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and when you're gone, will they say your name?
and when you're gone, will they love you the same?
18 October 2009 @ 05:30 am
[prompt] and i feel the leaves dying to the very core
17 October 2009 @ 01:01 am
[prompt] and just bewilder the hell out of people the way that love should
The masquerade is nothing that Martel has any interest in attending - but Petrana gets wind of the fact he's been invited (which means she's been invited, and he suspects his mother pointed this out), and then he really doesn't have as much say in the matter as he might have liked. Despite the effort on his part that would be required to give any less of a damn about the proceedings of some courtier's melodrama-laden royal anniversary celebrations, he submits to a few fittings and the bare minimum of input into what exactly it is he's being wrestled into for the evening. There are stars, silver and ivory silk, sewn into the black velvet doublet that Petrana was utterly convinced would be a good idea, and he takes comfort in the fact that very few of his fellows are going to be able to witness this indignity.
The mask is a little more tolerable; modestly sized, admittedly because Romiar glimpsed what they were planning in the first place and pointed out that Martel's hair is probably sufficiently reminiscent of moonlight without any encouragement at all. (Veleda commended her husband for his poetry of thought, and Martel got his father another drink for sparing him what he'd seen on paper.) All the same, when he waits impatiently for Petrana to come down the stairs so he can hustle her into the carriage waiting outside, it has more to do with a desire to get this evening over with and less to do with anticipation of the costume that matches and opposes his.
That, he reflects, as he takes in the gold chains knotted into braids holding the translucent yellow fabric that is her sun's halo and the skirts flaring out from her tightly-laced waist, may have been an error on his part.
"You're going to have a terrible headache by the time we leave," he predicts, even so.
"Thank you, dearest," she replies - sunnily - as she sails past him to the door.
Of course.
20 July 2009 @ 03:39 am
[prompt] that which cannot be taken back
13 April 2009 @ 10:28 pm
[prompt] friday ♠ changes
29 March 2009 @ 10:36 pm
[prompt] your childhood home is just powder white bones and you'll never find your way back
After years of exile, something about riding through Elenia gave Martel an unpleasantly familiar feeling between his shoulderblades. All of the bridges had been burned, and he didn't belong any more; he fancied the land knew it as well as he did. His thrice-damned 'traveling companions' didn't make the trip any more palatable - if anything, less - and when they were encamped, he left them to their own devices a while, following a path he'd never realized he wouldn't forget.
The woods they'd stopped in were on the edge of the estate he'd sold years before, in a rush to leave. He hadn't been intimately familiar with the place since he was a boy and a novice, but he knew it well enough. There were differences; time would do that. The kennels were gone, and the stables had been expanded. It seemed to him (in the evening and from the distance) more lively than it had been when it was his family's home; he'd been largely absent after his novitate began, with Romiar and Veleda always a self-contained couple.
They'd matched each other, he reflected; once he'd been grateful that they were already gone before his dishonour, when they could still be proud of who their son had become, but by the time he had his feet on what used to be their land again it was a passing thought already long since scoured from his mind. It didn't matter any more. With his hand on a tree that Petrana had claimed for her own by shoving him in the chest with her feet until he swung (upside down, indignant like a ruffled cat), he thought of his grandfather. The last true Pandion in their history; that legacy had died with him, and any hope of continuing it would eventually die with Martel.
Thoughts he wasn't having interrupted by movement, he made an irritable sound and turned away, walking back through the trees without bothering to properly acknowledge Adus. "When we leave, burn it," he said, shortly. "Try not to attempt creativity, Adus, it only embarrasses me."
The woods they'd stopped in were on the edge of the estate he'd sold years before, in a rush to leave. He hadn't been intimately familiar with the place since he was a boy and a novice, but he knew it well enough. There were differences; time would do that. The kennels were gone, and the stables had been expanded. It seemed to him (in the evening and from the distance) more lively than it had been when it was his family's home; he'd been largely absent after his novitate began, with Romiar and Veleda always a self-contained couple.
They'd matched each other, he reflected; once he'd been grateful that they were already gone before his dishonour, when they could still be proud of who their son had become, but by the time he had his feet on what used to be their land again it was a passing thought already long since scoured from his mind. It didn't matter any more. With his hand on a tree that Petrana had claimed for her own by shoving him in the chest with her feet until he swung (upside down, indignant like a ruffled cat), he thought of his grandfather. The last true Pandion in their history; that legacy had died with him, and any hope of continuing it would eventually die with Martel.
Thoughts he wasn't having interrupted by movement, he made an irritable sound and turned away, walking back through the trees without bothering to properly acknowledge Adus. "When we leave, burn it," he said, shortly. "Try not to attempt creativity, Adus, it only embarrasses me."
sunday ♪ take us home
12 June 2008 @ 03:43 am
[narrative] i've always wanted for you what you wanted for yourself
Aphrael's given him a gift he doesn't deserve. He knows this, as well as he knows that no amount of time to prepare for that conversation could've found him more deserving. Still, he has no intention of wasting what she's given him -- this opportunity holds a lifetime he could be proud of, and more importantly one that she could take pride in as well.
He doesn't let himself consider Sephrenia's thoughts on it, not yet, nor anyone else's.
The connection is there, again, and he finds himself delighting in it the way he delighted in the new knowledge of it once as a novice. Practice is important; the understanding never left, but he's rusty and a fluent command of the language doesn't mean he still has the same mastery of the secrets that he did a decade ago. A bowl of water sits in front of him on the table and once he's begun it comes easily to him; he hardly thinks of the image he's casting until he looks down at it, caught and held still by her eyes looking through him.
He didn't love her, then--certainly he'd thought he did, but it hadn't been quite what he'd imagined it was--but God knew he could've. She'd been so beautiful, smaller and more delicate hands on his forearms when he lifted her laughing. He'd had grand and glorious plans, some of which she'd encouraged and some of which she saw no sense in. She'd laughed at him and laughed with him and hadn't she always been laughing, always thinking, always talking or whispering. He'd only wanted to know what she'd say to him.
It was the closest thing he could give her to a kindness when he said nothing, standing silent while she raged and when she finally turned her back on him. He won't wish anything different for her now -- too far from the man she'd thought to marry for it to matter any -- but he watches her on the water until the image dissipates.
It's a quieting moment. He pours the water away, thinking on his promises.
He doesn't let himself consider Sephrenia's thoughts on it, not yet, nor anyone else's.
The connection is there, again, and he finds himself delighting in it the way he delighted in the new knowledge of it once as a novice. Practice is important; the understanding never left, but he's rusty and a fluent command of the language doesn't mean he still has the same mastery of the secrets that he did a decade ago. A bowl of water sits in front of him on the table and once he's begun it comes easily to him; he hardly thinks of the image he's casting until he looks down at it, caught and held still by her eyes looking through him.
He didn't love her, then--certainly he'd thought he did, but it hadn't been quite what he'd imagined it was--but God knew he could've. She'd been so beautiful, smaller and more delicate hands on his forearms when he lifted her laughing. He'd had grand and glorious plans, some of which she'd encouraged and some of which she saw no sense in. She'd laughed at him and laughed with him and hadn't she always been laughing, always thinking, always talking or whispering. He'd only wanted to know what she'd say to him.
It was the closest thing he could give her to a kindness when he said nothing, standing silent while she raged and when she finally turned her back on him. He won't wish anything different for her now -- too far from the man she'd thought to marry for it to matter any -- but he watches her on the water until the image dissipates.
It's a quieting moment. He pours the water away, thinking on his promises.