our citadel of above and below [ficspam]
For mydarkrosaline and her challenge, I give you a Sandman snippet of 277 (unbeta'd) words. Mild Dream/Desire, rated G, and, uh, very Jewish.
I had a bigger idea, but damn, writing Gaiman is hard. Also, remind me never to never mix the Endless with the Old Testament, because holy crap, what a can of worms, and now I have three other awesome fics jockeying for position in my head. Seriously, Joseph? Is THE VORTEX OMG. But anyway:
Sandman: Dream/Desire ; "soft places"
Golden domes flashing in the sun, metal burnished with the sand of prayers older than history. The air is shimmering -- heat, or desert wind -- and everything is bright. Incense and sanctity twine, cloying, through the air, along with the pervading stench of car exhaust.
Jerusalem is a transcendental city, filled with hopes and myths and many hidden places.
The sand from the desert skids against the stone; Jerusalem never forgets her humble origins. Despite that -- or perhaps, because -- she is forever strange and new, glimmering like the points on a silver Star of David.
And ghosting through her edges -- reflected here, refracting there -- walk the Endless, kings and queens in silks and cherished ivory. They have borne her out of fire, from the first obelisk of Zion to the last grave below-ground, and attend her still, stretching from desert to mountain to heavens.
Wise men say Jerusalem is the center of the world, and perhaps that is why she lies on the fringes of reality. But millions of people flock to her gates, write sonnets to her beauty, laugh and weep and die upon her altar, and millions of people have power.
The Endless find such places more accessible. And Jerusalem is a dream, a vision; the heart of countless generations. She is an object of desire and an ideal of perfection, and though she is an old veteran to Death, love has shaped her more.
Perhaps it is fitting, then, that it is in Jerusalem, below a flurry of white wings, during the long gold sliding into dawn -- it is there, precisely, that Desire kissed Dream for the first time.
I had a bigger idea, but damn, writing Gaiman is hard. Also, remind me never to never mix the Endless with the Old Testament, because holy crap, what a can of worms, and now I have three other awesome fics jockeying for position in my head. Seriously, Joseph? Is THE VORTEX OMG. But anyway:
Sandman: Dream/Desire ; "soft places"
Golden domes flashing in the sun, metal burnished with the sand of prayers older than history. The air is shimmering -- heat, or desert wind -- and everything is bright. Incense and sanctity twine, cloying, through the air, along with the pervading stench of car exhaust.
Jerusalem is a transcendental city, filled with hopes and myths and many hidden places.
The sand from the desert skids against the stone; Jerusalem never forgets her humble origins. Despite that -- or perhaps, because -- she is forever strange and new, glimmering like the points on a silver Star of David.
And ghosting through her edges -- reflected here, refracting there -- walk the Endless, kings and queens in silks and cherished ivory. They have borne her out of fire, from the first obelisk of Zion to the last grave below-ground, and attend her still, stretching from desert to mountain to heavens.
Wise men say Jerusalem is the center of the world, and perhaps that is why she lies on the fringes of reality. But millions of people flock to her gates, write sonnets to her beauty, laugh and weep and die upon her altar, and millions of people have power.
The Endless find such places more accessible. And Jerusalem is a dream, a vision; the heart of countless generations. She is an object of desire and an ideal of perfection, and though she is an old veteran to Death, love has shaped her more.
Perhaps it is fitting, then, that it is in Jerusalem, below a flurry of white wings, during the long gold sliding into dawn -- it is there, precisely, that Desire kissed Dream for the first time.