Disclaimer: Looketh: LOOKETH! *hugs* Aw, that's alright~ I'm just happy to hear from you again, haha. Thanks so much : D Ebaz: I LOVE YOU TOO DEAR. Tri: Bwahaha, thanks so much : 3 *scuttles off to go watch the YugiohAbridged parody* And thanks for answering the question! Mitsy: *rubs hands together* You should be afraid. VERY AFRAID. *lightning cracks* I know, that song's just been stuck in my head, so I thought I'd share my pain with the rest of you : 3 Puppy: Thanks for answering the question! Deltra: WILL JOIN. YUS. And yayyy, thanks : " D Alfalfa: Thanks for the fave/alert! Xayom: Thanks for the alert/ favourite!
Contest: For all you artists out there, this is for you!
Because of the new Image Manager feature, I need pictures to use as covers for Love Remains the Same, Violet Hill: A Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 3 Story, Last Train Home: A Platinum Nuzlocke, and Pictures of You: A Black Nuzlocke. The winners will receive an insanely long one shot of their choice, recognition for their cover art, and the use of their artwork on this site. Winners will be announced on the first of August.
Question: Please participate in my contest.
My Answer: Please ; w ;
Characters: This is a mash up of three requests: a song request; Silver and Mars as siblings; and SoulSilverShipping.
Summary: I like this.
Brick By Boring Brick
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The angles were all wrong now.
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"I don't need a daughter."
The words break what little pride Ariana has left, and she sobs into the bloodstained sheets of her bed. The midwife- a female grunt with a medical background, just shy of eighteen- bundles up the baby girl, and offers her to her boss. Giovanni just stares at the squalling infant.
"Next time, give me a son," is all he says, and leaves. The baby wails louder.
"Executive Ariana," the grunt begins meekly, "would you-"
"Just leave!" Tears gush in miserable tracks down the redheaded woman's cheeks, smearing her mascara. "And for the love of Arceus, shut her up."
The grunt cradles the baby closer to her chest. "Would you like to name her?" she asks again.
"No." The redheaded woman shakes with grief and exhaustion. "I hate her. I hate her. If you don't get out right now, you're fired."
Swallowing, the grunt ducks out. Ariana's cries follow her through the Rocket headquarters.
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Well, make sure to build your house brick by boring brick,
Or the wolf's gonna blow it
d
o
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The seven-year-old daughter of Giovanni skips rope in the Rocket headquarters, singing children's rhymes. Her baby brother, Silver, builds castles brick by boring brick beside her.
Giovanni watches through hooded eyes as Silver plays with the building blocks, turning the colourful squares in his hands as if they're something miraculous. Ariana stands beside him, oozing satisfaction.
"I have my hire," says the mafia leader. "You can now dispose of the girl."
Ariana stares at him, blinking heavily made-up eyes. She pales behind her mask of concealer.
"Is the job too difficult for you, Ariana?" He smiles slowly, crookedly, daringly.
"It's too lowly a job for me," she disagrees, turning away. "Get someone else to do it."
So he does. With a snap of his fingers and an inclination of his head, he orders two Rocket grunts forwards.
There is a scuffle, and the singing stops. A skipping rope falls to the floor.
Silver continues to build things, gray eyes crinkling with laughter.
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So one day he found her crying,
Coiled up on the dirty ground.
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The young cry differently than the old.
When the daughter of Giovanni is thrown out onto the streets, she cries in a way only the young can. She wanders on bleeding feet and sleeps in clogged gutters and keeps her hair short because she has never liked Rapunzel anyway and thinks in run-on sentences because it's just more fun that way.
After daysmonthsyears of being alone, a hand is offered. It is wrinkled and unfamiliar, but an offering all the same.
"Who are you?" she asks, hiccupping.
"Cyrus," he says.
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"It's all about the exposure, the lens," I told her.
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Silver has no memory of his sister, but the laughter drains from his eyes anyway.
At four years old he is coddled, held and whispered to and shown off like some sort of trophy.
At six he gets his first lashing, because he cried and the son of Giovanni should never show weakness.
At eight he meets a girl named Domino, and hates her. He hates her sly smile and bright eyes and the way his father adores her.
At ten years he watches that girl get shot in the head, and realises that not even adoration can stop his father from getting what he wants.
And at twelve…
At twelve he curls up in his bed, and makes yet another notch in his wall like a prisoner would.
At twelve, Silver wonders if he will ever be happy.
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sHe'S rIpPiNg WiNgS oFf oF bEaUtIfLiEs
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Cyrus makes her feel like helium and irony.
Smiling, Mars (because he has given her a name, a name, a name) skips around the Team Galactic headquarters, and sings.
"Twinkle, twinkle
"Little star,
"How I wonder what you are."
Jupiter, an old hag- Mars doesn't like her at all, not one bit- scowls, and says, "Knock it off, will you?"
So Mars sings louder in response.
"Up above the world so high,
"Like a diamond in the sky."
Cyrus continues to clack away at his laptop, formulas unfolding behind his eyes. Mars hugs him from behind.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
"How I wonder-"
"Silence." Cyrus's voice is like solar wind, and quietens her immediately.
"Yes, Daddy," she hums. "I love you."
He replies with a hand across her face. Smiling, she lifts her fingers to her cheek, and feels fireworks bloom across her skin.
"Love is only a chemical reaction the body creates," he tells her. "It does not truly exist, Mars. Things such as that- love, happiness, friendship- do not truly exist."
"Yes, Daddy," she says again.
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Well go get your shovel,
And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle,
To bury the castle.
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Silver is sixteen when he leaves.
His father is gone, gone some place far away from ruined dreams and wrecked aspirations, and everyone is looking to him to take up his mantle. So he leaves.
Standing at the corner of right and wrong, Silver teeters between what he is and what he is afraid to be, and loses his balance.
Unfortunately for him, he falls the wrong way.
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her prince finally came to save her,
and the rest you can figure
out
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There's a new boy at the base, and Mars can feel him watching her as she sings. His eyes are blue, just blue, but somehow they are the most beautiful shade of blue she has ever seen.
"What's your name?" she asks, shy and demure and giggling.
"Saturn," he replies. His voice is as cold as Daddy's, and his hair is like ice wrapped in the aurora borealis. She likes him immediately. "What's yours?"
"Mars," she tells him.
And that's how they start. They become one of those quiet things that nobody knows, one of those things that slink between shadows and fly between hearts.
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If it's not real,
You can't (hold) it in your hand,
You can't (feel) it with your heart.
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Kotone is one of those girls that has hair like branches, twisted and curling and waiting for the woodland pokemon to make their nests in her locks. She wraps herself in swathes of innocence, and she is so different from Domino that Silver can't help but be disarmed.
"Leave me alone," he says, shoving at her. She falls, landing on her hands, and blinks up at him with hurt eyes.
He beats back guilt. "Just leave me alone," he repeats, looking away bitterly. "Just… go."
Standing, she brushes off dirt, and stares at him. She stares at him long and hard and he can't help but fidget, heat rising to his cheeks.
Then she does the most unexpected thing possible.
She hugs him.
"Even if you don't like me, Silver… I'm here for you," she says, whispering the secret to his jacket collar. "You don't have to be alone."
And that's how they begin. They become one of those things that has no definite start or end, one of those things that begins with a look and bleeds into something else entirely.
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But it was a trick,
And the clock
{Struck}
Twelve.
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The Dimensional Hole is spreading wider and wider, stretched open like some sort of gasping mouth, and in the darkness Mars thinks she can see stars.
"Daddy, don't go," she cries, and clings to him. Cyrus shakes her off. "Daddy, don't leave me."
"Love is manufactured by the human brain," he replies coldly, darkly, lovingly. "Love, happiness… they are all lies, and if you let yourself be a slave to it then you have no place on my team." And with that he steps forward, and the abyss swallows him whole.
Shaking, Mars grips the gun (her toy, her toy, her special toy that Jupiter gave her) and wails. "Just love me," she whimpers. "Come back, come back, I'll do anything for you to come back…"
"Mars?" says Saturn, coming to stand before her.
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Keep your feet on the
ground
When your head's in the
clouds.
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They're not talking, not yet, but Silver prefers it this way.
Kotone smiles a little at the awkwardness of their silence, and he feels a blush tickle his cheeks. Damn it.
"What are you thinking about?" she wonders. Her eyes are steady on his, and, like usual, drag the truth from his mouth.
"You."
It pops out so suddenly, so traitorously, that he feels his face burn. Huffing, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and fumbles for an explanation. "I mean, just how…how weak you are."
Her mouth curves into a grin. "Says the one who I've beat in every battle."
He feels his cheeks darken, and he can't quite meet her eyes. "Whatever." Since he's already embarrassed himself already, he steels his courage, and reaches out to pinch her cheek. Her skin is soft between his thumb and forefinger.
"Knock it off, Silver," she squeals, and her laughter rebounds off the roof of the Dragon's Den.
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She lives in a
Fairytale,
Somewhere too far for us to find.
Forgotten the taste and smell
Of a world that she's left behind.
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Mars screams, aims, fires.
Chest heaving, eyes closed, she fires the gun. She can't look at Saturn, can't see him lying on the rocky floor of the mountaintop: she can't, because if she doesn't look, it's not real. If she doesn't look, it's not happening.
Laughing, she staggers back, and the gun ("So primitive," Daddy would say. "We have pokemon to do that, Mars. Put that toy away.") slips from her fingers. Grieflovepainhatred knifes through her, as hot and painful as a bullet.
"Daddy!" Tears are falling now, she's laughing so hard. "Be mad at me. Be mad." And suddenly she's pleading, shouting, wailing, "Daddy, you have to come hurt me now. You have to come back. You have to. You have to."
Her thoughts are cartwheeling in her head. They're losing their balance and crashing into each other and she's reminded of when she was five, turning cartwheels in the dark halls of Giovanni's study. "I love you." She tilts, and the world tilts with her. "Love, love, love."
There is a universe behind her eyelids, a universe she can glimpse only when her eyes are closed.
This strikes her as hilarious, and she falls to her knees, laughing.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
"I killed love, Daddy." Her bottom lip is shaking and it hurts to breathe and with each burst of laughter tears spill from her closed eyes, gushing down her face. "I killed him. I killed. I-I…"
I killed-
"Mars."
She laughs louder to drown out the voice. His voice.
"Mars." It's Saturn's voice, it's Saturn- but when Mars thinks of the name, she doesn't think of the man. She thinks of the enormity and finality and loneliness of the gas planet, sinking in the ocean of outer space. "Mars, look at me. Look at me."
"I love you. I love you." The pain in her stomach is growing hotter and wider, expanding like space.
"Mars, what have you done?"
Opening heavy eyelids, she sees Saturn standing in front of her. Her laughter turns to giggles, little hiccups of breath that sag with water.
"Ghost?" she wonders. Such a beautiful ghost, though- all dark hair and blue eyes and red lips. An expression twisted in horror and pain. Beautiful. Dead. Ugly. Alive.
Tears are rolling down his cheeks. The long-buried, human part of her wants to reach up and wipe them away.
But when she tries, a jolt of pain stops her. Blinking, she looks down at herself.
Blood stains her shirt like a bib. A bullet is lodged in her stomach.
"Mars, why?" He is shaking. "Why?"
She stares at herself, then at him. She says something incoherent.
"What?" He drops to his knees in front of her, ripping the latex of his knees.
"Because life is a lie," she whispers, and dies.
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Well, you built up a world of
m.a.g.i.c.
Because your real life is
t.r.a.g.i.c.
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"Silver, isn't it wonderful how this all turned out?" They are walking hand-in-hand, and the sun touches her cheekbones with gold.
"Yeah," he mumbles, curling his hand around Kotone's. Tilting his head back, he gazes at the dark expanse of the night sky. "It is."
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And the rest you can figure out.