[Suikoden III] Stretching the Truth
Mar. 14th, 2010 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreTitle: Stretching the Truth
Author: Myaru
Rating: K
Warnings: n/a, unless you count very free interpretation...
Word count: 1433
Prompt: Suikoden III, Luc/Sarah, learning magic: "Do as I say, not do as I do."
Summary: n/a
A/N: I did not have time to edit this. Yay for working at the last minute!
My streak of bad titles continues.
.........................................................
Whispers borne by the wind tickled Sarah's ears, hissing in time with the throb of the Cyclone rune on her right hand. A gust of air swept her bangs from her face like a hand. Dead grass rattled, louder and louder, the sun got hotter on her shoulders, glaring down onto the crown of her head, and the wind didn't stop at all-- she found the currents, the nodes elemental energy, and felt them curl in more tightly on themselves when she tried to unravel them with the rune. She let out a sharp breath and released her focus. Daylight lanced her eyes when she opened them, hazy, tinted blue, and all she could see was yellow and green grass waving all the way to the horizon.
Luc was a blot of shadow in her peripheral vision, sitting to her right with his legs crossed. His coat spread across the grass in front of him, and his brass mask sat on top to stare up at the clear blue sky, every angle glinting. "You were able to see where it was moving, correct?" She nodded, and he looked up, rubbing the back of his right hand. "Don't try to change it. I don't think Cyclone is up to that task."
The plain lay quiet around them, the wind calm now that Sarah let it flow where it would, breathing softly upon the sweaty back of her neck, or the dry, sunburned arch of her nose. She looked down at the rune marks on her hands: the interlocking crescents of Cyclone, the jewel-shaped blocks of Mother Earth, that tingled in response to the wind and washed her hand with phantom coolness. "Then--" Her fingers curled. "How am I supposed to silence it? If they follow the wind--"
"Push it." His voice wasn't sharp, didn't sound annoyed-- but it made Sarah want to look away. Luc sighed, and his shadow, pooling under his knees, raised a distorted hand. The green shimmer of his rune caught her eye.
Hot air pushed at the back of her head and blew the blunt ends of her hair into her face, picking up at his call. It brought the smell of dust and the grit of sand between her teeth, caught at the layers of her dress and pulled the hem of her skirt from the anchor of her legs so it flapped like a dirty, fallen banner while the grass scrabbled and the longest stalks slapped her back, her arms, their seeds scattered across the field. The westerly current shifted, and Sarah felt his push - like a sweep of the hand, or a broom, that didn't cut the wind off, but nudged it sideways a centimeter, then another centimeter, then an inch, and the howl of its voices tripped over each other to skip in that new direction, leaving a sliver of quiet on the southward bank of air.
The wind wouldn't obey her that readily; what he was doing now might take Sarah an hour to replicate. Maybe longer. She didn't know, as she hadn't succeeded yet.
Luc let it go, allowed the wind to calm and resume its normal course. For a fraction of a second Sarah felt how far his influence stretched, and where he'd started guiding the air. "Mastering this will take time, Master Luc," she said softly. Her most optimistic estimate for perfecting the manipulation of weather patterns without a true rune, even on a small scale, would have him frowning more deeply than usual. "Perhaps we should rely on the library's records, instead."
"That'll take even longer." He picked at his thumbnail, his lips a thin line. The gleam of the sun on his hair made it look almost gold. "A month-- is that enough?"
Sarah watched him in her peripheral vision, tried to appear as if her gaze was on the sky. "We would have to leave the search to Yuber. I can't travel and practice at the same time--"
"Too long. We need to find that ruin now." Luc leaned forward and reached for his mask. "The army is already massing behind Caleria. We just don't have that much time."
The endless blue was getting on Sarah's nerves. Not so much as a cloud had marred the skies above Grassland or Zexen since she arrived. Dead grass rattled before wind that swept around her, cooled the back of her neck, in gusts timed to her heartbeat. The air really breathed here, and the earth truly sang, because there were people who still remembered how to listen to it; her claim that she couldn't hear the Sindarin ruins wasn't quite a lie - a stretching of the truth, maybe, as she still felt their vibrations if she stood close enough, long enough. It wasn't a lie that she had trouble evading Karayan hunters and the Lizard migration. It wasn't a lie that she fainted from the heat and found herself at the mercy of an Iksay townsman's wife who expected Sarah to believe she was only trying to help.
It wasn't a lie that she didn't know where the temple Luc had chosen for his rite was hidden. She could guess based on the pattern of the obelisks near that town, the one she couldn't remember a name for to save her life, but he didn't need to know that.
He didn't need to know that the resident lord of Budehuc was a cute little boy who had been kinder to Sarah than any aristocrat she'd met; nor did she need to tell him that she found a broken pair of tablets, overrun with ivy, wiped nearly smooth by years of wind and sand, that were etched with stars, names - that one of them matched the epithet of the Flame Champion and one might reasonably guess that the three true rune bearers they were hunting might be on that list.
Might be. Perhaps it was just a fancy of hers. She'd never seen Leknaat's tablets, after all.
"I'll go with you."
Ice crept town Sarah's throat, all the way to the pit of her stomach. "But you said-- Crystal Valley--"
He was turning the mask over in his hands, rubbing the chin plate with his thumb until the shine was dull. "The letter said I should return at my convenience. Between the two of us, we can cover this area in a week - don't you think?"
Sarah tried to relax her hands and let them lay in her lap naturally. The wind died, leaving the back of her neck to burn in the sun. She could have taken off all but her under-layers and still felt hot, dry, and red. Her face muscles pulled, but she kept them stiff and still, hoping her thoughts weren't as obvious as Albert liked her to think. "Possibly..."
"Only possibly?"
She looked at him, her heart beating hard in her throat, but Luc stared down at his mask, and the fringe of his pale brown hair hid the direction of his gaze. "Of course..." Her eyebrows knitted without her permission. His head lifted slightly, and she met his green eyes, saw the dark turn of his lips downward. "If you're here to quiet the ambient magic, my task will be much easier, Master Luc." Her arms trembled, felt weak. It would be so easy, in fact, that he might start to wonder why she was delayed at all.
Maybe he already suspected. Albert had the nerve to ask bluntly why her efficiency had decreased since entering the target area. Why wouldn't he notify Luc of his suspicions?
The hard line of his brows softened, relaxed. He smudged his fingers over the mask again. Sarah looked down at her hands again. Whether he believed her or not didn't matter; for most of her life, she could count the number of lies she'd told him on one hand, and now they gathered in triplicate, or even worse, piling up one upon another to bury her. Lies to Luc-- lies to herself. She wondered if Albert was right, that she was becoming more like her teacher by defying him, rather than doing as she was told.
"I hate this thing," he said.
Sarah grabbed big fistfuls of her heavy skirt and squeezed until her knuckles were white. "I do too."
.
Author: Myaru
Rating: K
Warnings: n/a, unless you count very free interpretation...
Word count: 1433
Prompt: Suikoden III, Luc/Sarah, learning magic: "Do as I say, not do as I do."
Summary: n/a
A/N: I did not have time to edit this. Yay for working at the last minute!
My streak of bad titles continues.
.........................................................
Whispers borne by the wind tickled Sarah's ears, hissing in time with the throb of the Cyclone rune on her right hand. A gust of air swept her bangs from her face like a hand. Dead grass rattled, louder and louder, the sun got hotter on her shoulders, glaring down onto the crown of her head, and the wind didn't stop at all-- she found the currents, the nodes elemental energy, and felt them curl in more tightly on themselves when she tried to unravel them with the rune. She let out a sharp breath and released her focus. Daylight lanced her eyes when she opened them, hazy, tinted blue, and all she could see was yellow and green grass waving all the way to the horizon.
Luc was a blot of shadow in her peripheral vision, sitting to her right with his legs crossed. His coat spread across the grass in front of him, and his brass mask sat on top to stare up at the clear blue sky, every angle glinting. "You were able to see where it was moving, correct?" She nodded, and he looked up, rubbing the back of his right hand. "Don't try to change it. I don't think Cyclone is up to that task."
The plain lay quiet around them, the wind calm now that Sarah let it flow where it would, breathing softly upon the sweaty back of her neck, or the dry, sunburned arch of her nose. She looked down at the rune marks on her hands: the interlocking crescents of Cyclone, the jewel-shaped blocks of Mother Earth, that tingled in response to the wind and washed her hand with phantom coolness. "Then--" Her fingers curled. "How am I supposed to silence it? If they follow the wind--"
"Push it." His voice wasn't sharp, didn't sound annoyed-- but it made Sarah want to look away. Luc sighed, and his shadow, pooling under his knees, raised a distorted hand. The green shimmer of his rune caught her eye.
Hot air pushed at the back of her head and blew the blunt ends of her hair into her face, picking up at his call. It brought the smell of dust and the grit of sand between her teeth, caught at the layers of her dress and pulled the hem of her skirt from the anchor of her legs so it flapped like a dirty, fallen banner while the grass scrabbled and the longest stalks slapped her back, her arms, their seeds scattered across the field. The westerly current shifted, and Sarah felt his push - like a sweep of the hand, or a broom, that didn't cut the wind off, but nudged it sideways a centimeter, then another centimeter, then an inch, and the howl of its voices tripped over each other to skip in that new direction, leaving a sliver of quiet on the southward bank of air.
The wind wouldn't obey her that readily; what he was doing now might take Sarah an hour to replicate. Maybe longer. She didn't know, as she hadn't succeeded yet.
Luc let it go, allowed the wind to calm and resume its normal course. For a fraction of a second Sarah felt how far his influence stretched, and where he'd started guiding the air. "Mastering this will take time, Master Luc," she said softly. Her most optimistic estimate for perfecting the manipulation of weather patterns without a true rune, even on a small scale, would have him frowning more deeply than usual. "Perhaps we should rely on the library's records, instead."
"That'll take even longer." He picked at his thumbnail, his lips a thin line. The gleam of the sun on his hair made it look almost gold. "A month-- is that enough?"
Sarah watched him in her peripheral vision, tried to appear as if her gaze was on the sky. "We would have to leave the search to Yuber. I can't travel and practice at the same time--"
"Too long. We need to find that ruin now." Luc leaned forward and reached for his mask. "The army is already massing behind Caleria. We just don't have that much time."
The endless blue was getting on Sarah's nerves. Not so much as a cloud had marred the skies above Grassland or Zexen since she arrived. Dead grass rattled before wind that swept around her, cooled the back of her neck, in gusts timed to her heartbeat. The air really breathed here, and the earth truly sang, because there were people who still remembered how to listen to it; her claim that she couldn't hear the Sindarin ruins wasn't quite a lie - a stretching of the truth, maybe, as she still felt their vibrations if she stood close enough, long enough. It wasn't a lie that she had trouble evading Karayan hunters and the Lizard migration. It wasn't a lie that she fainted from the heat and found herself at the mercy of an Iksay townsman's wife who expected Sarah to believe she was only trying to help.
It wasn't a lie that she didn't know where the temple Luc had chosen for his rite was hidden. She could guess based on the pattern of the obelisks near that town, the one she couldn't remember a name for to save her life, but he didn't need to know that.
He didn't need to know that the resident lord of Budehuc was a cute little boy who had been kinder to Sarah than any aristocrat she'd met; nor did she need to tell him that she found a broken pair of tablets, overrun with ivy, wiped nearly smooth by years of wind and sand, that were etched with stars, names - that one of them matched the epithet of the Flame Champion and one might reasonably guess that the three true rune bearers they were hunting might be on that list.
Might be. Perhaps it was just a fancy of hers. She'd never seen Leknaat's tablets, after all.
"I'll go with you."
Ice crept town Sarah's throat, all the way to the pit of her stomach. "But you said-- Crystal Valley--"
He was turning the mask over in his hands, rubbing the chin plate with his thumb until the shine was dull. "The letter said I should return at my convenience. Between the two of us, we can cover this area in a week - don't you think?"
Sarah tried to relax her hands and let them lay in her lap naturally. The wind died, leaving the back of her neck to burn in the sun. She could have taken off all but her under-layers and still felt hot, dry, and red. Her face muscles pulled, but she kept them stiff and still, hoping her thoughts weren't as obvious as Albert liked her to think. "Possibly..."
"Only possibly?"
She looked at him, her heart beating hard in her throat, but Luc stared down at his mask, and the fringe of his pale brown hair hid the direction of his gaze. "Of course..." Her eyebrows knitted without her permission. His head lifted slightly, and she met his green eyes, saw the dark turn of his lips downward. "If you're here to quiet the ambient magic, my task will be much easier, Master Luc." Her arms trembled, felt weak. It would be so easy, in fact, that he might start to wonder why she was delayed at all.
Maybe he already suspected. Albert had the nerve to ask bluntly why her efficiency had decreased since entering the target area. Why wouldn't he notify Luc of his suspicions?
The hard line of his brows softened, relaxed. He smudged his fingers over the mask again. Sarah looked down at her hands again. Whether he believed her or not didn't matter; for most of her life, she could count the number of lies she'd told him on one hand, and now they gathered in triplicate, or even worse, piling up one upon another to bury her. Lies to Luc-- lies to herself. She wondered if Albert was right, that she was becoming more like her teacher by defying him, rather than doing as she was told.
"I hate this thing," he said.
Sarah grabbed big fistfuls of her heavy skirt and squeezed until her knuckles were white. "I do too."
.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
My prompt
Date: 2010-03-18 03:15 pm (UTC)Your writing was detailed as usual,and I especially like how you describe the elements, and how learning magic isn't as slapping a rune crystal on your body. Sarah and Luc's conversation were too short for my liking, but overall it's a very nice fic.
Thanks for writing!
Re: My prompt
Date: 2010-03-18 09:37 pm (UTC)I'm sorry the conversation ended up so short. My intentions were a little different, but it didn't turn out that way, and recent family issues had me kind of rushed. Hopefully I can come back to this later and make it better.
Thank you for commenting. <3