Soul of the Crow: Character Study
Written for 
writers30days May challenge. Fill for theme #3: touch, though it went a slightly different direction than I had intended. Oh well. The table I'm using for this challenge is HERE.
Untitled for now, but that will change (eventually).
Character study: Marco
Universe: Soul of the Crow (original universe)
Prompt: touch
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 519
Summary: Marco is six when the kitchen table speaks to him.
Marco is six when the kitchen table speaks to him, showing him images of the trade manifest his father had signed on it the night before. His father doesn't believe him when he mentions it, tells him to stop being foolish, that lying is a sin and did he want to make the gods mad? So Marco doesn't mention it again, says nothing when a desk tells him stories of a mother he never knew, when he sees the face of a whore in his father's shirt. He gathers thoughts and emotions and images that are not his, hoards them as though afraid someone will try to take them away. Objects that should be boring yield their histories to his curious touch. His father does not understand, rails against the “junk” that accumulates in all corners of their house. Marco doesn't tell him that they are mementos, tokens of people and events long forgotten. His father throws them away and Marco replaces them with new things, new thoughts, new memories until his father finally gives up, leaves the collections alone.
Marco is nine before anyone else notices his eccentricities, recognizes them as the symptoms they are. Sistar Marie pulls father and son aside after service and asks questions, talks of gods and blessings and clairvoyance and training, calls him reader. Marco understands very little and before he can question her he is whisked away, apprenticed to an old man with shaggy hair and clothes that speak of loneliness and dusty libraries and the scratch of quills. He learns control, learns to touch without reading, learns ethics and rules and laws. His control improves and he can walk into a room without seeing things he should not, without feeling emotions that are not his. Life has never seemed so boring as it does then.
Marco is sixteen when he is declared fully trained, no longer a danger to those around him, dedicated to following the laws set down by the church. His power is wrapped up inside him, dormant. He sees nothing he does not ask for, feels nothing he should not. The world is quiet and if he is a little too loud, a little too reckless to make up for the silence around him, it's not like anyone notices.
Marco is twenty when he meets Dominic and all the control he has spent a decade perfecting falls away. They fight and bleed and kill side by side and suddenly the world is alive again. He hears Dominic's fury in the blade of the knife he borrows, reads the story of Crow's murder from the feathers in her hair. Everything comes rushing back to him and he can't remember how he ever survived without it.
Marco is twenty one when Dominic invites him along on his suicide-run against Fox, on the final leg of his quest for vengeance. He does not hesitate before he agrees, more than willing to risk everything for this man. Dominic brought his world back to life, forced the universe to make sense again. There is no way Marco is going to let that go.
writers30days May challenge. Fill for theme #3: touch, though it went a slightly different direction than I had intended. Oh well. The table I'm using for this challenge is HERE.
Untitled for now, but that will change (eventually).
Character study: Marco
Universe: Soul of the Crow (original universe)
Prompt: touch
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 519
Summary: Marco is six when the kitchen table speaks to him.
Marco is six when the kitchen table speaks to him, showing him images of the trade manifest his father had signed on it the night before. His father doesn't believe him when he mentions it, tells him to stop being foolish, that lying is a sin and did he want to make the gods mad? So Marco doesn't mention it again, says nothing when a desk tells him stories of a mother he never knew, when he sees the face of a whore in his father's shirt. He gathers thoughts and emotions and images that are not his, hoards them as though afraid someone will try to take them away. Objects that should be boring yield their histories to his curious touch. His father does not understand, rails against the “junk” that accumulates in all corners of their house. Marco doesn't tell him that they are mementos, tokens of people and events long forgotten. His father throws them away and Marco replaces them with new things, new thoughts, new memories until his father finally gives up, leaves the collections alone.
Marco is nine before anyone else notices his eccentricities, recognizes them as the symptoms they are. Sistar Marie pulls father and son aside after service and asks questions, talks of gods and blessings and clairvoyance and training, calls him reader. Marco understands very little and before he can question her he is whisked away, apprenticed to an old man with shaggy hair and clothes that speak of loneliness and dusty libraries and the scratch of quills. He learns control, learns to touch without reading, learns ethics and rules and laws. His control improves and he can walk into a room without seeing things he should not, without feeling emotions that are not his. Life has never seemed so boring as it does then.
Marco is sixteen when he is declared fully trained, no longer a danger to those around him, dedicated to following the laws set down by the church. His power is wrapped up inside him, dormant. He sees nothing he does not ask for, feels nothing he should not. The world is quiet and if he is a little too loud, a little too reckless to make up for the silence around him, it's not like anyone notices.
Marco is twenty when he meets Dominic and all the control he has spent a decade perfecting falls away. They fight and bleed and kill side by side and suddenly the world is alive again. He hears Dominic's fury in the blade of the knife he borrows, reads the story of Crow's murder from the feathers in her hair. Everything comes rushing back to him and he can't remember how he ever survived without it.
Marco is twenty one when Dominic invites him along on his suicide-run against Fox, on the final leg of his quest for vengeance. He does not hesitate before he agrees, more than willing to risk everything for this man. Dominic brought his world back to life, forced the universe to make sense again. There is no way Marco is going to let that go.