As advertised
The full 50 sentences will be going up at the Pit when I finish my BSW application. For now, the traditional faves.
(Year): The first year was the hardest to get through, in part because Hakkai never told Gojyo what day it was, but Gojyo understood the need to not speak and helped Hakkai keep silent vigil past a small calendar of events--the day he reached Hyakugen Maoh’s castle, the day Kanan died, the day he and Gojyo met, the day he’d returned to the castle and found it in ashes--and on the day Gonou had died and been reborn as Hakkai, Gojyo told him enough, and Hakkai agreed the time to mourn was over and let Gojyo take him out to celebrate what Gojyo convinced him with relative ease was his birthday.
(Myth): There were myths aplenty about the monster who lived on the mountain, cast out of heaven and caged long ago for inconceivable crimes against the gods; and even though Sanzo realized early on that they really did mean Goku when they said those things, he still rolled his eyes and dismissed all the legends, firm in his own original opinion of Goku: a kid, innocent and stupid and well-meaning and utterly incapable of being left behind.
(Hang): “Hanging out” was not something that Sanzo would admit to; if he wandered down to Gojyo and Hakkai’s place frequently, it was because the food was good or because the monkey had gone missing and would be sure to be found there, and if he sometimes fell asleep there it was because he was too drunk to be arsed to walk back to the temple or Goku was too solidly asleep to be woken… all of which were flimsy excuses for why it felt better to crash on that couch night after night, in more cramped quarters than the trip to India had ever involved, rather than sleep in the comfortable, quiet private room that was his at the temple.
(Power): Inside the ikkou there was much discussion of who was strongest physically, whose strategies were smartest, whose reflexes the fastest; but there are many kinds of power in the world, and just as present but undiscussed was the struggle of whose will was strongest, whose need the most overpowering, who by merely meeting another’s eyes could cause something to happen, or not happen.
(Child): Goku was simultaneously the oldest and youngest member of the group, and embodied both a child’s simplistic wants and reasoning and an equally simple wisdom that was older and deeper than the earth itself--and if the other three were known to drop a battle into his hands one moment and rush to protect his innocence the next, it was perhaps less incomprehensible than it first seemed.
(Terror): Fright was a rational response to danger, a warning signal they all relied on, but terror was irrational and unhelpful and lurked in different triggers for all of them: for Sanzo, terror was a memory, locked into nightmares and denied the right to exist in the present; for Gojyo, it was the moment when a loved one grew angry and Gojyo flinched, ducking blows that had come a decade ago; to Hakkai, it was coming home to a house that was unexpectedly empty; and to Goku, it was turning to speak to Sanzo and finding him gone.
(Book): For a while books were banished from the house, for even the slightest reminder of Gonou was prohibitted by Hakkai; but gradually Gojyo, who had never read for pleasure before, developed an intensely suspect interest in y’know, whatever kind of stuff you used to read, and finally Hakkai told him to stop asking for “recommendations” and just help him get a bookcase set up.
(Neglect): Sanzo was rarely moved by the plight of others, but over the course of the first several months with Goku--in which Goku asked questions no four-year-old would be unable to answer, and couldn’t grasp any subtleties in how or why people acted, and constantly discovered new favorite foods and people and trees and sunsets--Sanzo found himself amazed and disturbed in spite of himself at the sheer amount of neglect that must have summed up Goku’s existence up till now.
(Sick): Hakkai and Sanzo were both prone to withdrawal, to quiet spells and darkened eyes; certain sights, certain days, certain weather sent them retreating self-indulgently into old illnesses, a place where silence is death--fortunately for them, they had each picked up a companion who knew their symptoms and was adept at making a great deal of noise.
(Redeem): Redemption was the last thing any of them thought about; even with their pasts littered with bodies of both enemies and friends, even with their hands covered in blood and lives wreathed with smoke, they did not seek to achieve any state they might have once fallen from--they embraced the state in which they lived, and chased the dying sun.
(Year): The first year was the hardest to get through, in part because Hakkai never told Gojyo what day it was, but Gojyo understood the need to not speak and helped Hakkai keep silent vigil past a small calendar of events--the day he reached Hyakugen Maoh’s castle, the day Kanan died, the day he and Gojyo met, the day he’d returned to the castle and found it in ashes--and on the day Gonou had died and been reborn as Hakkai, Gojyo told him enough, and Hakkai agreed the time to mourn was over and let Gojyo take him out to celebrate what Gojyo convinced him with relative ease was his birthday.
(Myth): There were myths aplenty about the monster who lived on the mountain, cast out of heaven and caged long ago for inconceivable crimes against the gods; and even though Sanzo realized early on that they really did mean Goku when they said those things, he still rolled his eyes and dismissed all the legends, firm in his own original opinion of Goku: a kid, innocent and stupid and well-meaning and utterly incapable of being left behind.
(Hang): “Hanging out” was not something that Sanzo would admit to; if he wandered down to Gojyo and Hakkai’s place frequently, it was because the food was good or because the monkey had gone missing and would be sure to be found there, and if he sometimes fell asleep there it was because he was too drunk to be arsed to walk back to the temple or Goku was too solidly asleep to be woken… all of which were flimsy excuses for why it felt better to crash on that couch night after night, in more cramped quarters than the trip to India had ever involved, rather than sleep in the comfortable, quiet private room that was his at the temple.
(Power): Inside the ikkou there was much discussion of who was strongest physically, whose strategies were smartest, whose reflexes the fastest; but there are many kinds of power in the world, and just as present but undiscussed was the struggle of whose will was strongest, whose need the most overpowering, who by merely meeting another’s eyes could cause something to happen, or not happen.
(Child): Goku was simultaneously the oldest and youngest member of the group, and embodied both a child’s simplistic wants and reasoning and an equally simple wisdom that was older and deeper than the earth itself--and if the other three were known to drop a battle into his hands one moment and rush to protect his innocence the next, it was perhaps less incomprehensible than it first seemed.
(Terror): Fright was a rational response to danger, a warning signal they all relied on, but terror was irrational and unhelpful and lurked in different triggers for all of them: for Sanzo, terror was a memory, locked into nightmares and denied the right to exist in the present; for Gojyo, it was the moment when a loved one grew angry and Gojyo flinched, ducking blows that had come a decade ago; to Hakkai, it was coming home to a house that was unexpectedly empty; and to Goku, it was turning to speak to Sanzo and finding him gone.
(Book): For a while books were banished from the house, for even the slightest reminder of Gonou was prohibitted by Hakkai; but gradually Gojyo, who had never read for pleasure before, developed an intensely suspect interest in y’know, whatever kind of stuff you used to read, and finally Hakkai told him to stop asking for “recommendations” and just help him get a bookcase set up.
(Neglect): Sanzo was rarely moved by the plight of others, but over the course of the first several months with Goku--in which Goku asked questions no four-year-old would be unable to answer, and couldn’t grasp any subtleties in how or why people acted, and constantly discovered new favorite foods and people and trees and sunsets--Sanzo found himself amazed and disturbed in spite of himself at the sheer amount of neglect that must have summed up Goku’s existence up till now.
(Sick): Hakkai and Sanzo were both prone to withdrawal, to quiet spells and darkened eyes; certain sights, certain days, certain weather sent them retreating self-indulgently into old illnesses, a place where silence is death--fortunately for them, they had each picked up a companion who knew their symptoms and was adept at making a great deal of noise.
(Redeem): Redemption was the last thing any of them thought about; even with their pasts littered with bodies of both enemies and friends, even with their hands covered in blood and lives wreathed with smoke, they did not seek to achieve any state they might have once fallen from--they embraced the state in which they lived, and chased the dying sun.