[Wild Roses] after the wars
Title: soft words in darkness
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Kickback, Aodh
Prompt: 32D "night"
Word Count: 306
Notes: Partial cheat; I wrote a draft version in September but didn't post it anywhere; only about eighty words have been added. billradish asked for Aodh on a bad day, and I thought of this.
Kickback hangs out in larathia's head.
The fox--Aodh--only talked about the living.
It took a while to figure that out, more time than he would've thought he was willing to spend just listening, filing away names and stories in the same sort of array he kept information about gangs, in his head. Never wrote anything down, long standing habit for worse days, which made things harder but not impossible.
Aodh didn't talk about his immediate family much. His mother was where he got the surname, his father the clan, but details, stories about them were sparse on the ground. There were lots of 'my cousin', instead, a fair number of 'my uncle name', which was another of those little facts. Older relatives got names attached. Those closer to his age just got cousin.
There were fewer of both than there used to be; some stories began 'my uncle--no, I tell a lie, my cousin' as he segued off into an entirely different story than the one he'd begun, easy light words that hid how patchy the family tree was, these days.
Still more than enough to get really damn tangled, who was who, how closely related and how deep the grudges ran.
Would've been easier, probably, if there were questions involved, or faces, introductions, even. But that was one of the unspoken rules--Aodh would answer, if asked, but say more if he wasn't.
So the first time a story started 'my sister', it was all he could do not to turn his head, watch Aodh from beneath the brim of his hat. Fire sparked, deep tickle down where the demon lurked, nearly enough to miss the sound of Aodh's last cigarette getting spat at the street.
He made himself watch the apartment building opposite, while the words flowed, never looked over or asked a question.
The smell of spiced tobacco smoke was almost a caress, a kiss, in the dark.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Kickback, Aodh
Prompt: 32D "night"
Word Count: 306
Notes: Partial cheat; I wrote a draft version in September but didn't post it anywhere; only about eighty words have been added. billradish asked for Aodh on a bad day, and I thought of this.
Kickback hangs out in larathia's head.
The fox--Aodh--only talked about the living.
It took a while to figure that out, more time than he would've thought he was willing to spend just listening, filing away names and stories in the same sort of array he kept information about gangs, in his head. Never wrote anything down, long standing habit for worse days, which made things harder but not impossible.
Aodh didn't talk about his immediate family much. His mother was where he got the surname, his father the clan, but details, stories about them were sparse on the ground. There were lots of 'my cousin', instead, a fair number of 'my uncle name', which was another of those little facts. Older relatives got names attached. Those closer to his age just got cousin.
There were fewer of both than there used to be; some stories began 'my uncle--no, I tell a lie, my cousin' as he segued off into an entirely different story than the one he'd begun, easy light words that hid how patchy the family tree was, these days.
Still more than enough to get really damn tangled, who was who, how closely related and how deep the grudges ran.
Would've been easier, probably, if there were questions involved, or faces, introductions, even. But that was one of the unspoken rules--Aodh would answer, if asked, but say more if he wasn't.
So the first time a story started 'my sister', it was all he could do not to turn his head, watch Aodh from beneath the brim of his hat. Fire sparked, deep tickle down where the demon lurked, nearly enough to miss the sound of Aodh's last cigarette getting spat at the street.
He made himself watch the apartment building opposite, while the words flowed, never looked over or asked a question.
The smell of spiced tobacco smoke was almost a caress, a kiss, in the dark.