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fictionalized2013-10-03 12:25 am
acperience) wrote in fictionalized2013-10-03 12:25 am
fanfic; graves
Title: Graves
Series: The Legend of the Legendary Heroes / Fire Emblem: Awakening
Game:havenrpg
Character(s): Zohra, Morgan.
Warnings: Mentions of death?
Summary: Zohra didn't always understand Morgan, but this was one time where he was perhaps glad for her oddities.
Dedication: Tokalisona. THIS IS MY REVENGE.
Notes: Based off of the PSL where Morgan arrives in Roland and a companion of sorts to Cal's Trinkets story.
—
Graves
—
All things considered, Morgan was a more sentimental person than Zohra had expected.
He'd known from the beginning that there were differences between him and the founders of the Justice Cabal. For starters, they went on about friendship and doing righteous things and whatnot, while Zohra mainly cared about focusing on his goals. Still, it'd been fun, and he'd gotten along with them (though he wasn't sure if he could call what he did with Morgan 'getting along', so perhaps it was only obvious that they were so different from one another).
On some level, he could understand why she kept bringing random items back to the mansion (and yes, he'd noticed, even if he said nothing—you didn't get this far as a soldier by being inattentive). Even though he himself didn't indulge in sentimentality, he could still grasp the notion of it. While a part of him still couldn't quite get it, he figured it was some sort of deluded attempt to make the house feel like a home.
Either way, it didn't particularly matter to Zohra, and so he ignored it and went on his way. If nothing else, Morgan wasn't telling him to get all soft too, so it was of no real significance.
It became his business when, one day, Morgan had asked him to drop her off in town the next day at a certain time. She was going to attend a funeral, she told him. During her time in town, she'd met a young boy whom she played with when bored, and the other day, his parents had been run over by a carriage (he didn't need to ask whose—it was standard behaviour for the nobles).
"He looks kind of like you, actually," Morgan said, informing Zohra that the boy's hair was the same tea-coloured shade of brown as his, and that he had blue eyes as well. "You sure you don't have a little brother?"
Zohra scoffed and reminded Morgan that his parents died ten years ago, so yes, he was fairly certain that he didn't have any unknown siblings scattered around.
"Oh, right. I almost forgot..."
In hindsight, that was perhaps not the best thing for Zohra to say, as it was likely what sparked the next few events. Zohra took Morgan to the funeral as agreed, and once it was done, picked her up again. He arrived in time to see the boy in question, upon which he had to privately admit to himself that they did resemble one another—though he couldn't fathom crying and sobbing over his parents the way the boy was, and was slightly insulted that Morgan had made the comparison.
As he and Morgan began to leave the cemetery where the funeral had taken place, Morgan was strangely quiet, before all of a sudden, she asked,
"Is this where your parents are buried, Zohra?"
He blinked as he looked at her. "Huh? Where'd that come from?"
"Well, I was just wondering... though I guess there might be a small chance of that, huh? Are you even from around here? In that case, their graves would be elsewhere, wouldn't they..."
Zohra just gave her an odd look, as he replied,
"My parents don't have graves."
It dimly occurred to him that the both of them had stopped walking by this point, only a few steps outside of the cemetery. Morgan looked more somber than usual, likely from the funeral, but there was still her characteristic curious glint in her eyes.
"Ohhh... were they soldiers, then? After all, some bodies can't be identified and given a grave..."
"If only." Zohra let out a derisive snort. "Didn't I ever tell you? They were slaves."
Morgan's surprised expression told him that no, he hadn't. "Really...?"
Zohra shugged. "Yeah. Their bodies were probably burned or left to rot or something. I don't really know."
His tone was impassive as he spoke, before he resumed walking again, Morgan following with every step.
"... Well, that's unfortunate."
His eyebrows raised, he glanced at her once more. "Unfortunate? Huh?"
"That they don't have graves!" Morgan explained. "You don't have a marker to remember them by."
"So?" Zohra stared at her with a look that made it clear that he didn't quite understand where she was going with this. "It's not like I have time to be visiting graves anyway. And we'll be leaving this place soon enough, remember?"
Again, sentimentality had never been something Zohra had put much investment into—paying respects to his late parents included. It was as he told Morgan: he didn't know what had happened to his parents' bodies after they'd been killed, either way. By the time he could even afford anything more than a few passing thoughts on them—his training did not take kindly to children mourning over people who no longer mattered—it was far too late to learn.
Even if he were to track down the ones responsible for his parents' deaths, it was more likely than not that they had completely forgotten about him and his parents entirely, let alone what they did with the bodies.
And so, it was a moot point, really, even if Zohra had cared.
—He should've remembered, however, that Morgan had a way of maneuvering around moot points.
"I know, I know," Morgan said dismissively. "Still, I think it's unfortunate."
Zohra merely shook his head, sighing. "I really don't get you sometimes."
He understood it even less the next evening, when he went to meet her again at town to bring her back to the mansion. The moment he saw and made his way to her, she shoved a object in his face.
For him, she told him. After backing away a few steps and getting a better look at the item, he could see that it was a small bottle, filled with black sand, and tied to a string, like a necklace.
When he asked what that was supposed to be, she spoke as if it were obvious:
"A grave for your parents!"
At Zohra's expression, which was a mixture of confused and unimpressed, she elaborated.
"See, it's not a gravestone, so you don't have to go out of your way to visit it. You can tie it around your neck and keep it with you at all times!"
And when it became clear that Zohra still failed to see the point of this and expressed as much, Morgan explained further.
Yes, she realized that Zohra wasn't the sort who openly cared about these kinds of things—they'd had arguments of sorts in the past whether there was any merit in them, with Zohra insisting that they were useless sentiments. And yes, when Zohra pointed it out, she remembered him telling her that he didn't even remember much about his parents beyond their deaths. Still, she told him, parents were parents—she loved her father dearly, as they all knew, and even though she didn't have any memories of her mother, she still cared for her as well and would want something to remember her by if she died.
But he wasn't her, Zohra reminded her. He wasn't anything like in her in this regard, where she was soft and he, well, wasn't.
At that point, Morgan (and not without some triumph in her voice, he noted) told him that yesterday, when they'd been talking about graves for his parents, he'd started walking just a bit faster than usual. His posture a bit tenser than usual. Perhaps small signs, but they weren't nothing.
And so, she declared, he did care about it, whether or not he'd even realized it himself.
Frankly, Zohra thought that was moronic, seeing as how he'd barely thought of his parents outside of how they were killed and the reminder it served to him. They'd been dead for a long time now; what reason was there to feel sad over them? To want a grave or memento of them?
Morgan couldn't seriously be claiming that he missed them or some such.
Still, Zohra decided, he would take the damn thing to appease her, and hopefully she would drop the subject. With that in mind, he snatched the bottle out of her hands, tying it around his neck as he gave her a frown that essentially read "Are you happy now?"
Morgan's smile indicated that she was happy, yes.
Her smile only grew further when, halfway to the house, she caught him holding the bottle in one hand—with a grasp a tad too tight to be chalked up as a curious grasp—that he quickly dropped upon noticing her look. For a moment, though he would deny it, he faltered, before he suddenly took off, yelling over his shoulder that he was racing her to the mansion.
He told himself that that was all, and that he didn't just want to get away from her as fast as he could in that moment.
He told himself that he only continued to wear the necklace—even after they fled from Roland—because it was a gift, and one was supposed to accept that kind of thing graciously, right?
Morgan didn't miss that, of course, as she directed her ever-annoyingly triumphant smile his way with her eyes focused on the bottle.
"Phew! I'm glad to see that you didn't lose it in the fight."
Zohra scowled, immediately whirling around on his heel, before fiddling with the bottle and watching the grains of sand shift—and then he realized what he was doing, as he promptly let go.
And though his back was turned to her, Morgan could undoubtedly guess what he'd been doing, as he could still hear the hint of teasing in her voice as she spoke.
Despite that, though, her tone was more serious now as well, perhaps even a bit sympathetic.
"Do you miss them?"
Zohra gazed up at the stars, shining down on the campsite he and Morgan had set up, before looking at the bottle again. Faintly, he remembered his father and mother's voices, stirring up weak memories of the latter singing to him once. Faintly, he remembered their touch, and then remembered the feeling of their blood splattered on him.
It was a strange question, and though his answer should be a definite "no" when he'd never let himself mourn for them, he found himself saying,
"... Sometimes."
They were his family, after all.
He could hear Morgan approaching him, her presence coming closer, before she stopped by his side. Zohra glanced at her, shifting uncomfortably as he unconsciously began to fidget with the bottle again.
"Um," he began eloquently. "... Thanks. Y'know, for this."
She smiled again, this time less triumphantly and more cheerfully. "No worries."
She reached out to ruffle his hair, and while any other time he would've yelled at her for it, he didn't say anything, instead offering her a smile of his own.
It was as he always thought. There wasn't any point in thinking over what happened to his parents, and how they never received a burial. And that was true even more now.
After all, even if he hadn't asked for it (hadn't consciously wanted it, but perhaps that was something else friends were good for)—
He had something to remember them by now, didn't he?
Series: The Legend of the Legendary Heroes / Fire Emblem: Awakening
Game:
havenrpgCharacter(s): Zohra, Morgan.
Warnings: Mentions of death?
Summary: Zohra didn't always understand Morgan, but this was one time where he was perhaps glad for her oddities.
Dedication: To
kalisona. THIS IS MY REVENGE.Notes: Based off of the PSL where Morgan arrives in Roland and a companion of sorts to Cal's Trinkets story.
All things considered, Morgan was a more sentimental person than Zohra had expected.
He'd known from the beginning that there were differences between him and the founders of the Justice Cabal. For starters, they went on about friendship and doing righteous things and whatnot, while Zohra mainly cared about focusing on his goals. Still, it'd been fun, and he'd gotten along with them (though he wasn't sure if he could call what he did with Morgan 'getting along', so perhaps it was only obvious that they were so different from one another).
On some level, he could understand why she kept bringing random items back to the mansion (and yes, he'd noticed, even if he said nothing—you didn't get this far as a soldier by being inattentive). Even though he himself didn't indulge in sentimentality, he could still grasp the notion of it. While a part of him still couldn't quite get it, he figured it was some sort of deluded attempt to make the house feel like a home.
Either way, it didn't particularly matter to Zohra, and so he ignored it and went on his way. If nothing else, Morgan wasn't telling him to get all soft too, so it was of no real significance.
It became his business when, one day, Morgan had asked him to drop her off in town the next day at a certain time. She was going to attend a funeral, she told him. During her time in town, she'd met a young boy whom she played with when bored, and the other day, his parents had been run over by a carriage (he didn't need to ask whose—it was standard behaviour for the nobles).
"He looks kind of like you, actually," Morgan said, informing Zohra that the boy's hair was the same tea-coloured shade of brown as his, and that he had blue eyes as well. "You sure you don't have a little brother?"
Zohra scoffed and reminded Morgan that his parents died ten years ago, so yes, he was fairly certain that he didn't have any unknown siblings scattered around.
"Oh, right. I almost forgot..."
In hindsight, that was perhaps not the best thing for Zohra to say, as it was likely what sparked the next few events. Zohra took Morgan to the funeral as agreed, and once it was done, picked her up again. He arrived in time to see the boy in question, upon which he had to privately admit to himself that they did resemble one another—though he couldn't fathom crying and sobbing over his parents the way the boy was, and was slightly insulted that Morgan had made the comparison.
As he and Morgan began to leave the cemetery where the funeral had taken place, Morgan was strangely quiet, before all of a sudden, she asked,
"Is this where your parents are buried, Zohra?"
He blinked as he looked at her. "Huh? Where'd that come from?"
"Well, I was just wondering... though I guess there might be a small chance of that, huh? Are you even from around here? In that case, their graves would be elsewhere, wouldn't they..."
Zohra just gave her an odd look, as he replied,
"My parents don't have graves."
It dimly occurred to him that the both of them had stopped walking by this point, only a few steps outside of the cemetery. Morgan looked more somber than usual, likely from the funeral, but there was still her characteristic curious glint in her eyes.
"Ohhh... were they soldiers, then? After all, some bodies can't be identified and given a grave..."
"If only." Zohra let out a derisive snort. "Didn't I ever tell you? They were slaves."
Morgan's surprised expression told him that no, he hadn't. "Really...?"
Zohra shugged. "Yeah. Their bodies were probably burned or left to rot or something. I don't really know."
His tone was impassive as he spoke, before he resumed walking again, Morgan following with every step.
"... Well, that's unfortunate."
His eyebrows raised, he glanced at her once more. "Unfortunate? Huh?"
"That they don't have graves!" Morgan explained. "You don't have a marker to remember them by."
"So?" Zohra stared at her with a look that made it clear that he didn't quite understand where she was going with this. "It's not like I have time to be visiting graves anyway. And we'll be leaving this place soon enough, remember?"
Again, sentimentality had never been something Zohra had put much investment into—paying respects to his late parents included. It was as he told Morgan: he didn't know what had happened to his parents' bodies after they'd been killed, either way. By the time he could even afford anything more than a few passing thoughts on them—his training did not take kindly to children mourning over people who no longer mattered—it was far too late to learn.
Even if he were to track down the ones responsible for his parents' deaths, it was more likely than not that they had completely forgotten about him and his parents entirely, let alone what they did with the bodies.
And so, it was a moot point, really, even if Zohra had cared.
—He should've remembered, however, that Morgan had a way of maneuvering around moot points.
"I know, I know," Morgan said dismissively. "Still, I think it's unfortunate."
Zohra merely shook his head, sighing. "I really don't get you sometimes."
He understood it even less the next evening, when he went to meet her again at town to bring her back to the mansion. The moment he saw and made his way to her, she shoved a object in his face.
For him, she told him. After backing away a few steps and getting a better look at the item, he could see that it was a small bottle, filled with black sand, and tied to a string, like a necklace.
When he asked what that was supposed to be, she spoke as if it were obvious:
"A grave for your parents!"
At Zohra's expression, which was a mixture of confused and unimpressed, she elaborated.
"See, it's not a gravestone, so you don't have to go out of your way to visit it. You can tie it around your neck and keep it with you at all times!"
And when it became clear that Zohra still failed to see the point of this and expressed as much, Morgan explained further.
Yes, she realized that Zohra wasn't the sort who openly cared about these kinds of things—they'd had arguments of sorts in the past whether there was any merit in them, with Zohra insisting that they were useless sentiments. And yes, when Zohra pointed it out, she remembered him telling her that he didn't even remember much about his parents beyond their deaths. Still, she told him, parents were parents—she loved her father dearly, as they all knew, and even though she didn't have any memories of her mother, she still cared for her as well and would want something to remember her by if she died.
But he wasn't her, Zohra reminded her. He wasn't anything like in her in this regard, where she was soft and he, well, wasn't.
At that point, Morgan (and not without some triumph in her voice, he noted) told him that yesterday, when they'd been talking about graves for his parents, he'd started walking just a bit faster than usual. His posture a bit tenser than usual. Perhaps small signs, but they weren't nothing.
And so, she declared, he did care about it, whether or not he'd even realized it himself.
Frankly, Zohra thought that was moronic, seeing as how he'd barely thought of his parents outside of how they were killed and the reminder it served to him. They'd been dead for a long time now; what reason was there to feel sad over them? To want a grave or memento of them?
Morgan couldn't seriously be claiming that he missed them or some such.
Still, Zohra decided, he would take the damn thing to appease her, and hopefully she would drop the subject. With that in mind, he snatched the bottle out of her hands, tying it around his neck as he gave her a frown that essentially read "Are you happy now?"
Morgan's smile indicated that she was happy, yes.
Her smile only grew further when, halfway to the house, she caught him holding the bottle in one hand—with a grasp a tad too tight to be chalked up as a curious grasp—that he quickly dropped upon noticing her look. For a moment, though he would deny it, he faltered, before he suddenly took off, yelling over his shoulder that he was racing her to the mansion.
He told himself that that was all, and that he didn't just want to get away from her as fast as he could in that moment.
He told himself that he only continued to wear the necklace—even after they fled from Roland—because it was a gift, and one was supposed to accept that kind of thing graciously, right?
Morgan didn't miss that, of course, as she directed her ever-annoyingly triumphant smile his way with her eyes focused on the bottle.
"Phew! I'm glad to see that you didn't lose it in the fight."
Zohra scowled, immediately whirling around on his heel, before fiddling with the bottle and watching the grains of sand shift—and then he realized what he was doing, as he promptly let go.
And though his back was turned to her, Morgan could undoubtedly guess what he'd been doing, as he could still hear the hint of teasing in her voice as she spoke.
Despite that, though, her tone was more serious now as well, perhaps even a bit sympathetic.
"Do you miss them?"
Zohra gazed up at the stars, shining down on the campsite he and Morgan had set up, before looking at the bottle again. Faintly, he remembered his father and mother's voices, stirring up weak memories of the latter singing to him once. Faintly, he remembered their touch, and then remembered the feeling of their blood splattered on him.
It was a strange question, and though his answer should be a definite "no" when he'd never let himself mourn for them, he found himself saying,
"... Sometimes."
They were his family, after all.
He could hear Morgan approaching him, her presence coming closer, before she stopped by his side. Zohra glanced at her, shifting uncomfortably as he unconsciously began to fidget with the bottle again.
"Um," he began eloquently. "... Thanks. Y'know, for this."
She smiled again, this time less triumphantly and more cheerfully. "No worries."
She reached out to ruffle his hair, and while any other time he would've yelled at her for it, he didn't say anything, instead offering her a smile of his own.
It was as he always thought. There wasn't any point in thinking over what happened to his parents, and how they never received a burial. And that was true even more now.
After all, even if he hadn't asked for it (hadn't consciously wanted it, but perhaps that was something else friends were good for)—
He had something to remember them by now, didn't he?
no subject
zohra you're stupid
but a cute stupid
:>