#maybe bind some of soos's favorite fics as a present for him

[incomingalbatross]

I think Mabel and Ford have at least a few weeks where they get really into bookbinding together.

[theflowergirl]

the call of the nightingale

How could an oasis exist in the middle of the battlefield? And how could an oasis be a person, a presence, a voice?

After a while - how long? - spent breathing war, he sometimes forgot what he was fighting for, why dust clung to his skin, why the blood wouldn’t wash away from his clothes. Every day was only a cluster of strategies, every moment was just that moment, nothing beyond, no, not yet, not until the battle was won and he could close his eyes for maybe a few minutes before he would be up again.

How did he get wounded? He couldn’t tell the time with precision, only that his footing got weaker and that when he looked down, there was a trail of blood that was his own, not his making.

So he was taken to her tent, to get her treatment. With unfocused eyes, he marveled at her cold demeanor while roaring filled the space outside, the sound of metal, the sound of death. She moved between the wounded with careful precision, with professional dexterity. If his hands were made to tear, hers were made to mend, something he would never learn. He would never learn.

She patched him up with few words and firm touches. As he drifted off to sleep - or collapse, never in his life was he one to fall asleep so easily - he thought the tent was simultaneously too short and too long an interlude, he needed to go back and fulfill all his promises of victory, and he also didn’t want to ever wake again.

He did. To the sound of her voice, her singing, breathing into the candle’s flame next to his face. Her voice made his middle tingle, it hurt. There were no words but only humming, only nothings, a made-up language of war. She hummed it while both sides took care of their wounded in the night. While some planned, she eased minds. No, he thought, she was just human. He held his weapons secure in his hands like she did her needles, but they all fell apart. He didn’t know how to pick himself back up, but she did - it was something like this. Melody from a far off place. From where? Where did you come from? Who are you?

“Wang So-ssi, are you feeling better?”

His middle still trembled when she spoke, as if she had touched him there, his stomach, the core of his being. She changed his bandages and nodded at him. He was a warrior, a general, but in that tent, he felt his young years in his heart. He wanted to know her name. The next morning he was dragged back to the battle, without ever having the chance to speak to her again. Couldn’t even thank her.

So he fought for his king and his queen and for her. For people like her, who needed to sing themselves lies of peace. He could make it real for them. He could live? He would live.

He returned to the capital with his promises, with his armor, with her song on his lips. He paid his respects to the king and accepted the banquet in his name. Exotic women sang him songs and danced their rhythmic dances, but his eyes searched everywhere for her.

She was so easy to miss, such simple colors adorning her, but he found her, far in the back, away from the crowd. While the dancers distracted his peers, he made his way to her. Before she could even speak he was bowing down; he would have gotten on his knees for her.

“You saved me,” he said. In a cool voice, she said,

“I’ve saved many men, Wang So-ssi. It is my job.”

“And that makes you the most remarkable person in this palace.”

She turned to him.

“More than you?”

“I’ve only ever killed. Killing is easy.”

“Is it?”

Her fingers pointed at the fabric of his robes, where they both knew his scar was.

“We see the truth on the battlefield, Wang So-ssi. You don’t have to lie to me.”

Her voice still made him tremble, and he wondered, he hoped, that she had sung for him, after all. To bid him farewell or bind him to the ground; either were fine with him.

“I won’t. Will you tell me your name?”

“Hae Soo.”

Beautiful like the flowers in her hair, the red on her smiling lips.

“Will you meet me again in these peaceful times, Hae Soo?”

“I’m not a prize to your conquest, Wang So-ssi.”

“I admire you far too much to accept the insinuation.”

The commemorations never stopped, even as he walked away, even as they discovered the different lights of the palace, from different pavilions, from the night reflecting on the lake. He would always bow his head to her, for all his respect, for all she deserved. Months later, when they first kissed, he would be sitting down and she would be looking down at his notes before he stole her lips. Regarding her against the light turned out to be his favorite vision in the world. He discovered he had a lot of favorite things with her.

When she sang to him on their bed, he still trembled, tingled, as if she could touch him without ever touching him, and he knew it was real. He lived moment after moment with her, never dreaming of the future, only hoping the present would never end.

send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it