Fanfiction: "Empty Hands"
Jul. 23rd, 2020 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deemoyzaTitle: "Empty Hands" (300 words)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bastion
Rating/Warnings: General Audiences / Angst, Grief/Mourning
Characters: Zulf
Summary: Zulf's beloved promised him she would not break beneath his touch. But the Calamity pays promises no heed.
(Written as a treat for the Multifandom Drabble Exchange)
"Don't worry, I won't break," she said, laughing, the first time he held her.
Zulf blushed and smiled at his beloved. She was so soft and petite, a far cry from the sturdy, work-hardened Ura women he'd grown up around, that he hesitated to hug her too tightly, for fear that she would fall apart in his arms, and disappear like the dream he sometimes swore she was.
In response, she wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed him tightly, pressing the air from his lungs and coaxing him into a proper embrace.
"See?" she sighed. "Still here."
But she was no longer here, not in the way he remembered her. Now, she lay upon her bed, cold and gray, eyes open but unseeing, the tiny Tazal Spade he'd given her the night before still pinned in her hair. He reached out to touch her face, slow and disbelieving, half-expecting her to wake and pull him from this nightmare, to smile and remind him that she would not break beneath his touch.
Instead of flesh, however, his fingers met only ash, and sank deep into his beloved's face, distorting her features and reducing her body to a heavy gray cloud, picked up and dissipated by the wind. He lunged forward, snatching at handfuls of ash, desperate to keep her, any part of her, with him.
Not knowing where else to go, Zulf set off through the crumbling world to the place where he'd last known happiness, agonizingly aware of ash trickling through his fingers with each heavy step. When he reached the Hanging Gardens, he opened his hands, and let the wind take what little remained.
"Don't worry," he whispered as the ash swirled away from him, "I won't break."
It was a promise as empty as his hands.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bastion
Rating/Warnings: General Audiences / Angst, Grief/Mourning
Characters: Zulf
Summary: Zulf's beloved promised him she would not break beneath his touch. But the Calamity pays promises no heed.
(Written as a treat for the Multifandom Drabble Exchange)
"Don't worry, I won't break," she said, laughing, the first time he held her.
Zulf blushed and smiled at his beloved. She was so soft and petite, a far cry from the sturdy, work-hardened Ura women he'd grown up around, that he hesitated to hug her too tightly, for fear that she would fall apart in his arms, and disappear like the dream he sometimes swore she was.
In response, she wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed him tightly, pressing the air from his lungs and coaxing him into a proper embrace.
"See?" she sighed. "Still here."
But she was no longer here, not in the way he remembered her. Now, she lay upon her bed, cold and gray, eyes open but unseeing, the tiny Tazal Spade he'd given her the night before still pinned in her hair. He reached out to touch her face, slow and disbelieving, half-expecting her to wake and pull him from this nightmare, to smile and remind him that she would not break beneath his touch.
Instead of flesh, however, his fingers met only ash, and sank deep into his beloved's face, distorting her features and reducing her body to a heavy gray cloud, picked up and dissipated by the wind. He lunged forward, snatching at handfuls of ash, desperate to keep her, any part of her, with him.
Not knowing where else to go, Zulf set off through the crumbling world to the place where he'd last known happiness, agonizingly aware of ash trickling through his fingers with each heavy step. When he reached the Hanging Gardens, he opened his hands, and let the wind take what little remained.
"Don't worry," he whispered as the ash swirled away from him, "I won't break."
It was a promise as empty as his hands.
