(no subject)
Title: A Father’s Guilt
Rating: PG
Media: Fic
Pairing/Characters: Koshiro - Zoro’s Sensei
Word Count: 299
Prompt: Fear
It was his fault, the wheel of karma never stopping as it returned to him what he had done. She was dead, his only child, so young that she hadn’t quite started to bloom. One false step within the confines of his home, a place he had thought was where she would always be safe, and she was taken from him.
He had been so afraid; afraid of the life she had chosen, the path she wished to take, the skills that could have carried her to the heights she wished to reach, the determined will that in a few more years would have ceased to bend to his. The life of a swordsman was hard enough and to seek the title of ‘World’s Greatest’ meant inevitable loneliness, hardship, injury, and death. He couldn’t bear to let his daughter choose that path.
And so he’d lied. He had trampled on her spirit and tried to break her will and told her that her dream was impossible. The light had slowly gone out of her eyes and her swordsmanship, the skills he’d ordered her to begin to put aside, became harsher, coarse with anger. Until the night before she died, when his star pupil had challenged her once again and he, guilt weighing him down, had let her sneak out with her sword.
There had been a spring in the steps on the stairs as he listened in the darkness and she’d been whistling that fateful morning. Something had changed but he never got the chance to find out what had happened. She was gone.
He gave Zoro her sword and what remained of his skill and his knowledge. His wisdom was worthless and that he kept to himself. When Zoro left, it was with the weight of three dreams.
Rating: PG
Media: Fic
Pairing/Characters: Koshiro - Zoro’s Sensei
Word Count: 299
Prompt: Fear
It was his fault, the wheel of karma never stopping as it returned to him what he had done. She was dead, his only child, so young that she hadn’t quite started to bloom. One false step within the confines of his home, a place he had thought was where she would always be safe, and she was taken from him.
He had been so afraid; afraid of the life she had chosen, the path she wished to take, the skills that could have carried her to the heights she wished to reach, the determined will that in a few more years would have ceased to bend to his. The life of a swordsman was hard enough and to seek the title of ‘World’s Greatest’ meant inevitable loneliness, hardship, injury, and death. He couldn’t bear to let his daughter choose that path.
And so he’d lied. He had trampled on her spirit and tried to break her will and told her that her dream was impossible. The light had slowly gone out of her eyes and her swordsmanship, the skills he’d ordered her to begin to put aside, became harsher, coarse with anger. Until the night before she died, when his star pupil had challenged her once again and he, guilt weighing him down, had let her sneak out with her sword.
There had been a spring in the steps on the stairs as he listened in the darkness and she’d been whistling that fateful morning. Something had changed but he never got the chance to find out what had happened. She was gone.
He gave Zoro her sword and what remained of his skill and his knowledge. His wisdom was worthless and that he kept to himself. When Zoro left, it was with the weight of three dreams.