[saiyuki fic] Five Things That Happened Afterward

[permetaform]

Title: Five Things That Happened Afterward
Fandom: Saiyuki
Summary: They won, of course, sorta kinda, yes really.

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1- shot

It ended, like things do. They sat in the jeep. The jeep drove away. The castle was rubble.

In the ruins, a brother lay, failed, gutted, broken in half. The stones still carry echoes of the crack. His sword still breathed nearby, with its eye looking upward in surprise, with maybe a hint of.

In a hallway she, what was left of her after the skin was blasted off after she stumbled forward blood running from everywhere, everywhere, staining what was left of the two tails of her hair red, so red, she apologized with one breath, and left him on the next.

In a chamber he stood like stone, parent pulverized around him, ribbons with letters fluttering around him like streamers, or fireworks, his mouth shut on the fire he would yell back, trapped in rock and rock and rock.

In a tube, she probably still lay contained. Possibly rotting. Ch. Easiest way to stop something is to cut the power; the bullet snapped through the glass, through the liquid, through her skull. The green squirted out of the vial that held her until the fluid fell to the level of the bullet hole, it slowly grew shadowed with red. Her eyes fell open and she uncurled a bit; she did not reach out to him, she was just dying.

He turned away. Collected the rest and they destroyed the half-alive shell of demon-king and the crunches of the armor collapsing in on itself wasn't nearly enough. Sanzo left with too many sutras on his shoulders, and none spoken because he refuses to say them for the dead.

II) shelled

Their jeep faced east, they knew for sure when the sun peeked awake, and they were able to see a small family (half of a family really; a mother, two children) straggling eastward too, on the road. They gave them a ride, Gojyo teased the kids and Goku didn't ask about their jewelry though he really really wanted to.

At the next town, Sanzo became stubborn, finally, and Hakkai bothered being cloyingly sweet and she, the mother, was eventually allowed to prove that she could weave.

Hakkai started cooking again, that night. Jeep approved, stopped when it next recognized a traveler, and didn't start again until Sanzo let the lanky disheveled boy catch a ride to the next town. The chatter from the back was soft, but steady.

[thr'] cracks

Soon the fields turned as gold as Sanzo's hair and at the next town they stopped, it begged all for extra hands (all extra hands; the land was healing). Sanzo drank tea, and watched while the rest of them clambered around in the branches of the orchard around him. Bunch of monkeys, all of them. Occasionally Goku would drop by a basket, sometimes pressing a new piece of fruit into Sanzo's hand. The last time, the peach was so ripe it split a little as he caught it and Goku darted in before he could do anything and licked the juice up from between his fingers before bounding away with a new basket. Sanzo's mouth felt too sweet, and the day was too hot.

four. loaded

Gojyo and Hakkai were once tapped for ox-duty in the fields, dragging the harvest rakes behind them under the hot sun and Gojyo ribbed Hakkai good-naturedly as he left him behind because human is human, and youkai is youkai, and (with a glint) three bits of metal fell as the youkai more than caught up and a kappa's mouth grew dry. The wheat was tall enough, and people at the next field over just smiled when they appeared with their bushels in hand and straw bits stuck in random places. (Goku asked pesky questions the next day; and to Sanzo's consternation, Hakkai answered. Gojyo hid his face behind a beer can.)

5, bullets

Hakkai at one point asked Sanzo why he did not choose an automatic, knowing Sanzo's preference for efficiency. Goku replied that it was so he could concentrate on each one; he feels Sanzo's feeling, on each one, and he plucks a bit of metal almost randomly from the cliff side they walked along and they saw it for a bullet, aged.

This is how you know we're going home, Goku says cheerily.

Like breadcrumbs, Gojyo laughed. Does that make Sanzo Greta?

Shots ring out and both Gojyo and Goku laughs and runs, Hakkai hurrying a little to keep up, dragon wrapped around him, listening to the valley which is filled with screamed echoes and startled birds and trees getting ready for spring.

Comments

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

*sighs* that was sweet, and relaxing (well, graphic bits of the first section aside >.< ) and just really... harmonious. Yeah. Things gone full circle and starting again. *nodnod*

[permetaform]

=) thank you! I'm glad you like, it was one of those things that attacked my while trying to fall asleep and didn't let me rest until I'd written it.

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

glad you did write it! It was very ... dream-scapey, almost, except more vivid and real. Crossing that borderline between waking and dreaming... which makes sense given when it attacked you. ^_^

[permetaform]

=D thank you! what's helpful to me is that I can just drag my laptop over. But I've heard other people keep dream journals, which might work for you too?

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

I used to keep a notebook and pen beside my bed (actually, I think they're still there, under the ever breeding dustbunnies...) but hit a point where I couldn't sacrifice sleep to the muses and still manage a coherent day of work. Wasn't so bad when I was in school or working part-time shifts, but the 830-5 routine pretty much nixed the late night writing.

ah well. It keeps me fed.

[permetaform]

true true, and fed is a GOOD thing.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

it was one of those things that attacked my while trying to fall asleep and didn't let me rest until I'd written it.

I love it when that happens, when I have to write before I can sleep but the self-critiquing/editing part of my brain is too tired to participate in the creative process (when it really shouldn't be active anyway, but try telling that to internal critic/editor), and so I don't need to justify the reasons for things being as they are or worry about linear storytelling or literal meanings and I can just let the images turn into words in a much simpler, more natural and intuitive process. ^_^

[permetaform]

::nods:: I've heard somewhere that in all pieces of writing there's this core of *something*, some essential thing that attacks the animal hindbrain, and all the rest of the piece revolves around framing this essential bit of gutpunch properly.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that's a really useful new perspective for me.

Helps explain to myself why I struggle most with the beginnings of things, when that gutpunch moment is what I turned the light on to scribble down in the middle of the night and figured I would remember the rest of it tomorrow, and then when the rest of the feeling has faded and I have to fill out the rest of the story so that the gutpunch moment makes sense, it's so hard. And why I end up not having much confidence in my beginnings when the gutpunch moment I'm writing the story *for* happens a couple thousand words later, and I'm need to create something that will grab the reader's attention and hold it long enough to get through the setup for that gutpunch moment that *I* feel is worth it but I'm not sure the reader who just skims my first 100, 500, or 1000 words is going to believe it's worth it.

Agh I don't know if I'm making any sense, it's too hot to think here. But that's a very useful metaphor to help me figure out how my writing works when it does work and how I need to work around that to get it to work better.

[permetaform]

yeah...that core at the bottom of every story is what prompts people to write, I think. For me, I usually need at least another image to anchor it at the other end, 'cause I can't write with only one central image but rather a path (a logic?) from one strong image to another.

What I've worked with in this one is
1) each of them killing their counterpart's Other (ie. Hakkai killing off Yaone-as-Gojyo), in effect killing off their home (both metaphorical-family-as-home and physical-Togenkyou-as-home) and
2) then finding their way *back* home (through Sanzo's breadcrumbs, old bullets and shell casings).

Which is really just a variation on one of Saiyuki's own themes, just with different symbols. =) With those two ideas anchoring the story on either way, I just had to find a semi-plausible way to attach the two...and let the audience fill in the rest.

Which kinda makes be feel bad, sometimes, that I'm forcing the audience to do at least half my work for me. ::wry grin::

[kintail.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of it in terms of needing two strong images and the story being the path between them. I think that will really help if I can get it to work. Often the problem is I only get the one strong image and have to make up the other, and the making it up doesn't work so well as what gets deposited directly in to the conscious brain by the muses or my subconscious.

The concept and theme of "home" in Saiyuki is definitely an interesting one to explore, along with the twisted combinations of elements of archetype and what kind of archetypes that results in for antagonists and foils. I definitely like fics like this where the mythological aspects and archetypes are acknowledged and respected and an integral part of the storytelling.

I think the kind of fic (or other project) where the audience has to do half the work is the kind of work that really sticks with those who *get it* -- whereas it can be too easy to forget those things were it's so easy to get it that it requires no real engagement or commitment from the audience.