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Entry tags:
fic: Sparks
Title: Sparks
Game: Fire Emblem 9/10
Word Count: 1216
Pairings / Characters: Sephiran, Sanaki, Micaiah.
Warnings: here thar be spoilers
Author’s Note: Oh look, I actually finished something in time for this!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fe_contest: Challenge 5 Present tense, intended for last challenge as well, but..yeah. I did promise ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myaru I'd write something for her of the Sephiran and Sanaki variety, but I don't think this was what she was looking for.
It is the fire that burns at the forges, controlled, that creates the weaponry. That is what Sephiran teaches her. Other tutors try to instill this lesson, but none can do it as succinctly and elegantly as Sephiran manages.
Life is controlling the fire. Do you understand? Any farther and it will devour you.
Life in Begnion is this same tempering. She is allowed more outbursts than most with her station, if only because they are humoring her. She remembers the scene well. In it, the images coalesce in times. He lifts her chin and smiles. You have fire inside you, that spark. Spirit, that's what you have.
Instead of humors of choleric and sanguine, she imagines sparks flitting through her veins, just waiting to ignite.
*
The first time she feels it, the energy from her fingertips at the edge of the pages, she is seven. The flames dance at her command, and sear the curtains all the way across the training room. It is by her actions alone that the room is refurnished completely in stone with no traces of delicacy or refinement. By the end of the week, she has scorched the entire room black.
Before she turns eight, Sephiran teaches her the intricacies of control, and that power isn't everything. He shows her manually the force of a aimed attack. His hair flies back from the waves of energy, and it is as dark as the scorched stone about her. He controls the magic like an art, and instead of the destruction she wreaks, his is contained and refined.
By the time she is ten, she installs new curtains in that room. Expensive ones, in shades of gold and green, just to prove to herself that she can control the flame – advisors be damned.
*
She's nine the first time she sees the ceremony. He holds a clear jar of ashes. She watches him lift it up, and place it on the hearth. He treats it reverently, as if it is more than mere ashes, and something runic and sacred.
Why do you keep ashes? She queries.
He smiles, rueful. Because sometimes we need to remind ourselves of our wounds to get stronger.
He takes the ashes from the fireplace and pours them over his head. He rubs them into his skin, making a keening sound as he does.
And she watches, too stunned to move. He does not send her away and he does not explain himself.
It takes her years to understand what she has just witnessed is a funeral pyre.
*
Sanaki has never been superstitious, but she does make note that it is her thirteenth year when things start to crumble. Thirteen is regarded as unlucky, and thirteen is the year when death comes into her life. It is the year she is overthrown, betrayed, the year when she goes throat to throat with Sephiran and still can't bring herself to sear his lying lips. It is the year when the goddess who has always been called good and beautiful shows herself to be anything but. It is the year where she casts aside trust and religion, ideals and love. Thirteen is the year when she is no longer a child, and takes up the painful mantle of Empress and adulthood.
*
Fourteen, and still dizzy with the changes she makes a diplomatic call. She calls Micaiah to her and yet she hasn't a clue what to do at this point. Tea and sympathy, tea and politeness, oh Sephiran always did these sorts of things for her. Micaiah isn't the sort of person one can just talk about the weather with – not that Sanaki has ever been adept at these farces. Too often she will get bored and blurt out something, or just dismiss the person entirely.
Sephiran always admonishes her (– or had she still mixes up tenses when it comes to him.) But he also indulges her saying You know, when you're older you'll have to know this...but I suppose for now, it can wait a while.
What is it like? she asks, not the first time she meets the girl who is her blood relative, but the second. Those golden eyes consider her, and Sanaki twitches on reflex. She always feels as if Micaiah is looking through her soul and judging every thought.
What?
You know what I mean, Sanaki grumbles. She's faked it so many times, complete with incense and the pathetic mimicry of incantations. Sephiran himself has always told her that ruling was one part lies, one part whoring and one part illusion. Smile, flick the smoke across and you shall keep their attention diverted from what is truly happening.
It's like falling asleep. It's warm, and...safe, Micaiah says. She pushes her silver hair and stares in earnest at Sanaki in the way that makes Sanaki hate her a little.
It's all right. She doesn't want to be some pathetic vessel anyways. She is an empress, and even if she can't hear the voice of the goddess, she can't help but feel that this goddess isn't worth listening to anyways.
She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. Defiant. She stares Micaiah in a way that just dares her to try and pity her.
I was just curious, Sanaki says.
Micaiah looks faintly amused, and all Sanaki can think is that she wishes Sephiran were here to deal with this for her. He always comes in, breaks the ice with some witty retort. It is hard to realize that he won't be there to guide her anymore. Even more the knowledge that every guidance, every way he has ever steered her was towards his own machinations.
*
Sephiran gives her the wisest advice ten days after her twelfth birthday – which he misses due to some errand that takes another year for her to even think about forgiving him for.
Never trust anyone fully, he says. The ones who are the kindest are often the cruelest villains. He looks so earnest and desperate, it a shock. She wants to speak up, to say You certainly don't follow into this category or don't be ridiculous.
But she is angry at him then, so she coldly says more cheese with that whine?
She does not think of his words again until there is the taste of blood in her mouth and he lays crumpled before a tower, the door to the goddess' room opened. Then it makes such perfect sense, and she has to bite her lower lips to keep back the sob forming in her throat.
*
On her fifteenth birthday, with Sephiran (– or Lehran, whatever he was originally called) long in the grave, she takes every word of advice he has told her to heart, especially the last refrain.
Game: Fire Emblem 9/10
Word Count: 1216
Pairings / Characters: Sephiran, Sanaki, Micaiah.
Warnings: here thar be spoilers
Author’s Note: Oh look, I actually finished something in time for this!
fe_contest: Challenge 5 Present tense, intended for last challenge as well, but..yeah. I did promise myaru I'd write something for her of the Sephiran and Sanaki variety, but I don't think this was what she was looking for.It is the fire that burns at the forges, controlled, that creates the weaponry. That is what Sephiran teaches her. Other tutors try to instill this lesson, but none can do it as succinctly and elegantly as Sephiran manages.
Life is controlling the fire. Do you understand? Any farther and it will devour you.
Life in Begnion is this same tempering. She is allowed more outbursts than most with her station, if only because they are humoring her. She remembers the scene well. In it, the images coalesce in times. He lifts her chin and smiles. You have fire inside you, that spark. Spirit, that's what you have.
Instead of humors of choleric and sanguine, she imagines sparks flitting through her veins, just waiting to ignite.
*
The first time she feels it, the energy from her fingertips at the edge of the pages, she is seven. The flames dance at her command, and sear the curtains all the way across the training room. It is by her actions alone that the room is refurnished completely in stone with no traces of delicacy or refinement. By the end of the week, she has scorched the entire room black.
Before she turns eight, Sephiran teaches her the intricacies of control, and that power isn't everything. He shows her manually the force of a aimed attack. His hair flies back from the waves of energy, and it is as dark as the scorched stone about her. He controls the magic like an art, and instead of the destruction she wreaks, his is contained and refined.
By the time she is ten, she installs new curtains in that room. Expensive ones, in shades of gold and green, just to prove to herself that she can control the flame – advisors be damned.
*
She's nine the first time she sees the ceremony. He holds a clear jar of ashes. She watches him lift it up, and place it on the hearth. He treats it reverently, as if it is more than mere ashes, and something runic and sacred.
Why do you keep ashes? She queries.
He smiles, rueful. Because sometimes we need to remind ourselves of our wounds to get stronger.
He takes the ashes from the fireplace and pours them over his head. He rubs them into his skin, making a keening sound as he does.
And she watches, too stunned to move. He does not send her away and he does not explain himself.
It takes her years to understand what she has just witnessed is a funeral pyre.
*
Sanaki has never been superstitious, but she does make note that it is her thirteenth year when things start to crumble. Thirteen is regarded as unlucky, and thirteen is the year when death comes into her life. It is the year she is overthrown, betrayed, the year when she goes throat to throat with Sephiran and still can't bring herself to sear his lying lips. It is the year when the goddess who has always been called good and beautiful shows herself to be anything but. It is the year where she casts aside trust and religion, ideals and love. Thirteen is the year when she is no longer a child, and takes up the painful mantle of Empress and adulthood.
*
Fourteen, and still dizzy with the changes she makes a diplomatic call. She calls Micaiah to her and yet she hasn't a clue what to do at this point. Tea and sympathy, tea and politeness, oh Sephiran always did these sorts of things for her. Micaiah isn't the sort of person one can just talk about the weather with – not that Sanaki has ever been adept at these farces. Too often she will get bored and blurt out something, or just dismiss the person entirely.
Sephiran always admonishes her (– or had she still mixes up tenses when it comes to him.) But he also indulges her saying You know, when you're older you'll have to know this...but I suppose for now, it can wait a while.
What is it like? she asks, not the first time she meets the girl who is her blood relative, but the second. Those golden eyes consider her, and Sanaki twitches on reflex. She always feels as if Micaiah is looking through her soul and judging every thought.
What?
You know what I mean, Sanaki grumbles. She's faked it so many times, complete with incense and the pathetic mimicry of incantations. Sephiran himself has always told her that ruling was one part lies, one part whoring and one part illusion. Smile, flick the smoke across and you shall keep their attention diverted from what is truly happening.
It's like falling asleep. It's warm, and...safe, Micaiah says. She pushes her silver hair and stares in earnest at Sanaki in the way that makes Sanaki hate her a little.
It's all right. She doesn't want to be some pathetic vessel anyways. She is an empress, and even if she can't hear the voice of the goddess, she can't help but feel that this goddess isn't worth listening to anyways.
She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. Defiant. She stares Micaiah in a way that just dares her to try and pity her.
I was just curious, Sanaki says.
Micaiah looks faintly amused, and all Sanaki can think is that she wishes Sephiran were here to deal with this for her. He always comes in, breaks the ice with some witty retort. It is hard to realize that he won't be there to guide her anymore. Even more the knowledge that every guidance, every way he has ever steered her was towards his own machinations.
*
Sephiran gives her the wisest advice ten days after her twelfth birthday – which he misses due to some errand that takes another year for her to even think about forgiving him for.
Never trust anyone fully, he says. The ones who are the kindest are often the cruelest villains. He looks so earnest and desperate, it a shock. She wants to speak up, to say You certainly don't follow into this category or don't be ridiculous.
But she is angry at him then, so she coldly says more cheese with that whine?
She does not think of his words again until there is the taste of blood in her mouth and he lays crumpled before a tower, the door to the goddess' room opened. Then it makes such perfect sense, and she has to bite her lower lips to keep back the sob forming in her throat.
*
On her fifteenth birthday, with Sephiran (– or Lehran, whatever he was originally called) long in the grave, she takes every word of advice he has told her to heart, especially the last refrain.
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The magic training was also awesome.
Really, the fic is just awesome.
This works out. You did Sanaki and Sephiran gen, and I'm doing Lehran and... well, it's gen. And thankfully very different from yours. I was just waiting for some weird coincidence to happen.
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How are you holding up?
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probably because I'm the one writing him usually but whatever.I'm going back and forth? I'll feel okay for a bit, and then cry because I think of the kitten. It was just a little baby, so... yeah. But I've gotten some writing done, so I don't feel all bad. This fic was a nice surprise. <3
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"more cheese with that whine"-> "wine"
"desperate, it a shock She wants"-> period after "shock"
I really liked this; it was very well done and I think the present tense works quite well for it. The part about her training was a favourite section. I do feel rather sad for her, though. Her scene with Micaiah was so strained when Micaiah is basically the closest thing she has to family...
Really great piece!
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Thanks for the period check, though. I finished this on a tight deadline, so I didn't get to scan over it as much as I wanted.
Thank you~
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