@organicgold YOU GET IT, imagine the drama of the animated sprites, the hand-waving and the pacing and the wild dialogue, it would be perfect. But now I’m imagining an actual crossover where the crew of TNG meets the WAA and friends.
I think you'll really like lhod, I read it last summer while traveling visiting Ely. Pro tip: summer is the best time to read it, because the planet it takes place on is very, very cold!
<3!!! I’m sure I will, I’m really looking forward to reading more Le Guin! I’ll read it in summer then!
Whether he likes it or not, his soul tells him; if he moves now, swept by the wind, he must also lay to rest someday.
A thing that was supposed to be something and kind of became something else? More details in end of fic notes.
It pours on the windows. Even on this sky, a velvet gray, raindrops split the small grey office in a myriad of lights.
“I really don’t know how to thank you.”
It may be the weather, or how the vapours or tea wrap the world in warm haze. But the air is so dense, just at the edge of his skin, that Miles’ response dies in his lungs before it can be born.
Phoenix’s voice has a way of freeing him. Whatever is more, of his choice or not, melts away. All is equal -- no fears and no disguises.
“I hope I did fine.”
“You’re more than fine.”
A soft gaze is his true answer, brilliant in the even lighting. So much grief and gratitude in such a short time span. He still feels the weight of all their losses, as well as the looming terror of those they barely escaped.
Miles thinks of how they struggle -- the endless fight he somehow chose, their fight, together --and wonders why it must be so hard, when just a smile can hold all the promises in the world.
“I’m sorry if you… got the wrong idea, back in the garden,” Phoenix says, surrendering to the gap they somehow feel between them. “Your help was truly a gift. It was you who made that choice… to stay, and save lives, and trust me. I never expected anything of you.”
Miles knows some of what he means. The rest, he still cannot speak -- he lets it brew, as ever, in its quiet familiar storm.
Neither did I, but here we are.
*
There is some agitation in Phoenix's heart. Nothing extraordinary, for sure -- what is peculiar about it is the kind.
It is a hiccup, an unfinished verse, whose circular path he can't quite identify. It seems to come and go at the pace of the airplanes out there -- ever busy, ever unchanged, cluttering the runways with an impatience he finds oddly familiar.
That's the thing with him and Edgeworth, his mind begins, and the nervous clarity of his own thought takes him by surprise. He barely ever noticed it was true, but sure enough, the fact remains. Theirs is a story that jumps all across time -- flowing as if they never parted, trip after trip, yet with no intention to end or begin.
It is some sort of balance, a calm he has always been fine with.
Maybe that is new, a thread of thought suggests him from somewhere far away. He never let himself wonder if it was time to move somewhere else. After all, as varied and directionless as it may be, this force has been there since he can remember.
He watches the planes soar, with the vague feeling he, too, will have to pick somewhere to go one day. For now, he is content with staying on the ground.
There his feet remain, in a sweet, uneasy stillness.
*
He feels just like the meadow outside his window.
Collected in his seat, back to his old cocoon of German land, Miles watches the world pass by from the train. He finds a bitter comfort in the blur of the scenery, feeling, as silly as it seems, less alone in the fact he can't find peace.
The grass has occupied his thoughts for a good half hour. He observes the way the shades of colour swap into each other, mercilessly beaten by the wind. He wonders if there can be any joy in living like that -- as fragile stems, hurled around by the forces of nature.
To be fair to himself, he focused on just getting by. Odd thought, yet sincere. There was never any space for anything else.
Like the grass, he just existed. The enormity of why he still lives, what he lives for -- what he did for someone other than himself -- is only starting to crush him now.
But it occurs to him at last, like a tremor years before the landslide. The pattern of his flailing has been rearranged forever. Beneath all meadows, he knows, secret forces crawl under the earth to give them life.
All that moves on the surface has roots deep down. Whether he likes it or not, his soul tells him; if he moves now, swept by the wind, he must also lay to rest someday.
*
"Have you ever felt this way, too?"
Phoenix has no question to answer yet, but he knows he will. It is how it always goes around Miles' fireplace. The flames kept them together through the years, alive in the quiet night, and nourished their patience when more was needed.
In the wait, he listens. Raindrops patter against glass outside, giving him a glimpse of an afternoon gone by. He looks at Miles' focused expression, and time ceases to make sense in the face of all the memories it calls back. How many years in between, he wonders -- how many departures, and reunions?
How many steps forward in his long, distracted chase?
“It's a feeling of suspension," Miles finally says, splitting his musings in half with a subtle anxiety. "Moving too fast and still being halfway through. As if you were going towards something that is more, so much more than you can handle, and never getting there."
Phoenix says nothing, choosing instead to share a long, meaningful gaze. The concept is too familiar -- if in different times, and different circumstances, he has had his share. And yet, somehow, a trace of it lingers between the two of them.
As if what he says were something personal, in a way. All about them.
Phoenix is calm. If he does not find the words, maybe he will not need to. So much, for so long, he has seen behind those grey eyes -- too many times, it was a pain so deep he could never truly understand it.
Not that he needs to, after all. What Phoenix wants from life is to smooth the creases, soothe, make peace.
More than for himself, his heart quietly completes, it is for them.
"I have."
"I... don't know where I am going," Miles laments, and the way he says it has all the tones of ancient fear. "I just know it's somewhere. And I know... somehow... it is somewhere I need to choose to be."
Phoenix knows the telltale signs, at this point. His eyes widening in fear, his features so tense in the effort of concealing. Despite all the work, all the softening around the edges -- after a lifetime of running, the fear of laying to rest.
He reaches for his arm, delicately, and offers a hand to hold.
"What I know is that I am here," Phoenix says. "We both are."
The world comes to a halt, and finally makes perfect sense.
This fic started as something else, which I will write when I'm in a more similar mood to it someday. It turned into something I also wanted to write, aka a fic to deal with the feeling of uncertainty and suspension (especially tied to PTSD) that this game and this relationship both convey so well, and also a theme of fear of love and trust.
I dedicate this story to my love, who was there for me before we met and chose to be there for me always. With all my will to do the exact same thing.
[I got the message about it being 35 instead of 45, so I’m answering that one instead!]
16: do you ever hand write? why or why not?
I have in the past - I used to write almost everything down in notepads, big or small, before typing it up. I don’t so much anymore, though, because it’s far easier for me to type things up or tap into my phone than to write.
There’s two actual reasons for this - one is that since I’m dyspraxic, writing is tiring, and the other is that back when I was writing things and copying them onto documents, I’d end up going further than I’d written, and... it just ended up feeling like ‘it’s easier to type, so I can’t be bothered to put the effort into writing full ideas by hand’.
I do still sometimes jot down ideas by hand, though.
23: feelings on epistolary fic?
You mean a story told in letters sent from person to person? I once read a book entirely told in emails, and to this day the way that I remember it is as though it were written in full prose. If you know how to do it well, and it’s well executed, it can be really good. Limited perspective - as in, not being able to know more than the characters write down - can up the tension and suspense, while also adding some really heartwarming moments.
33: favorite one-shot you’ve written?
As of now the first story that comes to mind is still ‘The Phoenix That Came In From The Cold’. I say that because despite it being a long oneshot that’s part of a series, it’s also capable of being read as a standalone, and I’m still proud of how I wrote each character and their interactions, and their reactions to everything. Plus it’s a mix of whump/ hurt/comfort and the literal phoenix AU, which helps.
35: any foreshadowing/symbolism you wrote that you hope readers didn’t miss?
I always love putting foreshadowing in. To me, foreshadowing is just a matter of continuity that can see 180. You’ve got to make references to things that haven’t happened yet, or they just appear out of nowhere.
And I’ve been seeing a lot recently of ‘readers want payoff! Tell them all the story’s secrets as soon as you can!’ and I just... I don’t entirely believe in that. Maybe because I’ve never written anything as long as a full novel that has an unravelling plot thread like that, but. To me, there always has to be something to go back to if I’m going to reread my own work.
As for my own... well, clearly, yes. But I’m also not sure I can remember anything that I can easily say here, as a lot of my stories are still in progress, and all. Unless you asked me about a specific story and maybe even plotline within that story, I’d be hesitant to say exactly what’s going on.
