Rinoa/Caraway: The Dirty Ground
Title: The Dirty Ground
Characters: Rinoa/Caraway
Prompts: Sin, blood, fever (#25, #93, #70)
Rating: G
Summary: The day Rinoa was born.
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The day she was born, there had been an uprising. A peaceful protest that got ugly in a hot March; such unrelenting heat with no rain to nourish the wilting trees. I missed the rain. It would have been able to cleanse the air.
A stone was thrown, they fired into the crowd. A catalyst for weeks of agitation, of dirty looks and half-threats. Not my orders. But does it matter? They were my men. They are my responsibility. They caused around fifty injuries, a dozen fatalities. It was messy, it was chaotic, it was angry.
They killed innocent men, angry men, men with missing teeth and bandaged heads. A fourteen year old boy had been killed. Their blood dug deep into the ground. Scattered banners on the floor, mopping up the odd casualty. Some women cried. Free Timber, End the Oppression, Freedom, Freedom.
I asked for the leader's name. Eule. He had a son, they bleated, and a wife named Lenore. I would make sure she was duly compensated for the error, I told Deling. No, she won't talk, no, no. (And even if she did, well, I'd have to do what was necessary).
The boy had ruddy red cheeks and a snarl. The Mother simply stared into the crowd, hands over her belly, pale white with fear. I bit back the uneasy feeling in my stomach. My position didn't call for emotion, or heart.
Back then, I was an efficient sort, detached. Then, they whispered in my ear that my daughter had just been born. My hands were then reddened, suddenly, as if I had caressed the hot corpses in the midday sun in my regret. I imagined her clean, pink skin and my delicately gloved hands and felt very, very ill. Will I go now? No, I had to have a few minutes alone. A minute with the dead.
Later on, they would call it Fury's Massacre. I deserve this title, I deserve the nightmares in my old age, I deserve... well, I deserve everything. It was fifteen years later when she asked me why I had let the atrocities happen, and told me how ashamed she was to have my name, knowing how readily I had dirtied the ground beneath my feet.
Characters: Rinoa/Caraway
Prompts: Sin, blood, fever (#25, #93, #70)
Rating: G
Summary: The day Rinoa was born.
---
The day she was born, there had been an uprising. A peaceful protest that got ugly in a hot March; such unrelenting heat with no rain to nourish the wilting trees. I missed the rain. It would have been able to cleanse the air.
A stone was thrown, they fired into the crowd. A catalyst for weeks of agitation, of dirty looks and half-threats. Not my orders. But does it matter? They were my men. They are my responsibility. They caused around fifty injuries, a dozen fatalities. It was messy, it was chaotic, it was angry.
They killed innocent men, angry men, men with missing teeth and bandaged heads. A fourteen year old boy had been killed. Their blood dug deep into the ground. Scattered banners on the floor, mopping up the odd casualty. Some women cried. Free Timber, End the Oppression, Freedom, Freedom.
I asked for the leader's name. Eule. He had a son, they bleated, and a wife named Lenore. I would make sure she was duly compensated for the error, I told Deling. No, she won't talk, no, no. (And even if she did, well, I'd have to do what was necessary).
The boy had ruddy red cheeks and a snarl. The Mother simply stared into the crowd, hands over her belly, pale white with fear. I bit back the uneasy feeling in my stomach. My position didn't call for emotion, or heart.
Back then, I was an efficient sort, detached. Then, they whispered in my ear that my daughter had just been born. My hands were then reddened, suddenly, as if I had caressed the hot corpses in the midday sun in my regret. I imagined her clean, pink skin and my delicately gloved hands and felt very, very ill. Will I go now? No, I had to have a few minutes alone. A minute with the dead.
Later on, they would call it Fury's Massacre. I deserve this title, I deserve the nightmares in my old age, I deserve... well, I deserve everything. It was fifteen years later when she asked me why I had let the atrocities happen, and told me how ashamed she was to have my name, knowing how readily I had dirtied the ground beneath my feet.