[IoM] A Moth to Flame
Dec. 9th, 2007 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreA Moth to Flame
Author: Amber Michelle
Fandom: Illusion of Memory "canon."
Words: 1831
Other installments: the first part.
Notes: I continue the trend of crappy titles! (Though it does fit, sort of.) How is it that I can be stuck on my fiction final and bang out a not-quite-fanfic that surpasses my word requirement for the real project? Pffffft. Whatever. :P Maybe I won't be stuck anymore, now that I've written this.
.............................................
Raeger was seventeen when she first tasted chocolate, and she hated it - or perhaps it would be more honest to say she loved it, and hated the cost and its suceptibility to the elements. She'd forgotten cool, shady forests and snowy winters. Water in the wastes of East Sahma, when it was not ocean, was grudgingly wet, thick with the taste of minerals, and warm. She crunched sand when she rinsed her mouth, came to understand why every toothy smile that met her in the bazaars of Aragon and Cyrene, and the marketplaces of the Nile, looked decayed and worn down - why their old men gummed dates soaked in water.
The cool, peaceful breezes of the plains around Artolia were forgotten, except in her dreams. Chocolate didn't melt there, except to coat her fingers and slide over her tongue and down her throat. Raeger would smear cocoa butter over her skin at Judas's demand, to keep from shriveling in the heat. They both ended smelling like nutty confections, and then it seemed only natural that they'd melt if they left the safety of their camp for the desert sun.
How long was it? She was a little bit older now, maybe eighteen, or even nineteen. Somehow she was taller, just a little bit, and not as skinny. Her hair was bleached as light as it could go, and her skin burnt to a color somewhere between the peeling varnish of her harpaxe and the smooth brown of almonds.
He said she looked better that way. It was the second nice thing Judas had ever said to her. Something must have gotten into him that day - too much alcohol, or too much blood, which she suspected did the same thing to his senses. The day after she could always tell: his eyes would rest half-closed, and he let his arms hang, like they were too heavy to lift into a proper position, and if he moved at all it was like watching someone wade through water.
Raeger preferred the lucid, energetic Judas with his biting remarks, but the aftermath of his feedings, which left her uncomfortable at first, were now merely old hat, something else to watch when she was tired of studying.
"This's getting kind of boring," she said to him their first night in Cyrene.
He glanced over without moving his head, recrossed his feet on the lip of the table. "If you want entertainment, I suggest the port district. They specialize in all kinds down there."
She rolled her eyes. "Why do you drug them if it leaves you like this? You said you hated it."
Judas lifted a shoulder in a shrug, going back to his contemplation of the oil lamp and its dancing flame. "It's so much trouble when they fight back."
A chill formed at the base of her spine. It traveled up, and up, skittering across her skin. She quashed it and burrowed under the covers, but it never really left. Five days later she felt it, when Judas sold their first artifact and came back to the inn with something new -- for her.
Both the men and the women wore draping robes in Cyrene, which made up for their simple shape with deep, vivid dyes and elaborate beading and embroidery. The women shimmered like jewels in the marketplace during their early morning and dusk visits, resembling a painting on the wall of a royal tomb or the scenes inlaid in precious stone on the sarchophogus of Akhenaten. She watched them every morning and evening, carrying their purchases in baskets strapped to their backs or balanced atop their heads like wicker crowns.
Her new robes were deep red, the layers in shades lighter or darker, and decidedly feminine, in contrast to what she usually wore, which she'd discovered to by boyish at best, if not masculine by her own standards. It took most of that afternoon to figure out how they were supposed to be arranged, with Judas gone again. Not that she would ask for his help, of course - that would be embarassing, and indecent, and he'd be only too happy to laugh at her. And how was she supposed to know better, anyway, when she grew up with petticoats and stays, and heavy brocade dresses instead of this fluttering, insubstantial silk?
It felt so nice on her abused skin that Raeger didn't change again like she'd planned. He came in early, followed by that nosy chambermaid with their dinner tray, and the woman gave her a long, not too friendly look before departing with the laundry.
Judas said something unusual then:
"It suits you."
His glance was fleeting and in a hurry to move away, so he didn't see her cheeks redden. She twisted her hands together, mumbled a thank-you, and stared at her empty plate. It looked lonely.
"I might be gone late tomorrow," he said. "This Mehndi fellow offering to buy the necklace is notorious for his drinking parties." His mouth twisted. "I hope that means I'll get a better price."
She served herself, paying careful attention to each spoonful. The tablecloth stayed so spotless it burned the eye. "Can you even get... drunk?"
He shrugged. "Not to my knowledge."
Well, at least he would never claw the door down in an intoxicated stupor, like the jerk down the way who somehow mistook their room for his own. That was the second night. Judas had the staff up to fix it before she could fully wake, and the man was kicked out. She appreciated the effort, but hadn't slept a wink.
"You know," she said, halfway through her helping of tajine, "I think that maid has it out for us. I hope my clothes come back intact."
"Why would you think that?"
Because you're a slave-driver? she wanted to say. What came out was, "She keeps staring at me. You too, but--" He laughed, deep in his chest. It made her stomach flutter and Raeger frowned, stirring her broth to cool it down. "Okay fine, but if she stabs you in the back with a fork, I'm not going to stitch it up for you this time!"
He kept laughing, and she considered taking a fork to him before the maid could. It would be almost as satisfying as dumping him into the river by Sutekh's temple - though of course that was completely accidental.
"I know why she eyes you, but--"
"I bet," he interrupted, "she didn't know you were a woman."
Raeger's face turned red as her new robe, her mouth half-open to protest before she realized it wasn't necessarily an insult. Her teeth snapped shut.
His mouth stretched into a grin. "Maybe she had her eye on you, not me."
There was nothing polite she could say to that.
He took a seat at his customary place near the window and pulled a journal from his pack. Raeger tried to ignore him and finish her meal. The rest of the evening passed in their usual silence, while he studied and she examined the intricacies of the embroidery on the cuffs of her sleeves and imagined how labor-intensive it must have been to construct this one little luxury. The task seemed monumental in light of her own abysmal skill with a needle.
She went to bed first, curled under the down quilt and facing the wall. Judas liked to open the window at night, and a cool sea breeze ghosted over her face, carrying a sweet scent she couldn't name. It became her field in northern Artolia in the middle of spring, dotted with lilies and wild roses, and sometimes an early cherry bloom blown from the trees lining the drive.
Her sunny day became bleak and heavy with the foreboading of rain in the blink of an eye, and Raeger, still in her new red silk, hurried from the field to the shelter of the old chapel on the edge of their property. It was abandoned, but she and Elise took turns cleaning it out and making offerings. She could smell amber heating on the copper plate by the fire. The air was thick and warm, as the day should have been. Three rows of long pine benches with straight, uncomfortable backs filed toward the front, and she sat down.
And there was Judas, with an offering of his own, though she couldn't identify it. He placed it on the plate with her amber and she heard herself say, "Which one are you praying to?"
"The youngest," he replied, resting the tongs on the altar. "She listens without discrimination."
She looked up at the cross. It was missing something. Broken. Raeger felt its absence like a rib had been removed, was sure she would feel different if she reached down to check. "I always thought you didn't care."
He was looking at her, she realized. Intently. "I care."
"Um." It was unfair, how he left her fumbling even in a dream. She stood up when he approached. "But you have to say so, or they don't know."
His eyes were blue, up close, in the soft glow cast by the stained-glass windows.
"Are they paying attention?"
She took a hasty step back when he didn't stop, her robes suddenly clinging and hampering her steps like they'd been doused in water. Quickly she turned her back to make him disappear. "O-of course."
Judas was always cold to the touch, even under the harsh Egyptian sun. Yet he burned against her back, like the banked fire beneath the offering plate or the lingering warmth of stone after a long, hot day, smelling faintly of chocolate. His breath against her neck was the hot winds gusting through Kethra, and his arm strong as a vice, looped around her waist. She gasped for breath, and his teeth at the nape of her neck sent a shiver skittering over her spine to loosen her knees.
His laugh brushed the shell of her ear. His other hand peeled the silk away from her throat and down, baring her shoulder. "I don't believe you," he said, and bit down, hard.
Raeger screamed, throwing herself to the floor, back in the dark room in Cyrene and suffocating. She gulped the air in, heart pounding like a drum, choking and coughing and clutching at her neck. Her skin stung all over, but she couldn't feel any marks.
"Are you alright?"
She shuddered, the tingle at her nape not entirely disturbing. There was the sound of him sitting up, but he didn't come any closer. "F-fine," she croaked. "Sorry."
"Hm." He sounded almost contemplative, still raspy with sleep. Then he did get up, but by the sound of his steps he gave her a wide berth, and she looked up to see him by the door. "I will order tea." His glance lingered. "Calm yourself."
Raeger nodded jerkily and held her breath until he left. She couldn't stop rubbing the spot over her pulse.
................................................
Notes: I always feel a little weird writing anything remotely erotic with someone else's character. (This is so tame it doesn't deserve that description, but it's the principle of the thing. :P) Because, you know - it's usually the other person writing them. Honestly, though, my version of Raeger seems to be completely different from the real one, so I guess I don't have anything to worry about.
The transition from reality to dream might be a little unclear, now that I look at it. But then, maybe not? I'll have to give it time.
Author: Amber Michelle
Fandom: Illusion of Memory "canon."
Words: 1831
Other installments: the first part.
Notes: I continue the trend of crappy titles! (Though it does fit, sort of.) How is it that I can be stuck on my fiction final and bang out a not-quite-fanfic that surpasses my word requirement for the real project? Pffffft. Whatever. :P Maybe I won't be stuck anymore, now that I've written this.
.............................................
Raeger was seventeen when she first tasted chocolate, and she hated it - or perhaps it would be more honest to say she loved it, and hated the cost and its suceptibility to the elements. She'd forgotten cool, shady forests and snowy winters. Water in the wastes of East Sahma, when it was not ocean, was grudgingly wet, thick with the taste of minerals, and warm. She crunched sand when she rinsed her mouth, came to understand why every toothy smile that met her in the bazaars of Aragon and Cyrene, and the marketplaces of the Nile, looked decayed and worn down - why their old men gummed dates soaked in water.
The cool, peaceful breezes of the plains around Artolia were forgotten, except in her dreams. Chocolate didn't melt there, except to coat her fingers and slide over her tongue and down her throat. Raeger would smear cocoa butter over her skin at Judas's demand, to keep from shriveling in the heat. They both ended smelling like nutty confections, and then it seemed only natural that they'd melt if they left the safety of their camp for the desert sun.
How long was it? She was a little bit older now, maybe eighteen, or even nineteen. Somehow she was taller, just a little bit, and not as skinny. Her hair was bleached as light as it could go, and her skin burnt to a color somewhere between the peeling varnish of her harpaxe and the smooth brown of almonds.
He said she looked better that way. It was the second nice thing Judas had ever said to her. Something must have gotten into him that day - too much alcohol, or too much blood, which she suspected did the same thing to his senses. The day after she could always tell: his eyes would rest half-closed, and he let his arms hang, like they were too heavy to lift into a proper position, and if he moved at all it was like watching someone wade through water.
Raeger preferred the lucid, energetic Judas with his biting remarks, but the aftermath of his feedings, which left her uncomfortable at first, were now merely old hat, something else to watch when she was tired of studying.
"This's getting kind of boring," she said to him their first night in Cyrene.
He glanced over without moving his head, recrossed his feet on the lip of the table. "If you want entertainment, I suggest the port district. They specialize in all kinds down there."
She rolled her eyes. "Why do you drug them if it leaves you like this? You said you hated it."
Judas lifted a shoulder in a shrug, going back to his contemplation of the oil lamp and its dancing flame. "It's so much trouble when they fight back."
A chill formed at the base of her spine. It traveled up, and up, skittering across her skin. She quashed it and burrowed under the covers, but it never really left. Five days later she felt it, when Judas sold their first artifact and came back to the inn with something new -- for her.
Both the men and the women wore draping robes in Cyrene, which made up for their simple shape with deep, vivid dyes and elaborate beading and embroidery. The women shimmered like jewels in the marketplace during their early morning and dusk visits, resembling a painting on the wall of a royal tomb or the scenes inlaid in precious stone on the sarchophogus of Akhenaten. She watched them every morning and evening, carrying their purchases in baskets strapped to their backs or balanced atop their heads like wicker crowns.
Her new robes were deep red, the layers in shades lighter or darker, and decidedly feminine, in contrast to what she usually wore, which she'd discovered to by boyish at best, if not masculine by her own standards. It took most of that afternoon to figure out how they were supposed to be arranged, with Judas gone again. Not that she would ask for his help, of course - that would be embarassing, and indecent, and he'd be only too happy to laugh at her. And how was she supposed to know better, anyway, when she grew up with petticoats and stays, and heavy brocade dresses instead of this fluttering, insubstantial silk?
It felt so nice on her abused skin that Raeger didn't change again like she'd planned. He came in early, followed by that nosy chambermaid with their dinner tray, and the woman gave her a long, not too friendly look before departing with the laundry.
Judas said something unusual then:
"It suits you."
His glance was fleeting and in a hurry to move away, so he didn't see her cheeks redden. She twisted her hands together, mumbled a thank-you, and stared at her empty plate. It looked lonely.
"I might be gone late tomorrow," he said. "This Mehndi fellow offering to buy the necklace is notorious for his drinking parties." His mouth twisted. "I hope that means I'll get a better price."
She served herself, paying careful attention to each spoonful. The tablecloth stayed so spotless it burned the eye. "Can you even get... drunk?"
He shrugged. "Not to my knowledge."
Well, at least he would never claw the door down in an intoxicated stupor, like the jerk down the way who somehow mistook their room for his own. That was the second night. Judas had the staff up to fix it before she could fully wake, and the man was kicked out. She appreciated the effort, but hadn't slept a wink.
"You know," she said, halfway through her helping of tajine, "I think that maid has it out for us. I hope my clothes come back intact."
"Why would you think that?"
Because you're a slave-driver? she wanted to say. What came out was, "She keeps staring at me. You too, but--" He laughed, deep in his chest. It made her stomach flutter and Raeger frowned, stirring her broth to cool it down. "Okay fine, but if she stabs you in the back with a fork, I'm not going to stitch it up for you this time!"
He kept laughing, and she considered taking a fork to him before the maid could. It would be almost as satisfying as dumping him into the river by Sutekh's temple - though of course that was completely accidental.
"I know why she eyes you, but--"
"I bet," he interrupted, "she didn't know you were a woman."
Raeger's face turned red as her new robe, her mouth half-open to protest before she realized it wasn't necessarily an insult. Her teeth snapped shut.
His mouth stretched into a grin. "Maybe she had her eye on you, not me."
There was nothing polite she could say to that.
He took a seat at his customary place near the window and pulled a journal from his pack. Raeger tried to ignore him and finish her meal. The rest of the evening passed in their usual silence, while he studied and she examined the intricacies of the embroidery on the cuffs of her sleeves and imagined how labor-intensive it must have been to construct this one little luxury. The task seemed monumental in light of her own abysmal skill with a needle.
She went to bed first, curled under the down quilt and facing the wall. Judas liked to open the window at night, and a cool sea breeze ghosted over her face, carrying a sweet scent she couldn't name. It became her field in northern Artolia in the middle of spring, dotted with lilies and wild roses, and sometimes an early cherry bloom blown from the trees lining the drive.
Her sunny day became bleak and heavy with the foreboading of rain in the blink of an eye, and Raeger, still in her new red silk, hurried from the field to the shelter of the old chapel on the edge of their property. It was abandoned, but she and Elise took turns cleaning it out and making offerings. She could smell amber heating on the copper plate by the fire. The air was thick and warm, as the day should have been. Three rows of long pine benches with straight, uncomfortable backs filed toward the front, and she sat down.
And there was Judas, with an offering of his own, though she couldn't identify it. He placed it on the plate with her amber and she heard herself say, "Which one are you praying to?"
"The youngest," he replied, resting the tongs on the altar. "She listens without discrimination."
She looked up at the cross. It was missing something. Broken. Raeger felt its absence like a rib had been removed, was sure she would feel different if she reached down to check. "I always thought you didn't care."
He was looking at her, she realized. Intently. "I care."
"Um." It was unfair, how he left her fumbling even in a dream. She stood up when he approached. "But you have to say so, or they don't know."
His eyes were blue, up close, in the soft glow cast by the stained-glass windows.
"Are they paying attention?"
She took a hasty step back when he didn't stop, her robes suddenly clinging and hampering her steps like they'd been doused in water. Quickly she turned her back to make him disappear. "O-of course."
Judas was always cold to the touch, even under the harsh Egyptian sun. Yet he burned against her back, like the banked fire beneath the offering plate or the lingering warmth of stone after a long, hot day, smelling faintly of chocolate. His breath against her neck was the hot winds gusting through Kethra, and his arm strong as a vice, looped around her waist. She gasped for breath, and his teeth at the nape of her neck sent a shiver skittering over her spine to loosen her knees.
His laugh brushed the shell of her ear. His other hand peeled the silk away from her throat and down, baring her shoulder. "I don't believe you," he said, and bit down, hard.
Raeger screamed, throwing herself to the floor, back in the dark room in Cyrene and suffocating. She gulped the air in, heart pounding like a drum, choking and coughing and clutching at her neck. Her skin stung all over, but she couldn't feel any marks.
"Are you alright?"
She shuddered, the tingle at her nape not entirely disturbing. There was the sound of him sitting up, but he didn't come any closer. "F-fine," she croaked. "Sorry."
"Hm." He sounded almost contemplative, still raspy with sleep. Then he did get up, but by the sound of his steps he gave her a wide berth, and she looked up to see him by the door. "I will order tea." His glance lingered. "Calm yourself."
Raeger nodded jerkily and held her breath until he left. She couldn't stop rubbing the spot over her pulse.
................................................
Notes: I always feel a little weird writing anything remotely erotic with someone else's character. (This is so tame it doesn't deserve that description, but it's the principle of the thing. :P) Because, you know - it's usually the other person writing them. Honestly, though, my version of Raeger seems to be completely different from the real one, so I guess I don't have anything to worry about.
The transition from reality to dream might be a little unclear, now that I look at it. But then, maybe not? I'll have to give it time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-12-23 01:35 pm (UTC)Honestly, I think you develop Raeger better than I ever have (WHAT WAS I DOING WITH HER CHARACTER, DEAR GAWD) but I think it's pretty much 'HOW I WOULD HAVE DEVELOPED HER IF I HAD HAD THE BRAINS TO'. Which is all to the good, honestly. ♥ I don't know why I adore these forays into their world as much as I do (aside from the obvious reasons) but. I do. :D Also, it's much more entertaining to see what you come up with for them than to expend effort attempting to plot it out myself? >_> I should write more for them, if only to peek into Raeger's head more.
I'm glad you still write for them. It makes me so happy. I keep thinking that one day I should write a series of drabbles about Raeger trying to run off, only to be foiled by slavedrivers and the like and having to be rescued every time.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-23 11:18 pm (UTC)Well, I'm glad you still like these tidbits, because I'm having a hard time stopping them. :p They're just so easy to write when I'm stuck on one of my other projects - all I have to do is yank out some random Egyptian myth or recipe, and I have something to talk about with these two.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-24 02:20 am (UTC)I PICKED UP ON THAT though whether that's your skill at writing it in or my hyperactive imagination filling in the gaps, I dunno. XD I think there's something oddly cute about Judas (Judas!) being hesitant about anything-- naturally, of course, Raeger is too busy being flummoxed inside her own head to really notice what's going on outside of it... sigh. :P
I'll be Judas was glad for the nightmare because it was a throwback to when she was younger and things were so much easier to deal with, because she wasn't actually remotely girly aside from being squeamish. XD
I'm glad they work as such easy writing for you! And I hope they actually help (in some way), instead of you know. Distracting you more? XD