[Fire Emblem 6] Speak With Your Silence
Jan. 30th, 2011 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreSpeak with Your Silence
Author: Myaru
Prompt: 011 - Woman King
Game: 6: Sword of Seals
Pairing/Characters: Sue
Words: 494
Warnings: assumes a Lyn/Rath pairing.
....................................................................................
After the war Sue helped her grandfather rebuild their ger - mended the walls, the ceiling, hammered pegs into the new frame, tied ropes until her palms burned and blistered. Her mother's curtains were gone; a quilt had survived, worn and dirty and ripped from being folded under her saddle. Silk from a Lycian ballgown edged the four sides, bright red, beautiful, fraying. Ripped, stained. She spent many nights wrapped up in it, across the fire from Dayan, listening to the crickets call and the grass sift and whisper in the wind. Her grandfather snored like a horse. Sometimes she thought it wasn't really him - that the earth breathed through him, grating its rocks together like a river shore.
Every day he instructed Shin, who helped them raise the frame and secure the walls, whose skill with wood and knife made sure they had the finest of screens to separate their rooms. Don't spare your authority, he might say while they stuffed mattresses with grass, all three of them, though Sue rarely spoke. Don't explain yourself when giving an order. Speak with your silence. Shaman Tei said Sue's mother never learned that lesson.. There were days she spoke with her blade, which was better but not quite there - an incident, when she entered the tribe, and instead of welcoming her with respectful silence old Sika spat on the dirt and called her a whore of Lycia.
Dayan laughed when Sue asked him. Whipped her blade right out, he said, and looked like she'd carve her name into Sika's sagging chest. I am a daughter of the Lorca, she shouted, it almost echoed. Daughter of the Lorca, daughter of Hassar, son of Temur. No one ever forgot the sting of that blade.
Mother would have made a fine chief, she said. Her grandfather quieted, looked at the fire. Nodded.
Sue wished she could have been there. Her mother was like the finest of steel blades. Tei later said that was the problem - steel might be strong, but it was also rigid, resistant, stubborn, deaf to its mother the earth. Steel served only one purpose, and did not learn others. Steel could be conquered.
You take after your mother, Tei said.
No, Sue told her, looking at her hands, where Tei's spirit paint gathered in the lines of her palms. Or maybe yes. A scar cut across her left hand, always red. Failure. Her grandfather resisted Bern, the Djute, without faltering. Sue had wanted to prove herself like him rather than do the woman's job and lead the weak away - a chief would never run from a battle, never. But a chief, her grandfather said, did not run from failure either. He looked it in the eye.
That bloody scene was branded into her eyelids. Sue still didn't know how to stop running.
....................................................................................
I don't think Sue would mope about this forever, but I also think her supports with Dayan were too easy, and it's possible that without the high tension of the war going on, her regrets might find a chance to loop in on themselves again during the rebuilding.
That said, I am not satisfied. Five hundred words isn't a whole lot of room for a dip and an uplifting moment, though.
Author: Myaru
Prompt: 011 - Woman King
Game: 6: Sword of Seals
Pairing/Characters: Sue
Words: 494
Warnings: assumes a Lyn/Rath pairing.
....................................................................................
After the war Sue helped her grandfather rebuild their ger - mended the walls, the ceiling, hammered pegs into the new frame, tied ropes until her palms burned and blistered. Her mother's curtains were gone; a quilt had survived, worn and dirty and ripped from being folded under her saddle. Silk from a Lycian ballgown edged the four sides, bright red, beautiful, fraying. Ripped, stained. She spent many nights wrapped up in it, across the fire from Dayan, listening to the crickets call and the grass sift and whisper in the wind. Her grandfather snored like a horse. Sometimes she thought it wasn't really him - that the earth breathed through him, grating its rocks together like a river shore.
Every day he instructed Shin, who helped them raise the frame and secure the walls, whose skill with wood and knife made sure they had the finest of screens to separate their rooms. Don't spare your authority, he might say while they stuffed mattresses with grass, all three of them, though Sue rarely spoke. Don't explain yourself when giving an order. Speak with your silence. Shaman Tei said Sue's mother never learned that lesson.. There were days she spoke with her blade, which was better but not quite there - an incident, when she entered the tribe, and instead of welcoming her with respectful silence old Sika spat on the dirt and called her a whore of Lycia.
Dayan laughed when Sue asked him. Whipped her blade right out, he said, and looked like she'd carve her name into Sika's sagging chest. I am a daughter of the Lorca, she shouted, it almost echoed. Daughter of the Lorca, daughter of Hassar, son of Temur. No one ever forgot the sting of that blade.
Mother would have made a fine chief, she said. Her grandfather quieted, looked at the fire. Nodded.
Sue wished she could have been there. Her mother was like the finest of steel blades. Tei later said that was the problem - steel might be strong, but it was also rigid, resistant, stubborn, deaf to its mother the earth. Steel served only one purpose, and did not learn others. Steel could be conquered.
You take after your mother, Tei said.
No, Sue told her, looking at her hands, where Tei's spirit paint gathered in the lines of her palms. Or maybe yes. A scar cut across her left hand, always red. Failure. Her grandfather resisted Bern, the Djute, without faltering. Sue had wanted to prove herself like him rather than do the woman's job and lead the weak away - a chief would never run from a battle, never. But a chief, her grandfather said, did not run from failure either. He looked it in the eye.
That bloody scene was branded into her eyelids. Sue still didn't know how to stop running.
....................................................................................
I don't think Sue would mope about this forever, but I also think her supports with Dayan were too easy, and it's possible that without the high tension of the war going on, her regrets might find a chance to loop in on themselves again during the rebuilding.
That said, I am not satisfied. Five hundred words isn't a whole lot of room for a dip and an uplifting moment, though.