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roadhaas · 5 years ago

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In the Valley of Four Colors, Pt.1

Well it took just over a week for me to discard my own premise haha.

In writing today’s short story I realized I was approaching the 4 page mark without a clear resolution in sight and probably didn’t want to be posting a whole novel to tumblr apropos of nothing. So while I said before that each story would be entirely stand alone, this one is probably gonna be entirely stand alone in several parts haha.

Please enjoy what I expect will be part 1 of 2 (3? … god forbid 4?) of this story and, as always, let me know if you have any thoughts, critiques, suggestions, etc.

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Ezekiel woke with a start.

In the cold darkness of his wooden cabin, he felt a chill through his whole body as sweat seemingly poured off him in waves.

The nightmares had been getting worse.

Instinctively he rubbed his wrists, feeling the kiss of cold steel where two manacles dug into his skin, a single loop hanging from each, clinking softly as his arms moved. He let out a labored sigh and moved to stand. He was already awake, he might as well get some work done before the sun came up. After putting on a long sleeved linen shirt to hide his wrists, Ezekiel started the day.

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He had already finished tending most of the cabbages by the time the sun peeked over the horizon. Its light illuminated Ezekiel’s meager livelihood, half an acre of cabbage fields and a solitary wooden cabin. Old worn tools leaned against the side of the house in an orderly line. The only other structure was a small stable that housed a young mule, currently still sleeping in the early morning hours. Parked beside the stable was a sturdy wagon, with small compartments in the back perfect for hauling cabbage into town.

It wasn’t much, but Ezekiel was grateful for it.

His peaceful contemplation was interrupted by something on the edge of his hearing. Even after all these years Ezekiel prided himself on being difficult to sneak up on. He waited for just the right moment, and sidestepped just as his daughter, Hannah, pounced with hands outstretched. As the smug grin of a youthful prank turned to sudden realization, and Hannah planted face first into freshly tilled soil, Ezekiel let out a hearty laugh and offered his rambunctious daughter a hand up.

Hannah was about 15, tall for her age, and had a strong build from her time sharing farm duties with her father. Her bright red hair danced like fire in the rising sunlight as she stood, brushed dirt out of her farm attire, and put on her best pouty face to protest how much humor her father was finding in the situation.

“Dad!” she said exasperated, “I’m going to get you one of these times!”

“Sure you are,” Ezekiel replied, “but in the meantime, how about you finish this lot, and I’ll make us some breakfast.”

Breakfast consisted of bread and cornmeal. It was the last of the bread, and eyeing their flour supply, Ezekiel figured that his early start justified a trip into town to fetch more.

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The path into town was long on foot, but not particularly difficult. Ezekiel and Hannah’s little homestead was placed out in the Valley of Four Colors, so called for it’s somewhat lackluster native flora, and the closest town was Ravensong at the far end of the valley. For hours the only scenery were the alternating patterns of orange, blue, green, and yellow growing in every direction. To pass the time, Ezekiel and Hannah joked about what they would do once they reached town.

“I think I’m going to march right down to the blacksmith and buy the nicest sword he’s got!” proclaimed Hannah.

“Oh,” retorted Ezekiel, “and what would you do with that?”

“Why I’d start my own militia! Who knows what dangerous criminals might come skulking in the night to steal our cabbages!”

Both chuckled at the thought of some masked debonair thief plucking whole heads of cabbage from the ground and secreting them away in the night.

“Well,” Ezekiel offered, “if you’re covering guard duty, then I guess I’ll be needing a new set of playing cards then. Too many games of solitaire and my old ones will be worn clean through!”

Again both chuckled at the notion, an image of aces and jacks like old ratty socks with holes around the edges ran through their minds.

For a while the pair were silent, ruminating on their fun game of imagination. After a moment however, a tension sprang into the air. Ezekiel recognized it immediately for what it was and braced himself for the oncoming question.

“Maybe,” Hannah began tentatively, “when we get to town we could find somewhere nice and talk about …”

“Hannah.” Ezekiel interrupted softly. His tone said it all, this was a conversation he considered already settled.

“Well you never tell me anything about mom!” Hannah protested, her words bordering on shouting. “I know almost nothing about her, or your past, or anything outside our life at the cabin.” Again her tone betrayed her deeper meaning. She knew as well as Ezekiel that this conversation was going nowhere. But still she persisted. “I just want something about her I can call my own.”

Ezekiel was very quiet for quite some time following Hannah’s request. After a while he stated, “She liked cats.”

It wasn’t at all satisfying, but Hannah knew that’s all she was getting today.

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Ravensong was a strange town. Formerly the epicenter of the once great kingdom of Malcha, countless ages had worn down it’s population and dispersed it’s glory. As a result, the town was practically full to the brim with grand old houses and elaborate manors but no one to live in them. The effect was not unlike a large man in a poorly tailored suit. The illusion of grandeur on a sustenance-starved frame.

But it was still a town, and one with a market at that.

Ezekiel and Hannah entered the market square just after 1pm. There was the usual amount of hustle and bustle, but in addition there was a large crowd gathered around the notice board near the center of the square.

Seeing his daughter’s curiosity, Ezekiel patted her shoulder and said, “go on and check it out then, I’ll grab the flour.” Hannah’s eyes lit up and she blurted out a rushed “thankyou” as she took off towards the announcement board.

Having acquired some flour from one of the merchants in the square, Ezekiel went to join his daughter at the notice board. This proved more difficult than he’d originally hoped, as whatever was drawing people’s attention also had them pressed up against it like wild animals pressed up on a fresh kill. Thankfully, Ezekiel’s large stature and considerable muscles made it somewhat easier to push towards the center of the crowd.

He saw the message posted before he found Hannah.

“WAR WITH LUMERIA,” it proclaimed in bold red letters.

“ALL MEN OF FIGHTING AGE ARE TO REPORT TO THE CAPITAL,” it continued.

Ezekiel’s heart sank. Instinctively his free hand went to the hidden manacle on his wrist, rubbing it slightly to dull the red hot ache that flared up in his bones. He spotted Hannah a moment later. Try as she might she couldn’t hide the concern on her face. She’d read the notice too, and she understood the implications.

The walk back home was much quieter.

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PART TWO EVENTUALLY!

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ask-de-writer · 7 years ago

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NORE’S CHOICE : Origin of the Rom: MLP Fan Fiction : (Part 6 of 10)

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~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

NORE’S CHOICE

Part ONE of the Origins of the Rom

ORIGIN OF THE ROM SERIES in reading order. (will be completed as the stories are posted in linked form)

Part One : NORE’S CHOICE, which starts HERE

Part Two : WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA! which starts HERE

Part Three : FAIR AND UN-FAIR, which starts HERE

Part Four : ON THE ROADS OF EQUESTRIA, which starts HERE

Part Five : THE FIRST ROM HEARTHWARMING, which starts HERE

Part Six : SANDO’S LAKE, which starts HERE

Part Seven : A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ROM, which starts HERE

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

29000 words

Cover art by @wind-the-mama-cat

Writing begun 08/09/15

TUMBLR EXEMPTION

Blog holding members of Tumblr.com may freely reblog this story provided that the title, author and copyright information remain intact, unaltered, and are displayed at the head of the story.

Fan art, stories, music, cosplay and other fan activity is actively encouraged.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

They all returned to the cart. My big donkey ears overheard Malit say softly, “I was hoping that he could be our new Master.”

Nore, choking on sobs, replied, “He did not want to be our Master. Only to be our guide. He wanted us to be free.”

In only a little time, they were underway again. They were truly free of any Master at last. Especially me.

As soon as they were out of sight, I got up. Minor advantage of being truly immortal. I couldn’t die if wanted to, and I don’t. Not true of most of the rest of the living things of the world though. As soon as I had any idea that I might need a decoy, I started using the Orb of the Ages to find an old donkey who was already dying. The one that I found was poor even for a donkey.

Working a small plot of land for a share of the crop, he was plowing when his heart gave out. He died in the traces, like I had pretended to.

I appeared beside his body and separated him from the plow.

I do not teleport, though the difference between teleporting and temporal translocation is pretty technical. The main difference is simply this. What I do, temporal translocation uses no magic at all. It stems from a property of time itself, when the nature of time is properly understood.

When I had him ready, I shifted him back with me to the rock ledge out on Celestia’s Anvil. There, I covered him with my sash and harnessed him in the one that I was wearing. I took his. Not a lot of difference between them, really. Plowing and cart haulage are both hard pulling work.

Wondering if he would ever be found and what would become of him, I left that nameless donkey behind and went ahead of the band, up into the Sunset Mountains. I went to a spring further up the pass than where I directed them to go, and had a drink. Grazed some too. I don’t actually need it, but it is a comfortable habit, eating and drinking, I mean.

I also took the instant that it needed to make my disguise as Marchhare into my usual well fed but not really plump self.

~~ ~~ ~~

With Sando pulling the wagon, it was Rom scouting the way. The barren landscape had one feature that was useful to Rom’s band. It held old tracks, especially in the dry sandy clays. “Look, Sando! There are the tracks of Marchhare’s previous trips!”

From inside the cart, Nore said in a broken voice, “Even from the Lake he still guides us!”

The other mares heard and nodded. “It is like he is still here to show us the way.”

Malit stumbled on a stone. Shortly so did Sarel. Even with the protection of the sashes, they were sweating far too little. Rom consulted with Sando, “Malit and Sarel are showing signs of sunstroke. Can you pull them too, in a bit?”

Sando replied, “Do not wait until they collapse. Get them both into the caravan now. Like Marchhare, I will pull until I cannot. We will get them to the spring somehow.”

Under a cloudless, blazing sky, Sando leaned into the harness and set an even faster pace than he had been. Tears leaking, he was muttering, “My fault! If I had simply listened to Rom we would not be here. Our good guide would still be living! My fault! I will NOT let another die for my failing.”

Nore, inside the cart, under the cover, heard him. “Sando! Sando. Marchhare lives. He is guiding us still. He may be at the Lake of Paradise but he has not left us! You told me of the Lake of Paradise where we will live on, yourself. By the tracks that we are following, he is still with us, showing us the way!”

Sando spared a glance over his shoulder, reminded of the tale that he had told to comfort Nore and took some comfort in it himself. He replied, “Thank you, Nore. It is so easy to um … forget.”

Rom overheard and he pointed out, “All that Marchhare did for us, Sando, he did freely and willingly. Giving us the end of his long life to save ours was, in his eyes, a worthy thing. Besides, Nore is right. We are still being guided by him.”

Sando nodded slowly as he worked it out. Then he increased his pace even more. The day crawled slowly past. It was nearly evening when the band rounded a dry ridge of gray stone and saw some growing plants.

One of the two mares still on her feet rushed forward and carefully trimmed the precious leaves away from the thorny branches. Though salivating from hunger, she brought the harvest to Rom. He passed it into the canvas cover of the wagon.

Nore called, “Brief stop, Sando! Rom! Wait up a moment!” With a shaking hoof, she passed out a meager ration of the leaves. “These are for Sando! He has been doing the pulling. He gets first portion!”

Rom and the remaining two mares formed a group at the wagon’s rear and each received a share.

As soon as all had swallowed the small nourishment and moisture in the leaves, Rom got the whole band moving again. There was hope in every step as they entered the shade of the pass.

There were more and more growing plants. They even found a tiny seep of moist earth as they forged ahead to find the promised spring and meadow. When the walls of the pass suddenly opened out, the whole band saw a pool, ripples radiating out from the spring’s source. All about was fine grass, the sweetest that they had ever tasted, at least so it seemed. There were some trees near to the pool and more on the slopes of the small dale that cupped the spring.

Nore’s eyes went wide at the sight. “It is like the Lake of Paradise that awaits us! This is Sha Ja Shehan, the Spring of Salvation!”

The others, even Sando, exchanged knowing glances and nodded. None could gainsay Nore. It was indeed the water and good pasture that was their salvation from death on Celestia’s Anvil. But for one thing, it almost did appear to be paradise come to the world of the living.

Sando hung his head. “I could have brought him in the caravan. If only he had known how close he was to safety. I … Have failed again.”

Nore wrapped his hanging neck in a hug. “No, Sando. You have not failed at all. Look about you. The spring of pure water, the fine grass and excellent shade. All of this is ours now because of your so-called failings. Without them, we would not be here, safe from famine and thirst. We would still be cast out slaves starving or dying of thirst in Gyptia.

“Marchhare’s death is not your fault at all. He did know how close he was. He made two trips to Gyptia and back. He came for us the third time. He knew the route. He knew that it was his time to go. Perhaps he knew that if his load was added to what you were already going to pull, that you would not be able to make it here.

“If you failed, those of us in the caravan would die too. The sun of the desert has no mercy. He was a good and wise donkey. Freeborn himself, he gave us our freedom.”

Nore did break down and cry. “All that he had to do to free us was die. He did it without complaint. May the Lake be a good place for his life beyond this one.”

Hearing Nore, Sarel thoughtfully tried something that none of them had ever done except to replace it or clean it. She removed her headstall and bit of slavery. She shook her head. She attempted to graze. Shortly, she sat and stared at the headgear that she had worn since her foaling. She was weeping.

Nore, seeing Sarel’s experiment, tried it too. Shortly, she joined Sarel. “We may be free but it feels wrong to be without our headstalls, doesn’t it?”

Sarel nodded sadly.

Nore thought deeply. Suddenly she smiled. “We have worn a headstall all of our lives. To feel right, we still need one! These have been the mark of our slavery. We need a headstall that is the mark of our freedom!

“What makes it possible for us to be slaves with this? By the bit, we can be reined and steered to another’s will! The lead ring under the chin, makes our head follow when a lead rope is pulled! We only need to rid the headstall of the things that bind us to another’s will and we have headstalls of freedom!

“We can be Free and still have the comfort and safety of a headstall!”

Rom overheard Nore’s enthusiasm and thoughtfully went to check the caravan’s lockers for tools and supplies. He knew already that Marchhare’s caravan was not ordinary. It was made for long journeys and had much that was needed for repairs in emergencies far from help.

He returned with a hooked knife meant to shape wheel spokes. He picked up Nore’s headstall and studied it for a moment. He made several careful cuts. He thriftily saved the bit, lead ring and scraps.

Rom tilted Nore’s head up and carefully fitted the modified headstall. He tested it for security and nodded.

“This was the sign of your slavery. Now it is your Freedom. Do not disgrace it by any unjust or unkind act.” Rom smiled widely and hugged Nore to him. The rest of the band had gathered about quietly while he was fixing Nore’s Freedom.

He next took Sarel’s headstall and did the same. He continued until only he and Sando remained. He saw Sando’s forming revolt and forestalled it. “As the leader of this band, you ALL come first. That is the duty of the leader. To care for the entire band before himself. Give me your sign of slavery and take back your Freedom.”

With a few quick cuts, it was done.

Then Rom took off his own. Nore stepped forward. “The band of Rom has chosen me to take your slavery from you for us all, Rom. Give to us the sign of your slavery and receive from us, your Freedom.” Deeply moved, Rom handed over his headstall and the knife.

Nore cut away the parts that made slavery possible and then each of the band touched Rom’s Freedom before she gave it back and buckled it into place.

She pronounced proudly, “Now, none of us are slaves. We shall wear our Freedom proudly and NEVER be a slave to another Master again!”

That night there was a mild rain. “Get into the caravan, all that we can,” Rom directed. Sando, Sarel, and I shall shelter under it. That is the best that we can do for now.”

“Look at the sun rising above the mountains!” Nore called, actually frisking a bit. “Taste the grass! The rain washed it or something! It is even better now than it was!”

Sarel did graze a tasty breakfast. She went to the meadow’s edge where the grasses were longer and tougher. She gathered quite a pile of it before curious Nore came over. “What are you doing, Sarel? These are not going to make very good hay.”

Sarel smiled, “I know that, Nore. They have good fibers though. I can make strings out of them. If I can make strings, I can weave cloth. It may not be the best cloth until we find better material, but we can attach it to the caravan to make more cover for those who won’t fit into it. Perhaps we can find some sort of gum that will close up the weave and make it more waterproof.”

Nore picked up string making quickly. It was not a complex task. Sarel gathered the grasses and Nore made coil after coil. Rom watched the other mares join in, one by one. He turned to Sando.

“They have found a harder Master than any horse of Gyptia, Sando. They drive themselves and are their own Master. Let us join them.”

Sando and Rom began to gather grasses too. Sando wondered aloud, “Would Marchhare approve of what we are doing? We will be changing his caravan quite a bit.”

Tears that were never far from her eyes beginning to overflow, Nore replied, “Marchhare gave us all that he had, even life itself.” She sniffled, “He would want us to have as good as can be. That is why we are doing it. It will honor him.”

She touched her new Freedom and went on, “It was he that first told us that we are free. We owe him only one thing now. Our best at EVERYTHING that we do. Thus we give back to him what he gave to us. He gave us his very best. We must never do less than that.”

The others were softly weeping but not a one slowed or gave over the work.

By afternoon, Sarel nodded approval. “Those two saplings will work for the loom cross bars. We need to hang one them from that branch after we tie strings to it. They will be the warp threads.”

When that was done, “Now it gets tricky! We need to comb these warp threads out so that none of them cross each other and tie them neatly in bunches of six, down at the bottom. We attach them to the other sapling to stretch them neatly.” It took a bit of adjusting and fiddling to satisfy Sarel, who was an expert weaver. She began tying many loops of her thread

“What are all of those little loops for?” asked Nore.

“We need them to catch the warp threads. Each of these will fasten to one thread. A stick through every other one of them will pull half the threads forward and make a tunnel that we can put the woof thread through. Then we let that half go back and pull the other half forward. That traps the thread and makes a tunnel for the next thread. All that we will need then to be able to make cloth of this will be a way to pack the woof threads tightly and evenly.”

They all stood about and thought deeply of the looms that they had seen with their fine metal combs to pack the threads. Rom did include young Nore in the group trying to sort the problem out.

She asked, “Since we have no way to make a comb, could we use a straight stick? Close the tunnel to trap the thread and then push a stick through the new tunnel and use it to pack the, woof did you call it? The strings of the loom will be the comb part, that way.”

After some experimentation and Malit doing some expert carving of the stick, to make an even edge to press the thread, the idea worked. It was not as fast as a regular loom, but it did work.

Sando took Rom aside and said, “I now understand why you are so effective as a leader. I would have left Nore out of the discussion because she is young and has no experience. That is the very reason that you did include her.

“She saw the problem differently from the rest of us BECAUSE she had no experience. Even if she had not seen a solution, she would have learned from the discussion.” Sando shook his head. “Such wisdom as yours, I hope to have someday.” He sighed.

Sarel was standing back and sheltering her eyes from the noonday sun as she directed, “Pull it a little tighter to the top of the caravan box. That’s it! The regular cover will fit over it now! That will help to keep it from leaking.”

Nore was over by the spring, picking cresses and clovers. She gathered quite a few of them, actually. She lugged them all over by the fire. She had the stones that she had used to make the paste for evenly dividing the odd bits of fruit and nuts, while out on the Anvil.

While Malit looked on, Nore began to mash the mixed greens together. As fast as she had a decent portion, the filly scooped it together into a firm patty and put it on a hot stone by the fire to bake.

Malit sat beside Nore and began to turn the baking portions. As they got nicely toasted on both sides, she set them aside to cool. They made enough for the whole band to have several.

Malit’s ears suddenly popped up and swiveled to point back down the ravine toward the desert. “Rom! I hear hooves coming up from the Anvil!”

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#NORE'S CHOICE #Origins of the Rom part 1 #MLP Fan Fiction #Written by De Writer #Part 6 of 10

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klarolijahs · 7 years ago

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The Mad King

I thought I’d post my old drabbles (the ones that haven’t been lost forever and ever and ever) on the new tumblr. Hopefully it’ll make me wanna write again! So this is one of my old drabbles that’s already on my FF page.

A/N – So these are two drabbles, they both together form a complete story I suppose. But I wrote them separately.

Warning – Trigger warning guys, adultery, self-harm, do not read if it will affect you. Ye were warned.

Request - Regency era, like you had in Breath Of Life - Klaroline are married but Caroline only gives birth to girls and under pressure to produce an heir, Klaus takes a lover to give him a son. You chose how she reacts.

The first girl was stillborn. Nothing to worry about, her mid-wife had said, she was young, she would bear many children.

The second girl was born barely a year later, with a head full of blonde curls and blue eyes. They called Klaus harsh and cruel in the land; she knew him to be harsh, she never had and never wished to see his cruelty. But when he looked down at his daughter, a simple smile on his face she knew he wasn't as simple as they made him out to be. Her husband was a complicated man.

The third daughter was born 4 months early, and didn't survive the night.

The fourth daughter was born 11 months later, her dirty blonde hair smoother and softer like her mother, with early signs of her father's dimples. Klaus was content and smiled in resignation.

The fifth daughter was born a year later. Klaus didn't hold her until she was 4 months.

Then, he stopped coming to her bedchambers, stopped touching her, stopping seeing her altogether. Without any warning, she was shifted to a smaller bedchamber as far away from Klaus' as possible, and informed by her mother-in-law that since she could not bear her son any male heir's, her services would no longer be needed. And that he would find someone else to bear him a son.

Their marriage had been an arranged one, but with time she had come to love Klaus, and come to believe that he reciprocated her feelings. Which fueled her determination to speak to him before he took drastic steps.

"You could say no," she pleaded with him, trying in vain to control her tears as she sat on his bed. It had taken her a full week to manage to get an audience with her own husband.

"I want a son, Caroline," he replied sternly, "Is that so wrong of me?" he questioned, his eyes cold and hollow, and she longed to see any sign of the man who sketched every inch of her as she slept, who wiped her tears when her mother died, who rocked her back to sleep when she had nightmares about her unborn child dying, some sign, any indication that she meant more to him than a working womb.

"Is it wrong of me to want a faithful husband?" she retorted back, traitorous tears sneaking down her cheeks. He hesitated for a second, before turning away from her as he said, "It isn't uncommon."

She knew he was right; it wasn't uncommon for men to take lovers, but that didn't mean it didn't sting her. She had nothing more to say, no meager words would change his mind. Gathering her skirts as gracefully as she could, she made her way out of his chambers.

He spoke her name softly, making her turn around as he whispered, "I'm sorry, Caroline."

She watched from afar, burying the pain and betrayal she felt, focusing all her attention on her daughters. She didn't know her name, she didn't want to. She saw her at times; making herself believe that Klaus had chosen a blonde, blue-eyed girl for a reason.

She watched and ignored and mourned, until his lover gave birth to a son. Klaus no longer smiled at her, never even looked at his daughters. She was no longer the woman of the house, she was the woman who wasn't good enough. Then she spiraled down a deep abyss that had no bottom.

Klaus heard the servants screaming as he played with his son in the garden. Handing him off to his caretaker, he ran into the mansion, following the screams.

They came from Caroline's bedchambers. Where he found his wife hanging from the ceiling, her tears still wet on her cheeks.

A few people asked for a continuation to the above drabble, of how Klaus reacts, so this is that.

The dreams began years after her death.

Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he ventured into the wing of the mansion he never visited, as if fearing it would break him by its mere presence. The sound of loud giggling and running feet stopped his frantic walk, as a small girl ran out of her chambers and into the passage. Her governess screeching as she followed behind her. Cassandra, eleven years old now, was the spitting image of her mother, even at such a young age. His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at his daughter, a wave of emotions spiraling through him.

Taken aback by him, she stopped in her tracks, twirling around in her bright yellow tunic as she gave him a shy, genuine smile, and in his head he saw Caroline smiling at him the same way, on their wedding night all those years ago. She had her mother's smile. And his heart broke, when he realized the girl probably didn't even know he was her father. The governess grabbed her by the shoulders, gently reprimanding her for running away. Her hurried apologies fell on deaf ears, his attention focused on the small child who huffed and followed after her caretaker. He lingered by the door, watching as Cassandra asked her governess who the strange man was.

"He's your father, pumpkin," the old lady replied, fussing over the child's unruly curls.

From the small crack of the door, Klaus watched as the smile faded from his first-borns face, her eyes growing dark and sad as she looked down at her feet. And in his head, he saw Caroline's face when she learnt of his son.

That night, he dreamt of her for the first time.

He dreamt of the last conversation they had, he dreamt of giving in to her pleas, he dreamt of forgetting about his need to have a son. He dreamt of not letting her walk away from him. He dreamt of never having done anything to have to apologize to her for.

When he woke up, he did so drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf. And never knowing, or never wanting to know, if the wetness on his cheeks was from his cold sweats or the tears he shed in the memory of his dead wife.

He dreamt of her every night, therein.

He dreamt of the day his youngest daughter was born. He dreamt of going in to see her after he was informed it was a girl. He dreamt of holding her as Caroline watched him. He dreamt of suggesting that they name her after Caroline's mother. He dreamt of not leaving for 4 months to look for another woman to share his bed and bear his son.

And when he woke up, the truth of his actions haunted him. His daughter was named Elizabeth, but by no aid of his. And by the time he first held her, he had decided that it would be the first time he would hold her, or her mother.

He dreamt of the night he betrayed his vows to Caroline. He dreamt of not going through with it. He dreamt of giving into the guilt that had flooded him. He dreamt of going back to Caroline, telling her that he'd rather have her and a dozen daughters than some other woman and a male heir.

But when he woke up, his wife was now the woman who bore him his son. And his daughters had no idea who he was.

Weeks later, he requested to see his daughters, a request that positively baffled their governess. It was a cruel joke, he was certain of if, for each of his daughters looked just like their mother. Elizabeth, the youngest and the most clueless, took to him the fastest, chasing the butterflies with her sister. Cassandra, stood feet away from him, holding onto her governess' hand tightly. She was afraid of him, he could tell, and deep down, he could not blame her for fearing him.

"Come sit next to me," he said, smiling at the girl who narrowed her eyes at him. His heart ached to hold his daughter's hand, trace the light freckles on her cheek, knowing that in doing so, he'd be touching a part of Caroline. He needed it like he needed his next breath. But his daughter was just like her mother, stubborn and determined, as she resolutely shook her head and disappeared behind her governess.

"Why not?" he asked, burying the sudden pain and anger he felt at her rejection.

"Because," Cassandra said bravely, poking her head out from behind her caretaker's many skirts, "You killed mother."

His eyes widened as he felt his heart drop down to his gut, watching in horror as Cassandra gave him a look that screamed disappointment and bitterness, as her governess alternated between yelling at the child and apologizing to him. His daughter was ashamed of him, he could see it in her watery eyes, and he would never be her father, just the man who took her mother away.

Three truthful words and a look of pure disappointment from a child bought the weight of his decisions down on him. His hands may be clean, but his conscience never would. He might as well have tied the noose that took his Caroline's life. And that sent him spiraling down a deep abyss with no bottom.

He dreamt of her calling him. He dreamt of her pleading for his help, dreamt of her feeble, pained voice calling out for him. He dreamt of rushing to her aid, dreamt of find her injured and dying in her chambers. He dreamt of saving her life, dreamt of holding her till she stopped crying. He dreamt of never letting her go.

When he awoke, he created a ruckus in the mansion. Breaking through every door and waking up all the residents. Like a possessed man, he screamed and howled at everything and everyone, yelling that Caroline was calling for him, insisting that he heard her, crying that she was hurt and begging them to find her for him. He searched for her for hours and hours, but to no avail.

When he finally slept that night, on the cold floor of his chambers, he did so truly believing that he had killed her yet again.

And from that day onwards, the town had a new name for him. He was no longer The cruel and harsh King. He was now The Mad king. He saw Caroline everywhere, in every blonde woman on the street, every blue-eyed servant in the mansion. He saw her everywhere, he heard her everywhere, and he felt her everywhere. And he knew with every fiber of his being, that she was in pain, that she needed his help, that he could save her.

And every night, he dreamt of her calling out to him. And every night, like a mad-man he searched for her in every corner of the mansion, in every nook and cranny of the garden, every alley of every street, begging the world to give her back to him. But she never did.

She haunted him in his every waking and sleeping moment. Until the day he took his life in the same place she did.

A/N - I just wrote a drabble and have watched every klaroline scene ever, so if anyone has any requests hit me up!

#text #klaroline #klaroline drabbles #loving klaroline #tanya re posts what she wrote before #okay?#cool #my drabbles

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lunamanar · 7 years ago

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Hey, Luna, are you still doing the ask thing? If so, I was wondering if you had any headcanons regarding the Leonhart and Heartilly extended families? As in, do Squall, Linoa or Ellone have other still living relatives? People always talk about the parental issues in this game, but the rest of their families possibly being around never gets brought up.

I’m always “doing the ask thing,” haha~

(pardon me I’m gonna ramble real quick and then I’ll answer your actual questions)

I actually used to do this quite a lot before I got a new job and had to move my entire family of three people and eight(8, VIII) cats 500 miles northbound. Which was…incredibly stressful, and I just had no energy or brainspace left at the end of each day to communicate much, if at all, with large groups of people. So this stuff was right out. It pretty much tore me away from tumblr for a year and a half. I’ve been really bummed about that and kept trying to “get back into it,” but my several meager attempts at jumping back in got sidetracked by life responsibilities, and especially with tumblr’s new restrictions on external links not being searchable, the whole trawling for art thing I used to do just isn’t as feasible at this point in time because I have to edit each post very carefully so it will still show up in a search. That’s time-consuming. Maybe when I go back to 3rd shift in December (I hope) I’ll be able to art-hunt “full time,” again, but I just have a limited space in which to do that, now.

However, I can still do asks! And I really enjoy them, they’re fun and engaging and, hell I admit, I like it when people want to hear my opinion on things. But I was having a hard time, uh…asking for asks, haha. It felt too much like I was begging for attention. But then stuff happened and I had the worst pain spike I’ve had all year, and I kinda just broke down and said I needed a distraction. My chronic pain issues can be absolutely debilitating, and can lay me flat in bed for days (I had to take two days off work last week). But if I can manage to engross myself in something creative, it’s like a shot of cortisone. I think I get something of a rush, an adrenaline/endorphin kick out of it, and it does a lot to mitigate whatever the hell it is that causes my problem. I mean, that’s probably true of a lot of illnesses; you get attention and positive feedback and your brain rewards you with pleasant chemicals. But whatever, it worked and now I feel like I’m getting back in the game. I just have to keep the momentum up, now.

*cough* Ahem. So you asked me a thing. I will answer.

I do have headcanons about Squall’s extended family, specifically. I’ve not built out Rinoa’s yet…partially because it just never really comes up in the stories I’ve either plotted out or written. So I can’t answer that part of it–yet–but I can talk about Squall’s.

Working backwards: starting with Laguna’s side, Laguna is the oldest of two siblings, and not one, but both of them are kinda “black sheep” in the family. Partially it was their upbringing; Their mother, Elga Loire, was overworked and underappreciated, often working two jobs to keep food on the table (which she did very well). She didn’t have a lot of time to spend with her kids because of this, and the main reason for it was that their dad, Sevren Jr., was…kind of a loser? I mean, no, that’s not a good word, but a lot of people would call him that. He was an inventor. And always, always on the verge of the one that would make it big, this time. Automated chocobo saddles, “sliding” shoes to make walking more efficient, paramagic-powered chairs….yyyeah. You get why they were broke all the time. Sevren often traveled to demonstrate his newest creations, so he was absent a lot of the time, too. But when he came back, he would always bring the boys–Laguna and River (you must see where I’m going with this double-entendre)–some new toy or strange item from whatever country or town he’d visited.

This was fascinating to Laguna, in particular. Even as a kid, he dreamed of traveling the world. When he got older, joining the army seemed like the fastest way to do that, soooo….he roped his two best friends into joining with him. Heh.

Now, River…wasn’t into that stuff so much. He thought it was silly. He preferred to help Elga when she was at home, and even when she wasn’t, he ended up doing a lot of the house chores while his older brother went out and nearly died repeatedly trying to do dumb things. River was ‘fine’ just keeping to himself, reading and listening to music when he could get the radio to pick something up. As he grew up, he became a bit of a…punk? Like, he would be listening to Bad Religion in 1992. On the other hand, maybe Dream Theater when he was feeling happy. I imagine him looking a lot like Leon in KH2, but with hazel eyes (Sevren’s were brown) and no Griever all over his clothes. He cut his own hair so it always looked a bit jagged and unkempt, and he left it semi-long. Just generally prescient. He became pretty resentful of authority because he saw how it treated his mother and conspired to keep them all poor, and him too, when he got old enough to get a job (Laguna never had one until the army). It made him all the more determined to help his mother (and father, to an extent) weather the storm until the tides changed.

But then…well. They changed. But not for the better. Their dad died, and very suddenly, of an embolism. And, bitter as she was about having to support the family nearly single-handedly, Elga Loire loved Sevren quite a bit, and fell into some pretty deep broken heart syndrome. Inconsolable, she lost both her jobs. Laguna had already traipsed off to the army with his friends, and wouldn’t be aware of any of this for several weeks. River was left to care for their mother alone, and although they owned their small home, she had to sell it just to make ends meet. She moved in with a friend, and River…well, she sent him to the army, too. She insisted, thinking it was the best way to get both her sons out of this mess. Laguna already seemed to be doing well.

River did not do so well. He survived boot camp, but deserted his first year in service.

Laguna never heard from him, after that…and their mother passed away not too long afterward.

So…that’s Laguna’s end of it. As far as anyone knows, River is still out there. But Laguna hasn’t seen him in nearly 30 years. So, Squall has a missing uncle out there, somewhere, maybe.

Raine’s side…haha, geez, I might need to make a chart. In some ways, Raine is easier because she has no siblings and doesn’t know who her dad is. But I’ve traced her lineage back a bit further, and it gets…weird, in places. I might not be able to describe all of it, here.

Raine’s mother’s name is Gale. Gale is still alive, and Squall does meet her, once. It’s a solemn, one-time meeting, more an acknowledgement than a reunion. But it’s good. Gale is very practical. She never married, and never told Raine’s father she was pregnant (she didn’t like him for a permanent fixture). She was also a businesswoman. She owned and ran a hotel in middletown Dollet for many years. That’s where Raine got a lot of her experience before setting out on her own. Gale has sandy brown hair that she keeps short, and looks a bit like a taller Ellone in business casual, haha. But, but–those blue eyes. She has those. Her relation to Squall is evident.

It’s important to remember that although I enjoy both “he named himself” and “it’s Raine’s maiden name” theories, I’m pretty firmly in the camp of Raine’s last name being Leonhart. The story of Gale’s mother, Shiara (this is Arashi [storm] with the syllables reversed), depends on it, because she is the originator. I can’t detail the entire thing here–just too long–but the brief synopsis is that Shiara was a sorceress, in a time when sorceresses (”witches”) and “resistance” groups hell-bent on killing them all were in a state of cold war with one another. When Shiara became a sorceress, she panicked and ran away. She ended up being captured by one of these resistance factions, and had what I can only call a very complicated relationship with the faction’s leader, Dericho (this is the river Jericho with the first letter changed, making it phonetically very similar to Derecho, which is yet another type of storm).

Dericho’s faction was called, yes, the Pride, and they operated under a familiar leonine emblem. Of all his ancestors, Squall probably most closely resembles Dericho facially. Dericho is slightly shorter, his hair is a bit darker, and his eyes are a bit more on the grey side, but his posture, the way he carries himself, his facial expressions, his voice, even the sweep of his hair and the length he tends to keep it are all very familiar. A lot of those qualities were apparently recessive and just skipped a couple generations before thy found a match and popped up again.

How Shiara came to have Gale is a story I’d personally rather tell in prose, but I will say that it was Dericho who essentially named her, telling her in all his years of vetting people who want to be worthy of being called a Lion, Shiara was the only person he’d met with the heart of one. She carried that with her the rest of her life.

She is not, sadly, alive, having died at a ripe old age (and not terribly, since she was prepared with a willing successor nearby). She never actually told Gale about her powers, and to the very last, Gale never knew. The touch of sorcery ended there, seemingly. Dericho is also gone.

But I’m not done yet. One more generation, and this time, Hyne’s power is quite evident. Dericho’s mother, Hanwei, was a sorceress, his father was her knight, and they were quite open about it, feeling safe with it in their particular neck of the woods. Dericho was very familiar with the touch of his mother’s magic–she used it with him the way any mother would use a gentle hand, soothing scraped knees, gently grabbing his arm to pull him out of trouble–from fifteen feet away. His father, Mael[strom], was quite happy in his service to his wife and sorceress, and both Dericho’s parents loved him very much. When they embraced him, he could feel their connections tangling around him, and it was a very comfortable, safe way to be a child.

Of course, we can’t have that, can we?

When Dericho was about 5 or 6, they had been attending a fair that ran late into the night. Dericho started to nod off, so they went home early. It was a short distance, so they decided to walk instead of paying to ride a carriage to their home. Unfortunately, as you can probably guess, they were ambushed, by a particularly nasty faction called the Ridgebacks. Upon discovering Hanwei was a sorceress…well, let’s say the result was not pretty. At all. Dericho watched both his parents die, and his mother in particular, because she had no nearby successor. He was then “adopted” by the very faction who murdered his parents before his eyes.

Without going into specifics, they took this traumatized child, a blank slate, and turned him into one of them. But…not quite. By 17, Dericho didn’t know any other way of existing than as part of the factions, anymore, but he knew he still hated the Ridgebacks for what they had done. He murdered his “mentor” of a dozen or so years, killed several people, and took several more boys near his age on his way out of that particular clan. He started his own faction, with his own rules, and one was a “special” way of dispatching witches without having to burn them to dust. The Pride made their name on this and other standards which set their bar just a tad higher. They’d been in operation for almost ten years when Shiara showed up.

Then, as I said, things got complicated.

I should also note that Shiara and Dericho both lived in Centra. It was not long after Shiara flew free that the fateful Lunar Cry occurred, which deposited the Crystal Pillar and destroyed a third of the continent. Shiara barely escaped that disaster with her life…and her newborn daughter.

So….yeah, I think that’s about it, for now. If I ever get to working out my Rinoa’s tree, maybe I’ll put that up here as well, but for now, Squall’s all I’ve got, and his is hell in a handbasket.

I hope you enjoyed it, though!

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