After the Dream—Lilly's Arc/'Testament' (Complete)

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Hesmiyu
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Re: After the Dream—Lilly's Arc/Testament (Complete)

Post by Hesmiyu »

Skeeve wrote:I've always liked the idea of a story told multiple times, from multiple points of view, although considering the subject matter I should have expected the barrage of melancholy. I'm not too proud to admit that this is the one that broke me a little; when I got to Lilly reading the inscription in the stars, I actually had to leave my desk for a little while.

I'm thinking I probably shouldn't read the rest of these at work.
I read most of these fan fics at work, including this one. Sometimes glad I work alone most of the time :P
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brythain
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Re: After the Dream—Lilly's Arc/Testament (Complete)

Post by brythain »

Hesmiyu wrote:
Skeeve wrote:I'm thinking I probably shouldn't read the rest of these at work.
I read most of these fan fics at work, including this one. Sometimes glad I work alone most of the time :P
You guys... okay, I shall try to write fewer sad fics and more happy ones. How about that? :)
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/AkiraHideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of SuzuSakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
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brythain
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In This Corner...

Post by brythain »

This is based on a real-life experience. Really. Details have been changed to protect the innocent. Sort of. :D


It occurs to me, as I sit at this incredibly boring and digressive meeting, that I could be doing something better. In fact, my thoughts transgress time and space and reality in a moment, because some other people are having exactly the same thoughts, and these thoughts all undergo quantum imaginative entanglement.

So there I am, at a meeting, and also in my airy, sunlit, writing room. And there she is, forcing herself to endure the weekly corporate grind of her profitable restaurant enterprise in Edinburgh. And there is the other, who is at my meeting, and also… well, I’ll let them tell it in their own words.

*****

Not happy to be doing this, but fuck, it’s money in the bank. Posing. Getting money. I suppose I should be grateful. I’ve just had the shittiest month of my life, far outstinking (outstenching?) a garbage fire. Was marooned in Shithole, Some State in the USA. And now I have to be talking to somebody I really don’t like, princess to princess as it were.

“Good morning,” she says. “Are you Miss Leaty?” she says. I’ve said ‘she says’ twice because each phrase she enunciates so clearly needs a ‘she says’ after it, because she is clearly saying it. I know that isn’t as clear as it might be, but I’m off my caffeine (or on too much of it) and that’s what happens.

“Yes,” I growl, although not quite, because ‘yes’ is more properly hissed than growled. I compromise by making it a mild snarl. I tell myself to behave because I really don’t know this person, and maybe (yeah, yeah) she doesn’t deserve the shitty thoughts I think about her.

After all, I’m here to interview her about her late boyfriend Nakai, and I’ve known his ex-girlfriend all my life. Trust me, the ex is a far more interesting character.

*****

Author-san has normally had reasonably good taste. While he is not Japanese at all, and I try very hard to live up to the half of me that is, he makes deliberate concessions to politeness and has also made efforts to express my narrative appropriately. So when his mind reaches out to mine during a horribly boring board meeting, at which my sister Akira is handling most matters in her usual aggressive and effective way, I close my eyes to indicate to her that I am taking a break.

And here I am, being antagonized by someone that author-san says is a more excellent writer than he. It is hard, painfully hard, to reconcile that idea with the new reality presented to me. The woman before me is like a more intense version of my sister, and she sounds like she could mobilise an equally vivid vocabulary.

So far, she’s asked me about my relationship with Hisao (do people ever stop doing that?) and how close I really was to him. I give her the usual replies. She just glares at me—if I'm reading her silence right—and then, from out of nowhere, says, “You do know that you weren’t really his first, right?”

*****

Much later, I sit back in my ergonomic seat and sip neat whisky from a classic tumbler. That could’ve gone better, I suppose. I’ll need to write this up some other day, once my heart rate gets back to normal. Not for me a Hisao-type life, no. I sigh, take another sip, and wait for the metaphysical fumes of the Lilly-Leaty encounter to disperse.
Last edited by brythain on Fri Jun 03, 2016 5:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/AkiraHideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of SuzuSakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
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Re: After the Dream—Lilly's Arc/'Testament' (Complete)

Post by Leaty »

Hahahaha, holy shit. This is positively delightful. xD

My experience being stranded in Bumfuck, Indiana for half a week has been immortalized in ficlet form. Of all the life experiences I've ever gone through... :lol:
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brythain
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Re: After the Dream—Lilly's Arc/'Testament' (Complete)

Post by brythain »

Leaty wrote:Hahahaha, holy shit. This is positively delightful. xD

My experience being stranded in Bumfuck, Indiana for half a week has been immortalized in ficlet form. Of all the life experiences I've ever gone through... :lol:
My pleasure. :) I did try to redact some of the more personal details in the original piece, as you've noticed. :D

I actually wanted to do a full story, but I realised it would've been too scurrilous the way I was visualising it...
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/AkiraHideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of SuzuSakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
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Interlude (20200823)

Post by brythain »

The world seems to have drifted apart into icebergs—some large, some small, all cold. I have always wondered why, to so many of my communicants from the AtD-verse, it is as if the SARS-CoV-2 virus had never existed. And yet, as I sit in this corner, setting up for yet another Zoom session, I find myself watching as my pen rises from its quiet resting place and begins to write all on its own. Or not quite.

The room is dark, but that is not an obstacle to my interlocutor. She's young, thirtyish, blonde. Her eyes are grey-blue in this lighting, and they look at nothing at all. I've not spoken to Lilly Satou for years. It is a terrifying experience, in its own way.

[Hello] says my pen, manipulated by the image seated across the little folding table from me. [This is awkward.]

I position a few more sheets of paper conveniently near the scribbling locus.

[Thank you, author-san. BTW, I learnt that from Hanako.]

"Why are you writing in English?"

[Would you prefer Scottish?]

"I somehow had not thought much about how you might write to someone else."

[One doesn't write in Braille without a Brailler, and you haven't got one. Not to mention you...]

The pen twitches, as if undecided. The writing has reached the paper's edge. The hand that guides it blinks for a moment. Then the writing resumes, at right angles to the original.

[... are probably not fluent in Braille. I communicate with Shizune by text, you know. Sometimes.]

The writing is round, exaggerated. It's like that of a ten-year-old, but more controlled and careful.

"But why write at all?"

[Bandwidth. I can't speak to you at the moment. Too many people on the Internet.]

"What?"

[You have a low opinion of my sense of humour. It's just that I've always wondered if I could manipulate objects from a distance. If air can make a sound, then hand can make a mark.]

She seems more solid now, the pale gold of her mane neatly tied back with a deep blue clasp. She has perfect posture. The pen lies abandoned on the paper. Her writing remains.

"It's an honour. Why now?"

"I've had a lot of time. Business at the restaurant has been sparse of late. We're not really locked down, but for safety reasons, we're keeping groups of four people at least ten feet apart. That allows the staff to remain safe. Meanwhile, I practise my psychic abilities."

"Miss Satou, it's been a long time since we last spoke."

"Ah, all these time-skips. Don't worry, it will all work out. My 85-year-old self spoke to Rika about it, remember?"

She smiles, the light of the sun from a distant world shining upon me. And then, she's gone.
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/AkiraHideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of SuzuSakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
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Re: Interlude (20200823)

Post by Serviam »

brythain wrote: Sun Aug 23, 2020 6:32 am The world seems to have drifted apart into icebergs—some large, some small, all cold. I have always wondered why, to so many of my communicants from the AtD-verse, it is as if the SARS-CoV-2 virus had never existed. And yet, as I sit in this corner, setting up for yet another Zoom session, I find myself watching as my pen rises from its quiet resting place and begins to write all on its own. Or not quite.
Alas, these days, it’s not just COVID-19, but that unfortunate event currently plaguing Eastern Europe.
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- Tom Clancy summing up l'état in a nutshell

In order of completion: Lilly > Hanako > Rin > Emi > Shizune
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Re: Interlude (20200823)

Post by brythain »

Serviam wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 1:37 pm
brythain wrote: Sun Aug 23, 2020 6:32 am The world seems to have drifted apart into icebergs—some large, some small, all cold. I have always wondered why, to so many of my communicants from the AtD-verse, it is as if the SARS-CoV-2 virus had never existed. And yet, as I sit in this corner, setting up for yet another Zoom session, I find myself watching as my pen rises from its quiet resting place and begins to write all on its own. Or not quite.
Alas, these days, it’s not just COVID-19, but that unfortunate event currently plaguing Eastern Europe.
It's crazy. Thank goodness I didn't set out to write an Eastern-European-based spinoff. However, the current state of the UK suggests Lilly's take on an independent Scotland is probably correct. :D
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/AkiraHideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of SuzuSakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
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