[fic] [31_days] Landing, Last Exile
may 24 | blue, like an orange
i have pretty much forgotten everything about last exile, except that mullin shetland was in it and he was voiced by miki shinichirou. i probably have gotten all the worldbuilding stuff hideously wrong. i am assuming that mullin came from one of those depressing grey city areas. also, this is fic in which nothing happens, except a lot of wordcount-padding.
that having been said:
Title: Landing
Fandom: Last Exile
He spends his days outside, now that he can. A freshness that he's never hoped for: the sky a blue too pure to be natural, the air tasting of nothing -- an absence so strong it is almost a taste in itself. Perhaps it's the escape from death or the escape from soldiering that makes him unable to remember a world so bright. Two months since leaving the hospital and he still can’t look up at the sky without feeling dizzy.
On a ship the sky is so limitless that, paradoxically, one does not feel its size. But on land, with a horizon and some basis for comparison, the same sky that he has flown in is suddenly too great to comprehend. He lies back on the ground, breathes -- the warm dampness of earth, heavy with itself -- and thinks he could get drunk on the very colour of the sky.
He comes close to getting drunk on water, after all, now that they have it. Dunya calls it "real water" and laughs, but like the sky and the air it has yet to seem real to him. Strange to drink this sweetness each day, stranger yet that it falls so pure from the sky, though he's not nostalgic for the dustiness of what used to pass for water. He'll never get used to this, he thinks. He's barely twenty and he's seen twenty battles pass; the fear never faded, so perhaps this new wonder never will. Yesterday he bit into a sliced orange and couldn't find words for the coldness, the flavour headier than wine. Dunya smiled at him across the table, a shared moment of discovery or even joy; the smallest things taste sweet now.
Two swallows circle low overhead, dip down across the fields and out of his range of vision. He closes his eyes. The grass is heavy with dew and its own moisture; he crushes it between his fingers and stains his skin with the dampness.
Maybe he will miss flying. But there's freedom, and then there's not having something to hold you down. In autumn the fields will shine gold, he thinks: a colour closer to life than tarnished metal has ever been.
i have pretty much forgotten everything about last exile, except that mullin shetland was in it and he was voiced by miki shinichirou. i probably have gotten all the worldbuilding stuff hideously wrong. i am assuming that mullin came from one of those depressing grey city areas. also, this is fic in which nothing happens, except a lot of wordcount-padding.
that having been said:
Title: Landing
Fandom: Last Exile
He spends his days outside, now that he can. A freshness that he's never hoped for: the sky a blue too pure to be natural, the air tasting of nothing -- an absence so strong it is almost a taste in itself. Perhaps it's the escape from death or the escape from soldiering that makes him unable to remember a world so bright. Two months since leaving the hospital and he still can’t look up at the sky without feeling dizzy.
On a ship the sky is so limitless that, paradoxically, one does not feel its size. But on land, with a horizon and some basis for comparison, the same sky that he has flown in is suddenly too great to comprehend. He lies back on the ground, breathes -- the warm dampness of earth, heavy with itself -- and thinks he could get drunk on the very colour of the sky.
He comes close to getting drunk on water, after all, now that they have it. Dunya calls it "real water" and laughs, but like the sky and the air it has yet to seem real to him. Strange to drink this sweetness each day, stranger yet that it falls so pure from the sky, though he's not nostalgic for the dustiness of what used to pass for water. He'll never get used to this, he thinks. He's barely twenty and he's seen twenty battles pass; the fear never faded, so perhaps this new wonder never will. Yesterday he bit into a sliced orange and couldn't find words for the coldness, the flavour headier than wine. Dunya smiled at him across the table, a shared moment of discovery or even joy; the smallest things taste sweet now.
Two swallows circle low overhead, dip down across the fields and out of his range of vision. He closes his eyes. The grass is heavy with dew and its own moisture; he crushes it between his fingers and stains his skin with the dampness.
Maybe he will miss flying. But there's freedom, and then there's not having something to hold you down. In autumn the fields will shine gold, he thinks: a colour closer to life than tarnished metal has ever been.