Challenge Entry: Aerith, Marluxia G
Sep. 25th, 2007 06:52 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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kh_drabbleChallenge: [121] Strings of Fate
Title: No Roses Bloom For Thee
Characters: Aerith, Marluxia
Word Count: 590
Spoilers: for plotlines of KH1 as well as character information from KH:COM
Notes: It's strange how flowers can stand for love and death. So came the idea of the two flower-centric people of KH.
Aerith was six when she watched her mother plant a garden. Ifalna's hair was long and smelled like pink lemonade and pine and a distant memory of the sea. Her bare hands were brown with dirt as she scooped a line of holes into the cool earth. She took from a packet at her side a collection of tiny white pods and slipped them tenderly into the earth.
"Mommy, what color will they be?" She poked at a half-covered seed with a chubby finger.
"Well, I don't know. But I hope they are white."
One day the world and the roses were consumed by darkness.
It was a long time before Aerith saw roses again. In Traverse Town the only flowers she saw were at funerals. Then she met the key-bearer, and let a small amount of hope bloom in her heart.
And Aerith bought roses of every color to plant in her garden, but the white were always her favorite.
Summer brought memories of her mother, but autumn brought a stranger with eyes like irises and a smile like a thorn. The town had felt unusually restricting, like a weed with choking roots. One night she could barely stand it, and went out to walk and breathe the fresh air. Before she left she grabbed a basket of cut roses she had intended to sell the next day. Selling flowers at night seemed foolish, but she needed the money and business always took her mind off things.
She looked up at the stars but they seemed static and somehow false, like cheap jewels. She felt her heart quicken as footsteps approached, and a figure stepped into the the illumination of a lamp nearby.
The man was dark, not only in clothing but in essence, and she could feel her hands tighten on the basket handle. The man continued walking, and perhaps would have gone right through her, had she not spoken.
"Flowers, sir?"
He stopped and a chuckle escaped from under the hood.
"What brings the white lily into the spider-arm of the night?" The man moved his fingers and a pink sakura blossom appeared in his hand, which he stretched out to her.
"Wh-who are you?" Aerith asked, trying to calm herself and ashamed at the fear in her voice.
The man raised black-gloved hands to his face and lowered his hood. His skin was rosebud-pale, his hair rough and thick over his shoulders, his eyes burning-blue. He had the countenance and gestures of a courtier, and she wondered briefly whether his world had also been lost.
"I? I am both actor and chorus, Venus and Mars, nothing and everything, life and death. But I am known as Marluxia, though you won't remember come day." He tucked the sakura flower behind her ear.
"I don't understand," she replied, fearing to look in his eyes for the deadened hollows she would find there.
"I see you are selling roses. I am a planter as well, though I have had little luck in gardening. And roses are the worst of all; I suppose I hate them more than any other; though the thorn may bite the petal is easy to crush."
Aerith flinched at his tone of voice, and thrust the basket at him. "Take them. I can always grow more."
The man-shadow called Marluxia smiled. "You can keep the white ones, my dear. They reek of light."
His words came true. Aerith awoke to a soft bed in Hollow Bastion, the death-courtesan having disappeared with the night.
Title: No Roses Bloom For Thee
Characters: Aerith, Marluxia
Word Count: 590
Spoilers: for plotlines of KH1 as well as character information from KH:COM
Notes: It's strange how flowers can stand for love and death. So came the idea of the two flower-centric people of KH.
Aerith was six when she watched her mother plant a garden. Ifalna's hair was long and smelled like pink lemonade and pine and a distant memory of the sea. Her bare hands were brown with dirt as she scooped a line of holes into the cool earth. She took from a packet at her side a collection of tiny white pods and slipped them tenderly into the earth.
"Mommy, what color will they be?" She poked at a half-covered seed with a chubby finger.
"Well, I don't know. But I hope they are white."
One day the world and the roses were consumed by darkness.
It was a long time before Aerith saw roses again. In Traverse Town the only flowers she saw were at funerals. Then she met the key-bearer, and let a small amount of hope bloom in her heart.
And Aerith bought roses of every color to plant in her garden, but the white were always her favorite.
Summer brought memories of her mother, but autumn brought a stranger with eyes like irises and a smile like a thorn. The town had felt unusually restricting, like a weed with choking roots. One night she could barely stand it, and went out to walk and breathe the fresh air. Before she left she grabbed a basket of cut roses she had intended to sell the next day. Selling flowers at night seemed foolish, but she needed the money and business always took her mind off things.
She looked up at the stars but they seemed static and somehow false, like cheap jewels. She felt her heart quicken as footsteps approached, and a figure stepped into the the illumination of a lamp nearby.
The man was dark, not only in clothing but in essence, and she could feel her hands tighten on the basket handle. The man continued walking, and perhaps would have gone right through her, had she not spoken.
"Flowers, sir?"
He stopped and a chuckle escaped from under the hood.
"What brings the white lily into the spider-arm of the night?" The man moved his fingers and a pink sakura blossom appeared in his hand, which he stretched out to her.
"Wh-who are you?" Aerith asked, trying to calm herself and ashamed at the fear in her voice.
The man raised black-gloved hands to his face and lowered his hood. His skin was rosebud-pale, his hair rough and thick over his shoulders, his eyes burning-blue. He had the countenance and gestures of a courtier, and she wondered briefly whether his world had also been lost.
"I? I am both actor and chorus, Venus and Mars, nothing and everything, life and death. But I am known as Marluxia, though you won't remember come day." He tucked the sakura flower behind her ear.
"I don't understand," she replied, fearing to look in his eyes for the deadened hollows she would find there.
"I see you are selling roses. I am a planter as well, though I have had little luck in gardening. And roses are the worst of all; I suppose I hate them more than any other; though the thorn may bite the petal is easy to crush."
Aerith flinched at his tone of voice, and thrust the basket at him. "Take them. I can always grow more."
The man-shadow called Marluxia smiled. "You can keep the white ones, my dear. They reek of light."
His words came true. Aerith awoke to a soft bed in Hollow Bastion, the death-courtesan having disappeared with the night.
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Date: 2007-09-26 03:02 am (UTC)I LOVE THIS. It's easily one of my favorite drabbles in this comm, ever. I'm going to stuff it in my memories and keep it forever and ever. ♥
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Date: 2007-09-28 01:34 am (UTC)I am so glad to hear you liked this. This broke me out of writer's block, so it has a spot in my heart too. =)
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Date: 2007-09-26 10:55 pm (UTC)You win.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 01:38 am (UTC)Thanks for reading. ^__^