250, sugar & spice -- polysaccharine

[scenotaphs.livejournal.com]

Challenge: [250] Sugar and Spice
Title: Polysaccharine
Word Count: 440
Rating: G
Spoilers: For 358/2 Days and KH2 only. Nothing new.
Synopsis: There are no perfect little girls--at least, not in the sallow bone-grey world she knows.
Notes: Wow, I really lost the gist of it by the time I got in halfway. I wish I could say I thought about baking, but instead the first thing that came into mind was... the last two lines of this drabble. Oh well. Enjoy a weird interpretation of the prompt. Beware, low-flying metaphors and impromptu pot-stirring ahead. 

Sugar, spice and everything nice.

That’s what perfect little girls are made of.

There are no perfect little girls—at least, not in the sallow bone-grey world she knows.

There is Larxene, all pointed malice and sickly-sweet charm, who hides a wildcat’s unbridled ferocity beneath the thin veneer of her saccharine-sharp smile. Oh, she is perfect enough on the outside, with her electric-blue eyes wide with a child’s probing curiosity – but her inside is scarcely different: her heart is cold with the same child’s amoral cruelty. She is made of shards of glass and ice and all that is cold and sharp—so brittle, so fragile, but so very dangerous after being tempered.

There is the spun sugar-frail witch-empress she sees in her dreams, the one who is made of broken promises and lying eyes; the one who exiles her prince to the tangled snarl of oblivion. She is the little broken-winged nightingale-girl trapped in her birdcage, singing only at the whim of the treacherous vizier. There’s too much sadness in her eyes, too many burdens on those narrow shoulders—she is perfectly imperfect, in the way a bruised apple shows its wounds only on the inside.

But there is the girl she glimpses every time she visits the sun-drowned world of perpetual twilight—the cinnamon-haired girl with the giddy summery-sweet peals of laughter which sound loud and clear in Xion’s ears as she sits atop the silent clocktower and reaches for the honey-stained skies which lie so far out of her reach. The lightheartedness of her existence is miles away – no, worlds away from Xion’s own world of spiritless masks and empty aspirations. There is no way the peppermint-eyed girl is the same, no way at all.

There is another girl, a beach-princess who infuses into the swirl of sugar and spice a little something of her own; it tastes of longing and loss, of a fiery determination as bright as her fire-red locks. She adds to their bittersweet potpourri a trace of regret, a dash of uncertainty, a pinch of childish optimism. She is different, so very different from the pretty little time bombs Xion knows, the very same pretty little time bombs all set to self-destruct once the world decides to cast them away.

Sometimes, Xion can almost feel what they want to convey as each take their turn to stir the pot within which all their hopes and dreams bubble. But sometimes, she wonders.

What of her? What is she made of?

That is easy to answer.

Stolen memories, fragmented dreams and the blood of a thousand worlds.

That’s what imperfect little puppets are made of.

Comments

[sour-idealist.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. I love your language here, all the metaphors you use and the descriptions of each girl. It's wonderful to see a fic about the girls, and more so when it's so touching and poetic. You really captured the essence of each of them. (And my mind went to "that's what little girls are made of" too, so I'm glad it wasn't just me!)

[scenotaphs.livejournal.com]

Haha, I'm glad you thought it to be fitting, since I was worried about it being far too heavy-handed with the metaphors.

Indeed! They don't get enough of a spotlight in the fandom. Thanks for reading and commenting! ♥♥

[sour-idealist.livejournal.com]

I am a metaphor/simile/description addict, so I may be an unreliable judge, but I certainly ate it up.

[euphonious-glow.livejournal.com]

Love this, especially as it ties all of these girls together. The last few lines are simpler, and hit the hardest.

Oddly enough, I find this a little too wordy, a little too reaching for the hyphenated adjectives. I do like the way it's written, but in this case, I think simplicity would perhaps have been more effective. Still, overall, I enjoy the sentiment and the language ^_^

[scenotaphs.livejournal.com]

Haha oh goddddd yeah. Simplicity would definitely be harsher and more hard-hitting, that's without a doubt. I felt, at the time of writing this, that it was a rather clumsy and unpolished piece of work, and I hope to be able to improve on it sometime x)

Thanks for reading and for the feedback!

[starflashed.livejournal.com]

Whoa. This is like... so gorgeous. I like all the metaphors--I think they fit with the style you wrote this in. The imagery you evoke with this is just... gahhhh. :D

I'm not that great with characterizations of Xion (never actually PLAYED Days, just did a read-through of the script), but this feels right, and I like how you had her contrast herself with the other girls. Love the way you depicted them.

And Olette...! <3

[scenotaphs.livejournal.com]

Haha, well, glad someone likes it! Personally I thought I was way too heavy-handed with the metaphors and was pretty much scattering them around with all the finesse of a hippopotamus 8C

But my angsty gripings aside. Ahem.

Thanks for the feedback! (: Yeah, it is a bit hard to get a feel of what you haven't played. I haven't played most of the games in the series, and so my grasp of the timeline and all that is definitely way out of kilter, especially with CoM. Thanks for reading and commenting!

[iki-teru.livejournal.com]

Stolen memories, fragmented dreams and the blood of a thousand worlds.

That’s what imperfect little puppets are made of.

There is not enough yes for this drabble and the lovely, poetic way you wrote it.

[scenotaphs.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

[eiremauve.livejournal.com]

This is wonderfully written! Especially like your description of Namine as a "spun sugar-frail witch-empress".