Fills for The Poetry Meme
Title: Even if you don't believe in god or fate, at least you can believe in narrative
Character: Damon Salvatore (some Damon/Elena in the most generic of terms)
Rating: Gen
A/N: written for the Poetry Meme
His mortal life was about being defined by everyone else. He was Giuseppe's son, Stefan's brother, the Confederate army's deserter, Katherine's plaything; never was he Damon, never was he anything but what other said.
Damon vows he will write his own story now that there is no one to stop him.
His mother used to tell him stories before she died. She couldn't read English, could scarcely speak it, and, for Damon, the best stories will always be those told in Italian. When he leaves Stefan, he goes back to his mother's homeland, to her tiny village where the sun is warm and the people friendly. She still has brothers and sisters there, and they greet him effusively, kissing his cheeks and telling him what his mother was like before Giuseppe took her away to Mystic Falls.
"Dov'è tuo fratello?" his uncle asks him on the third day of his visit, and Damon feels strangely angry at the question. Even thousands of miles from home, people still ask about Stefan.
He leaves without saying goodbye and does not come back to Italy.
He returns to Mystic Falls and finds nothing and everything has changed. Stefan is still stubborn and stupid, and the town still reeks of judgment. This is not his place, as Stefan is so quick to point out. He takes Cassidy's lessons with him, tucks them away in that part of his heart which is souring, poisoned with bitterness and betrayal. Perhaps some day he will look back and recognize this is the turning point, this is what sets him upon the path which will send him hurtling 1,000 miles per hour towards Elena Gilbert in 2009.
But reflection has never been Damon's strong point.
Every place he goes, he becomes a different person. New names, new identities, new lives. He isn't like Stefan, who plays at humanity, but Damon begins to collect experiences with the same ease with which he collects women. He climbs mountains and visits the wonders of the world; he walks on six continents and beds women everywhere he goes. He is the hero in New Zealand when he saves a boy from being struck by a car, and he is the villain in a dozen different countries when he leaves bodies in his wake. Damon is no one and everyone, the character in other people's stories but the protagonist in his own.
Or maybe the antagonist in his own. His opinion changes depending upon the amount of liquor in his system.
He is frustrated by Elena's insistence on not recognizing how far he has come. Damon lives in fear that he will always be the villain of her story while Stefan is the hero, and he does not know how to show her otherwise. There was an old woman he knew in Rio; she told him once that people never really change and, even if you do, no one will ever believe it. People do not like complicated stories, stories which make them question what they believe and if everything they know is a lie. It is then Damon realizes it does not matter what he does or how far he has traveled; Elena has cast him in a role to play, and he must fulfill it.
She wakes up on a slab in the morgue, looks at him with veins around her black eyes, and Damon knows then the story has changed, is being rewritten right before him. They are both new people now, and the story is just beginning.
Title: Yes, I have a thousand tongues and nine and ninety-nine lie
Character: Stefan Salvatore (some Stefan/Elena in vague terms)
Rating: gen
He is not to be trusted. He doesn't know how many times he has to tell someone this before they believe him. There is some sort of irony in it, the way people will believe everything he says except the warnings he gives them about his unpredictability, about his penchant for murdering those he cares for in a bout of bloodlust and self-loathing.
He would chuckle at the dark truth of it if his hands weren't slick with blood.
He keeps the list of names in his Chicago apartment, but there is another list, the one which only exists in his mind, the names of the women who have learned the savagery of his lies on the tips of his fangs. Caitlin, Maura, Margaret, Janet, Lila, Christine, Amber and a dozen others, pretty girls charmed with pretty words who died ugly deaths.
He lives in constant fear Elena's name will be added to that list.
He tells her he is a ripper beyond saving, and she tells him it cannot be true. At her core, Elena is just like all the other girls, the ones who listen without listening, the ones who think love is enough to soothe the savage beast.
He shreds the flesh of her neck like tissue paper, drinks deep of the blood he has wanted to bathe in since the very first taste, and all the while thinks, I told you so.
Title: Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air
Character: Sansa Stark
Rating: gen
They all think she's dead, just another wolf devoured by lions, another girl who mattered until she didn't, a girl stripped of everything she had, everything she was, everything she was meant to be.
Sansa Stark was sacrificed on the altar of a dozen men's ambitions, and Alayne Stone rose from her death, a bastard girl with no holdings, nothing of her own, nothing but the good will of a man who claimed to be her father while fondling her and whispering her mother's name.
Alayne is a patient girl, but, more importantly, she is an observant girl. She is the type of girl men forget is in a room, the sort of girl who can't be expected to understand complicated matters of state or the savagery of war.
Alayne serves a purpose, and that purpose is taking what belongs to Sansa.
Harry Hardyng is a crass man, but he is handsome enough. He has a purpose to serve as well, so Alayne smiles and simpers, flirts and blushes, and when Petyr tells her she did a fine job, Alayne manages not to wrinkle her nose in disgust at the press of his lips against hers.
I am going to kill you first, she decides as the Lord Protector of the Vale discusses how her unveiling will go.
She tells Mya Stone her secret. The bastard girl is quiet for a moment before declaring, "Our fathers were best friends. He'd want me to help you."
Sansa smiles. Petyr Baelish understands many things, but he will never understand loyalty, and it will be his undoing.
The man Mya calls the Blackfish arrives at the Gates of the Moon and fetches Sansa immediately. This man is her great-uncle, and he seems to recognize her even under the drab brown hair. He cups the side of her face and says, "Gods, you look like your mother."
It is nice to hear the sentiment without lust behind it.
It doesn't take much after that. Sweetrobin is as much the Blackfish's blood as she is, and Petyr dies remarkably easily, Brynden Tully's blade opening his soft belly as if he is filleting a fish. There was a time Sansa would have looked away, but she does not flinch as blood and entrails slip from the man's body. He gasps her name, his hand clawing at her skirts, and Sansa bends beside him as whispers fiercely, "I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and you are not my father."
Petyr is the first man she has killed, but he will not be the last.
Mya helps her wash the dye from her hair, returning it to Tully red. She dons the gown which was to be her wedding dress, a frock of white and grey, and she wears the direwolf cloak Harry the Heir will never take from her shoulders, that no man will ever take from her ever again.
Before the Lords of the Vale, she declares, "I am Sansa Stark, the rightful heir of Winterfell and the Queen in the North. You fought beside my father once, and I ask you to do the same for me. The Lannisters and the Tyrells care nothing for the Vale, and they will not appoint any of you Warden of the East. I make you the same promise that was made to the Riverlands: swear fealty to the North, and you will be free of the Iron Throne and its tyranny."
Fear is a good weapon, one the Lannisters have wielded well for generations, but Sansa has no desire to make the men of the Vale fear her; she wants to give them hope, the same hope she harbors in her heart that House Stark will rise again.
Hope is a dangerous weapon, one the Lannisters and the Tyrells will never grasp.
She is bound for Riverrun, ten thousand men of the Vale at her back to take back what is hers by rights, and Sansa Stark cannot stop smiling.
Character: Damon Salvatore (some Damon/Elena in the most generic of terms)
Rating: Gen
A/N: written for the Poetry Meme
His mortal life was about being defined by everyone else. He was Giuseppe's son, Stefan's brother, the Confederate army's deserter, Katherine's plaything; never was he Damon, never was he anything but what other said.
Damon vows he will write his own story now that there is no one to stop him.
His mother used to tell him stories before she died. She couldn't read English, could scarcely speak it, and, for Damon, the best stories will always be those told in Italian. When he leaves Stefan, he goes back to his mother's homeland, to her tiny village where the sun is warm and the people friendly. She still has brothers and sisters there, and they greet him effusively, kissing his cheeks and telling him what his mother was like before Giuseppe took her away to Mystic Falls.
"Dov'è tuo fratello?" his uncle asks him on the third day of his visit, and Damon feels strangely angry at the question. Even thousands of miles from home, people still ask about Stefan.
He leaves without saying goodbye and does not come back to Italy.
He returns to Mystic Falls and finds nothing and everything has changed. Stefan is still stubborn and stupid, and the town still reeks of judgment. This is not his place, as Stefan is so quick to point out. He takes Cassidy's lessons with him, tucks them away in that part of his heart which is souring, poisoned with bitterness and betrayal. Perhaps some day he will look back and recognize this is the turning point, this is what sets him upon the path which will send him hurtling 1,000 miles per hour towards Elena Gilbert in 2009.
But reflection has never been Damon's strong point.
Every place he goes, he becomes a different person. New names, new identities, new lives. He isn't like Stefan, who plays at humanity, but Damon begins to collect experiences with the same ease with which he collects women. He climbs mountains and visits the wonders of the world; he walks on six continents and beds women everywhere he goes. He is the hero in New Zealand when he saves a boy from being struck by a car, and he is the villain in a dozen different countries when he leaves bodies in his wake. Damon is no one and everyone, the character in other people's stories but the protagonist in his own.
Or maybe the antagonist in his own. His opinion changes depending upon the amount of liquor in his system.
He is frustrated by Elena's insistence on not recognizing how far he has come. Damon lives in fear that he will always be the villain of her story while Stefan is the hero, and he does not know how to show her otherwise. There was an old woman he knew in Rio; she told him once that people never really change and, even if you do, no one will ever believe it. People do not like complicated stories, stories which make them question what they believe and if everything they know is a lie. It is then Damon realizes it does not matter what he does or how far he has traveled; Elena has cast him in a role to play, and he must fulfill it.
She wakes up on a slab in the morgue, looks at him with veins around her black eyes, and Damon knows then the story has changed, is being rewritten right before him. They are both new people now, and the story is just beginning.
Title: Yes, I have a thousand tongues and nine and ninety-nine lie
Character: Stefan Salvatore (some Stefan/Elena in vague terms)
Rating: gen
He is not to be trusted. He doesn't know how many times he has to tell someone this before they believe him. There is some sort of irony in it, the way people will believe everything he says except the warnings he gives them about his unpredictability, about his penchant for murdering those he cares for in a bout of bloodlust and self-loathing.
He would chuckle at the dark truth of it if his hands weren't slick with blood.
He keeps the list of names in his Chicago apartment, but there is another list, the one which only exists in his mind, the names of the women who have learned the savagery of his lies on the tips of his fangs. Caitlin, Maura, Margaret, Janet, Lila, Christine, Amber and a dozen others, pretty girls charmed with pretty words who died ugly deaths.
He lives in constant fear Elena's name will be added to that list.
He tells her he is a ripper beyond saving, and she tells him it cannot be true. At her core, Elena is just like all the other girls, the ones who listen without listening, the ones who think love is enough to soothe the savage beast.
He shreds the flesh of her neck like tissue paper, drinks deep of the blood he has wanted to bathe in since the very first taste, and all the while thinks, I told you so.
Title: Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air
Character: Sansa Stark
Rating: gen
They all think she's dead, just another wolf devoured by lions, another girl who mattered until she didn't, a girl stripped of everything she had, everything she was, everything she was meant to be.
Sansa Stark was sacrificed on the altar of a dozen men's ambitions, and Alayne Stone rose from her death, a bastard girl with no holdings, nothing of her own, nothing but the good will of a man who claimed to be her father while fondling her and whispering her mother's name.
Alayne is a patient girl, but, more importantly, she is an observant girl. She is the type of girl men forget is in a room, the sort of girl who can't be expected to understand complicated matters of state or the savagery of war.
Alayne serves a purpose, and that purpose is taking what belongs to Sansa.
Harry Hardyng is a crass man, but he is handsome enough. He has a purpose to serve as well, so Alayne smiles and simpers, flirts and blushes, and when Petyr tells her she did a fine job, Alayne manages not to wrinkle her nose in disgust at the press of his lips against hers.
I am going to kill you first, she decides as the Lord Protector of the Vale discusses how her unveiling will go.
She tells Mya Stone her secret. The bastard girl is quiet for a moment before declaring, "Our fathers were best friends. He'd want me to help you."
Sansa smiles. Petyr Baelish understands many things, but he will never understand loyalty, and it will be his undoing.
The man Mya calls the Blackfish arrives at the Gates of the Moon and fetches Sansa immediately. This man is her great-uncle, and he seems to recognize her even under the drab brown hair. He cups the side of her face and says, "Gods, you look like your mother."
It is nice to hear the sentiment without lust behind it.
It doesn't take much after that. Sweetrobin is as much the Blackfish's blood as she is, and Petyr dies remarkably easily, Brynden Tully's blade opening his soft belly as if he is filleting a fish. There was a time Sansa would have looked away, but she does not flinch as blood and entrails slip from the man's body. He gasps her name, his hand clawing at her skirts, and Sansa bends beside him as whispers fiercely, "I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and you are not my father."
Petyr is the first man she has killed, but he will not be the last.
Mya helps her wash the dye from her hair, returning it to Tully red. She dons the gown which was to be her wedding dress, a frock of white and grey, and she wears the direwolf cloak Harry the Heir will never take from her shoulders, that no man will ever take from her ever again.
Before the Lords of the Vale, she declares, "I am Sansa Stark, the rightful heir of Winterfell and the Queen in the North. You fought beside my father once, and I ask you to do the same for me. The Lannisters and the Tyrells care nothing for the Vale, and they will not appoint any of you Warden of the East. I make you the same promise that was made to the Riverlands: swear fealty to the North, and you will be free of the Iron Throne and its tyranny."
Fear is a good weapon, one the Lannisters have wielded well for generations, but Sansa has no desire to make the men of the Vale fear her; she wants to give them hope, the same hope she harbors in her heart that House Stark will rise again.
Hope is a dangerous weapon, one the Lannisters and the Tyrells will never grasp.
She is bound for Riverrun, ten thousand men of the Vale at her back to take back what is hers by rights, and Sansa Stark cannot stop smiling.