Saiunkoku: The Age of Silver: Peaches and Thorns

[branchandroot]

Fic post from my archive.

Peaches and Thorns

Shoukun and Seien talk about freedom, and she gathers a promise from him. Drama, I-3

She sighed. "My little Seiran." Very quietly she added, "If the palace will be such a cage to you, I will be sad to see you walk back in and pick up your chains again."

Comments

[branchandroot]

*laughing*

*and sparkling* Great to hear you liked this! Shoukun seems like such a deep character, and yet we know so little about her--she's hard to work with. *chuckles* And I swear, she was /totally/ serious about kidnapping Ryuuki. But, for all his angst, Seiran seems set on going back to the palace, so she'll let him.

*wicked grin* There will be united Shi-Kou cuteness in another two stories or so.

[majochan.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I fear my comments are probably on the side of unproductive, as filled with just squee and love as they are. In an effort to change, I'd like to mention (forgotten in my initial bout of squeeing^^) that I really love the hawk comparison. And 'tame' really is the way to describe him when around the people he loves. It's a great parallel, along with the cages.

Majo

[branchandroot]

Oh, excellent! I was hoping that wouldn't be too over the top. The setting seems baroque enough to support it, but I know every now and then my imagery runs away with me. ^_^ Given who Shoukun is, the cages/chains thing almost had to come in, but Seiran is so... /feral/ when he comes out of Sa; I wanted something to echo that.

And, hey, squee and love is a perfectly wonderful thing.

[grey-damaskena.livejournal.com]

Seiran as feral is also another excellent image. Actually you're having a lot of success in comparing Shi family members to animals so far; last story you described Ryuuki as "alert as a wild animal," and this time around it's hawks and tameness. I like it very much. :-D

[branchandroot]

Ah, thank you! The Shi boys really make me think of wild animals a lot, especially with their sensitivity to danger, poison, etc. And Seiran... he used to be tame, and went wild during That Year, and now he's slowly coming back; but I have to wonder if he'll ever be truly domesticated again.

[grey-damaskena.livejournal.com]

I'm just as happy if he never does, personally, I like the wild animal imagery.