Corrin watched with curiosity, her eyes on Azura’s hands as she worked.
“You sure are knowledgeable about this, Azura,” she commented cheerfully. Azura’s cheeks turned slightly pink.
“Well, I used to do this every year with Hinoka and the others,” she smiled, stirring the mixture carefully in the pot. “It’s tradition.”
“It looks so complicated,” Corrin noted, glancing at the white garments stretched out on the wooden floor. “Does everyone really dye their own clothes for this festival?”
Azura chuckles. “Well, no, not everyone. Plenty of people have theirs dyed at shops, or just use the same yukata every year. But everyone at Castle Shirasagi always dyed their own. It was one of Queen Mikoto’s favorite festivals.”
“I can’t imagine Takumi doing something this tedious,” Corrin grins.
“Oh, you’d be surprised. He’s surprisingly artistic.”
“Hmm... No, I really can’t see it.”
“Haha, Sakura told me he already made his for this year, I’m sure you’ll be blown away.”
“If you say so,” she said. She leaned against the wall, waiting for the dye.
“Corrin...”
“Yes?”
Azura glanced nervously away. “You’re staring at me... again.”
“O-Oh...” she said, her cheeks burning; she hadn’t really noticed. There was an awkward sort of silence, broken only by the quiet bubbling of the pot.
“You... you never told me what color you wanted,” Azura finally said, fidgeting with the powders at her feet.
“I don’t mind, whatever color you like is fine by me...”
“No, well, I couldn’t, you should chose something you want...”
Corrin rubbed her arm self-consciously.
“Uhm... I don’t really have a good eye for this sort of thing... My clothes were always picked for me, and they say my eyes are a strange color, so it’s a little hard to coordinate.”
“Who says that?” Azura frowned.
“Everyone, really,” she shrugged. “As long as I can remember.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your eyes,” Azura insisted, leaning in to take a closer look. Corrin couldn’t help her heart pounding at the thoughtless gesture. “They’re lovely, like currants or rubies.”
“You’re... a bit close,” Corrin breathed. There was a long sort of pause, neither of them moving.
“Now your face is red too,” Azura muttered blankly.
“That would be your fault...”
“Can... I kiss you?”
Corrin could have died.
“You don’t have to ask...”
Many years later, she never could remember what color yukata she wore that festival. What she did remember was the sensation of running her fingers through Azura’s blue hair, of staring at those beautiful golden eyes, and of feeling more alive and vibrant than she ever had before.
This is a pretty poor recording of it, but here’s an audio version of my song “Sun, Shine” for Azurrin Week. It’s in Azura’s PoV and you can read the lyrics here. I... haven’t practiced guitar or written a song in a loooong time, sorry for the bad quality.
The girl sitting under the tree looks up from her book. Her brother is lying at her feet, staring up at the thick green branches.
“Again? Why don’t you just read a book on your own for once?” she asks, turning her attention back to the page she’s left off on. It takes her a moment to find her paragraph again.
“Because I don’t want to read, I want to hear,” her brother says petulantly. “You tell the best stories.”
The girl can’t help it; she’s never been good at turning him down.
“Fine, fine,” she says, a bit happy that he enjoys her stories. She closes her book and leans back against the tree bark, tapping her knee thoughtfully. “Which one do you want to hear?”
“Hmm... the one about the silent dragon.”
“You always want to hear that one,” she teases. He looks up at her seriously.
“I can’t remember it like you do.”
She nods. “Alright.” She pauses for dramatic effect, sweeping the black hair out of her face. “A long time ago, there was a dragon king who ruled a country alongside humans. He was a just, kind, king who protected his people, and in return he was much loved and celebrated.”
“He was a king, but there was a human king too, wasn’t there?”
“Correct,” she says, spreading out her tunic. “The human kings were gifted with the dragon’s blood, and thus they wielded great magic and power. But they worked together with the dragon, until one day, the dragon fell to madness.”
Her brother listens quietly, seriously.
“He never meant to harm anyone, but the dragon king could not fight his true nature, that of a beast. So it came to be that the kingdom he so carefully raised was destroyed by his own hand.”
“He killed the king and his family, didn’t he?” her brother asks.
“Yes. The only survivors were the queen and her daughter, and the queen’s sister.”
“He spared them.”
“In a way. They say that in the last moments of his sanity, he asked them to flee the kingdom. The queen fled to the kingdom of Nohr, and her sister fled to Hoshido. She married the king and had one daughter, and so the royal bloodline of the dragon was split in two.”
“One half for the princess in Nohr, and one half for the princess in Hoshido,” her brother recites, holding his hand up to the sky.
“Yes. Each princess held a special power, and there was a prophecy, a song that alluded to the path they must take in order to subdue the fallen dragon. But alone, they could not hope to bring peace to his kingdom,” she continues, closing her eyes and letting her thoughts paint the pictures she needs. “There was a curse upon them both. The queen’s daughter was the only one able to sing the song to quell the dragon, but it ate at her life force each time she sang it. On the other hand, the other princess had been given a dragon’s heart, and she could transform at a heavy price to her mind. Alone, they would have crumbled.”
“But they weren’t alone,” he says.
“No. A war broke out between Nohr and Hoshido, but the two destined princesses stood firm and led their people to the truth. Together, they returned to the land of their forefathers and brought peace to the dragon’s soul. Together, they were able to survive their curses until the very end.”
“But they died, in the end,” he says sadly. She opens her eyes, a rueful smile on her lips.
“Yes. The queen’s daughter died singing her song to subdue the king, and in her grief, her cousin lost her mind to her own curse. She died of a broken heart.”
“Because she loved the princess, right?”
She sighs.
“She loved her more than life itself. But even when they were alive... it was a painful, difficult love. Maybe that’s why it was all the more painful to lose her, in the end. She... she wasn’t the same, after Princess Azura died.”
A heavy silence falls between them.
“I wish I could remember,” he says wistfully.
“You were too young,” she says, hugging her knees. “Even I still struggle to remember, sometimes.”
“But you remember them. And you remember Father.”
“Only just. It’s been over a thousand years, Kana.”
“Yeah... I wonder how Father felt, about Mother and Azura.”
She shrugs. “Who knows? He never would tell me.”
“Humans are strange, aren’t they Soleil?”
“Humans... and dragons too,” she chuckles. “You know, Nohr and Hoshido still celebrate Mother and Azura as heroes, for what they did. But I think that’s wrong.”
“You don’t think they’re heroes?”
“No, they are, but... I get the feeling that their story is probably something more... simple.“
“I don’t get it, sister,” Kana whines. Soleil chuckles.
“Me neither.”
This story is a short piece based on an alternate timeline for my fic, Currents Through a Flame, for the Hero prompt.
Seventh ficlet for Flowing Like Time, Azurrin Week 2016.
For Day 7, “Story.”
The day's march begins like any other: Corrin's army breaks camp, spreading out into their usual column as they travel down the road. The lands they're traveling through are typical of the Hoshidan countryside: scattered groves of trees, wide grasslands, and merrily babbling brooks. The sun shines down, without a cloud in the sky to interrupt its deep blue.
Corrin and Azura walk side-by-side, as they've become accustomed to. They chat with each other about inconsequential things: the morning's breakfast, the birds they see fluttering from tree to tree, the possibility of rain in the next week. It's easier to speak of such things than of their mission, though that mission still casts a darker shadow over them than any cloud could.
Of course, they can never be truly free of it.
That becomes apparent that afternoon, when a column of dust arises in front of the column. The forward scouts gallop back, shouting an alarm. Enemies have been sighted ahead: the strange, otherworldly soldiers that have plagued them since the square at Shirasagi.
The enemy comes hard on the heels of the scouts. Caught unprepared for the onslaught, Corrin's forces scatter in small groups.
Corrin throws herself flat as a wyvern flies past, its rider swinging an axe in one hand. On its second pass she stands her ground, sidestepping the wyvern to cut into its rider. Her opponent falls to the ground without a sound, and she turns to take stock of the battle. She sees a flutter of white cloth vanishing into the trees, enemies in pursuit. "Azura!" she shouts, taking off at a full sprint after her disappearing friend.
Corrin overtakes an enemy axeman, dispatching him without a second thought, and continues her pursuit. If Azura is alone and cut off from the others, she'll be hard-pressed to defend herself.
She hears the sound of running water ahead and quickens her pace. Crashing through a low bush, she's confronted by Azura's wide-eyed face, and the blade of a naginata.
"Corrin!" she says breathlessly, hurriedly pulling her weapon back. "I'm sorry, I thought you were..."
Panting, Corrin shakes her head. "No... I got here first... couldn't leave you... alone..."
She straightens up, holding a stitch in her side. Azura has halted at the edge of the stream, a broad stretch of water flowing little more than ankle-deep. Beneath its clear surface, Corrin can see the sandy streambed, pulled into a rippling pattern by the constant flow.
A fast-moving shadow passes overhead, wings beating, and Corrin flinches, her heart leaping into her throat. Her body moves almost of its own accord, and before she knows it she's hurling herself at Azura, shouting "Get down!"
She has a brief view of Azura's surprised face before the two of them collide, falling back to land in the stream with a loud splash. Corrin rolls over, grappling for her sword...
...and finds herself looking back at a rather puzzled bird perched in the trees. It chirps at her twice before fluttering away.
"I... I thought..." Corrin says, her mouth falling open. Her face is rapidly turning red as she realizes her mistake, sitting in the shallow stream with no enemies in sight.
There is an odd sound from beside her, and she looks down at Azura. The other girl is still lying down, long hair drifting about her, her clothes soaked through, shaking.
"Are you... all right?"
"I'm..." Azura's voice sounds strained. After a moment, though, her face cracks into a smile, and Corrin realizes that she had been shaking with laughter, her face flushed as much by that as by her flight through the woods. Some of that laughter bubbles through, merry as the flowing stream. "Corrin... you should have seen the look on your face!"
"I was worried about you!" Corrin protests. "I thought that I'd hurt you, or that..."
Azura sits up and continues, one hand dragging sopping hair out of her face, her voice still bright with glee. "No, not at all. You protected me from the big, scary bird!" She leans forward, clutching at her side, unable to stop giggling.
Corrin tries to assume an expression of injured dignity, but Azura's laughter is infectious, and soon she too is laughing--laughing until her eyes blur with tears and her sides ache.
At last, the two get themselves under control. Corrin is the first to get to her feet, wringing out her waterlogged cloak. "We should get back before they send out a search party." She turns to offer a hand and averts her eyes, blushing: the water has rendered Azura's white dress completely transparent. Pulling Azura to her feet, Corrin sheds her own cloak, offering it out at arm's length. "Um... here."
Azura regards the cloak in puzzlement for a moment, then looks down at herself and bites her lip, her own cheeks flushing as well. "Oh. Thank you." She drapes it around her shoulders, smiling. "Quite the day we've had, wouldn't you say?"
"Really..." Corrin shakes her head ruefully as she picks up her sword, shaking drops of water from its blade.
"It'll make an interesting story to tell the others," says Azura, her voice all too innocent.
"Please don't... I'd never live it down."
Unexpectedly, Corrin feels the soft touch of Azura's lips against her own, still slightly damp from their fall in the stream. Azura withdraws, a faint smile on her face.
"It will be our little secret, then." She picks up her fallen naginata settles Corrin's cloak more securely around her, turning. "We should get back to the others before they start to worry."
Sword held slackly in her hand, her breathing unsteady, Corrin stares after Azura as she leaves.
Her lips still seem to feel the pressure of her first kiss.
Sixth ficlet for Flowing Like Time, Azurrin Week 2016.
For Day 6, “Rain.”
Though the horizon is dark with clouds, the wilderness of the Wind Tribe remains dry as a bone.
Corrin and Azura walk side by side, feet blistering on the hot sands. Though they both have much to say, they remain silent: the grit rising from the ground to coat their mouths does not make for easy conversation.
So they walk on, each alone with her own thoughts.
Corrin thinks of the family she left behind, and of the family alongside her. As if in a dream, she treads new and strange lands in her mind: the frozen lakes of the Ice Tribe, the barren streets of Windmire, the green plains of Hoshido. Each has left its stamp on her: she is no longer who she was back in the Northern Fortress. And yet a part of her remains the same: the bright-eyed girl who dreamed of the world outside and always wished to see the best in others.
The sun beats down mercilessly, but it is a brighter sky than she ever thought to see.
Azura's face remains smooth as stone, but her thoughts are of darker things: of a land below, filled with fog. Of walking corpses, minds long since fled, dead eyes filled with malice. Of an unspeakable magic, binding her tongue more surely than the dust caking her throat.
Of silence, and blood.
They walk on, filthy and tired. The cloud-banks draw closer, towering above, dark and forbidding. The desert begins to give way, gradually relinquishing its grip on the land as scrubby grasses and tangled trees fight their way free of the dirt. Lightning flashes in the distance, and thunder rolls across the plains, like a drum sounding the call to war.
And at long last, the heavens open, rain pelting down in torrents. Azura and Corrin lift their faces to the sky, letting the water cleanse them.
