V is for Votive
Title: Paper Prayerbeads
Author: girlchild
Fandom/Claim: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Pairing: Kanae Ohtori/Anthy Himemiya
Rating: G
Word count: 250
A/N: Cross-posted to utenadrabble.
Kanae's lessons in comportment ache like her nightly pin curls. She guiltily hides fairytales under her sheets.
Mrs. Ohtori is an extravagant party dress and an amber mist of fragrance busily flitting from one party to the next. Professionally glittering things never stop flickering to stand at a dull point, useless and suspended like music-box ballerinas. Almost-adult children should not require bedtime stories.
Kanae's bed surreptitiously fills with books about jinn-women. She has never liked fantasies before. She does not wonder why this changed. Somehow, these childish comforts suit the life of an affianced girl.
Alone, Kanae thinks about her soon-to-be sister-in-law. Kanae's color storybook illustrations equate Anthy's skin to dusk on sand dunes. Anthy's eyes are dark, inscrutable jade.
Kanae drapes her velvet scarf around Anthy's thin neck. Anthy's skin feels warm and alive as any desert wind. The lingering heat of this allowed embrace gives Kanae reassurance.
Kanae tells herself Anthy is an ordinary girl, not a demon in a ruffled skirt. Not an untouchable gilt butterfly, like Kanae's mother. Just a strange schoolgirl, quiet as a statue, queer as a flickering flame-spirit. Such notions form a promising dream. Fear is fascination is lust is hope.
Someday, Kanae will ignore her sense of propriety. She will forget the fact that she is nearly Anthy's brother's wife. Her stinging shame, sharp as a ruler's slap, will fade. Anthy will start smiling as never before, and twirl her tiny body into Kanae's touch.
Kanae's votive offerings will then be shelved.
Author: girlchild
Fandom/Claim: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Pairing: Kanae Ohtori/Anthy Himemiya
Rating: G
Word count: 250
A/N: Cross-posted to utenadrabble.
Kanae's lessons in comportment ache like her nightly pin curls. She guiltily hides fairytales under her sheets.
Mrs. Ohtori is an extravagant party dress and an amber mist of fragrance busily flitting from one party to the next. Professionally glittering things never stop flickering to stand at a dull point, useless and suspended like music-box ballerinas. Almost-adult children should not require bedtime stories.
Kanae's bed surreptitiously fills with books about jinn-women. She has never liked fantasies before. She does not wonder why this changed. Somehow, these childish comforts suit the life of an affianced girl.
Alone, Kanae thinks about her soon-to-be sister-in-law. Kanae's color storybook illustrations equate Anthy's skin to dusk on sand dunes. Anthy's eyes are dark, inscrutable jade.
Kanae drapes her velvet scarf around Anthy's thin neck. Anthy's skin feels warm and alive as any desert wind. The lingering heat of this allowed embrace gives Kanae reassurance.
Kanae tells herself Anthy is an ordinary girl, not a demon in a ruffled skirt. Not an untouchable gilt butterfly, like Kanae's mother. Just a strange schoolgirl, quiet as a statue, queer as a flickering flame-spirit. Such notions form a promising dream. Fear is fascination is lust is hope.
Someday, Kanae will ignore her sense of propriety. She will forget the fact that she is nearly Anthy's brother's wife. Her stinging shame, sharp as a ruler's slap, will fade. Anthy will start smiling as never before, and twirl her tiny body into Kanae's touch.
Kanae's votive offerings will then be shelved.