"Cinders," Tom/Minerva, PG-13, by kethlenda
Title: Cinders
Author: kethlenda
Pairing: Tom/Minerva
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 361
Summary: This is the way it always begins: their heads bent together over some dusty book, poring over incantations by the trembling light of the candle, as if these meetings of theirs were actually about homework.
Notes: Just a little ficlet I wrote the other day for sionnain.
This is the way it always begins: their heads bent together over some dusty book, poring over incantations by the trembling light of the candle, as if these meetings of theirs were actually about homework. Minerva's stomach rumbles like a threatening sky, and she knows she should have eaten dinner. (It's not as if she didn't try. Lately it all turns to dust and ashes on her tongue.)
Tom's threading the labyrinth of mythology tonight. "The fire, though. Demeter put the child in the fire to burn away the mortal dross. It's got to be a metaphor for something."
"It's a myth," says Minerva, weary of this obsession of his. All paths lead to immortality, or at least to endless arguments about it, and sometimes Minerva thinks he'll waste the years allotted to him, and find himself at the end old and alone and still mortal. "Just a story."
"Nothing is ever just a story, Minerva." His eyes kindle to stars, burning yet so distant from her, from humanity, they seem cold. "The trick is to distill it to its essence, the truth beneath all the rubbish."
She's transfixed in the light of those stars, and she thinks of how thin she's grown, of how thin her nerves have grown (stretched to the breaking point with every sleepless night). She thinks of the friends she hasn't had time for in weeks, the revising she hasn't been doing.
I'm the child in the fire, she realizes, and he is burning away all that makes me Minerva McGonagall, leaving only--
Leaving only what? She knows not what she is becoming, what lies beneath the chaff, but when his trance breaks and he looks away from the book, his stars turning to suns, she feels a little more fall away.
"Minerva," he says, his voice growing low and dark. She knows that voice; it means he's condescending to join her (for a moment, for an hour) in the flames.
This is the way it always ends: their bodies tumbling over and over, hot against the cold stone floor, his arrogant laughter in her ears as she flares, dances, crumbles to cinders in his arms.
Author: kethlenda
Pairing: Tom/Minerva
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 361
Summary: This is the way it always begins: their heads bent together over some dusty book, poring over incantations by the trembling light of the candle, as if these meetings of theirs were actually about homework.
Notes: Just a little ficlet I wrote the other day for sionnain.
This is the way it always begins: their heads bent together over some dusty book, poring over incantations by the trembling light of the candle, as if these meetings of theirs were actually about homework. Minerva's stomach rumbles like a threatening sky, and she knows she should have eaten dinner. (It's not as if she didn't try. Lately it all turns to dust and ashes on her tongue.)
Tom's threading the labyrinth of mythology tonight. "The fire, though. Demeter put the child in the fire to burn away the mortal dross. It's got to be a metaphor for something."
"It's a myth," says Minerva, weary of this obsession of his. All paths lead to immortality, or at least to endless arguments about it, and sometimes Minerva thinks he'll waste the years allotted to him, and find himself at the end old and alone and still mortal. "Just a story."
"Nothing is ever just a story, Minerva." His eyes kindle to stars, burning yet so distant from her, from humanity, they seem cold. "The trick is to distill it to its essence, the truth beneath all the rubbish."
She's transfixed in the light of those stars, and she thinks of how thin she's grown, of how thin her nerves have grown (stretched to the breaking point with every sleepless night). She thinks of the friends she hasn't had time for in weeks, the revising she hasn't been doing.
I'm the child in the fire, she realizes, and he is burning away all that makes me Minerva McGonagall, leaving only--
Leaving only what? She knows not what she is becoming, what lies beneath the chaff, but when his trance breaks and he looks away from the book, his stars turning to suns, she feels a little more fall away.
"Minerva," he says, his voice growing low and dark. She knows that voice; it means he's condescending to join her (for a moment, for an hour) in the flames.
This is the way it always ends: their bodies tumbling over and over, hot against the cold stone floor, his arrogant laughter in her ears as she flares, dances, crumbles to cinders in his arms.