Fics: Ikebana [the blossom-cutter], Love-Lies-Bleeding (Riku II, # 7 and 8)
Title: Ikebana [the blossom-cutter]
Author: taichara
Claim: Riku II
Characters: Riku II, Marluxia, (Sora)
Theme Set: Darkness
Theme: 7. Fury
Disclaimer: Not my characters, alas ..
Notes: When your back is against the wall and you can't find your way out of your own pain, lash out against the ones who brought that pain to you -- and those you care for.
Blood-thorned threat hung sickly-sweet in the air now, the flower-prince's silky venomed words thrown towards the motley little group like so so many barbs --
The glimpse of rose-rust curls and a bitter smile had been enough.
With a crashing scarlet wave dimming his eyes and roaring in his ears, the silver shadow charged.
The winged ebon razor flashed once, a brilliant darkness; and the blighted rose was driven backwards gasping in shock and a sudden spray of black ichor like dew on fallen petals.
Point made - for now - he backed slowly away to watch the seeping stain on velvet, black on black, and circled warily as he choked down on boiling hate, night-sharp eater of souls held high in preparation for a second stroke.
So tempting, tempting to glory in tearing this hollow husk to pieces, leave the petals of his unliving flesh scattered in the void --
This, this was the source of all her pain.
This soul-riven seed of nothingness --
You did this, all of this to her!
Shut up, shut it now before I cut out your tongue
Serpent-swift, the nightwinged razor struck again, drawing a second thin rivulet of blackened mist and thin blood like ink; and Sora protested faintly, though anger burned in his own eyes.
Riku paid no mind to the child of light, but turned a hungry sea-fire gaze on the flower-prince as he held his ravaging wing high to strike again - then set his mouth in a hiss of rage as the blighted rose snarled his own empty anger and spit the moth-pale twin's own genesis back at him as if it were a mockery and a curse.
Trembling with a lust for blood barely kept leashed with midnight flame, Riku darted in a third time yet, playing now and heedless of the curving phantom blade slicing towards him; in an eyeblink he was gone again in a shiver of amethyst fire, and Marluxia hemmed in again by the waiting death-keen wing.
Pausing for a breath and smiling like an asp, Riku licked a few stray drops of wayward ichor from his hand, and prepared to lunge again.
Suffer the way you made her suffer, bastard!
Bleed yourself to nothing!!
And the hunter's game continued thus, til the harried flower-prince called the great razored crescent, the man-harvesting fang of coral - and whirled to face light and shadow both, no longer honey-tongued but with the air of a cornered beast that cannot escape.
As Sora drew the gleaming key of worlds to his hand at last, the silver shadow lunged once more and let the scarlet darkness fill his vision til there was nothing but his chosen prey.
He hoped that the kill would not be quick.
Title: Love-Lies-Bleeding
Author: taichara
Claim: Riku II
Characters: Riku II, (Namine)
Theme Set: Darkness
Theme: 8. Traitor
Disclaimer: Not my characters, alas ..
Notes: Rejection is never pleasant -- but when it leaves you nothing, how should you respond?
Toy.
The word burned in his mind. Toy, copy, false-heart, fake ...
He was nothing but a pawn in some other's machinations; and the knowledge woke the midnight fires that burned down deep, drove him to wish to burn his most precious thing in cleansing flame --
They thought him nothing but a toy, a worthless thing.
So too did she; unworthy of her effort, no need to make amends.
She had murmured that she could not set him back to rights. Could not take the brilliant moth-lure memories away and show him again what he had truly been, how he had been intended ...
It had pained him, and so he had left.
He could not bear to look in the eyes of the child of light, nor see her and remember his false oath.
Toy.
He had left them standing together there, and strode from the snow-white chambers to search for an answer of his own --
And then, he heard her.
Heard her, as the door swung softly closed.
“It doesn't work that way” -- not for him, not for the pale shadow --
But Sora, child of light; he she will unravel and make whole again, put all to rights as if she had never touched his heart --
Sora, she would make amends to.
But not the false one --
What did she owe to a bauble, to a toy, after all?
Bitter pain clouded his eyes, and he paused for breath in the too-bright hallways of the fallen prince, trembling with undesired pain at this unspoken rejection.
He would have given all for her --
But he was nothing; never was ...
The soothing darkness sang within him then, coiled about the sharp scarlet rage and changed it, brought it blossoming into sweet shards of darkling purpose.
Ignore Sora and his fate, it purred. He is not the one at fault.
Deny her, it hissed. Find another way, a better power, find the ones who brought you to her ...
Maddened, he called the winged black blade, struck out at a blossom of twisted snow-white stone --
wait
A flash of something, some remembered pain; of white-hot anger and the ice of soothing words like frozen black glass.
yes
With a snarl, he throttled down his pain and stalked towards the deepest shadows of the palace, a night-soft plan growing in his mind like a canker in a rosebud.
Author: taichara
Claim: Riku II
Characters: Riku II, Marluxia, (Sora)
Theme Set: Darkness
Theme: 7. Fury
Disclaimer: Not my characters, alas ..
Notes: When your back is against the wall and you can't find your way out of your own pain, lash out against the ones who brought that pain to you -- and those you care for.
Blood-thorned threat hung sickly-sweet in the air now, the flower-prince's silky venomed words thrown towards the motley little group like so so many barbs --
The glimpse of rose-rust curls and a bitter smile had been enough.
With a crashing scarlet wave dimming his eyes and roaring in his ears, the silver shadow charged.
The winged ebon razor flashed once, a brilliant darkness; and the blighted rose was driven backwards gasping in shock and a sudden spray of black ichor like dew on fallen petals.
Point made - for now - he backed slowly away to watch the seeping stain on velvet, black on black, and circled warily as he choked down on boiling hate, night-sharp eater of souls held high in preparation for a second stroke.
So tempting, tempting to glory in tearing this hollow husk to pieces, leave the petals of his unliving flesh scattered in the void --
This, this was the source of all her pain.
This soul-riven seed of nothingness --
You did this, all of this to her!
Shut up, shut it now before I cut out your tongue
Serpent-swift, the nightwinged razor struck again, drawing a second thin rivulet of blackened mist and thin blood like ink; and Sora protested faintly, though anger burned in his own eyes.
Riku paid no mind to the child of light, but turned a hungry sea-fire gaze on the flower-prince as he held his ravaging wing high to strike again - then set his mouth in a hiss of rage as the blighted rose snarled his own empty anger and spit the moth-pale twin's own genesis back at him as if it were a mockery and a curse.
Trembling with a lust for blood barely kept leashed with midnight flame, Riku darted in a third time yet, playing now and heedless of the curving phantom blade slicing towards him; in an eyeblink he was gone again in a shiver of amethyst fire, and Marluxia hemmed in again by the waiting death-keen wing.
Pausing for a breath and smiling like an asp, Riku licked a few stray drops of wayward ichor from his hand, and prepared to lunge again.
Suffer the way you made her suffer, bastard!
Bleed yourself to nothing!!
And the hunter's game continued thus, til the harried flower-prince called the great razored crescent, the man-harvesting fang of coral - and whirled to face light and shadow both, no longer honey-tongued but with the air of a cornered beast that cannot escape.
As Sora drew the gleaming key of worlds to his hand at last, the silver shadow lunged once more and let the scarlet darkness fill his vision til there was nothing but his chosen prey.
He hoped that the kill would not be quick.
Title: Love-Lies-Bleeding
Author: taichara
Claim: Riku II
Characters: Riku II, (Namine)
Theme Set: Darkness
Theme: 8. Traitor
Disclaimer: Not my characters, alas ..
Notes: Rejection is never pleasant -- but when it leaves you nothing, how should you respond?
Toy.
The word burned in his mind. Toy, copy, false-heart, fake ...
He was nothing but a pawn in some other's machinations; and the knowledge woke the midnight fires that burned down deep, drove him to wish to burn his most precious thing in cleansing flame --
They thought him nothing but a toy, a worthless thing.
So too did she; unworthy of her effort, no need to make amends.
She had murmured that she could not set him back to rights. Could not take the brilliant moth-lure memories away and show him again what he had truly been, how he had been intended ...
It had pained him, and so he had left.
He could not bear to look in the eyes of the child of light, nor see her and remember his false oath.
Toy.
He had left them standing together there, and strode from the snow-white chambers to search for an answer of his own --
And then, he heard her.
Heard her, as the door swung softly closed.
“It doesn't work that way” -- not for him, not for the pale shadow --
But Sora, child of light; he she will unravel and make whole again, put all to rights as if she had never touched his heart --
Sora, she would make amends to.
But not the false one --
What did she owe to a bauble, to a toy, after all?
Bitter pain clouded his eyes, and he paused for breath in the too-bright hallways of the fallen prince, trembling with undesired pain at this unspoken rejection.
He would have given all for her --
But he was nothing; never was ...
The soothing darkness sang within him then, coiled about the sharp scarlet rage and changed it, brought it blossoming into sweet shards of darkling purpose.
Ignore Sora and his fate, it purred. He is not the one at fault.
Deny her, it hissed. Find another way, a better power, find the ones who brought you to her ...
Maddened, he called the winged black blade, struck out at a blossom of twisted snow-white stone --
wait
A flash of something, some remembered pain; of white-hot anger and the ice of soothing words like frozen black glass.
yes
With a snarl, he throttled down his pain and stalked towards the deepest shadows of the palace, a night-soft plan growing in his mind like a canker in a rosebud.