ML: Standalone: Highlights on Black and Spiral of Time

[branchandroot]

Fic post from my archive.

Highlights on Black

Takes place just after Weider ends. Having made his decision, Naoji has some work getting Ludwig to see what it does and doesn't mean. Drama with Romance, I-3

"I will go back," Naoji said softly. "I don't know exactly when; I only know that I will. But until then," he turned to face Lui. "Until then, I will go with you."

Spiral of Time

Many years after the series ends, Naoji returns to Kuchen. Drama with Romance, I-3

He remembered the scent of this air; it struck him far more deeply than the clothes or colors or sound of the language. The scent of large, fallen leaves and cool, slow water--he remembered this.

Comments

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Except in Kuchen. And I like to imagine that Naoji is wise enough, and has grown enough, to think that it's a good and right place for him, and to live his life with satisfaction there.

Oh, I don't think that's even a stretch. Lui or no Lui, I can't imagine that he'd be as torn up about the whole thing as he is if it weren't for the fact that Kuchen is indeed becoming another home for him. I have my theories about Kuchen and same-sex relationships, but even so, it's not as if he's contemplating a marriage that will keep him from ever making Japan his home again. So if he's having emotional crises about whether he's ever going to go home to stay -- and clearly he is -- it seems to me that it can only be because he can easily see himself committing to a life in Kuchen for its own sake.

It's nice for him to have a future where he gets to have both, in a way, and to have a clear path before him in the end.

Not like I don't have one arc written and another in the wings, just so I can make happy endings for Roy and Lisa and Ed and Al (and, hey, Hughes and Scar, too, and Winry and Rose and...).

Oh, how I know. It's hard work, being a responsible benevolent goddess to your characters. But with all those malevolent angst-goddesses out there, how can you bring yourself to shirk?