lux_mariko (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lux_mariko) wrote2019-03-04 12:41 am
lux_mariko) wrote2019-03-04 12:41 am
The Four, Together
Story: The Four, Together
Year:
Word Count: 483
Rating: R
Characters: Shane, Dimana, Imi, and Rubika
Warnings: Discussion of violence and plague and war.
Famine is about each and every kind of want and need--for basic sustenance, for water, for air, for sleep, for knowledge, for time, for love, for companionship, for family, for all of the things that sentient entities crave.
Shane has lived a long, long life, and hoards information like a starving child hoards scraps of bread--she’s the one who gathers what they need; by a complex pattern of giving and withholding what other people need, she can make anyone give her anything she wants.
War is more than blood and conquest--war is the need people have to measure themselves against one another, victories and defeats small and large, glory and disgrace and everything in between, so long as there are at least two sides, pitted against one another.
Dimana is a gambler, always has been, adept at manipulating all the little frustrations everyone carries underneath, and now she can play her games on a cosmic scale--she’s the one they send to distract; a word here, a hint there, and people are at each other’s throats, ignoring the real war all around them.
Pestilence is any kind of blight, whether smog and darkness, despair and regret, or more physical illnesses; she is the loss of the flower of youth and the wisdom of years--Pestilence, in the end, spares no one.
Imi, sometimes, finds what she does hard to control--she’s so young, and it’s so easy to push too far, and she’s never been strong, herself--but she is what she is, and she isn’t surprised, and people see her youth and her large eyes and suspect nothing; she’s the one they send when they need to utterly devastate an enemy’s plans.
Famine and War and Pestilence come in cycles--they circle around each other, cause each other, wreak their havoc separately and together, but their impact is almost nothing without Death, their sister, their leader, at their side.
Rubika steps onto grass, and it withers beneath her feet, and she tells her sisters what she thinks and usually they listen; she never wanted to lead, she’s certainly no kind of general, she just wanted to see the world and hear all of the stories--no one sends her anywhere, but she always goes anyway, because she speaks for them all.
They will never stop--there will always be need, and competition, and shadows, and every story has an end--but one should not call them evil; they simply are--and, while every story has an ending, perhaps it's just to make room for a new one to begin.
They don’t actually ride horses--they crowd into Rubika’s little ship, which she refuses to let Dimana improve or trade in for a better model; they listen to Shane’s stories and teach Imi all they know, and cross the universe together, arguing about what they should do but always, always secure in each other.
Year:
Word Count: 483
Rating: R
Characters: Shane, Dimana, Imi, and Rubika
Warnings: Discussion of violence and plague and war.
Famine is about each and every kind of want and need--for basic sustenance, for water, for air, for sleep, for knowledge, for time, for love, for companionship, for family, for all of the things that sentient entities crave.
Shane has lived a long, long life, and hoards information like a starving child hoards scraps of bread--she’s the one who gathers what they need; by a complex pattern of giving and withholding what other people need, she can make anyone give her anything she wants.
War is more than blood and conquest--war is the need people have to measure themselves against one another, victories and defeats small and large, glory and disgrace and everything in between, so long as there are at least two sides, pitted against one another.
Dimana is a gambler, always has been, adept at manipulating all the little frustrations everyone carries underneath, and now she can play her games on a cosmic scale--she’s the one they send to distract; a word here, a hint there, and people are at each other’s throats, ignoring the real war all around them.
Pestilence is any kind of blight, whether smog and darkness, despair and regret, or more physical illnesses; she is the loss of the flower of youth and the wisdom of years--Pestilence, in the end, spares no one.
Imi, sometimes, finds what she does hard to control--she’s so young, and it’s so easy to push too far, and she’s never been strong, herself--but she is what she is, and she isn’t surprised, and people see her youth and her large eyes and suspect nothing; she’s the one they send when they need to utterly devastate an enemy’s plans.
Famine and War and Pestilence come in cycles--they circle around each other, cause each other, wreak their havoc separately and together, but their impact is almost nothing without Death, their sister, their leader, at their side.
Rubika steps onto grass, and it withers beneath her feet, and she tells her sisters what she thinks and usually they listen; she never wanted to lead, she’s certainly no kind of general, she just wanted to see the world and hear all of the stories--no one sends her anywhere, but she always goes anyway, because she speaks for them all.
They will never stop--there will always be need, and competition, and shadows, and every story has an end--but one should not call them evil; they simply are--and, while every story has an ending, perhaps it's just to make room for a new one to begin.
They don’t actually ride horses--they crowd into Rubika’s little ship, which she refuses to let Dimana improve or trade in for a better model; they listen to Shane’s stories and teach Imi all they know, and cross the universe together, arguing about what they should do but always, always secure in each other.