I took this challenge/game from recipe for insanity's profile in order to spark the dying Muses. The old ones that were written in a hurry were taken down and I added to or just rewrote over half of them. Anything not posted today is still being rewritten.
I didn't like the ficlets that I enjoyed being sandwiched between weird ones so I separated them into chapters. Sorry for the misleading Author Alerts. Some of the ideas spawned from other stories of mine and others blindsided me. "Pairings" as such are listed at the bottom.
Cute Pairing:
The sun melted upon the horizon, turning the trees to silhouettes before them and covering their skin in blotchy shadow patterns. The only movement in the garden came from the Spanish moss and willows shifting in the breeze, the only sounds the sussuration of the leaves and the trickle of water from the fountain in the koi pond.
They were motionless, two statues in gray and brown surrounded by color that didn't touch them.
He wondered why he was even there when the minutes ticked by without so much as a word or a glance from her, the sun's slow descent the only thing to mark the passage of time. There was nothing he could do for her and nothing she could do for him in this state. The guilt was gnawing a hole in him; seeing her only compounded it.
Maybe just coming here was all that he was supposed to do. His duty done, he looked back at the house painted rosy by the sunset. It was only the sun in his eyes that was making them burn.
He didn't think he would ever come back here.
He took one step before a rustle of cloth broke the garden's quiet. Fingers fluttered like dying butterflies at his wrist, the grip weak but quite enough to stop him in his tracks. Astonished, he looked back to see wide eyes and a look of panic that quickly dissolved.
She mouthed something, paused, then whispered in a voice raw with disuse.
"Please stay." She dropped her head, hiding her eyes behind a curtain of hair even as her grip tightened.
That was all he needed to hear.
He turned back, gently disengaging her trembling hand as if the bones were made of glass, so fragile under that parchment skin. When he had his wrist free, her loosed fingers curled reflexively and she pulled back, hiding herself from him.
He stepped closer and proffered the other hand, waiting for her to see that he wasn't going anywhere. It took several moments, but when her eyes rose to meet his, he smiled. The expression had nothing of his former lightheartedness, but it was enough to wash her haunted look away. He took her hand, twining his fingers with hers.
Together, they watched the light die, the stars that appeared in its absence turning the sky into a canopy of diamonds.
This is my OTP. Matsuda x Sayu, of course. Mmm, metaphors and symbolism.
If for some reason you want to see all the old ones, drop me a line for my LJ.
