[Drabble]
Player: banerry
Subject: Azula, Vriska Serket
Table: B
Prompt: 029- Writer's Choice: Remember
Azula could count the number of people who have disappeared entirely-- from the community, and from their worlds-- on one hand.
Two of those people have been ones that she had cared about very much.
Aradia was the one who delivered the news, being the only one from that Sgrub session left on the community. A portion of her entry was locked to Azula. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know you two were close."
It was different from when she thought she had lost Lisa, or from how it would be if something happened to Lilith. They were her anchors; people who she leaned on in her best moments and heavily depended on in her worst. Without them, she had felt lost; abandoned. Not so here. This grief was new and different, not like anything she had experienced before. She had no idea how to deal with it, so of course, she tried not to-- she threw herself into her work at the Vatican, picking up extra jobs, asking for extended missions, and training for upwards of eighteen hours a day until she was ready to collapse from exhaustion. The usual people worried about her and asked questions, and she always answered them the same way: yes, she was fine; no, she didn't need to talk; yes, she knew that she had people that she could go to if she needed to. She wasn't being purposely dismissive. She wasn't even completely lying.
Weeks stretched into months and months into years, and though things got easier she still never quite understood her feelings in regards to this loss. The others had been easy to figure out-- Ty Lee had been an ex-girlfriend, Lisa a mother, Lilith a sister. She didn't know what Vriska had been. She only knew that sometimes, when she was thinking about something completely unrelated, she'd find herself wishing that she'd given her a hug, just once. She'd be spending a quiet afternoon in New Jersey and Lisa (Rachel on her lap) would lean over and tug Azula against her, tucking her into her side, and Azula would wonder if it would have helped with anything if she had ever done the same for Vriska, pulling her close and dropping a kiss between her horns. She wasn't an affectionate or demonstrative person, overall, but she had been known to have her exceptions. She wished that she had done more to make Vriska one of them.
One day, while in a department store with Lisa, she saw a display of sweatshirts with spider silhouettes emblazoned across the back. She bought one in a size small, for no reason. As time went on, a little collection of gifts that would never be given started to collect in the back of her closet: a limited edition Nicolas Cage DVD with special features and interviews, a blue cap with a Scorpio symbol, a (supposedly genuine) beaded pirate necklace, and more.
Years went by. Though she had many reasons and even more opportunities, Azula never got rid of a single one of them.
[For this meme.]
Subject: Azula, Vriska Serket
Table: B
Prompt: 029- Writer's Choice: Remember
Azula could count the number of people who have disappeared entirely-- from the community, and from their worlds-- on one hand.
Two of those people have been ones that she had cared about very much.
Aradia was the one who delivered the news, being the only one from that Sgrub session left on the community. A portion of her entry was locked to Azula. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know you two were close."
It was different from when she thought she had lost Lisa, or from how it would be if something happened to Lilith. They were her anchors; people who she leaned on in her best moments and heavily depended on in her worst. Without them, she had felt lost; abandoned. Not so here. This grief was new and different, not like anything she had experienced before. She had no idea how to deal with it, so of course, she tried not to-- she threw herself into her work at the Vatican, picking up extra jobs, asking for extended missions, and training for upwards of eighteen hours a day until she was ready to collapse from exhaustion. The usual people worried about her and asked questions, and she always answered them the same way: yes, she was fine; no, she didn't need to talk; yes, she knew that she had people that she could go to if she needed to. She wasn't being purposely dismissive. She wasn't even completely lying.
Weeks stretched into months and months into years, and though things got easier she still never quite understood her feelings in regards to this loss. The others had been easy to figure out-- Ty Lee had been an ex-girlfriend, Lisa a mother, Lilith a sister. She didn't know what Vriska had been. She only knew that sometimes, when she was thinking about something completely unrelated, she'd find herself wishing that she'd given her a hug, just once. She'd be spending a quiet afternoon in New Jersey and Lisa (Rachel on her lap) would lean over and tug Azula against her, tucking her into her side, and Azula would wonder if it would have helped with anything if she had ever done the same for Vriska, pulling her close and dropping a kiss between her horns. She wasn't an affectionate or demonstrative person, overall, but she had been known to have her exceptions. She wished that she had done more to make Vriska one of them.
One day, while in a department store with Lisa, she saw a display of sweatshirts with spider silhouettes emblazoned across the back. She bought one in a size small, for no reason. As time went on, a little collection of gifts that would never be given started to collect in the back of her closet: a limited edition Nicolas Cage DVD with special features and interviews, a blue cap with a Scorpio symbol, a (supposedly genuine) beaded pirate necklace, and more.
Years went by. Though she had many reasons and even more opportunities, Azula never got rid of a single one of them.
[For this meme.]