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runicloreCage the Songbird
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: August 17 - Stop whispering, start shouting
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Rafiel/Nailah
Rating: K
Warnings: n/a
Words: 2717
Notes: This started as a response for the 14th, but as it evolved the 17th seemed more suitable. This draft isn't as different as I originally planned; the first scene has been trimmed down and the dialogue clarified and rewritten in some places. Minor changes were made to the second scene to direct it more toward the topic at hand, ditto for the third.
Once I had time to stop hating it, the editing got much easier. It'll probably never be one of my favorites, though.
.............................................
Rafiel spent his evenings on the roof of Nailah's keep, where the view of the sunset over the forested skyline might have moved him to sing if the thought hadn't felt blasphemous. Gold slashed the sky near the horizon line, bleeding to red, to violet, reminding him of fires in the night. The memory packed his mouth with ash. Sometimes it was a miracle he could even speak.
He heard the clink of Nailah's jewelry and the swish of her skirt when she ascended the stairs, and the rustle of the linen trailing over the brick floor when she padded to his side. Her footsteps were silent. "I'm sorry about earlier," she said, teasing the tip of his ear with her finger. "We might have a real problem on our hands with those birds, though."
Rafiel looked back and tilted his head so she would push her fingers into his hair instead and tapped the spot beside him on the floor. "It looks like there's so much room here. I don't understand why territory is such a problem."
Nailah swept his hand up in her own and sat down. "The land sinks below sea level to the east, and it's all swamp. There's another desert beyond that so it's not worth crossing. We looked for springs, but it's uninhabitable."
He let her spread his hand over her knee and watched her markings shift with her muscles like shadows. The sky dimmed to copper and blue as the moments passed. "Are you going to leave again?"
She smiled, and her hair glinted copper and gold at the edges. "Not yet."
Her hands were soft and warm. Rafiel laid his head on her shoulder, let his hair slide over his shoulders to veil the sunset from his gaze, and folded his wings close to his back. "I'm tired of wars," he said.
"This one won't touch you, even if the whole peninsula explodes," Nailah said, tugging gently on his hair. He shook his head and she sighed. "Hatari is safe."
He wasn't worried about himself or Hatari. What would he do without Nailah? He couldn't protect her. She would slap him if she knew the thought had occurred to him at all, and it did often. His teeth weren't made for rending the flesh of his enemies, or hers. He didn't have claws, and illness robbed him of flight and the agility it allowed him. He adjusted to his disability over time as all creatures did, but there were days he remembered what it was to fly above the clouds, and Rafiel couldn't help thinking he'd be more useful if he still could. At the very least he wouldn't be a liability, and she would allow him to accompany her to battle. There were trees everywhere, places to perch and hide, though it hadn't helped him when he was netted outside the forest, like an animal--
"Stop it."
Rafiel frowned at her lap. "But--"
"If you keep this up I'm going to think you have no faith in me."
"That's not true." He lifted his head and tried to glare. She only raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a songbird. Why should I sit here and wait, and do nothing, while you risk your life for me again and again?"
"I've never heard you sing." Nailah stilled his reply with a finger on his lips and leaned over to peck him on the cheek. Her breath stirred his hair. "I won't keep you waiting long. It's a different place, but the same routine."
His lips thinned, and he lifted his hand to her eyepatch, tracing the embroidery with his nails. Her gaze flicked away, hidden beneath silver lashes. "The hawk king," he said, turning his hand and sliding his fingers into her hair, "is undeniably the strongest among our combined tribes on Tellius. His physical presence alone is intimidating, even when he is not asserting his dominance." Rafiel sifted his fingers loose and traced the contour of her arm, his favorite mark. "He almost lost his head fighting a strong warrior to the north, and he is the most focused man I've ever known."
Nailah looked at him. "He was careless."
Rafiel drew his hand back. "Even so."
"These birds have no honor. They would attack you in an instant."
He bowed his head. The night was dark, the moon yet to rise. Torches were being lit below them in the courtyard, bright as the sunset to eyes accustomed to starlight.
"What would I do," Nailah asked softly, "if one of them got past me?"
Rafiel closed his eyes and unfolded his wings. His own answer to that question was grim enough; he didn't want to hear hers.
.
On mornings when clouds covered the sky and Nailah was inside holding audience and overseeing legal cases, Rafiel would leave the keep and follow a path that meandered south, past the garden wall, to a small township. They'd stopped greeting him with bows and kneeling months ago, but the children still paused their games to watch him when he arrived, and the vendors at the small marketplace offered him choice bits of fruit and candy when he passed by.
There was no purpose to his visits, aside from a desire to sit and watch the villagers. Many were beorc, most were wolves so close to the keep, but there were also Parentless, and they were the individuals Rafiel most wanted to watch. He'd never met one of their kind that did not meet the world with bitterness and anger, with souls twisted and unbalanced by the stigma imposed upon them. He always thought it could be changed if his brothers would embrace the children instead of driving them away, but one might as well wish to bring down the moon or shift the plates of the continent; if he'd never come to Hatari, he wouldn't have seen it happen.
What went wrong in Begnion? When did laguz slip and fall under the boot of their beorc overlords? When did it become acceptable to shackle and collar a tiger, simply because he wore his ears differently, or a raven because he had wings? His father told him there was a time beorc were ruled by laguz long ago, before the flood, when Rafiel's grandfather led their clan. He couldn't imagine such a world, and he wasn't born very long after the waters receded.
Nailah found him sitting on the steps of a ruined temple that afternoon with half of a pomegranate in his hand, and his lips and fingertips stained red. He offered her the other half, and she sat a step below him so he wouldn't have to move his wings.
"It was boring," she said when he asked after the meeting. "And there will definitely be a battle eastward if the birds don't stop raiding our stores. The beorc will need that grain for the cold season. They start dying if they can't maintain the right diet."
How unfortunate, Rafiel murmured, watching an old man prune his garden. He was one of three Parentless descended from some kind of bird, and his fingers were long like spindles and curled inward. He cut a yellow rose from its stalk, and then a pink one. His skin looked papery and dry, creased like leather, and it might be cold. The duke's hands were always cool and just a little bit unreal, like a puppet's hands. Like wood and plaster. He wanted to think Hetzel was equally unfeeling.
Don't die-- please don't die. I'll take you home. You can see your family again--
Liar.
"You know him?"
Rafiel blinked, the old one coming into focus again, and looked away. "No, not really." He ate another seed, licking juice from his fingers. "I carried a basket of herbs for him once, but he didn't say much."
Nailah kept her voice soft. "He has a sad story. You looked so wistful, I thought..."
Yes, he'd sensed that when he first encountered the man - his parents warred and destroyed each other before his eyes - but it was impolite to read someone's heart and speak of it aloud. "Why don't we go back," he said, looking at the sky. The heat beaded at his hairline, the sun intense even when hidden by clouds. "I think it might rain."
It didn't. The weather waited until they were home and sharing a meal in her room, seated on the ledge of her window to watch the trees sway under the onslaught. Nailah ate meat out of his sight to spare him the scent of blood, but she always came to share the dishes her servants created for him. That day it was thin slices of plantain and purple ube coated with a crispy batter that melted on his tongue. Then there was a cake flavored with tart lemon gel, and sweet mango wine.
"Are you going to serve me up for a holiday feast?" he asked, when the cake was gone and they were alone.
"Maybe later." Nailah said with a quirk to her lip. "You need meat on your bones, or they'll poke through your skin."
"I used to eat--" Rafiel paused, looking down at his glass. His fingers looked thin even to him; they were white like bone, and his knuckles were more pronounced than he remembered. He'd treated with beast laguz before and never felt as if he'd break. "I was more robust at home, but after I was captured my appetite failed, and..."
Nailah reached for his hand. "You don't have to apologize." Her skin was bronze against his pale color, vibrant, alive, and strong when she wove their fingers together and stroked his palm. "Be silent if you want to."
"But I couldn't speak when I was in his house. It was silent all the time." When he went home, the forest was dead. The desert was desolate, sifting sand and the voiceless echo of wind. His fingers curled over her hand and tightened. "I told him my name. He would ask me questions but I-- it was as if--"
"Did he hurt you?" Her eyebrows had drawn down, and her smile was gone. "If he did--"
"No." Rafiel tugged his hand back, but she wouldn't let go, and he curled his wings so tightly they curved against his shoulders. "He tried so hard not to. I'd already stopped eating by the time he purchased me. It wasn't his fault."
Nailah glanced out the window. The rain had let up, fading to mist, and the trees were still again and dripping and falling. He set his glass on the floor with a shaking hand. The tiles blurred, and when she said softly they'll pay in blood for what they did to you he couldn't find the words to deny her. Herons were not supposed to nurture ill will, but he thought sometimes maybe they should die, and they killed Leanne, they killed my family, they killed my children, and the desire to see beorc blood soak the forest loam didn't make him sick as he'd always thought it would.
"Tell me what happened."
Even he didn't know why he got sick. He'd accepted water and juice from his captors once he was sure they would stop trying to drug him, but the sight of food made him ill, and it wasn't the poison they'd poured down his throat the first time. The slavers were very careful about his physical condition. The duke's healer told him fear had tipped his internal balance and he must rise above it, or perish in chaos.
He hadn't believed the man at the time, but Hetzel tried so hard to ease his heart. Live. You cannot return to your family if you are dead. Live. Let me set you free. I was wrong to ever think I could cage you.
Live. Live, live live--
Rafiel blinked his tears back and told her.
.
.
"Let me go with you."
Nailah paused, her hands on the last clasp of his coat. "Are you delusional?" Her green eye was wide, only inches away. "You can't fight."
Rafiel grabbed her hand. "I'm not useless. I can help if you'll let me."
"I've never thought you useless." She drew back to watch him, clasping his hand when he let up enough that she could move it. "But Rafiel, you aren't made to withstand a battle. You can barely stomach a challenge."
He turned his face away. "I'll learn."
She looked at their hands, squeezed, and then released him to fight with his clasp. It finally clipped together, and she smoothed the front of his coat down. "We'll talk about this later," she said, waiting until he looked at her, and then excused herself to finish getting dressed. Rafiel watched her robe trail over the blue tile until it disappeared into the next room.
Early morning light spread in from the window, pale and gray. He went to sit on the ledge again and pushed the panels open, twisting so he sat on his legs and his wings had room to stretch behind. Birds chirped, hidden by the wall of trees. Water dripped from the eaves and the air was still and heavy.
He couldn't blame her for not understanding. To Nailah, he was a legend come to life - but a poor one, a broken one that couldn't fly or revive deserts or capture the ear of the goddess. He remembered her surprise when she learned Ashera was sleeping instead of roaming the world; Hatari thought it was forsaken, and the queen had risked her position to enter the desert and search for places to support her clan.
Nailah had a healthy disbelief for most things she couldn't see, hear, or smell. He bowed his head and splayed his hands over his knees. He'd thought about it all night - what to say, what to do to convince her. Rafiel never wanted to see a battlefield again. It might remind him of home, or the smell of blood might make him sick, but as long as she lived, as long as he could see her silver fur moving somewhere on the field he would endure all of it.
He sang the oldest song he knew, a dirge composed to honor Altina's loss when her first husband died and she locked herself in the tower, refusing to come out unless he appeared to call her name. The notes emulated Lehran's inflections, and the accent was strange to him now, so old it was only a memory. Once he gave it voice, he couldn't remember why it comforted him so as a child. The song left his body hurting and his wings cramped from being spread, and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes when he finished and fell silent.
Nailah's hand rested on his head and he jumped. "You..." She sighed, and slid her arms around his neck. Her hands clasped over his throat. "You could have picked a more auspicious start to our journey. Unless you mean to depress the enemy to death."
Rafiel laughed, and the tears slid over his cheeks before he could blink them back. He pulled his wings in until he felt Nailah between them and his feathers caught on her belt. "Would you like me to try?"
"No. There'll be nothing left for the rest of us."
"I can slow them down," he said, wiping the wetness away. "Or I can ease your fatigue. I won't be a burden."
"You'll never be a burden, Rafiel." Her hands smoothed his hair back. "Now be quiet and get ready, or we're leaving you behind."
..........................................................
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: August 17 - Stop whispering, start shouting
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Rafiel/Nailah
Rating: K
Warnings: n/a
Words: 2717
Notes: This started as a response for the 14th, but as it evolved the 17th seemed more suitable. This draft isn't as different as I originally planned; the first scene has been trimmed down and the dialogue clarified and rewritten in some places. Minor changes were made to the second scene to direct it more toward the topic at hand, ditto for the third.
Once I had time to stop hating it, the editing got much easier. It'll probably never be one of my favorites, though.
.............................................
Rafiel spent his evenings on the roof of Nailah's keep, where the view of the sunset over the forested skyline might have moved him to sing if the thought hadn't felt blasphemous. Gold slashed the sky near the horizon line, bleeding to red, to violet, reminding him of fires in the night. The memory packed his mouth with ash. Sometimes it was a miracle he could even speak.
He heard the clink of Nailah's jewelry and the swish of her skirt when she ascended the stairs, and the rustle of the linen trailing over the brick floor when she padded to his side. Her footsteps were silent. "I'm sorry about earlier," she said, teasing the tip of his ear with her finger. "We might have a real problem on our hands with those birds, though."
Rafiel looked back and tilted his head so she would push her fingers into his hair instead and tapped the spot beside him on the floor. "It looks like there's so much room here. I don't understand why territory is such a problem."
Nailah swept his hand up in her own and sat down. "The land sinks below sea level to the east, and it's all swamp. There's another desert beyond that so it's not worth crossing. We looked for springs, but it's uninhabitable."
He let her spread his hand over her knee and watched her markings shift with her muscles like shadows. The sky dimmed to copper and blue as the moments passed. "Are you going to leave again?"
She smiled, and her hair glinted copper and gold at the edges. "Not yet."
Her hands were soft and warm. Rafiel laid his head on her shoulder, let his hair slide over his shoulders to veil the sunset from his gaze, and folded his wings close to his back. "I'm tired of wars," he said.
"This one won't touch you, even if the whole peninsula explodes," Nailah said, tugging gently on his hair. He shook his head and she sighed. "Hatari is safe."
He wasn't worried about himself or Hatari. What would he do without Nailah? He couldn't protect her. She would slap him if she knew the thought had occurred to him at all, and it did often. His teeth weren't made for rending the flesh of his enemies, or hers. He didn't have claws, and illness robbed him of flight and the agility it allowed him. He adjusted to his disability over time as all creatures did, but there were days he remembered what it was to fly above the clouds, and Rafiel couldn't help thinking he'd be more useful if he still could. At the very least he wouldn't be a liability, and she would allow him to accompany her to battle. There were trees everywhere, places to perch and hide, though it hadn't helped him when he was netted outside the forest, like an animal--
"Stop it."
Rafiel frowned at her lap. "But--"
"If you keep this up I'm going to think you have no faith in me."
"That's not true." He lifted his head and tried to glare. She only raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a songbird. Why should I sit here and wait, and do nothing, while you risk your life for me again and again?"
"I've never heard you sing." Nailah stilled his reply with a finger on his lips and leaned over to peck him on the cheek. Her breath stirred his hair. "I won't keep you waiting long. It's a different place, but the same routine."
His lips thinned, and he lifted his hand to her eyepatch, tracing the embroidery with his nails. Her gaze flicked away, hidden beneath silver lashes. "The hawk king," he said, turning his hand and sliding his fingers into her hair, "is undeniably the strongest among our combined tribes on Tellius. His physical presence alone is intimidating, even when he is not asserting his dominance." Rafiel sifted his fingers loose and traced the contour of her arm, his favorite mark. "He almost lost his head fighting a strong warrior to the north, and he is the most focused man I've ever known."
Nailah looked at him. "He was careless."
Rafiel drew his hand back. "Even so."
"These birds have no honor. They would attack you in an instant."
He bowed his head. The night was dark, the moon yet to rise. Torches were being lit below them in the courtyard, bright as the sunset to eyes accustomed to starlight.
"What would I do," Nailah asked softly, "if one of them got past me?"
Rafiel closed his eyes and unfolded his wings. His own answer to that question was grim enough; he didn't want to hear hers.
.
On mornings when clouds covered the sky and Nailah was inside holding audience and overseeing legal cases, Rafiel would leave the keep and follow a path that meandered south, past the garden wall, to a small township. They'd stopped greeting him with bows and kneeling months ago, but the children still paused their games to watch him when he arrived, and the vendors at the small marketplace offered him choice bits of fruit and candy when he passed by.
There was no purpose to his visits, aside from a desire to sit and watch the villagers. Many were beorc, most were wolves so close to the keep, but there were also Parentless, and they were the individuals Rafiel most wanted to watch. He'd never met one of their kind that did not meet the world with bitterness and anger, with souls twisted and unbalanced by the stigma imposed upon them. He always thought it could be changed if his brothers would embrace the children instead of driving them away, but one might as well wish to bring down the moon or shift the plates of the continent; if he'd never come to Hatari, he wouldn't have seen it happen.
What went wrong in Begnion? When did laguz slip and fall under the boot of their beorc overlords? When did it become acceptable to shackle and collar a tiger, simply because he wore his ears differently, or a raven because he had wings? His father told him there was a time beorc were ruled by laguz long ago, before the flood, when Rafiel's grandfather led their clan. He couldn't imagine such a world, and he wasn't born very long after the waters receded.
Nailah found him sitting on the steps of a ruined temple that afternoon with half of a pomegranate in his hand, and his lips and fingertips stained red. He offered her the other half, and she sat a step below him so he wouldn't have to move his wings.
"It was boring," she said when he asked after the meeting. "And there will definitely be a battle eastward if the birds don't stop raiding our stores. The beorc will need that grain for the cold season. They start dying if they can't maintain the right diet."
How unfortunate, Rafiel murmured, watching an old man prune his garden. He was one of three Parentless descended from some kind of bird, and his fingers were long like spindles and curled inward. He cut a yellow rose from its stalk, and then a pink one. His skin looked papery and dry, creased like leather, and it might be cold. The duke's hands were always cool and just a little bit unreal, like a puppet's hands. Like wood and plaster. He wanted to think Hetzel was equally unfeeling.
Don't die-- please don't die. I'll take you home. You can see your family again--
Liar.
"You know him?"
Rafiel blinked, the old one coming into focus again, and looked away. "No, not really." He ate another seed, licking juice from his fingers. "I carried a basket of herbs for him once, but he didn't say much."
Nailah kept her voice soft. "He has a sad story. You looked so wistful, I thought..."
Yes, he'd sensed that when he first encountered the man - his parents warred and destroyed each other before his eyes - but it was impolite to read someone's heart and speak of it aloud. "Why don't we go back," he said, looking at the sky. The heat beaded at his hairline, the sun intense even when hidden by clouds. "I think it might rain."
It didn't. The weather waited until they were home and sharing a meal in her room, seated on the ledge of her window to watch the trees sway under the onslaught. Nailah ate meat out of his sight to spare him the scent of blood, but she always came to share the dishes her servants created for him. That day it was thin slices of plantain and purple ube coated with a crispy batter that melted on his tongue. Then there was a cake flavored with tart lemon gel, and sweet mango wine.
"Are you going to serve me up for a holiday feast?" he asked, when the cake was gone and they were alone.
"Maybe later." Nailah said with a quirk to her lip. "You need meat on your bones, or they'll poke through your skin."
"I used to eat--" Rafiel paused, looking down at his glass. His fingers looked thin even to him; they were white like bone, and his knuckles were more pronounced than he remembered. He'd treated with beast laguz before and never felt as if he'd break. "I was more robust at home, but after I was captured my appetite failed, and..."
Nailah reached for his hand. "You don't have to apologize." Her skin was bronze against his pale color, vibrant, alive, and strong when she wove their fingers together and stroked his palm. "Be silent if you want to."
"But I couldn't speak when I was in his house. It was silent all the time." When he went home, the forest was dead. The desert was desolate, sifting sand and the voiceless echo of wind. His fingers curled over her hand and tightened. "I told him my name. He would ask me questions but I-- it was as if--"
"Did he hurt you?" Her eyebrows had drawn down, and her smile was gone. "If he did--"
"No." Rafiel tugged his hand back, but she wouldn't let go, and he curled his wings so tightly they curved against his shoulders. "He tried so hard not to. I'd already stopped eating by the time he purchased me. It wasn't his fault."
Nailah glanced out the window. The rain had let up, fading to mist, and the trees were still again and dripping and falling. He set his glass on the floor with a shaking hand. The tiles blurred, and when she said softly they'll pay in blood for what they did to you he couldn't find the words to deny her. Herons were not supposed to nurture ill will, but he thought sometimes maybe they should die, and they killed Leanne, they killed my family, they killed my children, and the desire to see beorc blood soak the forest loam didn't make him sick as he'd always thought it would.
"Tell me what happened."
Even he didn't know why he got sick. He'd accepted water and juice from his captors once he was sure they would stop trying to drug him, but the sight of food made him ill, and it wasn't the poison they'd poured down his throat the first time. The slavers were very careful about his physical condition. The duke's healer told him fear had tipped his internal balance and he must rise above it, or perish in chaos.
He hadn't believed the man at the time, but Hetzel tried so hard to ease his heart. Live. You cannot return to your family if you are dead. Live. Let me set you free. I was wrong to ever think I could cage you.
Live. Live, live live--
Rafiel blinked his tears back and told her.
.
.
"Let me go with you."
Nailah paused, her hands on the last clasp of his coat. "Are you delusional?" Her green eye was wide, only inches away. "You can't fight."
Rafiel grabbed her hand. "I'm not useless. I can help if you'll let me."
"I've never thought you useless." She drew back to watch him, clasping his hand when he let up enough that she could move it. "But Rafiel, you aren't made to withstand a battle. You can barely stomach a challenge."
He turned his face away. "I'll learn."
She looked at their hands, squeezed, and then released him to fight with his clasp. It finally clipped together, and she smoothed the front of his coat down. "We'll talk about this later," she said, waiting until he looked at her, and then excused herself to finish getting dressed. Rafiel watched her robe trail over the blue tile until it disappeared into the next room.
Early morning light spread in from the window, pale and gray. He went to sit on the ledge again and pushed the panels open, twisting so he sat on his legs and his wings had room to stretch behind. Birds chirped, hidden by the wall of trees. Water dripped from the eaves and the air was still and heavy.
He couldn't blame her for not understanding. To Nailah, he was a legend come to life - but a poor one, a broken one that couldn't fly or revive deserts or capture the ear of the goddess. He remembered her surprise when she learned Ashera was sleeping instead of roaming the world; Hatari thought it was forsaken, and the queen had risked her position to enter the desert and search for places to support her clan.
Nailah had a healthy disbelief for most things she couldn't see, hear, or smell. He bowed his head and splayed his hands over his knees. He'd thought about it all night - what to say, what to do to convince her. Rafiel never wanted to see a battlefield again. It might remind him of home, or the smell of blood might make him sick, but as long as she lived, as long as he could see her silver fur moving somewhere on the field he would endure all of it.
He sang the oldest song he knew, a dirge composed to honor Altina's loss when her first husband died and she locked herself in the tower, refusing to come out unless he appeared to call her name. The notes emulated Lehran's inflections, and the accent was strange to him now, so old it was only a memory. Once he gave it voice, he couldn't remember why it comforted him so as a child. The song left his body hurting and his wings cramped from being spread, and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes when he finished and fell silent.
Nailah's hand rested on his head and he jumped. "You..." She sighed, and slid her arms around his neck. Her hands clasped over his throat. "You could have picked a more auspicious start to our journey. Unless you mean to depress the enemy to death."
Rafiel laughed, and the tears slid over his cheeks before he could blink them back. He pulled his wings in until he felt Nailah between them and his feathers caught on her belt. "Would you like me to try?"
"No. There'll be nothing left for the rest of us."
"I can slow them down," he said, wiping the wetness away. "Or I can ease your fatigue. I won't be a burden."
"You'll never be a burden, Rafiel." Her hands smoothed his hair back. "Now be quiet and get ready, or we're leaving you behind."
..........................................................
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-08-29 06:22 pm (UTC)I love the idea of Rafiel having a family back in Serenes. ^^
"Rafiel watched her robe trail over the blue tile until it disappeared"
For a reason unknown to me, I find that part very poetic. It reminds me of the queen's femininity. (And that's a rare thing.) It underlines and somewhat justify his (a little irrational) urge to protect her. ^^ (yes I do love Nailah skirt)
"Hatari thought it was forsaken, and the queen had risked her position to enter the desert and search for places to support her clan."
The wild atmosphere of adventure, the wide amount of time passed, the spirit of the queen, all of that in one single sentence *love*
"He pulled his wings in until he felt Nailah between them and his feathers caught on her belt."
I may once again be due to the poverty of my English, but at first I got the impression that one of his wings got caught in her belt. I was like, Oww, that must hurt ! x__x
"Would you like me to try?"
Is he serious ? Or is he playing along ? Any way, it works. I'd never think Rafiel to be joking around before I read you. Well it's doesn't feel OoC as I'd think. :)
About my former comment on the first version, regarding the details on Hatary, and such... I was talking about the sounds, the colors, the smells, every little thing adding to the atmosphere ; details that you made up, right ?
Well, how can you guess of which material is made Nailah's skirt when you don't know anything about textile (my case) ? @_@
Since I know I'd be too coward to invent the detailed information not given in the game, it always delights me to read it in others' work...
Why do you say you hated the first version ?
There, maybe the pov was more centered on Rafiel, his doubts ans wishes. In this one, he seems more consequetia, less introverted.
But I am certainly happy this one is longer. :D
no subject
Date: 2008-08-29 09:08 pm (UTC)Yes, I did make those details up. We don't know anything about Hatari except that it's on the other side of the desert, so I tried to think of the kind of place that would exist in a region like that. Nailah's jewelry reminds me of Egyptian/Mediterranean historical styles for some reason (maybe Greece instead of Egypt, or Byzantium), so I tried to imagine a climate like that, and cultures a little bit like that. In the ancient world, linen was the most common textile, and silk and cotton were rarer and more expensive/luxurious. She seems to wear some silk (that thing on her shoulder for example), but all silk would be impractical.
Since "silk" is the default fabric for characters who are "rich" - a sign of wealth that every reader will recognize - it shows up in fic all the time. But if you think reasonably about it, only certain regions would have been able to produce silk, and maybe Hatari isn't one of them. That's also why I chose linen. Linen can be nice, but it's made from a plant fiber, so it's more common.
The food ideas came mostly from more tropical recipes. But I thought the climate in Hatari would be right for that (according to all of my other made up details), so I mixed the two.
I try to be consistent and practical in the details I choose, but it's a little risky to make things up like that. FE fandom is not nearly as canon-centric as some others I've written for, though, which is nice.
Okay, then...
The last version was a little angsty in my opinion. I was rushing to make the August 17 deadline, so a lot of my dialogue between them wasn't quite right, and I don't think the main storyline - Rafiel not singing because of Hetzel, and finally telling Nailah about it - was as clear. Maybe it was just me. It really irritated me though.
- Rafiel isn't serious about depressing the enemy, just going along with Nailah. XD
- ... yeah, that passage where his feathers catch on her belt might need to be reworded.
- I think Nailah is the paragon of strong femininity. She has charisma the way Tibarn does. It doesn't hurt that she's really hot.
- Rafiel has been around a while, I think. He's much older than his other siblings, so I thought it was reasonable he'd have a family. That just makes the Massacre worse for him, though. Poor Rafiel.
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Date: 2008-08-31 03:13 pm (UTC)Well, I come from tropics. That's very nice to read something logic indeed.
Last version angst ? What's wrong with angst ? (don't mind that :P) Seriously, it's a good thing that you did not delete the old version. ^^ As it's as if we have fics instead of one. (/pathetically desperate fan mode)
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Date: 2008-08-31 08:44 pm (UTC)Well, I didn't think I should delete the old version. I'd already posted it, and when I was planning more drastic changes to the story, it seemed a good idea to leave the old one up for people who liked the ideas better.
I'll write more eventually. XD
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Date: 2008-09-01 12:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-01 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 05:21 pm (UTC)He wasn't worried about himself or Hatari. What would he do without Nailah? He couldn't protect her. She would slap him if she knew the thought had occurred to him at all, and it did often. and Unless you mean to depress the enemy to death made me giggle quite a bit. One detail I really loved was his red stained fingers from the pomegranates, for some reason I could just read that part again and again.
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Date: 2008-10-19 07:55 pm (UTC)Heh heh, pomegranates. :D
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Date: 2008-11-04 09:16 pm (UTC)I've started writing a long RN (yes : "started") (and yes, in french ><)
well I am already blocking. I've just finished one chapter that thought I have an acceptable plan, It seems I cannot bring myself to write more.