Into
The Dark
50 Sentences for Ashley Riot and Sydney Losstarot,
for the 1sentence LJ community (theme set Epsilon).
If you're unclear on the concept, I suggest you stop by there first
and familiarize yourself.
Warnings: MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE ENDING OF VAGRANT STORY. If you haven't saved a clear file yet, you shouldn't be reading this. Also, consider this a standard shounen-ai warning (it is Ashley/Sydney, after all), though as per usual there's nothing explicit.
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Into The Dark
01.
Motion (#01)
Sydney Losstarot is elegance in motion, even at
the height of agony; as Ashley unquestioningly dips into a
bend-scoop-drape to arrange the bleeding man about his shoulders, the
image Sydney provides is less 'albatross' and more 'swan'.
02.
Cool (#02)
Ashley's memory of the escape is predictably
riddled with holes, and privately he wonders if it'll ever really
function properly again; but among the glimpses of the dust and
sparks of the collapsing cathedral, he is certain he will never
forget the solid weight of cool metal against his neck.
03.
Young (#03)
'Just a little farther, there's the stairwell
now, come on we're too young to die in a place like this'
Ashley murmurs to himself, and he will later spend whole evenings
haunted by what Sydney might have thought? felt? said? in response
had he not fallen unconscious one hour previous.
04. Soul
(#19)
Having cleared the last wine cellar by daybreak, the men
begin to pick their way into the forest, untold numbers of lost souls
following their exodus from Lea Monde and pooling around Ashley like
so many autumn breezes.
05. Shadow (#32)
Ashley's
newfound energies as a Wellspring are largely directed toward
creating wards to strengthen and protect, with the occasional healing
spell aimed at Sydney; Sydney, for his part, spends most of his own
energies delicately trailing blood into the shadows behind them as if
marking a macabre road map back to his lost city.
06. Stop
(#36)
Some hours later, safe under a coverlet of foliage, they
rest -- which is to say that Ashley hunts, and Sydney sleeps; Ashley
casts healing spells, and Sydney sleeps; and Ashley hammers his
equipment into something approximating its original shape, while
still, Sydney sleeps.
07. Hide (#27)
When Ashley
finally hoists up his charge and sets out again in the evening,
hoping for safer passage under the cover of nightfall, he dutifully
pretends not to notice as Sydney purrs and stretches against
him.
08. Hold (#15)
Even after the tattered remains
of his back heal and he could well support himself under his own
power, Sydney continues to drape himself perioidically across the
Riskbreaker's back, claws crossing cheerfully across his chest.
09.
Need (#16)
Whether it is a misguided sign of affection or some
unspoken need for proximity to that which was once his, Ashley is
never certain; whatever the reason, the mark on his back throbs as
Sydney presses close to him, as though the Dark coursing through it
still recognizes its former master.
10. Gentle
(#06)
The first time, the gesture catches Ashley by surprise;
shifting as if to turn and question the unexpected weight draped over
his shoulders, Ashley is stilled by the razor-sharp edge of a metal
fingertip pressed gently to his lips.
11. Safe
(#29)
For all that Sydney's claws could have reduced Ashley's skin
to shreds with ease in a single over-eager heartbeat, they never once
break through the surface.
12. Sudden (#35)
Slowly,
Ashley leans back from the extended claw-tip, whipping around for his
answers at last only to find Sydney's lips swiftly replacing the
metal appendage.
13. Blur (#11)
The kiss is chaste
but no less powerful for it; need and desire, friend and foe,
morality and practicality blur and all Ashley can see is Sydney.
14.
Learn (#10)
Touch is the purest form of communication that
Sydney can offer: the man's livelihood rested on riddles and
manipulation, and in their short time together Ashley learns to
unravel truths wrought from Sydney's body that were impossible
knowledge any other way.
15. Mad (#22)
They do not
make love, and Ashley would have laughed himself senseless had such a
characterization of their coupling occurred to him at the time.
16.
Now (#24)
Agent Riot is not laughing now.
17.
Goodbye (#26)
Early afternoon on the fourth day, Sydney lets
slip his plans (and he does let slip; Sydney Losstarot is not
the sort of man to trifle with mistakes or accidents or
colossal fuckups) so that the end will not come fully as a
surprise; Sydney believes it is the least and the most he can
do.
18. Command (#14)
Ashley freezes, and for a
single crazed moment wonders whether the Rood Inverse will someday
afford him that smoothness of manner that Sydney possesses,
his artistry so carefully and yet effortlessly orchestrated that the
very universe could be falling down around him and still he would
look for all the world as though he'd planned it to the last
second.
19. Wrong (#05)
Then the universe does come
crashing down, and Ashley, not yet a complete master of the Dark,
falls back on what he knows best -- and gracefully backhands
Sydney into a tree, the smaller man encountering their supply packs
along the way and sliding down against them with a sickening
thud.
20. Attention (#18)
It will be a full week yet
before Ashley notices that Sydney does not so much as attempt to
defend himself from the Riskbreaker's powerful strike, and another
six hours before the full import of that fact overwhelms him in a
sudden rush; by that time, of course, it will have been much too
late.
21. King (#09)
In this sad parody of battle,
the thought comes to him, unbidden: Sydney lives like Ashley
fights, regal and poised and perfect.
22. Fortune
(#28)
Though he will not surrender for three days hence, it is
here that Ashley knows he has lost.
23. Fool (#21)
The
hallmark of being a Riskbreaker, however, is charging ahead into an
impossible situation with the utter conviction that one will succeed
or die trying, and thus this is precisely the course of action Ashley
chooses.
24. Wall (#44)
"I should have left you
there to die," Ashley fumes, "broken and haunted like the
crumbling walls of your damned city."
25. Wait
(#12)
Sydney watches Ashley coolly as he waits out the tirade and
its aftershocks; when all that remains is a faltering glare and
blissful silence, he softly rejoins, "I have said before, there
is no meaning in an incomplete death."
26.
Ghost (#30)
Sydney has spent twenty-five years wearing Lea
Monde as a second skin; he has no interest in an eternity of it as
his only corporeal presence, although that is the inevitable
consequence of having a body as drenched in the powers of the Dark as
his has been.
27. Time (#37)
Seconds tick past and
die as the pieces slowly click together for Ashley, and then they
stop their advance completely in the moment he comprehends.
28.
Sing (#34)
Ashley is to learn prophecy as Sydney once had, and
his introduction comes all in a rush as the Dark sings to him of the
souls he will marshal to it and one he will allow to go free.
29.
Book (#31)
"What's this," Ashley whispers, still
dazed with the knowledge and his newfound means of acquiring it,
"have you unearthed some ancient Grimoire that truly raises a
spirit, not sacrificing it as a Cold One?"
30. Eye
(#32)
Sydney stares back at him -- Ashley is chagrined for a
moment, recalling that Sydney has -- already had -- the Gran
Grimoire and every magick that came with it -- and a flash of
something unreadable graces his slate-grey eyes before he blinks it
away.
31. God (#43)
"Of course not,"
Sydney sighs; "I have you."
32. Thousand
(#08)
"But how?" Ashley wants to cry out, or
possibly "I haven't yet the control," or "'Tis
tempting fate worse than death even to think on it" or a
thousand other protests, but in the end he manages only to eke out a
sound that might have been "Ah" before turning on his heel
and leaving the small clearing of their makeshift campsite for the
forested area to the northwest.
33. Bother (#42)
"That
could have gone better," Sydney muses, and thinks of colorful
Kildean expressions for precisely how useful his gift of prophecy is
not.
34. Picture (#20)
Ashley scans the forest for
visual cues of wildlife, cataloguing nests, tracks, anything
to tie him to this moment and distract him from a picturesque image
long since seared into his memory by forces he cannot name.
35.
Vision (#17)
There is a picnic lovingly laid out underneath a
lone tree in a clearing, a fine wine ("like sweet ambrosia,"
he whispers brokenly) waiting to be tasted, and Ashley squeezes his
eyes tightly against the vision, swearing not to return until he has
forced it from his mind.
36. One (#07)
If he can
only wrench that scene from his mind's eye, Ashley will not have to
see who awaits him underneath that tree with a soft smile on thin
lips and a wineglass elegantly balanced between two unnaturally
elongated fingers.
37. Last (#04)
It is long past
dusk when Ashley's footfalls temporarily disrupt the quiet solitude
of Sydney staring thoughtfully up at the stars, though he offers no
response to the Riskbreaker's return.
38. History
(#40)
Ashley settles onto his pallet, and a few carefully placed
moments later Sydney follows suit; they do not converse again this
night, but the morning finds Sydney's eldritch-metal arms draped once
again across Ashley's chest, and this time he makes no move to
dislodge them.
39. Never (#33)
The remainder of the
journey to the Graylands is uneventful; every so often, Ashley moves
as if to turn around -- could we not just stay here, forget the
very world branding a rhythmic chant into his brain -- but the
words die unspoken on his lips, and he presses on.
40. Torn
(#39)
So entrenched in remaining focused forward, Ashley does not
see Sydney half extend a claw to him and then retract it, extend,
retract, keeping pace with his footsteps even as he wonders whether
fate's price may be too dear this time.
41. Naked
(#45)
The seventh day finds them on the outskirts of the Graylands
estate, Duke Bardorba's secondary residence just barely visible
through the thin veneer of fog, and Ashley feels the weight of its
presence before he sees it -- feels his soul and future laid bare
before him before he can put the masks back in place.
42.
Child (#23)
Ashley stops abruptly, silently opening and
closing his mouth a few times before turning sharply, squaring his
stance against the trailing Sydney, and crossing his arms defiantly
over his chest like a very large and well-muscled child one pout away
from throwing a noisy tantrum.
43. Drive (#46)
Sydney's
sad half-smile holds no anger, but there is reproach in his eyes:
'this drive is part and parcel of what drew you to me,' they
say, 'you would forgive me a change of heart now?' and Ashley,
for all his strength, is rendered helpless in the face of that
conviction.
44. Power (#41)
The majority of Sydney's
powers have already waned, but one hardly needed to be a heart-seer
to read the anguish seeping unwittingly through Ashley's carefully
schooled countenance.
45. Change (#13)
Softly,
Sydney begins, "Ashley, I..." and just as quickly, Ashley
replies "I know"; the meaning is different this time, but
they understand it all the same, and that is almost too much to
bear.
46. Harm (#47)
The irony of it all sickens
Ashley, how much harm he would have joyfully caused the young mage to
forestall him from bringing harm upon himself in this way, so he
clenches his teeth and balls his hands into fists and says nothing
else as his lover saunters off to die.
47. Wash
(#38)
"He is the one you have chosen," the Duke
concludes in quiet wonder, and Sydney closes his eyes against the
surge of emotion that washes over him at those words, awed by the
sudden and powerful temptation to flee destiny.
48.
Precious (#48)
The knife pierces Sydney's chest, but Ashley
senses it first, a hundredfold over any feeling for which his
flickering memories of Tia's and Marco's murder had prepared him:
this is what it is to lose something precious.
49.
Hunger (#49)
Despite the restless whispers of the Dark
confirming the spirit's safe passage, a profound and yawning hunger
awakens in Ashley's consciousness at that moment, and he knows
without question that no meat or wine or pretty little thing that
still walked the earth would slake it.
50. Believe
(#50)
Former VKP agent Ashley Riot closes his eyes and murmurs 'I
will find you again,' the still night air his only witness as he
turns toward the rising moon and leaves Valendia for the last
time.
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Author's notes: On Inspiration -- Title, summary, and whole general concept inspired by Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," which is about as perfect a song for these two as you can get.
On Writing the Famous 50 -- I chose to do these in a story continuity, but tried to write most of them so that they'd work as standalones. This works better for some than others, but I wanted each of the fifty to be meaningful in its own way. The number in parentheses, by the way, is the number of the prompt in the original theme list -- as you can see, I had to move them around to create a story that would hang together as a whole. It was much harder than I expected, but a very worthwhile challenge in the end.
On Writing VSfic Generally -- Even though (perhaps because?) the canon is a slasher's dream, Vagrant Story does unfortunately lend itself well to the kind of ficcers who fight over uke/seme distinctions and write whatever-the-hell without playing the game or understanding the dynamic, the "logic" being 'oooh, prettyboys!' I've seen a lot of backlash come out of that: some people just won't write VS anymore; others turn to Sydney/Hardin or the Blades, which is fair but less my cup of tea. If nothing else, I truly hope I've been able to capture Sydney/Ashley in a way that's true to the characters and doesn't scream rabid fangirl. I guess time will tell.