QLFC: Season 10, Round 6
Team: Kenmare Kestrels
Position: Beater 2
Prompt: "The Dance of Dragons" is a song that recounts the civil war that erupted between members of House Targaryen. It is usually sung by two singers, one female, one male. It is not one song, but a collection of ballads woven together to tell the story.
Additional Prompts: (pairing) Ginny/Luna, (character/theme) Death
Word Count: 1270
Warnings: Some gory imagery (prompts are literally civil war and death). It's also a love story. There's also trans!Ginny if you know what to look for.
Summary: It's a story as old as time: moon-struck lovers living through a war. Epistolary and poetry combine to tell a Ginny/Luna love story.
.oOo.
The Dance of Dragons
.oOo.
Your eyes are blue-grey as the fog on the sea,
Your hair is the colour of sandstorms.
I wish you'd be mine,
You're truly divine,
Moonstruck girl wearing radish and thorns.
Will you go to Hogsmeade with me?
.oOo.
Dear Gin,
Yes. I'll meet you in the Great Hall at ten.
Wear something the colour of Billywigs.
Yours,
Luna
.oOo.
They say that the moon controls the tides
That there is a man casting nets
Sifting the seas through his threads
Pushing in and out as the world spins.
They are wrong. The moon is a woman.
She floats and she dances, like a bow
or a violin. Her melody is ambrosia
And I am drowning under her spell.
.oOo.
Dear Gin,
The Wrackspurts are making your brain go fuzzy.
Let's meet in the orchard tomorrow. We can watch the clouds and picture how the world could stop spinning, and we'd never have to go back down to earth again.
Yours,
Luna
.oOo.
You told me they were skeletons.
I wanted to believe you, but I couldn't;
Couldn't picture a creature so ugly:
All leathery wings and bony cheeks,
Clattering hooves and teeth
that tear apart dead flesh.
You told me Death was terrible.
I wanted to believe you, but I couldn't;
Couldn't picture anything so vile:
All meaningless gore and endings,
A Death Eater's organs splayed
across the ground like a puzzle.
You told me it would be okay.
I want to believe you, but I don't;
I can't picture an end to this war:
I wish I could see the world as you do,
Beautiful and hideous combined
wrapped up in a bow like a gift.
.oOo.
Dear Gin,
I love you like the moon loves the sun. Without your light, I'd have fallen into darkness long ago.
There are skeletons in my closet, ghosts in my windchimes, and an Inferius in my bathtub.
Who else will believe in tomorrow if not you and me?
Stay away from the Nargles.
Yours,
Luna
.oOo.
I want us to be better than this. I want this world to be one that holds you to their chest, I want to live in a world that comforts those who are crying. Hell, I'd settle for a world that isn't the reason why we're crying.
I wish the world would stop shaking from the growing mountain of our infinite mistakes. I wish my words were smooth like butter, or oil, or avocado toast. You wouldn't have to chew them, just let them sit on your tongue like a morsel.
A comfort after a long day of waiting for night to take us by surprise. A treat, a delight, a treasure for a moment before you consume me. I want you to swallow me up, pretend that at my core you find it palatable.
I don't want you to lie for me, but in a world of parallel universes I want there to be one we can both slip inside of, steal under the covers, pretend that there is a place where we perfectly belong.
And in that world, I want you to hold me, as I hold you, as you hold me, as I hold you. And for an instant, just a moment, we might feel whole. Wholly different, on the one hand. On the other, wholly ourselves.
.oOo.
Dear Gin,
They're coming. I'm afraid. I don't want to die.
Remember that I love you.
Yours,
Luna
.oOo.
They call you the moon, but to me
you are my sun and stars as well.
When will you come back?
Are you alive still?
I am haunted by the thought of your body,
fall asleep dreaming of your arms.
Without you, I feel myself falling apart,
no matter how tight I bind my chest.
I must still resist,
Keep fighting for you.
I am waiting for the day that they stop
shooting spells and start planting bluebells.
.oOo.
Dear Gin,
I saw a man with eyes like a fresh-pickled toad. I saw a butterfly escape from its chrysalis. There's a hurricane on its way, as sure as the tide that comes in.
And you know what they say about the moon and the tide.
Yours,
Luna
.oOo.
There are skeletons in my closet
I was so busy coming out I forgot to check on what was in there with me
Now dust has caked itself in layers on my windchimes
What was supposed to be playing melodies
Is just a dull thud, thunk, plink of disappointment.
Life never stops even when you're busy living it
There were so many plans and dreams that I tossed by the wayside
Set aflame like bridges I never wanted to look back at
But I know I have to step into that familiar darkness
and face what's looking back at me there
They say courage is being scared and doing it anyway,
but I'm done with being scared. I'm here feeling angry
Angry at myself for believing in fairy tales and angry about being let down.
There's enough fire here to burn the whole castle to the ground
while I tell myself pretty lies about rebuilding from the ashes
Fuck the ashes. I don't want ashes, I don't want metaphors
about how adding carbon to molten iron will harden it into steel
Give me softness. Give me moss growing where the grass has long ago died
Give me something to bury my toes in like I could grow roots here
Let me believe that this home is worth saving
There used to be so much beauty here, and safety, and love.
It's covered in dust and cobwebs, ruins and wreckage
It's the smell of rotted portraits and moth-eaten sweaters
The remnants of fine clothes for special occasions like a moulding reminder
we used to go to places that were worth dressing up for.
There are skeletons in the back of the closet, but I can't even
see the closet doors because of the rubble blocking them.
Shattered frames that haven't been looked at in so long
I wish I could make it all go away. I wish I could hold you
until your limbs stopped shaking and your mind came back.
These aren't my skeletons in the back of the closet.
I've opened the doors wide and turned on the lights.
There's a choice now, if I'll take them into the garden with you
Beneath the moss and the plum trees we'll lay them to rest.
Or I'll go, and you'll have only their empty sockets looking back at you.
.oOo.
"Gin," she said, combing the tangles out of short red hair.
"I'm tired, Luna."
"Me, too."
Together, they watched the sun set over Hogwarts' grounds. The worst damage had been cleared, and already the school was starting to look like herself again.
"She's infested now. Hogwarts won't be the same again."
"Infested with what? Heliopaths and Humdingers?"
Gin could feel Luna shaking her head. "No, with ghosts. I met Colin Creevey on the way here. There's a hole in his head, but he's still holding his camera."
"We won," Gin said. The stars were starting to come out. They could see Sirius on the horizon, almost like he was mocking them. "Why does winning feel so much like we lost everything that really mattered along the way?"
"You don't have a proper victory until people make it into a song." Luna said it matter-of-factly. Perhaps, it was because she knew these things, and perhaps it was because she was a little mad.
Above them, a half moon hung in the sky, reflected in the black waters of the lake below.
Beside Gin, Luna started to sing.