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

[branchandroot]

Thank you! I actually started out thinking 'what if Naoji chose the other way', wanting to set the two scenes against each other that way, but... that ran counter to all the little developments between he and Lui in Weider, and I honestly don't know whether Lui would respect him if he'd chosen to stay then. I think that might have thrown them back to the way they operated in season one, when Naoji was so blinded by Lui and Orphe he couldn't hold himself worthy of them. So it had to be coming back instead, and that suggested that both options could be in the same world. Especially since I must have happy endings! I'm very bad at letting sad endings happen. *wry*

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I must have happy endings! I'm very bad at letting sad endings happen. *wry*

Heh. No worse than I am. And it's reassuring to know that I'm in safe hands with you.

I honestly don't know whether Lui would respect him if he'd chosen to stay then.

I would think it would depend on the circumstances, and on why the decision was made. Naoji will have to go home eventually, for a little while, no matter what -- he wouldn't respect himself otherwise -- but assuming that the mere existence of this extra country doesn't alter history too much, I have to wonder whether superceding events are going to take the immediate choice out of his hands. It seems clear that Naoji's father wants him out of Japan, and for damned good reason: by 1936 they're already at war, and with no end anywhere in sight. So if he tries to go back any time in the coming decade or so, he's almost certainly going to be doing it against his father's orders. And it's going to become more dangerous and physically difficult with every passing year, so that if he puts off a return for only another few years there's some reason to think he could be effectively stuck in Europe even if his family did recall him. And after that, the whole world will have changed: you'd be an idiot not to reexamine decisions you'd made based on the world as it was before the war.

Ack, and in another five minutes I'm going to have constructed an entire AU epic. That's one problem with that whole happy-ending thing: the lengths to which my brain will apparently go to get there can be sort of excessive.

[branchandroot]

*nods* I did have a vague idea that the post-war re-ordering of Japan was some of the reason Naoji did come back. In the airy backstory parts of my brain, he went home at one of the major policy-turning-points (not that I really know enough about Japan's history to pick one), trying to find an honorable course for his family and country to steer. And that attempt at compromise and sanity may be why I think his family is dead now; it wouldn't have been a popular attitude in the middle, there. And, of course, afterwards, anyone who was involved in policy probably got tarred with the same brush, so there still wouldn't be a place for him.

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.

*laughing* AU epics are fun! A pain to actually write out, sometimes, but still. *wry* 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...).

[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?