31_days fic: Haiku-like fic
This one is rather short compared to some of the others I've written, but I love the exchange and the imagery in it.
Title: "Memories of Things Green"
Day/Theme: Oct 2. Thus spring begins
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Character/Pairing: Kozou Fuyutsuki/OFC
Rating: PG
Author's Note: An almost haiku-like selection for the second part of "Neon Enoch Evangelion", aka the ambitious NGE project this time, but that's fitting since the prompts this month are selected from haiku (and also because there's often something poetic in the lines of a certain wintry gent, or at least that's how his lines came out in the dub. Could also have something to do with Michael Ross's delivery in the movies...). Not quite sure where this fits into the chronology, but it was too good a piece to keep inside my head.
And yes, I managed to find a way to work in one of the Eva Geeks' codewords...
They had settled into a daily routine of watching the sea of LCL three times a day, morning, midday and evening, for an hour or so, for any survivors. Fuyutsuki had found a pair of binoculars to watch for movement on the surface, while Sabia relied on her keen sense of awareness to detect any "life signatures".
Much as it had to be done, Fuyutsuki silently dreaded doing this and tended to keep his eyes fixed on the open sea, facing away from the hills and Lilith's petrified head. The sight of the hills, now stripped of all trees and plants, caused his soul to scream with horror within him. Lilith's one remaining eye seemed to gaze on him in silent rebuke.
On the fourth day, Sabia posed a question that made him cringe. "I understand why the humans and the animals would have vanished into Instrumentality, but why did the plants get Tang'ed," Sabia asked.
He lowered the binoculars and stared at her. "What do you mean by 'Tanged'?"
"Tanged. To Tang. To be Tanged. Turned into Tang: Tang is a powdered drink mix in the States, usually orange-colored and supposedly orange-flavored, though it always tasted like sugar and artificial flavors to me. If you mix it with water, it sort of looks like that," she explained, pointing to the sea of LCL.
"It sounds nasty," he said, turning back to the shore. Then to change the subject as well as answer her question, "The trees and plants were as much the offspring of Lilith as the animals and the humans -- er, humanity. Considering how the Shekinah's anti-AT field affected everything on this planet, it comes as no surprise that they too lost their forms and returned to their primordial state. We can only hope that in time, they too return and once again clothe the earth's nakedness."
"It bothers you, doesn't it?"
He sighed soundlessly. "I can bear with seeing the red ring of Lilith's blood hanging in the heavens as a reminder of man's folly, but the denuded hills fill me with despair."
"Maybe we need to think leafy green thoughts and give the plants a reason to return," she said.
"It might take more than that, but at this point, it would be good for the spirit, if nothing else," he replied. Holding that thought in his mind, like a kindled twig to a small heap of tinder, he allowed his thoughts to roam over the past: cherry blossoms in Kyoto; rice fields in the countryside, when his parents had sent him to an aunt's farm to recuperate from tuberculosis; pine trees covered in snow; the tiny vase of flowers Yui kept on her desk, changing them every day; maple trees, the day Yui broke the news to him that she was seeing Gendo Rokubungi. His reason reflexively started to push that back, but he resisted: somehow, the pain that memory brought back had dwindled to a sweetness tinged with sadness.
He glanced at Sabia, who sat wrapt in thought, her eyes distant, no doubt looking down the corridors of time to far distant eras mankind knew only through fossil records. If our thoughts and memories could call nature's greenery back into the world, hers could blanket the earth in dense forests, he thought.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The botanical meditations bore little fruit, at least while they kept watch. Not until much later did some evidence turn up.
In the middle of the night, a low rustling, like rain on a roof awakened him, but when he rose and lifted the shade to peer out, he found the sky still lit by the stars and the waning moon, not a cloud to be seen, much less to water the earth.
Then he saw the movement outside.
Shadowy forms welled up from the barren ground, lengthening and budding forth branches, still bare in their wintry state. Smaller, thread-like shapes appeared to stretch out into strands of grass. Even through the closed window, he could smell life and chlorophyll and damp earth.
An early spring and a new springtide for the world in the midst of a sorrowful winter, he thought, with a smile of gratitude. Perhaps she was on to something...
Title: "Memories of Things Green"
Day/Theme: Oct 2. Thus spring begins
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Character/Pairing: Kozou Fuyutsuki/OFC
Rating: PG
Author's Note: An almost haiku-like selection for the second part of "Neon Enoch Evangelion", aka the ambitious NGE project this time, but that's fitting since the prompts this month are selected from haiku (and also because there's often something poetic in the lines of a certain wintry gent, or at least that's how his lines came out in the dub. Could also have something to do with Michael Ross's delivery in the movies...). Not quite sure where this fits into the chronology, but it was too good a piece to keep inside my head.
And yes, I managed to find a way to work in one of the Eva Geeks' codewords...
They had settled into a daily routine of watching the sea of LCL three times a day, morning, midday and evening, for an hour or so, for any survivors. Fuyutsuki had found a pair of binoculars to watch for movement on the surface, while Sabia relied on her keen sense of awareness to detect any "life signatures".
Much as it had to be done, Fuyutsuki silently dreaded doing this and tended to keep his eyes fixed on the open sea, facing away from the hills and Lilith's petrified head. The sight of the hills, now stripped of all trees and plants, caused his soul to scream with horror within him. Lilith's one remaining eye seemed to gaze on him in silent rebuke.
On the fourth day, Sabia posed a question that made him cringe. "I understand why the humans and the animals would have vanished into Instrumentality, but why did the plants get Tang'ed," Sabia asked.
He lowered the binoculars and stared at her. "What do you mean by 'Tanged'?"
"Tanged. To Tang. To be Tanged. Turned into Tang: Tang is a powdered drink mix in the States, usually orange-colored and supposedly orange-flavored, though it always tasted like sugar and artificial flavors to me. If you mix it with water, it sort of looks like that," she explained, pointing to the sea of LCL.
"It sounds nasty," he said, turning back to the shore. Then to change the subject as well as answer her question, "The trees and plants were as much the offspring of Lilith as the animals and the humans -- er, humanity. Considering how the Shekinah's anti-AT field affected everything on this planet, it comes as no surprise that they too lost their forms and returned to their primordial state. We can only hope that in time, they too return and once again clothe the earth's nakedness."
"It bothers you, doesn't it?"
He sighed soundlessly. "I can bear with seeing the red ring of Lilith's blood hanging in the heavens as a reminder of man's folly, but the denuded hills fill me with despair."
"Maybe we need to think leafy green thoughts and give the plants a reason to return," she said.
"It might take more than that, but at this point, it would be good for the spirit, if nothing else," he replied. Holding that thought in his mind, like a kindled twig to a small heap of tinder, he allowed his thoughts to roam over the past: cherry blossoms in Kyoto; rice fields in the countryside, when his parents had sent him to an aunt's farm to recuperate from tuberculosis; pine trees covered in snow; the tiny vase of flowers Yui kept on her desk, changing them every day; maple trees, the day Yui broke the news to him that she was seeing Gendo Rokubungi. His reason reflexively started to push that back, but he resisted: somehow, the pain that memory brought back had dwindled to a sweetness tinged with sadness.
He glanced at Sabia, who sat wrapt in thought, her eyes distant, no doubt looking down the corridors of time to far distant eras mankind knew only through fossil records. If our thoughts and memories could call nature's greenery back into the world, hers could blanket the earth in dense forests, he thought.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The botanical meditations bore little fruit, at least while they kept watch. Not until much later did some evidence turn up.
In the middle of the night, a low rustling, like rain on a roof awakened him, but when he rose and lifted the shade to peer out, he found the sky still lit by the stars and the waning moon, not a cloud to be seen, much less to water the earth.
Then he saw the movement outside.
Shadowy forms welled up from the barren ground, lengthening and budding forth branches, still bare in their wintry state. Smaller, thread-like shapes appeared to stretch out into strands of grass. Even through the closed window, he could smell life and chlorophyll and damp earth.
An early spring and a new springtide for the world in the midst of a sorrowful winter, he thought, with a smile of gratitude. Perhaps she was on to something...