[Fanfiction] Poppies and Rye
Title: Poppies and Rye
Author: yuuago
Characters: Poland and Lithuania
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Length: 10-line poem, ~400 words prose.
Summary: Recollections of the past, and anxieties about the future. Based around the conversations that take place between Poland and Lithuania in chapter 4.
Note: The poem's speaker and the prose's narrator are not the same character.
Thanks to parzi for critique and encouragement.
Poppies and Rye
You
are my sun
and my rain
and my good black earth
and with you by my side
I flourish.
Don't worry, July-
the winter wind blows
but I am not lost,
not yet.
Where?
Yes - I remember it, this safe, open space where I spent so many years with you.
The air is fresh and as I walk through the fields I can smell the grain growing, smell the light on it, smell the sun and rye and the good earth.
I know you are here somewhere, and I search for you, calling your name.
Outside the field I hear you, you call to me, and I follow, always. There you are, grinning so widely, your eyes the bright colours of fresh cut grass, colours I will keep forever.
You have woven yourself a crown of poppies and green rye and the colours are bright against your yellow-gold hair. As you dart forward to greet me the red petals fall around you and brush your cheeks and shoulders and you laugh the laugh I know, have known, will know always.
You grab my hand and we go together, taking a familiar path by a river I once knew. It is as it was, and we are as we were then, in that time that seems so long ago.
Your hand is warm.
Our fingers knit perfectly.
As I look at you I know this is an image I want to keep, flowers and grain in your hair, red and green and gold in the warm sunlight. You and myself, the two of us woven together, separated by nothing.
My friend, my dear friend, I remember. We were so strong.
You break away from me to run, laughing, petals falling around you, crown askew. Turning, you invite me to catch you and I go, running, following always as you speed down the path along the riverbank.
Though I follow, I can’t reach you, and soon you are farther, farther away. I see you stop, turning, waving, calling to me, but I can’t hear, I can’t hear your voice, and I shout to you to wait, please, wait for me, but you turn again and you’re gone.
I run, reach where you stood but you are nowhere and there is nothing left of you but bruised red petals scattered on black earth.
A draft of icy air makes my eyes jerk open.
My vision is hazy. I stare upward. Where?
Where is the sun, the rye, the red poppies nodding their heads by the river? Where is that smiling face, and eyes like fresh grass---
It is cold.
Oh. I see.
I see.
Author: yuuago
Characters: Poland and Lithuania
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Length: 10-line poem, ~400 words prose.
Summary: Recollections of the past, and anxieties about the future. Based around the conversations that take place between Poland and Lithuania in chapter 4.
Note: The poem's speaker and the prose's narrator are not the same character.
Thanks to parzi for critique and encouragement.
Poppies and Rye
You
are my sun
and my rain
and my good black earth
and with you by my side
I flourish.
Don't worry, July-
the winter wind blows
but I am not lost,
not yet.
Where?
Yes - I remember it, this safe, open space where I spent so many years with you.
The air is fresh and as I walk through the fields I can smell the grain growing, smell the light on it, smell the sun and rye and the good earth.
I know you are here somewhere, and I search for you, calling your name.
Outside the field I hear you, you call to me, and I follow, always. There you are, grinning so widely, your eyes the bright colours of fresh cut grass, colours I will keep forever.
You have woven yourself a crown of poppies and green rye and the colours are bright against your yellow-gold hair. As you dart forward to greet me the red petals fall around you and brush your cheeks and shoulders and you laugh the laugh I know, have known, will know always.
You grab my hand and we go together, taking a familiar path by a river I once knew. It is as it was, and we are as we were then, in that time that seems so long ago.
Your hand is warm.
Our fingers knit perfectly.
As I look at you I know this is an image I want to keep, flowers and grain in your hair, red and green and gold in the warm sunlight. You and myself, the two of us woven together, separated by nothing.
My friend, my dear friend, I remember. We were so strong.
You break away from me to run, laughing, petals falling around you, crown askew. Turning, you invite me to catch you and I go, running, following always as you speed down the path along the riverbank.
Though I follow, I can’t reach you, and soon you are farther, farther away. I see you stop, turning, waving, calling to me, but I can’t hear, I can’t hear your voice, and I shout to you to wait, please, wait for me, but you turn again and you’re gone.
I run, reach where you stood but you are nowhere and there is nothing left of you but bruised red petals scattered on black earth.
A draft of icy air makes my eyes jerk open.
My vision is hazy. I stare upward. Where?
Where is the sun, the rye, the red poppies nodding their heads by the river? Where is that smiling face, and eyes like fresh grass---
It is cold.
Oh. I see.
I see.