Two LG Stories
Title: Sometimes You Are the Villain (Eternity is Burning)
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour
Flavors: Rhubarb 8: time is money, Blackberry 4: the perfect crime, Mango 29: breaking the rules
Extra/Topping: Chopped Nuts, Caramel (Narrating Cyg is 1000-and-some years older than canon!Cyg), Cherry (poetical bookending)
Rating: PG
Summary: And sometimes you're too sick of monochrome morality to really care. Righteousness is not an immutable virtue, and you don't have to be a mortal man to make a deal with the devil.
"I am no immortal being; I am
a dead thing myself, my grave with them.
I am buried and gone, sir.
Largessa is gone, but still she laughs;
in my pain she sings hallelujahs,
but gone she will stay, sir, one way or another."
"A day with your loved ones for my last tomorrow,"
repeated the bugbear, and swift and fleetingly
was the Emissary swayed - an instant,
and an instant too long.
The Emissary of Ibis stares at Valentio, sleeping with the boy he has brief, impressionistic memories of having been, and doesn't know what he's seeing. All Cygnelius knows it that it's the most important thing in the universe right now, and soon it will be the only thing.
Somewhere in time, his birth was being erased by a cackling bugbear, and the universe was collapsing under the weight of the ancient, brand new success of the Laughing Ripper. The bugbear had likely not planned for this when he claimed the timelines wouldn't be messed with - which had been such an egregious lie Cyg had to concentrate all his energy on suppressing the urge to roll his eyes hard enough to blind himself. Good, he thought.
His younger self twitches in his sleep, his face bemused and annoyed and a bit sad, and Valentio curls more of himself around the boy while the Emissary realizes that he can't wake Valentio, or even speak to him, whether he is here or alone with him several years into the future (what remains of it). It wasn't just time that divided them. None of that matters right now, not the quiet unfurling of the universe, not the chasm between them. What's important is here, though Cygnelius can't find a name for it. Everything falls flat and is too strong a word, but in a few more minutes there will be no words at all.
Young Cyg whines like a wounded dog, and begins to wake up. Valentio becomes vaguely aware of a massive hangover.
It's really the perfect crime, Cygnelius thinks. No jury in the universe will convict him.
(There were never any juries in the universe, no judges or criminals. There is only the executioner and the unmarked graveyard of the condemned, stretching across farther than even the distance knows.)
It was a sunless morning sky that
in dreams, Cyg, with burning eyes, soared through;
in dreams, the past brightened the heavens,
with candle flame stars and sparks of joy
returned from centuries half-remembered.
Dogs shaped like men barked from far below
and something unseen crept at Cyg's back
before, falling awake, he recalled:
he was no swallow to own the sky.
Title: Imaginary Predator
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour
Flavors: Gingerbread 13: big bad wolf, Rhubarb 17: you are what you eat, Blackberry 21: a stone's throw
Extra/Topping: Whipped Cream (Holly is nine), Pocky
Rating: PG
Word count: 100
Summary: Holly begins hearing the voice of a strange woman soon after being Marked by Largessa. Holly is still quite sane; the lady in her brain, on the other hand...
Note: FINALLY through with Rhubarb.
Holly was nine when Arnadia caught her staring speculatively at a rabbit, stone in her fist.
"What are you doing, sweetie?" Arnadia said. Holly glanced up at her, and then back.
"Resisting changing into her," said Holly, grim-faced.
"Who? The rabbit?" Arnadia said. Holly frowned slowly, uncertainly. "No. Yes. I don't want to be a wolf. I'm not - not her. But I don't want to run forever."
Carefully, Arnadia asked, "Who says you have to?"
"She became a big bad wolf to hide from another," Holly said. "I can't hide, so I'll run until I'm dinner. She says she'll kill me."
"Who?"
"Helene," Holly murmured.
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour
Flavors: Rhubarb 8: time is money, Blackberry 4: the perfect crime, Mango 29: breaking the rules
Extra/Topping: Chopped Nuts, Caramel (Narrating Cyg is 1000-and-some years older than canon!Cyg), Cherry (poetical bookending)
Rating: PG
Summary: And sometimes you're too sick of monochrome morality to really care. Righteousness is not an immutable virtue, and you don't have to be a mortal man to make a deal with the devil.
"I am no immortal being; I am
a dead thing myself, my grave with them.
I am buried and gone, sir.
Largessa is gone, but still she laughs;
in my pain she sings hallelujahs,
but gone she will stay, sir, one way or another."
"A day with your loved ones for my last tomorrow,"
repeated the bugbear, and swift and fleetingly
was the Emissary swayed - an instant,
and an instant too long.
The Emissary of Ibis stares at Valentio, sleeping with the boy he has brief, impressionistic memories of having been, and doesn't know what he's seeing. All Cygnelius knows it that it's the most important thing in the universe right now, and soon it will be the only thing.
Somewhere in time, his birth was being erased by a cackling bugbear, and the universe was collapsing under the weight of the ancient, brand new success of the Laughing Ripper. The bugbear had likely not planned for this when he claimed the timelines wouldn't be messed with - which had been such an egregious lie Cyg had to concentrate all his energy on suppressing the urge to roll his eyes hard enough to blind himself. Good, he thought.
His younger self twitches in his sleep, his face bemused and annoyed and a bit sad, and Valentio curls more of himself around the boy while the Emissary realizes that he can't wake Valentio, or even speak to him, whether he is here or alone with him several years into the future (what remains of it). It wasn't just time that divided them. None of that matters right now, not the quiet unfurling of the universe, not the chasm between them. What's important is here, though Cygnelius can't find a name for it. Everything falls flat and is too strong a word, but in a few more minutes there will be no words at all.
Young Cyg whines like a wounded dog, and begins to wake up. Valentio becomes vaguely aware of a massive hangover.
It's really the perfect crime, Cygnelius thinks. No jury in the universe will convict him.
(There were never any juries in the universe, no judges or criminals. There is only the executioner and the unmarked graveyard of the condemned, stretching across farther than even the distance knows.)
It was a sunless morning sky that
in dreams, Cyg, with burning eyes, soared through;
in dreams, the past brightened the heavens,
with candle flame stars and sparks of joy
returned from centuries half-remembered.
Dogs shaped like men barked from far below
and something unseen crept at Cyg's back
before, falling awake, he recalled:
he was no swallow to own the sky.
Title: Imaginary Predator
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour
Flavors: Gingerbread 13: big bad wolf, Rhubarb 17: you are what you eat, Blackberry 21: a stone's throw
Extra/Topping: Whipped Cream (Holly is nine), Pocky
Rating: PG
Word count: 100
Summary: Holly begins hearing the voice of a strange woman soon after being Marked by Largessa. Holly is still quite sane; the lady in her brain, on the other hand...
Note: FINALLY through with Rhubarb.
Holly was nine when Arnadia caught her staring speculatively at a rabbit, stone in her fist.
"What are you doing, sweetie?" Arnadia said. Holly glanced up at her, and then back.
"Resisting changing into her," said Holly, grim-faced.
"Who? The rabbit?" Arnadia said. Holly frowned slowly, uncertainly. "No. Yes. I don't want to be a wolf. I'm not - not her. But I don't want to run forever."
Carefully, Arnadia asked, "Who says you have to?"
"She became a big bad wolf to hide from another," Holly said. "I can't hide, so I'll run until I'm dinner. She says she'll kill me."
"Who?"
"Helene," Holly murmured.