had never been a fan of destiny.

It could have been a character flaw. Perhaps (and this was more likely) he merely enjoyed being difficult.

Be manly, a good role model, his advisors told him. A week later, the previously retiring young man had perfected a devil-may-care strut and was never seen in public without a long coral-coloured vest.

Act your age, they told him. Zelos proceeded to perfect the art of flirtation within a month and let the stack of paperwork in his office grow until it threatened to burst into the hallway.

Kill your sister, they ordered as she slept. The Chosen’s line needs a clear progression, and she is a diversion. A distraction, Lord Zelos. It’s best for everyone.

Zelos looked down at the tiny girl as she lay curled into her blankets, fists balled under her chin and mouth already curved in what was to become her trademark frown. Doubt stirred his thoughts into fury. Not for me. It isn’t best for me.

He hadn’t hesitated.

He had ignored his mantra of calculated risk and careful provocation and acted. With a flash of steel from the sword he carried at his hip, the two other Meltokians were dead before their bodies hit the ground. Zelos allowed himself to enjoy a moment of smug satisfaction before realization hit.

Reality came in the form of the family’s butler, Sebastian, who emerged from around the corner. “Young sir? Young miss—” The butler’s face paled as he looked from his teenaged charge to the bodies on the floor. “You - you should not have done that, young sir.”

“Help me, Sebastian,” Zelos asked; his voice shaky and his cheeks ashen. “They – those sanctimonious bastards – asked me to kill Seles.”

Sebastian inhaled sharply, but nodded. “I see.” Pressing a hand against his master’s shoulder, he calmed Zelos and had helped indeed; that night, two large bundles were dumped unceremoniously over the great Tethe’alla bridge, and the family retainer called in a favour with his youngest sister, who had entered the sisterhood of Martel and was Abbess over a small abbey far away from the bustling lights and backstabbing intrigues of Meltokio.

Taking Seles’ character into account, Sebastian figured that the young miss would never forgive him, but he hoped that she would understand in time.

. . .

december is darkest

Zelos sighed, disgruntled.

There was a half-empty bottle of something dangling from one of his hands, and a shapely brunette whose name he couldn’t remember wrapped against his other side in a Flanoir hotel bed when the gravity of the thought fully struck him: he was, eventually, expected to move on from the accidentally-saving-the-world thing.

But it was hard to top that little stint, so he had decided he needed a holiday. It had become a flighty, pointless vacation that was edging on five years now, and even though his was not an unfortunate situation by most men’s standards, for the first time, it felt hollow.

The girl didn’t matter, not really; he just hadn’t bothered to dissuade her the night before. Ten years of having beautiful women throw themselves at his Chosen mantle had destroyed the last of Zelos’ resistance, and the young ladies of Flanoir were exceptionally beautiful...

He supposed that the fact that this one – what was her name? Sylene? Sandra? – was the fourth amber-eyed brunette he’d bedded in the last month was telling, but Zelos had always excelled at denial. He wasn’t trying to forget anyone, no. He wasn’t trying to drink away the sight of the letter on his bedside table crested with the Mizuho seal in ink as red as his hair or wonder just how her couriers had found him. He wasn’t trying to think of a spitfire wrapped in shrinking violet who’d stood up to him and pushed him away and let him catch her; he certainly wasn’t thinking of her upcoming marriage, detailed in said letter.

He couldn’t say why. He’d left her behind years ago, and it had almost been an amicable parting. At least by our standards, Zelos thought, rubbing his jaw in memory of the right hook he hadn’t seen coming.

. . .

that was easy (i still miss you)

“…Grow up, damn you!” Sheena’s eyes had sparkled with tears as she shouted him down. “I had to.” she had murmured as he took another step towards her.

“Sheena…”

“It’s not ‘banshee’ anymore? Or ‘hunny’?”

He shrugged with a confidence he wished he felt. “You sure you want me calling you those things?”

“I never did,” she sniffed, tugging angrily at the ends of her ponytail.

“Aww,” he’d purred. “I bet I could get you to like it, in time…”

But she’d stalked away from him and the hand he’d extended to touch her cheek, breaking whatever sort of moment he’d been trying to build. She also missed the way his eyes shifted miserably. “The world does not revolve around you, Zelos Wilder, and I sure as hell don’t.”

He’d never taken well to being insulted. “Yeah, that’s right,” Zelos snapped, melancholy forgotten. “The Ice-Princess’s got a village to run, right. Damn, hunny, you’ve been hanging out with Celsius too much.”

She’d punched him for it, whether for the hated nickname or the various insinuations behind his words she wasn’t sure, and was secretly, sickly glad for his pale skin that she knew would bruise. “We – not all of us can be children forever, idiot.” And she’d looked pointedly at his shoulders as she’d said it; his wings weren’t out, but they might as well have been.

He looked straight at her as he’d said “well, it’s best that we never worked out then, isn’t it?” Despite his anger, he couldn’t help the smile that was curving his lips up – he’d never managed the trick of staying mad at Sheena for very long.

She’d tried not to, but he could see her nose wrinkle in amusement. “Guess not,” Sheena replied. “Grandfather’d have a heart attack. Another one.” She clapped her hands over her mouth after realizing what she’d said. “I mean – “

Zelos’s smile turned sneaky. “I think, Shee, you’ve been spending too much time with me. Disrespecting your elders? Perish the thought that the respectable Heir of Mizuho would do such a thing.”

Shaking her head, the ninja looked up. “‘Shee?’”

“What can I say? I’m a hard guy to break of nicknames. But it beats ‘hunny’ or ‘banshee,’ doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does.” Sheena smiled at him through her bangs. “It’s about time.”

He smiled back crookedly, fiddling with one of the toggles on his vest. “Guess so, hey. Well, seeing as you’re staying and I’m going, I guess this is goodbye, but are you sure you want to be stuck ‘round here?”

She looked around at her village: its humble buildings and tall forests with pines and paths she knew like a lover’s skin slowed her speeding heart and slowly, she nodded. “I… I am. It’s good to be home at last.”

He couldn’t argue with logic like that, so he’d stretched his arms behind his head before smiling down at her. “Aw, hell; good luck with running your village, then.”

“Get going,” she’d replied, her voice striking an unusually gravelly note. “You’ve got skirts to chase, don’t you?”

“So I do, Shee; so I do.” Zelos bent, successfully kissing her cheek before she could ward him off. As she spluttered, he unfurled the wings she’d once compared to a sunset and was in the air, making his way from the last of the adventurers of their haphazard band without looking back.

(…Without looking back more than once.)

. . .

your ex-lover is dead

He hadn’t looked back for five years, assuring himself there was no need to. Sheena was a grown woman (who had told him as much) who could take care of herself, and he was no child to tug on her skirts. Haori. Whatever.

And yet the letter she’d sent him to herald her upcoming marriage sat (mostly) undisturbed and he wasn’t sure why.

He wasn’t a coward.

A blue-eyed girl had made sure of that fact a score of years ago. Colette’s trusting smile and lissome form had been the last thing to turn his heart as she’d lain in his arms while he flew her to what was supposed to be her death.

He’d burn as bright as his wings one day, he knew, but he’d seen what his kind had been named for as he flew with her and took the time to look past her clumsy grace and curtain of blonde hair as if it was the last time (because it was. Supposed to be.)

He was a parody of the real thing: flirtation with a bittersweet edge. She was golden-sun beauty in body and soul and the love (or so he had thought) of the boy he would give anything to call brother, though he knew he would never deserve to.

Zelos was always the first one to admit he was lucky beyond words that Lloyd never cared much about what other people thought.

. . .

my true love

( is a man who never existed at all )

It was in thinking of the golden pair that Zelos had dragged himself out of the lumpy bed, kissed the brunette’s cheek with affection already distant, and left enough money for his room before pulling himself together in time to make it to Sheena’s wedding.

The affair had been just as beautiful and ceremonial as he’d expected, and he’d caught Colette just before the tiny blonde - who had tripped over her own feet, strapped into white sandals with a considerable heel - could collide with the pristine wedding cake, so the bride even had to smile at him once.

Zelos hadn’t given Sheena more than a chance to smile. Steadying Colette in his arms, he’d swept the other angel around the dance floor in a breathless swing, laughing despite himself as she twirled in his arms, her dress a blue halo of skirt and petticoat and ribbon with bare hints of girl in the soft curve of her elbows, the flash of her ankles as she turned in his arms just as trustingly as she had curled into them during their flight to a Tower that stood no longer. He’d complimented the younger girl on her oddly instinctive dance abilities; give her someone’s hand to hold and shoulder to lean on and she suddenly rivaled the carriage of any of the sophisticated lords and ladies who had turned up.

She’d beamed at his compliment, blushing beautifully and denying it even as he let his fingers brush her cheek; hey, hey, I don’t waste time saying things I don’t mean, he’d said. Colette just looked at him until he’d pouted, laughed and admitted not to people who matter, anyway. You used to be so sweet, Tiny Angel.

I - I grew up, Casanova.

Huh, he thought, but he couldn’t disagree. She stuttered a little, but she certainly hadn’t known that particular smile when he had traveled with her.

True to form, Zelos made Sheena dance with him later, and had teased her over her unusually prudish and traditional garb. To his amusement, although the cake had been from a modish bakery in Meltokio and the orchestra hailed from Sybak, the rest of the ceremony had been pure Mizuho. He’d also ignored Sheena’s slap to his shoulder and her shushing when he’d whispered if he ever, and I mean ever makes you cry, Shee, all ya gotta do is shout.

Sheena hadn’t refused him, so he’d walked away from their dance smiling. Zelos had learned – maybe earlier and harder than most – to work with what cards life dealt him. (He’d also learned to stiff the dealer when the schmuck wasn’t looking, but he’d never sworn to be a saint. Angel, yeah, but the two words were hardly on exclusive terms.)

To his surprise, Colette found him again that night, dragging her fellow ex-Chosen out onto the floor as the orchestra shifted to the upbeat cadence made for a swing. “Come on,” she beckoned, slipping the goblet of wine out of his hand and threading her fingers through his with faith and familiarity.

He had followed – how could he not? Zelos was many things but not yet a fool – wrapping her into his arms and twirling her out in time with the music. And for seconds at a time he could pretend that she could stay where she was, this girl of white-gold and blue.

Her company was as refreshing as a wind swept down from Flanoir’s northerly climes, he thought… and then he remembered Flanoir and what he’d been doing there, feeling his taint slide invisibly across their joined hands. It took all that he had to wait to draw away from her until the dance ended, managing a smile and a go back to your angel-boy, Colette, that he hadn’t – entirely – meant for her to hear.

But she had heard, twisting her hands together before curling into herself defensively and fixing him with a glare. He’d never known her blue eyes could scoff, but there they were, and there she was, sweet, soft soprano stinging: don’t you see - don’t you see, Zelos? He was never really there to go back to.

. . .

fingerpaint the sky

Along her journey, she met a woman who had a mouth like his. The first time had been when they were not quite women: she had both looked and acted her age, uncertain of the redheaded child with vicious, envious eyes and birdlike hands that had fluttered and clenched in her lap, at her sides: a beautiful little caged bird. And he – her brother – had been the one who had caged her.

Colette had wondered at that, and felt fear and anger towards the mercurial duo bouncing guarded looks and barbed phrases at one another as they lived up to their shared name.

Once the angry little girl had flown from her Abbey, they met again. The former had become a respected scholar and was a mother of three; Colette felt unchanged: still sweet-sixteen on the surface with swirling hair and clumsy feet. As she tumbled over the Sages’ doorstep, Colette felt as if she had stepped out of a time lapse when she saw Seles cradling her youngest and speaking of alchemic theory with her silver-haired husband.

A mother, Colette thought, her heart beating a steady tattoo of love and jealousy and joy for her childhood friend, who helped her up with open arms and a ready smile on his still-youthful face. How long had it been since she’d been around a real mother, that bizarre alchemy of passion and faith and feral protectiveness?

Genis had grown into his own, and she was thrilled to see it – he was a proud father, answering her questions and ruffling the hair of whichever child was closest, his eyes as bright as those of his son and two young daughters. He was also a quietly proud husband, although it was clear that Seles ran the household with a firm grasp under her fashionably dainty gloves.

The Sage home was a house of books and high windows, but also of smeared finger-paintings plastered on the wall and small wooden toys she could guess that Dirk had made for the young family. Theirs was a warm house, filled with laughter and carefully mitigated chaos, and Colette rubbed her hands together even though the night was balmy, hoping to keep some of their warmth as a memory for the days to come.

It wasn’t until after the children had been nestled up in their beds and the three adults curled into armchairs to catch up on their travels and triumphs that Genis asked “Lloyd couldn’t join you this time, hey,” either ignoring or oblivious to the sharp kick that his wife aimed at his leg.

“You know Lloyd,” Colette giggled, catching her breath and trying to smile. “He’s always finding a new adventure or another princess to save from a tower.”

Genis felt the second kick. “I – I think I hear Roja crying,” he stammered quickly, as he pushed himself out of his chair. “I’ll, um, let you two catch up for a while.”

And so he did, slipping quickly up the stairs and leaving the two women to talk through the twilight. Colette fidgeted nervously until Seles, sighing, bustled into the kitchen and brewed a cup of tea.

Returning, Seles passed the teacup to Colette with a no-nonsense look. “Here,” Seles said. “Drink. It’ll help, and if you want to talk about my idiot husband or brother or neither, I’ll listen.”

“T-thank you,” Colette stuttered, smiling timidly. “I, um, I don’t want to be a bother.”

As if on cue, Zelos’ head emerged from around a doorway at the other end of the room. “Who’s a bother?” Catching sight of Colette, Zelos ran a self-conscious hand through his hair. As he did, sawdust fell to the ground around him. “Colette! Sis, you didn’t tell me we were having company.”

Seles sighed. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be company, brother-mine.”

Zelos laughed and ruffled his sister’s hair. Pausing in front of Colette with a smile, he dropped a carefully carven Thunder Bird into her open hands. “Hey, angel-girl; hold onto that for a second, please?”

“Hi, Zelos,” Colette replied, giggling at Seles as the little redhead rolled her eyes at her brother, who disappeared, whistling, into the kitchen.

Looking down at the wooden bird in her hands, Colette realized that perhaps Dirk hadn’t been the creator of the various toys around the Sage house after all. “He’s really good at this,” she said to Seles.

“Don’t let him hear you say that. You’ll never hear the end of it,” Seles suggested. “You should see him, trailing woodchips all over my carpet and teaching Evander to do the same…”

“Aw, you know he loves it, and so do you, sis.” A matching teacup in his hand, Zelos re-emerged from the kitchen, grinning unrepentantly. Collapsing on the couch next to Colette, Zelos slipped into the conversation, his smile soft as Colette weighed his carving in her hands, letting the thunderbird slip from palm to palm.

Seles’ lips pursed in amusement as she watched the pair on the couch look and not look at each other as they spoke and teased and bantered like the old friends that they (by all rights) should have been and yet were not. Honestly, she thought to herself, kids these days…

. . .

(--it’s partner found, it’s partner lost
and it’s hell to pay when the fiddler stops)

. . .

all the white horses

Zelos took a swig from the bottle in his hand, saluting the little sister who’d learned from the best how to keep someone at arm’s length, but mocked the teaching, drawing him in despite his best intentions to stay away.

Unbidden, the salt air of the Abbey coast flooded his memory; the narrow bed in the tower room, the hovering priestesses, her family out in the hall with the brat – well, the Sage patriarch wasn’t a brat anymore, what with three brats of his own (and that was weird and not even really worth thinking about, but they were good kids; took after Seles, thank Luna for small mercies.)

Genis would always be a kid to Zelos, but that was neither here nor there. So too – in Zelos’ mind at least – was Seles always his baby sister. The years in which she had held his Cruxis Crystal had prolonged her life, but immortality was her brother’s curse. Seles’ recurring illness had been a powerful reality check, yet despite her convalescent state, she chided her brother for his recklessness as he sailed into the sickroom at her old Abbey, worried but hiding his uncertainty behind the largest bouquet he could physically carry.

He had worried about Seles returning to a place that she had hated so much as a child, but she had reassured him that any hard feelings had passed: the clerics were the best medics money could afford, and had a soft spot for the redheaded woman from her time there so many years ago, and if he was so worried, he could just foot the Abbess’ bill and everyone would walk away happy.

He stuck his tongue out at her suggestion. Zelos might have been over a hundred years old (in standard-human time, not that that counted for anything) but the juvenile gesture had never felt better.

To a casual observer, he could have been Seles’s son as he leant with constructed nonchalance against the post of her sickbed. Seles had told him as much, her voice crackling with irritation and reluctant affection, and he ruffled her silvery hair for it.

“Yeah, yeah. I love ya too, little sis,” he said, and laughed at her expression “Should’ve told ya years ago, hey?”

“Of course you should have,” she scolded. “And don’t you look at me like that. I may be sick,” Seles coughed, but glared at the handkerchief that her brother had proffered even as she took it. “I actually may be dying this time. But I’m not made of glass, Zelos.”

He’d told Seles before that immortality was his curse. By morning, he couldn’t deny it: his sister had lived, but her childhood heart condition had resurfaced. Zelos was selfishly glad she was alive, and so he winged away from the Abbey as soon as the Abbess brought down the news. Closing his eyes, he flew on, unable to reply to the medic’s proclamation, much less the reaction of a beleaguered but gleeful family that was – and was not quite – his own.

As Zelos pulled himself out of his thoughts and leant over the railing of his balcony – testing the wind, testing himself – he caught sight of a flash of golden hair. He hoped futilely, ridiculously, just for a half-second, that it was her whom he had seen. It had been years since he’d seen her, laughed with her on his sister’s couch. It had been almost a century since he’d tried to kill her. He’d meant to keep in touch; he wondered if she still had the little bird he’d pressed into her hands at the end of their weekend together, but he knew that the worlds could be a big place when they wanted to be.

Drawing back from the rail and catching sight of a subtle glint of jewelry from around the woman’s neck, he decided to follow – just long enough to see if the girl below was Colette. His legs could use the stretch. That was all.

So he hopped over the rail and scrabbled down the maze of a trellis that had overgrown in the years after Sebastian’s death; a Romeo in reverse jabbing the toe of his boots through the thick, twining vines.

. . .

the lighting of the lamps

o leave me
my final illiteracy
of memory’s languor

my preference
to drift in lenient coma
an older Ophelia
on Lethe

It took at least an hour to track her down, but he found her at last in the small tavern at the end of the Meltokian market district. The lissome blonde spun around on her chair at his halloing, but as her eyes met his, his grin died. (It was roughly at this point that he realized that something was very, very wrong. She looked the same as she had ten years ago, but the look in her eyes screamed that time had not left her unscarred.)

He took the drink she slid over to him with a nod and an arched eyebrow; alcohol didn’t do anything much to angels and it had been a while since he’d seen her, but the gesture seemed off...

Her first words silenced his greeting before it crossed his lips. “They killed her and made her Goddess, you know.”

Zelos blinked. To say that this hadn’t quite been what he’d expected…

“…they locked her in a glass casket; pretty, shiny glass, Zelos, and they worshipped her and loved her from this world and they never forgot her, and that was the cruelest part. I think,” she whispered, her eyes not quite her own, “I think you never could have guessed it was cruel, because what is worse than people forgetting you, Zelos?”

He couldn’t answer, utterly lost as he looked from her fingernails that had been torn to their quick to her hair, which shone in the reflected glow from the lamps. Zelos was breathless, the hair on his arms raising; Colette had always been ethereal but she’d never been eerie. Even red-eyed and possessed, she’d never felt this far away.

The tiny blonde drained her glass of what looked like gin and pineapple juice – she still had a sweet tooth after this time, and he tried to smile. But she continued like he’d answered, clapping her hands together in childlike delight. “Remembering them is the cruelest fate of all, don’t you see?”

He couldn’t, but he pulled his chair nearer. He was afraid to touch her, to pull her, like a sleepwalker, too far out of her dream-world, but was equally unable to draw away or dismiss her with a belly laugh and a charming line. It wasn’t that his lines had ever worked on Colette; she’d either smiled and thanked him, or blinked adorably as his innuendo slipped right over her head. But this – the area of Emotional Female – was one he had always tried to avoid.

“They laughed for all they’d lost and they kept her alive in their tears and whispers and curses… she built them and she broke them and because they never let her go, not even Kratos, they broke her too, don’t you see; and she was never really a goddess, she was just a girl so with all those memories and hopes and dreams that she couldn’t help but hear – dear Martel this and praise Martel that and oh please, lover, if you could only come back to me – and she couldn’t do anything because she was just a girl in a glass case who had bled and loved like they did but she had to hear their voices and screams and prayers,” Colette whispered sibilantly, spin-dancing-drifting out of the bar and tipping a glance over her shoulder to make sure he would follow.

He did, after throwing down enough to cover her drinks and his own. Once outside, he breathed in, catching the hints of autumn in the night air; dried leaves and apple trees, or maybe that was just her hair as she twirled around madly, still murmuring.

“And – and she had to hope for them, you see, because if she didn’t, no-one would, and she didn’t like letting other people feel bad. But she was so tired, she told me; she wanted someone else to listen, and she loved me for listening; she didn’t mean to, I don’t – I don’t think, because I wasn’t pretty like her and she didn’t really want to hear that the brother she loved had slipped even further away than she had, but there I was and there she was and we didn’t really have much sway in the decision, did we? And who would listen if she wouldn’t? If I didn’t? Your smile says ‘yes,’ you’d give it a chance, and maybe you’d try,” Colette sighed as he gestured for her to come down from the fence. She spun away, her blonde hair a dim halo under the streetlight as she somehow managed to keep her balance on the thin rails.

The hiccup that bubbled over her lips as she danced ahead was considerably less poetic, and Zelos hid his smile of relief. She was tipsy – tipsy and talking absolutely bloody crazy, but he could deal with an intoxicated young woman more easily than a crazy one.

Colette wasn’t finished. “Maybe you would try, and I’m sure you’d do well if you had to, because you could always make those girls smile with a word or two; you were so brave, Zelos, and I – I liked that about you.”

Colette came back to herself for a second; blue eyes cleared and a familiar stutter fractured her sibilance.

He reached for her hands even though he was just as frozen by the evening air as she was. “Hey – hey – hunny, Colette, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“It – it was so hard,” she said, biting her lip and trying to hold his gaze. “So hard as the years slipped by, she would tell me, because she wasn’t a goddess, she was just a woman and so, so was I, and though everyone tried to put her to sleep and pull her out of me, they failed, don’t you see…” Pausing and shaking and taking a deep breath, she took his hands, stepping from the rail as gracefully as if it had been a carriage step. Once she touched the ground, Colette sighed, looking up at the redhead with a determined expression. “It’s – it’s not so bad, really; don’t worry about me! Just some nights when I’m tired, she… I’m sorry, Zelos.”

Not for the first time, Zelos silently cursed his former employers.

“We’re going to see a family who loves you – us – because you need it.” Sweet Luna above, he thought, because I need it. And if Seles can’t snap you into shape…

. . .

st. elmo’s fire

“Call her in.” Seles’ voice, weakened by her illness, was no less commanding.

So he did, pacing down the stairs and into the small garden outside the Abbey to find Colette sitting restlessly on the single stone bench by the pond, swinging her feet back and forth like a pendulum. “C’mon, Colette,” he said, hiding his smile at the way she jumped in surprise and blushed at his proximity as he sat down beside her.

“It’s – it’s just family in there, Zelos – I couldn’t possibly…”

He took her hands gently, guiding her from the garden. “The way I hear it, angel-girl, you are family.”

So she followed, and was ushered into the tower room by an unusually subdued Zelos. She clasped Roja and Melody’s hands in greeting; the girls had grown into young women and Colette had to tilt her head up to smile softly at the elder of the pair, silver-haired Melody. From his chair by the window, Evander shot Zelos and Colette a sleepy smile, but the teenager’s head sunk down again almost immediately.

Soon afterwards, Seles sunk into a fitful sleep, leaving nothing to do but wait. Hoping to give Genis and his children some time alone, Colette brushed her hand along Zelos’ shoulder and, once she had his attention, swept her gaze to the door. This time, he was the one to follow.

Rain pattered down on the roof and windows of the Abbey, and as it did, Zelos Wilder was very happy he did not believe in omens or anything of the sort – after all, raindrops could only mean impending tears and tragedy if you believed they would. It didn’t help that he could only watch as Colette rose from where they had been sitting by the fire and begin to pace, her steps becoming faster and faster across the floor of the small sitting room. Hoping to lighten the mood – to stop her pacing – to do something because the waiting was killing him too – he joked, badly, about wearing a hole in the carpet.

“I didn’t think – I’m sorry – I’m sorry!” Colette stammered, rushing past him and out into the storm.

Well, damn.

As he followed her, pulling the door shut behind him, he looked around only to stifle an inappropriate laugh. She had unfurled her wings and was actually pacing in mid-air. He hadn’t known that such a thing was possible, but he did know that the storm was intensifying. “I didn’t mean it, Colette – come down from there!”

Her smile was tiny but knowing. “The Zelos I knew wouldn’t have been afraid.”

“The Zelos you knew grew up,” he replied.

“It doesn’t look like it,” she answered, her voice soft but carried by the electric air between them.

He recoiled. “Do you want to be struck by lightning? Come on; come down now, Colette.”

“It can’t hurt me if I’m in the air,” she replied, whirling in lopsided circles above his head. “Come on up; the view is lovely.”

“I’d like to keep this perfect body intact, thanks.”

This jibe went over much better: she giggled, but pouted as a thought occurred to her. “You’d have danced with me, once.”

Uh-oh, he thought, recognizing her expression. “I’ll dance with you all you want once we’re inside – I promise, angel-girl.” Playing off his concern for her as vanity, he continued. “Besides, this rain’s making my hair all frizzy.”

“It looks like a halo,” she shouted over the wind. “Won’t you please dance with me, halo-boy?”

“We’ll both be struck then, and that would just be silly.”

“Maybe,” she said, reaching a hand out, “but – but you’ve always liked blazes of glory.”

“Lightning hurts,” he conceded, but he reached up to take her hand. “I guess I can’t let you have all the fun, can I?”

Smiling brightly, she placed her other hand on his shoulder and led him into an aerial version of the swing-dance they’d shared at Sheena’s wedding. “See, it’s not so bad! And it – it doesn’t matter if I step on your toes at all if we’re in the air, right?”

Zelos chuckled – she was right about one thing. But… “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a talented dancer,” he insisted.

Colette’s laughter joined his. “Silly, I told you we’d be all right,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Who says all of that about airborne lightning, anyway?”

After thinking about it for a moment, he smiled. “You know, I don’t know.”

“You see?” she sighed, relaxing.

His eyes widened as the tips of his hair and the hem of her skirt crackled with visible sparks. Saent Elmo’s fire, said his years of education; the worst of the storm was nearly overtop of them, then, if he and the blonde in his arms – his arms, who would have ever believed that she’d find her way back to him twice? – had flown high enough to become living lightning rods.

Sobering at the thought but continuing to spin, to not think about waiting and uselessness and potential bolts of concentrated mana that made the kid’s husband’s spells look like child’s play, Zelos started to descend.

If Colette noticed – and she did – she said nothing, becoming the more grounded of the two as Zelos’ grasp tightened and his worried eyes shot to the stone Abbey. In half-whispers, they reassured each other that this was not the worst place to be; that they would be – were – all right.

(Maybe this won’t be true when we land; maybe in five minutes we’ll crumble. But for now…)

It was with arms slung around each other’s shoulders and drenched to the skin that the two made their way back to the Abbey. The blonde and her redhead were met at the door by a pair of clerics who shooed the duo towards the fireplace and dropped wool blankets over their shoulders and hot cups of cider into their hands, murmuring all the while in amused and exasperated undertones. Colette and Zelos accepted the itchy blankets with sleepy smiles, trading amused looks of their own as the clerics buzzed about them.

When an exhausted Genis stumbled down the stairs six hours later – a sleepless, grumpy wreck but still together, for Seles had also weathered the storm – he froze at the sight of his old friends, who were still on the couch but had curled towards each other at some time in the night. Colette’s legs were draped over Zelos’ lap, her head resting on his chest, where the redhead’s chin had dropped to rest on her crown and his arm cradled her back.

Shaking his head, Genis walked to the stove where the Abbess was heating hot water. Pouring the water into a teapot for the mage, the Abbess smiled at him and at his friends. “For everything there is a season,” she murmured.

“…and a time for every purpose under the heavens,” Genis replied, nodding.

“We were glad to see your wife’s recovery,” the Abbess continued. “Seles has always been special to us.”

“Thank you,” Genis replied gruffly.

The Abbess’ eyes darted towards the occupied couch. “It looks as if you will have something to tell her when she wakes.”

Genis returned her smile. “Maybe so.” It was more likely, he thought as he ascended the stairs, that Seles had caught the sparks between Colette and that idiot brother-in-law of mine ages ago.

. . .

(i ain’t scared of lightning)

In every story that Zelos had ever read – and he had read more than a few – the villain never ended up with the girl. A girl, sometimes, but not the girl, and never, never for keeps. But here he was, and there she was, her hair distilled sunlight as it fanned across the pillow. He must have done something absolutely brilliant in a past life, he thought some mornings, because while he’d seen a lot of beautiful girls and thought himself relatively immune to their charms, every glimpse that he had of her sparked happiness and love so fierce it was almost painful.

Not everyone could be a child forever, Zelos thought, remembering Sheena’s words from that day so long ago. But if destiny or whatever made sure that you had to be, he mused, smiling as white cotton slipped along his wife’s back and she turned, smiling, into his arms,

it was best to find someone to be a child with.

. o .

finis.

. o .

Sabe’s Scribbles: For Silv. Who was okay with weird, wanted happy, and got this. You'd think that asking for a piece where Colette and Zelos were married would be a safe request...

Disclaimer: References include the poetry of T.S. Eliot (preludes), Mina Loy (letters of the unliving), and Anne Lindbergh(riddle). Musical references are many but the most obvious are to the songs of Franz Ferdinand, Great Big Sea, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey, Postal Service, Stars, Tom McRae, Tori Amos, and Vienna Teng. I’m going to go head-desk over the fact that one entire section was inspired by my Violent Weather course. The Abbess’ quip is from Ecclesiastes (III:3:1) – fitting? Maybe. That and it’s a lovely line.

The mini-title stylistic (experiment and pretension; this entire piece is experiment and pretension) was inspired by the work of the nature writer Christa Wolf and by Quillslinger/ ronsard’s Above Reproach – which is an eloquent, tragic, horrifying, and oddly, painfully beautiful 'fic. It is also a particularly dark Itachi/Hinata story (as such, it is also very not safe for young children, the sane, or the workplace. The Wolf is more accessible.)

Feedback (of all colours) is really, honestly welcomed. I doubt this is a style I'll go with (it's exhausting) but I'm curious as to what you think of it. ^^

"Undertow" (ff7) (wip?)

2007-03-11T03:05:16Z

An accompaniment to Fine Print, but from Scarlet's POV; still wip-y. ^^ I wrote this first in 2004, and have cleaned it up since; I'm not certain it's finished...

(ff7 / scarlet/reeve / pg / ficlet / dancing and double nicknames - before they were Shinra, they were rebels with a cause. )

Undertow

'Scarlet.'

I remember how we laughed over the pseudonym when you came up with it – you, the reader, the philosopher. You said it was what I needed: an edge, a trace of mystery. Oh, how I grabbed at your hands, kissed you, and said it was perfect - it is too perfect, because I have become my namesake, a scarlet woman with crimson hands.

And yet you dream, you stubborn, foolish man. Dreams are for children and idiots; they break the rest of us, who pray to make it to the next week, or hour, or payday without too much trouble, much less our lives.

...Who do I kid? We’ve found our dreams, and now that they are ours, we’ve forgotten how to change them. Beautiful, powerful, rich… we longed for this, back in that hellhole slum. The derelict materia stores and shops you worked, the places you never knew I did - we were young and stupid, and we wanted to get out of that second-rate city and live on the infamous Plate.

We wanted power, enough so that your kid sister could become the scientist she dreamed of; so little boys didn’t have to run drugs before their voices dropped. So you didn’t have to work fifteen hours a day, so I didn’t have to dance in back-alley bars. We were together, and I think in those days you loved me.

I think you still do.

It’s why you won’t look at me; your eyes will snap or mellow at anyone else, but you avoid my gaze with a skill that speaks of practice. You haven’t looked at me since the Midwinter Festival five years ago. Not since that night when I danced with you, but left with the President. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I'm not quite as heartless as you make me sound.

I’d told you a million times that it was a reality of who we were becoming. If we wanted to make the difference that you were so passionate about, then there were sacrifices to be made. A body that I never liked much was the least I could offer to your dream, and I – I showed you – that my eyes, my soul belonged to you. They had for years, and that loyalty wasn’t about to change. Though you swore that you wouldn’t be jealous, I knew you would be; I knew you.

We held out as long as we could, but veiled threats from Turks were good enough hints, and you knew it too, your dark eyes dull after the Wutaian had left, shutting the door behind him with a slight 'snick'.

I knew you would be jealous. I never dreamed you would grow to hate me.

Two years ago, we stopped pretending; it was a pale August, and dissent from the Slums was increasing in volume and violence. You did what you could, your dream to make everything 'better' still burning, if jaded a little. My hands tied, I could only keep your silence.

And now you play traitor. They will kill you, love... don’t deceive yourself. The Wutaian Turk knew of your treachery, but his death saves your life. I never dreamed I’d thank Hojo for anything, but it seems his silver-haired pseudo-son was good for something.

I never dreamed for any of this either; more than the packaging was supposed to be different after we clawed our way to these steel and leather thrones, but it is not. And now it’s my turn to play the lamb to the tiger that is AVALANCHE, the startlingly powerful and yet ragtag team that you've been helping behind yet another mask. The Proud Clod is one of my favorite inventions, but these self-styled freedom fighters have a disturbingly good track record - ah, I forget. You already knew that.

I wonder if they fight for the same thing that we wanted to.

Perhaps you will read this letter, though all my others return unread, and save me. I won’t hate you if you don’t, you who I knew before your life became as fictionalized as mine, whose name I created in honour of those men who ran cities long ago; a man whose soul I loved, despite it all.

Oh, to Hades with it… I love you, Reeve.

. . .

…finis…

. . .

"Smeared Black Ink" - (Bleach)

2007-02-12T08:42:34Z

for: tijuana_pirate, because this is all her fault (in a good way); this hopefully will make up for the fact I still owe her a Christmas story.

( bleach ; post ep. 60 / renji, rukia, yachiru / pg ; banterfluff / expect: smeared black ink (literally), bite marks, a look he knows even when she's not looking at him. )

smeared black ink

. o .

He knew that look. That damned, soulful, heart-in-her-eyes look that could stop hardened criminals and irate merchants in their tracks. And wandering swordsmen who were about to step through great glowing gates as well, it seemed. Arms crossed and standing a little behind her, Renji smirked at the orange-haired young man because Rukia wasn’t going away this time; she was where she wanted to be, so take that.

True, he couldn’t quite see her face, but he had not known her for longer than this ryoka had been alive to not be able to tell her expression from the tilt of her head, the way that her fingertips drummed lightly against her sides.

As her stance shifted to well-this-is-awkward-but-we’ll-figure-it-out-someday when Ichigo disappeared through the gate, Renji’s smile grew. So she maybe had it bad – but she was, he thought, choosing to stay here. With him. Of her own volition.

Well… not exactly with him, but the first thing Renji had learned on the dusty back streets of Rukongai was to take what he could get. He’d also learned how to read people – that bastard of a Fifth excepted – but even a blind person could tell that Kurosaki changed people. (And, okay, maybe he’d totally missed Tousen-taichou until the ninth’s captain had spirited he and Rukia up to what was very nearly the executioner’s block, but give a guy a break…)

Hell, Kurosaki had won over Eleventh Division hook, line, and sinker, and theirs was a division that kept to their own unless it was over swords. Renji wasn’t certain whether to be impressed or scared as hell that within a week, Zaraki-taichou had started grumbling ominously about the sudden lack of anyone worth fighting within fighting distance.

Renji had started to avoid the volatile captain and his deceptively diminutive shoulder ornament three days ago; the last time they’d met in the halls, Yachiru had bounded from her captain’s shoulder to Renji’s, asking if he’d heard anything about ‘Ichi-chan’ while eyeing Renji’s hairline with a speculative leer. The redhead had shrugged, filing the nickname away with a trace of glee, and managing a “nah” that was slightly more polite than usual. He’d omitted the ‘brat’ that he usually tacked on, but the gleam in Yachiru’s eyes was still downright scary.

Renji had had to extend his tattoos to cover a bite mark from the last time that Yachiru had been mad at him, and didn’t want to repeat either experience in the near future.

Really didn’t.

So now he was writing a report, feet up on the table and swirling the calligraphy brush not in the characters that would describe the last mission he had been on, but a lazy and frighteningly accurate caricature of the little pipsqueak who(se teeth) he was not avoiding. Really.

The mission in question had been a boring one – it was the last one before he and Kuchiki-taichou had gone to get Rukia back and everything had proceeded to go pear-shaped from then on. He’d forgotten about the mission report until Byakuya had pushed it at him, raising an aristocratic eyebrow in what Renji swore was the Kuchiki version of amusement when the redhead took the parchment with less protest than usual.

Renji had always been a more talented artist than Rukia, and she reminded him of as much as she leant over his shoulder, scaring him half to death with her unexpected comment.

“Dammit, Rukia!” he cursed, glaring up at the brunette.

“You should have heard me come in,” she teased.

“…was busy,” he grumbled, trying to cover the depiction of the pink-haired demon in the lower corner of his scroll.

Rukia’s grin grew. “I see that,” she replied, violet eyes dancing. “Only, the last time I looked at Yachiru-fukutaichou, she didn’t have claws or glowing crimson eyes or great big teeth like the ones you’ve given her, Renji. Is there something you’re not saying?”

“The girl who draws cartoon bunnies all the freakin' time is critiquing me?”

“And what,” Rukia fumed, suddenly in his face, “is wrong with cartoon rabbits, Ren-ji?”

Renji knew this expression too (oh, he knew it personally), and smiled despite himself at the vivacity in her voice – he’d take her on in a heartbeat, happy to see her bouncing back to the Rukia he’d known (far too long ago) – but the bottle of ink was already balanced precariously and think what he would about Yachiru’s teeth, a pissed Byakuya was another matter altogether. “They’re sissy,” he muttered. “Dorky.”

Huh. Her slap upside his head hurt worse than usual. And again? Well, that was enough. “Oy! Stoppit, dammit!”

She tried to weave out of his reach, but he was still faster; darting an arm around her shoulders to disable her arms, he mussed her hair roughly – affectionately, said a smug voice in his head that he buried immediately. He was not affectionate. Affectionate was weird. He was happy she was alive. That was all.

“At least I do not draw on mission reports,” Rukia sniffed.

Renji swore. As happy as he was that his Captain and his best friend were on better terms now, she was starting to sound like her brother – and one Byakuya was enough for two lifetimes. Besides, friends didn’t let friends sound like pompous (albeit admirable, honourable, insanely powerful) windbags. So… “Except that one time, when…” he teased, letting his voice trail off.

“They’re thinking of giving you Karakura,” she said, turning up her nose at his comment. Her voice was softer this time as she settled on the floor next to him.

Well, this was news. “What?” he managed. “You’ve gotta be kidding. No way am I babysitting Kurosaki and the Quincy and them.”

“You have to, Renji – I mean, it’s only for a little while. Until the dust settles.”

It was his turn to invade her space. “Uh-uh. You, asking nicely? Either you’ve been hit on the head real hard when I wasn’t looking or this idea is your fault, Rukia.”

“Maybe a little,” she conceded, but her gaze was even.

His wasn’t. “…the hell were you thinking? Were you thinking?”

Rukia laughed, but it wasn’t a humourous sound. “Think yourself, Renji. It has to be you. No-one else can go, and you do know your way around.”

Renji narrowed his eyes in thought – she did have a point, damn her, but he hadn’t been celebrating the fact that they both were in Soul Society at once only in order to be punted down to Karakura. Still, he knew he had no choice, so better not to guilt her over the things that really mattered… “Since you put it that way,” he preened, “I might be able to do it. But you owe me, y’know.”

“Try not to kill him,” she said, simpering, and burst into laughter as the redhead seethed. “I think I like him.”

His expression told her exactly what he thought about her last statement, but he didn't deny her, and so she smiled brightly before nodding once. “Thank you, Renji.”

Well, damn. He knew her expressions off by heart and knew she’d be smiling the same smile that she’d shot at Kurosaki at him someday, but it wasn’t supposed to be this soon, and his mouth just wouldn’t work, silently forming words without any vocalization.

“Take care, Renji.” And as quickly as she had slipped in, she was gone with her mercurial half-smile curved in a silent thank you as she disappeared around his door.

He grinned a little like an idiot as she left. For all that he bragged about knowing all of her looks, Rukia Kuchiki could beat him at his own game every time.

Renji Abarai would never admit it to another soul – living, dead, or otherwise – but he wouldn’t change that fact for the world.

. o .

( I’ll carry the weight of you, I swear )

. o .

(finis)

. o .

disclaimers/inspired by: Vienna Teng's "Enough To Go By," Postal Service's "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight," Bright Eyes' "Lua," Bon Jovi's "Always" (...because Renji would totally sing it. Those sunglasses? Admit it; it works, in a deliciously cracky way.) Because Sabe obviously needs another redhead. ~~Three~~ ~~twenty~~ an entire cast of characters too crazy-pretty-awesome for their own good. More a test than anything; thus, the canon (not mine) is probably stretched in non-canonic fashion. (wow, though ~ this was fun.)

Thoughts and feedback are always appreciated. ^^

"Fifth Business" - (tos) (Christmasfic)

2007-01-26T02:47:01Z

for: pearl_gemstone
fandom: Tales of Symphonia; goes just postgame.
rating: PG
genre: General.
characters/pairings: Yuan & Raine. Mmm, snarky academics; how I've missed you.

Fifth Business

Her nails are chipped and ragged with dirt in the corners as she drums them on the table. It is a banal observation, he thinks, barely worthy of note, but her nails for the moment are less dangerous than her eyes. He should have guessed that had she survived, he would be one of the first people who her curiosity would pull her towards.

. o .

There were moments when he hated his old friend for abandoning both of them, (like the one a year ago, when he’d opened his door to a flurry of rain and an armful of Raine as she’d stumbled over his doorstop, silver hair and robes sopping wet.) Kratos had made a very effective buffer, but he supposed that everyone was allowed their breaking points.

What everyone was not allowed, he had hissed under his breath as he had taken her arm and her whimsically, uncharacteristically pink umbrella, was the brunet swordsman’s idiocy that accompanied his brilliant decision to take off on a bloody comet for, oh, the next four thousand years. “So you came for my side of the story,” he sneered.

Blue eyes flickered, but she held her ground as he slipped behind her and removed her coat, hanging it gingerly over a coat rack and sighing as the coat dripped water across the floor. “I have,” she answered.

“And what,” he asked, “pray tell, do you intend to exchange for my cooperation? I have money. Notoriety I do not wish for. You I do not want.”

Raine bristled at the last insinuation, crossing her legs at the ankles after he guided her to an armchair in his front room. “People deserve to know the truth about their land and its past,” she said, looking over at him.

He had steepled his fingers under his chin and returned her gaze with distinct, deliberate apathy. “People –“ he scoffed, “ were just fine about lied to. People are ungrateful, selfish brats. I would think, Miss Sage, you would know this better than most. In fact, I would be willing to bet that your oh-so-heroic deeds barely balance out your half-elven blood. If at all.”

“That’s none of your business,” she snapped, twirling a pen between her fingers snappishly.

“Ah, ah,” he smirked. “Don’t play dumb. You made it my business the minute you stumbled through my door.”

“Fine.” Managing to restrain her glare, she relented. “It’s not easy. And you’re right for the most part – you know you are – but Lloyd and everyone really, they did make a difference. Luin wasn’t built in a day, after all; it will take time to let people change.”

“So why not leave changing things to the idealist and his angel-girl?” he asked. “Frankly, I’m surprised you’re not buried under a stack of books in… oh, say, Sybak or Palmacosta by now, instead. Why seek me out?”

She shifted in her chair, not daring to close her eyes in his presence, but feeling the beginnings of a very familiar headache nonetheless. “I want to do what I can,” she replied, resisting the urge to let healing energy slip through her fingers and ease the pain. From what she knew of Yuan, the man was a walking headache, and if she showed weakness now, any chance of him helping her would disappear immediately. “If that means I must tell the story from the very beginning so that this – this idiocy – cannot be repeated, then that is what I will do.”

After a moment of thought, Yuan’s lips stretched into an amused smile. “So that’s it, then. They won’t allow you into the libraries, and you intend to harass the only remaining primary source instead.” Standing, he moved to a small cabinet against the wall. Removing a tall glass bottle from within it, Yuan paused, running a careless hand through his long blue hair. Turning, his smile grew. “But I forget my manners – I have so little company these days, after all. Would you care for a drink, perchance?”

Steeling her spine – she would not wince at the subtle menace in his tone, the poisonous smile that said he hadn’t forgiven or forgotten in the least what she had done to his renegade empire – she matched his gaze. “Thank you. I would.” Watching him measure out the amber liquid, she continued, unable to keep surprise from brightening her voice. “So you’ll help me?”

“‘Help’ is such an altruistic word,” he purred, passing her a short tumbler half-filled with amber and ice. “I would have thought you would know better of me by now, Raine. You’re such a child, sometimes.”

Fire slipped through her lips and over her tongue as she drank, lending her courage. “I am hardly a –“

“Survive – no, more than that; try to live – for three thousand more years,” he interrupted, barely raising his voice. It was enough; she froze. “It’s easy for you now, to look at me and accuse me of selfishness, but a girl who cannot sneak past sleepy guardians of dusty history texts could not shoulder the weight of these memories, no matter how highly she may think of herself.” Curled in his armchair, Yuan’s pale blue eyes watched her over the rim of his glass. “Prove to me you’re serious.”

Her glass plunked down on the table between them. “I can’t afford three thousand years – you know as well as I do that I may not have them.”

“That’s why,” he said, his eyes searching the sky, the newly-visible horizon and the rain clouds sweeping out to the east, “I’m giving you one year. If you come back within that time with these three texts and an understanding of their contents, I shall do my best to answer your questions, of which, no doubt, there will be more than a few. If not, I shall assume you have come to your few senses and thought better of this fool’s errand.”

As he scribbled the names of the books down and passed her the list, her eyes widened. “Some of these are under lock and key, not to mention at least three separate spells of protection, Yuan. There’s no way – “

“Giving in already?” he asked, his eyes glowing faintly with glee. “No true scholarship is ever entirely above board, Miss Sage; surely, you knew this.”

“I accept your terms,” she said primly, ignoring his taunt. Standing, she walked over to his armchair and extended her hand. “Thank you. I’ll see you in a year.”

Shaking her hand carefully, as if the gesture was alien (and maybe it was, she thought with a jolt of surprise) he stood as well. “Let me see you to the door, then.”

“But it’s still –“

“It stopped raining three minutes ago, Miss Sage.”

“Oh,” she blushed, but recovered quickly. “That’s fortunate; I dislike the rain. Although it is a fascinating element,” she said in afterthought. “In fact, would you believe that rain damage on various archaeological sites has…mmmrehgh?”

Yuan sighed from where he stood behind her, one hand on the small of her back, the other covering her mouth, which was gawking in surprise. “Time’s a-wasting, Miss Sage.”

Before she knew it, Raine found herself outside his door, coat around her shoulders and umbrella in one hand. “Now see here,” she began in her scariest teaching voice.

Yuan, however, was unperturbed, leaning casually against the door frame. “I’m not one of your ducklings, Raine,” he said, accenting her given name to prove that point exactly. “And I would wish you good luck, but… Well. I’m sure you understand why I don’t.”

“Oh, I do,” she replied. “And I maintain what I said. I will see you within the year, Yuan.” And with that, she turned, setting her feet back towards the town and wishing that his words had not managed to slip so far under her skin.

He watched her until she turned a corner and disappeared behind a patch of trees. Foolish woman… With any luck, the spells or the scholars would do their job, and this would be the last time that the Sage scholar would bother him. But, he admitted grudgingly, he had made the error of underestimating her perseverance and ingenuity in the past.

Either way, he thought, I will have at least one year of peace and quiet.

. o .

And it is peace and quiet that he has, until he wakes up three hundred and sixty-three days later to the din of a thunderstorm. Walking over to close the window, he notices a nauseatingly pink umbrella that is weaving its way up the hill as he gazes out. With a jolt, Yuan realizes he knows the woman under it, a heavy-looking pack strapped to her back. The rain seems to follow her around, and he smirks at the irony for a second before sighing and starting to make himself presentable.

He should not have been surprised as she plunks the rucksack on his table, slipping three books out with care and no small amount of pride – and so even if he is surprised, he will not show it.

And although he tries, she has always been observant. “You’re wondering how I obtained the Rivella text, aren’t you?”

“Hmph,” Yuan replies – damn the woman and her superior smirk, but he is curious. He’d had Botta try to access this exact text three hundred years ago, and although Botta had returned safely, the lieutenant had also been empty-handed. Yuan couldn’t help but smile at the memory of how Botta's hair had never entirely recovered from the lightning spells that had guarded that book. The book that was, at present, resting innocently on his table. “Very well. As you’re going to tell me regardless… pray tell, how did you do it?”

Her smile is that of a cat who has just dined on the proverbial canary. “I asked Zelos to pick it up for me; it seems like Meltokians have a fortunately flexible take on forgiveness if that idiot can run about carte-blanche even now. I threatened him with my curry after Sheena had pinned him with one of her seals – he’d said something he shouldn’t have to the daughter of the Flanoir representative the week prior, I think it was; either way, the Lady Fujibayashi makes a dangerous foe, as long as there are no trap doors within ten feet of her.” Settling into his chair, she smiles up at him, perfectly aware of what she is doing.

Settling into the other chair (he will not make a scene over something so trivial), he looks over at her with one eyebrow cocked in curiosity. “Cruel, and you hardly played by the rules. I had meant that you had to have been the one to obtain the book.” He restrains a shiver; Yuan has always carried the highest disdain for the flamboyant ex-Chosen, but not even Zelos deserved the divine punishment that disguised itself as Raine Sage’s cooking.

She was unfazed by his chastisement. “You should have told me as much, then. Besides, like someone once told me, no true scholarship goes entirely by the books.” Her eyes have turned to twin points of blue fire, and although he hates himself for the metaphor, he knows that she knows she’s won.

Looking from her eyes to her nails – they are chipped and ragged with dirt in the corners as she drums them on the table – they are barely worthy of note, but her nails for the moment are less dangerous than her eyes. But he has faced down far more intimidating sights than she, and perhaps her fire can temper the weight of memory he carries. Taking a deep breath, his gaze is even as he looks back at her. “So,” he says, slowly. “Just where do I begin…”

. o .

“But you cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business, because he is the odd man out…

And you must have Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death... The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without Fifth Business!

It is not spectacular, but it is a good line of work, I can tell you, and those who play it sometimes have a career that outlasts the golden voices."

. o .

…finis.

. o .

Sabe's Scribbles: The quote and title are from Robertson Davies' Fifth Business, probably my favorite novel. Pretentious? Me? What? (But the idea fits both Yuan and Raine very well...) Pearl, I know I said this was going to be lighter and involving raspberry jam and the Tir na Nog realm, but snarky!Yuan decided to take front and centre, and the umbrella just worked. Hope you liked!

...this aside, general comments and concrit are welcomed with open arms! Crossposted to taekwonangel.

PS: How's this layout for readability?

"Idlewild" - (ff7/ac) (Christmasfic)

2007-01-21T08:20:55Z

for: silentsoul
fandom: FF7; spans pregame to AC.
rating: T for language.
spoilers: Follows AC canon, but may go AU a bit in the final section.
genre: General. [In which there is a great deal of history and of families, how they choose their battles, and how they learn to to play with fate.]
characters/pairings: Yuffie, Rufus, Pres. Shinra, Godo Kisaragi // Yuffie vs. Rufus, but I plead the thin line.

Idlewild

Victor Shinra looked down at his son as the sleek black helicopter winged its way across the sky, mountains and pagodas becoming a smudge on the horizon. A son who had just completed his first diplomatic voyage and walked amidst the towering spires and veiled complexities of Wutai quite well, Victor thought, though he would never say as much. Instead - “…and what do you think of the young Miss Kisaragi, Rufus?”

Tugging at the sleeves of his black turtleneck, Rufus looked up at his father with a scowl. “She’s a baby, she’s noisy, and she calls me Ru-ru. I wish she’d stop.”

Allowing a rare smile to soften the hard lines of his face, Victor replied. “She’ll forget the name in time, or she’ll think better of it. A Shinra shouldn’t let such things bother him.” At his son’s look of protest, he continued. “You will have to bear with her, Rufus; the Kisaragi are a bothersome family, but a powerful and useful one all the same.”

Victor frowned as he gazed back at the island through the windows of the helicopter, glad he had not decided to push the idea of an arranged union between the two heirs over his meetings with Godo Kisaragi. For now, economic ties had to be enough; it had been clear that the Wutaian leader had had enough of ties of blood, no matter their nature, and Shinra could afford to be a patient man.

Looking over to his son, he frowned as he noticed an arrogance already settling into dark eyes and belying the innocently dimpled cheeks; the contrast in his boy’s face a hint of the wife whom he had never loved but had learned to respect and be very, very wary of. He wished his son many things, but among them was not a loveless marriage.

Rufus’ frown matched his father’s as the older man droned on about keeping the girl on his good side because an annoyed Kisaragi could be a dangerous enemy, and one that was notoriously hard to shake. Rufus would realize years later, after he had grown out his hair and she had cut hers and they had grown closer to filling the shoes of the scions they were born to be that she was like fate; only too glad to taunt and take up with those who tempted her.

But for now she was hardly a threat, precocious five-year-old that she was. Thus,
more interested in his sketchbook and the smudged charcoal outlines of cities and coastlines therein, he let his father’s words wash over him. She’s just a girl, he thought; how much trouble can she be?

. o .

Godo would only need to blink and she’d grow, suddenly a wily-sweet ragamuffin who came to him with scratched knees and a hurt look as he sat in council. “Ru-ru teased me,” she’d say, staring defiantly back at twelve-year-old and impeccable Rufus Shinra leaning carefully against the doorframe, his jaw set angrily.

Shinra senior scolded his son with an amusement that Godo worried over. But his little girl could fight her own battles. A heartbeat later, and she’d tripped the young blond, sending him sprawling at his father’s feet. Rufus glared up, pulled her down with him, and all matters of business were temporarily forgotten as the emissaries watched the tiny heirs of two very different empires wrestle on the tatami mats.

It was a childish war that ended well; as both children collapsed into laughter, Yuffie linked her arm through Rufus’ and pulled the boy away from the 'boring' adults to plague the servants for treats and chocolates.

As he watched the pair leave, Godo thought it was a pity that the empires the duo were due to inherit were not so easy to appease.

. o .

Well, shoot, she thought.

It was with a measure of amusement that Yuffie realized when you intended to slide dramatically down against a wall, hands clamped over the headphones covering your ears, and cry angrily over the seventeen-year-old who had just broken your heart, it was best to know if the length of your headphone cord makes the entire journey possible. Nothing, she scowled, could disrupt the stubborn melancholy of a good blue mood like being ripped out of her dismay by the sudden jolt as the cord reached its full extension and yanked her head up.

As she tumbled the rest of the way to the floor, Yuffie’s dark mood took a turn for the worse. I hate him, hate him, hate him, the big jerk. Ripping her headphones off, Yuffie hurled them across the room, blatantly disregarding the fact that the sudden eruption of bass and Continental dialect had probably jolted half the house out of their slumber. Including him, she thought with a wicked grin; he and his father had been given rooms on the lower floor, two and three rooms over if she remembered correctly. Serves him right, she cursed, who needs him and his sissy classical music anyways? Wiping tears away with the back of her hand, she luxuriated in the heavy drums and angry vocals as her shoulders shook.

She was happily cathartic until she remembered that the music was Shake’s – she’d pilfered the disc from her instructor’s training bag last week, attracted by the bright artwork on the case, and had meant to return it before he noticed it was missing. Shake’s music anthology rivalled Gorki’s collection of shuriken as far as size was concerned, and as such, Yuffie Logic had said that he wouldn’t miss just one disc. Unfortunately, if the thundering footsteps from down the hall were any indication, Shake had just noticed. Scrubbing at any stray tears, Yuffie pulled herself up and shut off the music, rooting through the cases until she found the right one.

She was ready at his first knock. Opening the door only slightly, her slender arm curved around it and out into the hallway, holding the music like a peace offering. “Take it,” she murmured, and softer, “Sorry about, um, waking you up... hey, hey, at least you liked the song, right? Maaan, Gorki’s gonna kill me tomorrow.”

Shake laughed, but he saw through her ploy. “Lady Yuffie, are you all – ”

Leaning against the back of the door so that Shake had to peer into the room through a small crack and could not see her at all, she sighed. She was all right; she was also furious at the easy way Rufus had ignored and belittled her at the birthday celebration that her father had thrown earlier that night, all while maintaining a perfectly urbane exterior.

“I’ll teach him to pat me on the head and call me a mere child and I’ll never forgive him for what he said about Momma and –“ toying with the blue and white scarf printed with a Mideelian floral pattern around her neck, she scowled. That stupid show-off; what sorta gift is this, anyway? She’d show him that his backwards ideas about a girl’s place could go take a long walk off of the very top of Da Chao and that even though he was crazy rich and kinda cute and sort of politically invulnerable, she could still kick his ass in the only way that counted.

She’d just have to make sure that she wasn’t within Godo’s sight the next time she found it necessary to do so.

She would get even with him, even if it meant stealing all of the Main Continent’s materia, ‘cause both he and his dad sure seemed to be obsessed with it. She could understand their interest to a point – Materia was shiny and wonderful and cool, but they turned it into their main energy source or something stupid and boring like that. A real waste, as far as she was concerned. So maybe she could hold all their Materia hostage and then Rufus would have to apologize and mean it this time, instead of flying in as he pleased in his helicopter with his pressed white suits and his sneer when her hometown showed its scars and its seams around the edges.

He had no right to say what he did. None. He had been fun, once – he had let her drag him around to where Yumiko would give them homemade sweets and chocolate bars shipped in from Junon in the kitchens and she had seen his eyes widen with wonder when they snuck past their fathers on her grand if highly unofficial tour of the Great Pagoda. But something had happened since; his eyes had gone cold and his suits never seemed to get a speck of dust on them anymore and his lip curled in an unpleasant way whenever their paths crossed. She hated that she loved him all the more for it.

But maybe if she stole his pride – his father’s pride, but his, too; he was tied to his father and his father’s dream as much as she was to her own – maybe she could get the old Rufus back. The Rufus whose smile had been always slight but present and who had toured her through the Turk Lounge where they had run amok once before being banned absolutely from its walls whenever they were together. She and Rufus had terrified the blue-suited team, save a bald and tanned Rookie Turk whose laugh rumbled warmly as she scrambled up his side and onto his shoulder to escape the wrath of another Turk whose coffee mug she’d knocked over accidentally. Rufus had smirked below her, secure enough in his place as heir apparent to safeguard him from the fact that he’d been the one to knock Yuffie into the desk the coffee mug had been on. She missed that Rufus.

So really, she thought, that stealing-Materia plot isn’t such a bad idea…

“…Lady Yuffie?” Shake’s voice persisted.

Right. “I’m fine, Shake,” Yuffie replied. Hey, maybe even better than fine.

Shake sighed. “All right, all right. We’ll talk about taking things that aren’t yours in the morning, then.”

It was a testament to her brilliance, she decided, that her “mmhmm, good night” was chirpy and innocent. Shutting the door and locking it, Yuffie untied her hair from its elaborate updo and tossed all the pins and hair sticks across her washroom counter. Humming off-key, she brushed her teeth as her mind flew through clever plot after clever plot that would knock Rufus Alexander Shinra down a peg or ten.

Hair down and eyes flashing, she dashed to her bed, curled up, tugged her blankets over her shoulder, turned on her light and pulled out a small coil notebook with a wicked grin. Yuffie Ayame Kisaragi had some serious planning to do.

. o .

Five years later, Rufus was wordlessly handed a message that had been carefully folded into the shape of what had been the Mideelian state flower. Rude, who had delivered it, looked relieved to rid himself of the girlish missive.

Rufus’ visible eyebrow quirked as he unfolded the note. Hey, blondie, it read. I heard you needed someone to come and save your ass. A simple ‘Y’ was scrawled beneath the single line, and a rare smile crossed Rufus’ lips. His smile disappeared at the postscript, which told him to keep his eyes on the skies, Ru-ru.

“Ru-ru?” Reno gawked from where he had snuck up and been reading behind his boss’ shoulder. “And she’s still in one piece?”

With a short sigh, Rufus spun his chair around to fix the laughing redhead with a blank look. “It was a… regrettable nickname from childhood. Miss Kisaragi has what I shall call an unusual sense of humour, and it would be best for you that you do not repeat her error, Reno. Are we clear?”

“Crystal, Boss-Man.”

Resisting the urge to glare and tell his rowdy subordinate to quit it with the nicknames altogether and get back to work, Rufus sighed; he’d learned how to pick his battles by now, and this was not one he was going to win. Ever. It was a pity, but…

Dismissing the black-suited pair from his office, Rufus rolled his chair towards the gaping vacancy of what once had been the room’s exterior wall. If he guessed right (and he nearly always did) one of those silver-haired idiots, likely the whiny one, was due to come through the door right about now.

Ah.

Right on time, then.

Idiot in, idiot dealt with. Said idiot having summoned some derivate of the Bahamut line over the city square, Rufus allowed himself to worry slightly, but Strife had agreed to help in his backwards, awkward-hero way, so... He was just about to wheel his chair around and head for a more fortified location when a flash of silver from above the maze of scaffolding caught his eye.

Squinting against the sun, he heard the whirr of Highwind’s plane, and almost laughed as a parachute blossomed from its base and floated like a whirligig as a girlish figure guided it down through the maze of girders and scaffolding. An oversized shuriken with four points that flashed out at the summoned dragon confirmed the girl's identity; Yuffie had made good on her promise, for better or for worse. His eyes followed her acrobatics with amusement; clearly, she had no sense of gravity, flinging herself off of the spindly metal girders the way that she did and flying into battle with reckless, focused speed.

Not bothering to fight the quirk of his lips as her shuriken landed a significant blow on the Summon, the collision of metal and magic sending off bright silver sparks, the thought crossed his mind that he was glad that her razor-keen focus and girlish brilliance was no longer turned against him and his. (And she was still a girl, he thought - if only because even at nineteen, she still wore those ridiculous shorts.) Poor taste in clothing aside, however, she landed more hits than she missed, and showed no signs of tiring, holding her ground (such as it was) until Strife made it an one-on-one battle

When Rufus met her in passing a week later, his eyes widened as he recognized the pattern of her shirt, a cheerful blue and white floral print. Mideelian. One of a kind - he'd made certain of that before buying it on a day in November six years ago. Recognizing her peace offering for what it was, he caught her eye and nodded, sighing at her sudden laughter and jolting in surprise as Rude's chuckle rumbled from where the Turk had been walking behind him - clearly, the Turk had pieced the puzzle together as well.

Despite his scowl, Rufus didn't mind; he had learned that he would take Yuffie's laughter over the point of her shuriken any day of the week. Particularly as he would never have to admit this fact aloud; the only person who could call him on it was ten feet under and good riddance to the old bastard. But, bastard or not, Rufus had learned that his father had been right about her all along.

. o .

( history is not always a broken record )

. o .

finis

. o .

Sabe’s Scribbles: For the lovely and wonderful Jess Angel; not certain this fits the prompt and where did Kisaragi and Shinra Srs come from? but… it worked? I hope you liked it - this was really fun to write, and became hard to keep down to five pages, because once you get started with these two, they’re hard to corral. No word of a lie ~ I finished this on Word, then went to format it on LJ and added three paragraphs.

...Sadly, I know that bit about the headphones from experience. ^^;;

"Undenied" - (ff7/ac) (christmasfic)

2007-01-03T20:45:03Z

for: hobovelez
fandom: FF7, post AC.
rating: T, mostly for language.
spoilers: Small references to both canons.
genre: Romantic.
characters/pairings: Tifa, Reno, Cloud, Vincent, Marlene // Tifa/Reno

Undenied

Two months later and he was in her space again. She was almost at the point of telling him to take his knowing smirk and his black coat that he always slung over her counter and go. Tifa had been willing to give the redhead a chance, but this had become a little much; Reno was almost a regular to the new Seventh Heaven-slash-Strife’s Delivery Service, and while they didn’t talk often, the third bar stool had somehow become his. She knew that even he wouldn’t try anything in a place like this; Cloud was still hanging around, and the others had a funny way of stepping in every so often. And truth be told, he was a paying customer, and not a bad one; his sly observations of the other patrons were scathing but often made her smile, and he always left a decent tip. Never too large; she could be a rich woman if she wanted to and he knew it, but this was her life, these were her choices, this was her normalcy.

And considering that her last memory of formalwear involved an abduction (hers), crossdressing (Cloud’s) and at least one threat involving castration (memory was playing tricks with her but she could have sworn those words were uttered by Aeris), the jet-set lifestyle and its requisite code of fancy dress were in no way appealing.

Not that he dressed well, but the smile that curved his lips was full of promise and it scared her, so she put away the last shot glass onto the rack and spoke. “I break the people who love me. I thought you should know.” The words were out of Tifa’s mouth before she could think better of them; before she could shove them back in, but he only kept smiling, more a smirk, a quirk, than a smile. At least he isn’t backing away. At least he isn’t saying that I’m not some crazy sort of black widow. Not that he would, she thought; metaphors aren’t his style. I’m talking with the wrong person if I want metaphors or platitudes.

She didn’t have time to dwell on it. The girl down the bar wanted a Mako Sunrise, and although Tifa was grateful for the distraction – was that amusement she saw in his eyes? – she cringed as she layered the liqueurs. (That tiny wisp of a girl with her dull brown jacket and teased blonde hair would feel this one in the morning; a Sunrise hit like a freight train, as pretty as it was.)

Tifa dropped off the drink with a careful smile and then found herself wandering back to Reno. It’s starting to look like the story of my life.

He was nursing a glass that might be holding an Old Fashioned. She wasn’t sure; he’d had more than a few tonight, and she thought – hoped – that she wasn’t paying close enough attention to know for sure. Bartenders remember details, it was part of the trade, but he had been trouble in a six-foot frame since the first time their eyes had met, and Tifa’d had more than her share of trouble to know to stay far away from him.

A pity that her best intentions never seemed to work – he pulled like a magnet and he never let her just walk away.

“You still won’t look at me straight,” Reno sighed. “I’m no goody-two-shoes, but I’m not gonna drop you where you stand, Lockheart. Lockheart… hah.” His chuckle was low as he twirled his glass on the bar top, half-melted ice cubes clinking.

Though she was almost certain of what he was about to say, there had always been something almost masochistic in the air every time they were around each other. So she went for the bait. “What’s so funny?”

“Lock-heart,” he drawled, emphasizing the individual syllables. “But it’s on your sleeve. Always has been, probably always will be if you haven’t knocked it back in by now, hey. Maybe that’s your problem.”

“I wasn’t aware,” she replied icily, “that I had one.”

Reno snorted, plunking his drink down against the bartop with a satisfying clink. “Denial and bullshitting should be left to the experts, babe.”

“Excuse me?”

“Everyone,” he replied, downing the last of the tawny mix of alcohol and soda with a gulp, “who chooses to stay in this hellhole of a city has a problem, Tifa. Your particular problem is a little more tangible than the average. Yeah. That’s it.”

“If this is about Cloud, you can stop talking or start leaving, Reno. It’s been a long night.” Pacing down the bar to collect a group of pint glasses, Tifa cast a careful look over her shoulder to see if her words had had any effect on the redhead.

If his elbows on the counter and his indolent wink were anything to go by, her words had the opposite effect from the one that she wanted.

“Ya know,” he said the next time she came close enough to talk to, “I never really got you. I mean, you were always kinda Rude’s girl.” As Tifa looked up from washing the pint glasses, Reno laughed and added, “nah, not really, but I never got his crush on you ‘til now. Rude’s always been the one who tried t'fix things – chairs and tables in the Turk lounge, or sometimes he’d bring in these stray mutts and get them checked up, then foist them on unsuspecting pencil pushers who he knew could give ‘em a good home. He trains the rookies going through trauma and shit. And he’s good at it too, Lockheart. Rude could’ve been a doctor or something. I’d bet my last gil note on it.”

Biting at her lower lip, Tifa scrubbed the last glass particularly hard. “So,” she replied, trying to keep her voice even, “I was some sort of potential project to that partner of yours?”

“Nah,” Reno answered. “Don’t think it was anything that easy. You were a puzzle, Lockheart; tough as nails but with one hell of a history. Say,” he added, pushing his glass towards her as she dried her hands with a towel, “another’d be good around now. This one’s getting watery, babe.”

Taking the glass, she frowned. “Tifa, if you must.”

“‘Babe’ sounds about right,” Reno smirked. “I don’t mean nothing much by it. It just looks like you need someone to remind you that you are one hell of a gorgeous woman, ‘stead of being trapped here with the winos and the brats you take care of all the time. Hell, you didn’t even sound like yourself when I called to ask for Strife’s help. Rude was visiting Laney and Tseng, so it fell to me, and since I figured you couldn’t beat me black and blue over the phone, I did. I didn’t expect you to be so nice, though…”

She caught her breath – she had been kind, open, a little flirtatious (of course I remember you; how could I forget you? had remained unsaid), but, but – “You were work,” Tifa muttered. “I couldn’t be mean to you, could I?” She frowned as she said it and as she turned, one of his hands snapped out and grabbed the back of her vest.

“Hey.”

“Let go of me, or I swear…”

He laughed. “You swear nothing. I – we – weren’t just work to you or to Strife, Tifa. I’ll let you go if you turn around, face me like an adult, and admit it.” Reno’s voice slowed as he continued. “Look, like I said, I’m not here to kill you; Strife took our deal and one of your kids damn near lobotomized me through the nose last month for tryin’ to save him, so don’t I deserve a little bit of credit?”

“You have obviously had too many to drink,” she replied, still facing away from him, hoping he couldn’t sense her smile.

“Nah,” he drawled. ”Just enough to see things clearly and speak ‘em just as clearly.”

She could feel his smirk and shook her head at his incorrigibility, his free hand drumming an impatient beat on the bar as the hand that still held the hem of her vest twisted it absently. His fingertips brushed the small of her back and she started at the contact, spinning around to fix him with a glare. “It’s a pity you can’t find your way through the door as clearly as you should.”

“Maybe if you came with, I could manage it a little easier.”

Propping one of her elbows on the bar, Tifa leaned forward. “That sounded an awful lot like you were asking me out, Turk.”

He mirrored her movement, his eyes catching and challenging hers. “And if I was?”

Tifa drew back slightly. “I would have to think about it, I think.”

“Think faster,” he murmured.

And his hands were in her hair and this was not the way this was supposed to be and they were in public, couldn’t he see that? His smile said clearly that yes, he knew precisely where they were, but before she could pull away or retaliate, she caught sight of a familiar shock of blond hair and froze.

Sweeping his hair out of his eyes as he walked into the bar, Cloud Strife was ready to give the shout for last call when his eyes froze at an unexpected sight. He’d become accustomed to seeing the redhead from time to time, and as long as the Turk minded his own business, Cloud had let the past rest for the most part. That didn’t mean, however, that said Turk could tie up his house-mate and friend, catching her hair between his fingers and looking at her like some… some bloody innocent.

He knew that Tifa could fight her own battles, and he knew all too well that separating her from her wannabe suitor would only put the stars he’d worked so hard to shake out of her eyes when she looked at him right back in. But she didn’t look comfortable with the situation, and whatever else she was – or wasn’t – she was his friend.

Before Cloud could walk over to the pair, a flash of crimson materialized behind Reno and settled a golden hand on the redhead’s shoulder. Hard. Cloud winced. Those claws were sharp, and as his eyes met Vincent’s, he knew that the other man knew it.

Still, like it or not, he had to give Reno some respect. Even outnumbered, the Turk was still irritatingly calm. “Take off your claws, would’ya, Vince? The lady and I were just talking…”

If Reno’s tone was cool, Vincent’s was glacial. “Remove your hands from her hair, and I might consider your request.”

Cloud sighed once he saw the glare that Tifa sent both men: the tried and true I-can-fight-my-own-battles-thank-you-and-screw-off. It was a patented Look, Cloud was sure, and if it wasn’t it soon would be.

Between the twist of her lips and the spark in her eyes… Vince and Reno were just being ridiculous, the both of them. She had two fists, probably hadn’t had her coffee today, and most importantly, they just should have known better. Tifa was sweet and giving and lovely, sure, but she was a right Shiva when she hadn’t had her caffeine. Cloud knew that from experience, and looked around for a route that wouldn’t make his retreat look cowardly.

Despite his best attempts, Cloud’s search was met with no luck; a tiny girl (who was certainly up past her bedtime, but Cloud had never been much of a stickler for rules) blocked his sole escape route.

“Hi, Cloud,” Marlene piped up. “Here for the fight?”

“Wha –?“ Spinning to following the girl’s gesture, Cloud chuckled. “Nah.” He paused, his eyes crinkling at the edges in a smile. “Um. Actually, yeah, sure. Do you have any sandbags to duck behind, ‘Lennie?”

The little brunette shook her head and matched his grin. “With friends like you and Pop’ve got, I’d need more than sandbags!” She looked over at Reno, who had returned his hands to the counter, and beamed. “Hey, he’s changed.”

Both Cloud and the trio under examination turned to Marlene.

“Some people can’t,” Tifa spoke, almost a whisper, ignoring the pain that flashed across Reno’s expression. Turning to face the redhead across the bar, she slowly pulled away. “And some you can’t forgive what they’ve done.”

“I only followed orders, Lockheart; I lost people too, y’know.” Green eyes were unusually solemn as they looked back at her. “We all did terrible things to survive. Even you Hero Boys can’t say that you didn’t.”

Cloud and Vincent’s heads lowered a fraction.

Reno was right, Marlene realized, and so was she. He didn’t scare her anymore. The Turk that he had been had been lost… not completely, because she could see memory in his eyes, sparking and glinting like shattered glass, beautiful and just as sharp. But his eyes lacked the raw hunger that had frightened her so much as a child. “He’s right, Teefie.”

Tifa’s answer was slow but deliberate. “I don’t think I can forgive him, Marlene. Jessie, Biggs, Wedge… this man, he as good as put a gun up to their heads and fired.”

Marlene only smiled and shifted her eyes to Vincent. “Mmhmm,” she replied, gesturing towards the gunman. “But you helped him through his past, and you all forgave the cat-man for not being who he said he was. Maybe, Teefie, Reno deserves the same chance.”

Looking from cautious crimson eyes to skeptical blue that she knew as well as her own, to fiercely fragile green, Tifa nodded slowly.

Maybe…

. o .

only wanted to be wonderful, and wonderful it’s true;
in truth I only wanted to be wanted by you

. o .

.finis.

. o .

Sabe’s Scribbles: Inspired equally by “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by the Postal Service and by “The Rat within the Grain” by Damien Rice (which the endquote is excerpted from) ~ talk about your inspirational songs; these two have been on repeat practically since they were sent to me. Again not as angsty as it maybe should have been, but something tells me this isn’t going to be the last thing inspired by this song.

~~And, dude. AC-canon is not supposed to be addictive...~~

"Still Life" - (tos) (christmasfic)

2007-01-03T05:51:47Z

for: cephiedvariable
fandom: Tales of Symphonia
rating: T
spoilers: Nothing really; Regal's backstory?
genre: Quiet reflection, a soupcon of angst; wistful and necessarily distant affection. (It's all in the unsaid, but if large age differences send up red flags for you...)
characters/pairings: Presea, Regal, and a ghost or two.

Still Life

This was wrong, she thought, absently twining long pink strands with the ends of his ponytail. Cotton-candy, sky-blue… a striking contrast in the firelight, but his eyes were only for her as their gaze met. His grief was tangible and she resented him for it, dropping her hand and watching the twist unravel. She wasn’t her sister, no matter if she craved the occasional look he chanced at her (through her.) He had grown up, and she… she needed to.

Presea frowned, edging away. She’d have to remember for both their sakes – it was clear he’d already lost this fight.

. o .

“Regal?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you… tell me a story?”

He started, surprised by her request as they walked beside each other. “I am afraid I am not much for tall tales, Presea. Perhaps Zelos might…”

“If I had wanted Zelos’ particular variety of storytelling,” Presea replied, drawing herself up to her full height (which was, he thought, all of five feet nothing; he wanted to laugh and ruffle her hair and grin, but settled for a smile as she continued,) “I would have asked him.”

She had a point. Presea was the direct sort, unlike her sister.

Unlike Alicia.

Well, then…

. o .

He was too much of a gentleman to disregard her request, and said enough to draw in a partial history; his, hers, and Alicia’s – where his voice faltered, hers would fill in. It was often inadvertent; he would pass her a biscuit from his rucksack after they had cleaned blood and vines from their weapons and she would smile (a tiny little thing like she was, but he’d learned how to look) and say, deadpan, that Alicia had made the biscuits better.

By the time that they reached the sun-dappled forests of Mizuho, he found he could laugh and agree.

. o .

And, somewhere along the line, they were in the right place at the right time in order to do what simpler men called ‘saving the world.’ He’d never admit that it mattered more that vivacity had slipped back into her eyes, and though he could compare them to the sea or the sky on a summer day, he never did. Such things were maudlin even as they stumbled away from the broken tower, bruised but victorious.

Shaking his head at the energy of his companions, at Colette’s beaming beauty as Lloyd wrapped her in his arms and twirled around, he noticed Presea was watching the same pair, head tilted inquisitively. Even she wondered what it was to fly, it seemed, and he looked at his cuffs with resolve. Reaching into the compartment he’d had made in his left greave, Regal retrieved a small iron key.

Unable to unlock the cuffs himself, he looked up. “It is time?” she murmured.

“It is,” he echoed, holding his hands out, palms up.

She could have cut his hands off, then, if she had wanted to, but the brush of her fingertips as she took the key was more eloquent than any spoken benediction. With a creak and a crash, his cuffs had fallen, and he rubbed his wrists before sweeping her up in a whirl of cotton-candy hair and bright blue eyes. Her hands were dwarfed by his as they spun, as he pulled her closer and ignored the indignant squawk from their black mage who had been conversing with his sister.

Soon his arms would falter, her feet would be back on the ground, and they would walk beside each other again like this had never happened. In a moment, he thought. Seeing her smile, he kept spinning.

The moment wasn’t over yet.

. o .

…finis…

. o .

Sabe's Scribbles: Inspired far too much by Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek:"
(oh you won't catch me around here || blood and tears, they were here first || mmm, what'd you say? oh, that you only meant well || well of course you did)
This story was a rollercoaster from the characters to the theme to the formatting... I don't write about these two very often, but I hope you enjoyed it. ^^

waiting for the sun - (ff7) (christmasfic)

2006-12-24T16:52:11Z

for: firefly99
fandom: FF7, between Midgar and the Temple of Ancients.
rating: PG-T.
spoilers: No, oddly enough. ^^
genre: Reflective; Fly asked for team dynamics.
characters/pairings: Avalanche // some Barret-->Tifa.

Waiting For The Sun

He didn’t mean to be so gruff to all the newcomers. Except for the part where gruffness came with the package, and Barret Wallace apologized for that to about two people on the face of the Planet. One of those people was pint-sized, pigtailed, and a million miles away; the other was brunette, knockout-gorgeous, and presently casting her gaze in a manner he could tell was love-struck at the newfound leader of their ragtag band.

He wasn’t jealous. Wasn’t.

It was just that sometimes it was tough to see her attention slip, see her hanging on every word that damned blond spoke like the girls that she’d scoffed at back in their Seventh Heaven days. She’d never really had a weakness for handsome faces, but give that handsome face some history and you had yourself one recipe for trouble.

Her one-sided affection was similar, although far more painful, to how it was hard sometimes to look at Yuffie with her clumsy brilliance and sneaky grins and not think of a girl only a few years older, with lighter hair, heavier hands, and a red bandanna in the place of that funny green and silver one. He’d just finished getting used to having a Spunk always around, as Wedge used to call her – sound and fury and colour melted into the shape of a girl that was, surely, fuelled wholly on sugar – so to lose her and get used to another, so-different, so-similar one so soon…

Was he getting too old for this hero stuff?

Not like he’d admit it, even if he was. And damn it, someone needed to keep those Shinra bastards on their toes. He could keep the brat on her toes, and had paid her back for stealing his hard-earned materia by accidentally-on-purpose dunking her into a stream or three after they’d beaten Corneo into the ground. She’d returned the materia after they’d brought her and the blonde Turk down from their perch on the mountain, and Yuffie had appeared sorry enough, but he knew if everyone just let her behaviour slip, she’d never get any better. Barret Wallace had not raised a daughter without picking up on some things.

It was harder not to break into a harsher frown than usual when the firelight would paint Cid with smoke-shadows, hiding the sun streaks in the pilot’s hair and dulling out his cigarette; the funny rasp in the pilot’s voice sounded too similar to Biggs’ lazy Mideelian drawl sometimes to listen to for long.

So Barret had started to volunteer for night watch; someone had to stand guard, and he hadn’t slept well since his Corel days. Valentine wasn’t much of a sleeper either, it turned out. On one of his more talkative nights, the gunman had angled an inquisitive look over the rim of his cape after Barret had asked why, and said only that he had grown tired of slumber, crimson eyes narrowing as Barret had laughed despite himself. It wasn’t a funny thought, Vincent’s thirty years of enforced slumber, but Barret was certain that at this point, it was either crack up or crack up, and he had had enough of insane prettyboys in the last six months to ever want to become one himself. It was stupid to see one person in someone else, he thought sometimes – if everyone here was a mirror, did that make that damned annoying cat Wedge’s successor for their shared cheerfulness? Damn straight, it didn’t.

If it were true, that would make Strife his double – the leader that had been and the leader that had become – and there was a thought he didn’t like. Barret had to admit that he admired the other man for his guts and his strength – not everyone could take on Shinra and live, though why Strife was really disobeying everything that had been indoctrinated into his spiky little head he wasn’t going to guess… maybe all those years of training reflected right off of that great blond mass that Cloud called his hair. Maybe.

Or maybe Cloud was just that strong – the wiry crazy charismatic sort of strong that could pull strangers into a soul-family that had saved each other’s lives more times than he could count. Barret had sensed from square one that Cloud was also crazy as a pit of marlboros, but Tifa had chosen the moment he had hoped to voice that thought and send the other man packing to fix him with one of her looks; aw, what the hell; what could it hurt, he’d thought, crumbling immediately. So he’d let the swordsman stick around, instead of punting him back out the door of the Seventh Heaven.

Maybe Teef wouldn’t have talked to him for a week or ten if he had gone with his instincts – girl could hold a grudge and pack one hell of a punch and in moments when she looked like that, her rich brown hair windblown as she danced and dodged with Cid in a lazy spar just up the hill, it was all he could to hope that those things would be enough to save her. Heroines got trapped in towers; princesses got tied to mountains, and he’d be a dead man before he’d let either happen to her. Not that he’d tell her. She’d throw it back with a sweet smile; he knew because he’d watched other men try. But Cloud turned her tables around and suddenly Tifa was the one reaching, the one not good enough, the desperate one (he’d never call her weak but there were moments - )

Letting Strife stay around had either been the dumbest or the smartest idea he’d had in a very, very long time. Brushing the road dust from his boots as he leant back against a tall willow tree, he looked over at the sparring duo; Cid had just ducked under Tifa’s guard and chucked the girl under her chin with a wink and a laugh, but both combatants and Barret were distracted by a horrified shout from Cloud, who had risen from his nap to realize that he didn’t like the braids that Aeris and Yuffie had spent the last twenty minutes plaiting carefully into his long blond hair.

Maybe they were all crazy, Barret thought, but his laughter joined theirs, a deep, rich bass, and part of the weight he’d been carrying around slipped slightly off his shoulders. Everyone here had their memories; everyone here had their ways of dealing with them.

He wasn’t asking any of them for apologies, either.

. o .

... finis ...

. o .

Sabe's Scribbles: ...this one surprised me in how it turned out. I knew it was going to be Barret talking, but the history side of things kind of came out of nowhere. And ♥ for Barret/Tifa UST; I was surprised that I liked it ~~until I realized they've got a 15-year age gap and suddenly wasn't so surprised~~. Fly, I hope you enjoyed this, and Merry Christmas! ^___^

"Close Up" (ff7/ac) (christmasfic)

2006-12-21T09:14:19Z

for: pseudosex
fandom: FF7, post AC.
rating: T, mostly for language.
spoilers: Know both canons, or this might not make much sense.
genre: Expect banter, sparring, and UST. Ish. (Drama/Romance)
characters/pairings: Reno/Yuffie, a half-second of Cloud/Yuffie.

Close Up

He finds her afterwards, once the church has emptied out, and she is sitting on the edge of the gap where the water starts, dangling her legs into the water and kicking her feet back and forth. She looks fifteen. She looks fifty.

He should not be looking.

He should be out celebrating; he just helped to save the damn world. Okay, he thinks, so that thought’s gonna take some work to sink in. I sure as hell never signed up to be a hero. He wonders if she had any more choice than he did, and his wondering must be audible because a pair of brown eyes whip around to look at him accusingly (old habits, he smirks) before turning defensive.

Suddenly feeling too tall, too awkward, he walks over and waves the glass vial in his right hand. “Don’t call the goon squad on me, Shrimp. I’m just here ‘cause Rufus wants a sample of this rain stuff.” Bending to swish the vial across the surface of the water, he waits for her retort.

“Ever the loyal lapdog, Reno?”

“Woof,” he chimes sarcastically, for once too sore and tired to rise to the bait. Almost. “I wouldn’t fit in your lap, Kisaragi, if that’s what you’re askin’ – ow, woman! The hell was that for?” He isn’t worried – her slap was just annoyed, but it brushed a bruise from earlier.

She scowls, her hand retreating from his leg to toy with the laces of her boots that she has stacked beside her. “We’re in a church, in case you didn’t notice. Besides – ew.”

“Ew?” he echoes. Careful to stretch in a way to best show off the stomach muscles that she probably is telling herself she’s not looking at, Reno remembers to stash the vial in a pouch at his side, not bothering to hide his grin. “Doesn’t look like that’s what you’re thinking, hey.”

“Shut up,” she murmurs, turning away and continuing to swing her feet – back and forth and back and forth, and maybe if she is super-lucky, she’ll figure out whether she wants him to go away or not. She hopes he’ll go because he’s right there and she doesn’t know how to talk to him without fighting, or even if she should be talking to him in the first place, but the church – Aeris’ church – doesn’t seem as big with his loud footsteps and louder hair making the vaulted ceiling a little less daunting, the stained glass a little less lonely.

To Yuffie’s surprise, he mutters something that is probably oh, what the hell, and he is sitting beside her, shucking his shoes, tugging up the cuffs of his pants, and dunking his toes in before cursing. “Dammit, Kisaragi; why didn’t you warn me it was cold?”

She can’t help it; she laughs. He looks like a cat that just had a pail of water upended over it. His bristly hair only adds to the illusion, impossibly spiky and bright, bright red… She thinks that, if she had her boots on, she’d be just quick enough to tug at his ponytail and get out of range in time.

He thinks she looks like trouble, and traces a lazy circle on the water with the tip of his finger to distract himself from the miles of leg attached to a ninja-girl who is unfortunately and unwittingly protected by more bodyguards than old man Shinra ever had. “I betcha Hero Boy never told you that this hole in the floor was his fault.”

Her eyes turn to his, and he swears they are the size of the dessert plates that he broke at Elena’s place last week.

“Uh, uh,” Yuffie scolds, her toes kicking a small wave in his direction. “You’re not gonna not tell me how you know that, Red.”

“I know,” Reno preens, “because Spikey was trying to huck barrels down at me from the rafters.”

She looks from the considerable size of the pond in the floorboards that was once a hole, up to what remains of the support beams twenty feet above where they sit – even from a distance, the beams are splintering and set very far apart… “Naaah. Cloud’s maybe a little crazy – okay, maybe a lot crazy, shut up – but he’s not that crazy. What was he doing up there, anyway?”

Laughing, Reno takes a chance and splashes her back. “Told ya already. Trying to knock these big-ass barrels onto my head and missing.”

Her look has turned angry, and her hand that is toying with the laces on her boot has clenched into a fist. Ooops, he thinks as she speaks.

“I’m not an idiot, Reno.”

His expression matches hers. “Yeah, that’s why you’re in here, talking with me, instead of being all celebrate-y ‘cause you just finished saving the world and shit. Again. Man, Kisaragi, you’ve got to have one hell of a resume.”

“…I already have a job,” she mumbles, and it’s so uncharacteristic, not that he knows her or anything, but any nineteen-year-old chick who wears Mideelian-print shirts and those shorts – he admits he kind of likes the shorts – and has a voice made for hollering across village squares shouldn’t be this sort of muted. This sort of almost-broken that makes him worry because three months ago he wouldn’t have cared if she was dead and now he doesn’t even want to see her damaged.

Maybe it was the weeks of seeing Elena wrapped in white bandages, her pretty hazel eyes swollen and barely able to glare at him when he came to visit her and Tseng – it hadn’t seemed nearly so bad when he was all tied up, except when he wanted to itch his back – but seeing them where he had been was scary as hell, so he had been loud and brash to cover it. Elena wasn’t supposed to be quiet and Tseng expected noise from him, so he had held the fort, or let Rude hold the fort as he dashed and laughed and tried for Elena’s giggle or that nearly-invisible quirk in Tseng’s cheek that meant that the Fearless Leader was amused.

And now… now, there is this little wisp of a woman beside him who could be the photo negative of Elena, dark where his fellow Turk is fair but with similar eyes… or so he thinks, because Yuffie won’t look at him, and Bahamut damn him, but he wants her to. So he lets her last comment slip for the moment and charges into the guarded silence between them. “He was protectin’ Aeris,” Reno sighs. “I think that hole up there in the roof was his fault too, ‘cause we heard one hell of a crash when we were walking up to the church. Strife was lying on that patch of flowers with her leaning over him when we got in; I think she’d pulled him from the wreckage. I learned from Rude that Spikes had fallen from one of the Reactors, and the timeline… aw, hell, Kisaragi, it works. Yeah,” he adds, taking in her stunned expression and wondering how little of the story she actually knows, “Crazy, hey? I’ll say this for Strife – the man just won’t say die.”

“Even if he is Cloud the Mopey sometimes,” Yuffie adds, a tiny smile curving her lips. She has started to swing her feet again, the water above them rippling with her movements. Struck by a thought, Yuffie looks over at Reno. “I think she just paid him back for all the times he saved her.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Reno stretches, looking at the water at his feet and trying not to think about how the long-haired momma’s boy he fought earlier had left some pretty serious bruises and probably a cracked rib or two in his wake. It wouldn’t have mattered, but Reno was avoiding Rude – and Rude’s Cure materia – because the man was always pissed for a good few days whenever Reno broke another pair of his precious sunglasses.

“Hey,” she says slyly, “I bet this water would be good for your bruises.”

“You just want to see me shirtless, Yuffie.”

To his surprise, she smirks. “Won’t be anything I haven’t seen before.” And she keeps her cool as his black suit jacket and wrinkled white shirt hit the floor in an undignified heap, but as he reaches for the button on his slacks, she leans back, one of her legs snapping out of the water and tangling in his knees to send him flying forwards.

The water breaks his fall, and his splash is oddly satisfying. But before she can enjoy the look on his face as he falls, or think of pulling her left leg, still dangling in the water, out of his strike zone, his hand grabs her ankle and his head breaks the surface of the water, using her leg as leverage to grab her waist and fall backwards with her into the pool.

He’s muttering something that could have been your turn, but she isn’t sure because she’s too busy trying to kick him and offer a gleeful, thankful prayer to the flower girl and not breathe in water – Kisaragi are ninja, they are not fish – all at once. Yuffie pokes at his ribs as he draws her out towards the centre of the pool; standing, it ripples just under her breasts and she’s crossing her arms across them, fighting her smile. She fails.

Godo would have an apoplectic fit if he was to see her now. Soaking wet and dressed boyishly, her head tilts back and her eyes are crinkling as her laughter joins Reno’s, hesitant at first but then as boisterous as his. One week, one week echoes through her head as his arm crooks and pulls her closer; defiantly, she pushes thoughts of her father and the land she returned to as a stranger to the back of her mind.

Reno's fingers are tracing looping circles on her back, and she realizes she’s been wrong all the times that she’s called him cold-blooded; perhaps he was, he probably still is, but not in the literal sense of the word. Not at all.

She wants to burrow into him, forget who he is, forget who she is and who she is going to have to be once this week is over… She wants a camera. Nobody would believe this moment even if she swore to it. She doesn’t particularly want to, caught somewhere between panic – he is right there and holding her and she’s really more accustomed to him trying to kill her - and exhilaration – he is right there and shirtless and maybe it should be romantic but she’ll take this laughing rebelliousness, because it doesn’t look like he wants to kill her, the scars below his eyes stretching as he laughs and they stand chest-to-chest in the icy pool.

Right, she thinks. Icy. Cold. So she pokes his side again and his laughter is low and dark this time; she can feel it rumbling against her chest and wonders if he’s stolen Rude’s laugh.

(If the fist-fighting Turk laughs, Yuffie thinks, he should sound like Reno does right now.)

But his hand has dropped from around her waist to retaliate and she seizes the opportunity, pushing against his chest and sliding backwards in the water, a quick whip kick sending her away from where they had been standing. Without taking her eyes from the bemused redhead, she pulls herself up and out of the pool, collapsing amidst Aeris’ flowers – yellow and white lilies spike up around her and she smiles apologetically at no-one; she’s probably squishing a couple of the flowers as she sprawls on the floor, waterlogged and content. To her surprise, he moves into her field of vision and sits down beside her, leaning back on his hands.

“You’re lucky your flower girl’s not around anymore, Kisaragi.”

She expends the energy to crane her neck and look upwards at him. “Huh?”

“Aeris hated it when people smushed her flowers. When any of us Turks walked on them when we came to check on her, she knew there was trouble coming and that she had to lay low for a while.”

“Really?” Yuffie hates that her voice is incredulous. “You guys must’ve known her pretty well then…”

He twists lily leaves, plaiting them together between his fingers, and looks over at her with green eyes softer than before. “Nah. She spooked Rude – hey, I didn’t get it either – and ‘Laney met her even after you did. She and I were kinda like cats and dogs; just too different. Tseng liked her, though, so that’s why we always let her get away. It became a joke between us, and that’s when the flower code started up.”

She frowns; she wants to pout and say she never told me that, but it sounds childish even in her head, so she lets him talk, absorbing a story she never knew he was such a large part of. And suddenly the subject changes and he’s paused and he’s looking at her, but for the first time, he seems to be looking through her, so she pokes at his knee and frowns. Yuffie Kisaragi does not like to be looked through, and she tells him as much.

Reno shakes his head; she catches the edge of a smile. “You looked like her for a second, there.”

“Aeris?” Yuffie asks, propping her head up on one elbow. “I think Yazoo hit you harder than you think he did.”

He mimics her posture, sprawling backwards as he shakes his head. “No. Like Tifa, when Rude and I found her lying on those flowers, with Strife curled up across from her.”

“When Loz…”

“Yeah,” he says. “Rufus’d sent us to look for them, so when they weren’t at Tifa’s place, we figured the church was the smartest place to go next. She looked beautiful, but so still, ya know? Like a painting; like kids, the two of ‘em… Rude had cast Cure on them both before I could even blink. Hell, he had Tifa slung in his arms before I could get over to where they were. I whined that Strife’s leather weighed more than I did, but I bet you can guess how much effect that had, hey?”

Yuffie laughs, twisting a couple of the lily stems into a chain. “You had to carry Cloud all the way back?” Her eyes turn mischievous at his sullen expression. “I wish I’d seen that.” With a careful flick of her wrist, the flower crown sails towards Reno, catching on his spiky hair and settling at a rakish angle.

The ivory lilies are striking against his crimson hair, and Yuffie’s smile grows. Reno’s expression is priceless, and she tries to take a mental photograph of the quirk of his lips and slant of his eyebrows as he reaches for the crown.

He pauses in mid-motion to pout. “You’d damn well better not be thinkin’ that this look suits me.”

“Good thing you can’t read thoughts,” she retorts, leaning away from his half-hearted swat. Leviathan damn her, but it doesn’t look as ridiculous as it should, and for half a second, she wishes it could be a different sort of crown; that she could drag this sopping, sarcastic stick of a man across the ocean back to the Pagoda and watch Godo’s jaw refuse to work when she declared that she wouldn’t rule this stupid, wonderful island without an equally wonderful and stupid man.

So what if this particular man had tried to kill her a few times and she hadn’t been too ladylike to return the favour? Her father’s instructions just before she hopped on the Sierra between a have you packed your toothbrush, young lady and a gruff take care could go hang.

Three weeks.

Three weeks to run around like she was sixteen again; three weeks to save the world and see Spikes and Teef and Vince and… everyone… before returning to diplomacy classes and calligraphy lessons and the traditional yukata that made running or jumping or anything fun nearly impossible. Worse, two of those weeks had already flown past. There was a price to be paid for the privilege of royal blood, and when she turned twenty-one she would pay it; she would take the traditional circlet and be sworn in as Lady of Wutai. She’d promised. It was the only reason that she was here with her father’s blessing.

Yuffie sighed. She was going soft, and she was blaming it on one of the mornings when, over carefully stilted conversation on the porch where she and Godo had been eating breakfast, he had leant for the pickles that he liked. As he had, she noticed that her father’s careful topknot was more silver than the jet that she remembered and that his hands shook as his chopsticks clamped over the pickled vegetables.

Shook.

Her father’s hands did not shake, and she had pretended not to see it, letting her long bangs cover eyes that had gone suspiciously glassy, tucking into her rice with what Godo had laughingly called youthful appetite. His innocent comment had only made her look away longer. More things had changed in her years away than the garish lights down the streets that attracted tourists by the buckets…

And so while Kisaragi are not fish, and they don’t like to be looked through, she is her daughter’s father, and for all her wanderlust, she loves him and she knows that it is their duty to rule a nation. As a Kisaragi, even she must eventually behave like she is aware of that fact… and she sounds like her father inside her head and doesn’t realize that she is frowning until Reno’s hand slips under her jaw and she tenses, but his index finger merely traces her lower lip, trying to turn it upwards into a smile.

“Doesn’t suit you,” is his only defence; his lips are curved into a curious frown as he leans towards her, his free hand on the planks beside her hip. “Looks like ya need to kick something, Kisaragi.”

She tries a smile. “Unless you can airlift my father here in ten seconds or less, I hope you’re offering.” To her surprise, his hands cover hers and squeeze them briefly in what she would call compassion if it came from anyone else before one of his legs hooks over her knees.

“I’ll pass,” he replies, sticking a yellow lily behind her ear spontaneously. It is a sweet gesture, and he doesn’t do sweet, but the look on her face is hilarious, so he thinks that he might have to try this again. “Buy you a drink instead?”

She says nothing at first, so he imagines the worst and prays that Strife or Highwind or any of the others aren’t about to walk through the church doors and see the two of them... “Shit. You are old enough to drink, right?”

This time, her punch hurts and he realizes that at least one of his ribs is cracked for sure. “Jerk,” she hisses and he thinks that this means that she is, which makes her age one less thing that he could worry about if he was a worrying sort of man. He isn’t.

He’s also not sure if she is crying as she breaks his hold, but doesn’t stop her as she shifts towards him. Either way, he has been knocked backwards and there is an angry ninja girl curled against his chest before either of them can think better of it.

One of her hands dusts over his cheek and the scar that bisects it before toying with the lily that hangs above his right eyebrow. “Nineteen last November – “

(And he hates himself for a second – nineteen? Damn, not by much...)

But she is stronger than she looks, so he doubts he could get away without some serious pain being inflicted upon him – and he’s had enough of that for one day – so as long as she just stays where she is and doesn’t try anything too stupid, it’s not so bad, never mind the fact that crying females have always made him twitchy.

“…’m old enough to drink and old enough to run a country; Pops made damn sure I’d agree to that before letting me come here...”

It appears she is still talking, but it takes this phrase to pull Reno out of his thoughts. “You’re taking over Wutai? Shouldn’t you, ya know, be happy, Kisaragi? I mean, it’s an island that’s all yours…”

Her stare is flat and oddly tearless as she looks down at him. “If you want it, take it.”

“I’d be killed in my bed within a week – a Turk taking over Wutai? C’mon, babe, give me some credit. You’ll be fine; you’re just scared.”

So much for that pipe dream, Yuffie thinks. Then the nickname sinks in. “Babe?” she asks. “Yazoo really hit you hard. Unless…” and her eyes take on a thoughtful glint as she tilts her chin upwards.

But he’s seen this play before and moves away. “Kisaragi, you’d kiss one of those silver-haired jerks to get out of this right now, and I’d like to think I’m a rung or ten higher than that, what with saving your ass and all back in Wutai that time.” She looks at him in surprise and he won’t lie and say that she’s beautiful – she’s glaring at him and what isn’t wet with tears is still soaking from when he dunked her – but he grins. He’s got to look at least as bad, and at least she isn’t wearing some pansy flower crown. “I’ve gotta break even, at least.”

“Gawd. We’re even, okay?” Yuffie beats his reflexes and succeeds in kissing him this time. She does nothing by halves, so her arms have slipped around his shoulders to cradle his head and she’s half-decent at it and he was going to kiss her in the water anyhow if she hadn’t slipped away first, so he kisses her back.

Lilies and tears and the lemon that has to be her shampoo catch at him where he’d missed them before, too busy swimming and laughing to stop and take anything in… damn good thing the girl’s going away in a week, he thinks; she’s turning me into a poet.

Yuffie pulls away first, and as he blinks she tugs him to his feet, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “Sorry,” she chirps, biting her lip. “I, uh... hey, you still owe me that drink!” Lacing her fingers through his, she grins nervously and turns to slip across the floor and around the pool with careful accuracy, her bare feet dancing a delicate staccato. He mimics her movement with much less grace and she scowls back, reaching one of her massive boots and using her free hand to swing the high-top in his direction.

“Missed me, missed me,” he mocks, ducking under the boot and around her to slip on his socks and shoes. Jamming the laces of his shoes into the sides, he grabs his shirt.

As he straightens, putting the buttons together haphazardly, she darts in with one boot still dangling from her hand to kiss his cheek. This is the second time she’s caught him unawares, and she knows it, grinning as she rocks back on her heels with her hands on her hips. “I know how the rest of that rhyme goes,” she teases, sticking her tongue out then bending to slip on her other shoe. “You’re kinda cute when you’re blushing.”

“I’m not cute,” he retorts, spitting out the last word as if speaking it burns.

“What are you, then?” she breathes, brown eyes curious.

“Stunning, highly attractive, dangerous, handsome...” Each word and he’s closer - closer - and somewhere between realizing that very important detail and snarling at the splinters poking through her vest from the floorboards against her back the thought occurs that maybe she shouldn’t have pushed him but she’s never been the sort to let opportunity slide when it leaves itself wide open - and that is a dangerous train of thought, she thinks from where he has pinned her.

Pinned her to a floor that Cloud should really, really consider sanding, cause she’s sure there’s a splinter in her shoulder the size of one of his swords at least – and all of a sudden it doesn’t matter because he – not Cloud, because gawd, that would just never-ever happen ever again – Reno is kissing her and though she hopes he doesn’t notice that her toes may be curling just a little bit, she’s sure it’s not supposed to work like this. He’s supposed to whisk her away or at least be the one to get all splintery. She’s a princess, for Shiva’s sake.

Tilting her head to tell him as much, she freezes as she catches sight of his expression – no longer smiling or even mischievous, his eyes are hooded and she remembers just why she shouldn’t be here. Even his laugh has turned predatory, trailing his lips along her jawline slowly to pause just below her ear. “Don’t start games you don’t intend to play through, babe,” he whispers, and she is frozen.

“I’m winning,” she retorts, but her voice wavers and he isn’t fooled.

“I’m no-one’s conscience, babe, but you don’t want me, I don’t need you, and neither Rufus nor your daddy dearest could handle another war. I’m not the sort you fall in love with, either, so don’t get any stupid ideas.”

“So...” She hates being lost for words.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t a good idea, Yuf-fie.”

His smile is insufferable, she thinks, but he’s not done.

“What’s dumb,” Reno murmurs, “is diving into whatever you think this is like an idiot schoolgirl when you know better. Read my file, go run your island, and if your bodyguards haven’t killed me by next spring, I might start leaving my apartment door open.”

Somehow, she works one of her hands free and shit, that damned rib, he thinks, she gets it every time.

He watches her storm out of the church and wonders if the sick feeling in his stomach means that he’s just done something very stupid, or something very noble. Shrugging because it’s probably just indigestion, Reno grabs his jacket from the floor and glares down anyone who looks at him funny over his walk home.

There are more odd looks than usual, and it isn’t until he slams his apartment door closed and catches his reflection in the mirror that he realizes why. His lily crown, much like the girl that made it, is hard to get rid of.

And she’s not, he finds, the type to run from a challenge, either; she stays in town for the rest of her week, but ignores him with all the grace and fury of an electrocuted chocobo. Tifa casts a couple of confused looks at the two of them, but he sees no reason to enlighten the martial artist, particularly since his ribs are just starting to feel back to normal again.

Rufus is harder to evade; his smile as Reno hands over the vial of water from the church is arch and utterly knowing. Reno matches Rufus’ stare, and is not surprised when he is sent along with Elena to Wutai that autumn for a recon mission. He doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary beyond drinks being more expensive at the Turtle, but when he overhears Elena jabbering on her phone to a friend about the gorgeous yellow lilies which had been everywhere around the Imperial pagodas which was weird, because they hadn’t been there a year ago, but they were so lovely, you wouldn’t believe it - that Reno leans back against the wall and shakes his head.

It seems that he’s just as hard to forget as she is, and though he’s never been the hopeful sort, once he gets back from their mission he sends a crown of yellow lilies to Yuffie on her birthday. Girls like flowers, it’s been said, and as he hears the tell-tale creak of his bathroom window sneaking upwards at three in the morning two days later, he thinks to himself that she is no exception. “The door was open,” he drawls as she startles and falls the rest of the way through the window, somehow catching herself in mid-tumble to roll forwards and onto her feet. Right, he groans, ninja.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Yuffie giggles, steadying herself against the vanity. “Were you sleeping in the bathtub, Reno?”

“…Nah,” he says, but his eyes shift and he laughs along with her.

“Well, you’d better stop,” she replies, reaching out with both her hands to pull him out of the bathtub. “You still owe me a drink.”

He lets her. “Yeah,” Reno says, slinging an arm around her shoulders for what he tells himself is balance, but Yuffie's smile says she knows it’s nothing that simple. Or that boring.

“Yeah,” Reno echoes, steering her out of the bathroom and into the night, starting with pleasant surprise as her arm slips around his waist. “So I do.”

. o .

… finis …

. o .

Sabe's Scribbles: I started this one a MONTH ago, only for it to run away with me. ^^ It's not quite angsty, but I hope it was an enjoyable read.

"Fairy Tale in Monochrome" - (rahxephon) (christmasfic)

2006-12-09T03:54:35Z

The second of the Christmas stories for 2006. This sure wasn't the one I thought I'd finish this early, but...

for: cendrillo
fandom: RahXephon
rating: T for subtext and Makoto.
genre: for simplicity's sake? Drama/Romance/Psychological.
characters/pairings: Quon/Makoto (Isshiki)... but in this fandom romance doesn't occur so much in a love triangle as it does as a (thankfully understated) love dodecahedron. Heads-up for ambiguous subtext ahead.

Fairy Tale in Monochrome

“Poor Sleeping Beauty,” he says to her as he looks through the glass. “Prince Charming doesn’t love you.”

And she must have heard him, because when she seeks him out, she asks him to tell her the story of the spun-struck princess. He wonders, audibly, if she is mocking him, his cool eyes narrow and his spine rigid at the imagined insult. But her eyes are an eerie shade of neutral and blue, and he is bored, so he tells her what he remembers.

Maybe she thanks him. Maybe she doesn’t. But she listens.

The next time, he is waiting in Itsuki’s solarium when she drifts into the room, her plum sundress swirling above her knees. His breath catches, choked by lust (which he hides) and envy (which he does not bother to.) She is beautiful… exceptionally so. She is unique, and he shivers at the thousand meanings that particular word carries.

He could strangle her where she stands. He could embrace her. But he waits.

“It cannot sing,” she murmurs, holding out a violin with broken strings. “It is lost.”

And she hands off the violin, moving forward somehow before he can back away; one hand is on his shoulder with a grip too strong for her frame, but she is no ordinary girl… “I don’t fix things,” he says, his voice clipped.

“You did, once.” Itsuki’s voice from the doorway; the brunet wastes no time in striding over to where the other two stand, warning and challenge clear in his tone and in the set of his shoulders as he steers his pink-haired ward away from his childhood friend.

“Hmm.” It is enough of a push, a challenge; Makoto Isshiki takes his leave, pale fingers wrapping around the ends of the broken strings, and is halfway out of the door when everything begins to make sense.

He has always wanted what Itsuki wants. Itsuki always wants what he can never have.

With a scheming smile, Makoto fixes the violin, sending out for new strings and calculating how much Itsuki will owe him, if she will be enough – pull and twist and cut - it’s not as good as new and it never will be, but it is useful again.

“It has found its voice.”

Her voice is eerie, and he almost drops the violin from his hand. He hadn’t meant to play it, he hadn’t touched anything musical in years, but the bow is in his other hand as he spins around, trying to see her as he stands on the balcony. Two heartbeats. Ten. She does not speak again or appear, so Makoto convinces himself that he is hallucinating – he hasn’t been sleeping well, that's all it is. Convinced she has gone, that she never was, he straightens the violin under his chin and slides the bow across its new strings; his voice, unused to song, is a ragged accompaniment. He thinks it’s fitting.

Hidden by the twilight, she wants to tell him his tonality is the saddest she’s ever heard. She wants to tell him that the last note should have been a D. But she waits.

They stumble across each other in the hallways three days later, and maybe it’s not fate, because he is carrying her violin. “Here,” he says. “Take it.”

She does, fixing him with an inscrutable expression as she nestles the violin case under her arm, against what he has heard Itsuki refer to as her life vest. Before he can study her further, she tilts her head and steps towards him, resting one hand against his cheek. “You are still broken, rah-rah.”

She is too close – both to him and to the truth – and her eyes know too much, but he pulls her closer yet, one hand curling under the vest. Maybe it can save him too; maybe she is trying to. Maybe this is why she does not resist as his lips find hers and crush them together.

It is… not romantic, but it is the first kiss she remembers, and she feels sorry for this quicksilver man with guarded eyes; though it is her back that hits the wall, he is trembling. Pulling away a little, Quon hums a lullaby against his shoulder, her voice high and sweet and smooth. She is calm and fluttering all at once, black wings beating at her heart as his grip tightens; something is very, very wrong with this young man. But she remains calm, the hand not around her violin case ghosting around his neck, her lips pursed in curiosity. “That was my first kiss,” she murmurs. “It was… a good kiss, I think.”

He should correct her (she is wrong; he’s always been too slow to be first at anything). He should say something. But he listens.

And by the time that Shitow and Kamina pass them in the hallway, he and Quon are a respectable distance apart. As Quon thanks him more formally for fixing her violin, something deeper than mischief pools behind her eyes; she is less the vestal maiden that Itsuki seems to insist she is, he thinks. Still, her eyes flit to Kamina as the boy laughs at something Shitow has said, and though it’s just a quick look, with Quon it might as well be a written confession.

“Poor Sleeping Beauty,” he murmurs – the other two have turned the corner and he and Quon have been left behind, once more – and tangles his fingers in her long, wavy hair that is just about the colour of cotton candy. Pink is a ludicrous hair colour, he thinks, but it is beautiful, and so is she. “Prince Charming doesn’t love you.”

The fool.

But then, he thinks, catching Itsuki’s eye as the scientist rounds the corner and freezes at the sight of them, neither do I.

. o .

(fairy tales are not for everyone, you know)

. o .

…finis…

. o .

Sabe’s Scribbles:
A Christmas story for Cendri that is actually on time! Inspired by insomnia, T.S. Eliot’s “Sweeney among the Nightingales,” written while reading Hunter S. Thompson, and while personally infatuated with an awkward, intense young man with dark, dark eyes. If any of that comes out in the ‘fic, the poem’s the only thing she asked for... ^^

"Pistachios and Paradise" - (HP) (Christmasfic)

2006-12-07T23:07:42Z

The first of the Christmas stories for 2006!

for: tiny_q - whose art (linked at the bottom of the cut) inspired this piece. ^^
fandom: HP, fourth year-ish.
rating: K. (Whoa, no language even. ^^*)
genre: Banterfluff.
characters: Draco and Ginny. And ice-cream.

Pistachios and Paradise

This was paradise.

And it was as simple as that; she had her pistachio ice-cream, it was gorgeous outside, and by a coincidence that she wasn’t about to question, there was no homework due over the weekend.

Humming cheerfully, Ginny walked up to the bar, but as she reached it, a pained drawl from the blond who had just entered through the other door caught her in mid-motion.

“Kindly cease, Weaslette. You’re abusing my ears, and you’ve ice cream on your nose.”

Correction.

She had been in paradise.

Unfortunately, the newly acquired presence of Draco Malfoy and his minions had noticeably lessened her euphoria. Shrugging, Ginny only quirked an eyebrow to match his and spun away on her stool, taking a bite of her ice cream and smiling happily. He wasn’t about to ruin her afternoon…

…But for some reason, as she felt his hand clap down on her shoulder and spin her around, it seemed that he was hell-bent on trying. Stifling a yelp – the prat didn’t deserve to know that his grasp hurt – Ginny snapped. “What’s it this time, Malfoy?” Placing her free hand on her hip, she glared up at him. “My ice cream’s melting, and I don’t have all day.”

“Did I say you could turn your back on me, Weaslette?” Grey eyes narrowed, Draco sneered down at the unimpressed redhead. Last he recalled, she’d been a mousy, quiet creature, but that was not a mouse-like expression that she had levelled on him, which was highly disappointing. What was the point of having the perfect scowl if it didn’t even intimidate simple beings like Ginny Weasley?

“You didn’t,” she replied curtly, his thoughts dissipating as she spoke. “Then again, I never asked.”

“You didn’t,” he conceded. “But the opinion of lowly Gryffindors who insist on eating abominable things like pistachio ice cream obviously doesn’t count.”

Ginny smiled sweetly and pushed his hand off of her shoulder. “Oh? And I suppose the almighty Lord Malfoy knows all too well what kind of ice cream is far superior, then.”

Either missing or disregarding the sarcasm laced through her reply, Draco smirked. “Naturally.” Settling himself on the stool beside her, oblivious to the horrified looks that Crabbe and Goyle shot his way before they shuffled away, confused, Draco ordered a French vanilla and chocolate cone and dug in with a gusto that his father would have called undignified.

Draco shrugged off the thought; his father wasn’t here, and the ice cream was…

The haze seemed to fall off him as the last few drops of his ice cream disappeared and the unmistakeable blaze of light from a camera flash threatened to blind him. Alarmed, his eyes swept along the bar, widening with recognition of each familiar face. “Potter… Weasley…Longbottom?” His glare transferred to Ginny, whose grin was positively evil. “The devil did you put into my ice cream, Weaslette?”

“Nothing,” she replied sweetly, grabbing a spoon and jokingly tried to snag a corner of the last of his ice-cream, which he protected with a glare. She looked from Harry’s amused grin to Hermione and Ron, both of whom were holding back chuckles, to Neville, whose apprehension had melted into a tiny smile as he realized that Malfoy wasn’t about to hex him, and back to Draco, whose scowl, she could tell, was only half-hearted.

This was likely due to the fact that Madame Rosmerta had paused deliberately in front of him as she cleaned up the bar, but Ginny would take it. “Nothing at all.”

Perhaps paradise was what you made of it, Ginny thought to herself.

Perhaps it was the ice cream.

. o .

(finis)

. o .

the inspiration:
"Ice Cream Time" by tiny_q = is over here.