Fingers Slipping Off The Edge

[ishimura.livejournal.com]

Title: Fingers Slipping Off The Edge

Rating: T (mention of blood, self neglect, and other)

Media: fic

Characters: OC

Word Count: 300 (without title)

Prompt: Dots
Summary: She is on the last steps towards her life goal. But to reach it, she has stepped into a place she might not leave again.
Other: Situated in the same verse as this story.


Next row.

Golden dots dance on the map. They burn in Mira’s eyes as she scribbles down her notes, almost feverish as she checks each position.

The Ryugu Kingdom has sealed its borders.

The Sea Forest, she notes down. Her fingertip traces the connection line.

Shandora has fallen.

The Golden City.

Sweats runs down her face – it will soon add to the stink that wafts around her.

Alabasta has declared war against us.

The Royal tombs.

Nefertari’s face, usually that sun-warm brown, is ashen and ghostly as Mira sees her.

Mira’s hand stops with a small tremor.

“What are you doing?!”

She hasn’t bathed or slept or eaten for two days. Only little of what she ate stayed down, so it seemed like a waste.

“By the Sun, you need to rest!”

Wet heat blurs the golden checkmarks; blood rushes into her mouth from her cracked lips. She shakes her head. She can’t.

“Doesn’t matter,” she smiles. “I’ll die soon anyway.”

Nefertari can’t help her; they are on opposite sides of this war. Mira sniffs, a sob swelling from her throat, when her friend looks at her worriedly.

“Please go. I may be going mad, but I can’t stop until I’m done.”

At once, she feels cold and hot, heavy as the earth, light as the air, and the golden points alight. The poneglyphs whisper their song, finding each other without seeking. One voice connects to another – another, another. Their message strikes her to the core like the Light of Shandora, robbing her off breath.

Nefertari’s face turns solid; she hears her louder now, woven into the song.

“But I want to stay with you.”

Mira slams her fists onto the desk, swaying where she stands.

I want-

“I can’t,” she pleads, doesn’t know whom or what. “I can’t-”

Comments

[shindahotaru.livejournal.com]

I'd really appreciate if you turned these drabbles into a real story. I would like to read so much more, learn more about the background and just- it would be really great if you made more out of this.
Both drabbles are so intense and somewhat poetic and a real and longer story could ruin that but I'm sure you could pull that off. I'm really, really interested in the whole topic and your writing style carries it so perfectly well.

[ishimura.livejournal.com]

I want to do that - expand on this world and explore what might have happened in the past, but mostly to these characters. These two have a rich history I sense just around the corner. Actually, I think the world comes from them and those people around them, with a lot of what we know of Alabasta flowing into Nefertari.

Thank you for the compliment; I aimed for that. If I may ask, what stands out to you here in my writing that evoked this intensity?

Mira and Nefertari were at really bad places for different reasons - the world they knew fell to chunks and jagged edges around them at the hands of people tearing into its seams. So they float among the destruction, not in their known world anymore, but not able to connect to the new order either (yet).

In the previous story, the different threads of what was visible to the outside and what actually motivated the two of them caused 'misinterpretations', until the last section where Nefertari was alone and nobody else was there to make up their own views on the situation. I wanted the next story to reflect that disconnect as well, but fitting for Mira's situation. She's on her last legs. She knows she won't survive, because she won't hide away, it's against her nature. But it still drives her with desparation so she pours herself into finishing her dream that she is burning herself down like a lit candle.