fic repost: Soot
Feb. 5th, 2012 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesReposting a ficlet previously posted to the challenge comm ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
onepiece_300 on Livejournal (which I can heartily recommend - as far as I know no comm like that exists on Dreamwidth, though I could be wrong). This one is all gen. I've expanded on it somewhat.
Title: Soot
Word Count: 433
Prompt: Fire
Characters: Dadan, Makino
Spoilers/setting: Set after the first 10 or so pages of chapter 589
It took Dadan over a year to stop twitching and inwardly flinching in the present of big fires; in the beginning, she was even wary around small household flames. Of course it bugged her, and she did her best to hide it - bandits weren't supposed to be squeamish. Even Luffy and Ace, grief-struck as they were, didn't seem to feel that way.
It was less the heat, flames and pain that would come back in her mind than the smoke and the terrible smell, the soot and charred remains, the lack of air... And the knowing of it all, even though she'd seen many more injustices, even though she had few illusions about the fairness of the world or of those who ruled it. She was an outlaw who could only expect a summary execution if captured, and that was the law all over on all sorts of islands, as she understood it.
Yet the Gray Terminal Fire still pressed down on her chest in those moments when she looked at the fire too closely. To know for sure that the rulers of this island would slaughter their own subjects purely for being an embarrassment, for living on the garbage the rulers themselves had thrown out... In her darker moments it made her feel as if the whole land around her were nothing but soot and ashes, with soot stains on the souls of all the surviving adults with it, who had to compromise to survive.
Makino came over one chilly day when Dadan had let the fire die out. She didn't say much, just knelt down and made a new one, then put a kettle on it for tea. Embarrassed, Dadan moved closer to the hearth to warm up, then forced herself to look into it.
The smoke and the smell and the ashes returned again, but now Makino was taking Dadan's hands in hers, holding them close, warming them. Slowly the memories retreated far into the fire: not disappearing entirely, just not as much there right then. The smell of tea leaves started to fill the air.
"...Thanks," muttered Dadan after taking one deep shuddering breath, thankful no-one else was around. Her hands stopped trembling. Makino let go, smiled, but didn't say anything. Instead she just poured them both tea without comment. They drank it slowly. Outside, in the gray-green woods, a gentle spring rain had started to fall.
Dadan held on to the new calm inside her, the fragile balance that was helped by Makino's quiet presence beside her, trying to remember that fires could be like this, too.
onepiece_300 on Livejournal (which I can heartily recommend - as far as I know no comm like that exists on Dreamwidth, though I could be wrong). This one is all gen. I've expanded on it somewhat.Title: Soot
Word Count: 433
Prompt: Fire
Characters: Dadan, Makino
Spoilers/setting: Set after the first 10 or so pages of chapter 589
It took Dadan over a year to stop twitching and inwardly flinching in the present of big fires; in the beginning, she was even wary around small household flames. Of course it bugged her, and she did her best to hide it - bandits weren't supposed to be squeamish. Even Luffy and Ace, grief-struck as they were, didn't seem to feel that way.
It was less the heat, flames and pain that would come back in her mind than the smoke and the terrible smell, the soot and charred remains, the lack of air... And the knowing of it all, even though she'd seen many more injustices, even though she had few illusions about the fairness of the world or of those who ruled it. She was an outlaw who could only expect a summary execution if captured, and that was the law all over on all sorts of islands, as she understood it.
Yet the Gray Terminal Fire still pressed down on her chest in those moments when she looked at the fire too closely. To know for sure that the rulers of this island would slaughter their own subjects purely for being an embarrassment, for living on the garbage the rulers themselves had thrown out... In her darker moments it made her feel as if the whole land around her were nothing but soot and ashes, with soot stains on the souls of all the surviving adults with it, who had to compromise to survive.
Makino came over one chilly day when Dadan had let the fire die out. She didn't say much, just knelt down and made a new one, then put a kettle on it for tea. Embarrassed, Dadan moved closer to the hearth to warm up, then forced herself to look into it.
The smoke and the smell and the ashes returned again, but now Makino was taking Dadan's hands in hers, holding them close, warming them. Slowly the memories retreated far into the fire: not disappearing entirely, just not as much there right then. The smell of tea leaves started to fill the air.
"...Thanks," muttered Dadan after taking one deep shuddering breath, thankful no-one else was around. Her hands stopped trembling. Makino let go, smiled, but didn't say anything. Instead she just poured them both tea without comment. They drank it slowly. Outside, in the gray-green woods, a gentle spring rain had started to fall.
Dadan held on to the new calm inside her, the fragile balance that was helped by Makino's quiet presence beside her, trying to remember that fires could be like this, too.