Acylius/Aelia: Diary (lover100 Prompt #085)
TITLE: Diary
FANDOM: Insektors
PAIRING: Acylius/Aelia
PROMPT: #085 Diary
RATING: PG?
SUMMARY: Far in the future, scholars disagree about the quality of the love poems in Acylius's diary.
WARNINGS: Um...incredibly vague reference to alcohol. Far-future!fic. OCs (well, they go hand-in-hand with the fact that it's a far-future!fic).
NOTES: So this has been sitting on my hard drive since January. Finally cleaned it up. Hopefully it won't be so long until the next one...
One thing that Asilus had discovered in his scholarly career was that the difficulties of translation are rarely appreciated by the uninitiated. This was why he was currently face-down in a drift of paper on his desk, with eyes that felt like they were trying to twitch their way out of his head. A jumble of words seemed to have imprinted themselves on the inside of his eyelids, and none of them made any sense.
Since he didn’t even have the energy to form and articulate a curse against his employer, he mumbled something incoherent but ill-meaning into his drafted translations.
“So...can I get you anything?” enquired a voice. “Pillow? Drink? Convenient cliff to jump off?”
Asilus turned his head enough to get one eye above the edge of the paper piles. There was a red-orange stick insect standing in front of his desk, arms casually folded. “How would you bring me a cliff?” Asilus asked.
“It’d probably take some doing,” said the stick insect, mock-thoughtfully. “But if all else fails, I could always drag you there and drop you off myself.”
Asilus let his head roll back into its hollow with a groan. That was Tonans -- best friend, roommate --
“Seriously, Asilus, this has got to stop. You have no appreciation for my stellar wit when you’re this tired.”
-- pain in the behind.
Asilus made himself sit up. The sheet of paper that had rested under his cheek had stuck to it, so he was forced to endure Tonans’ snickering as he pulled it off. The ink must not have been entirely dry when he let his head fall on it.
The scholar examined it dolefully. The words were smeared, but he couldn’t tell if that was because he’d smudged the ink or whether his vision was failing him. The thought of having to redo even one page made him want to weep; he had so much more to do as it was.
He looked pleadingly at Tonans and held out the page.
“Is this clear? Does it make sense?”
His friend took the paper and started to read. His antennae flicked up. “...wings like twilight...eyes that glitter like stars...more lovely than the most beautiful of flowers...please don’t tell me that this is for my cousin.”
Asilus flinched, then sat up straight and glared. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He had been thinking about copying out that particular passage and giving it to Kathy; it seemed appropriate. But Tonans’ incredulous tone was making him reconsider that particular plan.
“If you’re trying for poetry, you’re failing.” Yes. Definitely reconsidering.
“It’s not mine,” said Asilus. He shuffled the papers in front of him. “It’s part of the translation that I’m working on.”
Tonans dropped the page onto the nearest pile. “Translating what? 101 Worst Love Poems of the Late Yuk-Joyce War?”
“The personal journal of Acylius during his adolescence, actually,” said Asilus, stung on behalf of his namesake.
There was a considerable silence.
Finally, Tonans said, “Acylius?”
“Yes.”
“As in, King Acylius?”
“Yes?”
“The Peacemaker?”
Asilus raised one antenna. “Is there a point that you are trying to make?”
Tonans ignored this. “The guy who frightened the Prime Minister right off the edge of a runway and into the moat when he tried to launch a personal attack on the Joyces after the treaty was signed? And then left him there for three hours?”
“That story is entirely apocryphal,” said Asilus, putting his nose in the air. “The academic community has yet to find any evidence to support such a wild tale.”
“Whatever,” said Tonans, rolling his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Sadly. And yes, this is the same man. Although...” Asilus picked up the page and checked the date of the entry. “...this is some years before he ascended the throne.”
There was another, shorter silence. “You’re telling me that the king who bullied the Yuks into making peace with the Joyces devoted pages of his diary to bad love poetry?”
“Essentially, yes.” Asilus pushed his chair away from his desk and stretched. “To say that he was smitten with Aelia would be the understatement of the century. Or possibly millennium.”
“His wife? Really? I thought that that was just a political match!”
“Oh, no,” said Asilus, warming to his subject. “They met years before Acylius became king. Apparently it was close to love at first sight and the feeling was entirely mutual. He made repeated escapes from the City of Shadows to visit her.”
Tonans boggled. Clearly, Asilus was upsetting deeply ingrained beliefs. “Escapes? He was the prince!”
Asilus had been prepared for this, and was already searching for the appropriate entry. “Ah, here we are. I am certainly the worst Yuk that the Stump has ever produced. After all, Krabo says so, so it must be true.” He looked up at Tonans. “Krabo was--”
“Prime Minister at the time, I know,” said Tonans, rolling his eyes again.
“Correct,” said Asilus, a little miffed. “Anyway, he and Acylius appeared to dislike one another intensely, which is not surprising. Acylius was, as he remarks elsewhere, ‘a Joyce at heart’, while Krabo was a dyed-in-the-carapace traditional Yuk. So the comment is likely to be sarcastic.”
“I got that. So the diary is half mooning over Aelia and half complaining about his tutor?”
“A gross simplification.”
“So, more like sixty-forty, then.”
“Possibly seventy to thirty.”
They shared a grin.
Tonans sat down on the other chair and folded his arms along the back. “So, is it all that bad? The poetry, I mean.” He had lost his disbelief, and now looked curious.
“Most of it,” said Asilus, who privately considered that Acylius had done very well for being raised in an environment that eschewed beauty in every form.
“Great!”
Asilus looked askance at his friend. “‘Great’?”
“You’ll have lots of stuff to quote to Kathy. She likes that mushy junk.”
Asilus picked up his pen and threw it at Tonans’ head.
FANDOM: Insektors
PAIRING: Acylius/Aelia
PROMPT: #085 Diary
RATING: PG?
SUMMARY: Far in the future, scholars disagree about the quality of the love poems in Acylius's diary.
WARNINGS: Um...incredibly vague reference to alcohol. Far-future!fic. OCs (well, they go hand-in-hand with the fact that it's a far-future!fic).
NOTES: So this has been sitting on my hard drive since January. Finally cleaned it up. Hopefully it won't be so long until the next one...
One thing that Asilus had discovered in his scholarly career was that the difficulties of translation are rarely appreciated by the uninitiated. This was why he was currently face-down in a drift of paper on his desk, with eyes that felt like they were trying to twitch their way out of his head. A jumble of words seemed to have imprinted themselves on the inside of his eyelids, and none of them made any sense.
Since he didn’t even have the energy to form and articulate a curse against his employer, he mumbled something incoherent but ill-meaning into his drafted translations.
“So...can I get you anything?” enquired a voice. “Pillow? Drink? Convenient cliff to jump off?”
Asilus turned his head enough to get one eye above the edge of the paper piles. There was a red-orange stick insect standing in front of his desk, arms casually folded. “How would you bring me a cliff?” Asilus asked.
“It’d probably take some doing,” said the stick insect, mock-thoughtfully. “But if all else fails, I could always drag you there and drop you off myself.”
Asilus let his head roll back into its hollow with a groan. That was Tonans -- best friend, roommate --
“Seriously, Asilus, this has got to stop. You have no appreciation for my stellar wit when you’re this tired.”
-- pain in the behind.
Asilus made himself sit up. The sheet of paper that had rested under his cheek had stuck to it, so he was forced to endure Tonans’ snickering as he pulled it off. The ink must not have been entirely dry when he let his head fall on it.
The scholar examined it dolefully. The words were smeared, but he couldn’t tell if that was because he’d smudged the ink or whether his vision was failing him. The thought of having to redo even one page made him want to weep; he had so much more to do as it was.
He looked pleadingly at Tonans and held out the page.
“Is this clear? Does it make sense?”
His friend took the paper and started to read. His antennae flicked up. “...wings like twilight...eyes that glitter like stars...more lovely than the most beautiful of flowers...please don’t tell me that this is for my cousin.”
Asilus flinched, then sat up straight and glared. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He had been thinking about copying out that particular passage and giving it to Kathy; it seemed appropriate. But Tonans’ incredulous tone was making him reconsider that particular plan.
“If you’re trying for poetry, you’re failing.” Yes. Definitely reconsidering.
“It’s not mine,” said Asilus. He shuffled the papers in front of him. “It’s part of the translation that I’m working on.”
Tonans dropped the page onto the nearest pile. “Translating what? 101 Worst Love Poems of the Late Yuk-Joyce War?”
“The personal journal of Acylius during his adolescence, actually,” said Asilus, stung on behalf of his namesake.
There was a considerable silence.
Finally, Tonans said, “Acylius?”
“Yes.”
“As in, King Acylius?”
“Yes?”
“The Peacemaker?”
Asilus raised one antenna. “Is there a point that you are trying to make?”
Tonans ignored this. “The guy who frightened the Prime Minister right off the edge of a runway and into the moat when he tried to launch a personal attack on the Joyces after the treaty was signed? And then left him there for three hours?”
“That story is entirely apocryphal,” said Asilus, putting his nose in the air. “The academic community has yet to find any evidence to support such a wild tale.”
“Whatever,” said Tonans, rolling his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Sadly. And yes, this is the same man. Although...” Asilus picked up the page and checked the date of the entry. “...this is some years before he ascended the throne.”
There was another, shorter silence. “You’re telling me that the king who bullied the Yuks into making peace with the Joyces devoted pages of his diary to bad love poetry?”
“Essentially, yes.” Asilus pushed his chair away from his desk and stretched. “To say that he was smitten with Aelia would be the understatement of the century. Or possibly millennium.”
“His wife? Really? I thought that that was just a political match!”
“Oh, no,” said Asilus, warming to his subject. “They met years before Acylius became king. Apparently it was close to love at first sight and the feeling was entirely mutual. He made repeated escapes from the City of Shadows to visit her.”
Tonans boggled. Clearly, Asilus was upsetting deeply ingrained beliefs. “Escapes? He was the prince!”
Asilus had been prepared for this, and was already searching for the appropriate entry. “Ah, here we are. I am certainly the worst Yuk that the Stump has ever produced. After all, Krabo says so, so it must be true.” He looked up at Tonans. “Krabo was--”
“Prime Minister at the time, I know,” said Tonans, rolling his eyes again.
“Correct,” said Asilus, a little miffed. “Anyway, he and Acylius appeared to dislike one another intensely, which is not surprising. Acylius was, as he remarks elsewhere, ‘a Joyce at heart’, while Krabo was a dyed-in-the-carapace traditional Yuk. So the comment is likely to be sarcastic.”
“I got that. So the diary is half mooning over Aelia and half complaining about his tutor?”
“A gross simplification.”
“So, more like sixty-forty, then.”
“Possibly seventy to thirty.”
They shared a grin.
Tonans sat down on the other chair and folded his arms along the back. “So, is it all that bad? The poetry, I mean.” He had lost his disbelief, and now looked curious.
“Most of it,” said Asilus, who privately considered that Acylius had done very well for being raised in an environment that eschewed beauty in every form.
“Great!”
Asilus looked askance at his friend. “‘Great’?”
“You’ll have lots of stuff to quote to Kathy. She likes that mushy junk.”
Asilus picked up his pen and threw it at Tonans’ head.