Writing Exercise #1 [Powerless - SKU, Saionji/Wakaba gen]
On second thought...fuck it. I'll teach myself heavy editing another time.
Random thought plus prompt 35, Frustration. Which fit it anyway. The setup for the writing exercises lives here. In short, it's a piece that took me a week to write. It may be edited, but probably not enough, and should be considered a rough draft. I may clean up promising pieces to repost in fic comms and such, but the goal is to work on something.
Fandom is Revolutionary Girl Utena, set during ep. 20, mild spoilers. Gen; focuses on Saionji and Wakaba. PG. About 2400 words. How this turned out to be fluff I shall never know, but it did. Angst-fluff-angst. I don't think it properly mines the infinite well of maladjusted crap that is Saionji's mind, but it's a start. I've never written about either of them beyond drabbles, so you have to start somewhere.
The challenge I set for myself this time was to bring the story to a proper end. I tend to end pieces in midair - you know what's coming next, and it ends on that moment of dread or anticipation. I made myself carry this one through - whether it was a good idea or not, I do need to practice another way of ending stories.
----
Writing Exercise #1: "Powerless"
There was a time when the thought of being second-best was a corroding haze over the world. When his best friend's smirk was the bane of his existence and the only thing that salved it was her smile - vapid, empty, and entirely his. Her smile was the ribbon pinned on his hollow victory, but he had thought that the promise behind it was real. He should have known better.
The thought struck again and again like church bells, that first day. You can't have her back. You can't have her back. You can't have her back. Blame the first and second loss on the tomboy bitch, if you must. But a dethroned champion can fight again. A random boy off the street, even less than a student, cannot. And that may have been her fault, but he doubted it. Whatever had happened in the dueling arena was greater than, and different from, the interference of one stupid girl. The rule about expulsion for breaking the rules of the arena was not her fault, either. He had known about that since he had been chosen to duel. He had brought it all on himself.
He walked for a long time. It wasn't far from the academy to his family's home, but he would take forever to walk that distance if he could. He mostly succeeded in not rehearsing the scene that would follow. Why aren't you at school. We have nowhere else to send you. Why don't you talk to Kiryuu-kun? Perhaps he can put in a good word for you. He could have avoided them and stayed with Kiryuu instead, but on the list of options, that was only slightly above sneaking back into the school and stealing a sword to fall on.
Saionji did not dwell on the thought of Kiryuu as much as he could have. The more he thought of it, the more pointless it seemed to dwell on it. It was done. Seeing no other way to get their exchange diary back to her, he had turned it over to Touga just before he left. Here - have everything I've entrusted to the only thing that was ever mine. Enough weak and humiliating thoughts to stock your smirking for years to come. All yours, Kiryuu. Thankfully Saionji would probably never have to look at him again, knowing what he'd read.
He walked the longest route he could find, carrying a bag over his shoulder like the common vagabond he'd become. In a shopping district a breathless girl caught up with him. An ordinary, vaguely unfamiliar girl in an Ohtori uniform. He might have seen her once or twice before; no name came to mind. But she recognized him. At first he cast around for a quick exit - he was no longer Kendo Captain and Vice-President Saionji Kyouichi, so what was the point of the old charade? But the girl kept talking. She was not here to offer empty praise or soothing girlish condolences. She had a plan.
Rescue.
Returning to Ohtori under cover of darkness, sneaking into the girls' dormitory, seemed terribly thrilling to this girl. And why not? She had rushed in to save a weak and helpless shell of a man from exile. He still could not return to his former power, but he would not be under his family's disappointed gaze or begging for favors from Touga. Still, he had sunk to less than nothing. No position, no title, no influence, not even second best. Less than last. Rescued by a girl. By the time they reached her room, he could simply not think about anything. He thought about asking if he could sleep, but the thought was too demeaning to comprehend. But then, he had just been rescued off the street by a random underclassman girl. What could be worse than that?
Shinohara Wakaba. At first the name evaded his memory, but he saw it written on notebook covers and labels around the room, and over time everything in the room grafted itself into his mind until he hardly saw it at all. The first week was full of identical hours, plotting out ideas for his return that would never work. To Wakaba it was all an adventure, an exciting secret. Sneaking him out when the other girls were in class, eating dinner together around her table. She chattered endlessly about her classes and the other students. At first it was irritating, but it, at least, served as a respite from the four walls and the blankness stretching out through time. She was, at least, a link to Ohtori. To life.
When he was alone, there was nothing - only thoughts that chased themselves in circles. She also brought him useful information, like paths she'd found that would get him out of the school without being seen. He'd never known a girl to be so helpful. She didn't ask anything of him, no favors, no attention. She didn't throw fits. She didn't seem to care that he had become nothing. It was strange.
Wakaba, this ordinary schoolgirl, had rescued him. He was still in exile, but now there was hope. A boy off the street could not duel, but he still had his ring - this could not be an accident - and he could be reinstated. He had to believe this. Wakaba was his only link to the school, however. She would have to rescue him again.
He was little better than a girl himself these days, he thought one afternoon, with nothing better to do than watch the sunlight crawl up the wall. Useless and soft and kept. He couldn't even practice kendo - there wasn't enough room, and she had asked him not to make too much noise in case someone noticed. And he obeyed, obeyed this girl, because his fate depended upon her goodwill. For all his hours alone, thinking about how to get back to his former place, nothing had come to mind. He still needed her hospitality.
She had to know how completely and wretchedly he depended on her, but she never mentioned it. She left him money to buy lunch while she was gone and acted as his lookout when he left the room. Brought dinner for both of them. Gave him her absent roommate's bed to sleep in. He did not ask who her roommate had been, why she had moved out. He had heard enough offhanded comments to make a guess. This, too, was demeaning, but it was the best Wakaba could offer. She always gave him the best she could offer. More than that, she never made reference to his situation or laughed at him for it. It was though he were an honored guest. As though he might take down the uniform that hung against the wall and wear it again tomorrow. When he brought up how exceptional she had been, once when the day had been particularly long and hopeless, she brushed it off. As if she had done nothing special at all.
Life seemed so close, if he could only find a way back in. But as much as he hated to depend on her, and as much as he wanted to be Saionji Kyouichi, Vice-President of the Student Council and Kendo Captain once again, this was not an unpleasant place to be. They drank coffee and talked, and he did not think about rescue or the Council for a while. Wakaba smiled at him, not all the time, but suddenly, breaking like light and fading sweetly. She still called him "sempai," and from her it did not sound like an insult.
Shinohara Wakaba was not a witch, not a magical creature. She could not rearrange the rules; she could not change the world. She merely had a half-empty double room and unfailing, gracious generosity. She did everything she could, and asked for nothing in return. He had to thank her somehow.
He had bought her something with her own money - stupid, really - but the time put into it was something. He had time to give, after all. And it was graceful, fragile, not something he would normally be caught dead giving to a girl. That was a gift, too. He had thought about this sometimes, carefully shaving off slivers of wood, watching the clock through the long afternoon. He wasn't Kendo Captain and Vice-President of the Student Council any longer, after all. He was merely a boy she'd taken in off the street, and she had treated him well.
Wakaba was so grateful when he gave it to her. It was such a small thing. But she seemed happy. It was a fitting end. He would find a way back soon, something he could not have done without her help. He had expressed thanks without debasing himself further, and she was happy. It was all settled now.
As he finished the final sanding and painting he often found himself thinking about her. There was no mystery to this ordinary girl, no power, but there was courage and kindness. That alone was exceptional; she was not weak, and she did not hold his helplessness against him. He would remember her loyalty when he returned to his proper place.
Eventually, along with the rumors and details of her day, she brought him news of the Student Council. They had not replaced him. No one knew where he was, although rumors circulated that he was somewhere on campus. Touga had not returned to class. Wakaba seemed unconcerned by this. Nanami had taken over his position while he was gone, an audacious move that did not surprise him at all. Jury and Miki were the same as ever. The tomboy still held the Rose Bride, who seemed quite happy about the state of affairs. Wakaba's smile faded as she related this last piece of news, even though she had promised that he could ask her anything. It wasn't true; it stopped her from talking for the rest of the day. He had, in a way, forgotten that she was a girl, and could not be spoken with freely, subject as girls were to random and precarious moods.
He missed Anthy then, and her eternal, artificial, placid malaise. He hadn't thought about it so concretely in such a long time. She was part of the machine, the Student Council, the Duels, the Bride, but his Anthy came back to him then, Anthy and the empty smile that he had once owned. He did not owe her anything, and no one could question what he had won.
He didn't feel much like talking that evening, either, and did not ask about Anthy again.
As he put down the brush after the last layer of lacquer, someone was there. It wasn't Wakaba. The leader of the Mikage Seminar did not come to visit students, nor often leave his own building, without very good reason. Saionji's heart slowed after the initial shock as his laconic classmate proposed a rescue of his own.
The deal laid out by the Seminar was simple. Reinstate Saionji to his rightful place. Back into the school. Back into the Student Council. Back into the duels. He would no longer need to slink around, living off the hospitality of an ordinary girl. It seemed like such an obvious trade. All he had to give in return was one small thing.
Such a strange request. Wakaba would notice at once if it disappeared. But she already knew that he was grateful, didn't she? He had done all he could to tell her that. It was such a small thing, a token. He could buy her another one to replace it once he was reinstated, or something better. What was that little thing compared to regaining his former power?
Mikage's pale fingers closed over Wakaba's hair clip, and his smile made it seem like a terrible mistake.
Saionji took down the uniform and dressed before she got home, standing straighter, moving more freely around this dormitory room. No need to fear discovery now. No need to fear anything. He would be leaving now, himself at last, Vice-President of the Student Council and Kendo Captain Saionji Kyouichi. Good news, Wakaba, I've been re-admitted. It's all right now, it's over. I won't forget what you've done for me.
The door opened and shut and locked. Wakaba smiled as he told her the good news. And then she lunged.
There was only one Sword of Dios, and its drawing was something that happened to other people. This was wrong, like her sudden viciousness, even though some part of him thought that he should have expected it. Her honesty was too complete, her forthrightness too open and uncomplicated. It was stupid of him to have trusted anyone, even this ordinary girl who had been so kind. He should have known that.
She grabbed and pulled and darkness closed in from the edges of the world, shutting out the pain that was cutting him in half. Wakaba had helped him and expected nothing in return. And now she took it all.
When he came to, the room was empty and the rending pain in his chest was gone. It didn't take long to gather his few belongings and leave. He saw no one he knew along the way - Touga still hadn't come back, after all. He could have gone to the practice room, but did not. He went to the elevator alone, with Touga's voice in his head, and walked out onto the balcony to look over the world.
"Welcome back," said Kiryuu's sister. He turned. She had changed from her Ohtori girl's uniform to something in waspish yellow and black. She could never take Touga's place, but she tried.
Saionji did not answer. Cicadas sang somewhere far below.
Nanami didn't wrap her question in scorn. It was about her brother, and therefore far too important. "Will you be coming to visit him?"
Touga had to have been defeated by the tomboy. He had fought and lost and crawled away in defeat. Touga, better than everyone, was reduced to nothing now, alone with his thoughts and awaiting his own rescue. If Touga had come to him, a week ago...
Night was falling over the academy. Nanami waited for his reply.
"No."
---
...this story is all tell and no show, and I didn't even realize it until the end. Part of this comes from overlapping canon closely; it feels weird to echo canon dialogue. But that's something that has to balance out.
You know what's weird? I thought my recollection of canon was out of whack, but I watched it again to make sure, and really - Saionji acts very different when he's hiding out with Wakaba. He's much, much less of an arrogant bastard and a little more unhinged. Interesting. I don't think this does it justice, but it's interesting.
Random thought plus prompt 35, Frustration. Which fit it anyway. The setup for the writing exercises lives here. In short, it's a piece that took me a week to write. It may be edited, but probably not enough, and should be considered a rough draft. I may clean up promising pieces to repost in fic comms and such, but the goal is to work on something.
Fandom is Revolutionary Girl Utena, set during ep. 20, mild spoilers. Gen; focuses on Saionji and Wakaba. PG. About 2400 words. How this turned out to be fluff I shall never know, but it did. Angst-fluff-angst. I don't think it properly mines the infinite well of maladjusted crap that is Saionji's mind, but it's a start. I've never written about either of them beyond drabbles, so you have to start somewhere.
The challenge I set for myself this time was to bring the story to a proper end. I tend to end pieces in midair - you know what's coming next, and it ends on that moment of dread or anticipation. I made myself carry this one through - whether it was a good idea or not, I do need to practice another way of ending stories.
----
Writing Exercise #1: "Powerless"
There was a time when the thought of being second-best was a corroding haze over the world. When his best friend's smirk was the bane of his existence and the only thing that salved it was her smile - vapid, empty, and entirely his. Her smile was the ribbon pinned on his hollow victory, but he had thought that the promise behind it was real. He should have known better.
The thought struck again and again like church bells, that first day. You can't have her back. You can't have her back. You can't have her back. Blame the first and second loss on the tomboy bitch, if you must. But a dethroned champion can fight again. A random boy off the street, even less than a student, cannot. And that may have been her fault, but he doubted it. Whatever had happened in the dueling arena was greater than, and different from, the interference of one stupid girl. The rule about expulsion for breaking the rules of the arena was not her fault, either. He had known about that since he had been chosen to duel. He had brought it all on himself.
He walked for a long time. It wasn't far from the academy to his family's home, but he would take forever to walk that distance if he could. He mostly succeeded in not rehearsing the scene that would follow. Why aren't you at school. We have nowhere else to send you. Why don't you talk to Kiryuu-kun? Perhaps he can put in a good word for you. He could have avoided them and stayed with Kiryuu instead, but on the list of options, that was only slightly above sneaking back into the school and stealing a sword to fall on.
Saionji did not dwell on the thought of Kiryuu as much as he could have. The more he thought of it, the more pointless it seemed to dwell on it. It was done. Seeing no other way to get their exchange diary back to her, he had turned it over to Touga just before he left. Here - have everything I've entrusted to the only thing that was ever mine. Enough weak and humiliating thoughts to stock your smirking for years to come. All yours, Kiryuu. Thankfully Saionji would probably never have to look at him again, knowing what he'd read.
He walked the longest route he could find, carrying a bag over his shoulder like the common vagabond he'd become. In a shopping district a breathless girl caught up with him. An ordinary, vaguely unfamiliar girl in an Ohtori uniform. He might have seen her once or twice before; no name came to mind. But she recognized him. At first he cast around for a quick exit - he was no longer Kendo Captain and Vice-President Saionji Kyouichi, so what was the point of the old charade? But the girl kept talking. She was not here to offer empty praise or soothing girlish condolences. She had a plan.
Rescue.
Returning to Ohtori under cover of darkness, sneaking into the girls' dormitory, seemed terribly thrilling to this girl. And why not? She had rushed in to save a weak and helpless shell of a man from exile. He still could not return to his former power, but he would not be under his family's disappointed gaze or begging for favors from Touga. Still, he had sunk to less than nothing. No position, no title, no influence, not even second best. Less than last. Rescued by a girl. By the time they reached her room, he could simply not think about anything. He thought about asking if he could sleep, but the thought was too demeaning to comprehend. But then, he had just been rescued off the street by a random underclassman girl. What could be worse than that?
Shinohara Wakaba. At first the name evaded his memory, but he saw it written on notebook covers and labels around the room, and over time everything in the room grafted itself into his mind until he hardly saw it at all. The first week was full of identical hours, plotting out ideas for his return that would never work. To Wakaba it was all an adventure, an exciting secret. Sneaking him out when the other girls were in class, eating dinner together around her table. She chattered endlessly about her classes and the other students. At first it was irritating, but it, at least, served as a respite from the four walls and the blankness stretching out through time. She was, at least, a link to Ohtori. To life.
When he was alone, there was nothing - only thoughts that chased themselves in circles. She also brought him useful information, like paths she'd found that would get him out of the school without being seen. He'd never known a girl to be so helpful. She didn't ask anything of him, no favors, no attention. She didn't throw fits. She didn't seem to care that he had become nothing. It was strange.
Wakaba, this ordinary schoolgirl, had rescued him. He was still in exile, but now there was hope. A boy off the street could not duel, but he still had his ring - this could not be an accident - and he could be reinstated. He had to believe this. Wakaba was his only link to the school, however. She would have to rescue him again.
He was little better than a girl himself these days, he thought one afternoon, with nothing better to do than watch the sunlight crawl up the wall. Useless and soft and kept. He couldn't even practice kendo - there wasn't enough room, and she had asked him not to make too much noise in case someone noticed. And he obeyed, obeyed this girl, because his fate depended upon her goodwill. For all his hours alone, thinking about how to get back to his former place, nothing had come to mind. He still needed her hospitality.
She had to know how completely and wretchedly he depended on her, but she never mentioned it. She left him money to buy lunch while she was gone and acted as his lookout when he left the room. Brought dinner for both of them. Gave him her absent roommate's bed to sleep in. He did not ask who her roommate had been, why she had moved out. He had heard enough offhanded comments to make a guess. This, too, was demeaning, but it was the best Wakaba could offer. She always gave him the best she could offer. More than that, she never made reference to his situation or laughed at him for it. It was though he were an honored guest. As though he might take down the uniform that hung against the wall and wear it again tomorrow. When he brought up how exceptional she had been, once when the day had been particularly long and hopeless, she brushed it off. As if she had done nothing special at all.
Life seemed so close, if he could only find a way back in. But as much as he hated to depend on her, and as much as he wanted to be Saionji Kyouichi, Vice-President of the Student Council and Kendo Captain once again, this was not an unpleasant place to be. They drank coffee and talked, and he did not think about rescue or the Council for a while. Wakaba smiled at him, not all the time, but suddenly, breaking like light and fading sweetly. She still called him "sempai," and from her it did not sound like an insult.
Shinohara Wakaba was not a witch, not a magical creature. She could not rearrange the rules; she could not change the world. She merely had a half-empty double room and unfailing, gracious generosity. She did everything she could, and asked for nothing in return. He had to thank her somehow.
He had bought her something with her own money - stupid, really - but the time put into it was something. He had time to give, after all. And it was graceful, fragile, not something he would normally be caught dead giving to a girl. That was a gift, too. He had thought about this sometimes, carefully shaving off slivers of wood, watching the clock through the long afternoon. He wasn't Kendo Captain and Vice-President of the Student Council any longer, after all. He was merely a boy she'd taken in off the street, and she had treated him well.
Wakaba was so grateful when he gave it to her. It was such a small thing. But she seemed happy. It was a fitting end. He would find a way back soon, something he could not have done without her help. He had expressed thanks without debasing himself further, and she was happy. It was all settled now.
As he finished the final sanding and painting he often found himself thinking about her. There was no mystery to this ordinary girl, no power, but there was courage and kindness. That alone was exceptional; she was not weak, and she did not hold his helplessness against him. He would remember her loyalty when he returned to his proper place.
Eventually, along with the rumors and details of her day, she brought him news of the Student Council. They had not replaced him. No one knew where he was, although rumors circulated that he was somewhere on campus. Touga had not returned to class. Wakaba seemed unconcerned by this. Nanami had taken over his position while he was gone, an audacious move that did not surprise him at all. Jury and Miki were the same as ever. The tomboy still held the Rose Bride, who seemed quite happy about the state of affairs. Wakaba's smile faded as she related this last piece of news, even though she had promised that he could ask her anything. It wasn't true; it stopped her from talking for the rest of the day. He had, in a way, forgotten that she was a girl, and could not be spoken with freely, subject as girls were to random and precarious moods.
He missed Anthy then, and her eternal, artificial, placid malaise. He hadn't thought about it so concretely in such a long time. She was part of the machine, the Student Council, the Duels, the Bride, but his Anthy came back to him then, Anthy and the empty smile that he had once owned. He did not owe her anything, and no one could question what he had won.
He didn't feel much like talking that evening, either, and did not ask about Anthy again.
As he put down the brush after the last layer of lacquer, someone was there. It wasn't Wakaba. The leader of the Mikage Seminar did not come to visit students, nor often leave his own building, without very good reason. Saionji's heart slowed after the initial shock as his laconic classmate proposed a rescue of his own.
The deal laid out by the Seminar was simple. Reinstate Saionji to his rightful place. Back into the school. Back into the Student Council. Back into the duels. He would no longer need to slink around, living off the hospitality of an ordinary girl. It seemed like such an obvious trade. All he had to give in return was one small thing.
Such a strange request. Wakaba would notice at once if it disappeared. But she already knew that he was grateful, didn't she? He had done all he could to tell her that. It was such a small thing, a token. He could buy her another one to replace it once he was reinstated, or something better. What was that little thing compared to regaining his former power?
Mikage's pale fingers closed over Wakaba's hair clip, and his smile made it seem like a terrible mistake.
Saionji took down the uniform and dressed before she got home, standing straighter, moving more freely around this dormitory room. No need to fear discovery now. No need to fear anything. He would be leaving now, himself at last, Vice-President of the Student Council and Kendo Captain Saionji Kyouichi. Good news, Wakaba, I've been re-admitted. It's all right now, it's over. I won't forget what you've done for me.
The door opened and shut and locked. Wakaba smiled as he told her the good news. And then she lunged.
There was only one Sword of Dios, and its drawing was something that happened to other people. This was wrong, like her sudden viciousness, even though some part of him thought that he should have expected it. Her honesty was too complete, her forthrightness too open and uncomplicated. It was stupid of him to have trusted anyone, even this ordinary girl who had been so kind. He should have known that.
She grabbed and pulled and darkness closed in from the edges of the world, shutting out the pain that was cutting him in half. Wakaba had helped him and expected nothing in return. And now she took it all.
When he came to, the room was empty and the rending pain in his chest was gone. It didn't take long to gather his few belongings and leave. He saw no one he knew along the way - Touga still hadn't come back, after all. He could have gone to the practice room, but did not. He went to the elevator alone, with Touga's voice in his head, and walked out onto the balcony to look over the world.
"Welcome back," said Kiryuu's sister. He turned. She had changed from her Ohtori girl's uniform to something in waspish yellow and black. She could never take Touga's place, but she tried.
Saionji did not answer. Cicadas sang somewhere far below.
Nanami didn't wrap her question in scorn. It was about her brother, and therefore far too important. "Will you be coming to visit him?"
Touga had to have been defeated by the tomboy. He had fought and lost and crawled away in defeat. Touga, better than everyone, was reduced to nothing now, alone with his thoughts and awaiting his own rescue. If Touga had come to him, a week ago...
Night was falling over the academy. Nanami waited for his reply.
"No."
---
...this story is all tell and no show, and I didn't even realize it until the end. Part of this comes from overlapping canon closely; it feels weird to echo canon dialogue. But that's something that has to balance out.
You know what's weird? I thought my recollection of canon was out of whack, but I watched it again to make sure, and really - Saionji acts very different when he's hiding out with Wakaba. He's much, much less of an arrogant bastard and a little more unhinged. Interesting. I don't think this does it justice, but it's interesting.