The Sand and the Sieve
Nov. 22nd, 2007 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chu_totoroTitle: The Sand and the Sieve
Author: Fwoom
Pairings: none
Disclaimer: CLAMP owns the characters.
Warnings: Dark. Maybe slightly disturbing?
Summary: Written for the Autumn Time Challenge. Idea of time, in Fye and Yuuy's imprisoned tower where there is no time, no magic, nothing. Title inspired by Ray Bradbury.
Twins.
Twins of the flesh, twins of the blood. Linked from the moment they were born. Two halves of an hourglass, inseparable, identical. Sand trickles from one half to the other; flip it over, turn it upside-down and it trickles back. Speck by speck, grain by grain, so little an opening, so small a connection, yet imperative. Without it, they are nothing. Just two broken triangles of glass, sand blown off with the wind.
Twins. A curse. Countries don't need something so delicate and fine as an hourglass. They don't need the fine whispering of the sand, speck by speck, grain by grain, connecting two things identical. Ah, but of course. Two connected equals twice the power, and with power comes fear. No, they don't need symmetry, they don't need doubles, never! Only single things, harmless things. Circles, triangles, squares. Who wants an hourglass? No one. So came the ruthless order:
Kill the other if you wish to live.
Kill the other! How can half an hourglass kill the other? He would kill himself. No one understands this better than the halves themselves - they can only link hands, entwine their lives, and smile.
Well. If the hourglass will not cease being an hourglass, then it must go.
~
Up here, down there. Up there, down here. So close, yet so far.
No longer an hourglass. No longer anything, here. Here? Here. Nothing is anything and everything is nothing, here. Only sand. Sand falling through a sieve. Take a handful of sand, pour, watch it fall through. The faster you scoop, the faster it flows, and the sieve, the sieve? Is always empty. No matter what you do, the sieve is always empty.
Down there, down there, he piles up corpses. Again and again. He climbs and he falls and he climbs and he falls, again and again and again. It's no use. No matter how he climbs, he will always fall, just as the sand will always seep out, will never stay. Again and again and again. This isn't hell. This is nowhere. This is nothing.
He climbs and he falls and he climbs and he falls and he climbs and he falls. Stop! Stop! You will never reach the top. But what to do, except try?
No change. Nothing, nothing. Just the endless monotony of the sand and the sieve, the sand and the sieve, the sand and the sieve. But wait! What's that?
A voice. A hand. A finger.
Kill the other if you wish to live.
They would not. They were banished. Banished here. So what is, what is he doing here?
Blood, laughter, insanity. A piercing shriek. Yuuy? No, stop, go away! Get away from him, Yuuy! He's-- he'll-- stop! Get away from Yuuy! Stop. Stop. Stop!
Still an hourglass, after all. Dimmed, banished, a dream of an hourglass, a shadow of an hourglass, but still, connected. Pain? …shared.
STOP!
…and it ends.
It's over, he's dead, killed himself with his own sword.
Dead.
Father, father, why?
A stir in the sand, a breath of wind, a ripple in the pattern. But back to normal now. And again, sand falls through the sieve. Scoop, sift, fall, scoop, sift, fall; again and again and again.
But the trembling won't stop. Teeth clench until jawbones ache, hands grasp the bars of the tower so hard knuckles turn white, but still the trembling won't stop. A shriek, long past, insistently rings again and again, over and over, echoing, echoing... Yuuy. Oh, Yuuy. No longer piling corpses, but curled up shivering on the snow, rocking back and forth. Long straggly hair falls to the ground, hides his face, but his hands cover his ears and he won't stop rocking, back and forth, back and forth. And up, up, up in the tower, hands grasp and teeth clench and tears fall, but the trembling will not stop. Yuuy, oh, Yuuy, what are we to do?
The sand and the sieve are unchanging, but the hourglass is near to breaking.
Big eyes protrude from a sunken face. Hands, bare skeletons of skin and bone, clutch at rags for warmth. To be here, here, stuck forever as the sand falls through the sieve, what is the purpose? What is the point?
Nothing, nothing, nothing. The hourglass will break, and they too, will become two corpses amongst the many littered upon the snow, and little by little the sprinklings of snow will cover their bodies until nothing is left, nothing at all, and then the sand will go on falling through the sieve, falling, falling, for ever and ever and ever.
Thoughts blend, merge-- not into a roaring chaos because there is no energy left for chaos, but just into placid, hopeless acceptance. Yet as one thought sinks into another the way snowflakes fall, each melting into the next, a third, more distinct thought blossoms through the layers.
It must not be.
With this in mind, slow beginnings of a plan form. Skeletal hands tug at the bars, tug at iron set in stone, pull at it, push at it. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, prying at the iron bars.
Below, no longer rocking, no longer crying, but staring, hopeless. No longer piling up corpses, either, because no more bodies fall. They have all died. Despair swirls through, blankets the air, comes crashing down with all the force of a tidal wave. No tears. Tears dried out long ago. Just dull grey eyes, once bright blue, staring hopelessly out into the snow. Ah, but wait! Again the sand swirls. A pebble falls, disrupting the pattern. A disembodied voice speaks. The withered head turns, large sunken eyes seek the source. What now?
Up above, naught of the voice is heard. Too high up, too far away. Hands, bleeding, frozen, continue to work the iron bars. Push, pull, scrape, scratch. Nails come off with the bricks, blood freezes stiff on the fingers so that they can't move. Make it move! Again and again, again and again--there! It wobbles. Iron bars, after all, are not designed to hold people in. The tower is designed to hold people in. What do iron bars matter? Hundreds, thousands, millions of feet above the ground, with or without iron bars you cannot escape. And so the iron bars come loose.
Down below, the voice makes a proposition and a curse. Eyes grow wide in confusion as thoughts cloud the mind.
Up above, hands scrabble for a hold, a way to pull the body up. Once, twice. Hands slip, body falls painfully to the cold stone floor. So close, yet so far. Go, go, go! Almost there, just don't lose the grip, don't falter, this is the last chance, the last burst of energy--yes!
Body and hands tumble out into the open air. Down, down, down, falling, falling, oh Yuuy, don't look at me with eyes like that, don't--
Blood splatters on snow. The sieve breaks apart and crumbles into so many bits of sand, fall with the rest down to earth. The hourglass shatters.
Kill the other if you wish to live.
Kill yourself if you wish the other to live.
Something, a cross between a scream and a shriek and a wail, slashes the night, splits it like a giant scythe.
Ah, but now there is night. Night and day. The sieve has broken.
Forgive me, brother, forgive me. The hourglass is gone, broken, reduced to so many shards of glass; it can never be again, yet--it has escaped the sieve. Yes. Outside of the endless monotony of sand through sieve, shards of glass may reshape, reform, mold and merge together with something else to become something wholly new. The hourglass was doomed from its birth, but you, you, my brother, you are out. And some day you will be repaired, some day a smith's hands can combine you with something else to make something better, something new. You have still life ahead of you.
Snow absorbs blood. The body lies prone, misshapen, bones cracked and bent in a way no sane being could stand to look at, eyes open but empty. Yet at the corners of the mouth, the slightest edge of a twisted smile. For if he had been down and he had been up, the same would still have happened. The very same. And they both know it.
The scream tears on through the night.
Author: Fwoom
Pairings: none
Disclaimer: CLAMP owns the characters.
Warnings: Dark. Maybe slightly disturbing?
Summary: Written for the Autumn Time Challenge. Idea of time, in Fye and Yuuy's imprisoned tower where there is no time, no magic, nothing. Title inspired by Ray Bradbury.
Twins.
Twins of the flesh, twins of the blood. Linked from the moment they were born. Two halves of an hourglass, inseparable, identical. Sand trickles from one half to the other; flip it over, turn it upside-down and it trickles back. Speck by speck, grain by grain, so little an opening, so small a connection, yet imperative. Without it, they are nothing. Just two broken triangles of glass, sand blown off with the wind.
Twins. A curse. Countries don't need something so delicate and fine as an hourglass. They don't need the fine whispering of the sand, speck by speck, grain by grain, connecting two things identical. Ah, but of course. Two connected equals twice the power, and with power comes fear. No, they don't need symmetry, they don't need doubles, never! Only single things, harmless things. Circles, triangles, squares. Who wants an hourglass? No one. So came the ruthless order:
Kill the other if you wish to live.
Kill the other! How can half an hourglass kill the other? He would kill himself. No one understands this better than the halves themselves - they can only link hands, entwine their lives, and smile.
Well. If the hourglass will not cease being an hourglass, then it must go.
~
Up here, down there. Up there, down here. So close, yet so far.
No longer an hourglass. No longer anything, here. Here? Here. Nothing is anything and everything is nothing, here. Only sand. Sand falling through a sieve. Take a handful of sand, pour, watch it fall through. The faster you scoop, the faster it flows, and the sieve, the sieve? Is always empty. No matter what you do, the sieve is always empty.
Down there, down there, he piles up corpses. Again and again. He climbs and he falls and he climbs and he falls, again and again and again. It's no use. No matter how he climbs, he will always fall, just as the sand will always seep out, will never stay. Again and again and again. This isn't hell. This is nowhere. This is nothing.
He climbs and he falls and he climbs and he falls and he climbs and he falls. Stop! Stop! You will never reach the top. But what to do, except try?
No change. Nothing, nothing. Just the endless monotony of the sand and the sieve, the sand and the sieve, the sand and the sieve. But wait! What's that?
A voice. A hand. A finger.
Kill the other if you wish to live.
They would not. They were banished. Banished here. So what is, what is he doing here?
Blood, laughter, insanity. A piercing shriek. Yuuy? No, stop, go away! Get away from him, Yuuy! He's-- he'll-- stop! Get away from Yuuy! Stop. Stop. Stop!
Still an hourglass, after all. Dimmed, banished, a dream of an hourglass, a shadow of an hourglass, but still, connected. Pain? …shared.
STOP!
…and it ends.
It's over, he's dead, killed himself with his own sword.
Dead.
Father, father, why?
A stir in the sand, a breath of wind, a ripple in the pattern. But back to normal now. And again, sand falls through the sieve. Scoop, sift, fall, scoop, sift, fall; again and again and again.
But the trembling won't stop. Teeth clench until jawbones ache, hands grasp the bars of the tower so hard knuckles turn white, but still the trembling won't stop. A shriek, long past, insistently rings again and again, over and over, echoing, echoing... Yuuy. Oh, Yuuy. No longer piling corpses, but curled up shivering on the snow, rocking back and forth. Long straggly hair falls to the ground, hides his face, but his hands cover his ears and he won't stop rocking, back and forth, back and forth. And up, up, up in the tower, hands grasp and teeth clench and tears fall, but the trembling will not stop. Yuuy, oh, Yuuy, what are we to do?
The sand and the sieve are unchanging, but the hourglass is near to breaking.
Big eyes protrude from a sunken face. Hands, bare skeletons of skin and bone, clutch at rags for warmth. To be here, here, stuck forever as the sand falls through the sieve, what is the purpose? What is the point?
Nothing, nothing, nothing. The hourglass will break, and they too, will become two corpses amongst the many littered upon the snow, and little by little the sprinklings of snow will cover their bodies until nothing is left, nothing at all, and then the sand will go on falling through the sieve, falling, falling, for ever and ever and ever.
Thoughts blend, merge-- not into a roaring chaos because there is no energy left for chaos, but just into placid, hopeless acceptance. Yet as one thought sinks into another the way snowflakes fall, each melting into the next, a third, more distinct thought blossoms through the layers.
It must not be.
With this in mind, slow beginnings of a plan form. Skeletal hands tug at the bars, tug at iron set in stone, pull at it, push at it. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, prying at the iron bars.
Below, no longer rocking, no longer crying, but staring, hopeless. No longer piling up corpses, either, because no more bodies fall. They have all died. Despair swirls through, blankets the air, comes crashing down with all the force of a tidal wave. No tears. Tears dried out long ago. Just dull grey eyes, once bright blue, staring hopelessly out into the snow. Ah, but wait! Again the sand swirls. A pebble falls, disrupting the pattern. A disembodied voice speaks. The withered head turns, large sunken eyes seek the source. What now?
Up above, naught of the voice is heard. Too high up, too far away. Hands, bleeding, frozen, continue to work the iron bars. Push, pull, scrape, scratch. Nails come off with the bricks, blood freezes stiff on the fingers so that they can't move. Make it move! Again and again, again and again--there! It wobbles. Iron bars, after all, are not designed to hold people in. The tower is designed to hold people in. What do iron bars matter? Hundreds, thousands, millions of feet above the ground, with or without iron bars you cannot escape. And so the iron bars come loose.
Down below, the voice makes a proposition and a curse. Eyes grow wide in confusion as thoughts cloud the mind.
Up above, hands scrabble for a hold, a way to pull the body up. Once, twice. Hands slip, body falls painfully to the cold stone floor. So close, yet so far. Go, go, go! Almost there, just don't lose the grip, don't falter, this is the last chance, the last burst of energy--yes!
Body and hands tumble out into the open air. Down, down, down, falling, falling, oh Yuuy, don't look at me with eyes like that, don't--
Blood splatters on snow. The sieve breaks apart and crumbles into so many bits of sand, fall with the rest down to earth. The hourglass shatters.
Kill the other if you wish to live.
Kill yourself if you wish the other to live.
Something, a cross between a scream and a shriek and a wail, slashes the night, splits it like a giant scythe.
Ah, but now there is night. Night and day. The sieve has broken.
Forgive me, brother, forgive me. The hourglass is gone, broken, reduced to so many shards of glass; it can never be again, yet--it has escaped the sieve. Yes. Outside of the endless monotony of sand through sieve, shards of glass may reshape, reform, mold and merge together with something else to become something wholly new. The hourglass was doomed from its birth, but you, you, my brother, you are out. And some day you will be repaired, some day a smith's hands can combine you with something else to make something better, something new. You have still life ahead of you.
Snow absorbs blood. The body lies prone, misshapen, bones cracked and bent in a way no sane being could stand to look at, eyes open but empty. Yet at the corners of the mouth, the slightest edge of a twisted smile. For if he had been down and he had been up, the same would still have happened. The very same. And they both know it.
The scream tears on through the night.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 12:40 am (UTC)Lovely fic!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-24 03:39 am (UTC)I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. So disjointed, so very broken, insane, a very clear view into the madness that was Y!Fai's backstory. It is amazing. it is wonderful.
...and it does not include Kurogane, so it's not technically eligible. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW BITCHY AND AWFUL I FEEL but I wrote those rules because without them the contest would not be organised at all. HOW I REGRET THAT STIPULATION NOW. Because this is wonderful. It's not that it doesn't include Kurogane/Fai - it just doesn't include Kurogane at all. D:
Forgive me?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 06:56 am (UTC)