Drabbles for Feburary, Day One
The dry grass crunched beneath his feet; before the war, this part of the city had been so lovely. Now, only predators like himself walked between the skeletal trees, and only the dead stayed.
Despite the smell of corpses ripening in the sun, Gauron smiled.
"Bang."
A hundred-foot plume of dust rose in the distance.
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Drabbles for February, Day Two
"'Fate' is such a petty thing," he murmured, smiling faintly as he leaned his head against the other man's shoulder. "Really, I don't know how you can talk that way."
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Drabbles for February, Day Three
Despair was dangerously close to overtaking him. He had already seen so many years; he couldn’t be certain that death wasn't waiting close at hand to ambush him - to break him just as Han had broken Chu at last, in Gaozu's time.
Venerate the ancestor by honoring the descendant: that was what he'd told his children, and ordered them to tell their children; yet, it was difficult, when it seemed Gaozu’s descendant had turned his back on his most loyal vassal.
Sima Qian sighed again, laying his head on the desk atop the 415 pages of his still-unfinished history.
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Drabbles for February, Day Four
Out of the wreckage rose a sculpture: a bronze bird with bones of wood and feathers of gears and eyes of engraved steel. Its wingspan took over the entire room, and the arch of its body conveyed an incomparable majesty. It resembled the legendary roc, or maybe a phoenix.
Liao smiled. He knew he'd find a use for those old broken clocks.
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Drabbles for February, Day Five
It seemed suddenly like histories were such stupid things: all the glory they'd reserve for him wouldn't change the fact that his forces were deadlocked here. They wouldn't change how hopeless it all seemed, right here and now. It only lasted a moment, but for that moment, Kongming felt abyssaly weak.
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Drabbles for February, Day Six
It isn't anything like that, he snarled, half in his sleep. No magic would change the course of history; so what glory would mean anything to him? It was treason for Zhongda to hope his name would be remembered for a thousand generations, when his proper place was only in Emperor Wu's shadow.
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Drabbles for February, Day Seven
Zhongda couldn't help despising Cao Hong for being the one to write him in the first place. If he had known Mengde had admired him for so long, what would have held it back? He almost hated that first summons as much - those elegant words, almost poetic despite their simple clarity, seemed to mock him. He could never write this well if he had a dozen lifetimes to make up the difference.
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Drabbles for February, Day Eight
It seemed like there were a thousand tiny tricks of persuasion that Kongming had forgotten since Zhao Lie had died. It seemed like he was backsliding, when he couldn't even properly sunder his enemy's allegiances: had his health failed while he wasn't looking, or had Heaven's mandate finally and truly been withdrawn?
Looking up at the stars, it was difficult to hold back tears.
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Drabbles for February, Day Nine
"You really are full of yourself, aren't you?" Her perfume mingled with the smell of the trees.
He couldn't help laughing at that. "It's not my fault that I don't take things at face value the way you do. Face it - I was born and bred to overthink things. I'll never have your simplicity."
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Drabbles for February, Day Ten
The skyline seemed to blend into her shoulders; the graceful curve of her neck more than rivaled the skyscrapers. She seemed to embody the very spirit of the city as she sipped her espresso, giggling.
This cannot be my Naomi, he mused, staring across the scalloped-glass table at her form, almost invisible for how much it seemed to be a part of the cityscape. What did I ever do to be blessed - cursed - with a woman like this?
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Drabbles for February, Days Eleven and Twelve
"Oh, s**t." It was only the beginning of the collapse of a breaker made of obscenities: John made it across, holding his breath to hold back the pain as he darted across what may as well have been a minefield. It was the same as he always did when shooting whatever progressively vile s**t his stomach could hold down this week - booze was only ever friendly enough with him to make him forget his screwups for the evening, though it made him remember them all too acutely in the morning. It didn't help this time: the pain lanced all the way up his leg, and he'd swear he could feel his balls retreating a little with each fresh shard of broken glass he picked up.
His enemies seemed to know a little too much about his weaknesses, though the one they'd just exploited was only to be expected, given where he'd run across their leader. Once he was thinking clearly again, though, it was clear Hans had no reason to be up on the roof with him; what was the sonofabitch doing there?
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