Disclaimer: I don't own Dynasty Warriors, and I don't own a witty disclaimer. Ah well.
My first fic, and I know it's short, apologies in advance, but it is just a little introduction.
Laughter rang through the orchard, like silver bells. The little girl looked up at her father, happiness sparkling in her pretty brown eyes. He grinned warmly back, picking her up and twirling her around. She squealed happily and he put her on his shoulders, striding through the trees. He winked at a beautiful woman that sat upon a stone bench nearby, her long dark hair flowing over her shoulders like a waterfall. She smiled back, shaking her magnificent head laughingly, before returning to the small, neatly bound book she held in her porcelain hands, only to be interrupted again.
"Mummy, look! Daddy's my pony!"
She smiled at the young child. "That's right, my angel."
'Daddy' grinned. "Neigh!"
The girl giggled, throwing her arms around the neck of her 'pony'. "I love you, Daddy!"
Her father lifted her easily off his shoulders and placed her gently on the grass. He kneeled down to kiss her forehead, and said, "I love you, too, blossom."
And a breeze blew over the family, carrying with it the sleepy scent of the peach blossom.
----
And once again, the girl stood in the orchard, smelling the scent of the peach trees and still hearing that laughter, echoing like silver bells.
She stood there awhile, wanting to feel nothing more than the warm, gentle breeze caressing her soft brown hair. Wanting to clear her head of all thoughts, and listen to the laughter of so many years before.
But before too long, she found she couldn't, and she fell to her knees, weeping, her delicate shoulders shaking with sobs.
Her mother knelt down beside her and wrapped her arms around her daughter, crooning comforts, while silent tears rolled down her own perfect cheeks.
----
It was a day of mourning. Black drapes replaced the usual deep, shimmering red. But you didn't need to see them to know there was something fundamentally wrong here.
There was silence. For once, pure, complete silence.
In a bedroom, a loop of brass bells lay discarded on a desk.
At a dressing table that had never before been used, a grieving woman sat, fixing a grey, flowery hairclip into her short hair and adjusting the long dress she wore.
At a table in a library a scruffy man, books of strategy laid out before him, sighed and stood up, snapping a book shut.
In front of a statue, a young man took off his hat, bowed respectfully and leant to blow out the candle at the statue's feet.
A man, whose sarcastic smile did not extend to his eyes, went in search of an erstwhile enemy, to make peace.
Two paintings hung side by side in a lonely room, where an aged woman whose eyes were haunted with loss, lost her composure and broke down sobbing.
Three elderly men stood in silence on a balcony, the memories of lost comrades heavy in the air around them.
One man stood alone in the grounds, looking at the castle and thinking, with a heart as heavy as his armour, of the reason he now called it home.
A beautiful woman walked slowly, solemnly down a hall, alone, not sparing so much as a glance to the stunning flower garden that lay outside the window, nor to the man that walked through it.
And that man, his long hair blowing in the breeze, looked up to the heavens and uttered one name.
"Sun Ce."
Very short. Funny how it feels so much longer when you're writing.
Anyways, thanks for reading! R&R!