#errant prose

[thesecondarcana]

Foreign Soil

[[that ask box meme prompted a slew of thoughts.. and this was born. ^^;]]

She never doubted the importance of her ability. She never ran at less than full capacity.

But she had never set foot in Tartarus. She didn't know what it was like, to push on further up the tower, to fall, to be hurt, and still get up and fight again, to look death in the eye.

And yet they counted her among their ilk.

She was, of course, for them. But she had never played their part. She sat in safety while their lives were on the line. She never crossed the threshold into their strange no-man's-land.

Had she the right to say she'd fought alongside them? Had she really been part of their war?

[[I realize this is a rather.. Childish train of thought, although I decided to pursue it. Perhaps she would never be this.. immature, but it was interesting to explore. ><]]

[previously-a-sideblog]

Colours

Black. Against the paper, against her earlier, lighter strokes, it was stark. Clear. Definite. Like her impending demise, like the certainty of how her life should be.

She hovers over her paint palette for a few seconds, then goes for the next selected colour. 

The next stroke is bright, flame yellow, skirting gold. The shade of Takaya's eyes, only lacking the vitality of life. The brush pauses in mid-stroke, paint pooling around the tip pressed--lightly--to the paper, as memory catches her. The first time they'd met as children, she was enchanted. What a pretty shade. The brush resumes its motion, drawing out the excess paint into a different shape, blending the anecdote into the rest of her memories.

The brush resumes its journey: water, palette, paper. 

This time it's green, the shades of choice beginning to cool. The colour of life, she was once told, but the bright tone upon her page brought to mind only deadweight sufferings, of tiresome medication and painful procedures. Somewhere in herself, she trembled, but the hand that held the brush remained steady, the trail of yellow-green a soft and silent exhale.

It trembles as it leaves the page. She takes extra time to rinse the brush, watching the colour swirl and disappear, swallowed up by the murky grey water. 

The shade of uncertainty, the film over stark monochrome. The no-man's-land she'd idly crossed into before. The stormy hue of her own heart.

Slender fingers wring the grey water gently from the bristles of the paintbrush. Size 4; it is the only brush she has. Idly she runs the tip over her finger, as she selects the next memory.

It adds a depth to the swirl on her page. Her choice is deep cerulean--Jin's hair and eyes, Junpei's choice of clothing. Two starkly different people, two indelible marks in her life. She would think fondly on them both, the teacher and brother, the lover and friend. The memory brings a strange bitterness, a warm fondness.

She allows a smile, allows a few tears in her solitude, then signs and dates the picture in her hands, a swirl of colours on a piece of paper. The only way she knew to hold her fractured memories together.

[heartflameswishes-blog]

Easter Ruins

Forbidding.

They'd always looked forbidding, shrouded in mystery accentuated by locked doors and ivy. But it was that air of age and majesty that drew her to them. Before the roof became Life's farm, she'd only been there once or twice... and maybe the odd time or so she'd sneaked out to visit them, despite repeated warnings that it was not safe to go out of the town alone!.

She always wondered who built them, and where they were from. Behind those locked doors, a piece of Heartflame's history, hidden. It was all rather exciting.

..Admittedly, she'd tried pushing open the doors. Once. As expected, they never budged, only serving to fuel the burning curiosity even more. A piece of history, hidden--perhaps even.. lost. How much, she realized, she did not know about her homeland.

[heartflameswishes-blog]

Life [ to me ]

The first thing that comes to her mind at the word isn't the day-to-day things she does, or the general routine that her life--that word--is somehow condensed into.

She is reminded, instead, of the parts of Heartflame she's never seen.

The city is only so big, big is an understatement. One, tiny section of so-called civilization. And the rest?

Lush, unspoiled wilderness, teeming with life. Yes, the word again. Life she's never seen, never heard; never touched, never tasted. And she knows it's out there. She's seen it--seen a fraction, and she knows there is so much more out there.

The city seems dead to her, automated machines repeating the same, menial tasks over and over again. Nothing changes; even her routine is never-evolving. If it moves, it's probably a vehicle; if it's green, it's probably been grown in a greenhouse. And the stark, white walls and automated doors seem for all the world like a cage.

Life, to her, is something that never falls into the steady expectancy of hard-set routine. It is the anticipation of a new day, the dawn's warm orange rays, the smell of earth and tree bark, the sound of water running in a cave. The things she has experienced but has had to live without.

And she wonders, every time she encounters that beauty, if she has ever lived at all?

{ and there you see my tendency to wander off-topic. Forgive me. orz}

[thesecondarcana]

Untitled

We're so transient, aren't we?

Here on moment, and gone the next. And no way of knowing our departure date, no way of knowing who is to leave next.

No way of discerning how long we have before "too late", until it is just that. Too late.

Some things hit too close to home, you know?

...

Why am I afraid?

Is it to lose those dear to me?

Am I afraid of Time itself? Afraid of being too late to tell those I treasure that I love them?

Why do I now fear?

[thesecondarcana]

Winter

A time of starkness, a time of change.

Winter is when the earth is dormant, slumbering under a blanket of white. It is the dark before the dawn.

I love winter. The cold, white snow, the starkness of the landscape.. It's beautiful, but it's a different kind of beauty. It is a frigid beauty, empty, yet filled with--with something I cannot describe. It is in that emptiness that one finds what they are looking for. As they say, when there is absolutely nothing, you find yourself.

And maybe, it also gives me hope. For after every winter comes spring, just as night turns to day and darkness to light. It's almost like a promise of the end of the Dark Hour. A message that the way of the world is with us.

[thesecondarcana]

Data

Data.

In the past, I would normally have associated the word with numbers. Technology. Complicated algorithms. That which the modern age calls Information Technology.

But to apply such a broad term to so specific an area of expertise? It should not be so.

Data flows through all things, living and non-living. Our thoughts, especially, are the most rapidly moving, rapidly changing forms of such information. I see it in the movements of clouds, the changing of seasons, the passing of days. It is the security in understanding a Shadow, the apprehension in progressing to a new floor of Tartarus. It's how we understand the world.

[[It's a little.. short, I think? ^^; sorry. I hope it's good enough xp]]

[thesecondarcana]

Flower

[[here, Ryoji. (: I'm sorry I took so long xp I hope the response's okay!]]Seeds, I think, are like friendships. They grow and develop well only if you invest time and effort in them. And if you've done it right, they grow into beautiful flowers.

Flowers remind me of people. They are all different, but they're all beautiful, in their own way, and each one is equipped with the specific things they need to fulfill their purpose, and nothing less. Likewise with people; I believe we are given what we need to do what we were born to do, and one person is no less than the other. Just as there is no such thing as a useless flower, there is no such thing as a useless person. You can't plant a magnolia in clay soil; neither can you plant a water lily in sand. You have to raise them in the right environment, and give them care specific to their needs. Only then will you be able to raise a plant--or a child--to "bear fruit".