to sleep, to dream
Summary: Between the past and the present, they are alive. OneShot, Challenge. The one time all the characters die and one time they are reborn. A maximum of six sentences for each drabble.
Warning: -
Set: Story-unrelated.
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
viii. Raoul
He thinks he might be dying. He probably is. Ashes, dust, rubble everywhere – but Livia is safe – and then he does not think about his wife anymore. In the oppressing heat of the District II palace, the smoke is clogging doors and windows, white columns rise from grey ashes, and the roof caves in.
Aria.
He wishes he had been born as someone else.
vii. Smyrna
Her throat is hoarse – from dust and ashes and from screaming out his name again and again. But Sirix is not there, does not answer. As usual, the man she longs to see most does not appear before her eyes and Smyrna cannot even bring it over herself to hate herself for thinking of him like that. Sirix belongs to Serena, she does not begrudge her sister her happiness.
Is she hallucinating already or still calling out to him?
Save her, I beg you. Save her.
vi. Aglaia
It hurts – Gods, it hurts more than she ever thought it would. Delos. His was a betrayal she had not expected, one that had cut deeper than any treason could have. She does not blame him for his betrayal of her family name but she hates him for the things he could have saved and did not.
Sirix tries to save them, instead – he is always like that, always – and if someone can make it, it will be him, so she pushes him up the stairs, Loleus in his arms, and she smiles at them.
Gods, how much she loves th-
v. Aria
"Help! Help!" The pitiful yells stop her in her tracks, make her hesitate. All around her, the village of her childhood is dying, its people along with it. Aria went out in search for Lord Raoul but she finds she cannot continue on, not when so many people beg for her help.
You cannot save everyone, she told Sirix one day, but he never listened to her.
She kneels down next to a dying woman and holds her hand: both of them wait for the end.
iv. Tina
For the first time in her life, she feels needed.
It is a warm feeling, like milk and honey, her mother once made it for her before she died and before Tina was sold as a slave. Serena is like her mother, too, kind and warm, while Sirix is like the father she never had. He entrusted her with a mission – Stay with Serena – and Tina will keep her promise because there is nothing else but their kindness left in her world.
Smiling, she watches Serena embrace her husband.
She knows soon they will all be dead, but it does not matter.
iii. Delos
I will watch the city die.
Pompeii is a sea of ashes and flames. Delos feels cold – his arm is numb, there is blood, sticky and wet, in his face – but he refuses to close his eyes.
Aglaia did not close her eyes that night, when he impulsively tried to kiss her. He still remembers her smile; and her hate-filled face when he left Loleus to die.
Delos thinks he will remember forever because nobody is left to forgive him.
ii. Loleus
Sirix looks like he wants to cry. Damn him, he's bleeding, as well and from the way he moves Loleus can see he is anything but well. He wants to cry, too, because Lady Aglaia just died, because Delos betrayed them and because Pompeii is dying, and somewhere in the outskirts of the village Serena surely is waiting for them to return. She will wait in vain.
Sirix carries him, stupid idiot, he should run to Serena, not try to save everyone and fail.
The last thing he sees is his best friend's face.
i. Sirix, Keidai
Their faces dance in front of his mind's eye. Sirix thinks that one by one, he has lost them, one after another, even though he has run and fought and tried so hard. Still, he has not been able to save anyone. It is like swimming against the tide, like drowning: he can see them all, Lady Aglaia and Loleus and Aria, Smyrna and Lord Raoul, who showed him kindness, and even Delos, because Lady Aglaia looked at him only. And Serena, always Serena.
Burn it into your memory until it is all you see.
"I've got you," he tells Mii as he catches her stumbling down the stairs in her wedding dress. She is still clumsy, he thinks and smirks and cannot help but hold her a tiny bit tighter than necessary. In his arms she feels right; and he knows she is the one person in this world that has been made for him. At the end of the stairs all the others wait for them: Shuna and Souichi, Reina and Yuuma, Shinobu and his parents, too. Keidai takes her hand and together they step into the sunlit day.
ii. Mii
It is awkward, the entire setting. Because Keidai is so close it makes her heart speed up dangerously, Shuna and Mikage have disappeared silently, Yuuma and Reina are arguing and Shinobu watches them with eagle eyes from his corner, a cigarette in his hands. Mii would move away if she could. But then she looks at Keidai and catches him watching her and suddenly she does not want to be anywhere else. When he leans down to kiss her she does blush; but she does not back away.
(Mii does not know: She never remembers the past because, unlike the others, her thoughts where not on what she would lose but Please, please, God, if you exist, let them be happy in another lifetime.)
iii. Souichi
It is there, the difference between Aglaia and Shuna. He only notices is the night she told him he was no scarf, the moonlit night on the children's playground where they had spent so much time in during their childhood.
Shuna is Aglaia, but at the same time, she is not.
There are many points which illustrate the fact but none of them really matters. Just this much counts: Aglaia never belonged to him, while Shuna does. In return, he gives himself to her.
iv. Reina
She always knew she would never be Serena. Strangely, it does not matter so much nowadays.
Because she can argue with Yuuma, she can go shopping with Mii-chan, she can harass Kei and order around Shinobu and Souichi. And Shuna always is there when she needs her, the only sister Reina remembers and wants.
Reina never thought it before but she knows now she is happy, she really is. There are a million memories she might have lost but she needs none but the ones she collects in this life.
v. Renka
There is a memory in her heart, soft as a breeze, and it flutters away like a little bird. Renka looks down on the child in her arms and wants to weep.
"He is perfect," Shuugo says behind her, his gaze lingering on the infant's tiny fists and fingers. Then, he looks at her. "You are beautiful."
He still makes her blush.
vi. Shuna
She collects his faces.
Like Reina's collection of porcelain dolls Shuna files away every single one of Souichi's expressions, carefully cataloguing each in a mental museum like the most precious pieces of art. His smiles, his laughter, his curious faces, the expression of slight amusement or of deep thought. It is terrifying how much she loves him, as if she cannot be whole if he is not there. And yet she does not want to look away, does not want to miss a single one of his heart beats.
He never looks more peaceful than when he is asleep.
vii. Shinobu
He ticks off the people on a mental list. Yuuma, Reina, Serizawa, Renka, Shuugo: never remembered anything, Shuna: forgot, Mikage: suffers less day by day, Keidai: found his peace.
"Grah!" Yuuma shouts and pours a pail of water over Reina in retaliation, and the girl screams ear-shatteringly despite the warmth of the sun and the closeness of the ocean and the laughter of their friends all around them and starts chasing down the culprit.
Someone nudges his foot; a flicker of golden hair, a brilliant smile. Shinobu feels the draw, slow but unstoppable. He finds he is fine with it as long as he is allowed to stay with all of them, and slowly, slowly, his memories fade, as well.
viii. Shuugo
He really wonders why he has to tell her so often when it is obvious – at least to him – that there is no one else he would ever want the way he wants her.
A memory: the woman in front of him is young, pretty and small, she sits on the bench reading a book and he might have just seen her for the first time but it does not feel like it is. She actually growls at him for disturbing her and then she blushes adorably. Shuugo thinks her or none.
"What are you reading?"
Because in his world those words mean I love you and I want you and You are mine all at once and from there on, their story enfolds.