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claire-starsword · 5 months ago

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Authentic Story of the Shining Force - Saint Fencer Max - Chapter 4

Translation notes:

This is the last boob joke. We're free at last.

Here's the retranslation of every scene with the Spring of Recollection in the game. Overall, her speech here is fairly close to what she says in Waral in-game, with a few details from her final appearance sprinkled in, like her care for Cain. It does misses a few nuances though, like the Legacy being more than just Dark Dragon.

I don't think I've ever seen art of the Spring, but notably, she gets a portrait in the GBA version, and it looks a lot like the manga design, with the slightly wavy hair and especially the blank eyes.

Obviously, the manga rushes through the plot since it's short, thus a lot of places are skipped. I didn't even feel like pointing them out before. However I will point out Waral not being here this time, because Waral happens to not be in the beta map either, and it has very contradicting lore between the ASCII guide and the World Book, meaning it might have not been well developed. Besides, Chapter 5 is very weirdly structured. You get two ship battles that are basically the same, you get to Waral by accident, you advance the plot by going to Ring Reef for no reason and everyone telling you it's off-limits while letting you waltz in anyway, and hardly anything happens in the shrine besides you hearing about the Manual, which is not even a big deal because you get to Rudo by accident later (two ship accidents!! why repeat this plot point!!) and would go to Dragonia anyway to help Bleu. Basically, I obviously can't prove it, but it wouldn't surprise me if the ocean shrine was initially thought off as only a plot scene, and the battles/town added much later for gameplay reasons.

Perhaps worth mentioning, the GBA version also makes a point to mention that Max got lost in the shrine alone, and everyone was worried about him, which does remind me a lot of the ship scene here.

uh oh. i hit image limit for the first time and i don't wanna remove either of these pics. more notes on a reblog later.

#shining series #shining force #saint fencer max #saint fencer max translation #sfm max #sf cain #so. gamers. fans. friends and followers. are we good? are we normal? are we normal about the last pages? i'm not #unfortunately my typesetting does not do it justice but at least i put up a fight #those unending creaking noises mess me up so good #it's just. so good. all of this #why did the gba version wasted time with boring villain epilogues #when it could be giving me the Good Stuff (angst of a long haired anime man)#also is his hair dyed? the eyebrows kinda imply that. i'm not sure i like that but i'm not sure i dislike that either #his hair is so good tho #anyway i could talk about him forever and i will but i gotta talk about the spring too #i really like the sword of light being here. it works aesthetically at least. the mishaela plot is very dumb #i had a whole thing about the sword of light typed but i took it out for later cause it doesn't have much to do with the manga #will probably come though! the three max cain plots are the same basically but there have some difference in the details #that has mashed together in my brain #so i wanna pick that apart at some point #anyway back to the mango. i dearly miss the nuance about the legacy even though it took me a while to notice it in the game #between this and the pseudo-magic introduction the manga does suck a bit at portraying the ancients #but i like how despite the weird pacing of the manga this part kinda flows better #with the spring's revelations all here in the middle #instead of popping in manarina like 'yeah boy you're hero of fate wait three chapter until we elaborate on that though'#naturally the game has good battle content to keep you happy through it #but the manarina scene feels kinda useless to me #anyway i probably had more to say about this while translating but i'm very sleepy #i will never shut up about this chapter though. mark my words

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thedeadtravelfast · 8 months ago

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No Context WIP Tag Game

soooooooo flattered @goblins-riddles-or-frocks tagged me for this, it's like Goethe going "hey can I see some of your work?" uhhhh YES FUCK YES????

"This is all...it's so beautiful."

"Of course it is. Do you think I would go through all this effort and not have be beautiful?" He turned and approached me, a bright orange blossom with red-edged petals twirling in his fingers.

He lifted the flower and carefully wove it in my hair, his fingers gently tugging at the strands. I felt my heart seize, as if he had reached into my breast and squeezed it, and even when he took his hands away it didn't relax.

"But of course, none of it is as beautiful as you," he said and smiled warmly.

I struggled to suppress the blushing raging in my cheeks but I could feel it glowing hotly, so instead I turned my face away and pretended to be enraptured by a grafted vine of orchids.

I could feel Koschei's eyes on me, like a string attached to my every aspect so my every breath and movement had a sense of pulling at him, tempting him. I had never thought myself tempting before; before Koschei wanted me because he wanted everything, not for any particular reason. But now I felt wanted for a reason, for myself, that I in and of myself with all my features and manners and essence was tempting to him.

It felt like a kind of power, to hold someone--someone like him--captive. I had before never understood what drove the women around him to act as they did, to be so loose and so giving, but now I saw what that kind of action could possibly wrought in a man. It was delicious in an intoxicatingly frighteningly way.

I felt him draw close behind me, too close for me to turn around. I felt his fingers touching the end of my hair, so gently it was as if the wind were breathing on it.

I couldn't breath. I wasn't aware of anything else except his fingers, too close and yet far. It was gripping the flower so tightly in my hands that I saw the blossom shivering.

Koschei leaned forward and I felt his body hovering just against mine, not pressing but within of breath of doing so. His face was drawn beside my ear and he whispered in it with breath so hot I almost flinched:

"May I kiss you, tsarina?"

I felt like the strings on an instrument--what sort I couldn't even think of at the moment--wound and wound until I was going to snap. "No," I breathed, I don't even know how I managed it.

"May I know why I am denied?"

"You know why."

There was a long pause and he leaned so his lips were brushed ever so slightly against my neck. My flesh erupted with an icy flame and I thought I was going to faint; my whole body was sent into mindless, seething wildness that I only barely contained, clasping the stem of the flower so I felt it cracking in my hands.

"I promise if you let me have this one kiss, I won't ask for anything more." His voice was low and rasped, it almost sounded desperate.

It was the closest to a true request I had ever heard from him. It was the first time I had something he truly wanted but could not wrest from me, something he had to beg me for, something I could withhold.

But I didn't want to. Or perhaps I did, perhaps that was his power, to make you want to give what he wanted. To make you think you had to give it, that you 'wanted' to give it.

"I don't believe you," I finally, miraculously, spoke.

"Is that the only reason, you don't trust me?" His voice was lilting, almost singing, I felt his body rocking almost inperceptively, towards me then away, again and again. I felt the pull, the urge to follow after him, to move to the music that seemed to be thrumming between us, made by us.

It was thrilling yet soothing all once, to be joined with someone in the creating of something so new and strange. It felt secure because it was with him, in unison with his will and his intent and his hope...but all of that also made it terribly, horribly perilous.

But no. It wasn't him alone that was making this perilous.

So again I said, "No."

"Why else then?"

'I don't trust myself.'

But I didn't say it, because if I gave it voice, a form, it would overtake me. So I stared at the flower in my hand and focused all my breathlessness and anticipation on it's luscious and tender blossom, imagining I could imbue it with all the heat of that moment and remove it from me. Like Koschei had done with his soul.

For the first time I thought of how 'useful' that could be, to have the ability to take all your weakness and vulnerability and sever it from yourself; to become steady and solid like a stone, untouchable.

Untouched was the last thing I felt now, even though he hand't laid a hand on me.

I could still feel his breath on my face, how terrifyingly, temptingly close he was, and I was locked in a terrible, desirous moment where I thought he 'might' touch me and I was certain, as certain as the breath I kept trapped in my lungs, I was about to be either swallowed by the sensation or driven raving mad by it.

But he pulled away suddenly and I was so overcome that I didn't even have enough presence of mind to be embarrassed by the gasp I gave. The world seemed to abruptly straighten and fall back into its customary place, the warmth and rosiness vanished, and I was frightened by how sorry I was for it.

"It's terribly warm in here," he was saying, staring causally down the path we had come up, his hands clasped behind his back. "There's a place here somewhere where we can cool down."

I already felt colder, but I didn't say that.

His voice was completely causal, but that suddenly seemed shockingly formal after the 'intimacy' of the moment before. If he had spoken to me with complete formality, restraint and distance, it would have made more sense to me. But he walked down the path almost lazily, leaning every now and then to eye a planet or bird that happened to catch his attention.

How could he do that, be on the verge, the precipice of something so momentous and then walk away as if he has forgotten, as if it were nothing.

It probably had been nothing, to him; how many times had he gotten exactly what he asked for from moments like these?

But then again, how could something like that ever grow meaningless, it couldn't divorce itself from the expectancy and that had to come from wanting, and to want is to risk being denied, and how can that not be eternally dreadful and wonderful?

I had denied it and I still felt the rush, the staggering extraordinariness of it, and for it to be satisfied--

I had to stop. I couldn't think about it, about that. It wasn't safe.

I followed slowly behind him, keeping a wide space between us that I kept expecting him to comment on but he never did. That made it worse, I was certain he understood exactly why, and I was possessed enough of my sense to now be ashamed of what I nearly allowed. And what I was still wishing had happened.

I wanted to leave this place and get as far away from him as I could manage; I would ask Natalya to set me to work in the kitchen, suffocate this longing with the heat of the oven and scalding of the dishwater, or to ask Peter if he would let me clean the floor of the ballroom, squash this yearning by scrubbing until my hands blistered and my knees ached.

But of course I couldn't find my way out on my own and I was afraid to speak to him, I did not trust my voice or my words. I kept envisioning myself opening my mouth only to ask him to come back, to kiss me, to touch me, to do whatever he could think of that I could not even imagine.

Oh God, I was going to be sick. Sick with wanting it; from the crave and the dread and the humiliation of it.

Oh God forgive me, God help me, deliver me, deliver me, deliver me from temptation...

"Here it is!" he exclaimed and I almost cried out I was so startled. "I knew it was around this place somewhere."

He stepped off the path and through a parting in the foliage. I stood where he had gone in and watched as he entered a small clearing made for a grand fountain of stone. It was carved with a beautiful woman clothed only in a long cloth that clung to her sumptuous figure; her long arms, appearing soft despite being carved of rock, embraced a large vase from which the water sprung.

He planted his foot on the edge of the fountain ringing the statue and bent to splash water in his face. He ran his dripping hand through his hair, causing his dark curls to tangle and fall carelessly out of place.

His chest rose and fell in a deep exhale and he unfastened the top buttons of his shirt, rubbing his neck so his skin glistened with water.

I couldn't see straight, I couldn't see anything but him. The whole world had fallen away and I felt my inhibitions, my wisdom and good sense, slipping after them. I felt like I was falling through some invisible hole with no end and no way to rise again.

Koschei turned to look at me and even with the distance between us, I saw his eyes, I 'felt' them, more clearly than anything else in that place.

"Come over, the water is lovely," he said. There was nothing suggested in his voice but I knew, 'I knew I knew I knew', that if I could see his eyes from my place he could see mine and perceive my state.

I was not so skilled in hiddenness as he, I couldn't even comprehend how anyone could hide what I held within, and he was mature and seasoned in divining and provoking such things.

"Maryushka," he said and held out his hand, the hand he had run through his hair and across his skin, still dripping with water.

And I saw in that exact moment, exactly because he spoke my name not as a request but as an affirmation, what would happen next.

And I dropped the flower, turned away, and ran.

I didn't get far before I heard him calling after me but now the momentum of the act, of putting my mind and body at work together to flee, gave me newfound strength. So I didn't hesitate but pushed myself faster, the garden whirling by in a dizzying, sickening blur of confused colors.

Suddenly, Koschei appeared into my path; or perhaps he materialized there with magic, I could not tell. I ran right into his arms, his hands taking hold of my shoulders.

"Where are you going--" he began but was interrupted as I began to struggle violently in his grasp and his fingers tightened, his hold became inextricable.

I felt panic rearing in me at having 'his hands on me' and sensations it sent spinning through my body. I felt my center beginning to melt; I could see myself falling into his embrace, I could imagine what it would feel like to have his arms drawn around me, pressing me to him, to his body, to his skin--

I so desperately, maddeningly 'wanted it', it was so irrational and frenzied, I couldn't think of a clear reason as to why here, why now. I felt I must be going insane.

"Let me go!" I cried and to wrench myself away, thrashing violently but I couldn't even pull an inch away from him.

He was looking down at me, frowning in confusion. "What is this--"

I began to kick at him, striking his shins, and scratching at his arms with my nails. He released me like I was something venomous, his expression one of utter astonishment.

"Maryushka--!"

"No!" I screamed and screamed it again, lashing at his hands with my arms as if I were fending off a wild beast. I wanted to hit him, I wanted him to disappear, I wanted him erased from my mind.

He didn't try to stop my blows or avoid them but rather simply stepped away and I didn't try to reach for him or step towards him.

For a moment we stood like that, apart, him staring and me shaking. I realized I was crying, I couldn't at first tell my gasping for breath apart from my sobs. He kept staring at me with a look of total bewilderment and finally he asked, "What is this?"

When I didn't answer, I was completely incapable of speech, he said, "Maryushka, what happened? We were having such a good time..."

"I want to leave!" I wrung my hands as if I could squeeze the hysteria out through them or break them off along with all this manic delirium. "I need to leave here!"

"Leave? Already? We haven't been here an hour!"

"Right now, right now!" My voice became overwhelmed with sobs and I covered my face with hands. I want to shrink until I was nothing, until I disappeared from everyone and everything and could never feel anything again.

I heard Koschei say gently, "You don't have to leave, I will go if you want me to."

'But I don't want to be here without you. I don't want to be anywhere but with you.'

"No, I want to back to my room. To my work."

There was silence for a moment then I heard the murmuring of an incantation and then felt myself caught in that familiar pulling spin before collapsing on the floor of my room.

Koschei then walked right past me and out my door, closing it behind him without a word. I rose shakily to my feet and threw myself on my bed, still wracked with weeping.

#ahhhhhh i miss this story #haven't updated this in ages but it's a relief to do something at my own pace #which of course is glacier but tbh i always tell people when it comes to hobby writing NEVER push yourself with deadlines or the like #because then it becomes an unpaid job & you begin to hate it #and imo that kills the whole point of writing - you kill the joy of it #or maybe that's just me & why i won't ever become a 'professional' writer #'nah fam i just do this for the goofs save the publishing for somebody who really wants it i'm happy in my private sandbox '#my fic #my ocs

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