Title: Kata
Category: Short Fic, Ian Angst
Fandom: The TV Show, not the Comic Book
Rating: PG (Don't play with swords, kids)
Author: The Mad Fangirl
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned herein and make no money from their shameless
exploitation.
* * *
Kata
A sword-sweep cut white space. In the spare bright room, Ian Nottingham moved with a dancer's fluidity.
One strike became the next, became a block, became a blur. Within the exercise he sought balance and
clarity, and considered what little he knew of freedom.
Had he the choice, he would be free. The sword flowed twice in a complex, identical pattern. Redundant.
Slowly he carved space for the thought, pushing back the pale cold that was Irons within him. This small
corner of his mind - was it freedom? Pity, then. It would not last.
The cold always crept back. Pervasive, invasive, it always returned. Ian could not stop it. It would swamp
Ian's self until only the barest spark remained, and someday it would seek out even that. But now in a web
of irony, something else blocked it, so subtly that it could not tell.
Red molten heat pressed against the cold, reinforcing for this instant the walls around this corner of his
mind. The blade spun, arcing in the bright light, glinting like a spray of fire from the surface of the sun.
The fire whispered to him.
It pulled what it needed to itself, so perhaps Ian merely saw what took others unawares, with no difference
in the outcome. He felt it work its will on him, whereas the fates and others merely did its bidding.
Irony. The connection was fused into Ian's blood and bone. Had not Irons ever considered that the thing
he'd created it for might usurp it?
The Witchblade was whole now. It knew him now. And it desired him in its service.
Better the master you hate or the master you worship? Better the devil you know?
Ian embraced the molten heat and let it creep like lava across his mind and soul, whispering all the while to
the cold that it was only Ian, only a servant. He sighed as it used his small island of self to gain ground. As
he gave himself to it, a smile touched the corner of his mouth.
"What are you thinking about, Ian, to bring a smile to your face?"
His sword point paused half a hair from Irons' neck, his muscles holding it utterly still. Irons liked this, he
knew, this display of utter control. Not Ian's control, of course.
"Sara," he answered.
"Good," Irons replied, and the sword left his neck. He turned and left Nottingham to his kata.
* * *
END
TMF
Category: Short Fic, Ian Angst
Fandom: The TV Show, not the Comic Book
Rating: PG (Don't play with swords, kids)
Author: The Mad Fangirl
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned herein and make no money from their shameless
exploitation.
* * *
Kata
A sword-sweep cut white space. In the spare bright room, Ian Nottingham moved with a dancer's fluidity.
One strike became the next, became a block, became a blur. Within the exercise he sought balance and
clarity, and considered what little he knew of freedom.
Had he the choice, he would be free. The sword flowed twice in a complex, identical pattern. Redundant.
Slowly he carved space for the thought, pushing back the pale cold that was Irons within him. This small
corner of his mind - was it freedom? Pity, then. It would not last.
The cold always crept back. Pervasive, invasive, it always returned. Ian could not stop it. It would swamp
Ian's self until only the barest spark remained, and someday it would seek out even that. But now in a web
of irony, something else blocked it, so subtly that it could not tell.
Red molten heat pressed against the cold, reinforcing for this instant the walls around this corner of his
mind. The blade spun, arcing in the bright light, glinting like a spray of fire from the surface of the sun.
The fire whispered to him.
It pulled what it needed to itself, so perhaps Ian merely saw what took others unawares, with no difference
in the outcome. He felt it work its will on him, whereas the fates and others merely did its bidding.
Irony. The connection was fused into Ian's blood and bone. Had not Irons ever considered that the thing
he'd created it for might usurp it?
The Witchblade was whole now. It knew him now. And it desired him in its service.
Better the master you hate or the master you worship? Better the devil you know?
Ian embraced the molten heat and let it creep like lava across his mind and soul, whispering all the while to
the cold that it was only Ian, only a servant. He sighed as it used his small island of self to gain ground. As
he gave himself to it, a smile touched the corner of his mouth.
"What are you thinking about, Ian, to bring a smile to your face?"
His sword point paused half a hair from Irons' neck, his muscles holding it utterly still. Irons liked this, he
knew, this display of utter control. Not Ian's control, of course.
"Sara," he answered.
"Good," Irons replied, and the sword left his neck. He turned and left Nottingham to his kata.
* * *
END
TMF