Continuity: What-if, future-set fic. Horohoro/Marion, just to reiterate.
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Porcelain
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She reminded him of a doll crafted in minutest detail and painted with lavish, slender attention. Glancing at her from a certain angle, she would look as though she were translucent glass hanging in reality by the grace of heaven, and he felt painfully clumsy around her. Perhaps that was the natural way things were to be between the two of them, as she walked delicately and he tried to hold his breath for fear of knocking her over.
Of course, he never managed to hold his breath and inevitably did something he knew startled her: yelling, for instance. He was never sure why, but she was immediately set off-balance, thrown for the matter of a few seconds if he yelled excitedly. Even shouting his return to her apartment was enough to inspire her dropping a dish and staring at him with those wide blue eyes, her eyebrows hovering indecisively betwixt fright and accusation.
When he would bend to help her pick up the thick porcelain shards of the dish, her smooth and small fingers would make his rough and long fingers nearly primitive in appearance. Strands of her pale blonde hair twisting on the floor as they silently gathered the shards together (she was quiet in a gentle way, though he was voiceless more out of guilt and a want to talk suppressed), he was acutely reminded of every difference: pale and delicate and quiet, utterly sure of herself nonetheless, and him dark, rough, and exuberant, with a few flaws in his self-confidence.
He could not explain why he loved her, except that his first true attraction (something far more endearing than her dainty European beauty) had been her willingness to listen to him. No one had ever truly let him talk as long as he wanted, nor had anyone been respectful enough to not scold him for tossing his arms about in excitement. She did, and always watched with a soft expression, though he knew when to stop after her eyebrows tilted down and her lips drew thin.
But most of the time she would - and gods did he love it when this happened - laugh. At first it had been awkward, with him only chattering to fill up the space between them forged by old factions and inequal footing; it had slowly turned from clumsy to comforting, and then to friendship, and every time he was able to break her quiet face (not like Anna's with its harsh silence, not like Tamao's with its gentility) and make her laugh, he began to wonder. He loved her, that he knew, but it was strange at the same time.
She had tried to kill his friends before, had willingly devoted her life to a mass murderer, and was frighteningly fragile in appearance (though he knew she was like the porcelain dish: it might shatter, but the pieces were still unexpectedly strong and rarely shattered into tiny fragments). He, too, had nearly been killed by her companions, those other followers, and he was from the snowy wilderness: he was sturdy and healthy, and even glancing at him could tell one that.
"Would you like to, sort of, go on a trip with me?" he asked one evening, in the unusual silence of her tiny living room. "Camping trip, I mean."
After a careful moment, as he held his breath and hoped to not turn blue-faced, she slowly acquiesced, nodding almost shyly.
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Notes: I need to stop writing vignettes. Anyway. Mostly written to get a grasp on Horohoro and Marion, for the sake of Advent. Yup.
Feedback: Both delicious and nutritious - and it prevents cavities!
Disclaimer: Takei Hiroyuki owns all. I mean, really, do you think he would condone Horohoro/Marion?
--
-
Porcelain
--
-
She reminded him of a doll crafted in minutest detail and painted with lavish, slender attention. Glancing at her from a certain angle, she would look as though she were translucent glass hanging in reality by the grace of heaven, and he felt painfully clumsy around her. Perhaps that was the natural way things were to be between the two of them, as she walked delicately and he tried to hold his breath for fear of knocking her over.
Of course, he never managed to hold his breath and inevitably did something he knew startled her: yelling, for instance. He was never sure why, but she was immediately set off-balance, thrown for the matter of a few seconds if he yelled excitedly. Even shouting his return to her apartment was enough to inspire her dropping a dish and staring at him with those wide blue eyes, her eyebrows hovering indecisively betwixt fright and accusation.
When he would bend to help her pick up the thick porcelain shards of the dish, her smooth and small fingers would make his rough and long fingers nearly primitive in appearance. Strands of her pale blonde hair twisting on the floor as they silently gathered the shards together (she was quiet in a gentle way, though he was voiceless more out of guilt and a want to talk suppressed), he was acutely reminded of every difference: pale and delicate and quiet, utterly sure of herself nonetheless, and him dark, rough, and exuberant, with a few flaws in his self-confidence.
He could not explain why he loved her, except that his first true attraction (something far more endearing than her dainty European beauty) had been her willingness to listen to him. No one had ever truly let him talk as long as he wanted, nor had anyone been respectful enough to not scold him for tossing his arms about in excitement. She did, and always watched with a soft expression, though he knew when to stop after her eyebrows tilted down and her lips drew thin.
But most of the time she would - and gods did he love it when this happened - laugh. At first it had been awkward, with him only chattering to fill up the space between them forged by old factions and inequal footing; it had slowly turned from clumsy to comforting, and then to friendship, and every time he was able to break her quiet face (not like Anna's with its harsh silence, not like Tamao's with its gentility) and make her laugh, he began to wonder. He loved her, that he knew, but it was strange at the same time.
She had tried to kill his friends before, had willingly devoted her life to a mass murderer, and was frighteningly fragile in appearance (though he knew she was like the porcelain dish: it might shatter, but the pieces were still unexpectedly strong and rarely shattered into tiny fragments). He, too, had nearly been killed by her companions, those other followers, and he was from the snowy wilderness: he was sturdy and healthy, and even glancing at him could tell one that.
"Would you like to, sort of, go on a trip with me?" he asked one evening, in the unusual silence of her tiny living room. "Camping trip, I mean."
After a careful moment, as he held his breath and hoped to not turn blue-faced, she slowly acquiesced, nodding almost shyly.
--
-
Notes: I need to stop writing vignettes. Anyway. Mostly written to get a grasp on Horohoro and Marion, for the sake of Advent. Yup.
Feedback: Both delicious and nutritious - and it prevents cavities!
Disclaimer: Takei Hiroyuki owns all. I mean, really, do you think he would condone Horohoro/Marion?