![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: slip
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Évariste, (the Exile)
Prompt: 071 "Broken"
Word Count: 300
Rating: PG
Notes: long before the wars; the woman mentioned in the past tense was involved in a very early attempted coup (she was mostly involved/responsible for the ending thereof—she killed the person ringleading/responsible for the attempt. Unfortunately this meant the honestly responsible party could not be Asked about who else had been involved, and to what degree.) She ended up being banished from the home territories as a Gesture. The Sabaeys and the home world never heard from her again. Évariste, out on the very far edges of said territories, did.
First edit. Subject to sentence revision.
Also, first bit of writing since November of '06.
Most of the time, he'd known she was growing old. Her dark hair began to be streaked with colours of mourning, the lines on her face grew deeper, etched into soft, loosening skin, her hands trembled slightly when she wasn't paying attention.
Sometimes he didn't, reached for the girl she'd been when they'd met, and pressed too hard at the stranger he found in her place.
One morning, she didn't push back, even laughing or in pain. Didn't push back, didn't rise to wrap herself in the battered coat of many colours he'd whistled for her on a good day. Didn't do strange and arcane things to the metal-and-glass contraption she took with her everywhere they went, didn't offer him sips of the results.
Sometimes--rarer times now, without her there to remind him that this-and-such was real--he knew that she was dead. Could never know whether he had pushed too hard, one morning, that morning, or if it had been age that took her away, too little mageblood and not enough magery.
Most of the time, he doubted. Doubted his memory of her. Began, eventually, to doubt her reality--unreal things broke, fell down and did not get up again.
And if she was not real, their time together had not been. He had not found her walking the edges of a cliff, dying of thirst a step from a river worth drinking from, had not splashed water on her from within it. Had never settled in a house, after being thrown from throne and family. Had not listened to female laughter at accidental transformations, mug to flower to tree and back again.
She had not been real--they had not been real.
When pushed, he gave, and did not push back. He, too, was not real.
And so nothing mattered--everything broke, and this had no meaning.
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Évariste, (the Exile)
Prompt: 071 "Broken"
Word Count: 300
Rating: PG
Notes: long before the wars; the woman mentioned in the past tense was involved in a very early attempted coup (she was mostly involved/responsible for the ending thereof—she killed the person ringleading/responsible for the attempt. Unfortunately this meant the honestly responsible party could not be Asked about who else had been involved, and to what degree.) She ended up being banished from the home territories as a Gesture. The Sabaeys and the home world never heard from her again. Évariste, out on the very far edges of said territories, did.
First edit. Subject to sentence revision.
Also, first bit of writing since November of '06.
Most of the time, he'd known she was growing old. Her dark hair began to be streaked with colours of mourning, the lines on her face grew deeper, etched into soft, loosening skin, her hands trembled slightly when she wasn't paying attention.
Sometimes he didn't, reached for the girl she'd been when they'd met, and pressed too hard at the stranger he found in her place.
One morning, she didn't push back, even laughing or in pain. Didn't push back, didn't rise to wrap herself in the battered coat of many colours he'd whistled for her on a good day. Didn't do strange and arcane things to the metal-and-glass contraption she took with her everywhere they went, didn't offer him sips of the results.
Sometimes--rarer times now, without her there to remind him that this-and-such was real--he knew that she was dead. Could never know whether he had pushed too hard, one morning, that morning, or if it had been age that took her away, too little mageblood and not enough magery.
Most of the time, he doubted. Doubted his memory of her. Began, eventually, to doubt her reality--unreal things broke, fell down and did not get up again.
And if she was not real, their time together had not been. He had not found her walking the edges of a cliff, dying of thirst a step from a river worth drinking from, had not splashed water on her from within it. Had never settled in a house, after being thrown from throne and family. Had not listened to female laughter at accidental transformations, mug to flower to tree and back again.
She had not been real--they had not been real.
When pushed, he gave, and did not push back. He, too, was not real.
And so nothing mattered--everything broke, and this had no meaning.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 02:39 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 05:40 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 05:42 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 06:16 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-01-14 03:02 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-01-14 03:34 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-02-21 06:25 am (UTC)From:You will be unsurprised at the wincing at echoes of this piece, although he's all swirling wet-wind and fog in my head.
I would be interested in more of their relationship. Among other things, I cannot imagine time with her would make him more KINDLY inclined to the rest, considering.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-21 08:55 pm (UTC)From:Among other things, I cannot imagine time with her would make him more KINDLY inclined to the rest, considering.
Yeeeah, not so much. Especially as regards to his brother.