I'm crazy.
So, I finally decided to do NaNoWriMo yesterday. Yes, on 9th. I'm terribly behind.
I'm writing an evil Kingdom Hearts AU of the second game, branching of during 358/2 Days. It's featuring Zack and Sephiroth. I shall be doing evil, mean, nasty things to many characters.
I'm at 4500 words. I should be at 16,667 words. This may not have been the best idea, but Zack wouldn't shut up.
So.
Here's the barely edited, first draft prologue (No 358/2 Days spoilers or really much KH so far. Just Zack still.) It's short and probably all I'm going to put up for a while.
***
Each world had customs.
If Zack Fair sat against the stone long enough, eyes closed, he could remember Radiant Garden’s summers, when the whole city was in bloom. When Aerith hung on his arm, laughing, as he tried to crown her with flowers. He could recall those early spring nights when he tried to teach Sephiroth to be human.
When his world had customs.
Faintly, he could remember when he was eight at his grandfather’s funeral, when he had stood at the ocean’s edge, his mother’s hand tight on his shoulder, as his father had released the body into the water. More recently, burned into his memory, he could remember when men under his command had died in battle, and make-shift funerals, with stones tied to legs to make them sink --the scared spots by the sea too far, a river or a lake standing in.
His own body had died on a foreign world, days after the once glorious city had fallen with the Heartless. As far as he knew, Cloud didn’t have time to morn him properly, to sink his body into water, so that his soul could flow out into the Lifestream.
Not that it mattered in this world.
A coin to pay the ferryman and he could be finding what faint peace this afterlife was supposed to offer. The river encircled the underworld nine times, spiraling inwards impossibly, so that he couldn’t reach the land of the dead on foot, but the ferryman always could.
There were other souls, faint, faded shades that had never had coin to their eyes or tongue when buried, but they had become shadows of what they had been. The little girl that Zack remembered talking to when she first arrived, was a faceless ghost.
His eyes still glowed in river’s reflection, but he wasn’t sure how much longer it would be. His hope was starting to fade, his future looked briefer and briefer, the surrender of self seeming almost inevitable.
But he never would have made first-class, if he just gave up.
Keeping that thought firmly in mind, right beside the treasured notion of Cloud meeting Aerith, Zack kept digging.
***
I'm writing an evil Kingdom Hearts AU of the second game, branching of during 358/2 Days. It's featuring Zack and Sephiroth. I shall be doing evil, mean, nasty things to many characters.
I'm at 4500 words. I should be at 16,667 words. This may not have been the best idea, but Zack wouldn't shut up.
So.
Here's the barely edited, first draft prologue (No 358/2 Days spoilers or really much KH so far. Just Zack still.) It's short and probably all I'm going to put up for a while.
***
Each world had customs.
If Zack Fair sat against the stone long enough, eyes closed, he could remember Radiant Garden’s summers, when the whole city was in bloom. When Aerith hung on his arm, laughing, as he tried to crown her with flowers. He could recall those early spring nights when he tried to teach Sephiroth to be human.
When his world had customs.
Faintly, he could remember when he was eight at his grandfather’s funeral, when he had stood at the ocean’s edge, his mother’s hand tight on his shoulder, as his father had released the body into the water. More recently, burned into his memory, he could remember when men under his command had died in battle, and make-shift funerals, with stones tied to legs to make them sink --the scared spots by the sea too far, a river or a lake standing in.
His own body had died on a foreign world, days after the once glorious city had fallen with the Heartless. As far as he knew, Cloud didn’t have time to morn him properly, to sink his body into water, so that his soul could flow out into the Lifestream.
Not that it mattered in this world.
A coin to pay the ferryman and he could be finding what faint peace this afterlife was supposed to offer. The river encircled the underworld nine times, spiraling inwards impossibly, so that he couldn’t reach the land of the dead on foot, but the ferryman always could.
There were other souls, faint, faded shades that had never had coin to their eyes or tongue when buried, but they had become shadows of what they had been. The little girl that Zack remembered talking to when she first arrived, was a faceless ghost.
His eyes still glowed in river’s reflection, but he wasn’t sure how much longer it would be. His hope was starting to fade, his future looked briefer and briefer, the surrender of self seeming almost inevitable.
But he never would have made first-class, if he just gave up.
Keeping that thought firmly in mind, right beside the treasured notion of Cloud meeting Aerith, Zack kept digging.
***