(no subject)
Challenge #112 - blossom
Rosa Chinensis
It blossomed on his chest, like a rose of the finest pedigree spreading crimson petals across his fragile, human skin.
Time slowed for D, but too late; the pistol had already claimed his detective. Leon fell with agonising slowness. Forever came and went, and the body hit the ground with a dull thud, its empty eyes staring at nothing.
Everything ended there. Volcanoes erupted in the kami’s eyes. The snakes in his ornate cheongsam spat poison. All about him nature screamed her fury.
“Foolish human.” Words were hissed through pointed teeth. “He was mine.”
Then the world burned like paper.
Challenge #111 - dark
Black
This place is darker than he could have imagined; towering black cliffs cut against a stormy black sky. In the centre there is a small, black pool, and on its surface a graceful swan sails, its black plumage glossy in the darkness.
He stands by the water, and reaches a hand to it, but the swan swims on, pride and arrogance in the curve of its neck.
“Please,” he says desperately. “Come back.”
Mismatched eyes glare at him. Wide wings open and the swan takes flight. A black feather floats into his hand, and this place is empty once again.
Challenge #110 - springtime
Confined
While springtime happens to other people, former detective Leon Orcot obediently takes his medication and sits by the window.
He wasn’t that surprised when everyone else started to forget D. Even he had to admit that the man was completely impossible, with his hypno eyes and hypno smile and dark chocolate voice that spoke ‘love’, but said no more than you deserve…
When they ask, as they often do, he still swears blind that the ship flew, above the universe.
In the real world a pretty, tiny bird hops from twig to twig. Leon Orcot wonders what her name is.
Challenge #106 - dead to the world
Uncouth
When the count returned with a fresh pot of tea, his detective was already asleep on the couch.
At first, D wrinkled his perfect little nose. To say Leon snored like a pig was an unfortunate but necessary simile; D hoped it wouldn’t disturb the animals. Wriggling about was also a major theme - D snatched a teacup moments before those ape-like arms knocked it into fragments.
Leon Orcot was certainly barbaric, even asleep.
D sighed, set the teapot down a safe distance away, and fetched a blanket. It would not do for his barbarian to get cold during the night.
Challenge #105 - wild
So Close
The streets of Shinjuku in the rain.
The Chinese man (though he could be either or neither) leaves the river and pauses at a certain corner, only incredible in its unremarkableness. He holds an elegant umbrella in an elegant, well-manicured hand.
Not two metres from the road, but almost invisible, a foreigner hunches his shoulders in a dark alcove. His overgrown blond mane drips into his eyes. A soggy cigarette hangs limply from his mouth.
The Chinese man considers. As the lion’s prey he should be skittish, but instead he watches, intently; will the beast stir?
Then he walks away.
Challenge #104 - dialogue
Defeat
Grass whispered around the detective’s boots. D remained cross-legged.
“It has been.” He agreed.
A pause.
“I’m dead,” Leon said conversationally.
“I thought you might be.”
Click. The zippo ignited in the detective’s hand.
“Was it heart or lung disease?”
“Che.”
Right, thought D, as always.
“Was chasin’ a perp and had a fucking heart attack. At sixty-fucking-eight years old.”
“You… never did know when to quit…”
Strong fingers tightened on silk. Rough, bitten fingernails grated against the soft material, much like the effect the detective’s voice had on the kami’s nerves.
“… That enough small talk for you?”
“… yes.”
Challenge #103 - everlasting
Fade
Yet again, Leon finds himself facing the pet shop, wondering how it can look exactly the same and yet so different.
Once upon a time, D would be pouring sweetened jasmine tea and waiting for the stupid detective, that infuriating smirk on his china doll face, laughing privately at a joke Leon would never understand. Not so long ago, Leon would take ‘his’ chair in that impossible place and feel unreasonably peaceful and at home.
Things change. Sometimes they change for the better.
Soon the smell of incense will disappear from Leon’s clothes, and D will really be gone.
Challenge #103 - everlasting
Upstream
Time moves differently here.
D understands decades have passed since he left the human world, and it’s still spring in this beautiful valley. He sits by the water’s edge; silk fans on the soft grass. Golden fish swim up to greet his lonely hands.
Like Narcissus, he meets the eyes of his beautiful reflection, but remains far from enamoured with his own likeness. Its beauty, such as it is, is everlasting: violet and gold, framed with dark lashes, full red lips smiling mysteriously, a perfect little nose, wrinkled slightly in distaste.
He wonders if Leon ever married, or had children.
Big fat dumping of my Pet Shop of Horrors drabbles, all of them responses to the weekly challenges over at psohdrabble. And now they're here, in my journal too ^___^
They're proper drabbles too, all exactly 100 words. Why? Because I'm oddly nitpicky.