Bad news, gents. My laptop has received a belated christening of an unearthly amount of soy sauce. Which means that not only its screen is not completely unresponsive, but I've lots all the data on it. (This is me talking from the family computer.) I have no idea as to the course of action to follow now, but whatever I end up doing, it'll mean that my computer-time will be drastically shortened until further notice. (Gah, sophisticated words here. It's the panic.)
Hopefully I'll be able to read and post fic, albeit not as frequently as before (and this had to happen during synaesthesia too!), and my mail's still open. But messenger and RP—well, we'll have to see. Sorry, guys ;o;
And now that I'm done complaining, on with the show.
Disclaimer—I don't own MK. I own a laptop. Laptops should be water-proof. Or soy sauce-proof. At least.
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osmose
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Prompt:—
—the palace itself grew dim, swayed above her, fell onto her softly, slowly, noiselessly, and the sky fell with it.
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(a story can—}
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The Luxembourg, a park of long grass and ancient statues in downtown Paris, flurry centre of the sinning light-world, on a September afternoon, soft sunshine onto olden, stilled stone; children run, couples stroll; some return, others vanish. There are shouts from where the swings string out discordant sounds.
And Aoko lies back and looks at the sky.
This is a beautiful place, surely, and even the coating of childish cries and prattling French words echoing can dim out dully and leave the park beneath, the park and its acres of trees and adjoining terraces and Greek statues and chess players.
Here the wind seems to play in branches, sweeping leaves with a fluting sounds that seems to come straight from the Pan statue, grinning maniacally in an alley; there the clouds reflect in the mirror of the large, round, centre basin around which gather green metallic chairs; above all the sky is silver-blue, brighter where the autumn sun shines out the shapes and shades.
This must be what the Suspended Garden looked like once upon a time, Aoko thinks, terraces after terraces of white stone, linked together by marble staircases and platforms, each cradling within their nest the mocking statues of pagan, dead gods who seem to still and mock the raging, modern world that has long forgotten them—
(—and the long-said words say, 'That, too, will pass.')
But when closing her eyes onto the nervy, handsome day, she can almost feel the garden throb and pulse about her, layers of ghost veils rising and falling to the slow ba-bump ba-bump ba-bump—
—ba-bump-ba-bump-ba-bump-ba— of a gigantic heart.
And then a dog barks, and the charm isn't broken, but still and shifts and changes.
And then the world is all black-and-white hair, and a warm body pressing against hers that is musky and bony, and a rough tongue lapping at her hand and her face.
"Tout-Va-Bien! ici, mon vieux—oh, hello, mademoiselle Nakamouri." The voice skips to smooth English nearly flawlessly, and blond hair and dark eyes enter her field of vision. "Enjoying the beauties of our local parc, are you?"
Aoko sits up. Smiles. "That I am. How are you, Sernine-san?"
(He drops gracefully to the grass next to her, and that surprises her a little: though he no longer wears the formal suit he had donned on their former meeting, and more casual clothes today, he is not exactly the kind to fall to short intimacy. But his manners are charming, and Tout-Va-Bien is snuggling up against her side, and Aoko falls short of further surprise.)
"I see you received the clothes," he adds, with an appraising smile.
Aoko flushes; a little. And, to conceal this, she says, "This is a beautiful place."
"Indeed it is," suddenly he is enthusiastic. "It is a fine garden. Abit crowded come les beaux jours, but it still conceals some of the finery of the ancient days—Oh les beaux jours que ce siècle de fer—and so on. And today it seems that even those old gods are laughing at us."
He expresses in words what confused her in thought, and she falls silent again. She lets him babble,
"—and if you only follow this trail of those shallow, ever-moving deities, you will find a long, blue-green, leafed fountain that looks almost like every other long, blue-green, leafed fountain, but if you skirt past it and into the small grove of trees that backs it, and listen closely, you will be able to hear a slow, slow beating that is the garden's beating heart—mon Dieu, you would let me babble on."
Aoko laughs, and says, "Not at all. I quite enjoy the story."
"What story? it is the truth. But I am being silly. Have you found a solution to that riddle of yours?"
The question feels innocent enough. Aoko produces the book, and the Verlaine data, and the second riddle. "The bookseller tells me it was written by Arthur Rimbaud. Was it, really?"
A rapid musing ensues. "Certainly. I think it is part of his collection of poems entitled Le Bateau Ivre—The Drunken Boat. I think I would translate it so—though mind you, it is nowhere near the original beauty of the words, but it will be accurate—I hope—
"'It was found again.
What was? —Eternity.
It is the sea, allied
With the sun.'"
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(a story can mislead you.
from the second you start thinking, you're lost.)
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Sernine's story, if anyone wonders, is actually true. There really is a long, blue-green, leafed fountain in some secluded spot of the Luxembourg park, with a little grove at the back of it, and if you step into that little grove and listen, you can hear a slow, steady pounding. Legend has it it's the garden's beating heart.
There's probably a scientific explanation, what with the fountain's mechanism and whatnot, but you can't hear it around any of the other fountains—and anyway in such a case I prefer the legend.
See you when I see you. Hopefully it'll turn out for the best. *needs comfort*
