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runicloreHighway of Shadows
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: T
Genre: angst?
Warnings: probably OOC, because of the angst.
AU/Canon: canon.
Pairing/Characters: Shouka
Words: 492
Prompt: 45 - TOURNIQUET (1000 words or less)
Notes: n/a
Cross-posted at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
saiun_challenge.
...............................................
There were times Shouka's memories were an endless streak of red and black, a highway of blood and shadows, a journey insinuating himself into the slim cracks between windows, doors, fences. When he was not dispatching a target, his body was stained red by robes the color of karmic ropes and the dull maroon stain of the family name, which he couldn't scrub away no matter how often he tried, or which astringent he used. He pretended not to notice when the sunlight struck Shuurei's eyes at a certain angle and bled them red as a rose.
Her mother was like that; white, delicate, her voice a memory he couldn't scrub away with pumice, clinging to his fibers like blood. She loved red roses, and wore one in her hair when they first met. The stem was stripped of thorns, but her wit was sharp enough to make up for it, and though she didn't protest when he carried her away from the Hyou stronghold, didn't fight, she flayed the skin from his bones every night thereafter. How pathetic, she said-- an assassin fallen in love with his victim. What a tired cliche. Would he reform himself for her?
The Kou are hardly better than my former captors. What would I want with you?
Her lips were red without rouge, like blood over plum petals. The blossoms rained the night he sank steel into his great-aunt's veins, and he saw their reflection when he looked into her eyes, a solid obsidian black speckled with light.
She refused him seven times, and on the eighth took the name Shoukun. He didn't reform himself for her. She told him she liked him better that way. The thorns of the rose drew blood; Shoukun was the embodiment of her namesake, soft as petals, sweetly fragrant as if her body were molded from the purest incense, and Shouka was scratched red and raw. Every word, every sting - he relived every one of them as her life bled away to feed their daughter. He couldn't have stopped her, but sometimes he told himself that was a lie, that he could have done something, found some remedy. Never mind Doctor You had failed.
But he had not stopped her, just as he did not stop Shuurei when she insisted on taking the hard path into court as an official. Shouka remembered the yoke of his clan, the grip of his great-aunt's proverbial hand around his neck, and let her do as she wished. She was like her mother - a blazing red unquenchable by snow. He watched her sometimes, her shape pink and white and sometimes red, coloring the court with her presence, the archives, the drab grays of the court. He let the wounds bleed, a thousand tiny papercuts-- let them bleed and bleed, and hoped they would never stop.
...........................................................
This is way too friggin' angsty for Shouka, but... eh.
.
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: T
Genre: angst?
Warnings: probably OOC, because of the angst.
AU/Canon: canon.
Pairing/Characters: Shouka
Words: 492
Prompt: 45 - TOURNIQUET (1000 words or less)
Notes: n/a
Cross-posted at
saiun_challenge................................................
There were times Shouka's memories were an endless streak of red and black, a highway of blood and shadows, a journey insinuating himself into the slim cracks between windows, doors, fences. When he was not dispatching a target, his body was stained red by robes the color of karmic ropes and the dull maroon stain of the family name, which he couldn't scrub away no matter how often he tried, or which astringent he used. He pretended not to notice when the sunlight struck Shuurei's eyes at a certain angle and bled them red as a rose.
Her mother was like that; white, delicate, her voice a memory he couldn't scrub away with pumice, clinging to his fibers like blood. She loved red roses, and wore one in her hair when they first met. The stem was stripped of thorns, but her wit was sharp enough to make up for it, and though she didn't protest when he carried her away from the Hyou stronghold, didn't fight, she flayed the skin from his bones every night thereafter. How pathetic, she said-- an assassin fallen in love with his victim. What a tired cliche. Would he reform himself for her?
The Kou are hardly better than my former captors. What would I want with you?
Her lips were red without rouge, like blood over plum petals. The blossoms rained the night he sank steel into his great-aunt's veins, and he saw their reflection when he looked into her eyes, a solid obsidian black speckled with light.
She refused him seven times, and on the eighth took the name Shoukun. He didn't reform himself for her. She told him she liked him better that way. The thorns of the rose drew blood; Shoukun was the embodiment of her namesake, soft as petals, sweetly fragrant as if her body were molded from the purest incense, and Shouka was scratched red and raw. Every word, every sting - he relived every one of them as her life bled away to feed their daughter. He couldn't have stopped her, but sometimes he told himself that was a lie, that he could have done something, found some remedy. Never mind Doctor You had failed.
But he had not stopped her, just as he did not stop Shuurei when she insisted on taking the hard path into court as an official. Shouka remembered the yoke of his clan, the grip of his great-aunt's proverbial hand around his neck, and let her do as she wished. She was like her mother - a blazing red unquenchable by snow. He watched her sometimes, her shape pink and white and sometimes red, coloring the court with her presence, the archives, the drab grays of the court. He let the wounds bleed, a thousand tiny papercuts-- let them bleed and bleed, and hoped they would never stop.
...........................................................
This is way too friggin' angsty for Shouka, but... eh.
.